Fins

by Ashley L. Knight

  I stopped, inhaling some jasmine that had taken over a picket fence. The fragrance was overwhelming and I closed my eyes enjoying it.

  Moments after closing my eyes, I was grabbed from behind. A hand covered my mouth and I was dragged backwards, across the road and onto the golf course grounds.

  I was so shocked I couldn’t think straight. My mind instantly flew to Akin and sure enough, when I was released, it was him.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I snarled.

  “I’m going to say this once and then I’m not going to warn you again.” He shoved me away from him. “You need to leave Vero.”

  “Says who? You? I don’t think so.”

  “We don’t want you here!” He exclaimed.

  I laughed at him.

  “I don’t give a damn what you or your father wants. It’s a free country and I’ll stay or go as I want.”

  He took a menacing step toward me.

  “You’re opening a can of worms that you won’t like. If it’s a war you want, it’s a war you’ll get.”

  “Is that so?” I took a step toward him. I could feel The Fire starting to course through my veins.

  “All I’m doing is minding my own business. You and your family are a bunch of prejudiced, pompous, self-righteous jerks. You think you run this place? Go to hell, Akin.” I was livid and sick to death of being bullied.

  He grabbed me tightly by the arms and squeezed hard. I didn’t cry out or move. I refused to be intimidated by him any longer.

  “You think Thayde can protect you all the time?”

  “I don’t need his protection.” I gritted my teeth and let The Fire start to seep from me. Akin held on tightly, even though I could see pain in his face.

  “I could break you,” he said.

  “I could burn you,” I answered.

  He smiled that nasty, evil smile I hated and continued to hold on.

  “All it would take would be one hit to the head and I could do whatever I wanted to you.” He pulled me in close, my nose nearly touching his. “Whatever I wanted,”

  I was through with his threats and I released a large amount of the energy. His hands sizzled and he immediately let go, his hands bleeding.

  “Stay away from me,” I warned, “or next time, I’ll kill you.”

  I turned and walked away, my heart beating so loudly it was all I could hear. I didn’t go to the gyro shop but headed straight to the ocean. Stripping down to the bikini I wore underneath my clothes, I dumped everything into my backpack and zipped it up. A morbidly obese man in a Speedo and a straw hat sat a few feet away, watching me. I walked up to him.

  “Hi!” I said as nicely as I could, “Could you watch this for me?”

  He leaned forward and took my backpack. “Sure.”

  “Thanks!” I smiled graciously and turning, walked into the surf. As soon as I wasn’t able to touch, I swam for the breakers. They were easy enough to get through. On the other side, I checked for people and then phased.

  I had to find Thayde. This whole thing was getting out of hand and he needed to know what was going on. I knew he was at Neridia. If only I could get there.

  Diving, I located the first downed boat I remembered seeing the first time I ventured out with Thayde. After my landmarks or watermarks or whatever you called them faded away into the blue, I swam in the general direction as fast as I could. Soon, land was a sliver in the distance.

  At that point, I wished I could swim as fast as Thayde. I wasn’t looking forward to diving down into blackness and searching about for the underwater city on my own. I didn’t even know if I was in the right area, but I had to find Thayde and the last thing I was going to do was wimp out on myself.

  I started too quickly and nearly smacked into a dolphin. Dolphins aren’t terribly huge, but it was daunting being in the water with something bigger than I was. It squeaked at me and stopped swimming long enough to watch what I was doing.

  “Hello pretty thing,” I said, admiring its sleek lines and happy, smiling face. It squeaked again and started to follow me. That was fine with me. At least I wasn’t alone.

  Down I went, the dolphin by my side. I passed a group of hammerhead sharks. All they did was ignore me. Relieved, I continued my descent. After a while, I looked toward the surface but couldn’t see it. A rush of cooler water flowed over me and though I had stopped swimming, I could feel myself being pulled along. I was caught in a fast moving current.

  Swimming under me, the dolphin watched me sideways through one eye. Below us was complete blackness and I started to feel uneasy. Could I go through with this? Now I wasn’t so sure.

  I could feel my confidence fizzle away and I looked about me. Nothing. One thing I didn’t like about the ocean was the fact that once you got into the dark water, you couldn’t tell if there was something next to you. I didn’t like not knowing what was lurking just a few feet away from me.

  My mind played tricks on me. For a moment, I thought I saw a great white shark, but it turned out to be a huge silver tarpaulin caught in the current. I was shocked to see such a large piece of garbage in the water. It was disgusting. I wanted to catch it and dispose of it properly, but there was no way I could swim with it. It slid past me and disappeared from sight.

  “I don’t think I can do this,” I said to my loyal comrade-in-arms. When a large whale passed underneath me, I panicked and quickly made my way to the surface.

  The dolphin surfaced next to me, spraying the both of us with water. I looked to see if anything else had followed and there was nothing. Sighing in relief, I scanned the horizon for the sliver of land. Nothing but waves.

  How far had I gone? Bouncing in the waves, I stretched to see over the top of them, but no matter how high I rose, I couldn’t see land. Completely disoriented, I panicked. This was probably the stupidest thing I’d done yet. Tammer had warned me about the currents and specifically asked me not to go out on my own. Brilliant, Morgan. Just brilliant.

  “You look lost,” a deep voice a few feet away called.

  Thank God!

  “Yes,” I called back to the man bobbing in the waves. He went under to swim toward me and I noticed his dark red tail. At least I wasn’t going to have to phase back into a human.

  When he surfaced next to me, I felt as if I was staring at Father Time. His long, gray hair matched his scraggly beard. Wringing the water out of it, he smiled and the lines about his face wrinkled even more. He reminded me of a character from one of the old movies my dad collected. Chong from Cheech and Chong’s Up in Smoke. I instantly liked this old man.

  “Where are you headed?”

  “I’m trying to get back to Vero Beach.”

  “Vero? You’re a long way off.”

  “I can’t even tell which direction it’s in.”

  He pointed a withered finger to the direction behind me.

  “What are you doing out here?” He asked.

  “Trying to find my boyfriend.”

  “Ah,” he chuckled.

  “I’m Morgan.” I offered my hand and he shook it.

  “Sam.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  “You too. You know, you’re closer to Jamaica than you are to Florida.”

  “What?”

  He nodded and played with the wooden circular ring hanging from his left ear. “Yeah man, you’re pretty far from Vero. Most mermaids don’t get out this far, so I was surprised to see you.”

  “Well, it’s by accident. I was trying to get to Neridia.”

  “You’re a ways off course.”

  “Great.”

  “Hey, I’m on my way to Jamaica. You want me to take you there and send you in the right direction?”

  Relief washed over me. “Yes, please. That would be great.”

  “Okay, let’s go.”

  We swam side by side and as we made our way, we talked. I listened to him tell me he was basically a nomad, wandering from place to place. He was making his way to Jamaica because he enj
oyed the music and had a woman waiting for him. When he made me laugh, his eyes sparkled. He reminded me of a kind old hippie dude and I felt comfortable with him.

  Sam’s red tail was fairly well scarred and his fins had a few rips in the ends. His aged body was tattooed and covered in wooden jewelry. When I asked him about his necklaces, I wasn’t too surprised to find out they were made from hemp.

  When he finished talking, I filled him in on my life. Feeling at ease, I found myself sharing everything with him. He laughed when I told him how I’d found out about mermaids and he was concerned when I told him about the Dartmoth’s. I’d even described Thayde’s Judgment and he seemed angry.

  “You know, that kind of punishment’s really not necessary. I don’t know why merpeople think that violence solves everything.”

  “It’s not just merpeople, Sam. It’s humans too. They fight over anything and everything.”

  We swam a while in silence.

  “I think a war is brewing,” I finally admitted and Sam looked worried.

  “Who’s involved?”

  “My family and the Dartmoth’s. Akin threatened me today. He said that if it was a war we wanted, it’s a war we’d get. We don’t want a war at all. It’d be nice if they just left us alone.”

  “Do you have any idea why they keep harassing you and your family?”

  “Mom and Tammer say it’s because of a curse a sea witch placed on them a long time ago. Thayde says it’s because his family are prejudiced and think too highly of themselves.”

  Sam snorted. “Do they really believe in curses?”

  “I suppose so. They say history is going to repeat itself.”

  “Curses have absolutely no power over you unless you believe in them. It’s all a bunch of hogwash.”

  “Then how do you explain that it’s already begun?”

  “Coincidence. But this Dartmoth family sounds like trouble. It’d be best to stay away from them.”

  “That’s the problem. It doesn’t work.”

  “Sounds like something needs to change.”

  “Yeah, well nothing will,” I said sadly. “It’s been going on for centuries and I don’t see it getting better.”

  We swam around a school of fish. The dolphin swam straight through them, catching a few in its mouth and when it appeared on the other side of the fish, swam hastily to catch up with us.

  “You know, my mom told me we have a ruler who’s been out of the picture for a really long time.”

  “That’s Troen.”

  I nodded and continued. “It seems to me that if you cared about your people, you’d be there to help them and keep things nice between everyone.”

  “Maybe he’s got better things to do,” he said.

  “Then he shouldn’t be ruler,” I argued. “He has a responsibility and it seems that he’s not doing a good job. Maybe he should hand it off to someone who cares enough to be there.”

  “Like you?”

  “No!” I laughed. “I’m way too young! I wouldn’t know the first thing about ruling over people. But don’t you agree he should be there?”

  “I guess. But usually someone who’s been given that position knows a lot better than everyone else how to deal with things.”

  “But he’s not dealing with anything at all!”

  Sam didn’t answer. He seemed lost in thought.

  “You want to hang for a while when we get to Jamaica?” He asked. “You’ll probably need a break from swimming.”

  I agreed. My whole body had started to ache from swimming against the currents.

  “They’ve got a really great coconut drink. It keeps me coming back each time – that and the Jimmy Buffet music. I love that guy. I’ll introduce you to my friends and my lady, too. Everyone but her is human, so you’ll have to talk human the whole time.”

  It was agreed and by the time we finally reached Jamaica, both of us were so exhausted, we dragged ourselves onto the beach, not bothering to phase at all. The dolphin surfaced a few yards from the beach and watched us briefly before disappearing beneath the waves.

  “This part of the beach’s always deserted,” Sam wheezed and started to cough. Looking up at the sun, now quite a bit lower in the sky than when I had started in Vero, I shaded my eyes. Sam’s coughing worsened. I sat up and phased, pulling on my bikini bottom.

  “Are you all right?” I asked, touching his weathered arm. “You don’t sound good at all.”

  “Yeah, I’ll be ok,” he said pulling at a black sarong he had tied around his waist. As quickly as he had pulled it down, he had phased and stood up.

  “Let’s go!” He started toward the palm trees. I looked back toward the ocean and sighed. Thayde would have to wait. As much as I wanted to see him, I was starving.

  “You coming?” Sam called after me, and turning, I followed him into the palm trees.

  The smell of barbeque was the first thing to hit me – it was divine and I was famished. It took us a good ten minutes before we happened upon a thick green lawn. The blades of grass tickled the bottom of my feet and I treaded as lightly as I could on them.

  Several small huts sprawled about and a cobblestone pathway connected each of them to a larger house with a deck that ran all around it. A spiral of smoke poured into the sky from a barbeque pit dug in the earth by the side of the house. In it, a large pig roasted in the flames. Island music drifted out through the screen doors and beer bottles dotted the railing. I could hear laughter and splashing coming from somewhere.

  “They must be in the pool.” Sam motioned with his head and walking around the side of the house, we came across a turquoise pool set in the grass. A group of people were milling around its sides and several more were playing chicken in the water.

  “Sam!” A petite lady about his age called out and sauntered toward him.

  “Liesa!” He held out his arms and she snuggled into him.

  “Where the heck’ve you been?” She smiled and sucked on the end of her cigarette.

  “Here and there.” He took the cigarette from her and crushed it into the ground. “These’ll kill you.”

  She rolled her eyes and when she saw me, pulled away from him.

  “And who’s this lovely little thing?”

  “This is my friend, Morgan.”

  She enclosed me in a tight embrace. “Any friend of Sam’s is a friend of mine!” She smelled like cloves and patchouli. “You guys hungry?”

  “Yes ma’am!” Sam reached into a cool box by the side of the pool and pulled out a beer. “There’s pop in here, too.” He chucked a soda at me and I gulped it down.

  “Sam!” More and more people realized he’d arrived and many gave him a huge hug. It was evident Sam was well liked. They treated me like an old friend, fussing over me and filling my hands with a plate full of food. Everyone was laid back and easygoing. They reminded me of the people of Idaho. These were my type of people.

  After they had stuffed me full of food and drink, most of Sam’s friends went back to milling about. Sam and I relaxed in some Adirondack chairs made from surfboards and sucked down on our drinks. The sun had sunk lower in the sky and the golden light of sunset hugged the skyline.

  It was then that I swore I heard someone calling my name. Looking about, everyone was busy talking or drinking. No one was looking my way. I shrugged. Perhaps I was more tired than I thought.

  “Morgan, I think we should stay the night here and head for Vero in the morning.” Sam mumbled from behind a little yellow umbrella in his coconut drink.

  It sounded great. I wasn’t looking forward to swimming back in the dark with a full stomach - it sounded like a stomachache waiting to happen and I’d never swum that far in the dead of night, either.

  “You’re always welcome to stay here.” Liesa set herself down on his lap. “There’s an extra hammock Morgan can sleep in.”

  Sam placed his arms around Liesa’s waist and pulled her close. “Does that mean I’m staying with you?” He teased and she giggled.


  “You know it!”

  “Thank you,” I said. “Do you happen to have a phone? I’d like to call my parents and let them know where I am.”

  “Sure thing, hon. It’s in the kitchen. Help yourself.”

  Liesa turned her attention back to Sam, running her fingers lovingly through his gray hair. I pushed myself out of the chair, stepping around a few lazy guys who’d decided to go to sleep on the lawn. I made my way to the screen door of the main house and walking in, found an old rotary phone in the small kitchen. I dialed Mom’s cell.

  “Morgan?” She answered hastily.

  “Yeah, Mom, it’s me.”

  “Morgan! Where are you? We’ve been worried sick!”

  “It’s okay Mom, I’m in Jamaica…”

  “Jamaica?” She interrupted, “What are you doing there? Don’t you know what’s happening?”

  “No, what’s going on?”

  “It’s the Dartmoth’s. They’re trying to lay claim to the entire area. No one’s standing up to them, so they’re taking over. Thayde,” she stopped.

  “Where is he?” I dreaded the answer, knowing full well what he was capable of doing for me.

  “He’s gone to talk some sense into them, but we haven’t heard back. Tammer’s gone to bring him back. Where are you?”

  “I told you, in Jamaica. I’m staying at this lady’s house…”

  “What are you doing there? Why didn’t you come home after school? Thayde said he went to get you and you were gone.”

  “Mom!” I yelled into the phone “I’m okay. I went to find Thayde after Akin threatened me and…”

  “Threatened you? What happened?”

  Quickly, I relayed the story to my frantic mother and when I was finished she was quiet.

  “Oh my God,” she simply said.

  “What?” Fear shot through my veins.

  “You have to come home.” she said in a quiet voice. “Don’t swim home - you can’t chance it. Rent a boat and come home now.”

  “Why?” I pressed.

  “It’s begun.”

  A chill swept through me.

  “Come home now.”