Page 8 of Between Salt and Serenades
I slowly nodded my head, and in response, Breena’s hand dropped from my face. The dim light of the storage room found her eyes once more, but I still saw the swirl of distress that lingered in them.
“What do you suppose we do next then?” I asked, my fingers finding my cheek. I ran my hand over its smooth surface, feeling the tickle of small baby hairs on my palm. It’s not that Breena hurt me as much as she shocked me. The creature standing before me continued to throw me out of focus, and I didn’t know what to make of it. I didn’t know what to make ofher.
Breena glanced around before lifting a barrel of rum and striding to the door. She threw it onto the deck, causing the wood to bust wide open, spilling their precious drink. A few men began slipping and falling in their own toxic poison.
I pulled Breena out of the doorway as some of the fishermen swung their heads to see where the barrel had come from.
“Great; now we have to get out of here,” I muttered. “They’re gonna come looking to see how their barrel managed to fly across the boat.”
“Well, cause another wave then.” She motioned to the sea with a look of determination. “And keep doing it. Don’t give them the chance to make it over here.”
Grunting at the selkie, I raised my arms, focusing on the white caps in the water. A swell rose, towering over the top of the boat and crashing down. Breena lifted yet another barrel and rolled it this time, as if the mad sea had pulled it free from storage.
As the boat rocked and groaned, Breena and I held onto ropes secured to the wall. The door to the storage room swung open, and before it had the chance to slam shut, another wave rocked the boat. Each time the door opened wide for us, we saw the men struggle to stand on the ship’s deck.
One of the men was tossed overboard, shouting all the way down until a wave swallowed him whole. A few brave men leaned over the side of the boat, calling out for their fallen crewmate. I calmed the water for a moment, just long enough for them to fetch him with a flotation device. I let them work for it, though, rocking the boat each time they thought they had him.
Breena giggled behind me, the men’s distress feeding some kind of wicked desire in her. I watched her for a quick, dangerous moment as she drew her fingers to her curved lips, eyes widening as they pulled the drenched man over the side of the boat. The heavy thump of his wet body hitting the deck stole my attention.
“Lads, good Gods, we’ve angered the Sea Goddess!” a man cried out, dropping to his knees in prayer. He pressed his forehead to the ship’s deck, the mixture of water and rum threatening to drown him in his devotion if he didn’t lift his head.
“A curse has been placed upon this great vessel!” a young, copper haired man shouted, pulling his crewmate up by the back of his shirt. The man on his knees gasped as his face resurfaced.
“You’ll have to send me to the depths before throwing another net into this cursed water! Cut free that forsaken thing and let the Goddess have her creations once more,” a third man called out, ripping his cap from his head, revealing a bald scalp dripping with sweat and sea water.
An excited bubble rose in my chest and popped as it reached my throat, leaving only fear and uncertainty.
We were going to land.
CHAPTER FOUR
GETTING UNDER HER SKIN
The men pulled their remaining net back to the safety of their vessel, giving in to our chaos and destruction. Breena plopped herself down on top of the closed lid of the trunk, a subtle grin finding its way onto her lips. A chuckle escaped her as she leaned back and rested her shoulders on the wooden planks behind her.
“Back to land they go,” she said.
“And to landwego, I suppose,” I said as I sat upon the chest across from her, trying to make myself comfortable despite the metal latches digging into my new, tender flesh.
“Have you been on land before?” she asked, casting an eye over me. Her gaze trailed the length of my legs and paused on my shoe-covered feet. Her attention to them had me slipping out of the shoes to free my raw feet. Dried bits of blood were crusted under my toenails and between my toes from my transformation. Her eyes squinted as she presumably noticed the rest of the dried crumbles, but she said nothing when she met my gaze again.
“Once as a child,” I admitted. I didn’t need to go into detail about how my father grew up on land, how his father was human. She didn’t need to know that my dad taught me theway of the humans in case it was ever safe to return to land in my lifetime. He taught me to be one of them in hopes that things would get better for Zellia and me, that we would have the chance to experience all that he had on land. He taught me so I could someday know what it was like to walk among them without fear.
“I see. I have spent plenty of time on land in this form.” She gestured to herself. “But I have never been to a human village. We are taught from a young age that while we are welcome on their land, it’s too risky, too vulnerable.”
“Yeah, I’m sure youarewelcome,” I grumbled. Selkies were known to be treated as esteemed guests in human villages. It was only the sirens who were treated with such utter hostility, all for reasons out of our control.
“We’ve never had a reason to go to war with the humans, but that doesn’t mean we want to live amongst them,” she said. “What caused your war with the humans?”
“You really don’t know?” I asked, and when she shook her head, I scoffed at her ignorance.
“It wasn’t always like this,” I said. “It started when the number of hybrids in the pod outweighed the full-bloods. The difference between the hybrids and full-bloods is the hybrids feel no pain as they transition. It’s an incredible advantage, but they also don’t inherit the siren song, and without our song, we are more vulnerable to humans. Our song acts as a mask, a disguise that allows us to appear more beautiful.”
“Without it, we appear as nothing but our true selves—monsters of the sea. The sailors were not keen on this version of us, so much so that they cast nets into the water to capture the hybrids and kill them. They believed them to be mistakes, but little did they know, the sirens they were killing were their responsibility, their doing.”
“They killed their own children?” Breena asked, her face scrunched. She pulled her feet up onto the trunk and rested her cheek on her knee as she listened to my story.
“They did, and in return, my pod pulled a ship full of those same human sailors down into the depths of our sea, and we celebrated as they drowned. We now live in that very ship—the Ever Wander.”
