Page 26

Alba didn’t knowwhen he fell asleep, only that it was there on the floor in Eridanys’ arms. Exhausted, wordless, eyes just cracked enough to know whether it was day or night. Aware of only the feeling of Eridanys beneath him; fingers stroking his hair; a gentle, comforting hum singing from the back of his throat in a language Alba didn’t know. One that numbed him, soothed him, enough that eventually the shuddering cries ceased and he was able to drift.

Eventually the arms holding him in one piece lifted him from the floor and carried him to his bed. They laid him on the mattress, carefully stripped off his bloody clothes, then tucked him naked under the blankets before leaving him to rest. Whispering one last reassurance that he would be back soon.

Before sinking away, Alba heard the sound of dragging across the kitchen floor below. Something heavy, something wet, something that made the trapdoor rattle and slam on its hinges until fed. Only once it splashed into the frothing water did the house finally fall silent again, and Alba drifted away imagining the foamy water tinged pink with torn flesh.

The state he sank into was hardly sleep, passing through the floor while his body clung to the bed, dangling by hooks as he tried to flee the taste of rusty, metallic blood in his mouth. The vibrations of metal in his hands with every striking blow. The wet, cracking sound of bone pulverized by copper. But no matter how deep he dangled between sleep and wakefulness, he still shuddered back awake at the sensation of cold water dripping against his skin.

Sprinkling his arm, then his cheek, summoning him back into his body. Alba sleepily pushed the blankets aside to welcome Eridanys into the blankets with him, not caring that he was soaking wet. Knowing he slept heaviest, deepest, most restfully when by his side.

But it wasn’t Eridanys’ moonlit form standing next to the bed once Alba opened his eyes. Instead, he was met with the dripping, inhuman silhouette of one of the drowned humans of the sea.

Choking on a gasp, Alba bolted upright before kicking away into the wall. He barely managed to call out Eridanys’ name, voice raspy and hoarse, bracing for the creature to put out its hands and tear him open—but the drowned corpse didn’t move. It just gazed at him with hunched features, a rat’s-nest of muddy hair tangled on the back of its head, once-pale skin discolored from rotting in the sea, peeling from bone where not already exposed. There were no eyes in its sockets, only black depths, but Alba knew right where it stared. At him, at the merrow bloodstains on his arms.

It smelled of old fish and brined mold clinging to the beach; the smell of something washed up and just starting to bloat. A fresh death, still wrapped in seaweed and partially devoured by the salt of the waves. The rotting corpse gazed at him, dribbling dark ooze from a long cut in its throat, seawater spilling from the gaping hole that had to be its mouth as it eventually attempted to speak.

“Ah… Ah…”it rattled, sound bubbling at the back of its windpipe as if full of water it couldn’t vomit up. It repeated that sound again and again, unable to utter another syllable, before lifting a lanky, dripping arm to point. A gnarled, rotting finger extended toward the stairs, followed by another attempt to vocalize.

Only then did Alba realize what it wore—a dissolving linen shirt, pants, suspenders littered with barnacles and mold. No different from what he wore on any day while tending the lighthouse—enough that the initial fear in his chest unclenched slightly. His heart raced no slower, however, a quiet thought ghosting in the back of his mind, questioning once again where all the previous lighthouse keepers had actually gone.

“What?” he managed, though it was hardly more than a breath. The thing gargled out another sound, before stomping a bony, rotten heel into the floor. Bang, bang, bang, bang, no different from the slamming of the storage room hatch.

Alba sat up slightly more, holding the blanket to cover his nakedness. He swallowed back the buzzing nerves keeping his throat tight.

“You—you drowned in this harbor, didn’t you?” He attempted again, pausing when his eyes flickered back to the clear cut over the drowned’s throat. He pressed his lips together. “I—I don’t know how to help you, I’m sorry?—”

“Ah… Ah…”it interrupted, pointing again. Alba shifted on the bed, opening his mouth to try and compel it to leave a second time—but the drowned soul lifted its opposite arm, gently touching Alba on his nose. The smallest tap on the end, the smallest motion that made his heart burst. His mother used to do that when he wasn’t listening. To compel make him pay attention. This is important. Look at me and listen.

Dread filled every inch of him. He stared at the creature, seeing only rot and flesh reclaimed by the sea, but something told him to obey. This is important. Look at me. Listen.

Alba sat forward, shuffling slightly to the side to carefully move his feet over the edge of the bed. Never taking his eyes from the creature, all while it never took its nonexistent eyes from him. Never lowering its arm pointing toward the stairs.

“Are you gonna hurt me?”

The drowned soul touched the tip of Alba’s nose again. “Ah… Ah… Ah…”

“A-alright,” Alba finally answered, voice trembling. “I’ll follow you.”

Hurrying to dig a pair of slacks from the clothing chest at the foot of the bed, Alba’s mind spun at another reminder of how similar the clothes he pulled on were to the ones clinging to what remained of the corpse. White shirt, cotton pants. Common, sensible clothes for any wickie working long hours.

Alba didn’t bother with shoes. He didn’t bother to braid his hair, didn’t bother to find a jacket. He could barely find enough mental clarity to walk upright on two feet as the creature finally lowered its arm and moved with an uneven gait toward the stairs. Alba followed, though kept his distance. Seeing every time the drowned glanced over its shoulder to check if he was still following. The movement was so human, enough to squeeze Alba’s heart each time, every time they would have met eyes had it had any left.

At the bottom of the stairs, Alba followed it toward the door, but not without first glancing into the kitchen. For what, exactly, he wasn’t entirely sure, until he spotted his cane on the floor by the table. Otherwise, the house was empty. Dark as the stormy night outside.

Eridanys was nowhere to be found, and neither was the body of Eugene Michaels. The only proof it hadn’t all been a horrible dream was the dark pool of blood on the floorboards, one that matched that left by the first man Alba had killed there, with a long smear of where he’d been dragged to the storage room. Just like Alba had imagined while drifting off. He nearly asked if that drowned soul had been the one to request it, if it had been one to feed on it, perhaps even the cause of the hatch’s incessant banging. Hoping it wasn’t leading him out into the storm to push him in, next. Unsatisfied with its previous offering.

Outside, Alba had to put his hand up to protect against the piercing rain falling nearly horizontal against the wind. The drowned soul didn’t react except to waver on its feet, scraps of skin and hair and clothing tearing away and vanishing into the night sky with every gust. Alba expected it to lead him to the water—surprised when, instead, it turned toward the lighthouse.

As they made their way closer, Alba’s heart thumped in surprise when it bypassed the working lighthouse for the larger one, silent and dark as the unlit lantern right alongside it. Standing tall with its boarded up windows and towering brick exterior—though for the first time, Alba listened. Truly listened. He heard it. The clanging of a turning lantern, despite both towers sitting unlit.

At the old lighthouse door a few feet ahead of him, the drowned soul wavered on its balance again, before digging a rotting hand into one of its pockets. It removed a keyring that whipped and clacked against the wind, fresh blood bright and smeared on the silver.

“Alba!” Eridanys’ voice called suddenly over the storm, and Alba barely turned just as the man ran into him, grabbing his shoulders to steady him. “What in god’s name are you doing out here? You have to get back?—”

But Alba grabbed Eridanys’ arm with one hand, pointing with the other at the drowned soul who didn’t have the dexterity to insert the key into the lock, a rhythmic metal sound chiming out every time they missed and pulled back to try again.

Alba expected Eridanys to snarl, to growl and lunge at the creature—but he stood still. Staring at it, mouth dangling open slightly as if wishing to say something. His hand on Alba’s shoulder tightened, before loosening slightly, then releasing him. He placed a hand on the small of Alba’s back—and encouraged him to continue. To meet the drowned at the door, together.

“Let me,” Alba said as they approached. The creature wavered on its feet again, turning to look Eridanys up and down first, then to where the siren’s arm clung to Alba around the waist. The holes where eyes should have been stared for what felt like an eternity, even as Alba plucked the keys from its skeletal hand—gently, so carefully—to unlock the door, himself. He felt as the drowned’s eyes traveled back to him, all while Eridanys’ hand remained on his back.

By then Alba knew better than to believe anything Eugene Michaels had told him, but there was still the slightest confusion when the door to the retired lighthouse opened and no boxes of supplies lined the walls like he once claimed. He grabbed a lantern hanging by the door and lit the wick, extending his arm into the rest of the room to look closer, but still found it empty of everything except dust.

The rhythmic clanking of gears turning a lantern high above them was undeniable. It gave Alba goosebumps, not waiting before fully stepping inside to bypass the wind and know it for sure.

There was no reason for a retired lighthouse’s unlit, untended lantern to turn. And in the belly of that tower, there was more than just the sound of the turning light—the air was hot, reeking of burning fuel that Alba had since learned to be made from merrow fat. It was humid enough to make him break into a sweat. Turning his head up to look, the stairs winding up to the top were maintained, the upper floor was even clean and organized. He didn’t have a chance to ask what the drowned soul meant to show him, finding it already at the base of the stairs and starting its way up.

A stomach-turning sense of betrayal and further confusion filled Alba to the brim as he climbed behind it, Eridanys on his heels only after promising to keep his eyes downturned from the light.

None of them said anything as they made the journey, even Alba’s weak hip keeping quiet, numbed from all the adrenaline pounding through his veins like fuel of his own. Wanting to see. Wanting to know why Eugene Michaels would have lied to him about something so mundane; wanting to know the extent of every lie that man had ever told him, especially after witnessing first hand how skilled he was in telling them on the spot. Claiming to never know Edythe from the start; then saying she hid in town; then implying Eridanys had already eaten her.

Alba knew Moon Harbor was a place built in isolation, secrets, people who preferred their privacy—but he never imagined what it would all come to the longer he stayed. Had Eridanys never cursed him to remain, he never would have learned any of it. Eridanys may have fallen into one of the town’s traps. His heart may have been stolen for Eugene’s son; his hair would have been woven into fishing nets to lure better catch; his scales ground up into eyeshadows and pinned into earrings; flesh and fat melted down to fuel the lighthouse every night. It was enough to make Alba flare with rage, squeezing Eridanys’ hand harder.

“Ah…” the drowned soul stopped at the base of the final ladder into the lantern room above. Alba stopped alongside it, before glancing at Eridanys, who placed a hand on Alba’s back again on approach. The faintest occulting light glowed through the cracks around the hatch leading up, enough to make Alba’s blood pound hotter.

“Ah…”

Alba turned back to the drowned soul, not sure what to say, let alone why it wanted him to know the retired sister’s lantern still turned behind boarded-up weatherglass. The soul gazed at him once more, then surprised him as it lifted a hand to touch his cheek, as if appreciating the sight of him. As if envious of the warmth of his skin, the flesh on his bones and the life in his eyes. Alba didn’t pull away, letting it regard him how it wished, sensing its loneliness as pale-blue lips parted with what remained of its mouth, and it attempted to utter another few sounds.

“Is there something else you want to show me?” he asked, unsure, watching as the soul lifted a gnarled hand to gently touch what remained of its once dark blonde hair, raking fingers through it and ripping something free. It extended it toward him, and he was hesitant to accept whatever it’d just pulled from its body—but then the lantern light illuminated the hairpin pressed into his hand. Alba dropped it to the floor with an echoing clatter.

Alba knew it. He knew the pearls that lined the outer edge, the silver plate pressed with the image of a mermaid in the center. Bought with his pittance of an allowance one day at a shop in the north. Sent by mail. Worn by Edythe Marsh every time he visited afterward. Her favorite hairpin, missing from the house when he went back to it in Welkin. His first clue that she’d gone somewhere on her own accord.

The drowned soul in front of him held it in her hand, long decomposed by the sea. Having long become one with the salt that ate away at anything that once made her human.

“Mama?” His voice shook. The drowned soul’s pale mouth cracked into a weak smile, and Alba’s world crashed down around him.

He lunged with his arms out, embracing her with a rocking gasp. He clung to her as his body broke down into trembling breaths, clawing at what remained of her, too shocked to know if his fingers raked through rotting flesh or seaweed or barnacles.

Not caring, wishing he could properly hold her to make up for all the time he spent never realizing. Never realizing—she’d been right below his feet the entire time. Rotting away in the sea, alone, unnoticed, cursed at by him, repelled by Eridanys who kept the hauntings out. His mother, his mother, who had been there waiting for him from the beginning, just like she always promised. His mother, long dead and dissolving, who wrapped what remained of her arms around Alba in return.

“I’m sorry it took me so long, god, I’m so sorry!” he begged, pulling her closer, hating how cold she was, how she didn’t wheeze and laugh with every squeeze of his arms, how water sloshed around beneath her skin and gurgled at the back of her throat. “I got your message, I promise I came as soon as I could! I’m sorry I didn’t get here in time—I’m so sorry to leave you alone for so long—! After all this time—I still couldn’t—I couldn’t save you…”

The drowned soul let out a sound like a relieved sigh, nestling herself into Alba’s embrace, pressing her face into the crook of his neck as if able to feel his warmth. To smell the sweat on his skin, to sense his heart beating alive and fast in his chest. Alba could do nothing else but silently cry, pulling her closer, closer, until his fingertips broke through brittle bone like eggshells. Just wanting to feel her warmth, wanting to feel what he always did after coming back home again from sea to hug her.

“Ah…”she murmured against his shoulder. “Ah… lba. Alba.”

Alba wept until he couldn’t breathe, every inch of him shaking as he clung to the remains of his dear mother who had never lived a gentle, peaceful day in her life. He grieved every moment he’d ever lost with her, every moment ever taken from him. He grieved what he’d come so close to having, how close they’d both come to escaping misery to perhaps find peace somewhere far from where all the pain existed. He’d come so close—only to lose her, and all of it, right at the very end.

Another hand found his back. Warm, protective, comforting.

“I think she may be the same soul who attacked me the night we met,” Eridanys said. Alba didn’t move, but his mother did. She trembled, slightly—and it took a moment for Alba to realize, she was laughing. It was enough for him to pull away, cheeks red and wet with tears and seawater. Boney hands lifted to try and wipe them away.

“You swam me back to shore,” he said. Each word hiccuped as he fought to regain his breath, only for it to catch again when his mother’s lifeless lips lifted into another weary smile. She nodded. More hot tears swelled in Alba’s eyes. “Was it you always bangin’ on the trapdoor, too?”

She nodded again. That time, Alba managed a weak, breathy chuckle of his own, finally wiping his own eyes.

“You were loudest when I first got here… then the night that first man showed up… then again when Marco came… and again when Mr. Michaels was there…” he said, not sure to who, not sure why, but every additional understanding was a comfort. “You kept tryin’ to warn me…”

Edythe Marsh nodded along. Her stiff blue mouth cracked upward again. Alba didn’t realize he smiled back at her, until it faltered upon glancing down to the cut on her throat. He reached out to touch it, but a decaying hand snapped up to grab him before he could.

“What happened to you?” he asked weakly. “Mama, who killed you?”

She turned to Eridanys. Alba snapped to look at him, too, but Eridanys threw his hands up before he could be accused of anything. Only Edythe’s surprisingly strong grip still on Alba’s wrist kept him where he was. She and the siren looked at each other for a long time, before Eridanys’ eyes traveled down her face, to her lacerated throat, to the front of her shirt. He reached out to tuck a finger over the collar, tugging it slightly to the side.

There, in what little remained of her flesh, were markings similar to the ones drawn in the pile of salt that covered the merrow during the new moon ritual. Alba stared at them, then back at his mother.

“When?” he asked. Despite lacking eyes or the flesh in her cheeks to properly express herself, Alba could see exactly what look she gave him. Like every other time he asked something that was obvious, something she expected him to figure out on his own. It didn’t take much scouring of his memory before the answer struck him. As obvious as she implied.

“The full moon.”

She nodded. The telegram really had reached him only a few days too late.

There was so much more he wanted to ask—but Edythe’s decaying form was beginning to tremble. Shedding water and skin and hair at a more rapid pace. Alba thought it had to be because she’d been out of the water too long, throwing out his hands and beginning to say something about returning—but she grabbed and stopped him, first. She held his hands, looking at him, then at Eridanys, offering him a nod of acknowledgement. Eridanys nodded back, saying nothing.

“Mama, please,” Alba insisted. “You have to get back to the water. Here, I’ll carry you?—”

But she shook her head. She touched the tip of his nose once more, then lifted both hands to scoop a few pieces of hair from under his ear. Braiding it, just like she always used to before they parted again. A promise it wouldn’t be the last time.

“Sa…fe,”she uttered. Still smiling weakly, even as the skin on her face went taut, then sloughed heavy. She took one of Alba’s hands, then reached for one of Eridanys’, and tucked them into one another. Alba could only stare at her.

“Please—” Alba croaked. “There’s still so much more I want to say, please don’t let yourself go yet, mama—” but Alba was running out of time, and Edythe appeared intent on letting the clock go.

Alba couldn’t wonder if she was in pain, if existing as a corpse was agonizing, overcome only with his own selfishness and childish neediness. Needing his mother. Wanting his mother, to know she was safe. Happy. Taken care of. He wasn’t ready to let go of her, yet—not after so many years existing only for the sake of taking care of her.

But Edythe, the mother she was, knew better than Alba did—and knew better than to linger when it would only draw out his own agony. She’d never been one to baby him, she’d never been one to give him everything he wanted.

She took his face in all that remained of her hands, and kissed his forehead. She kissed his cheeks, one after the other. She kissed the tip of his nose. She offered him a gentle, loving smile—before her fragile legs finally buckled, and the rest of her tumbled to the grated floor with an explosion of water and a thud.

Alba screamed, throwing out his hands to catch her, to put her back together, but Eridanys grabbed him first. He pulled Alba into his chest, holding him there as Alba pressed hands into his mouth to stifle his cries, trembling, choking on breath as the sound of what remained of Edythe Marsh sloughed through the grates and dribbled to the floor down below.

“It’s alright Alba, it’s alright,” Eridanys insisted again and again. “She can finally rest; she’s finally resting. Drowned souls only cling nearby when they have something left to do, something they meant to do while living. She passed on knowing you were safe. She’s finally at rest.”

Alba’s silent weeping slowed to hiccuping gasps, still shaking, held tightly in Eridanys’ arms as he stared at the pile of flesh, bones, seaweed, barnacles, soggy clothing on the floor. Nothing recognizable that remained of her, only parts of the sea that held her together well enough to walk when she needed to. Nothing left for Alba to gather into his hands and piece back together in the shape of her. Edythe’s soul only clung to that rotting corpse long enough to make sure Alba was alright—and then she could finally release the hooks and the heaviness of something so rancid.

Alba could find comfort in that—at least, one day, he’d be able to find comfort in that.

But in that moment, he felt only the pain of knowing he’d never find her once he finally left Moon Harbor; he’d never return home to find her waiting for him again. He’d never get to tell her about everything he’d done and seen; he’d never get to tell her everything about Eridanys.

“I should’ve recognized her sooner,” he whispered. “She tried to get my attention so many times.”

“I don’t think she held it against you,” Eridanys insisted. “She probably knew you’d be hard to get through to. Did you get your stubbornness from her?”

Alba pulled away, just enough to look up at him. To narrow his puffy eyes, practically glaring and inciting Eridanys’ eyes to narrow right back again. The siren smiled as he did, though. Gentle and reassuring, a face Alba wasn’t used to seeing on someone normally so sharp around the edges.

“There’s a reason she brought us here,” Eridanys went on, tilting his head toward the ladder into the lantern room. “Come, let’s see.”

Alba nodded, wiping his eyes, his nose on his rain-soaked sleeve and pulling away. He offered one last glance to the pile of remains on the floor, carefully shuffling around them so as to not step on a single drop. Also wanting to know what Edythe was trying to show him. Something important enough to die for.

Wiping his eyes and nose one more time, Alba motioned for Eridanys to step back so the rotating light wouldn’t catch him. Eridanys obeyed, turning around and shielding his eyes with his arm.

“Call out if you need me,” he said.

“I will,” Alba answered, setting his cane aside and reaching for the ladder. Sucking in a deep breath, he shoved the hatch open.

Blinded by the lantern as he stepped through the hatchway, Alba threw a hand out to protect his eyes. He blinked through the passing glow, attempting to regain his sight in the amount of time it took the slow-moving light to come back around again.

Not wanting to risk Eridanys getting caught in its sweep, he crawled up onto the covered grating even before he could see again properly, closing the trap door behind him with a muffled clang. Down below, Eridanys called out to ask what was up there, and Alba rubbed his eyes, blinking a half dozen more times before he was finally able to turn and look.

Stumbling backward, he fell to the floor with a gasp. Eridanys called back sharply to ask if he was alright, and Alba quickly shouted back “don’t come up here!” the moment the ladder creaked with Eridanys’ weight. He was fine. Alba was fine—but didn’t know how he would ever describe the sight in front of him.

He couldn’t count them at first. Too much hair draped the floors, the walls, like spider webs on the verge of encasing him like a fly caught in a trap. Making him hesitate to move his feet. Barely closing his eyes or even lifting his hand to block the lantern light that swiveled.

Four. There were at least four, dangling upside down from nets hooked to the ceiling, no different from the one that’d nearly caught him and Eridanys in the pools behind the cliffs. Four merrow dangling upside down, heads facing the rotating light, eyes empty except the glow of the glass drum devouring any thought they may have. Many covered in gruesome scars left behind by the same ropes that cut into Eridanys. Moonlit tails tangled in knots, making the woven ropes strain beneath the weight. Hardly breathing—hardly showing any signs of life, except an overwhelming need to watch the rotating glow for every moment it rotated and blinded them all over again.

“Oh… my god,” Alba whispered once the words finally came. Eridanys demanded a second time to know what Alba saw, but Alba still didn’t know how to explain.

He didn’t know how to describe something so horrible without Eridanys storming his way up and putting himself in the same danger as those dangling, unmoving, hypnotized in the nets. Alba had no idea for how long they must have been there, only that, even as he approached to get a closer look, there wasn’t a breath of response. Not a single flicker of acknowledgement as he moved his hand in front of their eyes, reminded of the one sacrificed in the woods. Even when Eridanys had been mesmerized by the smaller light, there was still a part of him aware on the inside—a part of him that knew it could follow Alba out, down the stairs, all the way back to the house where he could close his eyes and rest. But those there, hanging in their permanent nets, were hardly more than breathing shells of who they used to be.

Alba’s mind raced, heart pounding hard and fast enough that his hands trembled. He wound them together, wringing them in apprehension with what to do, what to say to Eridanys down below, even debating whether or not he should say anything at all. Even if there was a way to stop the lantern from turning, even if there was a way to take the captured merrow down, away from the light, would it make any difference? Would they ever return to their own minds, depending on how long they’d been catatonic like that in the first place? Perhaps there was only one way to find out—though even it would take some time.

“Eridanys,” he called. “The basin of fuel down there, how full is it?”

Alba listened as Eridanys crossed the grating to look.

“Nearly full. Probably a few day’s worth.”

Alba nodded to himself, thinking they must have refilled it the day before the new moon—then realizing, like a punch to the stomach, exactly where they’d gotten the merrow for their ritual. His voice trembled as he called out next: “Are there any release spigots on the bottom? Probably locked with a bolt or a key?”

More silent searching, before: “Yes. There’s a turn valve under a metal cage.”

“Do you still have Eugene Michaels’ keyring that my m-mother gave us?” His voice hiccuped at the reminder. He closed his eyes, focusing on a breath and listening as Eridanys searched.

“Yes. One of them fits. Should I turn it?”

“Well…” Alba didn’t know. He didn’t know what to do, didn’t know if it would make any difference even if the light turned off. “Well—before you do, I… I should tell you what’s up here. So you can decide for yourself, whether you wanna…”

Another pause. “What’s up there, Alba?”

Alba closed his eyes again. He turned back to the four merrow in their nets, never knowing there was an uninvited visitor in their midst. Realizing he stood in one of only a handful of empty spots where he was sure the sacrifice from the new moon had likely hung only a few days prior.

“It’s… your kin,” he finally explained. More silence from below. He waited another moment before continuing. “A few of them, at least. Maybe… maybe even the last of them. They’re… in nets, like the one that almost got us in the pools. The light in here is turnin’, and they’re all captivated by it, just like you were that one time—No!” Alba lunged when Eridanys attempted to shove his way through the trap door, throwing his weight on it. “Eridanys, no! Stop! You can’t, the light?—!”

“Let me see them!” Eridanys snarled, vicious and bloodthirsty. “Let me see them, Alba!”

“No! Just—wait a second!” Alba shouted back, banging his fist against the metal until it rang out loudly through the whole lighthouse. “I’m not lettin’ you anywhere up here ’til the light’s out! If you turn the valve and let it empty, it’ll die soon enough.”

Eridanys didn’t answer out loud, but rather with the banging rattle of feet on the grated floor; then a brief twisting of metal, a key in a lock, and the sound of warmed fat guttering out and splattering to the floor below.

“Alright,” Alba said after a moment. “That’s why I wanted you to decide. But with how much oil is in there, it might take a day or two to drain. Then another day before the light finally burns out.”

Eridanys muttered something in reply, and Alba banged on the hatch again in threat.

“Don’t you curse at me!” he snapped. “It is what it is! But I’m not lettin’ you up, no matter how much you complain.”

“Then come back down,” Eridanys growled. “I don’t like you being up there by yourself, either.”

“You better not try’n force your way in when I open this door.”

“I won’t, damnit! Get back down here!”

Alba huffed, scooting backward and testing the gate. When Eridanys kept his word and didn’t try to shove through, Alba shimmied his way down, but not before casting a final glance at the merrow still dangling. Entirely unaware of his visit. A few more days wouldn’t do any more damage to them than already done.

“Give me the keys,” he said upon closing the hatch overhead, barely casting a glance to the spigot and seeing his siren had nearly torn the entire piece off. With the keyring in hand, Alba searched through them before finding the one he was looking for, using it to lock the trap door closed so Eridanys wouldn’t get any ideas while Alba wasn’t looking.

Eridanys’ expression creased in annoyance, but he said nothing, only stepping forward to grab Alba off the ladder and scoop him into his arms. Alba didn’t complain, just gripping the keyring in one hand and putting his arms around the back of Eridanys’ neck. They made their way down the stairs. Out the door. Back out into the storm, where the fluted pipes on the side of the house wailed deafeningly against the wind.