“Really, Dana. I saw her do it, and the larva started screaming . . .” Luce told the whole thing, including the moment when Samantha blurted out that Anais had been murdering larvae. When Dana heard that, she choked, then went quiet for a while.

“I’d wondered about that. It seemed like too many of them were getting washed up on the beach, way back from the water, too. But, Luce, I didn’t actually know! I would have at least tried to stop her . . . and I would have told you what was going on.”

“It’s way too sick to believe,” Luce agreed, then considered for a moment. “I still don’t want to believe it! Dana, you think she’s been throwing them onshore?” They both knew what that meant. The larval mermaids had all died in unspeakable pain, writhing and juddering until their hearts stopped. Then tiny human legs lay on the beach where their tails had been before.

For a few minutes they sat silent together, clouded in cold fog and a few spatters of rain. Wind sawed at the trees until they moaned like violins.

When Dana finally spoke again, it was to ask Luce about the whirlpool that had caught Anais.

“How did you do that, anyway? Have you gotten that insanely powerful?” Luce shook her head, remembering the deep trancelike feeling that had possessed her as she’d sung those unearthly scales.

“I’m—I’m pretty sure I couldn’t do that again, actually. I’ve gotten more control over the water and everything, but that—it didn’t even feel like the song was coming from me, Dana. It was more like I was so upset that I called to a bigger song, and it came through me somehow . . .” Luce realized from Dana’s expression that this sounded utterly crazy to her.

“It was completely you. It was just you and them there, right?”

“And the larvae.”

“Whatever. You know larvae can’t sing at all.”

“I’m not saying there was another mermaid singing, though!” Luce didn’t know how to explain it, and Dana’s gaze was mocking, even if she also looked impressed. “I’m saying I don’t actually have as much power as it sounds like, from what happened. I heard something singing with my voice, but it wasn’t exactly me.”

Dana smiled at Luce with a funny, disbelieving look on her lovely brown face, and lifted both arms over her head to stretch. Luce was just cracking another oyster when Dana brought her hands down into the water so suddenly that the splash soaked both of them, and as Luce yelped in surprise Dana twisted her tail around Luce’s and flipped her sideways. When she came up with sheets of water tumbling over her face, Dana was already ten feet back and barely visible through the fog, laughing, but with her hands raised to ask for a truce.