Jazlee misses life before the ritual, if only because she didn't have anything to think about.
Not seriously anyway.
Now it seems as though all she does is think. And question.
Why did holding a camera cause her heart to race?
How is that she and Kaia knew how to use human limbs after only a few moments of gaining their bearings?
Why did Jazlee's heart wrench when she saw candlelight?
How was it that Kaia knew what certain symbols meant?
Why did her voice swell when she saw a man cradle a women's hand while on one knee?
And what of that girl, Brianna?
The night after they met her, Jazlee's dreams were filled with a name being repeated over and over, always in a different voice. And since she returned to the sea, the dreams have only gotten more vivid. Sometimes the name makes her happy, other times sad. There are moments she feels proud or angry or charmed or vexatious and when she wakes there are tears running down her face with a different name on the tip of her tongue.
She doesn't remember when she wakes.
Not completely.
What she does know, and has come to understand, is that humans, both male and female, are not as black and white as she believed. Humans have turbulent history that has been woven into her very marrow. A history where they have murdered, starved, tortured, and denied the common humanity of millions*.
It's why sirens like her exist.
But the other side of that history has been written into Kaia's very being; the reason why mermaids exist. Humans have loved, and they have dreamed. And this has helped them create lives full of security and beauty. Allowed them to overcome hardships so great that their stories are still told today.
She was right. But she now knows she's also wrong.
She's not sure if that makes things better or worse.
Jazlee misses life before the ritual, if only because she didn't have anything to think about.
*The Slave Next Door, by Kevin Bales and Ron Soodalter