Born of the Bone Pile

© Meghann McVey

Miena had always wanted to sail in a pleasure galleon. They appeared at sunset just beyond the coral formation the locals called the bone pile. Despite living by the sea her entire life, Miena had never ridden the waves, for a woman at sea was considered bad luck, even for a short fishing voyage.

Yet, Miena's delight in her recurring dream which placed her on a pleasure galleon lasted only long enough for her to learn the ship was sinking. The galleon bucked; men and women staggered as though this marked the end of a hard night's party. The ladies' jewels, soon to adorn their underwater grave, twinkled frantically. All the while, the ship's angle tilted stranger and stranger as water rushed into the hull.

One passenger always stood out to Miena. The woman's fierce gray eyes flashed in rage at the sea, at the sinking ship; it seemed she dared them to kill her. No prayers passed from her lips as it did among them other passengers; no fear wrinkled her glass-smooth brow. A medallion hung around the woman's neck. Miena stared at it, hoping as always, the medal would tell her more about its wearer. Before she could see, a wave shot over the side of the boat and slammed Miena to the deck. As she raised her head from the wood, it seemed she heard someone calling her name.

"Miena!" It was Mistress Heterla, Miena's teacher. "Are you alright?"

Miena slowly raised her head. When she realized where she was, she shot up so fast her knees bashed the bottom of the desk, upsetting her papers. "I'm so sorry!"

"It's alright," Mistress Heterla said. She sounded a little distracted, herself. Miena knew she shouldn't worry; the end of the term was nearing. But Mistress Heterla and her respect were crucial to Miena's recent goals. Sleeping in class, of course, jeopardized that end.

Mistress Heterla hailed from outside Harpoon Peninsula; she came every other week for three days to teach. School was a new concept in Harpoon Peninsula; prior to their young teacher's arrival, children learned at home or congregated at others' houses where the parents or older children knew their numbers and letters. Once, Miena believed she had a place among the next generation of fishermen and fishwives, but after meeting Mistress Heterla and learning about the lands beyond, Miena realized how unsuited she was for Harpoon Peninsula.

Mistress Heterla had offered Miena the chance to travel with her as a teacher in training; she needed only clear it with the review board at Cirol. However, they had not spoken of the matter for many weeks; Miena feared she had been forgotten, or worse, that Mistress Heterla had changed her mind.

When the last of the children had filed out, Miena wordlessly joined Mistress Heterla in straightening desks and tidying the room, wondering how she ought to proceed. They cleaned almost the entire room in silence.

Desperation's shadow fell across Miena's heart. The same thing had happened the week before, only Mistress Heterla and she had been engaged in lively conversation, and it was a matter of turning the subject. Miena hadn't found an opening, and the topic of traveling together remained untouched. Miena's heart thudded. She simply had to speak this time!

"Mistress Heterla."

Miena's teacher started. "Yes, Miena?"

"I wanted to ask if there were any developments from the Cirol review board."

"Unfortunately no," Mistress Heterla said. "I imagine they are quite busy, what with the end of the term."

"Would you like to have tea this afternoon?" Miena offered, fighting disappointment.

"No, Miena," Mistress Heterla said rather sharply. "I simply have too much to do, between grading the Harpoon Peninsula term essays and trying to get funding for more books. If Harpoon Peninsula were on more maps, I doubt the Cirol board would be so stingy." With that, she gathered her books under one arm and swept toward the schoolhouse door with swishing skirts.

Miena's hopes, already tremulous and timid, shriveled.

###

Miena lived with her parents and younger brother Dorial in a small house uphill from the ocean. Night and day, the waves' sighs never ceased. Winter and summer, the ocean air blew cold, often misty. Miena had always wondered what it was like to be warm and dry, to wear elegant clothing like the women in her dream, and enjoy a fire without its smoke bringing coughing and tears.

Two silent figures sat at the table when Miena left the raw salt tang of outside for the stuffy, lingering fish odor of indoors. Her mother and father were dividing the day's catch. Miena's mother would sell half at the market the next day. Half would be their dinner. It was always half. It was always fish.

"Miena, check the nets," her father said.

Miena bit her tongue. Since she had foolishly announced her desire to go abroad with Mistress Heterla, her parents had been even more tacit than usual. They already begrudged school, which took away two pairs of hands for part of the day. They could see no eventual reward in Miena's leaving. Despite Mistress Heterla's visit in which she told Miena's parents what remarkable children Miena and Dorial were, for the fisherman and his wife, it meant an indefinite increase in daily survival difficulties.

"Life needn't be so hard," Miena muttered to herself back in the cold. "If only Harpoon Peninsula were more progressive!" But Miena knew from lifelong experience, had affirmed with Mistress Heterla one afternoon over tea, that Harpoon Peninsula 's inhabitants held fast to the rod, the reel, and the old ways. She would miss those discussions. Mistress Heterla could not stay at Harpoon Peninsula forever; the Cirol board moved its teachers to different regions each term. And from the look of things, Miena would not get to accompany Mistress Heterla after all.

At the hill's crest, Miena sighed. From here she could look on the wide ocean, waters she could not sail, yet another impassable wall that limited her life. Ocean, fish, lines, and nets. It saddened her to think these comprised the entirety of living.

Miena crossed the wide expanse of cold damp sand to the shallows where her father had placed his nets. He had set them for the past three years since his fishing boat ran aground just past the bone pile. He rode on his neighbors' ships whenever he could, but on days he couldn't, the nets sustained the family. The first net, in a tidepool, yielded a handful of shrimp. As Miena added them to her bucket, her stomach gave a great growl.

She wished Dorial were here. She and her brother used to check the nets together, but for the past month, he and his school friends had become obsessed with legends of the sea: mermaids, sea serpents, the kraken, and St. Elmo's fire. Because Dorial sometimes brought fish home from his "after school fishing," and because he was the youngest child, his duty was not binding.

A flock of seagulls formed a cyclone over the second net. "Stupid birds," Miena muttered. It would be bad enough if they were eating her family's dinner, but matters would be even worse if they ripped her father's net.

Miena scooped up a handful of pebbles and launched them at the birds. They scattered for an instant, then resumed formation. Miena flung another rain of pebbles. "Wretched girl!" a woman said. "Watch where you fling those stones!"

Miena nearly dropped her bucket from surprise. The beach had never looked lonelier. "I'm so sorry," Miena said. "I didn't see you. I still don't," she added in a whisper.

"Are you blind as well, privy wits?" Water leaped, seemingly of its own accord, from the shallows, and drenched Miena. "And let that be a lesson to you!"

Miena came closer, shivering only partly from the cold. It had not occurred to her that the disembodied voice would come from the water. She came closer, the bucket bumping against her leg.

At first glance, it seemed that a woman was sitting atop her father's nets. Her shoulders were bare, though rimed with seagrasses like peculiar rotting green lace. Her skin was so pale, it had a blue sheen like snow shadows. Dark hair spread out all around her, made more voluminous in the swaying waters.

"Don't gape at me, girl," the woman said. "Make yourself useful! Cut me free!"

"Cut you free?" Miena echoed. Water splashed into her face this time. When she had wiped it from her eyes, she saw the source of the splash, a twitching tail wrapped in the ropes knotted by her father and brother's cunning fingers.

"A mermaid," Miena whispered.

At Miena's awe, the spite vanished from the mermaid's face. "If you don't free me, I shall die," she said. "Siren though I am, I have no power over the waves that might crush me against the sharp rocks."

"Oh." Miena glanced at the jetty. "Don't move."

"Idiot," the mermaid muttered. "Where would I go?"

When Miena had sawed through the net, she expected the mermaid to swim away. However, she lingered, watching Miena blow on her numb hands.

"Where are you going?" the mermaid said, following her down the beach.

"To check the other nets." Mermaids, Miena recalled, seduced sailors into drowning themselves. However, Miena was neither man nor sailor, and this siren was anything but charming. She supposed that she was safe. "You can come with me if you like."

"I've nothing better to do. What do you call yourself, girl?"

"Miena," she answered. "May I ask your name, Mistress?"

"Mistress?" The mermaid laughed, a glass-delicate sound. "You make me sound so old! My name is Sorlea. How old are you, Miena?"

Miena waded waist-deep into the water. The net was empty. "I am thirteen as of one month ago." A wave rose ahead of her, nearly knocking her off her feet. Sorlea dived and raised Miena above the unexpected wall of water. Even through the sea's breath-stealing chill, Sorlea's hands were so cold, Miena felt as though she were seared with ice fire. "Thank you," Miena sighed. "I don't know what I would have done if it had tugged me under."

"Think nothing of it," Sorlea said.

###

That week, with Sorlea's companionship, Miena managed to blunt her disappointment that Mistress Heterla could not – or would not – take her beyond Harpoon Peninsula. When Sorlea learned that Miena desired to see the world more than anything, she began to tell stories of the many places she had been.

Conoerdol was a city built high in the southern jungle tree tops. Bridges of rope and bamboo connected houses and businesses. Each tree held several buildings connected by ladders. Sorlea, however, had a house so large it required an entire tree.

Tilienal was a city of technology. There, more people rode in horseless carriages than walked or had horses. The city shone bright at all hours thanks to an invention known as the gaslight. Tilienal proved especially fascinating to Miena. Prior to meeting Sorlea, she had never heard of a carriage before, and she had only seen horses when important people from outlying cities came to Harpoon Peninsula. Mere candles were a luxury in Harpoon Peninsula, and most of the residents timed their work by the sun.

Normally Miena preferred a two-way conversation like those she had with Mistress Heterla. However, part of her believed that she had best drink up all Sorlea had to say; it was as close to the outside world as she was likely to get. The accounts were disappointingly insipid for what they were. If she asked Sorlea to focus on cultural differences of the places or their technology, the mermaid would say, "Am I telling the story, or are you?"

Sorlea far preferred to focus on herself, young and beautiful, the jewel of every foreign or glamorous locale she visited. She spared no detail on her clothes and jewelry, as well as how dowdy the other girls appeared by comparison.

"Sorlea," Miena said one day. "How were you able to attend all those parties on land? You are a mermaid."

"Some other time, I will tell you," Sorlea answered. "But I would like to give you a present for hearing my stories. Why, retelling them, I seem almost to live them again." The mermaid untied a necklace of shells and pearls from her neck. A medallion of a handsome male face hung at the center.

"It's beautiful," Miena whispered. In all her life, she had never worn jewelry.

Sorlea flicked her tail. "Well don't stand there staring at it. I'll help you put it on."

Miena stood with her back to the incoming tide, conscious all the while of her father's warnings against doing so. Yet, she reasoned, she really had no choice if she wanted to wear Sorlea's gift. When the mermaid finished fastening the necklace, Miena experienced the strange feeling there was a question she wanted to ask Sorlea. But no matter how she strained to remember, fog filled her mind, softening and obscuring things that had once been sharp.

"You should go home," Sorlea said. "The tide is coming, and night draws on."

She was right, Miena realized. She touched the medallion. Such a rich, sophisticated gift. Sorlea, she sensed, knew her thanks without so much as a word. "I wish I could see the world, too," Miena said by way of parting.

"There may be a way yet for you." The growing dusk masked Sorlea's expression, but her voice would have charmed a fish into biting an empty hook. "Though I do not know why you would want to bother with other places. The world over, they are all the same."

###

Dorial and his friends had formed the Secret Society of Sea Mysteries shortly after Mistress Heterla explained how in lands beyond Harpoon Peninsula, people had more free time and came together to talk about their interests.

The Secret Society convened on school days, both before and after class. Their first order of business was to present any new legends they had heard, as well as informed theories regarding those already-established.

"My father says that a sea serpent's tunneling on the ocean floor is why the waters around the bone pile are so unpredictable!" Shefor proclaimed with gravity that did not disguise his excitement.

Dorial joined his friends in the solemn nods that conferred dignified admiration. Like all of them, he could hardly wait for the day he became captain of his own ship so he might make a living and seek legends of the deep at the same time.

"I'm going to find that sea serpent one day," Dorial confided to his friends. "And I'm going to spear it and keep the head to mount on the front of my ship. That'll show sea serpents not to rough up the sea floor and make ships run aground!"

"I'd like to see you try." One boy pointed to the open page in The Sea Book, a gift from an inland Sea Legends society. One day, Dorial hoped, the two groups could meet in Harpoon Peninsula.

In the illustration, a sea serpent reared its head. Blood dribbled like jam down its chin, and a pair of legs hung out of its mouth.

"That'll be you, Dorial."

"I'd give it indigestion!" Dorial insisted, but not without a shiver.

"It could be shipwrecks that make the water depth by the bone pile change," one of Dorial's friends pointed out. "Enough pleasure galleons go down at that point. I bet they're all in stacks."

"Probably the sea folk want their riches. Look at this merwoman's tail! It's glittering with jewels!"

A shadow fell over their book.

"Miena!" Dorial and his friends closed around the book. "Where did you get that necklace?" Dorial's eyes went wide. Those green-grimed pearls and pale shells with black-crusted ridges could have been right out of The Sea Book. A heavy medallion hung at the bottom, its design and material hidden beneath filth.

"On the beach," Miena said. "When I was checking the nets."

Dorial did not miss her reference to his neglected chores. But at the same time, he did not believe her.

Miena's eyes did not move from the page until Dorial shut the book. As she drifted away, Dorial held a hurried, whispered conference with his friends. "Do mermaids ever attack girls?"

The unanimous response concerned mermaids' seduction of men.

Dorial tried a new tactic. "I bet if we follow Miena, we'll see something." He waited several heartbeats, expecting nothing less than success. After all, wasn't that what they had waited for since beginning their society? But one after another, his friends' faces fell, and they made their excuses.

"Well, if I see anything, I'll tell you," Dorial said at last.

"Here," Shefor said. "You might need this." And he pressed The Sea Book into Dorial's hands. One by one, the boys surrendered the Secret Society's defenses against legends of the deep, a small mirror, a small pouch of dirt from beneath an oak tree, a knife handle edged in pearl, and many others. Dorial wondered if The Sea Book were right about their powers. Perhaps they were only trinkets and trash. Doubt weighed heavy on Dorial's heart, as though The Sea Book itself hung there from invisible chains.

All day, the scent of brine reminded Dorial of the task that awaited him that afternoon. Several girls in the row in front of him pointed at his sister. "Mermaid Miena," one whispered until the whole row was tittering.

Time seemed to limp and sprint by arbitrary turns. The clouds, murky gray, pressed closer with each hour. At last when the students stowed books for the day and tidied the room, Mistress Heterla asked Miena to stay after. Dorial decided that whether Mistress Heterla meant him, too, or not, he would stay also. Perhaps she had noticed something peculiar about Miena recently. Dorial waited, waited, waited until the last of them were gone, and it was just Miena and Mistress Heterla in the room.

"I received word from the Cirol board this morning." Mistress Heterla said. "You can accompany me to my other schools outside Harpoon Peninsula to administer the close-of-term tests. After that, you can go to Cirol and start training to teach, yourself. The instructors were very impressed with my recommendation."

"I'm afraid I have lost interest." Miena's voice was frost.

"Miena, what are you saying? I thought you wanted to leave Harpoon Peninsula more than anything!"

Outside, the ominous clouds leaned closer.

"I no longer do," Miena said. "There is no point. The world over is all the same."

The clouds burst; rain pounded the roof, surf from the sky.

"What happened, my dear? Is it your parents? I—"

"Nothing has 'happened,' Mistress Heterla." Dorial had never left Harpoon Peninsula , but the arrogance in his sister's voice made him think of a queen. "Good afternoon."

"Miena, don't go!" Mistress Heterla called.

But Miena let the wind slam the door behind her. When Dorial tugged it open, a torrent of rain hit him. Despite the wet, Miena sprinted recklessly; she had nearly reached the corner. It was as though something pursued her. Or, Dorial reflected with some foreboding, as though something elsewhere summoned her.

Miena did not stop at their house, but went directly to the beach. A small abandoned boat floated near the shore. Perhaps the foul weather had freed it from its moorings. Then a flicker of motion caught the corner of his eye. Someone, or some thing was swimming in the water!

As though the entire scene were a strange nightmare, Miena boarded the meandering boat. Dorial could not tell through the rain and distance, but it seemed she smiled at the thing in the water. Then, the boat started to leave the shallows.

Dorial gasped. Miena and the creature were escaping! Without a second thought, he raced down the beach and into the water. The cold pierced Dorial's clothing, stinging beneath his skin. He swam with strong strokes, yet it seemed ages that he battled the waves.

Dorial hardly dared believe it when he was able to cling to the side of the boat. Dripping and shivering, he pulled himself up, then collapsed. As Dorial lay on the deck, he realized how decrepit the vessel was, certainly not seaworthy. It was a rotting corpse of a ship, its bones bleached white where the gray flesh had been peeled away.

Dorial began to wonder if the boat would ever stop. They had nearly sailed free of the storm. Something was wrong with the water, however, though Dorial did not know what at first. Then he saw how far Harpoon Peninsula was. Beyond the bow, the bone pile waited.

At last, the boat drew up against the bone pile. Miena came to the sagging bow, much of which was already submerged. When his sister sat down, Dorial heard someone say, "This is where I was born as a mermaid. If you gaze into the water, you can see all that remains of Trickster's Fortune. It is only fitting that you, too, be born as a mermaid here."

Dorial's every nerve jumped taut when he saw the mermaid's hand emerge from the water to take Miena's. For all its beauty, no life pulsed within it. The flesh was pale blue, rimed with icy gray. Dorial darted for Miena and seized her other hand.

"Miena!" What he intended to be a heroic shout came out as a croaking cough.

His sister turned to him, desperation in her eyes that he had never seen before. Yet, she made no move to dislodge Sorlea's grip.

"Don't interfere, son of sailors!" The mermaid spat the words as though they were a curse. "This girl, I intend to make my devoted slave!"

"Wait! I want to challenge you. She's my sister, you know."

"Hah!" Sorlea sent water shooting at Dorial. "How do you presume to 'challenge' me?"

Dorial wiped his eyes. "We'll see who can hold their breath underwater the longest." His voice shook. Part of him could not believe this was happening.

"Idiot! As a denizen of the deep, I can breathe even the darkest water!"

Dorial drew himself up to his full height. "Well, my friends call me 'seal' because of my speed in the water and my ability to withstand the cold!"

Sorlea laughed again at Dorial's boast. This time he heard a sinister beauty in the sound. "Very well, boy. We shall count together."

"To three," Dorial agreed.

"One, two, three!"

Following three, Sorlea dived under the water. Dorial did likewise. He cut through the icy deeps, knowing he would have to pass far under the mermaid for her to not realize what he was doing. Farther down, the darkness became oppressive pressure around his body, squeezing his head from outside and in.

Relief shot through Dorial's fingertips as they grazed the bottom at last. It was narrow chance and good fortune, Dorial realized, that his descent had taken place in deep water, since the area around the bone pile contained many shallows that were treacherous to ships.

As Dorial rose, the pressure decreased, but the cold in his limbs was nearly intolerable, despite his training with the Secret Society. His sense of direction faltered, but at last Dorial broke surface, paddled soundlessly toward the boat, and pulled himself aboard once again. The cold tore at his arm and stiffened his fingers.

Sorlea remained submerged, her dark hair afloat like rotted seaweed atop the waves. Miena remained seated, bound by the mermaid's spell. Dorial yanked Sorlea's necklace from his sister's neck. Years in the salt water had made the string brittle, and the necklace exploded in a shower of algae-stained pearls and shells. At the same time, Sorlea surfaced. "Trickster!" She looked frantically at Miena. Dorial saw that the focus had returned to his sister's eyes.

"This girl will still become a mermaid and rove the sea with me," Sorlea declared. She began to drag Miena into the water.

Dorial reached into his pocket, but he could not find the item he sought.

"No! Help me, Dorial!" Miena screamed. She snatched at the ship's edge.

Dorial jammed his hand farther into his pocket, but he could feel nothing. Suppose a hole had formed in it while he was swimming, and all his wards against the sea's minions had slipped out? No! That was too terrible to ponder!

At last he found it, a bit of silvered glass, and drew it free. He cut his finger slightly on the edge, and the warm blood stung on his aching skin.

"Look on yourself, sea hag!" Dorial shouted. In the cold air, his voice was raw and hoarse. "See what you are, not what you deceive others and yourself to see!"

Despite his bold words, Dorial's doubts remained strong. Suppose the circle glass, which would have been just the size for a small telescope, was too small to have an effect? But to his great relief, Sorlea gazed at it as rapt as though Dorial were a hypnotist.

"No," she whispered. She let go of Miena's leg; her fingers left red welts in their wake. Then she sank into the gray waters that had become her grave. Her eyes still burned with colorless fire, fixed on the mirror as she descended. Dorial shuddered and returned the glass to his pocket.

"Miena," he said. "Are you okay?"

She nodded. "Sorlea… She is trapped, more trapped than even I am." Then she seemed to truly see her brother for the first time. "How did you get so wet? Was it…to save me?"

Dorial nodded. Miena knew from her little brother's face that no thanks were needed.

Of one accord, they worked to turn the wreck of a fishing boat around and return to the safety of the peninsula.

"You'll have quite a story to tell your friends," Miena said.

"That's right!" Dorial said. The return trip, they filled with discussion on how Dorial should begin his story and on what aspects of their experiences belied those of The Sea Book.

"I wonder what will happen to Sorlea now that she has looked into the mirror," Miena said.

"I'll watch for her," Dorial said. "It might be a new addition to The Sea Book. I guess Mistress Heterla was right," he said, puffing up his chest. "We will change Harpoon Peninsula, you and I. We've already started by seeing that mermaid. Most people don't sight them until they have their own vessel."

"You were so brave." Miena stared into the water as if she expected Sorlea to attack the boat. "I don't know if I could have been as courageous."

"Heroics have their place," Dorial said as they walked home from the beach. "But why don't you want to talk about Mistress Heterla?"

"I'm afraid, Dorial. What if she no longer wants me to go with her?"

"She seemed to want you this afternoon."

Miena furrowed her brow in concentration. "I don't even remember. What did she say?"

When Dorial had told her, Miena sighed. "I did all that? I suppose it is settled, then. Perhaps Sorlea and I are alike in some ways, and that is why she was able to influence-"

"Look!" Dorial pointed at a woman walking through the rain by their house.

Miena squinted. "Mistress Heterla. What would she be doing here?"

Before they could speculate, Mistress Heterla saw them and answered her own question. "Why, children! What are you doing outside?"

"You are far from home, too, Mistress Heterla," Dorial said.

"I was looking for your house," their teacher said. "However, your parents said neither you nor Miena were home. I was about to give up."

Miena's heart gave a jump.

"I realize this is short notice, Miena, but I must ask you to reconsider. This may be your last chance to come to Cirol with me. The board surely will assign me a different region next term."

With a shout of joy, Miena caught Dorial, then Mistress Heterla in an embrace.

"Such a change from earlier this afternoon." Mistress Heterla shook her head as Miena hurried into the house. "I suppose she is at that age."

Dorial opened the door and motioned for his teacher to enter. Inside, he took out the circle of glass and gave it to her. "This is for Miena," he said in answer to her puzzled look. "Perhaps she will tell you the story and perhaps not. But this is the reason for her change. She is finally able to see things as they are again."

"Strange." Mistress Heterla turned the flat glass circle over in her hand. "It resembles the glass circles the inland Sea Legends society sent, but for the gray eyes painted on it."

###

Miena came down the narrow stairs, her meager possessions in a knapsack. Her father sat at the table tying the ropes for a new net. Her mother cleared the table, including two plates that were still full.

"I'm leaving for Cirol," Miena said.

Dishes clattered under the pump.

"Are you, now?" her father said. "I suppose Dorial will have to check the nets."

"It will be good for Dorial," her mother said. "He is a growing boy and needs to learn responsibility. With Miena away, there will be more for him to eat".

"It will be good for all of us," Miena longed to say, but silence filled her throat like dark water. Perhaps her return with money and worldly experience would make them understand. But then, perhaps not. Harpoon Peninsula's people were more stubborn than barnacles clinging to the bottom of a ship.

Dorial grinned at Miena. "Come back to Harpoon Peninsula when you've seen the world. Bring some of it back for us," Dorial said when Miena left the kitchen at last.

"I will," Miena promised. Then she and Mistress Heterla set out into the rain.