The Sirens Gift

Chapter 15.

Caspian's fingers laced around mine. I had that unmistakable prune feeling in my fingertips and the sensation of his hand around mine felt strange.

He pulled gently, his tail fins pushed him forward as my body followed him. My feet still refused to cooperate. And though my tennis shoes felt heavy, my legs still fell from beneath me as he pulled. I tried to kick to no avail…

“Don’t kick like that. You’ll just make yourself unbalanced.” He said with a soft chuckle as we came to a large circular doorway. It was covered with curtains of dark red silk cloth with small stones tied to ribbons at the end to hold them in place. They waved with the motions of the water but the stones kept them over the doorway, I assume, for privacy.

We passed through the doorway and into a large room almost like a hallway furnished with stone statues of humans and mermaids as well as vases with long branches of coral or seaweed that drifted side to side with the current that seemed to roll gently through the hallway. Small fish swam about, tiny blue tangs, clowns, and little seahorses hiding in the plants and swimming overhead or on the floor where little clams sat in the sediment and the crabs scurried across the floor to hidden tunnels within blocks of coral. “Well, I can’t say I’m… used to this…”

“Just kick lightly, gentle fluid motions. If your kicks are uneven or erratic you’ll slow yourself down or cause fatigue way easier.”

I still struggled, feeling as though I was trying to paddle against myself and the water at the same time.

“Like treading water…” Caspian added. His smirk grew as he watched.

I rolled my eyes as I let my body go limp and hung my head. My hair settled slowly around my face and shoulders, strands twirled like ribbons in a spring breeze around my head. I felt like crying. My emotions had been fried as it was after being tossed to the sharks as bait, tears threatened at the back of my eyes.

Caspian let my fingers go and I watched him flip himself effortlessly backwards. His fins shimmied to one side as he twisted his upper body around and landed perfectly beneath me. His hands found mine once more as he floated upward and our chests met as he pulled my arms up and over his shoulders. I instinctively locked my fingers behind his head.

“Just relax. I’ve got you…” he said in a low tone. I let my body relax into his. “Kick gently… I promise you’ll get your sea legs in no time.”

I laughed as I let my body fall into his. Our chests touched but as he moved his tail in a smooth up and down motion I kicked my legs gently, just as he said. The struggling feeling of being stuck in one place in water dissipated as we slowly glided through the hallway. His hands fell on my hips, gently squeezing my sides. Then he pulled me flush to his body, our chests and stomachs pressing against one another.

I felt his tail brush against my upper thighs rhythmically as he propelled us forward. When I looked down to him his glimmering green eyes stared up at me. He smiled warmly.

“I’m so glad you’re okay…” he whispered softly, his eyes dropping into a sad look. “I don’t… I don’t know what I’d have done if you’d gone missing…”

“I…” I paused and watched his gaze, “Were you that worried…?”

“Had I not been on patrol… I don’t know if Lyr or any of the other guards would have stopped…” he swallowed, “and if I hadn’t been there… I…” his voice choked slightly, as if he couldn’t get the words out.

He had stopped his steady swimming, we now floated in the middle of the hallway across from a statue which reached the ceiling of the hall. A tall merman with armor draping his torso and a sword held at his side.

“Caspian…?” I began.

“I… have a confession…” he let out a sigh as if he’d been holding it in for too long.

“Yeah?”

“I’ve seen you before…”

“Before?” I asked.

“I mean… when you were in the water…” he added. I c****d my head to the side and raised an eyebrow. His cheeks became red and he gave a nervous chuckle.

“When I’d go swimming…?”

He nodded. “The first time I saw you… we were children… Lyr, my sister Marci, and I had snuck out of the reef and went in-land… the merfolk had been having a village meeting…” his eyes flicked between mine. ”I saw you with another woman floating in the water… you were holding her hand… it must have been late spring.”

“My… mom…” I said softly as my eyes dropped.

“We had gotten in big trouble for leaving the reef… and I didn’t get to go back for a few years… once I came of age and was allowed outside the reef again I came back and saw you again… and as the months got colder you’d still be out here… and as the sea quieted from the tourists I’d hear you sing and hum to yourself. And I’d just watch from afar…”

“Caspian… I…”

“And as time went on… even though we’d never met… we’d never talked… I considered you a friend… something drew me back over and over again. I was drawn to you… even if the bay was unsafe for my kind…”

“You risked your life to see me…?” I asked, “Why… why didn’t you ever come to me…?”

“Because I didn’t know if you’d accept me… usually when people know we exist we are hunted… murdered… that’s why we have a guard and merfolk tasked with leading humans away and hiding our civilizations beneath the reefs…” he sighed again. “I joined the guard so I had a reason to leave the Reef every day… I always volunteered for Bay duty so I could see you… that day you found me… under the lighthouse… I had been coming in for duty when Otis trapped me in the net… the only safe place I could go was the lighthouse…”

“How… is the lighthouse safe…?” I asked softly, “Otis goes to that dock on the other side of it…”

Caspian smiled and nodded “The lighthouse is protected by the Sirens Gift… it prevents humans from seeing us in its presence, it only lasts for a small vicinity around the area… it acts sort of like a barrier around us.”

“Then how did… how did I…”

“I don’t know…” he responded, as if he knew what I would ask. “I was scared when you first came around the corner… I’d only ever seen your face from afar.. But when you spoke… I realized it was you and I… I was so relieved you didn’t run… or try to hurt me… the Elders had always said humans were dangerous, few knew of our existence, even fewer are allies to our people…”

There was a long pause between us. Caspian's body, along with mine, had slowly sunk to the floor. The curly tresses of brown hair waved above the sand with the current that was ever present in the hallway. He just stared into my eyes, longingly. His hands squeezed around my waist before he finally wrapped them around my back, tightening his hold on me. I did the same, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and holding him tightly to myself.

“I’m glad I met you Caspian…” I whispered into his ear. “Even if it took years…”

I heard him chuckle, feeling his chest shiver with his laugh as he held me. We stayed like that for a few moments, holding each other tightly on the seafloor before a voice cleared and his name was uttered from a woman’s voice.

“Caspian!”

We both looked up to see a slender woman with cascading, dark curls and a blue tail with dark fins carefully moving beneath her.

“Mar…”

Her voice dropped into a low, accusatory tone, “You know you’ll be in trouble if the elders find out the human stayed too long…” she whispered, “They already don’t like her being here.”

“We were just leaving…” Caspian said as his eyes rolled. He easily flicked his tail and our bodies flipped upright. Caspian kept one hand on my lower back and then offered his other in front of me. I gratefully held his arm to steady myself.

The woman gave us a disdainful look as her arms crossed over her chest. Her dark tail trailed behind her as she neared us. Dark blue ridges peeked from her spine and her tail fins resembled the fins of a barracuda. Her blue eyes were sleek, pointed and she had thin, dark eyebrows. A brown half corset held a flowing white top over her chest, accentuating her slender waist. The billow of the puffy sleeves made her otherwise sharp appearance much softer.

“My name is Marci…” she said in a smooth voice.

“Adalaie…” I responded as we shook hands. An ache radiating through the cut in my arm.

“It’d be best if you left. The elders don’t approve of a human in our reef.”

“Marci…” Caspian began, “Stop being so harsh… she just went through some traumatic stuff…”

“Human on human violence is not our concern, Caspian…” But her voice seemed to soften as she said it, and she averted her eyes in a nervous way before turning slightly to head off down the hall.

“I…I know…” Caspial finally said before lacing his fingers with mine and pulling gently as he swam through the hall to the next arching doorway.