CHAPTER 21
Peacekeepers lead Maire and me through a tunnel at the back of the Council buildings and to a waiting transport. It’s full of people—the other sirens are already here. I count heads quickly. Including Maire, there are twenty-seven of them, far fewer than I would have expected. One of the sirens asks who I am, and when she does, I recognize her voice. She’s the siren who spoke to Atlantia during the breach in the deepmarket.
“Rio is another siren,” Maire says, gesturing to me. “One who’s managed to stay hidden until now.”
“Can we hear her speak?” asks another siren, a man.
“No,” Maire says. “Nevio wants her to save her voice. It will be more powerful that way.”
Something about the way Maire tells them this forestalls further questions, though I can see that the others are intrigued.
I am the youngest siren on the transport. “So I am the last,” I say to Maire under my breath.
“As far as we know,” Maire says. “But I believe there may be many more to come, if Atlantia survives.”
Someone hands us blue robes to wear over our clothes. For a moment I am speechless at the beautiful cloth in my hands—it is a lovely, iridescent turquoise, shot through with golden threads and silver and green and white and even black. I am wearing the ocean. The cloth feels ancient, a remnant of a finer time.
“Sirens used to wear these when they went to the surface,” Maire says. “The cloth was made with a technique unique to the Below that we have since lost.”
I slip my arms into the robes. The sirens also wear makeup—including the men. The cheekbones and contours of their faces are brought out with shading. They—we—bring to mind those sharp-faced animals from the Above, the ones called birds. I’ve seen them in pictures. One of the sirens comes toward Maire and begins marking up her face.
It’s not hard to see that, to the people Above, we are supposed to appear otherworldly, powerful and strange. We are meant to impress and convince them.
“Don’t we need to wear masks?” I ask. “Isn’t the air dangerous up there?”
“We won’t wear masks today,” Maire says. “It’s more powerful that way.”
The other sirens have decided to be civil to me. Some of them look guarded, but most seem to regard me with something bordering on reverence. “Oceana’s daughter, a siren,” one says.
So they’ve figured out who I am. I wonder if they’ll also make the connection between Maire and me, if they’ll realize that she’s my aunt.
“See?” Maire says, her voice dry. “You’re not alone in worshipping her.”
Everyone speaks of my mother, but I can’t stop thinking of Bay. This could be the very transport she used to go to the surface. I’m going to the surface. I wish there were windows. I want to see what it’s like, all the way up.
“You’ll love it,” one of the sirens says, leaning close to me as she brushes my face with iridescent powder. “Do you know what they think about us Above?” She smiles. “They think we are the gods.” She reaches for a dark pencil, smudges lines above my eyes. “It’s intoxicating.”
“It’s magic,” one of the other sirens says.
“How do you know this?” I ask. “Have any of you been Above?” And how much do they know of the real history of the Below, the one I heard from the shell and from Maire?
They all fall silent.
“No,” Maire says. “None of us have ever seen the Above.”
“But Nevio and the Council told us how it would be,” another siren says, “and we’re ready. The people of Atlantia will love us again after this. We’re about to perform the third miracle.”
Maire smiles and there is no mirth in it. She doesn’t believe that the people Above think we are gods anymore. She doesn’t believe that the people Below are going to worship and love us again.
Maire’s eyes meet mine, and I think, The people Below will never know what the sirens do today. Nevio will never tell them. If this doesn’t work, Atlantia will die, and if it does work, Atlantia will go on as it always has. Nevio won’t give the sirens credit for this.
“Where do we go when we get Above?” I ask Maire. I’ve always pictured myself walking alone on a shore, where there are trees and sun and sand. But I know it won’t be like that.
“The Above is a large island,” Maire says, “with many smaller surrounding islands. The dock for the transports that bring people up is on one of those smaller islands. We are to wait on a platform there for the citizens of the Above to come meet us.”
“Is it the same spot where they brought Bay?” I ask.
“Yes,” Maire says. “It’s been the meeting place since the Divide.”
“How is this going to work?” I ask.
“They say that our voices are even more powerful up here,” the deepmarket siren tells me. She has a clear, calming inflection. “That when we speak, our voices go much farther and last much longer. There is no way to avoid us or disobey us once we have given a command. If they try, they hear our voices in their minds speaking to them again, even though we have long since gone back Below. Our voices haunt them. It’s why they stopped us from coming Above long ago. But the Council agrees that it is time for us to go back.”
“Who told you all this?” I ask.
“The knowledge has been passed down among generations,” Maire says. “From siren to siren.”
I wish I knew if she were speaking the truth. I wish I trusted her.
I wanted to love her.
“If we can really do all of this, why would the Above let us come up again?” I ask.
“Nevio arranged it,” Maire says.
The door to the transport opens, and the Minister himself appears. Everyone hushes instantly.
Nevio paces in front of the sirens as if we are a row of acolytes awaiting instruction in the temple. “It is our duty as sirens,” he says, “to remind the people Above of their place in the order of things.”
So the sirens know what he is. He has identified himself as one of them in words, and he does it with his voice as well, speaking without holding back. “We must remind those Above of their obligation to honor the gods. Their Council understands this. They believe that their people have become too wicked, too dismissive of their religion. They have agreed to let us come Above to remind and convince the people there of the rightness of the Divide.”
Now he looks at Maire. She smiles at him. It is the coldest thing I have ever seen.
“We have been trying to decide if we should command or persuade,” one of the sirens says. “And if we should speak in unison or cacophony.”
“Ah,” Nevio says. “I think it must be a command. How else can we make sure that they listen to us? But as for the other matter—well. Let me hear you.”
The sirens nod eagerly. How long have they known that he is one of them? How long have they let themselves be under his spell?
“What are the gifts given to we who live Below?” he asks. In his full, real voice, his siren voice.
It is honey and blood, dark and warm, golden and full of shadow. It is a beautiful voice, a decayed voice. I catch my breath. Nevio notices. He smiles.
“Long life, health, strength, and happiness,” the other sirens answer, and I am afraid to move. I’ve never heard anything like this, and my heart fills with joy at the beauty of their voices, at the power behind them. They are angels singing to their god, their voices hopeful and full of belief.
But their faith has been misdirected.
He has taken their power and turned it all toward himself. Do they understand that?
“What is the curse of those who live Above?” Nevio asks.
“Short life, illness, weakness, and misery.”
“Is this fair?”
“It is fair. It is as the gods decreed at the time of the Divide. Some have to stay Above so that humanity might survive Below.”
They go on through all the rest of it. Neither Maire nor I join in.
“Maire and the new siren didn’t say anything,” someone says, when they have finished.
“It’s all right,” Nevio says. “They’ve been instructed to save their voices. Some sirens who don’t train as you do aren’t prepared to use their voices more than once in the space of a few hours.” He smiles. “But they may still be of use.”
He’s insulting us, I realize. But he’s also lying. He knows that Maire and I are powerful. Why is he pretending that we’re not?
“Now,” Nevio says, “let’s try the other way.”
This time, the sirens speak in cacophony. All saying the same things but not at the same time, each using their voice’s own particular, potent power—screaming, shrieking, singing, whispering, calling.
It’s unsettling, ugly, and powerful in a completely different way. I feel like my bones are rearranging, scraping against one another inside my body, that my brain is itchy and agitated and my blood hot.
“Unison,” Nevio decides. “We will have you speak in unison. You have trained, and you know all the words.”
I knew the words from listening to them in the temple, but now, after hearing the sirens, it’s as if the litany has been seared into my brain.
“We are ready,” Nevio says. “I will see you at the surface.”
“Aren’t you coming with us?” one of the other sirens asks in dismay.
“I am coming up right behind you, in another transport,” Nevio says, his voice soothing. “As the Minister, there are matters of prayer I need to attend to, alone, in order to help ensure our success. But I will see you soon in the Above. And I leave my blessing upon you.”
He nods to all of us and disappears through the door of the transport. As soon as he’s gone through, the door slides shut and I hear the lock engaging. Now that the door is closed, it’s hard to see where it was before—it fits into the wall so smoothly. There’s no handle or opening mechanism on the inside. “No going back now,” one of the sirens says. “Once the door’s locked, it won’t open again until we’re at the surface.”
Another siren, one about my mother’s age, sits down in front of me. “You’ve ruined your makeup,” she says. She takes out a cloth and wipes my cheeks. She doesn’t seem surprised, and I suppose she understands. How could I not weep at the siren sounds, both ugly and beautiful?
“I think we’re doing this wrong,” I say. “All of this. The makeup, the commands. We should try to be more human, not less. We should try to talk to them. To the people Above. We should plead with them, convince them that this is what they want to do. Use our voices, but then let them make the choice. They won’t hate us that way.”
The sirens stare at me as if I’m not even speaking their language.
“Is this your idea, Maire?” one of them asks. “It sounds like you.”
“I don’t know why the Minister and the Council decided to let you come.” One of the male sirens sneers at my aunt. I stare in disbelief. How can he treat Maire so casually? Does he have no idea of what she can do?
“Because I’m powerful,” Maire says, and there is no anger in her voice. Only sorrow. “And the Minister and the Council know that. Until today they have always wanted me alive.”
Until today? What does Maire mean?
Why does she never tell me the whole truth?
I think about what she said earlier:
“The Minister is speaking to the other sirens right now. He is telling them that we are the Below’s last chance for survival. He will let them know that we are going to the Above to remind the people there of their place in the world, and of ours. He will say that the people of the Above are tired of providing for us Below, and they do not plan to continue to do so. The Minister will say that this mission is essential to the survival of Atlantia. He is right.”
But I also think about what Maire didn’t say. She didn’t say Nevio was telling the sirens the truth about everything. She only said that this mission is essential to the survival of Atlantia.
Something is very, very wrong here, and I don’t know what it is. I think Maire does. And she hasn’t told me.
I can’t bear it. I stand up and walk to the other end of the transport.
Maire follows me. “Save your tears and your anger,” she says. “You’re going to need them when we reach the Above.”
“Why should I believe anything you say?”
“Because I do tell the truth about some things. Your mother needed me. Your sister did, too. When I said that to you, it wasn’t a lie.”
She slides a corner of paper out from her sleeve. I know the writing on it.
It’s a letter from Bay.
“She told me that I was only to give it to you if you tried to go Above,” Maire says.
I snatch the letter from Maire before she can say anything more.
Rio,
If you read this, it means I’ve gone Above and that I managed to keep my decision to leave a secret from you.
And it means that you are trying to go Above. I know you. I know you won’t give up until you find a way. But you have to remain Below.
I don’t know where I should begin, but I know that I have to tell you everything so that you can understand why you have to stay.
Our mother didn’t tell me until a few weeks before she died that you could never go Above. I wonder if she was starting to suspect what you’ve always wanted to do. She told me about the history of the sirens. They used to go Above, but they’ve been banned from doing so for generations. They hate the sirens Above, Rio, and they will kill you as soon as they know what you are. You won’t be able to speak Above, not any more than you can speak Below.
I asked her why she didn’t tell you this, and she said it was because she didn’t want to break your heart.
A few weeks later, she died. And all I could think about, besides who killed her, was keeping you safe.
So I made you promise that you would stay. And I decided that I’d have to go Above when the time came. I didn’t want to leave Atlantia, but this was the best way to protect you—to guarantee that you couldn’t ever go. I had to hide my plan from you. It felt impossible. You know we didn’t hide things from each other.
But I’m not leaving you alone.
I’m giving Maire this letter to give to you, and some money, too, so you can use it for whatever you might need.
Maire will watch over you and make sure you survive. You need to be where she is, now that our mother is gone.
I’m so sorry, Rio.
But I have to go to keep you safe.
I love you.
Bay
I swallow. An angry, hard ache in my throat makes it difficult.
This is just like my mother and Bay. Always protecting me.
“Always underestimating you,” Maire says out loud next to me.
I don’t want to listen to her. I’m still angry with her. She was supposed to give me this before I was actually on my way to the surface. Now I’m locked in the transport with no way out.
“You didn’t play fair,” I say.
“I only cheat when I have to,” Maire tells me. “But what I said now is true. Your mother and your sister loved you, but they never understood your potential. I do.”
I hear the sound of the door unlocking. All the sirens look dumbfounded. “I thought that, once it was locked, no one else could enter,” someone says.
“That’s what they said,” another agrees.
“Interesting,” Maire says. “Are they letting one of us out?”
They are not.
When the door opens, peacekeepers stand at the ready to keep us from attempting to exit. They escort someone in, and then they close the door behind him.
It’s True.
The transport begins to move.