I heard something - a high-pitched sound like an “Ah,” coming from somewhere. With all the wind, rain, hail and thunder, with the waves crashing over the deck, it was impossible to tell where it was coming from, or what it exactly was. If Mother Nature could be really mad, really pissed off, this would be her voice. Her anger so loud it drowned every other sound. What a way to get someone’s attention.
I looked up at the masts, thinking the high Ah was the lines whistling in the wind, but they were all down - not a sail, not a line - left above our heads. I looked to the women who were drumming, but I couldn’t hear a single drum beat, nor any voice calling for Yemaya.
Nkiri was looking ahead of the ship into the storm. The Twins were also watching something, no longer hiding their faces against Nkiri’s sides. I kept wiping rain out of my face so I could try to catch a glimpse of what they were seeing. Blinking rapidly, I kept the saltwater out of my eyes long enough to sense that the sky was getting lighter. Just a tiny bit. The hail let up, though rain still poured down on us as if there were barrels of it tipped over among the clouds.
It was definitely getting lighter - I could see the outlines of storm clouds instead one big massive black one above us. The swells we rode that felt like a train barreling into oblivion, were less severe, though still rough enough that I didn’t dare untie the line holding me to a mast. It seemed like the storm was calming although the Ah sound had not diminished. If anything, it had gotten louder. It was becoming recognizable as voices now. Looking to Nkiri, I watched her place her fingers in her ears. She bent to one side to show Ife that she must do the same, then to Ina. I turned toward the Warriors and watched as they put their fingers in their ears and my troupe followed suit.
The Ah sound intensified and a harmony came with it. A beautiful, sweet harmony of female voices. So wondrous, I wanted to cry with the pleasure of hearing it. As the sound deepened, I watched the sun break through the clouds, pushing them away from the ship. The waves ceased so suddenly that my forward momentum jerked me against the line holding me to the mast. The sea around us became glass, reflecting the sun that stood in a clear blue sky, looking on as if it had not been present for the storm that shook our bones.
I had to see who was singing. I wanted to see their beautiful faces, to watch with awe as they lifted the world with their song. That lovely song that reminded me of home, of cut grass, of a smoky bonfire, of all the things I loved. The knot of line holding me was easy enough to undo, I could slip out of its briny grasp and look over the railing. Maybe they would be there. I twisted the line to free myself, barely able to contain my desire to look upon the singers.
But strong hands wrapped around mine, preventing me from slipping free. It made me angry and I fought against those hands, doubling my own up so I could pound on those hands so they would set me free. Then I saw a face before me, a face that was familiar. The person attached to that face was saying something to me but I couldn’t understand. All I could understand was that song, the pull of the song, my heart full of longing.
Suddenly, the hands stopped grasping mine and fingers filled my ears. Looking into the face, I recognized it was Toci. She was shouting something. The song was replaced by a ringing in my ears, a painful ringing that sounded like I had been too close to someone shooting a gun. My focus shifted away from the song as I watched Toci’s mouth move, over and over, trying to grasp what words she said, wondering why she wouldn’t take her fingers out of my ears so I could hear her.
Kee yah fee ners een yah ees.
“Wha?” I said, my own voice muffled with her fingers in my ears.
With her hands on both sides of my head, she shook my head and repeated her words.
“Why do you have your fingers in my ears?” I asked her, placing my hands on top of hers, the ringing still there.
“Fingers in my ears,” I suddenly understood. Keep your fingers in your ears. She was telling me to keep my fingers in my ears. I saw she had stuffed her own ears with cloth so she could not hear the singing and now she was telling me to block out the sound. I nodded my understanding and placed my own fingers in my ears. The ringing was still present but I could no longer hear the harmonic voices.
The line slipped from my waist, but I had control over myself. Toci was looking over my shoulder to the stern, saying something. I turned too, and saw that we had not escaped our pursuers. My heart leapt. They were still there, still with us, but they were no longer moving as we had on the dead-calm sea. There was no longer a sign of any storm having passed our way save for water pooling or dripping from every surface and my waterlogged clothing.
Toci untied Nkiri and had motioned toward the rear of the ship. Nkiri, fingers still in her ears, made her way to where I stood. Soon, all of the women stood in the stern, looking with wonder on the other ship. Watching as the men ran to the railings, pointing and shouting to one another.
I looked out to sea following where the men pointed. I witnessed something large jumping out of the water. A sleek curve on which the water sheened in the sun. Then another jump, but too fast back into the water for me to tell what it was. I assumed some kind of large fish, though by the third and fourth jumpers, I couldn’t perceive dorsal or pectoral fins. We watched as four or five not-fish glided just under the glassy surface. They were big like dolphins and in the water they looked sleek, iridescent as the sun stroked their backs. But they were not dolphins nor fish. They had hair - long, human-like hair - streaming from the crowns at the front of each creature as they moved very fast between the two ships.
In the open sea near us, I saw more jumping, but they did not leap as had the others closerby. These animals were flying. As they leapt into the air, wings unfolded and spread where humans had arms and shoulders. I blinked, not daring to take my fingers out of my ears to rub my eyes. As a group, we moved to portside, edging closer to the water, giving each other glances for we could not believe what we were seeing. In the water shadowed by the ship, I saw what could only be described as feathers on those swimming close by.
Lifting their heads to look us, I saw human faces - eyes, noses, mouths. Their noses were more flat but still recognizable as noses, the nostrils more like slits on each side of a raised mound. Mouths wide side-to-side, with thin lips, more brown than pink or red on the surface. But what was most striking were their eyes - a deep, pure green that sparkled as if they were jewels flashing in the light. Emeralds set in a face with white-blue skin that darkened around the edges where ears could have been though I saw no evidence of such. The skin from their chins downward was darker blue until disappearing into feathers. At first I thought maybe they were scales, but when the creatures stopped to peer at us, I could see they were really feathers, like ducks or seagulls might have, closed in watertight formations around the bodies of women. Women - or woman-like creatures - and their tail feathers were like the tails of swallows.
Were they mermaids? Not in a way that I had seen depicted on television or in books. More exotic to me than any creature I’d ever seen. Syrens? From reading mythology, I knew of syrens from the Greeks, but always imagined them as land birds, sitting on rocks, enticing men to leap to their deaths. I hadn’t pictured them as the swimmers who surrounded us now.
Their number doubled as they swam toward our ship, reaching up with feather-covered arms, singing their song we could not hear. Dare not hear. Once they realized we weren’t going to respond, they turned their attention to the other ship. They motioned for the men to come to them, sweeping their arms in graceful arcs like ocean ballerinas.
When the first man jumped, he dove straight into the water, barely making a splash. When he came up, there was a look of surprise on his face, perhaps water too cold, or perhaps just being in the water was enough to wake him to the reality surrounding him. He thrashed about as other men dropped into the water all around. They, too, came to the surface gasping, eyes wide, waking from a dream.
The mermaids or syrens or whatever they were, swam up to the men, each wrapping her arms around a man, holding him up in the water. They continued to sing to the men who calmed, gazing into the eyes of the syren who held him. We watched as more woman-creatures came to the men, enfolding the first syren and her mate in a circle, which became a tightening spiral.
A syren kissed the man she was holding. A long, engaged, passionate kiss. Or so it seemed. As she drew her face away from his, blood poured from the man’s lips - or what were once his lips - now bare teeth showing where flesh was bitten away. The creature spit the gruesome meat from her lips dripping with his blood. The others frenzied, swarming to get to the flesh severed from the man. She bent for another kiss and tore into the man’s cheek. The side of his face slumped, his eye barely in the socket. Again, the syren spit out the flesh, propeling pieces farther away.
The man managed to get his arms free, flailing in the water, trying to escape her. She let him struggle for awhile, a smile on her face as she sang. Her sisters came closer, taking hold of the man’s arms, biting him through his shirt, tearing cloth away. Then skin. Then muscle. White bones glinted in the sun, like bleached bones drying on a sandy shore far away. His cries terrible.
I could not turn away. I watched as man after man jumped into the sea. My heart raced as I watched the syrens take them, devour them before our eyes, pulling the sinewed bones down into the depths as the last of each man’s struggles signaled the end of his life. I felt something akin to satisfaction as the slavers had jaws gnawed away, watched as hands without fingers waved frantically for help for nothing. And that, finally, is what they came to be - nothing.
As quickly as the storm had passed us, so too, the syrens were gone. The only traces of what were once the men on the ship were scraps of shredded clothing and blood clouding the water. Shirts, pants, and pieces of flesh floated on the surface until something, or someone, snatched them from below, until no light reflected their existence in the depths below us.