Chapter Text
Scilly Isles, Cornwall
March 22, CY 1, 2012 AD
Orla Fallon awoke to a gentle rocking motion. She blinked, trying to identify her surroundings. The space was dim. She lay on something soft with something else soft on top of her.
She sat up, but instantly regretted it when her head hit something. She flopped back down onto her back. She groaned and put a hand to her head. She didn't feel anything damp, so she apparently wasn't bleeding. That was good. That also meant she was alive.
She was instantly even more alert than she already was. If she was alive, that meant she'd found a mage...or maybe that mage had found her. It also meant she was probably still in that person's company. Furthermore, it meant that Marido was probably alive, too.
“Ya-Marido?” she croaked, hoping the other woman might be in the room.
“Oh!” said a voice that Orla recognized as belonging to Marido—called Mairead—Nesbitt, “you're awake!”
Orla gently drew back a light blanket, turned her head, and carefully sat up, mindful not to bump her head again on what she now saw in the dim, greenish light was a low ceiling. She swung her legs over the edge of what appeared to be a bed. She peered across the room at someone—probably Marido--sitting on another bed. No, it looked more like a bunk.
“Are we on a boat?” said Orla.
“I think so.”
“Can we...get a bit more light?”
The other woman stood up, took a few steps toward a wall, then pulled aside a small curtain. Grey daylight spilled through a small, oval window. It was enough to illuminate both Marido and the room they occupied. It was small, maybe ten by eight feet. A pair of bunk beds occupied each wall. The lowermost bed sat on a pair of drawers and two vertical lockers squeezed between the beds and the door.
Marido looked out the window.
“Sah,” she said, “we do indeed appear to be on a boat.”
“When did that happen?”
“I've no idea. We were unconscious. I only woke up a few minutes ago myself.”
Orla looked herself over. Someone had dressed her in a grey-green tee-tunic woven out of some wool-like fiber. It came down to just below her knees and the sleeves ended halfway to her elbow. She looked back at Marido, who wore an identical garment, but sized for her smaller frame. She was also barefooted.
Orla looked down and wiggled her evenly-sized, fan-arranged toes. She ran one foot down her calf and over its dewclaw, then fingered the two-inch-long bony protuberance that was an external extension of her ulna.
“Well,” said Orla, “they know what we are.”
“Or at least what we're not,” said Marido.
“We're alive, aren't we?”
“Unless this is the afterlife.”
Orla chuckled ruefully. “Lein, I'm quite sure it isn't.”
“But what if it is?”
“Then a lot of people are going to be very surprised, myself included.”
Animated voices floated down from somewhere overhead. Orla and Marido looked at each other. Orla stood up, then paused to steady herself.
“Sishobuka?” said Marido. Are you alright?
“Ai,” yes.
Orla stepped over and tried the door. It opened easily.
“That's a good sign, innit?” said Marido.
“Seems like.”
The two women stepped out into a narrow hallway. It was bathed in a soft, green glow coming from recessed lights along the ceiling.
Marido peered at one of them. The bulb had been removed and the interior of the fixture smeared with something that glowed in the dark. “Magic?” she said.
“If it is,” said Orla, “I don't feel it. I think it's something else. It looks familiar, though.”
“We seem to be in the right place, then.”
“That remains to be seen,” said Orla as she led the way toward a set of stairs at the end of the hall.
“Eh?” asked Marido.
“We know what they are, but we still don't know if they're the sort of people with whom we should be associating.”
“They saved our lives, didn't they?”
“But to what end?”
Voices sounded from down the hallway. The pair barely got out of the way as four children thundered past them, a woman in hot pursuit. “Sugiwe,” excuse me, she said as she rushed by.
Orla and Marido looked at each other.
“They also have children,” said Marido, “and they speak Ingarian. How evil can they be?”
Orla smiled, then shrugged. “There's one way to find out.”
Hayley Westenra sat at a small table in what was called the Common Room of Gareth Perry's yacht Amphitrite. She glanced over at Chloe Agnew, who sat next to her nursing a mug of tea brewed from something called athalas. Neither woman had ever heard of it, but it was delicious!
At the other end of the room, near a set of large, open doors, an argument of sorts was underway.
“She's what?! And you're what?! And she's what?!” blurted a young man.
“You see?” said a second man, but more calmly. “This is exactly why I didn't tell you before.”
Motion to Hayley's right caught her attention. She turned to see Orla and Mairead—or maybe it really was Marido, Hayley still wasn't quite sure—crest the stairs leading from the cabins on the lower deck.
“Oh!” she said. “You're up!”
Orla and Mairead looked at Hayley and Chloe and smiled broadly. The four women exchanged hugs.
“You both seem to be doing better,” said Hayley. She noticed that both her friends' eyes still looked bigger than they should be, but she said nothing.
“Ai,” said Mairead. “Much. Thank-you.” She looked at Chloe. “How's the ankle?”
“Um,” said Chloe, “they fixed it. Don't know how. Hurt like a bugger.”
“Magic,” said Orla.
Chloe regarded her friend for a moment. “I believe you. Wouldn't have if you'd just told me, though.”
“So what's this?” said Orla, gesturing toward the heated conversation across the room.
“Oh, that,” said Hayley. “You wouldn't believe it. Or maybe you would. Anyway, the one man...the upset one...is Rhys. The other is his best friend Neil Perry. Neil's dad owns the boat. We're, um, on a boat, by the way.”
“So I gathered,” said Mairead.
Hayley nodded. “The pregnant woman's Neil's wife Nalaya. Rhys is upset because Neil waited until just now to tell him Nalaya's...and I almost feel silly saying it...an alien.”
“I see,” said Orla. She sounded confused about something.
“And I mean,” said Hayley, “not just a foreigner, but an extraterrestrial. Can you believe it? Actual aliens! From...outer space! It's...well, it's a little surreal.”
“Yes,” said Orla, “I do believe it.”
Mairead rounded on Orla. “You told me that's impossible! You told me if I coupled with a human, it would kill me!”
“Sah!” said Orla defensively. “And it will!”
“Oh, really?!” Mairead gestured toward Nalaya.
“Maybe it was in vitro?” said Orla.
“You're telling me,” continued Rhys, “that you had sex with her?!”
“Of course I've had sex with her!” said Neil. “She's my wife! We have sex all the time! That's what married people do!”
“You were saying?” said Mairead.
Orla looked across the room, then back at Mairead. “It shouldn't be possible! I...I don't understand.”
Mairead crossed her arms and glared at Orla.
“You,” said Hayley, “you two...know about this?”
Mairead looked sideways at Hayley and cocked an eyebrow.
“Of course we do,” said Orla.
Chloe's hands flew up to her mouth and she gasped. “Oh, my God!” she said, staring at Mairead and Orla. “You're...you're...you're...”
Orla cocked an eyebrow. “Ai?”
Hayley followed Chloe's gaze to Orla's and Mairead's elbows and started. Both women had a couple of inches of--Hayley couldn't tell if it was horn, bone, or something else--protruding from their elbows and following the lines of their lower arms. “Egad!” she said. She looked up again, then to Mairead, then back to Orla, briefly locking her own eyes with each of their larger ones. “Why...why didn't you tell us?”
Orla gestured toward Rhys, who was still ranting. “That's why.”
“Never mind why,” said Chloe, “how? We practically lived together on tour. I've seen both of your bare elbows more times than I can count. So have our audiences, for that matter.”
“And my feet,” said Orla, lifting one off the floor. She turned it sideways to show the dewclaw protruding from the lower end of her calf, the dual Achilles tendons clearly visible on both sides of the claw, which was easily as large as a human's big toe. Chloe gasped. “Magic,” said Orla. “Camouflage spell, to be precise.” She returned her foot to the floor. “Didn't help much with the shoes, though. That's one limitation. We can mask the appearance of our feet, but they still have to function as designed, which means human shoes hurt. Hence Marido's comments to that effect the other day.” She glanced to the other end of the room and exhaled. “Would you excuse me, please?”
She turned and raised her voice and her arms with it. “YA-RHYS!” Her voice filled the space and silence followed. “It is Rhys, is it not?” Rhys looked her direction. “Would you please get over it?”
“What?” said Rhys.
“I said, please get over it. We're more alike than we are different. Nalaya's not a threat to you or anyone else. Please at least be polite to her.”
“But she's an alien!”
“So am I!” said Orla. “And to her, it's the other way 'round.”
“What?!”
“Ya-Rhys!” Orla sounded thoroughly irritated, her usual gesticulations growing more animated. “Calm down! If you don't, I shall walk over there, personally rip out your throat, and make you watch me eat it as you die! Do I make myself clear?”
Rhys spluttered, but clamped his mouth shut.
Orla rolled her eyes and turned back to her friends. “And that is why we impersonate you when we're here. Your people have been dreaming of First Contact for years. Not only has it already been made...centuries ago, in fact...I'm not convinced you, as a group, are ready for it.”
“Would you really have done that?” said Hayley nervously. She wasn't sure if her feelings were from the lingering tension in the room, or a bit of shock that sweet, gentle, mild-mannered Orla would say something like that. “I mean, ripped out his throat and...” She couldn't quite finish the sentence.
Orla snorted. “Of course not,” she said quietly. “But he was being...migldi magldi.”
“What?”
“Generally...erm...neither here nor there...that's one way of interpreting it. Or maybe...neither fish, nor fowl, nor good red meat. Or...je ne sais quoi. That sort of thing.” She turned to Mairead and gently took her arms. “Ya-Marido, I really have no idea why they're both still alive.”
“I...I'm still confused,” said Chloe.
“Let's sit down,” said Orla. After they'd returned to the table, Orla continued. “We might look a lot like you, but we are not you. A couple of centuries ago, a human man and an Ingarian woman married. Now, you must understand that consummation of the marriage is part of an Ingarian wedding.”
Hayley gasped.
“You...you're putting us on!” laughed Chloe.
“Lein...no, I'm not. Both bride and groom dropped dead within minutes. Details have been...omitted from every account I've ever read, which probably means they were rather disturbing. Even the coroner's reports remain sealed. There was an awful lot of fuss over it. Eighty years later, a human woman and an Ingarian man tried the same thing with the same results. People were livid. Several historians have asserted that had the incidents happened much closer together, Ingary would likely have attacked Earth. And believe me, it wouldn't have gone well. Magical warfare is extremely messy. That's partly why there are only three billion of us and seven billion of you. It wasn't until much later that we discovered what really happened and why. To my knowledge, no one's attempted it since. Clearly I've missed something.”
“I'm sorry about all of that,” said Neil who'd stepped up to the other side of the table. “Rhys really isn't all that bad. He's just...a bit shocked. He kind of has trouble with surprises. He's actually more upset that I kept that kind of a secret from him...and he was a bit taken with Nalaya. You should have seen his face drop the day I told him she and I were to marry. It nearly fell off his head. I don't think he really has a problem with Ingarians.”
“Good,” said Orla, “because we don't really have a problem with humans. Actually, we rather like you...most of the time.”
Neil smiled. “We rather like you, too. Well, those of us who really know about you. You're quite charming.”
“Loramin.” Thank-you.
“This is still surreal,” said Hayley.
Neil chuckled. “I know the feeling.”
“And I have a dozen questions to ask and I want to ask them all at once,” said Orla.
“I know that feeling, too. Anyway, we're glad to see you're both feeling better. You two gave us quite a scare.”
Orla chuckled ruefully. “We gave ourselves quite a scare.”
Neil sat down. “We have plenty of time,” he said. “Ask away.”
“Where are we?”
“A bit northeast of the Scilly Isles. We plan to layover there while we decide what to do next.”
“Oh,” said Orla. She sounded disappointed. “I was rather hoping we were on Ingary. Silly, I know.”
“What's it like?” asked Chloe excitedly.
Orla turned to her and Hayley. “Oh, you should see it! Rather like here, really. But with a shimmering ring stretched across the sky.” She made a sweeping motion with her hand. “We even have things like cattle, dogs, chickens, trees, grass, and so on. They look a little different from yours, but I daresay you might be a bit disappointed. Though we do have some other things you don't. And some things you used to have, but don't anymore.” She turned to Neil. “I don't suppose you've been in touch with Ingary? I lost contact a few years back. It was quite unsettling.”
Neil's face fell and his mouth dropped slightly. “Oh. Oh, dear. I...erm...ah...” He stood up quickly. “Stay here. I'll be right back. Don't...just stay here.” He hurried out of the room.
Hayley blinked, then brushed a stray strand of her dirty-blonde hair out of her face and tucked it behind an ear. “What was that all about?”
“I don't know,” said Orla, “but whatever it was, I have a very bad feeling about it.”
A few moments later, Neil reappeared, shot the four Celtic Women a concerned look, then trotted down the stairs to the lower deck. A few minutes after that, he returned laboring under a large printer-paper box. He walked over and lowered it carefully onto the table. He removed the lid, then lifted out several reams of paper with something printed on it. It looked like some sort of list.
“What's that?” said Chloe.
“Database,” said Neil. “Printed a hard-copy last month off back-ups after my hard drive crashed. Migldi magldi.” He shook his head. “I'm...very sorry. We should go over this first.”
“First?” said Orla. “What do you mean first?”
He looked at Orla. “Name?”
Orla hesitated. “Orla Fallon.”
Neil rifled through bound sections of paper, pulled one out, and thumbed through it. He frowned. “Maiden name or married?”
“Married name.”
Neil frowned and shook his head slowly. “No Fallons. Maiden name?”
“Just what's that a database of?” said Orla.
“I'm getting to that,” said Neil. “Maiden name?” he asked again.
Orla just stared at him. He inclined his head expectantly. His expression softened slightly. “It's...important,” he said.
“Selthby,” she said.
Neil pulled out another bound stack and thumbed through it. “No Selthbies. Any other next of kin?”
Orla hesitated.
“What's your country of origin?”
“High Norland.”
“That's a little more promising. It so happens we have a Norlander here with us.”
“One?”
Neil ignored the question and looked at Mairead. “And you?”
“Erm...Mairead Nesbitt. But my real name's Marido.”
Well, thought Hayley, that answered one question.
“Married name or maiden?”
“Maiden.”
Neil pulled out another bound stack and thumbed through that one. He sighed. “No Nesbitts either.”
“I'm...adopted anyway,” said Marido.
“I see,” said Neil. “Country of origin?”
“Ireland?”
Neil raised an eyebrow, then smiled disarmingly. “We both know you're not really Irish. What's your real country of origin?”
“Montalbino...I think. At least, that's what I was told.”
“Please,” said Orla, “is...this about my family?” She sounded agitated.
“She's right,” said Marido. “If you're going to ask us questions, could you at least tell us why?”
A middle-aged woman stepped up to the table. Hayley recognized her as Megan Perry, even without the bi-colored soft pink and forest-green hair. She looked at Neil, who shook his head slightly. She sat slowly and gracefully at the table, then reached over and took Orla's hand in one of hers and Marido's in her other. She took a deep breath, held it, then let it back out. “I've had this discussion far more often than anyone should. No matter how many times and how many ways, it never gets any easier.”
Orla stiffened, as though she somehow knew what was coming and it seemed to Hayley that it didn't take a genius to know what that was.
“Yes, Orla...Marido...it's about your families. That database my son has...it's a list of survivors.”
Orla made a slight squeaking sound.
“Survivors of what?” said Marido.
“There's no easy way to say it. Every other Ingarian we've ever met lived through it. You're the first we've encountered who haven't and who apparently don't even know. Ingary is gone.”
“G...gone?” squeaked Orla.
“What do you mean, gone?” said Marido. “Ingary's a planet. How can it be gone?”
Hayley felt an abrupt spike in the emotional tension. It was suddenly so thick, she could have practically cut it with a knife.
“Five years ago,” said Megan, “Krakanen went supernova. The shockwave destroyed everything within a five light-year radius.”
Hayley blinked. She figured Megan would say something about someone in Orla's and Mairead's...Marido's, she reminded herself...family dying from something...or maybe some natural disaster like a flood or some-such. As a Kiwi, her own homeland was prone to earthquakes, which could be destructive. She would never have expected, 'oh, by the way, your planet's been destroyed!' Hayley was nearly in shock herself and it wasn't even her planet!
“I'm very, very sorry,” said Megan, a tear rising to each eye. Hayley could tell the woman sincerely meant that with every fiber of her being.
Orla started to cry. It quickly escalated to an anguished wail. She tipped her head back and howled in agony, then collapsed onto the table and began to sob violently.
Marido began to cry, too, but not remotely as much. She lowered her forehead onto Orla's twitching shoulder.
Megan stood up, walked around the table, and put her arms around both crying women. Hayley and Chloe just stared.
“Ya-Hayley? Ya-Chloe?” said Neil. They looked at him. “They had family, didn't they?”
“Y...yes,” said Chloe. “Orla has...had...a husband and a son. And Mairead is...was...married. But...”
“But we thought they were Irish,” said Hayley.
Neil made some notes on his papers, then set them aside. “You're their friends. They're going to need you. You don't have to have a degree in psychology, or anything so dramatic. Just be here for them. They'll heal eventually. What you need to know is that the Ingarian grieving process is usually much shorter than ours, but also much more intense. You also need to know that every Ingarian on this ship and the other one has been through this. And we were there alongside them. You're not alone and neither are your friends.”
Nalaya padded over and put her arms around Orla and Marido as both their shoulders shook. Others drifted into the room and joined the group hug. Hayley and Chloe rose slowly to their own feet and put their own arms around the growing knot of people.
Hayley felt tears rising up in her own eyes. She could swear she could feel the grief pouring out of her friends as though it were so much perspiration. Her mind spun. Sometimes she'd had bad daydreams about what might happen if her own fiance Arnaud were to die and how she might handle it. None of them came close to what Orla and Mairead were surely enduring. Could she even truly imagine it, let alone understand? She'd have to try. No...do or do not, there was no try...even if it ultimately proved impossible.
The sun sank toward the sea beyond the Scilly Isles, which in turn rose as bumps out of the gently-rolling waves. Some of the northeastern-most islands, mostly small, rocky points, drifted past them off the port beam. A taut, stout tow-rope connected Amphitrite's bow to Loriesha's stern. That ship's masts stood tall above her, sails full in a stiff breeze.
Hayley stepped out onto the forward quarterdeck, Chloe right behind her. She could feel the texture of the well-finished wooden decking beneath her bare feet. Going bare-footed was surprisingly comfortable and she wondered why she hadn't done it more often. Her heels kept trying to bob up off the deck, probably a result of short tendons from wearing high-heeled shoes so often over so many years. She was beginning to think her brother might have been right about what he'd long teased her about “those evil spikes” of hers. Even Chloe had been without shoes since the morning after the crash, which she didn't seem to mind either. For that matter, neither did Orla and Mairead, and probably for different reasons, though they had other things on their minds.
Both Ingarian women had been crying almost continually for hours. “Crying” would have been a mild term. The reality had been much closer to what Hayley had envisioned from reading biblical references to tearing one's clothing and sitting in sack-cloth and ashes while wailing and gnashing one's teeth. It had been physically painful just hearing, let alone watching, it. And both Hayley and Chloe had been taking turns holding first one of their friends and then the other.
The hours all ran together in an unpleasant blur of emotional pain. Both Hayley and Chloe had cried, too—partly in shared mourning over Marido's late husband Jim, who'd been their friend too, and partly from empathy with their grieving friends. At some point, though Hayley hadn't bothered to note when, the crying had tapered off—at which point she and Chloe had gone below to address their persistently-growling stomachs.
Orla stood near the bow, Marido right behind her. Both women had their hair pinned up in a bun. Orla sang what Hayley recognized as her song “Distant Shore.” Only Orla wasn't singing it in English...or in Gaelic. It must have been...Ingarian. It was beautiful and filled with such anguish as Hayley had never felt before. It was nearly tangible.
Hayley and Chloe walked across the deck and stopped a couple of yards behind their friends. They waited, listening to Orla's song, tears welling up in their own eyes. When she'd finished, she sank to her knees and began to sob anew. Marido stepped up and placed a hand on her shoulder and Hayley and Chloe joined her.
Hayley exchanged a pained look with Mairead...Marido. Bother, that was confusing! After a few minutes, the crying subsided and Orla rose shakily to her feet.
Orla looked at her friends. “Thank-you,” she said softly.
Animated voices rose from somewhere on Loriesha. The four Celtic Women looked in that direction. The rope between the ships went suddenly slack and people on the other ship rushed to her rails, looking downward into the water. Amphitrite turned slightly to starboard and quickly overtook the other ship. Chloe stepped up onto the bow and leaned out.
“Ya-Chloe,” said Marido, “don't...you know you can't swim.”
“Don't worry,” said Chloe absently. “I'm just...”
The ship's bow rope whipped up suddenly out of the water and went taut with a malevolent thrumming sound, followed by an angry creak. Amphitrite lurched, listing sharply to starboard. Chloe lost her balance, yelped, and fell over. Marido lunged. Her fingers brushed Chloe's outstretched hand as the other woman fell.
Hayley watched in horror as Chloe half slid, half rolled, wide-eyed toward the starboard edge of the boat. She grabbed frantically at the upper hull, but her fingers only slipped off of the smooth fiberglass and she flipped over the edge with a terrified shriek.
“CHLOE!” Hayley heard a splash. The boat shifted a bit more, then bobbed upright.
People shouted back and forth between the boats while Hayley, Marido, and Orla scrambled toward the edge on hands and knees.
“Man overboard!” called a man from further aft.
Hayley caught a blur of motion as someone dove off the deck next to her. She couldn't be sure, but she thought it looked like Rhys.
A minute later, someone surfaced. “Holy shit!” It was Rhys.
“Where's Chloe?!” said Hayley.
“You won't believe it,” said Rhys as he tread water. He turned and started to swim toward the stern. The three Celtic Women followed him along the foredeck as far as they could, then rushed down into the ship, hurried through the Common Room, emerged onto the aft quarterdeck, and clambered down onto the fantail.
“What happened?” said Marido as she helped Rhys out of the water. “Where's Chloe?”
“She's...she's...she's...”
“Out with it, man!” said Orla. She still sounded on-edge. Hayley suspected it would be some time before her friend were otherwise.
Gareth and Mari appeared on the quarterdeck above them. “Rhys!” said Gareth. “Did you find her?”
“Ie,” yes, said Rhys. He was already starting to shiver. Mari tossed him a towel. “Thanks.” He caught it one-handed, then wrapped it around himself. “You won't believe it.”
“We might,” said Gareth.
“She...she's a bloody mermaid!”
Everyone blinked at him.
“Really?” said Orla.
“Ie. Well, her legs had turned into a tail. That's all I saw. Hard to see in salt water, you know? Couldn't tell if she was breathin' or anythin'...just the tail. Bloody hard to miss that!”
Orla grinned. “Our Chloe...a mermaid! How wonderful!”
“You think she'll agree?” said Mari.
“Why wouldn't she?” said Marido. “She's always liked mermaids.”
A disturbance in the water caught their attention. Chloe's head and shoulders bobbed about a yard off the fantail. She reached up and combed the hair out of her face, which bore a peculiar mix of expressions, dominated by competing fear and wonder.
Hayley knelt down and held out her hand. Chloe spit up what looked to Hayley to be an unnatural amount of water and paddled awkwardly over to her. Hayley grabbed her and, with Marido's help, pulled Chloe out of the water.
Chloe plopped herself down, dragged her waterlogged skirts up nearly to her hips, and hauled what was unmistakably a mermaid tail out of the water and let if fall unceremoniously to the deck with a dull splut. She sat there, panting, and stared at her tail. It was a beautiful peacock color, lighter on the ventral side, with variations on the lateral sides. The dorsal side was out of view. The tail terminated in a strong, broad, slightly forked fin. “Oh, my God!” she said finally.
“Whoo!” said Orla excitedly. She was practically vibrating, her grief apparently momentarily forgotten.
“Ya-Chloe!” said Mari. “That's beautiful!” She climbed down to join the others.
“Erm...thanks...I think,” said Chloe. “Now what?” She wiggled her fin up and down, curled a couple of feet of the tail upward in a graceful C, then lowered it back to the deck.
“I'm afraid I'm not quite sure,” said Orla.
“No idea,” said Mari. “But this has a lot of potential.”
“I...I'm a mermaid!” said Chloe. “Why am I a mermaid?!”
“No idea,” said Mari again.
“Ow,” said Chloe.
“It's a shock, sure,” said Marido.
“No,” said Chloe. “Ow! My...my tail...it hurts!”
“What?” said Orla.
“Why?” said Mari.
“How should I know?!” said Chloe. “Ahh...! It's...getting...hot!”
Hayley watched as Chloe's scales...scales!...started glowing, first a dull red, then lightening to a bright, bronzey color.
Chloe leaned back on her hands and started breathing heavily. She gasped, then gasped again, all the while staring at her tail. Tears welled up in her eyes and ran down her cheeks. She began to whimper. Steam rose copiously from the woolen fabric surrounding the base of Chloe's tail.
Hayley put an arm around her and held her close. “What can I do?”
“M...make it stop!” wailed Chloe.
Hayley looked up at the others, her gaze leveling at Mari. “Well?” she demanded. “You people can heal a broken ankle, fuse metal, unfold a ship, obliterate a road, and God knows what else! Do something!”
“Like what?” said Mari.
“Don't ask me!” Hayley looked back at Chloe, who quivered in her arms. “Look at her!”
“Wait,” said Mari. She pointed at Chloe's tail. “I think it's turning back into legs!”
Hayley looked. Sure enough, a deepening crease had developed in Chloe's tail. As she watched, and as Chloe continued to stare through her tears, the crease dove into the middle of the tail and split it in two. The scales receded into human skin and the now-separated fin lobes resolved into feet. The glow faded and Chloe gasped again, her breathing gradually steadying.
“Ow,” she croaked. Then, “Oh...” She struggled out of Hayley's arms, rolled to the edge of the fantail and threw up into the sea.
Hayley cringed. When Chloe was finished, she collapsed against Hayley, gasping. “That sucked,” she croaked.
“Here,” said Hayley, again putting her arms around her friend, “let's get you inside. Need a drink?”
“Do I ever,” groaned Chloe.
Hayley and Marido helped Chloe up to the quarterdeck. The men ducked inside while Hayley helped Chloe out of her wet clothes and wrapped her in a large towel before leading her into the Common Room. They sat her down at a table. Mari trotted fore and disappeared, returning a few minutes later with a mug of something.
“Sorry it isn't warm,” said Mari. “Maybe later?”
Chloe nodded and took the mug gratefully.
“Well,” said Gareth, “that was...interesting.”
“Interesting?” said Chloe.
“What happened?” said Hayley. “I mean, with the ships.”
“Loriesha ran aground. Our momentum kept us going, pulled taut on the bow line, and we listed...all a bit too abruptly. I thought we didn't have enough line, and it looks like I was right. Anyway, it looks like we're going to have to sit tight and wait for high tide. Then we'll move into deeper water and seek harbor for the night. We're calling an all-hands meeting after breakfast tomorrow morning over on Loriesha.”
Gareth looked at Rhys. “Thank-you, ya-Rhys.”
“No problem,” said Rhys.
“No, I mean it. That was selfless of you and I appreciate it. Now, go below and get into some dry clothes.”
Rhys nodded, then looked at Chloe. “You okay?” he asked her. Chloe nodded and Rhys disappeared below deck.
Mari put a hand on Chloe's shoulder. “Are you going to be alright?”
Chloe nodded. “Aye. I think so. Thank-you. That was...well, I'm not sure...weird. And unspeakably painful.”
“I believe you. Maybe you should stay away from edges for a while, though.”
Chloe nodded again. “Yeh...I think you're right. Oh, and do you have anything with alcohol in it? I think I could really use that sort of drink, too.”
“I'm afraid we don't,” said Gareth. “A little for cooking, but that's it. Ya-Mari? Would you make a note of that? We should cover that at the meeting.”
Mari scribbled something on a small note pad.
Someone walked up to Gareth and said something in Ingarian. A brief conversation ensued. Gareth looked back at the Celtic Women. “If you'll excuse me, it looks like I have some more captaining to do.”
Hayley, Chloe, Orla, and Marido looked at each other and smiled weakly.
Hayley Westenra lay in bed. The cabin was dark except for the faint, greenish glow of the bioluminescent fungus spread on the light cover near the door.
In the bunk across from her, Chloe snored softly, somehow managing to do so in a ladylike manner. Transforming into a mermaid--or, rather, to whatever it was one should call the “sporting a tail” version--and back had taking a lot out of Chloe, for she'd fallen asleep as soon as her head had hit her pillow.
In the bunk beneath hers, Orla's periodic squeaks and sniffles had tapered off. She'd cried herself to sleep, but now her breathing was slow, rhythmic, and mercifully peaceful. Hayley prayed her friend's dreams would be equally so.
Across from Orla, Marido was apparently also asleep. Hayley hadn't heard a sound out of her in some time.
Hayley sighed. Having been on tour with all three women, she was well used to the peaceful sounds of them sleeping. While she herself felt similarly at peace, their day had been anything but. Her head still spun. Technology no longer worked, magic was real, two of her friends were extraterrestrials whose planet had been destroyed and a third was a mermaid! It was like something out of a weird science fiction novel.
She knew rumors traveled quickly and she wondered if the other Celtic Woman survivors on the other boat...ship...had heard any of it. She hadn't had much contact with any of them since Cardiff. That wasn't saying much, as all of them, with the exception of herself and Chloe, had been unconscious for a while.
She wondered how the others were doing. Had they been...repaired...the way Chloe's ankle had? Ray Fean, Andreja Malir, Rosemary Collier, and David Downes had simply been put into “magical stasis,” whatever that was, and had been carried aboard Loriesha like Orla and Marido had been carried aboard Amphitrite. Two women--Megan and someone named Sophie Pendragon--had said they were surprised any of the Celtic Woman survivors were alive at all. That had worried Hayley greatly, but then she'd become a bit distracted by subsequent events.
She'd probably find out more at the next day's meeting. Then there'd probably be more of the same all over again. She sighed. Eventually, the gentle rocking of the yacht put her to sleep.