Chapter 21

Alba followedEridanys around on the exposed beach for as long as he could, far enough down from the main part of town that they could have been anyone. With the number of other townspeople digging around through the muck, no one thought to give them a second glance.

It was a strange ritual the more Alba thought about it, especially once seeing how many others searched the mud, like a there was something innately human about wandering the exposed seafloor in the warm sun to search for things otherwise unseen. Despite, according to Eridanys, the new moon being the time of merrow wandering onto the shore, it seemed humans still couldn't resist going out to meet them. Meanwhile, Alba couldn't help but let his gaze linger on distant silhouettes, especially those who wandered right up to the far water's edge. Wondering if they really were townspeople, or the drowned creatures who circled the lighthouse. He couldn't resist asking.

"The drowned souls who linger around the lighthouse—were there a lot of them when you lived here, too?"

"Of course. How else would I have known what they were in the first place?"

Alba frowned, nudging a rock over with the toe of his shoe. "Did they also come up onto land to sing to the moon when the merrow did?"

"No," Eridanys grunted, distracted by turning over a large rock to search underneath it. "They were never so bold as they are now. Probably because there are no merrow left to scare them off."

"Is that why they don't bother me so much when you're there?"

Eridanys flashed a nasty, satisfied little smile, showing off his sharp teeth. A good enough answer.

The pale siren spent more time hunched on the balls of his feet mumbling and scouring the mud with his claws than he did upright. Intent on proving a point, on proving himself a fine mate that could provide treasures to his chosen person. Alba had never heard the man repeat his name so many times in only a few hours, endlessly seeking his attention with every additional discovery. Alba. Alba, here. Alba, look. Alba. Alba. What do you think? Always followed by an extended hand dribbling a few pearls, pretty shells, even sometimes what looked like lost merrow jewelry.

Alba grinned and thanked him each time, asking how he found them, wanting to find some on his own, too—but Eridanys always scoffed, shaking his head and hurrying away again like he preferred to keep all the glory for himself. That was fine, too. Alba much preferred the shiny treasures over the things he himself kept digging up—bones. A tooth. What he swore was a shiny ring on a decomposing finger, though too much salt had solidified in thick layers around the joints for him to really tell for sure.

When the uneven sand beneath his feet made his hip throb, Alba took a break on a rock jutting out from the exposed beach, letting his head dangle from his shoulders to stretch his back. Every part of him throbbed, once again for many different reasons thanks to the same siren that prowled the seabed, but having that chance to simply sit and watch the sand beneath his feet bubble, to listen to the receding tide, to glance up every now again and keep an eye on his mud witch searching for treasures, was a relief on every inch of him.

"Alba. What are you doing?"

Alba glanced up from where he'd nearly dozed off, blinking as another handful of pearls were offered to him. He took them with a tired smile, rinsing them in a small puddle alongside where he sat.

"Nothin'," he said, appreciating the offerings. Reminded of the strings of shells he'd found more than once on the doorknob of the house, the lighthouse, wrapped around a bundle of crab tossed over the rocks when he and the siren weren't speaking to one another. Wondering if they'd been gifts from Eridanys, too. Not sure it was worth trying to ask, thinking he already knew how Eridanys would scoff and insist ‘no, of course not, what are you talking about?' "Leg hurts from walkin' around, just wanted to take a break. These are really pretty, thank you."

Eridanys didn't turn away to continue searching that time, though. He gazed down at Alba with the slightest wrinkle in his nose.

"Even with your walking stick?" He asked.

Alba drew a circle in the sand with the end of his cane. "It's not magic. Someone did a real number on me last night, anyway."

"Why didn't you tell me?" Eridanys snapped, before pressing his lips together and exhaling through his nose. Calming himself back down. "That your leg hurt."

"Thought it didn't really matt?—"

"How long until you learn to ask for my help? What about the next time when I don't notice and you get carried out to sea?"

"Carried out to sea?" Alba joked, making a show of gazing out to where the water was at least a hundred feet away. "Don't think that's really a risk right now."

"Last night you told me when your leg hurt," Eridanys went on stubbornly. "I expect you to do the same even when we're going about our business. Do you hear me?"

Alba sighed, swallowing back the instinctive rush of irritation that came with being told what to do. Especially in a tone like that—but it was a little too big to hold down entirely. "Is that really how you want to say such a thing to me?"

"What do you mean? Why wouldn't?—"

"Try again," Alba said, tucking the handful of pearls in the pocket of his jacket. "Or I'm going to get annoyed."

Eridanys made a sound like he wanted more than anything to argue, before clapping his mouth back shut, puffing up his chest, crossing his arms before uncrossing them again.

"I—!" he barked, but gulped that back, too, finally managing a new approach: "I would like for you to tell me when you're uncomfortable! So that I can take care of you! That's all! Don't make me say it again!"

Alba laughed behind his hand, deciding that was good enough. Eridanys turned on heel, stomping off and kicking at a deflated clump of soggy seaweed before stomping back again.

"Please!" he insisted in frustration.

"Yes, alright," Alba assured, fighting back another laugh. "Thank you. And try not to take it so personally—askin' for help isn't my first nature. Had that beat out of me quick. Not even my second, I don't think."

Eridanys inhaled sharply through his nose. Alba didn't hear an exhale follow it.

"I want to know that you feel like you can rely on me!" The mer-man exclaimed with the same stilted discomfort. Clearly doing his best, all the while looking like he was about to pop. "You are my shore-caller and you will rely on me!"

"Christ, I said alright!" Alba barked a laugh, finally grabbing Eridanys' hand and yanking him down. The man obeyed, knees splatting into the mud in front of where Alba sat. "I will rely on you. Alright? You can rely on me, too."

Eridanys narrowed his eyes, mouth opening like he was on the verge of declaring he would never need Alba for anything like that—but, to even Alba's surprise, he stopped himself yet again. He averted his eyes, glancing down at Alba's leg with a frown, then turning and taking a seat in the mud.

"Thank you," he said flatly. Under his breath, like there was something to be afraid of with uttering such words. "I will sit with you until you're ready."

"You really don't have to?—"

"I would like to be caring toward you," he interrupted, cutting himself short and pressing his lips together before adding: "I recommend you stop taking my offers for granted. Or else I might realize it's not worth the effort, just like with my…"

He trailed off, but Alba caught on. He shifted where he sat, adjusting his cane, waiting to see if Eridanys would continue. When he didn't, Alba nudged him with his knee. Wishing he would.

"You mean your last human partner," Alba urged gently. "Did he rely on you a little too much?"

"No." Eridanys' response came without hesitation. "He never asked me for anything. But for reasons different than yours. Even if he did, I wouldn't have wanted to give it. He only ever…" he trailed off again. Alba waited, then gently touched Eridanys' hair scarf, nudging it slightly from where a few strands of white hair were peeking through. Eridanys tugged it further at the thought. "He only ever took from me, without asking what I wanted. And I was expected to give it to him. I prefer to be asked, rather than expected…"

Alba thought he knew what that implied, but at the same time, there were so many immediate questions he wished to ask. So many things he wished to say, about how he knew how that felt, how he also hated being told what to do, how he'd spent his entire life never having a choice, either—but Eridanys already knew all of that. That was why he admitted such things at all.

"Thank you for resting with me," was all Alba could think to say in the moment, watching as Eridanys' tense muscles relaxed. Just slightly. Just enough to make Alba's heart thump, though he didn't know why. They sat in silence for a handful of minutes as the words caught on the salty breeze, sinking in, hooking into Alba in ways he didn't expect to linger in his bones for so long.

The only person he'd ever wholeheartedly trusted, relied on, felt safe asking for help from, was his mother—but without her there, Alba had felt the weight of being alone more than he would admit. There was something about not having anyone to rely on—and something about not having anyone to rely on him. His mother's reliance on him had been his sole reason for surviving for so long, and to suddenly go unneeded was like gravity had lightened its grip on his feet and he would lift off into the sky at any moment.

For Eridanys to say such things as wanting to be relied on, and for him to agree to rely on Alba in return, even a little bit—it helped Alba feel a little more anchored into his existence. Perhaps one day he would learn how to exist for himself and not anyone else, but—a part of him wasn't sure he was capable of leading a life like that, either.

"I hope you'll always tell me when you don't want to do somethin' I ask," he eventually added. Eridanys' head tilted slightly, just enough to glance his way. Alba didn't meet his eyes, prodding at a little crab emerging from the mud alongside the toe of his boot. "I'll even ask for more things in order to give you the opportunity, too."

Eridanys watched the crab scuttle back and forth, clacking its claws together at both of them in threat.

"Alright," he muttered. "I'll ask you for things more often as well. Even though there's nothing I think you could do for me that I couldn't do for myself."

"God. Close enough, I guess," Alba said, but laughed as he did. "How about you do somethin' about that crab for me? I don't like his attitude—OH!"

He practically screamed as Eridanys swiped the creature into his mouth in an instant, crunching down on it like a piece of rock candy. Alba grabbed his face in shock, before buckling over with laughter and having to hold on to Eridanys' shoulder for support. Eridanys surprised him by chuckling, too—then laughing with him, a bright, musical, wholesome sound far more beautiful than any song Alba had ever heard.

Alba's pocketsclattered with pearls and shells and other treasures lost to the sea and exhumed by siren hands. Soon, he even became obsessed with the look on Eridanys' face as he searched the mud, intensely focused with a little pucker in his lips, the smallest wrinkle in his nose, unblinking while scouring like an owl seeking a mouse on the forest floor.

Forced to wander further and further out toward the water, only the sound of the singing pipes reached them once far enough for Eridanys to heave Alba onto his back. Carrying him, not wanting to leave him too far behind, not trusting that the sea wouldn't suddenly swell forward and grab him by the ankles to steal. Alba asked if it was common for her to take shore-callers for herself; Eridanys said he would tell him, later. Not wanting to make him nervous. It made Alba tighten his grip on the man's shoulders.

But as time waned on, Eridanys' attention kept getting caught on the distant trees, glancing at them more often as the sun crept toward afternoon, then evening. Every time, Alba would say his name, tug on his hair, draw his attention back—until he couldn't, anymore. Until the sun sank to the horizon, and darkness consumed the town, and midnight was right around the corner. It wasn't until Alba suggested they return to shore that Eridanys finally released a long-held breath, as if he'd been waiting for permission. Demeanor betraying his words, his actions. Even he wanted to know. Even he wanted to see what the spirits in the woods meant when they'd invited him to come and see what you've caused.

It wasn't hard to melt into the darkness after crossing up onto the dark sand, where Eridanys hooked an arm around Alba's waist to hoist him up over the steepest patches of beach grass that would surely tangle his already unsteady legs.

It wasn't hard to disappear between the buildings where townsfolk clustered during their own new moon celebration, dancing and singing to music around a bonfire in the center of town, intermingling with wafting scents of roasted fish and bread and wild berry jams.

They slipped down a dark alleyway where no one would notice them, Alba keeping Eridanys' hand in his. Perhaps to help him walk easier, perhaps to avoid getting separated in the low light, he wasn't entirely sure. Eventually, they reached the cemetery, the edge of the trees where they'd had their confrontation the day prior. Eridanys' hand in Alba's tightened, as if silently seeking reassurance that he was still there. Alba squeezed it back, holding onto him tightly.

"Am I going to turn to salt?" He asked under his breath as Eridanys took his first step into the trees.

"Not so long as you stay with me."

Alba did exactly that, keeping a firm hold on Eridanys as they entered the woods. That time, there were no pale faces in the darkness to giggle and attempt to lure them, which meant they were on their own to figure out where to go. To figure out what the spirits meant to show them.

With one hand in Eridanys' and the other wielding his cane, Alba did the best he could to navigate the dark undergrowth without any way to see where they went, every now and again pausing to listen. To let his senses expand, wander, see if there was anything to draw him one way or another. There was only the distant sound of fluted pipes in Moon Harbor. The sound of Eridanys breathing steadily alongside him.

But something else made it hard to focus—as if the darkness didn't settle right. There were no wild things creeping between the plants, neither crickets nor mice in the leaves and pine needles beneath his feet. The wind hardly blew through the branches except at their highest points, as if even it knew there was something dangerous about being within reach of that darkness.

"Over here, brine witch."

Alba turned suddenly, just as Eridanys pulled him back on instinct. There, behind one of the trees, a spirit had come to see them. But only one, not flanked by a dozen others like all the previous times. Tall and thin, pale hair cropped short and rough, expression gentle, blank, eyes pale and empty. It glowed slightly, a muffled moon-beam not strong enough to even bounce off the plants around its feet. Eridanys' breath caught.

"Cepheus," he whispered, taking a step forward. "Is that you?"

The pale spirit's expression twitched with recognition.

"I'll take you to where they slaughter us. You'll witness another, tonight."

Eridanys' hand in Alba's flexed, about to say something, but the spirit interjected:

"Don't interrupt what you see. It's too late for them, anyway."

"What do you?—"

The spirit called Cepheus turned, upright on two legs but floating through the brambles more than they walked. Eridanys remained rooted where he stood, held breaths coming back in sharp inhales, leaving Alba to take the lead.

Alba never let go of Eridanys' hand, either. Pulling him gently in pursuit of the spirit. Wishing he could ask where all the others were, why there was only one come to show them what the rest had been so eager to chitter about. His stomach knotted at the thought of it being a trap, of them both being lured into the vast darkness to be devoured or to, perhaps worse, wander aimlessly for an eternity like the rest of them—but then the spirit came to a stop up ahead, and melted into the shadows without another word.

Alba held his breath at the small clearing that opened ahead of them, smelling thick of salt and iron and moss. Strings of pearls, shells, and bells dangled from the trees, barely disrupted by the nearly-nonexistent air gliding past.

Months' worth of partially-melted candles encircled the outer edge, white as snow and leaking melted wax across the earth with every previous session they burned. And in the center—an altar of salt piled nearly as high as Alba's knees and as long as he was tall, pure white and donning lines drawn into the surface with fingers. Swirling, runic markings interspersed with shells and pearls and other treasures of the sea, no different from the ones in his own pocket.

"Don't," he whispered when Eridanys attempted to step forward. The man conceded with a frown, returning to the shadows just as Alba swore he heard footsteps approaching from the other side of the darkness.

At first, he thought them to be more spirits—but those figures cloaked in white were as living and corporeal as he was. They walked on two legs, with heads bowed and a platform held between them. On it, a bundle of something wrapped in canvas fabric, reminding him too much of how they used to haul expired sailors off ships into port for the undertaker. But those approaching the circle didn't step like tired sailors disposing of their dead—there was something purposeful about their movements. How they took the same steps in tune with one another, how they hummed under their breaths, how the same salt-scatterers Alba knew tossed handfuls of the mineral along behind the procession.

Instinctively, Alba put out a hand to nudge Eridanys slightly further into the shadows, kneeling behind a bush and pulling the siren down with him. Together, they watched as the canvas-wrapped bundle between the figures was slowly lowered to the grass. The two leading at the front kneeled in front of the piles of salt.

Hands emerged from wide sleeves beneath the folds of the robes, moving in line with one another to gently tuck into the pile of salt and reveal something beneath.

Bones. Dried flesh. Pale, snow-white scales. Swathes of silver-white hair, crusted with salt like frozen drops of water on spider webs.

Alba's ears rang. The world around him crept to a halt, only those in the clearing moving as he felt disconnected from the earth. Just staring as his mind raced, trying to—understand. Trying to make sense of it, to rationalize what horrible thing played out in front of him. With such ease, such natural movements of the people involved, as if it was nothing to shock them.

Next to him, Eridanys was silent, motionless, forced to remain in the shadows as the cloaked figures removed knives from their dressings and proceeded to cut the long-deceased, preserved merrow into pieces. Flaying it like Alba used to flay fish at the market. Picking up every single scale dislodged in the process; cutting the impossibly long tresses of silver hair and tucking them away like reaping wheat during harvest. Dismembering what remained of skin clinging to bone, bundling pieces into grotesque bouquets then tucked into baskets set in a line behind them, as other robed figures went around the circle to light the candles one by one. All the while—a pale spirit watched from the bushes only a few yards away. Unblinking. Unmoving. Resembling the very thing those people desecrated.

When the remains were fully picked and tucked away, not a single strand of hair, scale, tooth, fingernail missed—Alba realized what was wrapped in canvas behind them, just before they unfurled the fabric and removed the fresh creature to be laid within the gap in the salt.

A second merrow—as pale, white-haired, moon-kissed as Eridanys right next to him, equally soft and flushed with life, skin and tail glistening in the circling candlelight as if plucked from the sea only moments prior to being brought.

Breaths shuddered in and out of it, slow and even not unlike the occulting glow of the lighthouse lantern. Its eyes were covered with a blindfold, the mer-creature doing nothing to fight back, to even move despite clearly still alive, mouth hanging slack and body limp as its limbs were rearranged to fit within the gap left by the one that came before it.

The cloaked figures hummed as they worked, those kneeling directly over the merrow singing in low voices with words Alba didn't know. A silver knife was produced, and Alba had to look away, not wanting to see. Next to him, Eridanys watched every moment, unblinking, compelling Alba to glance back as well. Not wanting to shy away when Eridanys had no choice.

The shining blade was drawn over the merrow's throat, stirring only the weakest sound of gargling breath from the creature's mouth as it otherwise remained motionless. Unaware of its own impending death—enough to make Alba's heart squeeze in nauseated pity.

Black blood spilled in a necklace of obsidian over its pale skin, dripping into the grass and staining the pure salt surrounding it. The robed figures continued singing as they did—a comfort to the dying creature, perhaps a beseeching of whatever gods might be watching, surely to plea forgiveness for something so horrible. Made worse when the knife was then held over the merrow's chest, hovering, waiting for its breaths to shallow and slow—then plunged into it in time with what Alba was sure would have been its last breath.

The shine of the blade diminished as it crunched through bone, slicing down its center before hands slid inside to butterfly the ribs open. Alba pressed his hand to his mouth, dropping his cane. When the hands burrowed into the merrow's chest to scoop out its still-beating heart, dropping it into a basket—Alba stumbled backward. Pine-needles crunched beneath his feet, but no one noticed over their humming song. Eridanys remained where he was, still clinging tightly to Alba's hand. Keeping him from going further, resisting Alba's own silent plea to get far away from such an evil sight.

Before spreading the salt over the body, using a knife different from the one to slit the merrow's throat and open its chest, another figure drew a long, precise line down the center of their tail. A silver tool like a potter's rib was inserted beneath their scales, scraping thick curls of shimmering white fat out from between the skin and muscle.

With it came a distinct minty-sweet aroma—and a wave of spinning, nauseating recognition crashed into Alba like a tidal wave. He finally jerked his hand free of Eridanys', not caring that he might crumble into salt, just wanting to get away. Wanting to escape that smell, the understanding, the realization of it all coming together in a single thunderclap echoing in his ears.

The unique oil used to fuel the lighthouse lantern. Its pearlescent sheen, its distinct aroma, its texture similar to whale fat. Even Alba wasn't innocent—even his own hands cannibalized a part of those poor creatures. How many merrow had been used to fill the lighthouse basin that he scraped chunks from every night to light the wick and smooth the gears?

Alba turned and stumbled into the darkness, keeping his eyes closed as long as he could, wandering blindly until he couldn't hear the singing chorus, the sound of scraping fat from meat any longer. Only then did his mouth open, sick spilling out of him in pitiful, groaning heaves of his insides. Clutching his head, his stomach, he crouched alongside a tree and fought back tears that burned the backs of his eyes.

He wished to do more, wishing to scream and claw at his mind until he couldn't remember what he'd seen. To claw at his mouth, to rip out his teeth and throat and tongue as it tingled and tasted of salt and rust and blood and stringy meat.

Forced to recall memories pushed so deeply away he would never have to be reminded. The nature of sailing in the north, where there was no way to know how thick the ice grew, whether a ship would be able to pierce through it; never knowing if one would end up stranded and starving in the freezing cold, forced to find food where it fell. Where it fell and closed its eyes to sleep and never opened them again, to be cut into pieces and boiled in salted water and choked down by mouths desperate to live.

Forced to find food, to choke down the meat of a man he'd bunked alongside, only then understanding that what happened to his own father wasn't an act of depravity so much as desperation, turning men into animals relying on survival instinct alone?—

"Albatross."

Alba tensed. He held his breath, pressing his palms into his eyes before finally opening them to the darkness. Not having to search for long before the moon offered a beam of light to gaze upon. No—not the moon. The moon was nowhere to be found, nowhere to witness her own kin in the sea pulled apart by human hands beneath the canopy of the trees.

It was Eridanys standing over him, expression flat, empty. In his hand he held Alba's abandoned cane, though didn't offer it. Instead, he knelt down to join Alba in the grass, overlooking the far-off town at the base of the hill, the sea as dark as the woods without the moon's light.

Alba nearly asked what he was doing, then nearly apologized, then nearly got back to his feet to pretend like nothing was the matter at all—but the words caught when he saw the faint flicker of tears in Eridanys' eyes. Barely visible in the low light of Moon Harbor; shining like specks of snow on his lashes.

Alba hated himself for not knowing what to say. Not knowing anything to say, not even a whisper, a sound of acknowledgement or apology. All he could do was put his arms out, pulling Eridanys into an embrace. It felt so small, so pitiful, but Alba held him tightly even in the silence, hoping it would be enough. Eridanys leaned into him; he exhaled a chilly breath into Alba's hair, embracing him back. Holding him for a long time, breathing him in, eyelashes tickling the side of Alba's neck where the siren pressed his face against his shoulder. When Alba attempted to pull away, Eridanys squeezed him tighter, drawing him closer.

"Not yet," he whispered. "Will you—do something for me, and—stay a little longer. Please."

Hardly a sound. Embarrassed to say it—or perhaps never knowing he knew how to. Alba pulled him tighter, practically clawing at him. Holding the back of Eridanys' head, the center of his back, trying to pull the man and everything he was into his chest.

"Yes," he whispered. "Yes, Eridanys. I will—I'll stay with you until you're ready."

Eridanys' face disappeared back into the crook of Alba's neck, body shuddering with every inhale as if he cried without tears. Like he didn't know how. Alba wouldn't rush him. Alba would wait for as long as Eridanys needed.