Free Tidal Whispers by Jocelyn Adams, Kelly Said, Claire Gillian, Julie Reece Page A

in a soft, soothing tone, but no ships passed nearby. The sea would claim no ships on her watch. No sailors would die that night.
    As she neared the end of her fifth repetition of the last verse, she glimpsed a fishing vessel, crashing through the waves, heading straight toward her. Poor unlucky bastard. Too late to change his course.
    For the arbitrary crime of sailing close enough to hear her song, he would pay dearly.
    She began her last performance only to break off as the letters of the ship assembled into a name she recognized—The Calypso.
    “No!” She jumped to her feet. “No!” Her arms waved, but the darkness worked against her. “Otis! Stop!”
    Twenty-five feet to go and still the ship rushed toward her.
    “Stop! Turn away!” She frantically signed to the deaf captain of the only ship ever to thwart her.
    Twenty feet separated them, and he’d soon crash into the rocks, because at his speed, insufficient time remained to correct his course. She waved her arms overhead.
    Otis stood on the deck, wearing his yellow slicker, a life vest strapped around his chest and back. She closed her eyes, unable to watch.
    When she opened them again, Otis had disappeared. Maybe he’d realized his error, but it would be too late.
    The Calypso sheared the side of her hull against the rocks at top speed, disintegrating like a dirt clod in a man’s fist.
    “Otis, no!” Circe dove into the ocean and swam a safe distance away right before the ship’s fuel tanks exploded in superheated balls of fire and smoke.
    The chances of survivors plummeted.
    Waves beat the dying vessel into the waiting arms of the Pacific and sucked debris into the whirlpool created when the Calypso gave up her last breath and sank.
    Circe swam back to her perch in the eerie silence that descended.
    Why had he steered his ship to her reef on that night of all nights? She crawled to the top of the rocks on her knees, where she wept, her tears mingling with the seawater pools in the rock’s crevasses.
    “Don’t cry, Circe. This had to be done. You know it did.” The voice drawled its consonants as if the speaker’s tongue had swollen to twice its normal size.
    She turned to discover a bedraggled and battered Otis pulling himself atop the highest rock to sit next to her. Her eyes flew open nearly as wide as the chasm created by her dropped jaw.
    “Otis! You’re alive!” She threw her arms around his neck, kissing every square inch her lips landed upon.
    Otis gathered her into his arms. They clung tightly together, kissing and touching each other, no words necessary—until the ocean around them churned and boiled. The two turned to see the face of a mightily pissed off Poseidon. He stood in his chariot, bobbing in the rough water.
    “Circe! I warned you what would happen if you failed again.”
    Otis scrambled to his feet between Circe and the Olympian god, no fear betrayed by his movements. “She didn’t fail! The Calypso is at the bottom of the sea!” he bellowed in his slightly nasal voice.
    “Silence, human! Your foolish tricks won’t work. Your ship was empty and you, the only soul aboard, survived. I will have your voice now, Circe, and you are hereby banished from these waters!” Poseidon waved his trident in the air in a wide swath.
    The mother of all sore throats gripped Circe as if someone had driven rusty nails into her neck in every conceivable angle and squeezed them in deeper.
    “Oh shut your gob, Po!” a woman’s voice chirped from behind him.
    Poseidon stiffened and turned as a beautiful woman emerged from the sea foam and stood beside him in his chariot. “Do not meddle in my affairs, Aphrodite. This is not your concern!”
    The goddess slapped the side of his head. “You big bully! Don’t you know true love is always my affair?” She directed her words to Poseidon before turning to Circe and Otis. “Oh,” she pouted, “you two are gonna make me cry, and I hate to cry! I couldn’t stop him from taking your voice,