Page 101 of Sea's Secret

We broke apart, hearing a steady thumping at the door. I wondered what it was, but then I saw Sands inside the room, knocking on the door, his back to us.

“What are you doing in here!” Dominick snapped at him.

“Oh, is it safe to look?” Sands said, peeking over his shoulder to look at us.

I felt my cheeks darken with embarrassment.

“Get out,” Dominick sighed.

“Wish I could, but we are still on a ship, and you are still its captain. You know, I wouldn't break this up unless it was important,” Sands said with a knowing look. “Hello, Meria,” he nodded to me.

“Shut up,” Dominick said, reaching behind my head on top of the pillow for his gloves, and then putting them on. He met my eyes and looked over my face; his hand, then, still not gloved, caressed my skin around my mouth. “It looks like you have been thoroughly kissed, my mermaid.” That smile was one I had never seen before–there was a sense of pride there, and something else. “Tell me, was it different this time versus the last time when you kissed your betrothed?” he asked with a playful grin.

He had to know that what we had just shared was rare–was life changing.

“Completely different. It was incredible,” I sighed, feeling like a puddle of water and unable to move or say much from the shock of what had just happened between us. Would it happen again? I wanted to kiss him everyday for the rest of my existence.

“I will see you soon,” he whispered, and to my surprise, he bent down and gently yet quickly pressed his lips to mine again. When he stepped back, he was smiling with the same confident look on his face. He winked, and I felt my face warm. His confidence and happiness were some of the most attractive things I had ever seen. They made my body shiver. I really really liked that pirate.

“Okay, love birds–” Sands said, reminding me he was still there.

“Oh, you are still here,” Dominick said, turning to look at Sands, who was, indeed, still there by the door. Dominick quickly put on his gloves, and with one last look at me and then a beautiful grin, which made my jaw open wide and him chuckle, he was gone, and the door was closed behind him.

I was alone. Alone in his bed, alone in his room, alone with my thoughts. He was mine. I would never let him go.

As I closed my eyes, I touched my face. His warmth there had been so absolutely wonderful. With that kiss, I was more his mermaid than ever before. My heart was his, and I would go wherever he went until the day I died. Perhaps, I was his prisoner after all, only a very willing one.

I was not sure how long I slept, and I couldn’t remember how many days it had been since Pixie Isle. But when I woke up, I knew something was wrong, again. It could have been anything in those dangerous waters, and I needed to find out what it was. My legs ached.

When was the last time I had been in the sea? Maybe I could swim and also check out the waters around us for dangerous, magical sea creatures. Or, perhaps, one that was already there, because I did feel magic.

There was a small, sealed window behind the captain's desk, but a circular port window on the side. I could shimmy myself through that if it opened.

To my luck, there was a little lever that opened the window. I smiled again. I stripped off my pants, shirt, jacket, and vest. Then I walked to Dominick's closet, and I pulled out one of his black shirts and held it up. Once I turn back into a human, it will cover the important human parts of me. I pulled it on.

I shimmied myself out the window and dove into the welcoming sea below.

As soon as I hit the water, the frigid temperature was so foreign to me that I felt a bit numb. After I inhaled the water through my gills and swam deeper, I began to become used to the temperature. I had no idea what I would find. I focused on the water and swam around the ship, going back and forth. I soaked up the feeling of the salt water and the movement of my tail. It seemed so long ago since I had been in the sea; it always felt so long. I loved the sea, loved the feeling of water in my lungs, loved the swishing of my tail, propelling me forward, and my hair gliding behind me. It felt right–good. But there was something I sensed in the water; something was off.

As I went to dive a bit deeper, I heard a call–a mermaid call, but it sounded different from the calls I knew. It was as if the sound was drenched in squid ink. An uncomfortable, dark sound. A sound all sea creatures, humans, and mer feared.

The sirens’ call. No, it could not be. Could it? These waters are cold enough and wild enough. Anything could be here.

I moved directly under the ship and saw dark fins, with an obvious lack of color.

Sirens. Soulless abominations.

Sirens with their unnatural, pointed, razor teeth, their nails sharp, and their faces sunken and hollow with haunting, black, soulless eyes.

Sirens were once mermaids–mermaids who became corrupted because they did not follow the ways of the Creator nor the laws of the sea; they had been seduced by the darkness, and lost their soul-melodies, which connected us, not only to our world, but to our Creator above it. Even though melodies had been forgotten about by humanity, humans and magical beings were meant to have melodies of the soul, even after the Great War. Whenever magical beings lost their soul-songs to corruption, their loss of connection to each other, other creatures, and to the Creator turned them into unnatural, dark, soulless creatures–and mermaids, they became sirens.

Long ago, some humans, like the sirens, had also corrupted their melodies, and that led to the lack of soul-song recognition amongst humans. It was said that the Traitor King Falcon had been the first human in more than a thousand years to become so corrupt that he not only could no longer hear his melody, but he destroyed it entirely–becoming a soulless abomination, and then he did his best to bury all knowledge of souls’ melodies forever. He may have been successful if the mer race had not been hidden away by the Ancients.

Because sirens were the first ultimate abomination, their hearts could only continue to beat within them, if they stole and consumed the hearts of men.

Mermaids and sirens kept away from each other, and sirens preferred to dwell in deeper, darker waters. I should have thought about that before I found myself in their seas.

I swam to the surface, observing many of them looking up at the ship, and a few of the crew members were leaning over the rail, looking back at them. After a few minutes, I watched in horror as the sirens opened their mouths and began to sing. Only it was not a beautiful song like mer souls’ melodies. It was terrifying. Mer songs came from within. Sirens made loud shrieks and screams, no words at all, only horribly unpleasant noises came from their mouths, and a twisted, corrupted, dark magic spewed from within them, and somehow, they could lure men to follow after them.