He looked stunned.
Stupid. She should not have said that.
She leaped and dived deep, sliding through the coolness of the sea, before he could say anything.
Stupid, stupid, stupid. He is only studying you, furthering his knowledge, nothing more.
THREE DAYS LATER
As soon as she surfaced, she knew. The niggling desires had been building, but seeing him before her made her throat close. She wanted to sing to him, to drag him down the beach to her.
Dangerous? Yes. She could control herself, but the risk was there.
“I cannot stay,” she said loudly from further out in the small bay than before, the bottom unreachable by her tail.
For a second, he looked angry. There was light here. A lantern on a pole was shedding light on his beach.
“Wait!” He stood, shoving out his hand as if to catch her. “When do you walk on the land?”
She halted, put her hand to her heart to quieten the beats. “Why?” Then she told him anyway. She was still hoping. “In ten days’ time.”
“Go do what you have to do, then in ten days meet me at dusk at the beach in front of my house.” He pointed. “A bay like this. Blue roof on a two-story house. A sailboat and a dinghy are moored. A long hedge with white flowers sits between house and sea. Can you find it? Raffaela?”
Her name on his lips…she swallowed. “I can. I will be there. Why, though?”
Why. The crucial question and the answer might shame her. Would he walk with her? It was meant to be her last time on this earth. Her last walk.
“Well. Because I found out a new legend, I thought…” Wolfgang adjusted his glasses. It was sweet, the way he did that. “You see, I’ve been reading, scouring the records, looking for something that would help.” He wiped his mouth with his hand, rubbed at it again then took his hand away, shoved both hands in the pockets of his black pants. His next words came out croaky. “It is said that if a siren makes love to a man on that day, when she walks as a human, that she will never change again.”
The gleam in his eyes as he said that… unmistakable.
She drew a deep shivery breath – cold wafting through her, spiking her nipples, and demolishing thought. He wanted her. And what if this tale of his was true?
“Will you be there?”
She drew a breath. “I will be there.”
As she swam away, she realized what he must have known. To do this, to be there that day, she would have to satisfy the Ravening one last time. She must kill a man.
And what did she really want? If she changed and stayed a human? There was a momentous allure to that.
To be a woman again. Was it worth killing one more time so as to stop it forever?
Yes? Surely, it was a yes?
CHAPTER 3
A few nights later, she gave in and dragged a man from a boat to his death. She swallowed his blood and his life force, then let go of his corpse to allow him to drift away on the currents. Sharks waited at the edges, cruising by in sharp gray shadows. They knew food was coming.
To meet with Wolfgang again, she’d had to do this. It was this or eat him instead.
Yet she grieved, covered her face with her hands and cried into the ocean.
Fuck this, as humans now said.
She had done what she must. Soon, if he were correct, this would be over.
Besides, Wolfgang must know what she was doing. He must know.
It meant he accepted murder in order to possess her.
It puzzled her.
Somehow, that had a perverted justice to it.
A life for a life, her dirty conscience piped up. Sure it was.
She hated this.
The day when she walked on land arrived, and she’d been so concerned and confused, her stomach so full of butterflies, or perhaps full of a school of minnows, that she hadn’t eaten anything since the man.
As soon as she surfaced, she saw Wolfgang waiting for her on the beach. He stood there unshackled, with no chain, dressed in a neat pair of dark pants and dark gray shirt, with those cute spectacles on his nose.
He stood there and trusted she had not lied to him.
Well.
Raffaela held her hand over her empty, anxious belly as she wriggled to the shallows. With her palms propped on the sand, back arched, and with kinked tail she waited for the change, felt her legs form and shudder into being, her body shifting.
Then she stood, with water dripping from her, and very aware of her nakedness.
Usually this lack of clothes was so normal, she barely realized she was missing them until she walked on a road. Then she would find clothes somewhere, somehow, pull them on, and then go to a village to gawk at the people going about their life. They’d be doing their chores… Riding bikes, talking to each other, driving cars, or looking at those glowing rectangles that Wolfgang called a cell phone. She had seen them before but had not understood their importance.
Tonight, or perhaps tomorrow, since she did not know the timing, she might stay as this. How weird it would be to be permanently human.
What if he were wrong?
That thought had been going around and around, for days.
Wolfgang approached her, walking down the slope through the sand, shoes in one hand and with his other hand stretched toward her. “Welcome to my house, Raffaela.”
She gave him her hand, unsure if that was what he wanted, and he took it in his warm fingers, brought it to his mouth…
And he kissed her hand.
Mouth open, she found herself struck again by a sense of wonder, that plummeted straight into doubt a second later.
“What if this does not—”
“Shhh.” He shook his head. “No.”
The transition from suicidal to wanting this… this humanity, was so great she felt sure she would explode or disintegrate on the beach as they walked hand in hand toward his house.
“That’s my ocean pool.” He gestured at a blue-lit square of glass, double a man’s height. Water lapped at the top, forming a line. Fish swam in there, gliding by. Seaweed swayed against the light at the bottom. “The pool came with the house, but I adapted it to take full salinity sea water. Helps with my studies.”
“Oh.” Sand crunched underfoot, sticking to her feet. She stopped and lifted a sand-crusted foot. “Ew.”
The one thing, well, one of the things she did not like about land life – things clung to you.
Wolfgang chuckled, squeezed her hand. “Come. You can wash that off, and I have a gown you can wear.”
Beside the pool, a path of square, orange-brown paving stones led to the back door of the house.
She had her feet washed under a tap just before they reached the door.
Wolfgang squatted and helped to encourage the sand to wash away by tipping the water over the right places. It felt good to be cared for like this.
She bit her lower lip, surprised, as she often was on this land day, by the lack of sharp points on her teeth.
“Thank you.”
“No trouble. Such pretty feet.” She blushed as he rose. He drew her to the door, opened it. “Come. I ordered takeout. It’s food from a restaurant in town.”
The scents were amazing, and she lifted her head to sniff. Real people food. Spices. And on plates, she supposed.
“Mmm. I haven’t eaten for days. I was worried.”
“Why?”