Chapter 1: Old Truths & Fantastic Tales
Sea monsters took up residence in Portorosso ever since the incident three years ago. Alberto Scorfano is quite proud of that fact, having been one of the primary perpetrators of the events that transpired that fateful summer. Parading through the streets of the small coastal town, it's early spring as he walks through the main piazza, dripping with saltwater. Metal bucket in one hand, after a morning of lifeguarding the town children on the beach, his indigo scales shine in the light of day.
Three years ago, he wouldn't have dreamed of showing his colors so brightly in the human town, the harpoon scars covering his body a grim reminder of how much others feared his natural form. There still isn't full acceptance of sea monsters in Portorosso, however. Some residents still gripe at their increased presence in the town – a few of whom glare at him as he passes now. Their vitriol only fuels Alberto's self-satisfaction, though, knowing there's little they can do now with Signor Marcovaldo around. He supposes they think they're being covert about their disgust at someone proudly showing off their scales in public, but they're not. Overcome with the desire to wave at them as he walks past, Alberto's sharp teeth gleam in the sun as he raises a webbed hand, beaming.
A pair of old men playing cards at a table jerk maliciously away, scoffing in reproach. They're mildly humiliated at having been caught in their bigotry, not at having felt it in the first place. Their reaction only thrills Alberto more.
The large figure of Signor Marcovaldo swallows his view as he enters through the large door, into the kitchen.
"Buongiorno!" Alberto announces, the fish bucket clattering on the table as he sets it down. "I brought a snack from my shift." The bucket is full of sardines. Underneath the table, Machiavelli bats at Alberto's webbed feet.
The man's rosy voice fills the small space with warmth, booming as his presence always is as he stirs pasta in a tall pot. "Meraviglioso. Lunch will be ready in twenty-five minutes. Oh, the mailman came by earlier today –"
Signor Marcovaldo is unable to finish his sentence as Alberto scrambles over to the other side of the table, where the one-armed man holds two letters in his hand. Alberto snatches them easily from Signor Marcovaldo's high reach, given the extra height he'd put on the last few years. "Ooooh, gimme gimme gimme!" Alberto hardly hears his adoptive father calling after him as his he runs up the stairs, his tail knocking up the steps.
In his room, Alberto shakes off the last of the moisture on his skin. His curly brown hair glistens amongst the wooden items in the room: a drawing desk, bookshelves, and dresser. It's been quite some time since he'd heard from either Luca or Giulia, and in their last letters, they'd mentioned studying for midterms, so Alberto assumed that to be the culprit. Tests sure sound difficult and boring, he'd told Signor Marcovaldo, who'd chuckled in hearty agreement. The letters are as beefy as Alberto had hoped.
He tears Giulia's letter open first with the whittling knife on his desk, green eyes scanning over the words so quickly he has to remind himself to slow down to actually take them in. Giulia's letter tells how both she and Luca passed their exams – by the skin of her teeth in the case of art history. She said Luca was especially concerned about his score in advanced algebra but ended up being one of the top ten scores in the class, like always. It was just his anxiety planting doubts into his head again. Alberto smiles at her mention of "Silenzio, Bruno!" eliminating lingering exam worries amongst their friends, though juvenile the inside joke now is to the three of them. She continued that she, Luca, and their mutual friends Valentina and Noemi are now preparing for their final performance in their aerobic dance class.
Alberto recalls how self-conscious Luca had been as the only boy in class, but he'd tried other sports and found none suited him. His family are reef dwellers, after all: grace and beauty are part of their traditions, though Alberto is aware of Signor Paguro's choice words about his son participating in a "girls' sport." Thankfully, he also knows Signor Paguro won't say them aloud. He'll scratch his head confusedly and awkwardly as he tells his son to pursue whatever he finds most enjoyable, never truly understanding. That's good enough for Alberto.
The second half of the letter is addressed to Signor Marcovaldo, where Giulia talks about how her fishing knowledge had allowed her to come second place in a trivia game in a European history class. The usual well wishes and "gotta get back to studying"s are at the end. Alberto carefully sets her letter aside as he moves onto Luca's, which feels unwieldy in his hands. He can see the corners of the envelop are worn away given its bulk. He cuts it open.
Alberto, Luca wrote. Alberto's heart already swoons seeing Luca's swirly, cursive handwriting. The effect Luca's handwriting had on him had only intensified over their years apart. It's something Alberto knows Luca worked hard to achieve, having learned to write with a pen and paper at a much older age than any of the other kids at his school.
Unlike Giulia's, Luca's letters are more like stream-of-consciousness prose narrative than a list of current events. Since the two of them can't spend time together in person during the school year, Alberto finds it adorable Luca found a way to share as much of his life on the surface with him as possible, and Alberto loves the way Luca rattles endlessly on. Alberto couldn't write as much in return given his own struggle with pen and paper – when he did write letters, they were curt and full of shakily drawn letters – but not without thought and care put into every word. Never mind that now though, Alberto reminds himself, bringing himself back to the present. He reads the rest of Luca's letter.
Alberto,
Midterms are finally over. Studying for five exams back-to-back for five different subjects is one of the hardest things I've ever done. We woke up at 07:00 every morning to study, honing each other's weaknesses so we could pass all our subjects. Giulia and Stefano were especially stressed about failing art history, so Valentina, Noemi, and I directed that study group. Unfortunately, Giulia and Stefano are the same kind of hot-headed, so they got easily frustrated whenever one of us would correct them with the right answer, which led to some dramatic outbursts in the library, something the librarians weren't very happy about. Noemi and I were scared they were going to kick us out for being so loud. Thankfully they didn't. Stefano and Noemi helped me with advanced algebra because that's the subject I worry about most. Even though I pass with points to spare every time, I can't help but fear this will finally be the test that I actually fail, and I'll disappoint everyone for getting a lower score. I know it's unrealistic, since everyone knows I try really hard, but I can't help but worry.
The week after midterms, Signora Lombardi assigned two novels for us to read. One is about a man's search for God as he traverses the Italian countryside, looking for his lost daughter. I haven't started reading the other book yet, but I heard it's about a young woman living a metropolitan lifestyle in Milan. Giulia seems particularly excited for that one. She hopes it will be a break from the housewife roles fictional women are normally consigned to, but we'll have to see. She's been disappointed many times before.
Reading human literature makes me feel so weird lately. I keep wondering, "Where are all the sea people?" but I know it's an unrealistic thought. There aren't that many of us and we are all pretty secretive. The only mentions of our existence are on ancient maps and off-hand comments from side characters in fiction. My own teachers talk about how people once believed in our existence, but how there's no way we could actually exist given current understandings of geography, science, and technology. I don't know. Sometimes, it makes me feel like my upbringing in the ocean really was something I just dreamed up. I wish I could raise my hand and tell the teacher and entire class that the texts positioning us in the past are wrong, that we do still exist and my family is quite happy with their lifestyle and they're nothing like these vague mentions of us in the texts we read, but of course I know the consequences for doing something like that, for something as small as my own discomfort, would be astronomically large, assuming they don't burst out laughing and dismiss it as a joke. Thinking about all this makes me miss Portorosso and my home even more.
Here Alberto pauses, feeling his heart ache for his friend, hundreds of miles from home in a foreign place where he had to act like he was one of them. Luca continues,
My anxiety has been out of control this year. I find myself spending a lot of time showering just to get some space from school and everyone else so I can feel like myself again. You know there isn't really anywhere I can swim near Genova without worrying about being seen. Giulia and I have tried to find a place I can relax and transform, but any body of water that's unpopulated is miles out from the city. I might ask Signora Marcovaldo if we can make another trip to the secluded bay we found last year, but with the fishing land people settlement nearby, even then it was a close call. I'm not sure it's worth the trouble.
I find myself missing the ocean and Portorosso even more this year. I miss the island, which is no longer cold and isolating after the summers we've spent there together and with everyone. I miss eating mamma's blend of fresh kelp puffs, even my dad's obsession with crab breeding… It's hard not being near the ocean and everything I know.
Let's spend a few days together in the ocean and on the island when I get back, okay?
I miss you.
Your best friend,
Luca
Alberto sits staring for a few moments at Luca's final pronouncement before setting the letter aside, still taking in the gravity of all that had come before it.
"I miss you."
The schoolboy has become more confident in sharing his feelings since winning the Portorosso Cup and even expressed his discomfort at being the only sea person – to his knowledge – at the school many times before. But usually he's eager to tell Alberto all the things he was learning in human school and affirmed that it was all worth it. Luca's preoccupation with returning to Portorosso to spend time together now, after everything else, causes the butterflies to break free from the cage in Alberto's chest. They flap haphazardly around his ribs, searching for escape.
At that moment, Signor Marcovaldo calls him downstairs, forcing Alberto to leave the letter and all its contents, his feelings, spilled upon the desk. The sweet flavor of Luca's words powders a lunch of fried oily sardines, tomato paste, and pasta in a sugary glaze, making him lose track of the conversation multiple times, to the point that Signor Marcovaldo lowers his chin and lifts a bushy eyebrow to ask if he's all right.
By the time Alberto is back upstairs, rereading what was written, his heart is molten and scalding all over his organs in the purest pulp. All he can do is hug the papers to his chest, rolling around on the bed.
. . .
The moon is nearly full as Alberto steps over the watery crevices between the rocks onshore. The other side of the island far from Portorosso offer great acoustics for practice. In his hands, the mandolin is old; large, beige barnacles cling to its ancient body, suction-cupped so firmly that tearing them off would cause permanent damage at this point. Alberto retrieved it from the tower on Isola del Mare, and from the seashore of the isola some indeterminate amount of time before that.
Alberto takes a seat on a rock close to the mouth of the cave. Rays of moonlight cut across the dark space in stark white lines. He's been practicing for a few weeks now, hoping to surprise Luca with it next time they see each other. Balancing the stringed instrument on his thigh, he allows the sound of the tide to lull him, his legs and arms pricking with scales from the moisture in the air.
Alberto plucks a low, loping rhythm, quiet and beseeching as the notes end on a question. His fingers fly over the frets in fluid movements to produce a tender and romantic tune. Alberto takes a deep breath. His voice is brusque and airy as he struggles to find the right notes. Once in key, the song takes on an ethereal, vibrational quality, amplified by the cave, carried across the waves of the sea. He closes his eyes and sings.
"You hardly know me, you say I'm your best friend
Everything's good, it'll work out in the end
I don't believe
That you want me to stay
You're hoping I'll go away
"Hey, I'm gonna be around
Hey, I'm gonna work it out
Hey, there's plenty to fight about
No way I'm ever going down"You follow me here, follow me there
You mess me around like you think that I care
You think that I need you, you think that you know me
You can tell me all the things you want to say
'Cause I'll get better anyway
"Follow me here, follow me there
Mess me around like you think that I care
Mess me around like you think that I care
Mess me around like you think that I care
You think that I need you, think that you own me
Don't think I see ya, don't think you know me
"Follow me here, follow me there
Mess me around like you think that I care"Hey, I'm gonna be around
Hey, I'm gonna work it out
Hey, there's plenty to fight about
Today we're gonna be around."
It's only after Alberto strums the final chord, his hand falling from the strings, that he realizes someone is watching him. A middle-aged man stands on the rocks outside the cave just fifteen feet away, mystified. Soon, his expression twists into something of horror. Alberto hadn't heard him approach over the ocean waves and his own singing, but why is the man looking at him that way? Surely, his singing couldn't have been that egregious. The man looks at him as if he's seen a ghost, as if seeing a sea monster for the first time. Portorosso is the only human town for miles, though.
He must be one of those bigots I saw earlier today, Alberto thinks. He rolls his eyes, not in the mood to deal with this. Before he can be sarcastic and say so, the man raises a shaky finger at him.
"You… you're a creature from the tales of old! Una sirena!"
A siren? At this, Alberto is genuinely confused. No one else has heard him singing in the caves over the last few weeks he'd been practicing – nor had many sailors lingered around these caves during the day or night generally, as he'd come here many times before he and Luca became friends. It's too shallow and treacherous for boats with all the rocks. The fact that the man is there at all is already baffling. But a siren? Having the ability to hypnotize people to the point that they'll drown themselves in the sea upon his command? This man must be joking. But all that comes out of Alberto's mouth in response is a bewildered, "Excuse me?"
Alberto shifts the mandolin to one side as he stands, his tail now apparent in his silhouette, due to the rock's dampness in the waves. The man clambers backwards on all fours, letting out a cry of fear. Alberto wonders if his eyes are glowing green and yellow in the moonlight.
"Stai indietro! You won't fool me!"
Alberto watches the man scramble around the rocks on the shore, back toward Portorosso, craning his neck behind him every so often to make sure Alberto isn't following. It isn't long before he's out of sight, his cries of fear indistinct from the tiding sea. Alberto shrugs as he lowers himself on the rock again, mandolin in hand. Well, that was weird. He strikes up a chord in a lower octave this time, its technical vibrato lifting him into the clouds, into the starry night sky.
That guy is probably just shaken by the stories of sea monsters he heard growing up, Alberto thinks. Me, a siren? Yeah, right. You've gotta be joking.
It makes him chuckle aloud, the sight of the man clambering up the shoreline in fear. Alberto's fingers scrape across the mandolin strings in a metallic halt as he laughs.
I'm sure this'll make for a great story when Luca gets back.
This chapter is a repost for now, as I decided to space out the original first chapter into chapter 1 and a prologue before I continue. The second chapter has already been written and just needs to be edited. I should be able to add it within the next few days~
The song I imagined Alberto singing was Au fil de l'eau, which is French for Over the Water. There's a beautiful mandolin arrangement of that I found on YouTube. I recommend giving it a listen!
I hope you'll leave your thoughts below~