Drowning Mermaids

Chapters 16 - 25

Chapter 16: The Fall of Bimini

Aazuria was rendered speechless. She remembered the lively young man she had spoken to only a few days ago. He had been full of vibrant energy and blunt, unsophisticated honesty. He had been a slightly more primitive and mediocre version of his big brother. But it did not seem possible that…

“I should have married him. I should have married him,” Brynne was moaning. “This is all my fault.”

“What do you mean?” Aazuria asked numbly. She had grown confused again.

Brynne tried to control her sniffles enough to speak coherently. “We dated for a while. A few years ago. You know how it is: close quarters on the ship, working together every day… he always made me laugh.” The brunette smiled through her tears. “But I thought… I thought he was beneath me—he had a lot of bad habits. Maybe if I had accepted one of his many proposals things would be different. Sometimes men change when they get married, don’t they?”

“I do not believe it works that way, dear,” Aazuria answered softly.

“He killed himself,” Brynne whispered. “At least I think he did. He was acting crazy. He said he saw a woman in the water…”

“What?” Aazuria sat up to attention. She looked at the other woman grimly and infused her tone with hardness. “Tell me exactly what happened.”

Brynne nodded, wiping her nose on her sleeve and trying to calm her gasping breaths. “I… I was cooking. He took me aside. He asked me if I would reconsider marrying him if he was the permanent captain of the Magician. I laughed—I laughed at him and said that Trevain would sooner appoint me to that position than a lazy ass like Callder. Then he got angry and said something weird… he said that if I didn’t want him, he was going to go with the woman in the water…”

“What did she look like?” Aazuria demanded.

“What? What does that matter? He was just saying nonsense…”

“Any detail you remember matters!” Aazuria responded firmly.

“I think he said that she was blonde,” she said, sniffling. “She was wearing a black dress with some strange necklaces…”

“Necklaces?” Aazuria gripped Brynne’s shoulders. “This is not a joke. What kind of necklaces?”

“He mentioned shark’s teeth… lots of shark’s teeth. Callder’s always had a thing for them. He said that she had beckoned him to go away with her—and that he would go if I didn’t stop him. I just laughed and told him it was his lamest pick-up line yet, and I went back to cooking. He left, and skipped dinner, but I thought it was because he was mad at me. He usually gets moody like that after I reject him. Except no one has seen him since then.” Silent tears began to fall over Brynne’s cheeks again. “God, it’s all my fault.”

“It is not your fault, Brynne.” Aazuria closed her eyes. A black dress and shark’s teeth. This cannot be what I believe it is. My people wear green, and whoever lured Callder was definitely not one of us. The only sea-dwellers who wear shark’s teeth are…  but it cannot be them. We defeated them ages ago in Japan! It cannot be the clan I am thinking of—but who else would dress like that?  It seems that Trevain and I share a common enemy—whether he is aware of their existence or not.

“What does it all mean?” Brynne whispered.

“It is not good news,” Aazuria told her honestly. “Listen to me, Brynne. Do not go out on the water anymore. Do you hear me?” When the woman nodded, Aazuria sighed. “Thank you for the information.”