“And do you remember”—Chiquita rippled a low laugh—“how we would leap into the air if they stirred or spoke in their sleep? Once, Honey started to wake up—and we were off over the water before he could get his eyes open.”
“Oh, but Honey told me that he heard us laugh that time,” Lulu explained. “He told the men the next day and, oh, how they joked him.”
“And then,” Chiquita went on, “once Billy actually did wake up. You were bending over him, Julia. I remember we all kept as still as the dead. And you—oh, Julia, you were wonderful—you did not even breathe. He seemed to fade back into sleep again.”
“He says now that I hypnotized him,” Julia explained.
“Do you remember,” Clara took it up, “that we even considered kidnapping one of them? If we’d known what to do with him, I think we might have tried it.”
“Yes,” said Chiquita. “But I think it was just as well we didn’t. We wouldn’t have carried it off well. There’s something about them that’s terrifying. Do you remember that time we saved Honey from the shark, how we trembled all the time we carried him through the air. He knew it, too—I noticed how triumphantly he smiled.”
“Honey told me once”—Lulu lowered her voice—“that it was the fact that we trembled—that we seemed so much women, in spite of being creatures of the air—that made him determine to capture us.”
“Well, there’s something about them that weakens you,” Chiquita said in a puzzled tone. “It’s like a spell. At first I always felt quivery and trembly if I stood near them.”
“It’s power,” Julia explained.
“I used even to be afraid of their voices,” Chiquita went on.