‘She can’t hear me, and I cannot understand her.’
‘Who, lad?’
‘The woman of the sea. I see her in my dreams. She writhes and wiggles beneath the blue, seaweed wrapped around her lithe hips, sparkling like a million pennies slipping through my fingers.’
The old sailor studied him beneath the brim of his weather-beaten hat.
‘Lad, are ye struck with fever? The sea has got to ye. The ocean can play tricks on a man’s mind, son. Best be going below deck and resting those weary thoughts.’
‘No,’ he said, his eyes fixed upon the black horizon. ‘I think I will stay a while. The moon shimmers, and tonight I’m sure she will rise again from the depths. I can hear her distant song. I don’t know her words, but it is beautiful.’
The old sailor shifted uneasily.
‘Oh, aye. Them sirens have got ye all right. I canna stop ye from staying, but make sure ye come down soon. And nae more talk of her in front of the other shipmen. They’ll be spooked enough without tales of sea-women creeping into their dreams.’
The boy smiled, though his heart had already drifted far beyond the ship.
And soon enough, she came.
First, there was only the song.
It slipped across the water so softly that he thought the wind had begun to sing. The waves began to shimmer beneath the moon, silver spilling over their dark crests. From somewhere below, a pale shape moved through the blue-black depths.
Her smile ascended before the rest of her.
Then came the shimmer of her skin, and the graceful curve of her tail as it circled through the waves. Seaweed clung to her like a gown woven by the ocean itself. She rose and fell with the tide, never quite touching the world he knew.
The melody deepened.
It was the voice of the ocean, like waves breaking against distant shores, of moonlight trembling upon the water. Each note seemed to wind itself around his heart, drawing him nearer to the rail.
She was saying something.
Her lips formed words he could not understand, words from some ancient place beneath the verdigris depths. Yet somehow, he felt their meaning. There was longing in them. Loneliness. A question carried across the water between two creatures who could see one another, but could never truly speak.
‘Who are you?’ he whispered.
She tilted her head.
For one breathless moment, the song stopped.
The sea grew still.
And beneath the moon’s cold, silvery light, she smiled at him as though she had heard every word before descending beneath the verdigris.
