Lost Voices (22 page)

“
Catarina’s
our queen,” Luce snapped before Samantha had time to respond. Anais appeared to notice her for the first time, and she didn’t look at all impressed. “Miami’s farther than we normally go, but we’d be happy to point you in the right direction.” Luce gestured vaguely southward, hoping urgently that Anais would simply swim off before anyone mentioned orcas.

“ Luce!” Catarina had snapped out of her stupor to glare reproachfully at Luce; she calmed herself before she spoke again, at least. “I don’t think that would be the best idea, do you? Let’s show her to the cave . . .”

This was too much for Anais; she let out a sudden whinny of derisive laughter. “Oh, you can’t be
serious!
” The mermaids stared at her, and while Luce felt nothing but the purest loath-ing she could see that some of the others were suddenly self-conscious, even ashamed. “I mean, you guys don’t seriously live in a cave! Wow, not even our servants are
that
poor.”

“Anais?” Luce said. She was trying to be a bit more careful now, since no one else seemed to share her profound dislike of this brassy girl. “You don’t have any servants. Not anymore.” Anais faked bursting into tears again, and Samantha rushed to comfort her.

* * *

All evening Luce waited in vain for someone to tell Anais that mermaids simply didn’t talk much about their human lives; it was bad manners. Luce floated on her back in the dim waters 184 i LOST VOICES

of the cave, gazing up at the handful of stars she could see through the holes in the roof and the soft green glow of the luminous crystals, thinking of Tessa. If she swam off to her own little cave, Luce knew, she wouldn’t be able to stop crying, and so she turned in drowsy circles here instead. Everyone else was listening raptly to Anais as she prattled on about her father’s huge mansion back in Miami, her shopping trips to New York, all the amazing things her cell phone could do. Why didn’t anyone tell her to shut up?

“Oh, I love those jeans, too!” Samantha exclaimed eagerly.

“I think I had about eight pairs.”

Luce put a hand over her mouth to stifle the cough of sick laughter she could feel coming. Of course, Luce didn’t know anything about Samantha’s human life, apart from what her mother had done to her. But it didn’t take a genius to figure out that almost everyone in the tribe had grown up in one of the nearby towns; they were the daughters of fishermen, cannery workers, maybe truck drivers. Their jeans almost certainly had been the cheapest available, and they’d worn hand- me- down sweaters and jackets with the sleeves too short. Luce had a sudden wistful memory of the silvery down jacket her father had given her when they moved up to Alaska.

But the great thing about being a mermaid, Luce thought bitterly, was that none of that stuff mattered. What counted was who you were and how well you could sing . . . And suddenly Luce understood why Samantha was so excited by Anais’s bragging. Samantha couldn’t fake her singing, after all, but she
could
pretend she’d grown up rich. How would anyone know if it was a lie?

Anais had launched into a feverish description of her six-i 185

teenth birthday party. “We had like two hundred people come, and of course it was all catered. Four huge pink cakes! It was on our lawn, and there were hundreds of lanterns everywhere, like this fairyland, and they hired this awesome band! Such hot guys.

The keyboard player was just adorable. And at ten these, like, Chinese acrobats came out and performed. This girl could juggle a table with her
feet!
But really, I thought that part was kind of dumb. Like, who really cares about stupid tricks like that? Like trained animals or something.”

Luce started to think of heading back to her own cave.

Crying by herself would be better than listening to this.

“Oh,
yeah,
” Anais trilled. “I keep forgetting to ask you. Where are all the guys?”

In spite of herself, Luce started paying more attention. She’d wondered about this too, and might have asked if she hadn’t been afraid of upsetting Catarina. She’d had a feeling this might be another of those subjects Cat found hard to discuss.

“Oh,” Catarina said, and Luce was glad to hear that her tone was slightly curt, if still weary. “Boys can’t be mermaids.

There aren’t any.”

Anais was so surprised she shut up for a second, though Luce thought grimly that the quiet probably wouldn’t last for long.

“But, I mean . . .” It was Violet’s shy, hesitant voice speaking now. “I mean, boys get hit and stuff, too. Like
horrible
things happen to them sometimes. My brother ”

“Yes,” Catarina agreed shortly. “Humans don’t just stop with their daughters.”

“So I mean that sparkling, what you called the
indication
. . .” Violet seemed so intimidated that her voice was 186 i LOST VOICES

slipping into silence, and Luce could barely make out what she was saying. “I mean, have you ever seen the indication around a boy? If you did, then couldn’t you change him, Cat?” Luce glanced over at Catarina; she couldn’t help feeling worried about her. The beautiful red- gold head was leaning back against an outcropping of rock. Her skin looked deathly white, and her eyelids kept sinking. She was so drained by the effort it had taken to change Anais that it was as if she were just emerging from a long and severe illness. Luce was more than a little unwell, too. Her head felt airy, feverish.

“I’ve seen it,” Catarina said, and there was such sadness in her voice that everyone went silent. Even Anais seemed to be listening intently. Luce was suddenly positive that Catarina had tried to change at least one human boy into a merman, and that she had failed. “I’ve seen it but only a few times. But they just drowned, Violet. I don’t know why, but they can’t be like us. No one can help them . . .”

“Maybe you just didn’t try hard enough,” Anais complained.

“It’s going to be pretty boring if we don’t get some guys here soon.” Luce was more disgusted than ever. How could Anais ac-cuse Catarina of not really trying when it was only Catarina’s excruciating efforts that had saved Anais’s rotten life?

Luce was glad to see that Catarina was finally getting angry. It brought some color back to her cheeks, some of the fire back to her voice.

“Queen
Marina
couldn’t do it, Anais,” Catarina snarled. “And she was far and away the greatest singer I’ve ever heard. She almost
killed
herself trying to change the boy she l ” Suddenly Catarina seemed to realize she’d said too much. The silence in i 187

the cave became so overpowering that only Anais had the gall to violate it.

“The boy she
what,
Cat?” Anais’s voice was sickly sweet but venomous at the same time. “You mean, the boy she
loved?
” Anais seemed to be considering this. Catarina glared, refusing to answer. “But, wow, think about it. I mean, how would your Queen Marina have had
time
to fall in love with a boy unless she was breaking that what do you call it? Those silly
rules
you were telling me about.”

Only Samantha and Jenna laughed at this, and even they sounded a bit too shrill. Everyone else seemed shocked. When Samantha stopped tittering, the quiet lasted for a disturbingly long time.

“If you think the timahk is so silly, Anais,” Catarina finally said in a silky, deadly, regal voice, “then by all means. Try breaking it.”

* * *

Anais was finally quiet, and the mermaids went back to talking about other things, especially the singing Dana and Rachel had done. Luce was still drifting on her back at a distance from the beach, but now and then she glanced over at Anais who seemed to realize she’d miscalculated. She looked sulky, but her blue eyes were hard and focused on her own hands, as if she were concentrating on working something out. Luce had the idea that the next time Anais spoke she’d be taking a very different tone.

Luce kept peering sideways at the shimmering around Anais. What was it that had brought her here, especially if her 188 i LOST VOICES

human life was so ridiculously perfect that she couldn’t stop bragging about it? But somehow Luce couldn’t get the sparkling to cohere into images. At most she could see rare, blurry winks of what seemed like perfectly ordinary events: Anais sitting in a hairdresser’s, Anais on the phone to someone . . . Luce was perplexed. How could getting a haircut be so heartbreaking that it would turn you into a mermaid? It made no sense.

And most of the time Luce couldn’t even manage to see that much. It worried her. If anything, the dark glimmering was even thicker around Anais than it was around the other mermaids, but it was
empty
. It was like a vacant house. It didn’t seem to hold a story.

Luce felt a powerful urge to be alone and think, even if that meant remembering Tessa’s death. She swished over to the beach to tell Catarina she was going back to her own small cave, half expecting an argument.

Catarina just nodded, though. “You must need some peace after everything today, Luce.” She stopped and gazed at Luce searchingly; there was something tense in her expression. “You shouldn’t have had to go through that. I should have managed it alone, or else . . .” Catarina barely glanced at Anais.

“It’s okay, Cat,” Luce said; she suddenly felt nervous. “You couldn’t help it.” She wanted to ask Catarina why the indication sparkling around Anais was so different, so void, but it seemed like a bad idea to bring that up where someone else might hear.

She settled for glancing as pointedly as she could at Anais, hoping that would encourage Catarina to look for herself. “Maybe she wasn’t quite ready?” Luce suggested in a low voice. “And that’s why changing her was so hard?” Catarina didn’t seem in-i 189

terested in pursuing the question, though. Instead her gaze was so intently focused on Luce that they might have been all alone in the cave.

“ Luce . . .” Catarina seemed to be searching for words, but she was so exhausted that her eyes began to scan the rocky walls helplessly, looking for something that wasn’t there. “ Luce, the way you sang today . . .” Luce didn’t know what it was in Catarina’s tone that made her feel so shy all of a sudden.

“I was just . . . trying to help you, Cat. I mean, of course you didn’t actually
need
my help . . .” Luce noticed how dishonest this sounded; they both knew perfectly well that Catarina couldn’t have managed Anais’s transformation without her. Luce scrambled to make it sound more convincing. “It seemed like you were getting so tired out.” Catarina shook her head slowly and a wounded look came into in her eyes.

“Oh.” Her gaze flitted restlessly around the cave; she might have been tracking a vision that winked through the dark corners above them. Then abruptly she was completely fixed on Luce again, actually glaring, her gray eyes much too bright. “That’s not what I
mean,
Luce. I think you know that! Do you think I can’t see when you’re lying to me?” Now Catarina was definitely angry; her voice was somewhere between a hiss and a growl. “
Why
do you want to control me, Luce? Is it so satisfying for you to force me to remember these things? If you can’t be loved you can at least have power? But Luce, really, that’s a terrible choice to make . . .” Luce felt even more alarmed than hurt by this; Catarina’s gaze was wandering dizzily again, and her voice flared up in sudden fits and then collapsed back into a weakened murmur. The only explanation Luce could think up for Catarina’s aggression was that she 190 i LOST VOICES

was still half deranged from the terrible singing they’d done that day. Had changing Anais damaged her irreparably?

“Cat!” Luce stared into those blankly shining gray eyes, and her words came out jumbled and urgent. “You’re still feeling sick from all that or you wouldn’t . . . You’d know I would never want to do anything that could hurt you! Or
control
you.” They watched each other for a while. Only moments before Catarina had actually seemed to hate her, but now she reached out and caressed Luce’s hair with slow, airy strokes. The hardness in her face was replaced by longing; her mouth was pursed. This inexplicable tenderness disturbed Luce as much as her rage had; either way, Catarina seemed more than a touch unbalanced.

“Of course.” Catarina shook herself and smiled; Luce still thought she looked unwell, though. “Of course you wouldn’t, Luce. Forgive me. I’m not . . .” She gave another quick twisting movement, and squeezed her eyes closed for an instant. “I’m not myself. Samantha kept begging me to go on singing for much too long, and the strain of it . . .”

“It’s okay.” Luce could barely get the words out; the awful things Catarina had said to her were still swirling through her mind. Could they be true? “I don’t mind, Cat. Just as long as you’re okay, and you don’t still think ”

“Oh!” Catarina seemed to start up out of a reverie. “No, Luce. I was being terribly unfair. You
do
forgive me?” She was still stroking Luce’s head, and her hand lingered lightly against Luce’s cheek. Luce thought for a second.

“I mean, I don’t want to
say
I forgive you, Cat. Because I wasn’t mad. I just got worried, like maybe you were seriously hurt by by what we did today.”

i 191

Catarina’s smile was suddenly as warm and vibrant as it had ever been; Luce found herself beaming in response.

“Oh, my strange little Luce . . .” The smile sharpened into a lopsided grin, odd on Catarina’s magnificent face. “Say it anyway.”

Luce was almost too discomfited to say the words, but she forced them out. “Then I forgive you, Cat. Except I
really
wasn’t angry.”

“I was being unfair.” Catarina’s tone had turned thought-ful, dreamy. “It’s not like you’ve been working to learn how to sing that way. It just came out spontaneously, out of who you really are. A gift . . .”

Luce looked down, hoping Catarina didn’t notice the heat rising in her cheeks.

“Go get some rest, Luce. You pushed yourself too hard today, too . . .”

Anais started chattering again as Luce swam off. Luce could hear her lavishing compliments on Catarina and asking how she got her hair to be so shiny.