“Calms the nerves . . . and the fins,” she had said in her soothing voice the color of a winter sky.
Only a few sunsets left.
Coral tugged on a strand of her spun-gold hair. There must be more to life than fearing the Disease and singing like my sisters before me.
What if she didn’t want to sing?
What if she wanted something different? A life outside her family’s fame and expectations?
Jordan drew three more long breaths before she rose and swam to the archway. She paused. Did she expect Coral to say more?
Coral’s mouth bowed and her insides turned to jellyfish. She didn’t want Jordan to go, despite how she tended to get under Coral’s scales more often than not. Having either of her sisters near almost made up for their mother’s absence.
Almost.
Coral opened her mouth to ask Jordan to stay, then snapped it closed. She ought to practice, prepare for what was to come. Jordan was closest to her in age and knew how to keep what their grandmother called “balance” better than anyone. Never too high or too low, Jordan had mastered the art of in-between. She didn’t keep quiet about her suspicions of Coral when they were alone. Still, Jordan never spoke of it beyond their private conversations. She must have cared for Coral more than she let on.
“Coral.” Jordan sighed, her voice lifeless. She pinched the bridge of her nose and rubbed tiny circles into her skin. “You must learn your place in this family, as I had to.” Her words were gentle, reminding Coral of how their oldest sister used to be. “Otherwise you’ll end up like her.”
Coral’s lower lip quivered. How can she speak of our sister this way? The crown princess practically raised us. I don’t understand it.
Jordan shook her head. “Do what’s expected, little sister. You’ll be better off. I promise.”
Her words latched on to Coral’s heart. “Of course. My only wish is to be your equal.” The half lie grated her teeth like chewed sand. “The Disease is poison. The Disease is death.”
The speech was practiced, precise, clever even. Words she’d been made to repeat year after year. With each season, she’d learned she was different. Once, as a child, she told a schoolmate her voice was the color of a sea turtle’s shell. The mermaid had cried to their teacher, and Coral was sent home for poor behavior.
She never mentioned her gift again.
After that she observed Jordan and the other merfolk her age from a distance. They didn’t respond to things the way Coral did. Soon she learned they didn’t see or hear the same way either. Her world produced the brightest, most brilliant shades of turquoise and aqua and sapphire blue, all mixed with harmonies she couldn’t begin to describe. Blues composed the prettiest sounds. Soft but full of life. Soothing but awakening too.
Jordan hovered between chamber and hall. “Three more days, Sister.” Her tone exuded no malice. Only fact. “Then you must take your proper place beside us.” She floated through the open arch of their shared chamber.
Coral often wished she roomed with her oldest sister instead. But as heiress to the throne, the crown princess had her own private chambers. Yet, until she found a suitor, she’d never be given the crown. Father had brought in many mermen, but the future queen refused them all.
Maybe when she finds a match, she can stop singing. When she no longer requires Father to provide.
Coral freed the bubbles she’d been holding as she examined herself in the mirror. Father’s approval was everything. Without it, they’d be left to the wayside. No home. No protection. No longer a part of the family.
Jordan had already been paired with a merman of Father’s liking. They weren’t yet betrothed, but the formalities were only a matter of time. When Jordan turned eighteen before the year’s end, the wedding date would be set.
How long before Father starts bringing suitors around for me?
Coral shuddered, shoving the thought away, refusing to think on it. She was hardly ready to be married.
Coral’s reflection stared back at her. She knew this girl. She saw her every day. But then, in that moment, she hardly recognized herself. Almost as if she weren’t real. “Who are you?”
The mermaid in the mirror did not answer. Coral abandoned the stranger and swam to catch up with her sisters, darkness following close behind. Her heart pounded with each flick of her misfit tail as she glanced back at her namesake.
“Coral,” her grandmother used to croon. “My sweet little Coral with the coral-colored tail.”
Coral had loved looking at her tail because of that. Its hue stood out among the rest, singing a tune of life and joy.
Now she frowned. Because, for the first time, the color was silent.
She ignored the irregularity and swam faster. Hoping in her depths that she was simply too tired to see the song.
At the palace’s broad arched entrance, Jordan joined the crown princess in the courtyard. They paid respects to the memorial paving with their mother’s and four lost sisters’ names inscribed. The queen’s miscarriages were rarely talked about—two before their oldest sister, then one before Jordan. The final preceded Coral. It was said the Disease took them before they inhaled their first bubbled breaths. Coral lagged behind and offered her own salutations, bowing her head as each of their names surfaced in her mind.
Queen Oceane.
Hudson.
Pearl.
Aqua.
Isla.
Coral drowned her emotions and opened her eyes after a spell. She focused on the mermaid who would be queen. The first daughter. Her best friend and forever confidant. Her oldest sister stared toward the surface, brow knit in waiting. The way she could so easily switch from pained to poised fascinated Coral. Like night and day. One minute the sun shone brightly, and the next it was drowned by night’s blanket of gloom.
A broad shadow passed overhead, the signal her sisters had been awaiting. Every time it was the same. Sailors crossed through their waters and, drawn by her sisters’ duet, they became lost. Forgetting the cares and worries of their human lives, leaving them behind for the empty promises of shallow words playing on practiced melodies.
Coral’s entire existence was torn between who she was supposed to be and who she truly was.
A mermaid whose sole purpose was to drown every sailor who crossed her path?
Or a girl who felt things she shouldn’t but longed to experience at the same time? A girl who wondered if the dreaded illness her family feared was dwelling within at that moment?
The raging war inside burned and bruised, each day wearing on her resolve to act the part she was expected to play.
As her sisters rose, Coral neared the memorial stone. She removed the flower from her hair, kissed it once before she placed it upon the raised gray rock. The colors contrasted, but their songs synced.
Gray was tragedy. Red was agony.
She swam double-time back through the palace halls. The remnants of a sunken city, years before her time, sang a sad melody of loss and regret. Stone columns and archways led to hundreds of identical rooms, all lamenting the deaths of merfolk long passed. Rooms filled with nothing. No life. No song aside from that which brought lives to an end.
What would her father say if he knew she could see and hear every color she swam across? What would he do if he learned his youngest had no desire to follow the path he’d set before her?