Babya told me the stories since I was a babe in her arms.

She would sing the ancient songs soothing the stormy nights into a soft patter of rain against my windowsill.

"Are we mermaids, Babya?"

My four year old self sat on my grandmother's lap looking at the leather bound journal spread out over both our laps.

A chuckle came from the old woman, her long silver white hair fell across the pages as she kissed my forehead.

"The Sildroher that we descended from were much more than the legends of sirens or mermaids. They were closer to the Making of the world far more than those who had the abilities to bend the elements. Their songs could calm a fierce storm or bring one."

My grandmother told me the ancient tales of these supposed ancestors every night before sleep.

My upbringing was an odd dichotomy of the ancient ways my grandmother raised me with and the modern feminist my mother was. My father came from a vibrant Jewish family, I had so many cousins I'd lost count. In comparison, my mother's family had an odd history. The few records showed them coming to the Americas on one of the first immigrant ships, back in the 1600s when Russia was the 'Tsardom of Russia'.

Babya wasn't allowed back to my dad's family get togethers after she descended into the 'ancient language' too often when conversations became heated. Mum said the last time she'd gone there, a freak storm flooded the Lewis grandparents home.

It was sometime after my fifth birthday that my parents decided to place her in a home, mum was 'fed up with the nonsense her mother was teaching Darcy'.

Before Babya left she gave me an heirloom necklace that had been passed down to each child whose 'soul was meant for the sea'. A small dagger wrapped in filigree seaweed with a string of small pearls and vibrant pink coral beads.

The night before she left I sat on my bed and watched the full moon rise, humming the song of the moon she had taught me. For a moment it seemed like my night light flickered. I blinked as I saw my room fade from view and I was kneeling in a meadow.

A boy stood head down looking at his hands as if in horror.

His lips trembled and words spilled out from his lips familiar to the language Babya had taught me.

His head shot up. Dark gray nearly black eyes stared at me.

Swirls of black erupting from his hands, his eyes wide with fear.

As the cool tendrils reached me, I gasped, "Shadows, not smoke!"

The shadows wrapped around my wrist and tugged at my clothes.

I smiled at him and his lips quivered as if he was still afraid. "Are you my…?"

My voice faltered as I saw a thoughtful look pass through his features.

His mouth opened as if he were about to interrupt but it gaped instead.

I looked where he was staring to see my hands to see them see-through.

I blinked and I was back in my room, looking up at the full moon.

I ran to my babya's room knocking on the door until I heard the steady steps and cane tapping I knew well.

"Babya, I met him! My soulmate."

After I was situated on her lap while she sat on her rocking chair by the window she listened as I told my story.

She nodded along as I expounded on the shadows the boy wielded.

When I finished I looked up into her ocean blue eyes,

"Do you think he was my soulmate?"

My grandmother nodded, "Perhaps moya Darya…" A bittersweet smile came upon her lips, "You will be the first in our line to break the curse."

My grandmother believed that all the girls that had been born since the time the family emigrated were cursed. For none were ever matched with their soulmates. Either they were blank, or their marks didn't make sense, some even invisible but only wisps of heat or cold could be felt.

When I was born, my mother hoped I was blank.

I wasn't.

By my first week tendrils of black would wrap around one or two arms.

As I grew up my family made it a rule that I had to wear long sleeves. I always got the feeling that they were ashamed of the 'smoke' that would on occasion wrap itself around my limbs.

Soulmarks were an ongoing source of debate in the science community. They had been around for as long as records were made, none ever understanding how they came about.

Often showing up on only one arm or leg, a soulmark displays your balance's talent, passion and on occasion habit.

As one could imagine this led to a wide range of possibilities, some beautiful while others worrying.

In school I knew a boy with a soccer ball soulmark that would bounce around his right shin. Another schoolmate's left arm would on occasion blossom with floral sketches, some in color and others in charcoal like sketches.

So when I had black tendrils my parents assumed the worst.

I would tiptoe towards their room and hear them whispering about the possibilities; an addict, a factory worker, some other unknown. The general consensus was that my soulmark was too odd and so I would need to hide it.