Before It's Voiced

Memoir

"They're the only people who'll put up with me," Pete says as he pulls away. "How'd the meeting go?"

"As it always does. Most communities have accepted the exiling of rebel merfolk but we will have to send guards to make sure they are not hiding them from us," he says. "But does the royal storyteller really want to hear about boring things like that?"

"I told you not to give me a title," Pete says as Patrick takes his hand and begins to lead him away. Patrick shakes his head.

"You would not be king beside me. The others must have something to call you," he says, pausing to look back.

"How about Pete?"

"No," Patrick says, taking Pete in his arms once more and pressing a kiss to his lips this time. "That name is mine."

"Yours," Pete whispers. When Patrick pulls back, it's only so Pete can clear his mind and glance hopefully above them. "You're done for the day, right? So, we can—"

"Yes," Patrick says with a smile. "We can see her now."

Side by side, they turn and swim towards the surface, Pete's tail flicking with restless excitability as they near the top. He'll never grow tired of the way the sky and air greet him, flashing through the water as if existing for his eyes alone. Shades of blue and desperate white, clinging to his vision like an embrace, pulling him back to the place he once called home.

He and Patrick emerge at the same time, the shift from water to air tickling Pete's skin and causing his gills to flutter as they decide whether it's safer to shut or stay open. Pete pays it no mind, turning to look at the house on the beach.

Golden streaks of sand and a home he remembers like a dream, like a lifetime ago. Were he more nostalgic or sentimental, he'd pause and consider the rolling pit of memory through his body as he takes it in. This is the sight Patrick had whenever they met on these rocks, the sunlight the only difference. This is the place Patrick called his own, the place where Pete first heard him sing.

Now, it's the place where Patrick rests a gentle hand on Pete's back and mouths for him to go.

As Pete nears the rocks, so does another figure. Someone taller, older, dark hair curled around her head as she carefully makes her way from the house and towards him. Pete's smile breaks across his face like thunder and he can't reach the rocks fast enough.

"Mom!" He calls as she stumbles back, eyes wide at the sight of him. "Mom, you came!"

"I — Of course, I did," she says, stroking the necklace hanging around her throat— a small locket of sand transferred from a fragile bottle she found at her son's house. "You told me to."

"It was a dream," Pete says, still smiling. "I wasn't sure you'd listen."

"Oh, Peter, you disappeared." She bends, reaching to run her hand through his hair, brushing water from his cheek. "I had to take the chance."

Warmth rolls through Pete's body as he hears her voice again— here, real, now. The dreams that Patrick conjured, visiting her through the power of the sand left behind, had been nice but they weren't nearly enough. Like daydreams or fantasies, he begged his mother to come to the beach, to see what's been done. It took months for her to truly remember her dreams but, at last, she promised to come.

And, now, here she is.

"Still not quite sure it's not a prank," she says, almost as if to herself. She pulls her hand back, flicking the water drops onto the rocks. Now, close up, Pete can see the difference between the then and now— the way the rocks scatter around the water in ways they didn't before. Patrick's storms have flung them about, made snowflakes out of boulders, and Pete's finally close enough to touch the proof of his power. He smiles to himself and shakes his head.