SECRETS OF BLOOD AND SONG

By Dorothy Pensky

Chapter One

Though my skin is smooth, my fingers long, and my hair thick, that makes
no difference to anyone. On me, traits of Stickleback mermaids are
uncanny. Even weird. My mouth spreads wide; my chin is cleft; my wrists
are thick. All Cockle traits. No wonder Grandmama named me Between.

I insist on Bett when I can.

As I approach the eel grass meadow, I sigh a single bead of life-giving
air. It rises to the surface. Here I must kill the kraken before the
Strongest do, and become Protector of the Stickleback kin. Grandmama has
promised me that. She’s handing glory to me, and I will grasp it.

It’s true, the top four Strongest could clear the meadow of the kraken
easily. If Grandmama merely asked me to risk my life to keep to kraken
from eating her favorite sturgeon, why do that? But I accept the test. A
Protector should be able to do the work of four.

I certainly hope this is the last such trial.

I surface for a breath, descending into darkness where, oblivious to the
peril they are in, cod and herring flit in and out of the eelgrass
blades.

Half-Cockle means poison in my veins. So, unlike the top four Strongest,
I’m alone with no one to help me. It’s simply not safe for them.

The green grass spikes sway defenselessly in the current. As they brush
my abdomen, I sink lower, until only my eyes will be visible. I run a
finger along the edge of my weapon—an amber shard. Its elongated blade
is whetted sharp, and its rounded handle perfectly fits my hand.

Every task Grandmama asks of me I do alone: fighting sharks, digging out
weever fish, and clearing the kelp forest of stinging jellyfish. I pause
after each dangerous encounter, search for a safe place, then let my
hair fidget with my fingers until I calm. I must keep doing Grandmama’s
bidding. I want to be Protector, the strategist for the ten Strongest.
The role will not only give me respect for now, but Protectors are
always sung about in songs. Imagine being sung about for thousands of
years!

I raise my chin. Every test I’m given I think I will die alone; yet
every time I survive.

Movement flickers in the corner of my eye, and I stiffen, gripping my
shard hard. Now! I spin to my left in the direction of the movement
without hesitation. That’s my rule for myself: never hesitate.

A placid cod slides by, nibbling eelgrass. A bubble leaves my lips. I
relax my stiff fluke.

If seeing a cod causes such tightness, what about the actual kraken? I
need to be alert, but perhaps this is too much.

As I swim, I raise puffs of mud. Peering through the silty water,
everything farther than my stretched-out hand is concealed from my
sight. Shadows move, shapeless and silent. Nothing I can clearly see,
except the same obscured cod. Even worse, I can hear whale song. The
rise and fall of their keening will drown out the whoosh of the kraken
approaching.

I was counting on that whoosh to give me time to prepare.

No. This is not the time for whale song, though I normally love its
cadences. Since nothing I can do will silence them, I strain to listen
beyond it: the faint sloshing of the sea’s surface above; my own
heartbeat; the swallowing of my spit.

A large shadow slides above me. It dims the seabed until it’s almost
night. The kraken has arrived.

My wretched fingers start to shake. For too many heartbeats I freeze, my
mind emptying. Why do I pretend to be fierce? This is the real me.
Afraid to do my job.

Finally, I click and the echoes bounce back to my receptive forehead.
The shadow comes from above the surface of the sea and the taps are
hard and even. Something wooden. It can’t be the kraken or any living
thing.

A ship. I flatten myself against the seabed, glad of the muddy water
now.

Ships mean makers—from the hips up they could pass for mermen, but
below, crab-like legs bend in all sorts of unnatural ways. Sandbumps
rise again on my arms like grains of sand showing my fright.

Makers are dangerous. We’re taught much about them, studying their ways
as they work or drown. We know the speech of water and the speech of the
air. Nothing has prepared me for the eerie feeling of them above me.

The whales’ song stops and, in the quiet, a faint melody drifts down
from the ship. My scars don’t react with the normal electricity as they
would with Grandmama’s songs. I would think a maker Queen must be riding
in their ship, instructing grown fishermen in their jobs or teaching
them history. But that’s ludicrous. And the timbre is deeper than any
mermaid voice. But it must be a Queen. If not, what in the Name of the
Ancestors could be going on? Only Queens are allowed to sing!

I’m mesmerized by the sound. Perhaps that’s the point of it. Perhaps
makers want us to listen and rise so that they can trap us. It’s a
different use than our songs, but as profitable for them.

The deep voices chant: a single maker, then a group in turn. I can’t
quite hear the words. After thousands of years of listening to them in
their ships or drowning, we do understand their language, though ours is
different.

The melody above me is lively and employs many more notes than Grandmama
uses.

The sound is so beautiful, being lured would almost be worthwhile.

A splash comes from above, and I relax my agitated hair, pressing my
stomach against the flattened grass. A fibrous net grazes my left fluke
then across my shoulder. I don’t move and the net rises.

My yellow-and-green hair is loose except for my sheath-braid. The colors
of my locks hide me in the kelp forest, but stand out against the darker
green meadow. Can the makers see me in the shadow?

The grass jabs my cheek, itching, and I want to rub it, but I force
myself to stay still.

A faint whoosh washes over my hair from the right. I swallow. Is that
the kraken, here too? I roll to my back and click again. Softer taps
from the echoes reveal the massive mantle, eyes below and a cluster of
eight arms with two long feeding-paddles. It’s larger than the ship and
swimming as if intent on sweeping away the makers.

I won’t be prey; I’ll fight as fiercely as the fiercest shark!

The cod and herring dart away in all directions. Another whoosh, and the
kraken ducks below the ship, right above me. Even though the echoes told
me different, I thought it would be smaller. Its arms fill my sight,
undulating, with its enormous eyes locked with mine.

My stomach sours, and I hold my shard pointing to the kraken’s eyes with
a visible tremor. Do the makers see the monster?

“Ho there!” I hear from above. As I rise to fight the kraken, the net
lowers, and one of the kraken’s tentacles is tangled.

An opportunity to swim toward its eye!

That baleful eyes shines in the darkness of the seabed, as it suspends
between me and the ship. I blink. As I approach, its undulation sets its
tentacle free from its entanglement.

Its long feeding paddle pulls toward the surface and I brace myself. It
whips toward me, flies past my shoulder and hits the seabed. Thank the
Ancestors.

Moving out of reach, I brush the net. Now the kraken, the net, and I,
all inhabit the same depth.

The kraken throws its feeding paddle which passes my cheek by a finger’s
thickness. As it slips back, I slash at it with my shard, cutting it
away. It sinks into the eel grass below. My hair swirls in a halo: a
rare show of triumph.

My shard is sharp, but will it be enough?

The kraken flings its other feeding paddle, its last, and hits, chafing
my shoulder. Will my poisonous blood fill the water?

My hair, abandoning its swirl, tightens against my head.

I twist to avoid being grabbed by the kraken’s tentacles. My wrist
tangles in the net, the fibers pinching and tightening as I struggle. I
hold my shard to my wrist, willing myself to make the slice but I can’t;
my shard is shaking too hard and slicing into the skin would definitely
fill the sea with poison. Even a drop can kill.

When I force myself to relax, hand muscles smooth, and I maneuver out of
the net. I slide out of the kraken’s reach.

If avoiding death was enough, I’d flee now while I have the chance. But
Grandmama’s test is foremost in my mind.

I slip closer and the kraken’s remaining paddle swings inches from my
face. I grab one of its muscular arms, strong and flexible, and pull its
head within range of my shard. The kraken, faster than I, wraps its
sharp paddle around my neck, shaking me and spraying ink so I can barely
see.

I need another breath. Shouldn’t my breath have lasted at least through
the fight? We only breathe as often as whales. Perhaps the extra time
with the ship is the problem. My chest tightens, and I can’t surface
until the ship leaves.

I can’t surface, but I must!

I beat my fluke toward the looming ship surfacing almost against my
will, but the kraken tightens its grip on my neck, maneuvering me into
its tentacles. The suckers pull at my skin as the arms squeeze my waist;
the last beads of my air come out in a stream. I watch as they rise
erratically to the surface. The makers will see and know I’m here now
for sure.

Dizziness sweeps over me. The surface never seemed so far away.

The kraken slides my fluke toward its razor-sharp beak, and it slips
inside. This will not be a painless death; I will be dissolved slowly by
its stomach acid. The kraken shifts slightly so that a current is
flowing into its beak, helping it maneuver me in.

I wish Grandmama’s Queenspearls were witnessing my bravery in death.
Their record for the eternal songs would be glory worth dying for. I
could die with pride after a record of such a deed.

My chest spasms as it had the time, as a merling, I entered a deep cave.
As I explored, one turn and another blended in my mind, confusing me.
The roof blocked me from reaching the air, as the ship does now. The
same pain fills me.

I thrash my fluke, trying to make myself harder to ingest. The creature
inches me in. I am engulfed as far as my waist and the sting of its
stomach acid hits me. Blackness comes as I’m completely swallowed. The
only thing keeping me conscious is raw pain on my skin from its acid.
Fully in, I grope. When I find its liver, I plunge my shard to its hilt
and with one movement slice the kraken to its ink sac. A stream of its
blood runs down my raised arm to my neck.

The kraken’s beak falls open, limp in death. Yanking my shard from its
flesh, I shoot up to the surface for a shuddering breath.

“Ho, there!”

Before I can blink at the piercing sun, the fishing net falls on me, my
chin catching on the edge.

The sailors whoop. “The biggest dolphin I’ve seen!”

“Good job, mates!”

As the net pulls me by the chin, I rise a handsbreadth out of the sea. A
maker above aims a harpoon straight at me.

The itching of the net’s fibers is unbearable as it rubs my acid-etched
flesh, but I have only moments to think. I dislodge my head, but in the
process thrust an arm through a hole in the netting.

“It’s a mermaid!” a young sailor calls. His low voice reverberates
through me, and I recognize its timber. He’s the leader of the beautiful
songs. Seen from my angle, he could be a broad-shouldered merman, fair
hair shining, and twitching playfully. I must remember it’s lifeless—a
breeze is moving it so.

What is wrong with me? I’m being foolish. He is not a merman. I’ve known
that from the start. He’s a monster!

His eyes pierce me. I look away.

His men also spot me, and the harpoonist drops it to the deck, unused.
They want me alive, now?

As they lift me by the arm, I struggle. “Watch out! She’s a slippery
one!” Cursing, I slice the rope at the bottom with my shard, widening it
enough to pull free.

As I slip my arm out, tension in my fluke loosens, and I descend to the
seabed.

Flattened on the eelgrass, I peer at the defeated kraken, tentacles limp
in death. I place my palms on my forehead and let my locks twirl and
untwirl around my figures until my muscles loosen.

I examine myself. I’m mauve from the acid, and I sting all over, but the
inner layers of my skin are intact.

A drop of blood appears on the back of my hand. I press my lips on the
cut and vibrate to close the wound. I don’t even know if that will work.
It’s only a rumor about my Cockle kin’s medicine. The vibration does
slow the formation of another drop, but not quickly enough. I’ll have to
wait before returning to the kelp forest, so I won’t poison any kin.

The sailors’ net descends over and over, but I normally take four
breaths between dawn and high sun, so I can wait them out. As the
Kraken’s clears, I can see the ship’s dark hull unmoving above me. I
conserve the air I have by going into a trance. A sea trout nudges my
hair and takes a nibble. I don’t so much as twitch a hair, though brown
trout are my favorite delicacies.

Finally the ship leaves.

I hope I’ll never hear that mesmerizing song again.