A Mermaid's Cry

Chapter 40-Fooling Humans

"Now remember the rules girls," Madame Costa utters, passing out straw bonnets like hers, to Adila, Octavia, and me. "No growling, fighting, biting, hunting, or using inhuman sounds while you can be noticed. Also, it would be best to come up with a simple explanation for you three being in the company of the lads."

Adila and Zola chuckle at that, earning curious glances from all of our sweat streaked faces.
"Already thought of Madame," Zola replies with a sly grin, wiggling the fingers of his sling wrapped arm. "Arcus and Corintha are cousins, so are Adila and me. Now Ares and Octavia will be tricky, but we can pass them off as siblings."

"And how pray tell will we do that?" Octavia cuts in, securing her bonnet atop her blond white locks. "Last time I checked, Ares is only related to me through marriage, on his mother's side no less."

"Simple," Ares drawls, glancing up towards the branches of the forest overhead. "We just say we are half siblings. I wouldn't doubt there is a lot of those little bastards running around this one horse town."

I sigh, leaning my head back and gazing up into the jungle canopy. "If only life could be that simple," I whisper, closing my eyelids against the beating sun finding its way through the gaps in the trees.

"Unfortunately not my dear," Madame Costa drawls, jerking my head up just as the cart emerges from the trees and onto ordered fields of fruit trees.

Adila, Octavia, and I, look on in wonder at the structures of large huts and sheds we've only ever seen in books. Their names quickly appear in my mind, along with the names of the animals set behind long wooden fences. Barns thatched with palms fronds and straw, surrounded by cows chewing up muddy grass and pot bellied pigs rooting in the wet earth.

As our cart trundles on past, we see human males mending fences in the summer heat. While females in aprons and long skirts, hang linens, feed hordes of chickens, and wrangle barefooted children out of mud puddles and set them to work. It amazes me how different their homes are from us, their walls made of stone and roofs patched in strips of uniform clay squares.

Before I know it, more humans appear on the road. Some carrying baskets, others pulling small carts full of wood, and others driving carts pulled by oxen, horses, or mules. Seeing this, Adila and I swiftly tie on the straw bonnets onto our heads. A wise decision that we did, for one moment we are surrounded by clear farming fields, and the next passing through tall stone walls and into Port Valor itself.

The smells assault my nose, putrid brine, burning metal, manure, rotting food, and the stink of unwashed bodies. Thankfully, I'm not the only one in the cart to notice the foul odors flowing across our bodies like a miasma of rot and decay.

"Hells, I'm never going to get used to that stench," Arcus grumbles, making us chuckle as the cart rocks against the uneven cobbles of the muddy street.

I try to ignore the jostling transport, and instead look on in wonder at the port laid out before me. Depicted just like in the illustrations and maps I've poured over late at night, when I would sneak over to Octavia's as a youngster. Blacksmiths, cobblers, bookshops, weavers, and small shops pass us by. All built of wood and stone, water dripping of the roofs and pooling onto the ground below.

The port is alive with people walking about, carriages and carts hurrying on by. Tri-corned hatted riders, maneuver their horses through. White capped females, steer their gaggles of children and flushed faced older daughters, along the raised wooden platforms above the slight refuse and muck of the dusty street.

However, as we travel onward towards the smell of salt, tar, and the sounds of screeching gulls. The sturdy buildings slowly start to change, and so do the humans. The refuse becomes more evident, the buildings pressed tightly together, showing off their chipped paint and warped wood. Garishly dressed females, wave and smile at men in coats long faded and teeth long turned to yellow rotted stumps.

An unsettling feeling seeps into my stomach, as bone-thin youngsters play amongst the puddles, and even around the carcass of a dead dog. Bile clogs in my throat as Drago brings the cart to a stop, in front of the only building that seems that it will not topple over in the next storm.

"Here you are dears," Madame Costa announces, as Arcus leaps out of the cart and offers a hand to help me out.  "Now remember what I told you, and be patient. All good things come to those who wait. And don't worry, Drago and I will be back shortly to fetch you all. I trust what you will learn here, will be helpful indeed."

We all nod silently, while Zola clambers out of the cart with Octavia right behind him. Maneuvering her body so that her skirt does not ride up, acting ever the delicate image of a human female. Once they are off, I slip away and up onto the wooden platform in front of the building. Octavia follows, mimicking my movements of keeping the hem of my skirt from not touching the ground, without exposing my stockinged ankles.

"They are strange creatures aren't they?" Octavia whispers in my ear as Zola joins us on her side. "Including those males over there, looking at us as if we were in nothing but our undergarments."

"Indeed," I say, finding the two men in long leather coats with pistols strapped onto their belts across the road, staring at us with lecherous grins. "Especially since we have done nothing to warrant their attentions."

A cruel thought enters my brain, one awoken by Madame Costa's warning of hiding our inhuman like qualities. With Ares and Arcus occupied, currently helping a frustrated Adila out of the cart. I spy a small long faded sign, hanging directly above the leering humans.

Sliding close to Octavia, I cover my mouth as if whispering to her a malicious secret. "Why not teach them a lesson then?" I say, earning me an evil grin from her to match my own.

Nodding her head, we dip our heads down in a conspiring act. As if sensing our plan, Zola slides in front of us, pretending to join our supposed secret conversation. Peering over his shoulder, I see them there laughing and fixating their lustful gazes on Adila. My cause justified, and my rage brewing, I call on the training every Mer boy and girl has been taught. The humans call it the Siren's Call, a song that sends them into a dreamlike stupor. Seducing them off their ships and boats, straight into the sea to drown in the dark and deep.

However, that is not what it really is. True our gift makes the weak willed compliant and easily swayed, but it is more than just a mere song. It is sounds, vibrations, and subtle tones that we alone can produce from our throats. Yes we can sing, and even alter human emotions, but we can also makes sounds that no human ear can detect. Sounds that can move objects, or break them with a single subtle note.

That is what I do, sucking in a bit of air I produce a note so high, that it makes a dog howl as the chain of the sign snaps. The wooden slab falls onto the humans' heads, just as Adila greets the ground with wobbly feet. Drunken bystanders clamber around the men, as Arcus waves Costa and Drago off.

"What are you three doing?" Ares questions, making us jump in surprise as Arcus and Adila join us on the platform.

"Nothing," I reply, straightening my shawl and looping my arm through Octavia's. "Just teaching a few humans a lesson."

Ares frowns, and gazes towards the humans helping the downed fellows up. "Your supposed to keep from doing that Corintha," Ares drawls, raising a brow at Octavia snickering next to me.
"But don't make it a habit, I don't want to have to make a distraction on your behalf."

I find my mouth suddenly dry, as a deadly smile appears on his face. I nod, not knowing what I could say to answer his blatant remark. Thankfully, Arcus chooses that moment to open the door of the building and usher us inside. Zola swiftly goes first, Ares right behind him leaving us to follow. As we head on in, my skin prickles with a sense as if I were being watched. Gazing out onto the trash strewn road, I could swear I saw a figure disappear behind a fallen cart. Though unsettled, I pay no mind to it and instead allow Octavia to tow me along inside.
Straight into a room, that chills the blood inside my quickly stiffening limbs.