A Bone in His Teeth

by Kellen Graves

How ironic, for someone of the land and someone of the sea to meet in that same miserable place. Searching for those who were meant to be there waiting. Missing. Not a trace to be found. As if Moon Harbor had swallowed every one of them whole.

Alba kept watching him, observing every twitch of his pale irises as they reflected the glowing white spots speckling the dark canvas. Without the moon to rival him, Alba thought he really was the most stunning thing to exist.

Alba had never heard the man repeat his name so many times in only a few hours, endlessly seeking his attention with every additional discovery. Alba. Alba, here. Alba, look. Alba. Alba. What do you think? Always followed by an extended hand dribbling a few pearls, pretty shells, even sometimes what looked like lost merrow jewelry.

Eridanys surprised him by chuckling, too—then laughing with him, a bright, musical, wholesome sound far more beautiful than any song Alba had ever heard.

Alba managed a weak smile. “Alright,” he said. Grateful for those words. Unsure what else to say. Unsure how to put the sudden squeeze of his chest into words, only knowing they sounded an awful lot like ‘come with me.’

“Don’t you dare drown me,” he threatened into Eridanys’ ear. “I’ll haunt you for every day you’re still alive.” “Promise?”

Even in such low light, the siren glowed like the moon herself; brighter than the mosaic, more stunning than even the goddess depicted there. It left Alba breathless, even more than the water that refused him air. And such a beautiful, breathtaking thing—was looking right back at him, as if there was a chance in the world Eridanys could ever think the same of someone like Albatross Marsh.

“I would have still put my eyes on you and failed to ever look away again. I would have still made you mine any time I spotted you. From any shore.”

Alba was as reclusive as any siren out in the vast sea, unsociable, unapproachable, preferring simplicity and silence over excitement. But—all at the same time—the thought of parting ways with his own siren made his heart race nervously.

“What if I can’t reach a shore to call from?” Alba asked. He didn’t mean for it to sound so frightened, hating himself. Hating how he’d felt like nothing but a pathetic, whimpering child for days, made weak by the world after so many years hardened into something that could withstand it. As if meeting Eridanys was his final undoing. “Then I will beseech the sea to rise high enough for me to reach you,” Eridanys said without hesitation. “And I think she would listen.”

Alba and his siren, who would always come no matter which shore Alba called from—who Alba would always answer no matter which part of the sea beckoned his name in return.

As faceless and rotten and inhuman as Alba had become since first stolen off the road, just a sailor, just a body, just two arms to heave nets from the sea—only just realizing he had a face to be seen at all when Eridanys held it gentler than he ever deserved.

He threw himself into the siren’s arms, clinging to him as something nearly lost. Something he loved and could keep, unlike so many other times. Alba’s merrow, his siren, his caller of the sea, his companion, who he would keep close until he took his last breath. Alba would be able to keep Eridanys by his side, to start anew, to have a life, to have a home, to have someone to take care of like he always wished.