Updrift (19 page)

Gabe tucked her hair behind her ear. “We’d get help, preferably of the non-pharmaceutical variety, from our mothers.” He stroked her cheek with his thumb, and she once again felt blissful and relaxed. “And I can provide my own form of antidepressant, right?”

“Ah. Yes. It’s wonderful. But how come I’m less swept away than I was when you first did that? I mean, I still feel heavenly, but I also feel more aware. Like I’m actually awake.”

Gabe affected a leer. “You wouldn’t if I really put my back into it.” She shoved him away playfully. “No, actually it’s a matter of concentration on my part,” he explained. “I’m not worried about you feeling anxious, so I’m not trying to influence you. And we’re on land, not in water, where you’re more susceptible. And your system builds a sort of immunity. So I can’t just make you jump off a bridge or something. But if I concentrated, or if there were a couple of us working on you at the same time, you’d be oblivious.”

She propped her head up on her arm. “So. Let’s talk more about life since we were seventeen.”

Gabe grabbed her free hand. “Okay. Should we start with the evil intervention of our parents, or talk about our respective lives of academic slavery?”

“Let’s start with the evil intervention part. What was the big idea there?”

“The big idea was to preclude us from bonding too early.”

“And how did they know we would?”

“My mother has basically been scheming against us since I lured you off that boat when we were five, after you and your mother moved here. I think she showed you an astrological chart she started for you?”

She nodded.

“Yeah, well, between our astral compatibility and my initial addiction to you, she and Dad both figured we’d make a good match.”

“And we couldn’t have maybe seen each other in high school? Maybe gone to prom, or something normal?”

Gabe shook his head. “Not a good idea. It’s hard for someone who’s not one of us to understand but we don’t date.” He seemed to reconsider this response. “Well, we do participate in group social activities in school. Not many, though. And we never do anything like one-to-one dancing.”

“Tell me more.”

“I always feel like our society is too structured and restrictive when I talk about this but we don’t do months of emotional exploration prior to coupling up. There’s a kind of emotional inquiry we make when we first meet someone, but we don’t have to go to plays or dinner to know if we can bond. We just kind of know.”

She considered how she would have felt if Gabe had not been drawn to her. “It would have killed me if you’d found someone else. I really don’t think I could have watched.”

“Trust me; I felt the same way about you. And I was so sure we were right for each other, I could hardly wait to get this deal done. Our parents had their hands full distracting me away. And keeping you otherwise occupied too.”

“Is that what all the heavy academic lifting was for? The massive over-scheduling of schoolwork?”

“Absolutely,” he confirmed. “But our parents had more practical reasons.”

Kate lifted her eyebrows. “Just making sure we don’t start having babies at sixteen?”

“Exactly. The thing with sirens is we have pretty high standards of personal responsibility. Everyone has to be able to support themselves before it’s considered okay to marry.”

“That’s not such a bad idea,” she countered.

“Maybe not, but that’s not the whole story. We all work a certain amount for the community, pay into a common fund used for our educations and basic housing when we start out in life, or for medical expenses if any of us have a problem. We pay based on ability, so the obligation isn’t onerous for anyone. But we have to be able to both pull our weight and contribute. Pride is as big a motivator as the legal mandate, although we do have a mandate.”

She pretended horror. “Omigosh. I’ve married a communist.”

“Not really,” he disagreed lightly. “We’re also free-market-based—we’re only about ten degrees off from the tax system you guys have on land. It just works better for us because we have a much smaller population and less economic—and cultural—disparity in general.”

“Well, what I remember about my sprint through high school and college is how all that pressure made me feel self-destructive after a while. Seriously, I understand why people pick up smoking, or a fast food habit.”

Gabe’s expression was rueful. “I know. Maybe there’s a better way to skin that cat. But you have to admit you’re ready to support yourself if you had to, and you have the self-discipline to do lots of things you otherwise wouldn’t. As much as it sucked, we’re more ready for adult life than most other people our age.”

She frowned, unconvinced. “I suppose. I don’t really care now that it’s over and we’re together. So, tell me more about you, about being a siren.”

Gabe stretched. “What do you want to know?”

She thought through her growing list of questions. “Are there a lot of you out there? I can’t believe you haven’t been discovered.”

“No, not many. Maybe a couple hundred thousand or so worldwide. That’s one reason we haven’t been found out. And we’re really, really good at appearing to be something else. That’s another reason.

“My mother would have an exact population count for you. Remember how she told you and your mother about her genetics background?” Kate nodded. “Well, she’s the person responsible for keeping our genetic and census records, including who’s related and how. And she evaluates non-sirens as potential mates for some of us.” He poked Kate in the ribs. “Her research on people’s families is so she can learn if the person might fit in, where they came from and what their astrological chart holds. She uses this information to make calculated suggestions concerning marriage, like a matchmaker.”

“Does this happen often, where one of you marries one of us?”

“Sometimes, if it can be done safely—which is to say, without exposure—we marry land people, non-swimmers such as yourself. We have issues with genetic diversity, and intermarriage helps. The party at my parent’s house, the one you and Maya called the Blake orgy?” Kate smiled at the memories this question evoked. “It was a matchmaking event. My mom sets them up according to what’s going on with our population and some lunar schedule she uses for predicting good outcomes. I don’t pretend to understand it. She’ll have one for the ladies here at some point. I’m told it’s pretty funny to see.”

“And do you have a say at all in who you end up marrying? I don’t like that something so personal could be so prescribed.”

“Everyone has a say. It’s actually very much like what you saw at my parent’s house the night John got together with your mother…”

“Holy cats!” she interrupted. “John’s a siren, isn’t he? And what about Everett?” She was stunned, mostly because John’s siren status hadn’t occurred to her until now.

“It’s not for me to tell you about John, but you can figure it out. As for Everett, the siren gene is dominant, and offspring are always sirens.”

“Can people become sirens?”

“No. However, humans in our company make some pretty significant adaptations,”

“Such as?”

“Such as the ability to hold your breath longer. Right now, with my help, you can hold your breath for about ten minutes. Just like a baby whale.” He brushed her nose with his forefinger. “If we swim together regularly, you’ll be able to hold your breath on your own for up to twenty minutes. Forty minutes if one of us is holding onto you.”

“For how long can you hold your breath, Gabe?”

“About four hours. Longer if we’re in really cold water and not moving around too much.”

“Wow. What else can you do?”

His face lit up with excitement. “You wouldn’t believe how fast we can swim. It’s exhilarating. We’re all really agile, and much stronger than you land lubbers. And we can sort of blur the concept of time.”

She thought of their first foray into the water as children, and how all the people on the boat were sure only minutes had passed while she and Gabe swam, when in fact, hours had gone by. She regarded him thoughtfully. “Go on.”

“You live longer.” His expression clouded. “We live three hundred years typically, although a few of us are older. If you live with a siren, your lifespan grows to about one hundred and fifty years.” His eyes watered. “And it’s very hard to lose your mate.”

“What other adaptations do people make?” She wanted to discuss something less painful, although she resolved to go over longevity questions with him another time.

“You know how we can communicate under water?” Kate nodded. “It’s really an advanced form of intuition. You think we’re mind reading even though we’re not. It’s more a sensitivity you gain to people’s thoughts and feelings, which we apprehend because we’re particularly attuned. We’re best in the water, although we can kinda pull it off on land, if we’re touching the person and concentrating pretty hard. You process what comes to you as words but you’re actually interpreting what you sense. Which is kind of cool, because no matter what language someone speaks, you can always understand what they’re saying.

“Humans can do this too,” he continued, “but their sensitivity becomes more developed after prolonged cohabitation with us. The ability to suggest false images comes from the same skill, and some people pick that up too.”

“Ooo! This has puzzled me, like, my whole life—what’s the deal with the Clark Kent glasses? All the people who wear them are sirens, right?”

“Yep. Our eyes are a little different from yours, and we need to keep them trained so we can see well underwater. If we don’t wear the glasses, we lose the ability to focus when we’re hunting. Or just plain see where we’re swimming.”

“So, back to how you choose who you end up with. You were telling me how individual choice is involved.”

“Yes. And some of our choice is dictated by timing. As in, we start looking when we’re biologically ready. During that time, we meet in groups my mother has defined, where any of the people there could marry and it would be good for them and for the community.”

“Which doesn’t quite sound the same as having free choice.”

“It’s not so different in your society, Kate. I mean, you tend to marry people you’re exposed to. You don’t choose some hypothetical person in another country. Usually.”

Kate considered his explanation. “I guess I see your point. I remember my mother saying something similar to me once when I was little, when I asked how it worked, finding your husband, and if each person has to find the one other person on earth they can marry.” She smiled at her former naiveté. “I was worried about her, whether she’d be alone the rest of her life after losing my father.

“Anyway, she told me the miracle is in the bond you form as you live with someone, not in how perfectly suited—or wildly attracted—you are to each other at the beginning. I was encouraged.”

“It’s similar. We can successfully bond with a number of people, but once we do, the commitment is absolute and final.”

“And you never wonder if you made the right decision later on?” she teased.

“Never.”

“Good thing. ’Cause I’m not willing to let you go.” She squeezed him when he drew her close. Then she cast him a sideways glance. “So. Does your mother know you’re here?”

Gabe laughed into her hair. “Not precisely, although I do have first-hand knowledge of what her opinion would be.” His expression deepened as she placed a series of weightless kisses across his face, and the lightness of their exchange darkened. She lay by him and searched his hungry expression.

“If I had said,
No, thank you
, what would you have done?”

“I would have convinced you otherwise.” She knew he tried to sound cavalier. “No, that’s not right,” he admitted. “You’re forgetting when we touched all those times, I knew your feelings.” His gaze rested tenderly on hers as he placed her hand over his heart so his devotion flowed through them both, enveloping them in its warmth. “I felt exactly the same way, of course.” She felt tears begin to form, stinging her nose, and she pressed a kiss to the palm of his hand. He emitted a small, frustrated laugh. “It was so easy to know what could be, and so hard to wait.”

Kate felt a succession of strong emotions that changed swiftly from relief to humility to gratitude to joy, sensations she felt altering as Gabe intuited them and sent them back to her, which she apprehended and mirrored yet again. They shared thoughts and emotions in a reflective cycle, accustoming themselves to their particular habits of feeling and response.

Gabe broke their concentration. “Someday, this sharing will tell on us, you know. It’ll be like our personal signature when we’re around others.” She raised an eyebrow in question. “It means we’ll be able to feel each other’s presence without the aid of any other senses. And others will know we’re together because of what we throw off.”

“I love it.”

They lay quietly then, limbs entwined, each contributing feelings and promises toward a bond they believed would forever be uniquely theirs.

* * * *

Later in the evening, Gabe froze, and then, with a long, regretful sigh, rolled away from Kate to sit on the edge of the bed. He inclined his head toward the door.

He waited to announce what he sensed, wanting to confirm their impending disruption before he alarmed Kate. But yes, both sets of parents had just entered the cottage.

He was attuned enough to his dad and mom to intuit their actions even from a distance, which meant he felt his dad’s amusement after he switched on the kitchen light. He was reviewing the detritus from their lunch on the kitchen floor. Gabe even caught a picture of what he saw: the bathrobe, the open bag of potato chips, the empty yogurt cup, and then glasses trailing down the hallway.

Then he heard John’s muttered comment. “Sex camp.” Carmen and Cara, he noted, both smothered laughter, albeit poorly.

“What’s the matter?” Kate asked.

“Remember your question about what my mother would think of this?”

“Yes?” She braced herself.

“We can question her in person. She’s here.”

Kate hissed, pulling the sheets up to her neck.

“Mm-hmm,” Gabe confirmed. “So’s Dad, and so are your folks.”