The Waterkeeper’s Wake
Chapter Five: Sirena
By Rebecca Northan

Startled, Kai jumped back from the water’s edge and stared in disbelief as the head of a girl emerged from the spot where he’d been about to drink! The girl had long green hair that fell in tangles around her face. Her skin was as pale as moonlight, and she was staring at him with large, brown eyes. Kai was speechless.

“Who sent you,” the girl demanded. “What do you want?”

Her suspicious tone snapped Kai out of his stunned silence. “No one sent me,” Kai stammered. “I just wanted a drink of water. Someone stole my water-skin and… Um, my name’s Kai,” he said and held out his hand.

The strange girl was not impressed. “You’re lying, Kai. Someone sent you — or you’d never have found this cave on your own. Where is my family?!”

Kai was completely baffled, not only by the appearance of this green-haired girl in the water, but also by her mysterious accusations. How should he know where her family might be? All he wanted was a drink of clean, cool water to quench his thirst… Water that this girl seemed to have no trouble moving around in even though her arms were clearly not involved in the process — they were crossed angrily over her chest while she darted back and forth in the water in front of Kai. Suddenly, a stone whizzed past Kai’s ear!

“Hey! I asked you a question,” the girl yelled as she scooped up another stone from the water’s edge and took aim at Kai’s head.

“Wait!” Kai exclaimed, “I’ll tell you everything — just don’t throw that rock! I already have one goose egg, I don’t need another.” Kai sat down on a small boulder and told the strange girl everything that had happened in the last three days — the mysterious poisoning of the Great River, his quest for the Waterkeeper, the woman he had tried to help in the forest only to have been hit over the head and robbed, and how finally his dragonfly necklace seemed to have come to life and led him to this cave in search of clean water to drink. By the time Kai had finished his tale the girl’s hostile attitude seemed to have brightened considerably.

“Why didn’t you tell me you were Nixe?” the girl squealed.
“I’m not,” Kai blurted, “I don’t even know what that is.”

“Like me!” The girl giggled as she dove sideways into the water revealing a long, shimmering TAIL! Kai caught his breath — a MERMAID! His Noni had told him stories, but Kai had never thought them true, only fairy tales. And yet, here was a real, live mermaid right in front of him!

“I’m Sirena,” she said holding out her hand at the water’s edge. “Don’t look so surprised. You wouldn’t have an Odonata around your neck if you didn’t have some Nixe in you somewhere,” she said brushing back her hair and revealing a similar dragonfly hanging around her own neck!

“Where did you get that?” Kai asked. “Mine was a gift from my grandmother.”

“Well then, your grandmother is a mermaid,” Sirena surmised. “We all have them. The Odonata have always helped the Nixe to find freshwater in times of trouble. With the state of the Great River, I was glad to have mine with me,” she said rubbing her dragonfly between her thumb and forefinger.

“I’m quite certain my Noni is NOT a mermaid,” Kai stated firmly. “I think I would know something like that. She didn’t tell me where she got the... O-dan-ata from when she gave it to me, maybe she found it along the river.”

“Doubtful that she found it,” Sirena frowned. “But, then, who knows?! All sorts of strange things have been happening lately.” Her face clouded over.

“You said something about your family being missing?” Kai prodded gently.

Sirena bobbed in the water. “Yes. We live in the Great River, not far from here. My mother, my father, and my older brother went to catch fish…and they never came back. A few days later the blackness came down the river and was making me sick, so I had my Odanata help me find this freshwater cave.”

“You think someone was involved in their disappearance?” Kai asked.

“When I went to check our fishing nets, all I found were these.” Sirena held out her hand, and in it — a set of silver hand-shackles! “Will you help me Kai?”

Stay tuned for the next chapter in Spring 2007.
Ideas for the story? Contact editor@waterkeeper.org