Chapter 11

Eridanys stoodsilent in the gallery while Alba wound the counterweights and prepared the wick. Staring out over the sea just like he had from the rocks, though that time not stark-naked as Alba had managed to dig a pair of old clothes from the house before meeting him at the lighthouse door. Knowing he wouldn't be able to function properly otherwise. Absolutely loathing how, despite the wool pants and linen shirt being slightly too big for him, they were still plenty flattering on Eridanys' frame.

"If you're gonna stand up there, at least be useful," Alba called out, amused by the look of disdain Eridanys threw back at him.

Handing the merrow a cloth, he explained how to wipe down every edge of the lens, even the parts that already looked clean enough. Despite the scrunched look on his face, Eridanys took the rag and did as he was told. Like he knew Alba would only nag him about something else if he didn't.

"You said I wouldn't have to hear the sounds from up here!" the man snapped after hardly a minute of hard work. "But I hear them clearly as ever?—!"

"Wait until I light the thing, damn!" Alba argued in response, busy lubricating the gears and crank on the counterweights. "You won't hear a thing ‘cept the clangin' of metal. Just be patient."

Eridanys scoffed. All he ever did was scoff, and something about it that time made Alba laugh under his breath.

He continued his own regular tasks wordlessly, until the silence itched at him, opening and closing his mouth a few times before finally deciding to take the risk. Figuring there wouldn't be any harm in asking.

"You… want me to find out what happened to your kin, that used to live in this harbor… Right?"

"Yes," Eridanys answered, hardly allowing Alba to finish speaking.

"Did there used to be a lot here?"

"Why would I ask where they'd gone if there hadn't been?"

Alba huffed, throwing Eridanys an annoyed look, though the merrow's back was turned.

"What makes you think the townspeople have any idea?" He went on anyway. "How do you know the mermaids didn't just go live somewhere else?"

"Mermaids,"Eridanys muttered like it tasted bitter, but didn't offer an argument to Alba's statement right away. Long enough that Alba lifted his eyes again to look, seeing only tense consideration on Eridanys' expression as he thought about it. "If they chose to go live somewhere else, the townspeople would know."

"They must have had a pretty open relationship with them, then," Alba implied, reconfirming his own previous suspicions that the town was very aware of the mer-people in their harbor, and may even be protective of them. "Tell me again, if they're familiar with the merrow already, why you can't just go ask them yourself?"

Eridanys' silence returned. Alba gave him all the time he needed to concoct an answer.

"They… might recognize me," he finally muttered. Alba raised an eyebrow, watching as Eridanys shook his head to himself, then ran fingers back through his long white hair. As much as Alba wished to ask why that might be an issue, he decided against it. It was unexpected for Eridanys to respond with any sincerity at all.

"These black marks on my skin, they're from your blood, aren't they?" Alba went on, not waiting for an answer as he'd already figured it out for himself. "When I was sittin' in the doctor's office after you attacked me, she asked if I knew where they came from. But the way she asked… well, I thought if I answered honestly, they might kill me on the spot. Anythin' to say about that?"

Silence again, but Alba watched Eridanys' face as he aggressively polished the lens. Brows furrowed, jaw clenching in and out in concentration.

"Perhaps you have the survival sense of a sailor after all," he finally admitted.

"Is that a compliment?"

"It might be best you don't admit to knowing about me outright," Eridanys went on, ignoring Alba's comment. He glanced sharply back to Alba, eyes narrowing. "Or that you've heard stories about the merrow who used to live here, either. Earn their trust and get them to talk to you about it first. And once they do, do not tell them where to find me, either. I'll be sure your curse stays so long as I'm alive."

"Implyin' they'd try and catch you if they knew?" Alba read between the lines. Eridanys' handsome mouth pressed into an annoyed line, turning back to his rag on the lens. "I assume that's why they put out the traps."

"A sailor's intelligence, too. An infant could have deduced that."

"Oh, alright," Alba sneered. "You really don't have to be such a prick all the time. You'll get wrinkles on that pretty face of yours."

"Why would my face wrinkle?" Eridanys snapped back, animalistic, alarmed. "I'd never let you close enough to skin me in the first place?—"

"Jesus Christ,what? Alright, I'm sorry, it was just a tease. I have no intention of skinnin' you." The thought made him subconsciously run a hand over the fish scales used to cover his wound, finding most of them flaked off. "They already know you're here, though, since there's merrow blood on my skin. I can keep tellin' them I don't remember how I got it, but who knows how long they're gonna believe it."

"Ask them yourself what the marks are, then."

"I suppose that's an idea. I'll be goin' back into town by the end of the week, so I'll see if I can learn anything while I'm there. Might see if they have any historical records, too, if I have the time…"

"Do you think they would have documented where my kin went?"

"Oh—maybe? I hadn't thought of that. I was mostly thinkin' how… they said they didn't know anyone by my mother's name when I first got here, but she was born here, like I mentioned to you before. Surely someone would have recognized it with a town so small… Thought it was strange for them to pretend like they didn't… and you haven't been here a while, either, which is why you don't know where your kin went, so you probably wouldn't know her yourself, either, would you?"

"Probably not."

Alba nodded, strangely disappointed despite already assuming that much.

"Good to know," he muttered. It was tempting to ask why Eridanys left in the first place, long enough for the other merrow to vanish without him, but again decided against it. Counting himself lucky once more to hold even a little bit of conversation without so much contention and snarling as previously.

Finishing his work with the gears, Alba dropped the oil brush into the bucket by his feet and pulled himself up the ladder into the gallery. Nudging Eridanys out of the way, he passively complimented the even polish on the lens, pulling the glass open to light the mantle inside. Eridanys watched in silence over his shoulder, shifting on his feet like he wanted to see better, even like he wanted to ask something, but never did.

Alba lit the wick, closed the panel and returned to the platform below to release the counterweights. The clanging of metal echoed throughout the tower, and the thing Eridanys wanted so badly finally came: the rhythmic grinding, clinking, heavy sound of the lantern coming to life, rotating and spilling her light over the sea, the dark beach, the town and trees in the distance.

Alba let her turn a few times before calling out "how's that?", though no response came. Rolling his eyes, he went about making himself comfortable rather than insisting.

It waseasy to lose track of time after doing it so many nights in a row, thoughts rich and swimming with all the things he'd seen and learned in such a short amount of time. Tempted to scribble it all down in the keeper's log just so he wouldn't forget, just so he could be sure he recalled every single detail to one day share with his mother. He could already imagine her face when he told her about it all, how she would grin before declaring ‘of course it's true! Did you always think I was only making it up?'

Too easy to lose himself in those thoughts, in imagining how those conversations with Edythe would go when they eventually found one another again. Easy enough that he didn't realize the first two hours had passed without a word from Eridanys until the counterweight banged at the end of its rope down below. Alba jumped, quickly closing the book in his lap and hurrying to re-wind them, only then questioning what in god's name the merrow could be doing in the gallery for so long without a sound.

"Eridanys?" he called out, waiting a long moment before adding: "Answer me or I'm comin' up."

Nothing. Alba felt a sudden flash of concern, limping to the ladder. He announced Eridanys' name one more time, then pulled himself up the rungs and thrust his head through the open hatch to squint against the blinding light.

A few feet away, where Alba had first left him, Eridanys stood. Motionless, even as Alba said his name again, even as Alba reached to tug on the cuff of his pants. Eridanys stood still as a man turned to stone, staring thoughtfully into the rotating light.

"Eridanys!" Alba called again, before heaving himself all the way inside, using one arm to shield his eyes from the light and reaching for Eridanys' hand with the other.

The man barely shifted, only moving because he was touched, head remaining angled straight at the bulb. His eyes never moved, never blinked. It wasn't until Alba got all the way to his feet and put his hand out, fully covering Eridanys' eyes, that the merrow's ghost finally slumped back into his body. As if every inch of his muscles were tensed to the brink of shattering like glass, and only when the focus broke could he finally relax.

"What the hell are you doing!" Alba shouted over the noise, finally able to yank Eridanys toward the hatch. "You'll go blind in a minute! If it doesn't cook you alive first, you walking fish…!"

The words carried off. Eridanys didn't reply. He still hardly moved, except to obey Alba's tugging hands toward the opening in the floor. It forced Alba to bite back his annoyance, another pinch of worry plucking at the back of his neck when he considered something might actually be wrong. All the old stories of wickies going mad with charred eyes and bubbling skin rushed him, moving his hands and feet with more urgency as he guided Eridanys down the ladder. Telling him calmly to watch the steps, to move slowly. Eridanys obeyed. He did everything Alba said without complaint, without a word.

When Alba could no longer keep his hand over Eridanys' eyes, needing it to climb down himself, his breath caught at what greeted him from the depths of the merrow's pupils. A dull light glowed in the back of them, pulsating slowly in and out, an occulting light with the same characteristics as the lamp turning over their heads. Flashing like an animal's caught in the beam of a lamp, all while the rest of him remained motionless. Unresponsive. Dazed.

Alba stared at him in confusion, in more than a pinch of worry, whispering Eridanys' name as he didn't know what else to do. He swallowed back the new wave of concern, focusing on the task at hand.

Getting the man down the stairs. Back to the house. Somewhere he could lay down and close his eyes and rest, if that was what he needed. Creature of the sea or not, Alba didn't like the sight of it—like nothing he'd ever seen before, even in all his years on the water.

"C'mon," he said calmly, pushing those thoughts off. He put a hand on Eridanys' back, then moved it to his shoulder, then down his arm to cup under his elbow. "C'mon, come this way. The stairs are right here."

Eridanys' eyes lingered on Alba the entire time they went, expression lax, never scoffing or smirking or even sighing. Just watching him without seeing—being guided without knowing he ever followed.

On their way down the steps, for a split second, Alba grappled with the idea of how easy it would be to—what? Throw Eridanys over the railing? To kill him? To put an end to that nightmare almost as soon as it started, breaking the curse keeping him in Moon Harbor, to finally take his leave? It might be his only chance, with how subdued, pliable the merrow had suddenly become, hypnotized and obeying every command Alba gave him. All the way down the stairs, never taking his eyes away. Never taking his hand away. It would be so easy, and Alba would not have lost an ounce of sleep over it when all was said and done?—

But his legs continued walking them out of the lighthouse, one hand holding his cane, the other holding on to Eridanys. They walked him through the dark rain outside, back to the house. Not to the rocks, not to where he'd tucked the handgun into a crook of the coat rack. Not where he'd hidden the dagger in the seams of the wall in the bedroom loft.

It would have been so easy; it wouldn't have been the first time he'd taken a life to save himself, even in that same house—but the thought of killing someone who clung to him with such blind trust, whether they were aware of it or not—made Alba's heart twist until he could hardly breathe. As if, should he look back another time, he would see his mother at the end of his arm.