Lost at Sea

“Follow her,” Eleanor heard Lizbeth say. Instantly, one of the girls followed her out of the tunnels. She grit her teeth but kept her mouth shut, forcing herself to continue on her path to small cliff that looked over the tunnels and outlying huts of Atlantis. There she could separate herself from the other sirens and yet still abide by her punishment. She hadn’t technically left Atlantis.

Eleanor spent a lot of her time there, but she was still required to integrate with her society. When the vents began to settle from the dull roar of steam to a gentler stream, she finally left her perch above it all and made her way through the nest of tunnels toward her next appointment.

The Atlantis blacksmith-- there was only one of them because sirens don’t need many weapons. She served mostly as a tool-mender these days as the sirens were declared myths.

Heya was most likely the oldest siren that was still alive. Lizbeth may have been the founder and leader of the Atlantic coven, but Heya could remember clearly what it was like to hunt the Ancient Greeks. No one knew exactly how Heya came to live with them, but one day she wasn’t there and the next day she was.

She still had the beauty and eternal youth that came with being a siren, but something about her screamed age. Maybe it was the way her skin hung, or the hollow wisdom in her eyes. She fed the least often not because she didn’t want to, like Eleanor, but because she didn’t need to. These days, Heya was slowing down-- fading, almost. Eleanor wondered if it meant that their anger at being left to die could burn out. If it was, then maybe immortality wasn’t as absolute as it had seemed.

“Heya?” Eleanor called as she slipped through the carved entrance. The house inside was mostly empty, as nothing except sirens could survive being so close to the liquid fire inside the Earth. As it was, Eleanor still found it vaguely uncomfortable.

Finding no answer, she headed for the hole in a corner and entered Heya’s small cove. She worked there, on the land, a shallow pool of liquid fire for her to work with. She was quite possibly the only individual who had the audacity to get that close to the heat. As it was, it had taken its toll on her.

She was completely bare. She had no hair anywhere on her body and her skin hung in an unflattering way, shriveled even though the sirens could not age. But she was still lovely. Her eyes glowed a bright blue, the same hue as the sky, and her features were still regal.

“There you are,” she croaked. Her voice was rougher than the rest of the girls from disuse. “I was beginning to wonder if you’d run off despite all of this.”

“I follow my instructions,” Eleanor retorted, scowling at the floor. As soon as she finished her sentence, her follower poked her head up through the hole.

“As long as someone is following you, it seems,” Heya chuckled. Eleanor’s frown deepened, but she said nothing. “You may stay over there if you’d like to insist on your obedience.”

For the rest of the day, Eleanor watched as Heya worked and listened as she talked about where she’d come from. Back when the sirens were common knowledge, and before they were reimagined as hideous creatures, sailors were weary of every woman they met at sea. That’s where the superstition that had gotten Eleanor thrown overboard came from. Over time, however, it twisted and transformed into an idea that women were bad luck, not that they were likely to kill and eat the men in their sleep.

As soon as the sun dipped down and the sirens received the signal that another day had come and gone, Eleanor slipped through the hole and through the tunnels. She found herself again at the border of Atlantis, staring into the deep before her and struggling with a pull in her chest. Jasper was a constant in her mind, with those hypnotic eyes.

He was just going to have to make it a little while longer before she could return.