by Lena North
When silence stretched out again, I sighed.
“In a different way,” he repeated, although much slower.
“The words don’t get more understandable because you drawl them out as if I’m an idiot,” I snapped. “Spit it out, Joao.”
“We change into water creatures,” he snapped back.
I felt my jaw drop and blinked a few times. They did what?
“Water creatures?” I choked out. “Like, what kind of…”
I trailed off and I stared at Joao.
“Man,” he said and moved his hands to indicate his torso. “Water creature,” he added and made a sweeping movement from his waist and down his legs.
I blinked. Wouldn’t that mean they were –
“You’re mermaids?” I whispered.
Tina promptly started laughing, in loud happy gushes of seemingly uncontrollable mirth.
“I’m not a goddamned maid,” Joao growled.
I had apparently hit a sore spot.
“Mer…” I trailed off and tried frantically to come up with an opposite to maid. “… sluts?” I finished weakly, and both Tina and Roark burst out in another round of laughter.
“Watermen,” Joao said sourly.
“That’s quite misogynistic.”
“It’s not.”
“If I were a female water person I’d certainly think so.”
“Well there are no female watermen, so it’s not a problem,” he stated.
“Okay.”
Then we were silent for a long while, and I thought about what he’d told me. It felt like I’d heard it before, but not quite. I tried to remember the legends I’d read about, but either I’d forgotten most of it, or perhaps my befuddled mind simply couldn’t wrap itself around what he’d just shared. The words my mother used to babble when she had one of her episodes came to me suddenly. She’d ramble on and on about how the devil was in the water, which was what my grandmother used to preach about, so I had ignored it. But she’d also talk about me being the devil’s child and how I was tainted from birth.
“Can Dupree do it?” I asked.
“Yes.”
Oh. If my mother had seen him, it must have scared the living daylight out of her considering where she grew up. A lot of what she’d said over the years made sense suddenly. I didn’t share this with the group of people around me. It was something to think about it on my own, but I also didn’t want to share even more about my pathetic upbringing.
“Who else?”
“Me, Roark, Lippy…”
He went on to mention just about every man I’d ever met whose last name was Torres. There seemed to be about twenty men on the Islands who apparently could change into something different than human.
“Okay,” I said when he stopped talking. “And you have to be naked?”
“Yeah,” he said with a crooked grin. “It isn’t magic, not really, so we have to get out of our clothes, or it’ll hurt.”
“A lot,” Roark added emphatically.
“Not magic?”
Was he insane? Changing shape like that? Of course, it had to be some kind of magic.
“Well, not that kind of magic.”
Were there different kinds of magic? I’d have to ask more about that, but for now, my mind could only focus on what it was they could do.
“What does it feel like?”
“Warm,” Roark said, and Joao nodded. “It tickles… no,” he corrected himself. “It’s more a tingle. Like tiny sparks up and down your legs. Then you just change. Poof.”
Poof? That was a pretty inadequate description.
“You make it happen, or does it just… poof?”
“We make it happen. I basically only have to think that I want to change, and I do.”
Oh. Well, that was a relief, at least. I didn’t want to go swimming with these guys and accidentally get slapped by a big fin, or whatever they called that part of themselves.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said after a while because I didn’t.
It was bizarre to hear a man calmly explain that he could shapeshift, but they’d helped me and that didn’t exactly put me in a position where I could faint or girly-squeal. My mind was also still reeling from what they’d told me.
“Don’t you have any questions?” Joao asked when I kept staring into the distance.
My eyes snapped to his, albeit warily because a few things had come to my mind, but they were a bit strange and probably not exactly appropriate.
“You can ask me anything,” he said gently.
Okay, I thought. Here goes.
“How do you poop?”
“What?”
Joao didn’t sound happy, but Tina leaned back in her chair and tilted her head back as if laughter threatened to choke her.
“Well if everything is covered in scales then how do you –”
“That’s your question?”
“It’s one of them.”
“We don’t.”
“Oh, okay,” I said and thinking I should make light of my question, I added, “That’s good. It would be iffy to have that stuck in the scale –”
“Charlie.”
“Just saying,” I said quickly.
Me making light of my question was apparently not appreciated, judging by the look on his face.
“Anything else?”
“No,” I said quickly.
“Ask him,” Tina pushed. “You had more questions, so ask him.”
I waited a beat and figured I might as well go all in.
“What happens with your, um… you know,” I said and waved my hand over my crotch. “Is it covered with tiny scales?”
The ensuing silence was beyond deafening, and then Tina bent forward and leaned her forehead on the table. Her shoulders shook, and she seemed to have trouble getting enough air into her lungs.
“What’s wrong?” Pauline called out from the kitchen door and rushed over the courtyard. “Tina, honey?”
Tina sat up immediately, although her face was a contorted mask of anguish.
“Nothing,” she choked out.
“But –”
Then Joao lost it, and roared, “Jesus, Charlie. My dick is not covered in scales. And for the record; if it were, they would not be tiny.”
Pauline stared at him. Tina leaned forward again, but this time her laughter could be clearly heard. I felt stupid but wasn’t sure what to do to sort out the mess I’d created.
“I’m sure that’s a piece of information Charlie would have preferred to get in a more private setting, Joao,” Nicholas said calmly as he strolled up to us. “They tuck it away,” he clarified with a grin at me. “Very carefully. I’ve heard getting things caught between their legs when they shift is excruciatingly painful.”
“It is. Almost as painful as talking about my genitals in front of Aunt Paulie,” Joao said.
He seemed to have gotten over his anger and was watching me with a crooked smile.
“Wiped your butt more than once when you were a child. I’ve seen them,” Pauline informed him calmly.
Tina suddenly stood up and pulled me to my feet and into her arms. She was still shaking with laughter and then she murmured into my ear, “Thank you. My life is complete. You can kill me now.”
“What?” Pauline asked, but there was laughter in her voice too.
“She called Joao a merslut, asked him how he pooped, and you heard the rest.”
Chapter Seven
Come party with us
Charlie
When they left, I walked through the hallway out to the big garden behind the house, hoping for some time alone to think about this latest piece of news. It was all coming on too fast, and the things they told me kept getting weirder and weirder. They could see minute details and talk to dolphins. I had a father suddenly, and with him came a huge family who treated me as if I’d been part of their lives forever. I’d been attacked by a shark, and so
me of them could change into water creatures, and I didn’t care one damned bit what they said – they were friggin’ mermaids. Or mermen. Or whatever. To top that off, I’d also seen Joao Torres without a stitch of clothing, and he’d looked… amazing.
I came to a secluded area and took a few quick steps, sank down and leaned my head on my knees, trying to catch my breath. “Shit, shit, shit,” I murmured with considerable emphasis, which did absolutely nothing to sort out the jumbled mess in my head. When I finally raised my head again, I stared.
Right in front of me was a white sculpture. It was made out of material I didn’t recognize, and its abstract curves were smooth and sweeping. Then I got to my feet again and went all the way up to the statue, unsure why I felt such an urge to touch it. When I did, the warmth of the afternoon sun seemed to pass through my hands, filling my soul with peace. A lump I couldn’t seem to swallow formed in my throat and my breath hitched, but not from tears. I suddenly felt like laughing. Like shouting with happiness and stretch my hands straight up in the air, celebrating some unknown triumph.
“Oh,” I breathed and sank down on my knees.
“Charlie,” Pauline suddenly said next to me.
“I thought I wouldn’t manage,” I murmured. “Everything was just coming at me, one thing after the other. Too much, and too fast. But then I saw this, and there’s so much joy in it.”
She was silent for so long I turned to see if she had walked off, and when I did, she sank down next to me.
“One of your cousins made it for us when our daughter died,” she said.
“What?”
This was a place for mourning? A shrine? I felt stupid and rude, but my eyes flew back to the statue. How could I have misunderstood so completely?
“What did you mean?” she asked.
“I’m so sorry, Pauline. I didn’t mean to offend you.”
“I know, and you didn’t.” She put a hand on my arm and repeated, “What did you mean?”
“Don’t you see it?” I whispered. “There’s so much hope in this sculpture, and I see the sadness, but look. Look at the curve right there. And this small twist here? Don’t you see it?” I swallowed and let my hand glide slowly over the smooth surface. “Perseverance and triumph. And a streak of never-ending happiness through it all.”
She kept her eyes on my hand, and a tear leaked out of her left eye. It slid down her cheek slowly, and she wiped it off almost angrily.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled again.
“You just described Maddie. She was ill most of her life, and she fought it like a wildcat. Pushed it back so many times, all the way to the end when she lost. When we lost.” She turned and smiled. “Thank you. We wondered so many times, Nico, Jeanette and me. Maybe we shouldn’t have allowed so many treatments. She was in pain, so perhaps we should have let her go sooner? Had we pushed her too hard? Was it worth it, for her? Right now you showed me what Tommy saw, and what he saw was that it was worth it.”
“Jeanette?” I asked, and added, “Tommy, is he the cousin who did this?”
“Was,” she sighed. “Enormously talented but struggling with himself. He decided to end things a few months after we lost Maddie. Then we lost his brother in a… boating incident. It was a hard blow to their parents.”
I sensed that there was much more to this than she told me but didn’t want to pry.
“Jeanette?” I asked instead.
“My sister, and Maddie’s mother.”
I blinked. Nicholas was the father, and the mother was Pauline’s… sister? How the heck had that happened? She noticed my confusion, which couldn’t have been hard, and chuckled.
“Nico was married to my sister, and they had three daughters. It wasn’t a good marriage for either of them, so they split up. A while later, Nico and I ended up on a boat together. A year later we were married, and Domenico was born. We never allowed it to become a problem and shared the kids between us. The girls call both me and Jeanette mother.”
Wow.
“You’re not Carrie’s mother?” I asked, not quite willing to believe what she was telling me.
Carrie had talked about her mother often, although when I thought about it, never by name.
“I am,” she said, grinned widely and added, “It’s just that my sister is too.”
She treated it as if it was no big deal, but there was no way things had been that easy.
“And you’re all… fine? With everything?”
She shrugged.
“Oh, no. Jeanette isn’t happy, so she still whines about it sometimes, but we all know she doesn’t mean it. She’s never happy about anything. Never was. Our mother used to say that nothing was ever right in Jeanette’s world, and nothing was ever wrong in mine, and that’s just who we are.”
“Okay,” I said although I mostly wanted to find a way to make my head stop spinning.
“How do you feel about what they told you?” she asked, changing the topic. “About the watermen?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “It’s weird.”
“Only if you let it be weird,” she retorted. “If you accept it as simply another layer of life, then it isn’t.”
Huh? Could it be that easy?
“Maybe,” I said, wrapped my arms around my knees and turned my gaze toward the statue again.
The deep feeling of happiness flowed through me immediately, and I exhaled. Perhaps it could be exactly that easy.
“My brother is scared,” she said quietly.
I closed my eyes, not wanting to talk about Dupree Torres right then. She wanted to, though.
“He’s never cared about anything, you know?”
No, I didn’t know, but I could imagine. He certainly hadn’t cared about my mother. Or me. A small voice in my mind whispered that I wasn’t fair because he hadn’t actually known about me, but I pushed it back and turned to look at Pauline.
“He never did,” she insisted. “Except, here you are, and he doesn’t know how to deal with it. He’s afraid he’s going to say something which scares you away, so he says nothing because saying nothing means you’re here. You might not build a relationship, but you’re at least still here.”
“I’m not leaving,” I said quietly. “I thought I would, and Pauline?” I paused to make sure she understood I was dead serious. “I should. Sebastian will come, and you don’t know him, but I do. He’s mean, and he can do anything. Anything. And no one will even slap his hand for it. But I’ve never had even a grain of what I suddenly have here in Croxier, so I’m going to find the courage to hold on to it and stay.”
I hadn’t known I would until the words were out there, but they felt right. A seagull suddenly squeaked high above us, and I tilted my head back to look at it. Yeah, I thought. I’d stay and fight Seb. They’d said I was safe here and I would hold on to that too.
“The others call me Aunt Paulie. I’d love it if you did too.”
Her words surprised me, and I had to blink a few times to stop my sudden tears from flowing over, but I smiled too.
“I can’t,” I said. “It wouldn’t be right.”
“Of course it would be right. You’re my –”
“No. Technically, it would be right, but it wouldn’t be right to him. To Dupree. I can’t claim you all as relatives before I know how I feel about him.”
“Silly child,” she said with a sigh. “What you just said should tell you exactly how you feel about him.”
I thought about that for a while, but I didn’t understand. I mostly felt angry with my father, actually, and I was pretty sure Pauline didn’t need to know that what I wanted most of all was to clock him. Hard. Perhaps even more than once.
So I sighed and turned to look at the sculpture in front of me again.
***
“Enough with the mystery woman,” Tina said and pulled me along.
“What?”
“Everyone is curious and the longer you wait, the worse it’ll
be. You’ll come party with us.”
“What?” I repeated in an embarrassing squeak.
“Tina, slow down,” a voice I didn’t recognize said, and I swung around.
She was my height, slim but somehow soft at the same time. Her light brown hair curled around a pretty face and she was smiling sweetly.
“I’m Thea,” she murmured when she saw my surprise, but added with a surprising snap in her voice, “Tina.”
My hand was immediately free, and I stopped.
“You gave me your swimsuit,” I said. “Thank you.”
“I have twenty others,” she grinned. “And I didn’t like that one.”
I started laughing, liking how she admitted to giving me her ugliest piece because why wouldn’t she? She didn’t know me, and I would have done exactly the same.
“You have to come,” Tina whined. “The Torres boys are all afraid you think they’re weird.”
“They are weird,” I said.
“Weird enough to not want to hang out with them?”
“Of course not,” I protested.
A flash of relief passed over her face suddenly, and I realized she’d been making fun of it all, but they worried.
“Fantastic,” she said with a sigh. “Roark was crying this morning, Mauro choked up a little and Joao went down on his knees.”
“Joao went –”
“Begging me to go and convince you to come.”
Wow. I hadn’t known they’d be that upse –
“Oh, ha ha,” I snapped.
“Too much?” she asked with a grin.
“You had me until you mentioned Joao Torres begging on his knees.”
“They really want to see you, though,” Tina cajoled. “Come party with us? Please?”
“But –”
I stopped and waved my hand in front of my short sundress. It was Carrie’s, and I loved it, but it was a slightly washed out cotton sundress.
“No one dresses up here,” Thea said, and when I looked at them, I could see the truth in this statement.
Thea had shorts and a flowy blouse, and Tina’s dress looked a lot like mine except it was ankle length.
“But –” I repeated and started pushing my hair away from a face which had zero percent makeup.
