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“See?” I said, “It never works!”
“Keep trying,” he encouraged. “Maybe it just takes time.”
“I floated in the water, leaning my head back and listening to the hum of the falls nearby, my hair fanning around me like a giant lily pad. But I still had legs.
“Stop thinking so much about it,” Milo said. “Perhaps you can’t make it happen. Maybe you just need to let it happen.”
I sighed. Maybe he was right, whatever that meant. I decided to soak, enjoying the feeling of the water against my body. But it wasn’t enough. With slow, gentle movements, I slid out of my blouse and pants, and swam up to Milo, handing him the wet clothes.
“Can you put these somewhere dry?” I asked with a smile. “Please.”
He took the sopping wet bundle from my hand and placed it on a log beside him, only to look back at me with wandering eyes, though I knew he couldn’t see much with everything from my chest down below the water’s surface. I studied his face, honing in on his features in the moonlight.
“You have blood on you,” I finally acknowledged, noting the dark red spatters along his face and neck and dried in his hair. “From those men you…” It was hard for me to finish the sentence. He’d killed a man in front of me. He was never lying when he told me he’d done terrible things. And yet I didn’t feel afraid of him. I never had. And I never would. Only safe. Even when my siren side told me to turn against him.
“I was protecting you,” Milo uttered propping himself on his knee. “I couldn’t control myself when I saw what they did to you.” He reached down to touch my face, and I leaned forward to let him, but the siren in me yanked me back, recoiling when his fingertips hit my skin.
Don’t let him touch you.
I shook my head, trying to rid myself of the vile moment that took charge so quickly. “Sorry,” I muttered, “The voice in my head wants me to hate you. I don’t know why.”
“I have my theories,” Milo said, “but I’ll save them for when you’re feeling more like yourself.”
“But how can I? I’ve been here a while and I still don’t know how to change. What do I have to do, drown myself?” I slapped my hands against the water in frustration, but my own words caught my attention. “Wait…maybe that’s it. Last time I changed when I went unconscious…I couldn’t breathe any longer and I sucked in the water and…and I drowned.”
Milo leaned forward. “Mmm. That doesn’t sound like a pleasant transformation.”
“It wasn’t. But it makes sense,” I said, thinking harder about it. “The ocean rules us. And like Cordelia said, it’s more powerful than anything. So, I can’t just be in the water. I have to surrender to it.”
“You’re going to drown yourself?” Milo lifted an eyebrow.
“Don’t try and stop me,” I demanded. Before he could respond, I dove underneath the water, the bioluminescent sparkles lighting up the underwater world around me, and I swam to the bottom of the lagoon. It wasn’t very deep. Maybe ten feet or so, but I released my breath, letting myself sink to the bottom. Silt stirred up and smoked out the glow that comforted me, leaving me in darkness except for the surface above. I was terrified, but my siren was relishing every moment of it.
I could hear the muffled sound of Milo shouting my name. Every beat of my heart screamed for air. But siren Katrina held me under. I had to let her have control. All of it, for just this moment. As my consciousness faded, I could almost imagine a ghost of myself holding me under, pressing me against the stony, sandy bottom of this blue pool. And when my lungs felt ready to burst, I couldn’t suppress the instinct to open my mouth and desperately suck in a gulp of briny water. My lungs filled with the water, burning like hell and surely stopping my heart before the blurry, obscured lagoon floor became even darker. Nothingness.
And then I opened my eyes and everything around me shone crystal clear, as though looking through polished diamond. Bubbles from the waterfall crashed into the surface in the distance, creating a roiling thrashing of brightly glowing bubbles. And I was somehow…breathing…in a way that made no physical sense. But here I was, meters deep underwater and breathing as though I stood on land.
When the strands of my hair drifted away from my face, a glimmer below caught my eye. I looked down. And just below my waist connecting to my hips was a merging of skin into ethereal scales that sparkled silver-blue like the dress I’d worn to the gala, only more beautiful, and certainly more surreal. My fins fanned out at the base like wild petals that bloomed in spring, sheer and delicate. And when I wiggled the muscles that would have been my thighs and lower abdomen, the tail flicked, surging power through the water and propelling me upward with ease. I repeated the motion, rolling my waist and hips like the motion of waves, swimming upward, until I finally broke through the surface of the water.
Relief flooded over me, as I hit the cool night air, drenched in the most refreshing sensation I’d felt in my entire life. Like I’d been reborn. And like I could finally think clearly again. The fog in my head was gone, along with the devious siren whispering on my shoulder. I was me again.
I turned to see Milo, watching me with concern, as though ready to dive in after me. “Why don’t you come in and wash that blood off?” I smiled, flipping my tail up so that the two bottom caudal fins lifted out of the water, silver glowing droplets trickling off them.
When Milo didn’t say anything in response, I realized how truly entranced he was. He stood to his feet, never taking his eyes off me, and slowly pulled off his leather boots. I watched him just as intensely as he unbuckled his pulled off the many layered tunics and let his pants drop to the ground. Without hesitation, he stepped gingerly into the water, the ripples glowing with each step forward.
My gaze roamed his body, admiring his rugged perfection from top to bottom. His size, his stature, his movements. In the moonlight, the veins tracing his muscles shone like subtle accents to the tattoos across his tanned skin. And the way he looked at me, even through the blood stains on his face, made me feel like no one else existed in that moment.
“You’re you again,” he said, dipping down further into the water. I knew it must be cold to his skin, but he didn’t flinch.
“Ironic, isn’t it?” I laughed. “How can you tell, though?”
“Because you no longer have that look in your eye that makes me feel like you want to rip me open.”
“I’m sorry.” I flicked my tail and glided toward him. “If I could take everything back I would.”
“I know.” He reached forward and touched me, gently feeling the side of my face that had been cut. “But I’ve always seen the real you.”
I pressed my lips together. “So, what’s your theory?” I asked.
