A Song Below Water (A Song Below Water, #1)

by Bethany C. Morrow

I’ve been watching Camilla Fox’s eponymous YouTube channel for the past two years. I’ve studied her wash-and-go technique, I’ve acquired a small kingdom’s worth of natural hair products at her recommendation, and I still have not cracked the secret of her bounce and style preservability.

Her picture showed up on the evening news the weekend after her live-in boyfriend murdered her, but only because social media had been circulating it and demanding to know why no one seemed to be saying her name.

The defense is saying the deceased was a siren. Which means maybe she wasn’t a victim after all.

If the flax seed gel isn’t enough to keep her coils from frizzing, it’ll be okay. Her top knot’ll still slay. Camilla taught her well.

“Right,” I say to Porsha, careful to keep my voice as light and breezy as possible. “But the first sirens to be targeted during the Civil Rights movement were activists. When they were accused, they opted to confirm their identity.”

“A siren made me do it” is a pretty strong defense, I guess—even if the siren’s the one who ends up dead.

My problem is that for a long time sirens have been Black women. Not just mostly. Exclusively. Now that it’s just us, the romance is dead. Instead of inspiring songs and stories, now our calls inspire defensive anger. Our power’s not enchanting or endearing anymore; it offends.

Sirens might be exclusively Black women, but all Black women aren’t sirens. We’re not even only sirens. Naema, for instance, is a different kind of different—one that manifests in any and every racial ethnicity, which is probably why despite having a pretty creepy mythos attached to them, elokos are still thoroughly adored. (The mythos is untrue, of course, but then so is mine and that hasn’t changed anyone’s mind.) “I’m sorry, Tavia,” Naema’s saying. “Did I interrupt?” “Nope.” I smile because no one will mention how her eloko-ness comes up in every rehearsal.

Before they only seemed to know the defendant’s name, but now Rhoda Taylor is branded in their brains. I’ve heard it a dozen times today—but this isn’t what we mean by “say her name.”