āPlease, donāt do this!ā her voice comes out hoarse, cracked. The men leer at her, their gazes cold.
āStorm is cominā nowā the captain says.Ā He is the worst, because in his eyes there is regret. Compassion. Pity. He doesnāt want to do it. Not like the others do. But that wonāt stop him.
āTold your father a ship is no place for a girl,ā he says. āTold āim to find another vessel, told āim to just keep you home, if eā had ta. But did he listen? If you want someone to blame, miss, blame him. Tha ocean is cold, cold and cruel. And she aināt gonna let us through this without payment, without a cost.ā
The wind blows his gray hair back from his face, and he nods at one of the crewman - the one whoās eyes always linger on her for too long - and he steps forward and jabs Alice in the side with a paddle from one of the rowboats. She cries out, even though she doesnāt want to, even though she wants to scream instead, scream and curse the way a lady of her standing is never meant to do. She wants to curse them all to a watery grave and watch as they suffer.
She tries to move, tries to run past them, to break the rope binding her legs at the ankles through sheer power of will. She fails.
The crewman jabs at her again, and she spits at him. The glob of saliva hits him on the face, spittle clinging to his sun-tanned skin. His crewmates laugh.
Alice realizes her mistake too late.
His eyes darken, he steps forward - and he strikes her across the face with the paddle so hard sheās twisted around, so hard she sees black and careens of the gangplank and plummets to the dark, thrashing water below.
The captain was right: the sea is cold. Colder than any hell sheās ever imagined. Colder than the time she fell face first into a deep puddle on the street in the dead of winter. She feels the ice flood her mouth, fill her lungs, turn every vein and bone bitter blue with frost. She canāt breathe, canāt think, canāt move.
The water tosses her against the hull of the ship and she feels her skull crack against the worn wood. The world fades, and she begins to dieā¦
She remembers the sea, through the darkness. Remembers tossing her friend Lydia into the waves at the beach, remembers their laughter as Lydia pulled her in as well. She remembers dunking her head under, feeling the rush of cold fill her up as she became lighter than sheād ever been, became part of the water.
āThe sea is cold,āĀ she remembers the captain saying. Yes, she thinks, but I am colder.
And the ocean? she realizes. The ocean is her sister.
She feels it filling her up, feels it caressing her body, enveloping her. Not killing her, but cradling her. A sister holding up her own blood, a mother, soothing her wailing child, kissing the hurt away. A goddess, hearing the prayers of her devoted believer, and answering them.
I have salt and seawater in my soul, Captain. I will show you how cold these waters can be.
She feels the edges of her body fading, feels herself stop being a me and become a we, become an us, become every drop of water and every clump of foam and every weed and every wave. Feels herself changing.
Her dress is pulled away by the waves, button by button, seam by seam. The sea strips her, soothes her skin. She feels herself swaying, feels her injuries healing. Feels herself become something more than a scared girl or a single spot of death in a pool of life, as her body flares like a fire, as her legs brush together, as they begin to fuseā¦
She feels herself heal, and she feels herself change.
When it is over, she is bare, but she feels no shame. Her tail twists in the water beneath her, swaying, more natural than her legs ever felt. Stronger, too. She runs her hand over the dark blue scales, the same shade as the surface in a storm. She feels herself smile.
Siren, she thinks, mermaid. Sister of the sea.
The captain was right; a ship is no place for a woman. This is the place for a woman.
And when she drags him screaming down into it, he will realize: the ocean may be cruelā¦but her sisters are worse.
Alice smiles again, and begins to swim after the ship fading into the distance.
