by Judi Fennell
Reel met her as she exited the tunnel into a two-story domed room with octagonal holes along the ceiling that let in more of the refracted magma light. Sprinkled throughout the room were waterlogged cruise ship furniture and giant clam shells in seating arrangements. A conch shell the size of Reel graced one group. Cut lengthwise, it resembled an art-deco divan. Resting on the furniture were four of the most beautiful women Erica had ever seen, each one with a tail and different colored hair. Red and gold included. Every sailor’s story she’d ever heard came back to her. Sirens that led sailors to their deaths. She could see how. But seeing people—living, moving, water-breathing InOverHerHead.indd 93
3/20/09 1:59:55 PM
Judi Fennell
94
people with tails… Erica couldn’t believe she was still alive and supposedly sane. She certainly never would have believed it was possible.
Nor would her brothers.
“Relax. They don’t bite,” Reel said, taking her arm and lifting her off the floor.
“Could you stop that, please?” she muttered from the side of her mouth, yanking her arm free. “I’m perfectly able to walk.”
“Oh, you can?” The gold-haired mermaid fluttered her tail and rose six inches off the conch sofa, staring over her red-haired sister’s head. “Cool. She’s got legs.”
Wasn’t that a ZZ Top song? Erica shook the thought from her head. No time for mental wanderings—or her mind might just go wandering off permanently. A blonde sister—or maybe her hair really was yellow—soared over to her, a sea urchin spine in one hand, something flat and thin like slate in the other. And a tea strainer on a chain of paperclips around her neck?
“What’s the difference underwater to you? How does it feel? The weight of the water against your limbs?
Buoyancy? Does temperature change how your limbs work? What about depth levels?” She scratched the spine against the slate as if writing.
“Uh,” Erica peered over the top. Hieroglyphics. That explained a lot.
Reel took the slate out of his sister’s hand. “Angel, let’s leave off with the twenty questions, okay? Trust me, she’s got a lot more information to assimilate than you do. Not to mention, you’ve asked me enough questions to write a thesis on legs.”
InOverHerHead.indd 94
3/20/09 1:59:55 PM
In Over Her Head
95
Angel grabbed for the slate. “Yeah, but yours are built for function in water. I need to know what it’s like for Humans to come into the ocean and use them. To find out if there’s a difference. I mean, let’s face it, Reel, you are the only one of our kind with legs. Not much help to study you. But Humans, on the other hand… why, I could learn all sorts of things.”
An older woman— mermaid—glided over to them. Her hair was the color of a seal’s pelt and every bit as luxurious. A royal blue anemone with one purple tentacle gripped the tip of her ear, a perfect foil to the hair flowing behind her—not in strands but a solid mass of silk. Her scales were so blue they almost matched the water, and her skin was soft ivory. Overlapping sand dollars covered her breasts like a halter top, with braided, pink landscapers’ tape holding them in place. His sisters wore similar outfits.
“Welcome to our home, Erica. Any friend of my son’s is welcome here.” Reel’s mother held out her hand.
“That’s not what you said about Oryx, Mom,” Reel said.
“Oryx needed to learn some manners.”
“Oryx was a leering, stupid sea cow, Reel,” the redhaired sister said, shooting to her feet, er, tail. Reel turned to Erica. “Oryx was a friend from school. A bit persistent in his pursuit of my sister Mariana.”
“Ugh!” Mariana flounced her arms, which spun her in the water. She then fell back onto the conch couch, arms outstretched.
Oh, the drama. Erica’s lips twitched. She’d used that same tactic on her brothers.
“Persistent? He was a freaking stalker, Reel. If you’d bothered to come home at all that first year, I InOverHerHead.indd 95
3/20/09 1:59:55 PM
Judi Fennell
96
would’ve clued you in that he only became your friend to get to me.”
“I’m hurt, Mariana. Truly hurt.” Reel put his hand over his chest, and Erica tried not to groan. She was in overacting purgatory. “You don’t think I can get friends on my own? That they have to have some ulterior motive?”
“Have you seen him since I singed his tail flipper?”
“No, but that’s because he’s in rehab.”
“Get a grip, Reel. The guy was using you.”
The grin Erica knew was just below the surface finally made an appearance on Reel’s face. Dimples and laughter included. “Oh, Mariana. You make it so easy, babe. Really, you do.”
Reel’s mother rolled her eyes.
“What are you talking about?” Mariana sat up and wedged a football behind her back.
“Okay, sweetheart, here’s the truth. I paid the guy to stalk you.”
“You what?” That got her up and swimming. Like a torpedo aimed right at his face. “Why?”
“You were moping about that guy—what’s his name?
Big dude. Carried a pitchfork around and tried to pass it off as a trident—”
“Quint. What about him?” Mariana’s left eyebrow arched.
“Weren’t you all ‘I’ll never get over him,’ and crying your eyes out when he broke up with you?”
Mariana became extremely interested in her fingernails. “Yeah. For Sedna. That slut.”
“So you needed cheering up.” He tweaked her nose.
“Poor Oryx, though. Neither of us saw the molten lava thing coming.”
InOverHerHead.indd 96
3/20/09 1:59:55 PM
In Over Her Head
97
Mariana punched him in the bicep. “Yeah, well, I hope you’re still paying him for that, you jerk. How could you have done that?”
“Done what? What’d I do wrong? It took your mind off What’s-His-Name.”
“But stalking, Reel? Isn’t that a little overboard?”
“Okay, so maybe he got carried away. I told him to make you feel like you were the only fish in the sea for him, not hunt you down like a whaler.”
“Well, he got what he deserved as far as I’m concerned. And I don’t appreciate that comparison. If I were you, Reel, I wouldn’t come near me any time I’m in my studio after that betrayal. I thought older brothers were supposed to look out for younger sisters, not sic their friends on them,” she said, storming off.
“Ah, home sweet home,” Reel said, rotating with his arms outstretched—five feet above her head. He looked down. “Don’t you just love family?”
Erica had to smile. They were like a real family, the only difference being, of course, the tails. Oh, and the water-breathing thing. Of course, now she had the water-breathing thing, so maybe she ought to nix that descriptor.
“Reel, come down here. You’re being rude.” His mother tapped his ankle, and Reel promptly dropped the few feet.
His mother looked back at Erica. “I’m Kai, since my rude son hasn’t the manners of a jellyfish.”
“Erica.”
“Hey, I have better manners than any jellyfish I know,” he said, going for the Academy Award in Wounded, Tragic Hero.
InOverHerHead.indd 97
3/20/09 1:59:55 PM
Judi Fennell
98
“Name one,” the other sister—must be Pearl—
challenged, joining them.
“Why don’t we sit down,” Kai interrupted. Obviously the woman had had a lot of practice over the years.
“Mariana will be back with the meal.”
Erica rounded a giant clam shell set on a pedestal and walked across the polished marble floor. Well, really, she sort of hovered over it. It was hard to get a grip to propel forward with bare feet. She was going to end up swimming; she just knew it.
Ah, hell. Why fight it? She was
already breathing water anyway.
The family settled themselves on the crustacean furniture. A colony of sea cucumbers had taken up residence in the hollows as cushions. Pearl pulled over a cast-iron boot scraper in the shape of a hedgehog and rested her tail on it.
“Obviously, we’ve heard what happened, Reel,”
his mother began, the soft smile on her face taking any accusation out of those words. “What did The Council decide?”
“That I’m stuck here,” Erica muttered. A bit too loudly apparently, as four sets of eyes turned on her.
“Well, not that it’s not a nice place to be stuck, bu—”
“We understand, Erica.” His mother touched her knee. Suddenly she pulled her hand back, eyes wide.
“Oh, please excuse me! I didn’t mean to—”
“Oh, no. That’s okay. I guess I seem as odd to you as you all do to me,” Erica said, crossing one leg over the other. “Obviously though, you’ve known about us, while Mers were a complete surprise to me.”
InOverHerHead.indd 98
3/20/09 1:59:55 PM
In Over Her Head
99
“It’s the independent action I find so interesting.”
Angel picked up her slate tablet and began furiously writing again. “How do you decide which one to step off with? Stride length? And what about toes? Are they independent of each other? Can you—”
“Yo, Jacques.” Reel swiped his sister’s tablet again.
“Stop with the research. She’ll answer your questions in her own time. Or she won’t. But leave her alone.”
“Come on, Reel! This is probably my only chance to get the answers straight out of the sea horse’s mouth. You can’t deny me this opportunity.” She yanked the tablet back.
Erica put a hand on Reel’s thigh. Warm—which was surprising in the ocean, but then so was her skin—
incredibly well-muscled, light dusting of hair…
He smiled at her. And waggled his eyebrow when he caught her fondling his merchandise. Well, close enough. She pulled her hand away. “Um, it’s okay, Reel. I don’t mind answering. To be honest, I’ve got a ton of questions myself.”
“All right, but first we have something more important to discuss.” Reel’s tone lost the teasing that had been his modus operandi since they’d arrived.
“What is it, honey?” His mother, curling back on her tail like she had a lap, flipped her fins against his legs. From the side table, she picked up a set of wooden knitting needles and a colander of unraveled mooring line.
“Ceto.”
One word, so much tension. Angel stopped writing. Kai’s needles hovered above the impromptu basket. His mother then found her voice, though her eyes had doubled in size. “Your father wouldn’t sentence you to that.”
InOverHerHead.indd 99
3/20/09 1:59:55 PM
Judi Fennell
100
“Well, actually, yeah. He did. They all did.”
The beautiful woman dropped the needles then put her knuckle in her mouth as her skin turned white. The anemone on her ear danced an angry hula with its tentacles. “They wouldn’t!” came out in a horrified whisper. Even Angel couldn’t seem to find a word to say and Pearl was doing a really good impersonation of a landed fish.
All of which were not comforting Erica. If the people who lived here and knew this world were so dumbstruck over Ceto, whatever that was, what would her reaction be when she found out what they were talking about?
“You’d better explain, Reel.” His mother set the basket aside, intertwined her fingers and sat back in the chair, the fins of her tail swishing a small whirlpool around Erica’s ankles.
Reel explained about the missing jewels. “I had fish scouring that wreck even before Erica told me what happened. They couldn’t find anything. Not even an empty snail shell. The area’s been picked clean.”
“So why suspect Ceto?” his mother answered, a furrow between her eyebrows marring an otherwise unlined face as she absently fingered the strands of rope next to her.
“Who else, Mom? She’s picked through everything of value in the North Atlantic almost before I’m done with it. I can’t even begin to tell you the number of thieves she’s bribed to try to steal into my guarida. Like she doesn’t have enough as it is.”
Okay, Ceto was a person—Mer-person presumably—
and a she.
InOverHerHead.indd 100
3/20/09 1:59:56 PM
In Over Her Head
101
“Let’s suppose that you do get the diamonds from Ceto.” His mother’s voice wavered. “What’s to keep Erica from taking them back to her world? No offense, dear.” She grasped her hands in her lap so tightly her knuckles turned white.
Erica kept her mouth shut. It wasn’t as if that thought hadn’t occurred to her. But no way was she admitting it.
“Uh, yeah, about that.” Reel scratched shoulder.
“There’s a stipulation in the event that happens.”
“What stipulation?” Iridescent sprinkles scattered on the surface of the clam shell beneath where Kai’s fingers were now digging into her scales.
“My life versus her going to ground.”
“Your life?” Kai stood—er floated upright. “Your life? Someone dared threaten your life? Where was your father while this was going on?”
Reel grimaced. “Right there, Mom.”
“I’m going to fry that man!” Kai was obviously the one to teach her girls how to storm off as she headed to an archway to her right.
“Mom.” Reel caught her before she had gone two steps, er, tail flutters. “Don’t. I’m thirty-three selinos old and Fisher was between coral and a hard place. He had no choice but to go along with The Council’s wishes.”
“More like Nigel’s, wasn’t it?”
“That’s not important, Mom. What is important is getting the diamonds. The Council demands them. We need them. And Ceto has them.”
Kai rubbed her forehead. “We’ll deal with who gets them later. I’m not going to lose my son over a Human’s stup—er, Erica’s loss of jewels.” Her blue eyes flicked InOverHerHead.indd 101
3/20/09 1:59:56 PM
Judi Fennell
102
over Erica’s legs. “But how do you propose to get them away from Ceto?”
If it weren’t for the fact that Kai was Reel’s mother, Erica would’ve jumped all over the “Human’s stupidity”
comment. Events beyond her control had brought her here, but the woman was worried about her son, and Erica’s mom hadn’t been dead long enough for Erica to forget what a mother’s love was like.
“I’m thinking that—”
“I’m sorry,” Erica interrupted, “but who’s Ceto? Why is this such a big deal? Isn’t there something we could trade for the diamonds? Gold? Pearls? Pirate treasure?”
Pearl snorted. “Obviously, my big brother hasn’t explained what you’re up against.”
All eyes turned to Reel. His jaw clenched.
“Ceto is, uh, a bit… um, you could say—”
“Ceto’s the basis for every nightmare your people have ever suffered on the sea,” Angel said, tapping the urchin spine against the slate. “She’s the cause of most sinking ships and likes to toss the survivors around in the waves, keeping them alive for the sharks.”
Mariana swam into the room carrying a serving platter laden with china bowls and piles of oysters and shrimp. Her violet eyes grew wide. “Sometimes she’ll take a few home with her to play. Or just to hang on her walls like trophies.”
“She’s ill-tempered and nasty. Vindictive.” Pearl leaned in, seemingly unaware that she’d grabbed Erica’s knee. “Likes to think she’s a god.”
“Well, she was at one point, I believe. Or maybe they were just considering it—”
“Then there was the time she ticked Poseidon off so badly he—”
InOverHerHead.indd 102
3/20/09 1:59:56 PM
In Over Her
Head
103
“Remember that airplane she brought down? All those people… when they saw her…”
“… sharpens stalagmites in her garden…”
“… built a pyramid of their bones…”
The sisters had forgotten about her as each tried to one-up the other with horror stories. If they weren’t so patently unbelievable, Erica would be worried.
“Um, sorry, these are all very interesting, but could you please tell me what’s the real deal with this Ceto?”
“Real deal? Haven’t you been listening?” Mariana said, setting the tray on a large shell—which promptly stuck out its mollusk foot and slithered over to them.
“Our brother is about to lead you into one of the worst places there is in any ocean.”
Erica swiveled his way. “Where exactly are you taking me?”
There was no twinkle in his eyes. “To the home of the original sea monster.”
“Sea monster? But that’s ridiculous. There aren’t any such things as—” Like that argument would work with five Mers staring at her.
“And not just any sea monster, Erica. You see, I don’t mean this figuratively, but Ceto is the mother of them all.”
InOverHerHead.indd 103
3/20/09 1:59:56 PM
Chapter 13
“Okay, say that again. What do you mean by the mother of them all?” Erica grabbed his knee and squeezed.
“Just what the words say. Our mother…” He swept a hand toward Kai and his sisters. “Ceto is mother to every leviathan who ever swam the seas. Remember that Kraken you mentioned?”
She didn’t want to remember Kraken.
“That last one I said was killed before my time? Hers. She was pissed. Likes to take it out on unsuspecting passersby. Usually your people.”
