Mama turned back and met my eyes. “I’d feel better if you were by my side,” she said with a smile.
Those were my mother’s last words to me.
Even as I opened my mouth to protest, I found myself standing up and crossing the cabin to follow her. It wasn’t just about obeying anymore. I had to get up on deck. I had to be closer to the song. If I had stayed in our room, I probably would have been trapped and gone down with the ship. Then I could have joined my family. In heaven or hell, or in nowhere, if it was all a lie. But no.
We went up the stairs, joined along the way by scores of other passengers. It was then I knew something was wrong. Some of the passengers were rushing, fighting their way through the masses, while others looked like they were sleepwalking.
I stepped into the thrashing rain, pausing just outside the threshold to take in the scene. Pressing my hands over my ears to shut out the crashing thunder and hypnotic music, I tried to get my bearings. Two men shot past me and jumped overboard without even pausing. The storm wasn’t so bad we needed to abandon ship, was it?
I looked to my youngest brother and saw him lapping up the rain, like a wildcat clawing at raw meat. When someone near him tried to do the same, they scrapped with each other, fighting over the drops. I backed away, turning to search for my middle brother. I never found him. He was lost in the crowd surging toward the water, gone before I could make sense of what I was witnessing.
Then I saw my parents, hand in hand, their backs against the railing, casually tipping themselves overboard. They smiled. I screamed.
What was happening? Had the world gone mad?
A note caught my ear, and I dropped my hands, my fear and worries fading away as the song took hold. It did seem like it would be better to be in the water, embraced by the waves instead of pelted by rain. It sounded delicious. I needed to drink it. I needed to fill my stomach, my heart, my lungs with it.
With that sole desire pulsing through me, I walked toward the metal rails. It would be a pleasure to drink myself full until every last piece of me was sated. I was barely aware of hoisting myself over the side, barely aware of anything, until the hard smack of water on my face brought me back to my senses.
I was going to die.
No! I thought as I fought to get back to the surface. I’m not ready! I want to live! Nineteen years was not enough. There were still so many foods to taste and places to visit. A husband, I hoped, and a family. All of it, everything, gone in a split second.
Really?
I didn’t have time to doubt the reality of the voice I was hearing. Yes!
What would you give to stay alive?
Anything!
In an instant, I was dragged out of the fray. It was as if an arm was looped around my waist, pulling with precision as I shot past body after body until I was free of them. I soon found myself lying on my back, staring up at three inhumanly lovely girls.
For a moment, all my horror and confusion disappeared. There was no storm, no family, no fear. All that ever had been or ever would be were these beautiful, perfect faces. I squinted, studying them, making the only guess that seemed possible.
“Are you angels?” I asked. “Am I dead?”
The closest girl, who had eyes as green as the emeralds in Mama’s earrings and brilliant red hair that billowed around her face, bent down. “You’re very much alive,” she promised, her voice tinted with a British accent.
I gaped at her. If I was still alive, wouldn’t I be feeling the scratch of salt down my throat? Wouldn’t my eyes be burning from the water? Wouldn’t I still be feeling the sting on my face from where I fell? Yet I felt perfect, complete. I was either dreaming or dead. I had to be.
In the distance, I could hear screams. I lifted my head, and just over the waves I spotted the tail of our ship as it bobbed surreally out of the water.
I took several ragged breaths, too confused to grasp how I was still breathing, all the while listening to others drown around me.
“What do you remember?” she asked.
I shook my head. “The carpet.” I searched my memories, already feeling them becoming distant and blurry. “And my mother’s hair,” I said, my voice cracking. “Then I was in the water.”
“Did you ask to live?”
“I did,” I sputtered, wondering if she could read my mind or if everyone else had thought it, too. “Who are you?”
“I’m Marilyn,” she replied sweetly. “This is Aisling.” She pointed to a blond girl who gave me a small, warm smile. “And that is Nombeko.” Nombeko was as dark as the night sky and appeared to have nearly no hair at all. “We’re singers. Sirens. Servants to the Ocean,” Marilyn explained. “We help Her. We … feed Her.”
I squinted. “What would the ocean eat?”
Marilyn glanced in the direction of the sinking ship, and I followed her gaze. Almost all the voices were quiet now.
Oh.
“It is our duty, and soon it could be yours as well. If you give your time to Her, She will give you life. From this day forward, for the next hundred years, you won’t get sick or hurt, and you won’t grow a day older. When your time is up, you’ll get your voice back, your freedom back. You’ll get to live.”
“I’m sorry,” I stammered. “I don’t understand.”
The others smiled behind her, but their eyes looked sad. “No. It would be impossible to understand now,” Marilyn said. She ran her hand over my dripping hair, already treating me as if I was one of her own. “I assure you, none of us did. But you will.”
Carefully, I raised myself until I was fully upright, shocked to see that I was standing on water. There were still a few people afloat in the distance, struggling in the current as if they thought they might be able to save themselves.
“My mother is there,” I pleaded. Nombeko sighed, her eyes wistful.
Marilyn wrapped her arm around me, looking toward the wreckage. She whispered in my ear. “You have two choices: you may remain with us or you may join your mother. Join her. Not save her.”
I stayed silent, thinking. Was she telling me the truth? Could I choose to die?
“You said you’d give anything to live,” she reminded me. “Please mean it.”
I saw the hope in her eyes. She didn’t want me to go. Perhaps she’d seen enough death for one day.
I nodded. I’d stay.
She pulled me close and breathed into my ear. “Welcome to the sisterhood of sirens.”
I was whipped underwater, something cold forced into my veins. And, though it frightened me, it hardly hurt at all.
“Why?” she asked, her face bloated from drowning.
I held up my hands, warning her not to come any closer, trying to tell her without words that I was deadly. But it was clear she wasn’t afraid. She was looking for revenge. And she would get it any way she could.
“Why?” she demanded again. Seaweed was wrapped around her leg, making a flat, wet sound as it dragged across the floor behind her.
The