The Twice Lost

but to create spiraling fountains, wobbling parapets, and floating liquid stars while the humans onshore laughed and applauded. The mermaids had turned into such showoffs, Luce thought, but the idea made her smile.

She hadn’t seen Nausicaa or Dorian all day. It wouldn’t be surprising if Nausicaa had simply gone exploring, but, especially now that she’d seen Catarina so deeply in love, Dorian’s absence triggered a low, painful vibration in her chest. Maybe he’d realized he didn’t want her back after all.

Luce skimmed out into the bay, floating on her back and watching the full yellow moon. Voices bubbled over the water. She swept slowly around the curve of the coast, under the bridge’s red complex spine, and then rolled over and over, stretching and feeling water curling like plumes around her scales. It still felt strange to see the surface here so flat and placid now that the water-wall was gone. Only a handful of people were perching on the bunkers. It still wasn’t exactly private, but Luce’s head felt clearer.

“I’m so worried about her,” a voice said quietly, and Luce’s heart stilled. “You know how Luce can sing to heal people? I feel like we need to find someone who can do that for her now. She’s just—she seems pretty messed up.”

“Luce is sorely hurt,” Nausicaa agreed, “but perhaps these are not the kind of wounds that should be healed, Dorian. Perhaps what wounds her now is wisdom.”

Much as Luce loved them both she wished they wouldn’t talk about her. She wished everyone would just stop talking about her once and for all. From the corner of her eye she spotted them now, huddled close together. Dorian was perched on a boulder, the soles of his high-tops just grazing the bay while Nausicaa’s feral black hair gusted across his knee.

“I don’t think that’s wisdom. I think it’s like posttraumatic shit from the war. She’s going to need serious therapy or something. I mean, it’s going to be hard enough for her to deal with going back to school, especially since everybody’s going to recognize her!” Dorian’s voice was sharp and plangent. It was strange to discover that he’d given so much thought to what her human life would be like. Luce hadn’t considered how she’d feel in a human school at all. “She’s always going to be—kind of greenish, right, even once she’s human? And there’s that triangle torn out of her ear. I guess she could grow out her hair and hide it that way, but . . .”

There was an awkward pause. “Truthfully I hope that Luce will make a different choice than this you envision, Dorian. She doesn’t belong to the land now.”

“Yes, she does. She can’t just stay in the sea forever! That’s not like a real life at all.”

The currents furled and licked at Luce’s fins and the moonlight sank into her eyes. What’s not real about this, again?

“I promise you that I will not try to influence Luce to remain in the sea with me, however. And I hope that you will show the same forbearance, Dorian. Luce must decide for herself.”

“I’m not showing any forbearance. Me and her dad both need her! She’ll be way happier with us, and she’ll be safer, and—there has to be some way to get her help. Somebody will help her dad pay for a great therapist. Luce has all these fans now. Some of them must be rich.”

Luce had heard enough. It was probably too late to find her father tonight, and somehow he was the only one whose opinion Luce cared about. She swam back to the mermaids near the shore: there were Cala, Opal, Graciela, all engaged in a kind of mad ballet where they leaped in synchrony with jets of rising water. It was a shame to interrupt them, Luce thought, but it was the last time she would. “Hey! Can I ask you guys a favor?”

“A favor? You mean it’s not an order?” Opal laughed. Her ivory hair fanned like an explosion as she deliberately crashed down right in front of Luce, dousing her with an immense pale cascade.

“It’s not an order,” Luce said seriously as water sheeted off her cheeks. “That’s all finished. But I do want to get everyone together for one last meeting back at the camp.” She hesitated. “I’m going to be leaving soon.”

“You mean you’re going human?” Opal demanded, wide-eyed. She looked dismayed but she didn’t wait for an answer. “Okay. We’ll go find everybody.”

Luce tried to smile reassuringly. “Can you please make sure Imani’s there? I haven’t seen her in a while.”

“That’s because she’s busy practicing singing to heal people the way you can. She’s like completely obsessed, and she’s already working with some of the really crazy mermaids? I know where to find her, though.” Opal paused. “Just because the war’s over doesn’t mean we don’t still need a general, Luce. What if something goes wrong? Or you could just be queen instead. You don’t have to leave us.”

Luce found that she was too choked to answer. After a moment Opal nodded and swam away.

* * *

Half an hour later Luce made her way past the creek and under the huge glowering factory. The planks at its base were tar-slick and dripping. It was dirty and decrepit, and Luce’s heart wrenched at the thought of leaving it behind.

The dimness among the pilings was packed with mermaids, more than she’d ever seen there. Faces like veiled moons bobbed in the water. The hammocks sagged under the weight of coiled tails, all flicking their soft colors through the dark. The chatter fell silent when Luce appeared. “Opal says you’re leaving,” someone called. “Just like Jo and Yuan.”

“I am leaving,” Luce confirmed. Now that she wasn’t general anymore her shyness came rushing back, and she struggled to suppress it. So many faces were turned toward her. “I can’t be a general anymore. And . . . I’ll miss you all so much. You’ve been amazing. You’ve all been so brave, and that’s why we won. But the main thing is that you need a new general now. That’s what I wanted to say.”

Luce glanced around to make sure. There was the new Twice Lost General, gazing down at the water. But what if she refused to take on the role? She was always so gentle, but Luce had caught glimpses of passion and ambition in her as well.

“Who?” Eileen asked, a bit curtly. “How are we supposed to decide that?”

“We’re mermaids,” Luce pointed out. Suddenly she found herself smiling. “That means we’ll know the one who’s meant to be general by her song. And . . . anyone who’s been listening to her knows who that has to be! Please give your allegiance to her now.”

There was a wild murmuring. The Twice Lost General looked up, somehow fervent and embarrassed at the same time—and, Luce suddenly saw, afraid that the name spoken next wouldn’t be hers. The blue gleam of her heart-shaped face was like neon reflecting on a rainy street.

Luce took a deep breath. She felt proud and sad and exhilarated and wonderfully free. “General Imani . . . you’ll lead the Twice Lost?”

Imani was smiling so vibrantly that Luce ached to see it.

“Oh, you just know I will, Luce.”

* * *

Luce couldn’t sleep. Instead she rocked in Catarina’s old hammock, watching the far dark hills. The space under the factory was low enough that she couldn’t see much of the bay, only a stripe of moon-banded water crossed occasionally by the container ships that were once again making their way out to sea—but she could feel the water stretching all the way to the horizon. Her thoughts pulsed with the breakers far beyond the bridge, crested with slow-rising whales. And if she concentrated she could feel something of the land as well: the college girls in spangled dresses tilting on their platform shoes as they emerged drunk from nightclubs, the candy wrappers gusting through the streets, Dorian asleep in a hotel bed. The night was just as beautiful on land as it was on the sea. A few nights from now she could be curled with Dorian on a sofa, watching a movie and talking about their plans for the future. She thought of his warm smell, his warmer hands stroking her cheeks.

Nausicaa hadn’t come home, and Luce wasn’t surprised. Her friend was staying away on purpose. Giving Luce room to decide on her own, but also unwilling to face the pain of losing her to the human world.

As dawn sent a spire of smoky amethyst light across the bay Luce felt something else: the certainty that her father was wide awake too. That he was sitting under those bunkers with a cup of takeout coffee in his hand, waiting patiently for her to appear. Luce slipped silently from her hammock and gazed at the sleeping mermaids around her, wishing them goodbye with her eyes.

Fifteen minutes later she found him just where she’d known he would be. It was the same spot where Ben