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But think of the people I’ll save by keeping her. Instead of killing several times a week, I can feed from her indefinitely. I will save humans, and isn’t that all I’ve wanted to do? Isn’t that the heart of my absolution? To make up for all those lives I took, not out of survival, but because killing felt good to the murderer inside me?

Aragon, you would say, you must not feel guilty for what you are made to do. To drink the blood of humans is divine. To torture a sea creature, no matter how much they might deserve it, is beneath us. We must always pick the route that leads to salvation, no matter what logic tells us.

I don’t know what I’m going to do. You are clearly on my mind and in my ear, even though you are probably in the middle of the Atlantic by now, getting further and further away from me. I know what you want me to do, but…

Perhaps I am just too curious to do it.

I haven’t felt this alive in centuries, Abe.

The excitement, the lust, the dark desires… She is becoming my obsession, my reason for being, and I’ve only just begun.

Your oldest friend,

The Priest

Ilay my fountain pen down and peer at the crinkled paper, waiting for the ink to dry. Outside, an owl hoots before its cry is swallowed by the wind. In a few hours, the sun will be up, and I will have to hold a funeral for the fishermen, followed by mass. I should be brushing up the eulogy—though I didn’t know the men well, the village will expect me to act like I did, to say all the right things, to help them make sense of such a tragedy. There has been enough tragedy in these parts, thanks to famine and disease, but this was of another nature.

To my dismay, my thoughts keep drifting to the Syren.

My little fish who won’t give me her name.

Perhaps she doesn’t have one, or at least not one that translates.

But I feel she does. She just doesn’t want me to know, for she thinks it will give me more power.

She’s right.

If she wants me to do magic for her, I’ll have to know her name to make it work. Something of that magnitude requires it.

Not that I’m considering it.

To do a spell of that enormity requires serious consideration. There are physical sacrifices to be made. The timing has to be right. I can heal those who are hurt, but my talents have been on the humbler side. The idea that I could manipulate her tail to become legs, that I could give her human anatomy, is beyond my scope.

And even if I was able to perform it successfully, I would make my whole situation more difficult. A Syren is easily contained. A woman is not. I would have to have additional security measures in place for her. She would still need to be constrained, though perhaps not to a cross. I would have to make the back room into a jail of sorts. She wouldn’t be able to yell or call attention to herself. She wouldn’t dare let herself be known as she is right now, but if she can pass for an ordinary woman, there’s no doubt she’ll seek safety and sanctuary in the arms of others.

You should be her sanctuary, I chide myself, folding up the paper.

I know I should be, but I can’t be. I’m already picturing her as a woman, and I’m having a hard time coming to terms with what I’ll have to do to keep her here.

It’s easier to be a monster when you’re dealing with one.

The minute she becomes human, it will only show how much humanity I lack.

But all these thoughts don’t help when she is waiting.

I melt wax over the candle flame and pour a neat circle over the letter, sealing it with a press from the clergy ring. Then, I place it on the shelf beside my door to remind me to bring it into town later to send off on the next ship. There’s always a chance someone can read it, but the fear of God is strong here. To break the seal is to break a holy man’s trust.

Besides, who would believe them?

This time, I take a bucket I have in the cottage, since I’ll need the church one for mass, and step out into the frigid wind. It’s still dark out, though there’s a rim of gray on the east horizon. This will be the fifth time I’ve made the journey to the well to keep the Syren damp, and I’m already growing tired of it. Perhaps she was lying when she said she needed to keep wet—maybe she’s making me do this as some sort of petty revenge.

It’s April. It won’t be long until the snow falls here in the Southern Hemisphere, and those winds from the unknown seas to the south will make the villages inhospitable. The water in the well will freeze, and people often take refuge in the church when their houses fall due to inclement weather. Taking care of a Syren will be harder than it already is.

Do what the doctor would have you do, I think to myself. Drain her of her blood, store it, then kill her. Or throw her back in the sea for the sharks if you can’t stomach that.

After I get the water, I head into the church and the back room.

Each time I’ve unlocked the door and stepped in, the Syren has been waiting for me with hate in her violet eyes. This time, however, she’s slumped over, her hair in her face, still damp from the last time I poured water on her.