(note: this is a sequel to Siren, more to come!)

While the crew often had their resting hours in the night, I kept the opposite schedule. After all, the seas were always most treacherous after the sun fell past the horizon. It made those who dwelt in the depths of trenches and old wrecks braver, more curious now that their darkness had infected the space above.

The sky was moonless and cloudless, and so gave the impression of being surrounded by thick, imposing black. Only the distant pinpricks of starlight and the glow of oil lanterns shimmering off the waves could be seen beyond the ship’s wooden body.

But in that black, I sensed them. The hulking, writhing presence of my kin. Keeping far below to not stir the water, but still close enough to listen to the song. Maybe bored, maybe restless.

The unfortunates on the night shift shuffled around tiredly, many clutching small mugs of coffee. If they knew of the numerous monstrosities that lurked below, they might perk up a bit. But they didn’t know, and they didn’t care to. That was my job.

Kielman came up the stairs to the quarterdeck, knocking on the railing to not startle me. Her face was pink from the chill breeze, but she hadn’t bothered to put on a jacket, just a woolen cap on her shaved head.

“Hey, Naya. Don’t let me distract ya. Only here to give you the winning from the bet.” She slipped a handful of coins into my pocket, the weight tilting my dress slightly askew. I gave her a toothy smile, and she returned it.

She remained there for a while, looking out into the black with me. I changed my sleepy lullaby to a human song I’d picked up years ago, one about picking flowers in the mountains.

“I like this one. Reminds me of home.” Kielman said brusquely.

I looked back at her and shrugged. Sometimes, we talked in this halted, mute way, especially on slow nights.

“Bet it’s the same to you as your songs are to me, seein’ as you’ve never seen mountains.”

I nod, slowly. I gesture down at the deceptively still water.

“They like it too?” She asked incredulously.

I nod again.

A hearty laugh. “Well I’ll be.”

I wave my hand through the air, mimicking the way the song’s notes swayed high and low.

“Yeah, like waves, I ‘spose.”

She copies my movement, and I catch sight of a scar, rippling messily from her wrist to her elbow. I look away, but she notices my noticing and rubs her hand over it.

“Got that lovely thing from one o’ them. Sharkturtle attack, before ships started hirin’ your ilk. Ain’t the biggest in the sea, but they’ll sure fuck you up and put enough holes in your hull to make it look like a strainer.”

If my tongue wasn’t busy with the song, I might’ve told her that I’d once had a sharkturtle as a companion, back when I still lived as a wild siren. I can imagine how it would paint the line between us deeper. In our comraderie in betting on a poor boy’s foolishness, maybe she, too, was starting to see me as a human. Maybe I was being too human.

Better that I sing my own unearthly music for the monsters below, not play with human songs and notions of nostalgia. Better they don’t forget I have that monstrous blood in me, even with a beautiful face and a sweet song to go with it.

As the silence stretches between us, in all that is brewing but unsayable, she pats my arm and turns to go.

“I’ll leave you to it, then.”

Some small string of kinship tugs on my heart. But my kin are the bodies below, the man-eaters and tentacled things, not the sailor walking forlornly back down to the deck.