That made sense, Luce thought. She nodded, and then her head seemed to keep nodding by itself. Her eyelids swagged, and her face felt warm and watery. “I . . . really need to sleep. I can’t talk now.”
Nausicaa gazed at her in sudden concern and began towing her toward the shore. Luce saw the light of the Cliff House prancing and swinging through the dark. It was lucky that Nausicaa was holding her, Luce realized hazily, because she couldn’t possibly hang on to consciousness any longer.
When Cala’s search party found them it was well after dawn. They couldn’t wake Luce and so they carried her home, Cala and Elva in the lead with Luce’s tail slung across their arms, Nausicaa swimming behind and supporting her friend’s head at the surface. Nausicaa studied Luce’s jagged dark hair and long crescent eyelids, wondering at how transfigured she was. Her features were the same as ever, but even in her sleep Luce now had the aspect of a mermaid who’d been in the sea for centuries.
They passed beneath the Golden Gate Bridge. The huge standing wave was completely gone now. The bay gleamed mirror-smooth, without even a line of foam to show where the blockade had been.
Luce didn’t wake up to see it. But on the shore not far to their right, mixed with the usual crowd, there were doctors in white coats, gurneys, and ambulances.
The mermaids had started turning back.
A girl in a borrowed bathrobe tried to stand on legs as wobbly as a newborn calf’s then toppled slowly sideways. Her skin had a faint greenish shine.
“Hey,” a slightly tattered man with cropped hair and cinnamon eyes shouted across the water. He waved his arms high overhead, looking straight at the group carrying Luce. “Hey! You’ve got my girl! Is she okay?”
“That’s the general’s dad,” Cala sighed. “How are we supposed to explain what happened?” Then she raised her voice. “She’ll be fine, Mr. Korchak! We promise! She’ll come see you later!”
Nausicaa gazed at him with interest. For the first time she wondered if she might have to let Luce go forever. She pictured Luce stumbling toward her father on human legs and looked away.
41 Promises
“Heya, general-girl,” Yuan said as Luce at last opened bleary eyes. She barely knew where she was, but Yuan’s determined face was clear enough. “Damn, it’s about time you woke up! I’m here to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye?” Luce asked in confusion. “Yuan, where—”
“To Boston. With Gigi. She’s got to get back to college.” Yuan made a face. “And I’m going to go finish high school, of all insane things. There are these human groups organizing to, uh, rehabilitate ex-mermaids, so it looks like I’ll have some help.”
It took Luce several more moments to understand what Yuan was talking about. Then she groaned and sat up abruptly. One reaching hand found Yuan’s shoulder and squeezed it. “Yuan, are you serious?” All at once Luce felt like crying. “You’re really leaving the water?”
Suddenly grave, Yuan said, “Yeah, I am. Because you were right, Luce.”
“How do you mean?”
“When you told me that Gigi was actually my best friend. That I saved her because she’s—the person I love most in the world. I didn’t know that when I was pulling her to safety, but I know it now.” Yuan waited a few moments for that to sink in. “But we’re really hoping you’ll come and visit us, Luce. You and your dad.” She paused for a moment. “Or you and Dorian. We’ll have a blast together! And you and Dorian could maybe look at colleges in Boston too, right? ‘Twice Lost General’ is one hell of an extracurricular, so I bet you can go anywhere you want.”
Luce shook her head. She still felt obscurely sick, and she was bewildered to realize that Yuan took it for granted that she’d be turning human again. Imani had made the same assumption. Why did her path seem so obvious to them? “I can’t think about college. I don’t know what I’m going to do.”
“Sure you do!” Yuan was sincerely shocked. “I mean, what about your dad?”
“If he needs me to take care of him . . .” Luce swayed a little as she considered the question. “If he’s not all the way cured, then . . . I guess that would be the right thing to do.”
“Of course it is! Family has to come first, Luce.” Yuan saw Luce’s stunned look and grimaced. “Okay, I know that probably sounds hypocritical, coming from me. But your dad is a good guy and mine was a monster. You do appreciate the distinction, right?”
Luce didn’t answer that. Instead she dropped from the hammock and hugged Yuan hard.
“You gonna come see me off, general-girl?” Yuan was straining to keep her tone light.
“Of course I’m coming. But I’m not actually anybody’s general,” Luce murmured. “Not anymore.”
“Yeah? Who is?” Yuan didn’t wait for an answer before diving abruptly. She whipped away at top speed and then vaulted over a sea lion with her pink-gold fins gleaming in midair. It’s for the last time, Luce thought. Yuan’s never going to leap that way again.
A long procession of mermaids followed her. Some of them had larvae cradled in their arms.
Yuan held her arm out for the injection. Then a group of human volunteers carried her inside a small white room made of folding screens while Gigi looked on with worried eyes. Luce caught a final glimpse of Yuan’s fins twitching as the air hit them.
She’d hoped—even assumed—that the drugs would make the transition painless, but that clearly wasn’t the case. Soon they all heard Yuan’s thin, keening screams. Luce had to throttle her own impulse to scream in sympathy, to send a wave that would lift Yuan and pull her back to them. Luce clenched her teeth instead, her heart charging and her nails digging into her palms until they were flecked with blood. This was Yuan’s choice to make, and no one had a right to interfere. By the time Yuan came stumbling out in a borrowed lilac sundress and bedroom slippers Luce’s face was slick with tears.
“I’m cool,” Yuan slurred. “Seriously, it’s not that bad.” Then she fainted into Gigi’s arms.
She’s alive, Luce told herself. She’ll be fine. That’s all that matters.
Silently some of the mermaids around her started handing larvae to the doctors. It was terrible to think of the infantile little mermaids suffering that way, but everyone knew it was better than the fate that waited for them in the ocean. As human children they could be adopted; they would grow up and possibly even find happiness. In the sea they’d be unlikely to survive for long.
The afternoon took on the feeling of an endless ceremony. Now and then a mermaid’s face would start to waver, crossed by alternating doubt and longing, and then she would nod to herself and call the doctors over, looking back at her friends who were still in the water with puzzled sorrow. It was hard to watch, but Luce knew that it would feel worse to swim away.
It was at least an hour before Luce realized that her father was there, well back in the crowd; she couldn’t tell if he’d just arrived or if he’d been standing there quietly all along. He looked older and sadder than he should, but he definitely didn’t seem crazy anymore.
He was watching Luce somberly, so lost in thought that he didn’t react when she smiled at him.
“Oh my God!” Elva screamed next to her. “Luce, look!”
Luce turned away from her father just for a moment. She couldn’t tell why Elva was splashing so excitedly and waving at a handsome human couple who were picking their way gingerly through the crowd.