“Yes.” She knew of these inventions. “I’ve seen them in villages and have also seen them driven over bridges that span small parts of the sea.”
What if she could make him go to it and get this tool?
Hah. She shrugged. The Ravening was not sophisticated. It was a furious desire that washed her mind of most thoughts. When human, she had been able to read some letters. She didn’t think any letters would make sense while the Ravening had her.
“You will be safe. As long as that does not cut straight through your leg.”
Frowning, he touched his leg. “You appear eager to talk to me.”
“Yes. I am. This is… new.”
“And so I can trust that you have not lied to me?” His gaze was keen, predatory even – she’d seen sharks look at her like that. She eyed him back, confused. A man was not a shark. Then his mouth twitched up at one corner. “Sorry, but I had to ask.”
“Oh!” Raffela giggled, something she’d definitely not done since she had died and been reborn a mermaid. “No. I do not lie.” She wriggled higher up the beach, though keeping herself in the water. “You are safe now anyway. The Ravening is not upon me.”
“The Ravening?” He fetched something from behind him – a squarish device like a slate, and his fingers danced upon it. “Tell me about this.”
Should she?
What harm could it do? None.
“Also, you said you know of cars from seeing them on bridges? We’ve had them a long time. A very long time.”
He waited then, and she guessed that was meant as a question.
Telling him she was centuries old seemed a key to something. Perhaps she should be frugal and not tell him everything?
She raised her right hand from the water and waved it, vaguely, scattering droplets. “I forget how old I am.”
“I see. But this Ravening?”
“That is when…” She swallowed. This seemed even more terrible when she contemplated telling him. “It’s when I have a need I cannot deny.”
He nodded, encouraging her.
“I take men into the sea.” Her words were muffled in her ears, as if another said them. “I make love to them.” She’d been a whore by trade. Saying that was the least of this. “I take them far down. Fathoms down.” Deep breath. “Then I drown them.” And she bit them. Smelled and consumed them, bathed and breathed in their blood.
He peered at her keenly for several seconds then looked at his rectangular slate and danced his fingers. “Why? Why drown them?”
“It feeds me.”
The waves sloshed back and forth several times. She wondered what he thought. That she was an abomination, perhaps. It was true. So true. And she waited for him to get angry or insult her, or to stand up and walk away.
“I see. And… how do you make love when you have a tail? If that’s too intimate a question, we can skip it for the moment.” A terse smile was directed her way. More finger tapping occurred.
Mouth agape, she blinked. “I change. I have no say in the change. I have legs again.”
“Ahhh. Interesting! Again, though? As in… you used to have legs? What are you saying?”
“Once, I was human. I changed.”
That seemed to disturb him, and he remained silent awhile.
“Will you tell me how it happened?”
The suggestion flashed her back into the hurricane, into being thrown overboard. “No.” She shook her head. It was long ago and too painful a memory. “I cannot.”
“I see.”
He kept asking questions, and most of the time he ignored what she did and kept tapping. But he also stopped and let her ask him some questions. She told him about her place where she went, to sit on the coral, to think. About the pretty fish there, the dreadful sharks, and many other things.
This was a conversation, for sure, and she relaxed into it, rested her elbows in the sand, and found herself smiling back at him.
She was talking. To a man.
Her excitement must have showed, for he chuckled at her exuberance more than once.
Dawn approached. She eyed the paling horizon. “I must go.” And she half-turned, tail swishing, alarmed at having spent so much time with him that she’d forgotten others might see her if she were here in daylight.
“Wait! Wait. Will you come back? Please?”
She looked to him, and the pleading in his voice did something inside her… put a crack in her heart, maybe. Oh dear. He wanted to see her again? He wanted her to return. That alone was momentous, wonderful.
She noted how he’d grasped at the sand, to one side of him, like she had done. How taut were the muscles of his arm. Fine, manly muscles. Perhaps he too found comfort in the feel of sand, though the slide of fingers into wet sand and the squish of it inside her fist would be far nicer.
For a second, she imagined how his arm would feel under her hand. How he might taste.
How his blood—
She shook away that thought.
“I suppose, I could?”
“Tomorrow night?”
Her eyes stayed wide. For the first time she realized she could see his face properly – his dark wavy hair that sprang up in random curls and fell across his forehead. Large sinewy hands, which she always loved on a man. Remember though. He could never be hers. Never. It would mean his death.
She gnawed her lip gently, wary of the points.
Not hers.
She must think. “In three nights then.”
“Three? Done. I will be here. You promise?”
“I said so.”
“Uh-huh. You did.” Slowly, he withdrew his hand from the sand, brushed it off on his pants. “Your Ravening won’t come yet?”
“No.” She let her teeth show, and he looked curious. “Not for a week or more.”
Then she dove into the sea and did not turn back, did not look over her shoulder until she was down among the seaweed and bottom dwelling creatures, the crabs, the mollusks, and the stalking, antenna-waving lobsters. A niggling and horrid feeling arrived, a feeling familiar to her from when she was a human and mistakes had been made.
What had she done? Had she said too much? Her mouth had said too many words. She’d let him see her in her true form for hours.
That had been lovely. Talking, listening, and learning.
Three nights. She was returning in three nights. She must ask him more questions. She must find out who he was.
Three nights later, when she surfaced a little earlier in the night than the last time, he was there waiting, settled into a low chair with the leg chain leading up the beach. As she swam to the edge where she could stay submerged yet keep her head out of the water to talk, he sat forward.
“Hi! You came, Raffaela. Thank you!”
The thanking brought a warmth to her chest, right in the middle.
“Hello, Wolfgang.” She blew a little spurt of sea water, feeling playful. His scent was stronger. He was a male human, of fine reproductive age. The need to touch him had strengthened.
The Ravening neared, but then it always did. Its cycle was inevitable.
“I wish to question you, Wolfgang.”
“Of course. Of course.” He hitched a pair of black-rimmed spectacles higher on his face. They were new. She wondered if he could see her well without those. “Your prerogative, though I hope you’ll answer some of mine also.”