Page 34 of Anchored to the Storm

Life Date. My jaw hung. “I turned ten the day he died.”

“Yup!” Styx yanked on his hair with one hand. “And, before that, her death sent him into a deep depression, a coma, in a sense. See what I’m saying?”

I covered my mouth. How can this be?

Styx grabbed his chest. “Then you ‘drank’—drowned—from the water after the bridge explosion, had a touch-and-go coma—being brought back to life. Then—” He waited.

Sitting forward, hoping it would help me breathe, I mumbled, “I was ‘exiled’ for eight years.”

“Kind of balanced out, right?” He started pacing again. “Also? It is written that the River Styx carries the power to grant properties. River died giving birth to Lennox, so in came a job for me.”

Styx faced me, again hoping I was following.

I jumped to my feet. “You’re giving me the properties that Noma—Holy shit, Styx!”

“I know! Is this all a coincidence?”

I downed my beer. Can’t be, right?

Marching to a fifty-gallon garbage can half-filled with construction debris, I threw away the empty bottle and tried to keep all this straight. “But do you even know why River died?”

He inhaled… Then exhaled heavily. “Over the years of seeing the Dude, who-refused-to-share-his-name, I learned bits and pieces, like them restoring deep in the water, but from what I understood, there was a decline in their population from failed procreating. He claimed the ‘act’ delivered certain abilities. What abilities? I have no clue. Also, from what I understood through his horrid English, the water’s pollution had possibly altered fertility, which he was pissed about. ‘My reach limited,’ he would incorrectly say. About everything else, he wasn’t exactly forthcoming, understandably, I suppose. Secrets are secrets for good reasons—” He gestured to me. “As I’m sure you gathered.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Then Dude spoke about sirens in the females becoming more ‘powerful’. ‘Out of his reach’ again.” Styx blew at his bottom lip before adding, “His tone told me he wasn’t thrilled about the females taking matters into their own hands, paraphrasing, if you catch my drift.” He paused. “Drift.” Then chuckled. “I could connect these sea jokes all day long.”

“Styx,” I grumbled, to keep him focused.

“Right. Okay. Apparently, the females succeeded in convincing us mere humans that we wanted to do the deed. Not that I ever heard beautiful singing or anything. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much success. No pregnancies were happening,” Styx puffed his chest, “but Gramps got it done.” He thumbed his nose as if his ego was derailing him from the story.

After rolling my eyes at his boasting, I asked an important question. “So, if everything Sea-Dude said is correct—the truth, that the females needed humans to reproduce—then why⁠—”

I drifted into my thoughts until Styx asked, “Why what?”

“Why did River give Dad, an infant needed in the underworld, to you?” I shrugged, not wanting to sound stupid or ask a question he already had an answer for, but… “Instead of her own kind? Had she not, you wouldn’t even know he was alive, right?”

Styx froze for some time before saying, “I’d been so relieved to keep my son, and worried about what was coming next, I never thought about that glaring part of the past. I was so scared, doing whatever was asked of me, I never stopped to think why some… ‘god’… even needed me.”

It was one thing to try and imagine this whole scenario, Styx procreating with a mermaid, but then to imagine why she changed her mind, surrendering the halfling to a mere human. Chills ran up my spine. “What killed her? River, I mean.”

Styx’s lips vibrated off each other like a motorboat as he blew out air, his eyes filling with doubt. “I assumed the birth.”

What if it wasn’t the birth? Still by the garbage can, I rubbed my thighs, getting itchy to have Saleeni in my sights. Is she in danger? “Where is the Sea-Dude now?”

Growling at a vibrating cell phone in his back pocket, Styx retrieved it. While reading the message, he absentmindedly answered me. “Haven’t seen him since the explosion.”

Now I was the one who froze. “How about any of the others?” I’d been wondering where Saleeni’s family was.

He typed on his phone, then answered me. “No. Besides River, he’s the only sea-dude or dudette I’d ever actually seen until Saleeni after the explosion⁠—”

Electrical pulses took place inside me. “Please explain.”

Styx looked spooked, now staring at me. “When you were in the hospital, I talked to Noma on the phone. She was so agitated, understandably, but⁠—’

The memory of one time waking in the hospital bed, hearing Noma on the phone, bolted through me. I didn’t know who she was speaking to, but now I did, and finished his sentence. “But she couldn’t understand how I made it to the clubhouse. Placed on top of a ten-foot wall.”

He swallowed, nodding. “Keeping my vow of secrecy, I tried to come up with reasons why your landing there was plausible.”

I repeated what Noma had said to him. “She told you not to treat her like she was stupid.”

His eyes drifted shut as if his mind was showing him something he had missed. “After making sure you weren’t followed when leaving the hospital…”