“This library is rather eclectic,” Sionna observed as she browsed through the titles.
“In the best possible way,” her twin added giddily. Visola had been curled up in an armchair with her legs tucked under her as she rapidly consumed the pages of the book she had chosen.
“What are you reading?” Sionna asked, glancing at her sister nosily.
Visola’s eyes lit up as she held up the cover for the others to see. “The Influence of Sea Power on Ancient History by Chester Starr.”
“Non-fiction,” Corallyn observed in disappointment without glancing up from the laptop to which she had recently become joined at the hip.
“Always work, work, work with you, General Ramaris. You’re totally obsessed with naval warfare,” Sionna accused somewhat fondly. “Grim situations aren’t supposed to get a person so excited.”
“He even has submarines!” Visola sputtered excitedly. “I just thought it was best to do my reading in chronological order and save the best for last.”
“Maybe you should start with the titles most relevant to our situation,” Sionna suggested as she went back to browsing the section she favored.
“There certainly is a common theme,” Aazuria remarked as she studied the rows of spines, thinking of how the carefully shelved volumes reflected on Trevain’s interests. She fingered one book idly and read aloud, “The Beasts of the Sea…”
“Are we featured in that?” Corallyn joked as she continued pounding away at the keys of the small computer. She had grown addicted to the machine much too quickly.
“No. It just caught my attention because it was written by Georg Wilhelm Steller.”
“Steller?” Visola asked thoughtfully. “Now why does that name sound familiar?”
“It’s because you slept with him,” Sionna informed her.
“No way. Did I really?”
“It’s okay, sweetie.” Sionna gave her sister a superior smirk. “1741 was a very long time ago. I don’t expect you to remember every man whose bed you invaded; especially considering you can’t remember the names of people you slept with yesterday.”
“That’s not true! I remember all the important ones,” Visola argued. “There was only one important man in the 18th century.”
“He was a writer too, wasn’t he?” Sionna asked.
“Shut up,” Visola said, rolling her eyes and stretching languidly. “Shut up and find me something with lots of mines and torpedoes.”
“You can use this computer to do research if you need to know about a specific weapon,” Corallyn suggested.
Visola raised an auburn eyebrow. “Honey, I was born in 1449. Do you really expect me to know what to do with that machine?”
“What she means to say is if it doesn’t kill something, she’s not interested,” Sionna explained.
Aazuria was leaning against the bookcase and looking at her quiet sister thoughtfully. Elandria was avoiding conversation with the others by curling up in a corner of the couch with a book, but Aazuria knew she was listening. Very little escaped her taciturn observation. “I remember 1741,” Aazuria murmured as she watched her sister; the years being discussed had not been pleasant for Elandria. “So much began to change back then. Father had just decided that we should stop speaking Aleut and converse mainly in Russian. I began studying ballet under a new instructor on land. My legs were so much stronger back then…”
“I didn’t know that Russian was ever exclusively spoken in Adlivun,” Corallyn commented in surprise.
“We had a very brief Russian phase,” Sionna said, waving her hand in dismissal. “We spoke it for less than a hundred years before King Kyrosed decided that English was the way to go. That man never could make up his mind! By the time he ventured off to impregnate some poor, unsuspecting girl with you, Coral, we had been used to English for quite some time.”
“I see. What did you speak before the Aleut language?” Corallyn asked.
“Old Norse,” Sionna answered, “but that was a very long time ago, before we came to the Bering Sea. Even longer ago, way before our generation, Latin was the language of choice. We sort of go with the flow of the world above us, wherever we are living. We try to stay current in case we need to spend time on land—like right now. Only our sign language has remained pretty much unchanged and unique to us.”
In response, Elandria lifted her hands from her book to communicate, “I appreciate consistency.”
This drew a burst of laughter from Corallyn. The young girl placed her laptop aside and moved to the sofa that Elandria was sitting on. She curled up beside her sister in a catlike way.
Aazuria continued to browse the library, running her hands along the old volumes as she thought of Trevain. Each title made her more and more curious about him, and about what secrets of acumen he held behind his unassuming demeanor. After several minutes of examining the books, she began to feel guilty about concealing her true origin from him, and slightly nervous about whether the secret could remain hidden for long.
Feeling a warm hand on her shoulder, Aazuria turned to find Elandria looking at her intently and holding out a particular book. Reaching out to accept the offering, she looked down at the blue cover with bold black lettering.
“The Aquatic Ape Hypothesis by Elaine Morgan,” she read curiously.
“Are we in that one?” Corallyn asked sleepily from the couch.
“I doubt it,” Sionna answered without even glancing at the book, “but I found our section over here. Take a look.” A few of the girls gathered to where she had been pointing as Sionna placed her hands on her hips and glowered at the shelves. “He’s got probably every book in existence which examines the various European water myths: the Selkie, Melusine, Kelpie, Vodyanoy, and the Rusalka. Take your pick! There are even African folklores about Mami Wata. He doesn’t stop there. Here’s Inuit lore on Qalupaliks and obscure southern legends about Aycayia and Sumpall. This collection is remarkably extensive. There’s plenty of reading on Asian stories about the Ningyo…”
“The Ningyo. Ah, memories!” Visola immediately commented. “I wonder if Queen Amabie is still alive and well. She was the greatest swordswoman I have ever known. Do you remember fighting alongside her in that vicious battle in the 1950s? The last real fun I’ve had.”
“How could I forget,” Sionna grumbled. “Your asshole husband tried to kill us and he nearly took my leg off.”
“I should pay a visit to those crazy Japanese mermaids,” Visola said, completely ignoring the personal remark. “Reinforcing our alliance with them could come in handy in the future. Queen Amabie would definitely help us out if things got rough.”
Sionna was reflexively ready to protest and mock her sister, but she found herself relenting. “That’s actually a really great idea, Viso.”
Meanwhile, Aazuria clutched the book Elandria had given her to her chest as she examined the titles in horror. “This is dreadful. If he is so finely educated in water mythology, how did he not take one look at me and know exactly what I am? I have been imprudent. I will be found out; it is inevitable. He knows what we are.”
“Oh, darling, don’t worry so!” Sionna said lightly. “All land-dwellers have a general idea of what we are, and the general impression that we’re here. They just deny our existence so hard that it wouldn’t even cross their minds.”
“You mean they know who we are,” Corallyn corrected from her perch on the cushions.
Visola shook her head. “No. They don’t know who we are specifically, but they do have a vague conception of what we are. They just blow their damned stories out of proportion. They have to say that we have fish tails, sparkly scales, hair made out of smelly seaweed, magical singing powers or other crap in most of these stories.”
“I know, right?” Sionna said, firmly shutting a book that she had previously opened. “They’re just xenophobic! All of them! Doesn’t it make sense that if we have slightly longer lifespans, those of us who are singers will be better singers? There’s a limit to the mastery of any art that can be achieved in any single lifetime. Their limits just happen to be much lower than ours!”
“Your extreme nationalist views are showing, Sio,” her sister teased.
Sionna made a face. “I’m proud of both who and what I am. I love my country, and I love the woman who will soon be our new queen.”
“Yes. Some queen I will make,” Aazuria said, laughing derisively at herself. “If Adlivun wasn’t already underwater, I swear I would somehow sink it. I have already made a mess. I tried to secure a home on land, and I messed it up by basically revealing us.”
“We haven’t been revealed!” Corallyn shouted from the sofa, opening her eyes and slamming her fist into a soft pillow. “Sweet Sedna! You worry too much, Zuri. ‘Uncle Trevain’ is totally enamored of you and you couldn’t have said or done anything to screw that up if you tried. He thought the mermaid comment was hilarious!”
Aazuria nodded, feeling marginally reassured by her youngest sister’s words. Sighing, she moved over to the sofa and sat down listlessly. She stroked Corallyn’s hair absent-mindedly.
“We all look perfectly normal,” Sionna reaffirmed. “Sure, we’re extremely cognizant of our differences, but the truth is that no one can see the morphological distinctions of our lungs directly through our chests.”
“That’s a good point, Doctor Ramaris,” Visola said, grinning, “and even if they could see directly through our chests, they would be far too distracted by the exterior to do so.” Corallyn giggled at Visola’s indicating hand motions.
“The extra inch of webbing between my fingers and toes is very conspicuous,” Aazuria said, self-consciously examining her hands.
“Sweetie, there are varying degrees of webbed fingers and toes even in land-dwellers,” Sionna said. “Seriously, they consider excessive webbing a disorder called syndactyly. Some people have complete webbing of the fingers or toes that they have to fix with surgery. No one will think anything of it, even if they do notice.”
“I saw on TV that girls with partial webbing of their toes get piercings there to accentuate it,” Corallyn chimed in. “I thought it was pretty. I kind of want to get the webbing between my toes pierced too.”
“It would be hard to wear shoes and walk around while you were healing,” Visola commented.
“Maybe I’ll do it when I no longer have to wear shoes,” Corallyn argued.
“What about my legs?” Aazuria asked. “What if I collapse at some point and have to lie to explain it…”
“Oh Zuri, that’s nothing,” Sionna said with a laugh. She had always been captivated by anatomy and medicine, and she came alive when the topic of conversation drifted to biology. “Doesn’t even Trevain have a limp? Land-dwelling humans are chock full of interesting imperfections. I recently read about a disorder called Sirenomelia which people nicknamed the ‘Mermaid Syndrome.’ Apparently, on rare occasions, human babies are born with their legs completely fused together. That’s what they think of us. They think we are radically abnormal and disfigured in some grossly apparent way.”
Aazuria frowned. “I know that their notions of us are ridiculous. That is partly what protects us from them; their unwillingness to understand. However, if Trevain has all these legends from across the globe, and I am going about declaring myself to be a mermaid…”
“I told you, men don’t believe anything a woman says any longer. The legends could just be a collector-type thing. Maybe he hasn’t actually read them.”
“Nah, they’re dog-eared,” Corallyn affirmed. Then seeing that Aazuria’s face had fallen, she added, “Maybe he just hasn’t read them in years. He’s probably forgotten all about anything he ever knew about us. Decades of hard work will suck the magic right out of life.”
Sionna scoffed. “Darling, we aren’t magic. We’re just biologically superior. It’s all science, really.”
“All life is magic,” Aazuria said softly.
“Speaking of life,” Visola said, drumming her fingernails on the wooden bookshelves, “this is unbelievable. This guy… who is he? Look at these books.”
“What is it?” Sionna asked.
“Underwater birthing. Apparently it has recently become popular with land-dwelling women.”
“How fascinating,” Sionna said, selecting a book. “Perhaps there’s even knowledge in here that could be of some use to Adlivun’s midwives.”
“I doubt that,” Visola said, “but don’t you find it strange? All the subjects? It’s like he knew we were coming. This guy has every instruction manual you could possibly need if you were planning on falling in love with a mermaid.”
“There is something odd about the focus of this library,” Sionna agreed. “I don’t trust him. He could be allied with whatever enemy forces threaten Adlivun—we don’t know nearly enough about our attackers.”
“There’s only one army big enough to dare,” Visola muttered softly.
Aazuria leaned back in the sofa leisurely, studying the suspicious faces of the twins. “Girls, if we really consider it, it makes perfect sense that Trevain would be personally interested in all of these subjects. He’s a seaman. Someone who spends his life on the water probably spends a lot of time meditating on the water. Listening to stories, imagining what could be. Maybe he just likes to research mythologies and practices concerning that which he knows best.”
“That’s right,” Visola said. “There was an Inuit man in his crew—maybe this began with a fascination with researching Inuit traditions, and one thing led to another.”
“Goodness. We have to be very careful around him,” Aazuria said, straightening her spine abruptly. “We may henceforth only curse to generic, non-water-related deities.”
“That’s right,” Corallyn chimed in. “Instead of ‘Dear Sedna’ we can just say ‘Dear God.’ It works just as well.”
“I’m quite fond of the scintillating phrase, ‘Holy Shit,’” Visola offered.
“My sister has charming taste,” Sionna said.
“We still need to investigate part of this house which is much more important than the library,” Corallyn said, uncurling her small body and bouncing to her feet.
“What’s that?”
“The hot tub, of course,” Corallyn said with a grin.
“You goof,” Visola accused with a chuckle. “Mmm, but it has been a while since I’ve gotten wet.”
Aazuria smiled at the girls encouragingly. “You all should go have a soak. I need to spend some time reading and try to get more caught up on this modern world. I need to know everything that has happened above the surface in the last hundred years if I am going to successfully implement reform in Adlivun.”
“Fine, be a bookworm and miss out on the fun stuff!" Corallyn said with a pout. “I sure am grateful that I don’t have responsibilities like yours.”
“You might someday,” Aazuria said to her with a fond smile, “but for now, go relax!”
Corallyn grabbed her laptop and had exited the room almost before Aazuria finished speaking. Sionna smiled and predictably selected a medical volume. “I’ll take this along. I can read and soak.”
“Sounds like a plan to me,” said Visola, trailing after her sister.
The other three having left, Elandria rearranged the throw pillows in the corner of the couch and sat down beside Aazuria. She snuggled in and got comfortable before returning to a weathered leather volume.
“Are you sure you do not wish to go with them?” Aazuria asked.
Elandria smiled and shook her head. Using her elbow to mark her place in the book, she signed to her sister: “I prefer to stay here and read with you.”