Aliénor's Song

Learning to Speak

We watched from below the water as the shadow that was Eóghan's body was hoisted onto the ship. Mairi's hand was covering her mouth as she quietly cried for her friend. I lifted my head up so that just my forehead and eyes were above the water. I could hear the men talking , but I couldn't tell what they were saying. I didn't dare put my head up further to hear for fear of being seen.

I felt a ripple in the water next to me as Mairi looked above the water as well. I was worried that with her flaming red hair she would be spotted.

"Careful Mairi. We cannot be seen."

"Why?"

"How would you expect them to explain what we are? Half woman, half fish? They'll think they've gone mad."

She closed her eyes and I could tell she was fighting tears, but she knew I was right.

"Can I just tell them who he is?"

"They can't hear you Mairi. Above the surface of the water, all they seem to hear is the song."

Her eyes widened. She hadn't realized that yet.

"Then how is it that I can understand you?"

I wasnt sure. Maybe it was like how animals can communicate using noises that humans don't understand.

"I have an idea about that."

She looked at me.

"I think it's like animals. They use sounds and communication that we don't understand. I think that our song is like that. We can understand it, because it's ours. It's specific to whatever species we are. Mermaids?" I struggled for a second with the strange new word. "Mermaids can understand it. Humans have no idea what it means."

"That could make sense."

I definitely wasn't certain, but it seemed like a solid theory. I still wasn't sure how we communicate beneath the water. I decided to run that by her, but not here.

I tipped my head, motioning for her to follow me and ducked back beneath the waves. We had done all we could for Eóghan. It was time for us to get some rest. She seemed reluctant to follow me back down below. I grabbed her hand and pulled her down.

We swam for a bit before I figured we were far enough from the ship to be able to stop and talk. I stopped and turned back to Mairi.

"How do you think we can hear each other here?" I asked

She thpught about it for a minute before she answered me. "Maybe sound travels differently under the water? I've definitely noticed some sounds down here that make me think some type of underwater communication is to be expected."

"But how in the world do we understand each other?"

"What do you mean?" She asked

"Well, I imagine that you are speaking whatever language you spoke back in Edinburgh, I only speak French. I dont understand the language spoken in Scotland."

Mairi looked at me like I was slow. It took me a minute to understand. Once I did, I was kicking myself. Mentally of course, I no longer had feet to kick anything. My eyes widened. She had been speaking French this entire time!

"You speak my language?"

Well that definitely explained how she knew I was French. In all of the excitement of finding her, I didn't even stop to think that she might not understand me. That made so much more sense now that I was thinking about it.

"Of course. I was headed to France. I needed to know the language when I got there."

That also made a lot of sense to me, but then I had a disturbing thought. If sound travels below the ocean, the other things living in the ocean could hear us too. We were not the only dangerous thing in the water. I knew there were large whales here along with sharks and who knows what else. As a child I was never allowed to go into the ocean. My mother had always told me there were deadly creatures in the water. If only she had known that one day I would be one of them. Atargatis had even said we would need to protect each other. It amused me for a second to think that maybe one day mother's would be warning their children that we were lurking under the surface of the ocean. Maybe she had meant from humans, but she never really specified.

"Mairi, if we can hear each other, what else can hear us?"