Sins Against the Sea by Nina Mason

ever-so-gingerly out the back door into the cold, damp night. Not until she got halfway up the hill did she realize how incredibly tired she was. Her muscles ached with fatigue, her eyes burned, she couldn’t stop yawning, and her brain felt like it was packed in cotton. The weight of the bucket made walking difficult. It also numbed her arm, requiring her to stop a couple of times to restore the circulation.
    A few feet from the cave, she heard singing. The voice was soft, low, hypnotic, and so achingly beautiful it instantly brought tears to her eyes. As she bit them back, she thought about what she’d read. The Blue Men sang their verses to the sailors they encountered, and then drowned any who failed to match their vocalizing. The thought of it filled her with umbrage. No human voice stood a chance against something so ethereal.
    At the entrance of the cave, fear’s icy fingers clawed at her insides. She hesitated, suddenly afraid for her safety. What if he hurt her? What if he killed her? She thought about the crew of Ketos —all drowned except for the captain, and even he’d been badly injured. Left for dead, probably. All at once, the possibility of Kew-in harming her seemed very real.
    Run. Now. As fast as you can. He has no legs to give chase.
    Her feet refused to obey her mind. She set the bucket down with a clunk. The singing stopped. Except for the lapping of the waves, everything was deathly still. And then, he whispered her name. The sound was as soft as a breeze. In fact, she couldn’t be certain it wasn’t the wind working a spell on her exhausted mind.
    Cordelia? Och-eech!
    She gasped. There it was again. Faint as an echo. It wasn’t the wind playing tricks, though it might be her imagination…because, strange as it seemed, she could swear she’d heard him speak inside her head. Her arms prickled as goosebumps erupted all over her flesh. If she wasn’t mistaken, the merman was communicating with her telepathically.
    Kew-in?
    She thought it rather than saying it aloud, just to see. He returned something she couldn’t understand, but neither the words nor the tone of voice sounded the least bit threatening. With a rattling sigh, she collected the bucket. Holding her breath, she let the flashlight guide the way as she stepped through the curtain of vines.
    The cave, dank and darker than dark, reeked of tar, vomit, and fish. It was all she could do to keep from retching. Breathing only through her mouth, she approached him cautiously, speaking in the soothing tones she might use on a frightened animal. She shone the flashlight up and down his length. Oil coated every inch of him. She sighed with a mixture of weariness and exasperation. Holy shit. Where to begin? Setting the bucket down, she knelt at his side and pulled out the cooking oil.
    She worked in silence, starting with his tail, massaging downward in the direction of his scales, which were thickly coated with oil. It took more effort than she could have imagined because the oil was frustratingly stubborn. After scourings and rinsing a number of times, she started to see silver shimmering through the muck.
    Resistant as the oil was, she tried not to scrub too vigorously. The oil had badly irritated his skin. The book indicated that his complexion was a deep blue-green, but in the faint glow of the flashlight, it looked dusky gray, making it challenging to tell when he was clean. While she washed his torso, which was as firm and muscular as an Olympic swimmer’s, he flinched now and again as if her touch tickled him.
    Moving to his face, she tried to think of him as an animal—a specimen —rather than a sentient being. Tried being the operative word. There was something in his expression, a soulful intelligence that pricked her every time their gazes met. She could feel a bond forming, which freaked her out a little. This whole experience felt so bizarre, so incredible, and so surreal. She kept thinking she would awaken any moment back on the