by Anna Davies
She parked, walked through the dense pine trees in the strip of forest, and stepped onto the sand. As usual, the beach was deserted, except for a few ancient-looking beer bottles that were scattered on the shore.
She resisted the urge to run into the water and swim off some of her nervous energy. Because if she dove in and swam, she might miss him. And she couldn’t miss him.
Suddenly, she saw a shimmery movement on the water. She squinted, crossing her fingers that it wasn’t simply a dolphin playing in the surf. Normally, it was good luck to see a dolphin. But Miranda didn’t believe in luck anymore.
“Christian? Hello?” she called, the wind whipping her hair and making strands stick to her Carmex-coated lips. But the only answer was the echo of her voice and the sound of gulls above. “Hello?” she tried again.
Nothing.
Miranda sighed, disappointed. It was getting cold, and Miranda didn’t have Fletch’s sweatshirt with her. When she used to come to Bloody Point to meet Fletch, Fletch would always be there first, and would always have a fire blazing. She needed to remember more things like that—the moments when Fletch was real and alive and in love with her. The more she remembered stuff from pre-accident, the less prone she was to thinking that she didn’t really miss him.
Unbidden, Miranda began combing the beach for drift-wood to start a fire. The driftwood needed to be dry, not too thick, and not too new. Old driftwood caught fire most easily, while the large, hulking branches that came from storms were useless. But most people didn’t know that.
Here at Bloody Point, it was exceptionally easy to find kindling because of the forest. Miranda walked in, eyes peeled for the dry sticks of wood that were guaranteed to catch. She picked up twenty or so branches and was about to bring them back to the beach when she realized she wasn’t alone.
“Hello?” she called. She didn’t see anyone. She picked her way out of the forest and walked onto the beach. There was Christian, sitting on the same piece of wood she’d been sitting on just moments before. He was wearing the same cargo shorts he’d worn yesterday. He was gazing reflectively at the spot a few feet in front of him, which was the spot where Miranda had been planning to start the fire.
She hadn’t heard him before. And she hadn’t heard any cars or footsteps. “How’d you get here?” Miranda blurted, hugging her stack of branches to her body.
His face broke into an expression that Miranda still couldn’t figure out—it was as if he didn’t know whether or not he wanted to smile or smirk. “Miranda,” he said. “You’re here.”
“I said I’d be here. The question is, how did you get here?” Miranda frowned. This wasn’t the way she wanted the conversation to go at all. She needed to explain what happened with Fletch, but whenever she saw him, all her thoughts got jumbled together.
“Magic,” Christian said, smiling slightly to reveal his perfectly white teeth.
“Well, I don’t believe in magic,” Miranda said, dropping the wood into a pile.
“You don’t?” Christian asked.
“Nope,” Miranda said crisply. “I only believe in swimming.” Ugh. Miranda cringed as she said the last sentence. I only believe in swimming? What did that mean? And why was she all of a sudden trying to flirt?
“Are you high or something?” Miranda asked suspiciously.
Christian looked confused. “No,” he said slowly. “Are you?”
“No!” Miranda said. “It’s just sometimes our conversations get weird. I don’t know.” She shrugged. “So, how was your day?” she asked awkwardly.
“What are you doing?” he asked, not answering the question as he nodded toward her pile of twigs.
“I was going to build a fire. I mean, for me,” Miranda said nervously. Her teeth were chattering. It was freezing on the beach. She needed to just tell him about Fletch so she could get into her seat-warmer-containing car and get the hell out of here. But she didn’t make any move to set the fire.
Christian stood up from the log. “Fire,” he repeated slowly. “How do you do it?”
Miranda cocked her head. “Seriously? You mean, like a beach fire? I don’t think there’s any one way. Alan used to use a Duraflame log, but that’s not really right. Just grab sticks and stuff, dig a hole . . . why don’t you know this?” Miranda asked, regarding Christian suspiciously. Building a fire was something all island kids, no matter whether they were Bloody Pointers or Whym elite, had learned when they were in elementary school.
Christian sat on his heels and gazed up at her. His eyes were even more brilliant than she’d remembered. His hair reflected the light of the setting sun, the brown locks looking like they were woven with flecks of gold. If he went to Calhoun, he’d hands down be the hottest guy there, but there was something else about him—a sort of aloofness that made it seem like he hadn’t grown up in a life of privileged excess, like the Calhoun kids had. Which only made him seem more mysterious.
“Well, dig a hole,” Miranda said impatiently. “I can’t believe you’ve never learned this. Where’d you grow up?” she asked, sinking on her knees next to Christian.
“Somewhere that’s not really good for fires.” Christian shrugged as he gingerly began digging in the sand. Miranda watched nervously. Sometimes, Christian would seem so perfect, and other times, he seemed like he was from a different planet. Maybe he’d escaped from a mental institution? And what did it mean that Miranda didn’t even really want to ask?
“That’s deep enough,” Miranda said, stopping him from digging. “Now start with the big sticks, and put the small sticks on top,” she instructed. “Seriously, I can’t believe you don’t know this. Where are your survival skills? What would you do if you were lost in a forest by yourself?”
“What would you do?” Christian countered as he arranged a neat pile of sticks in the hole.
Miranda shrugged. “I don’t know. Find a way to get out, I guess.”
“What if there was no way out? What if danger was on both sides of the forest?”
“Then I’d make a way out. Or maybe set a fire so the forest was destroyed. No forest means no problem, right?” Miranda asked, wondering what the hell they were talking about. “I need to get matches,” she mumbled. “They’re in the car.”
Miranda ran through the woods to her unlocked car, reaching into the glove compartment and pulling out a Ziploc bag full of matchbooks. THE SEA HAG TAVERN was emblazoned on one in fancy script. It was one of the only places along the coast of the mainland that didn’t card, and Gen and she had gone there last spring, just to say they’d done it. Miranda firmly turned the matchbook over in her palm so she could no longer see the logo. Then, she popped open the trunk and pulled out an oversize flannel blanket that Eleanor insisted she and Teddy keep in the car in case of an emergency. Unbeknownst to Eleanor, an “emergency” usually meant a sleepover on the beach with Fletch. Miranda felt a tug of disloyalty at the memory.
“Think fast,” she called when she reached the beach, throwing the matches toward Christian. He dropped them and they fell into a small pool of water in the sand. He squinted down at them as Miranda draped the blanket over the log.
“Oh, it’s okay. They’re waterproof,” Miranda said, kneeling down near his feet and fishing the matchbook out of the water. “They’ll still light.” She pulled a match out and leaned toward the pile of kindling. “A lot of people screw this part up. At least that’s what Fletch says. They don’t know the right place to start the fire. They try to light the biggest stick and it doesn’t work. You have to go for the small stuff first. Fletch is like, the expert at this,” she struck the match and teased it along one of the medium-size pieces of driftwood. It sparked for a second before extinguishing. “It’s better if you also have paper for kindling, but . . . ,” Miranda said, striking another match. This one caught on a twig. “Good,” Miranda murmured.
“Now you try. Start it in a few places,” she said, passing the book to Christian. Brow furrowed, Christian struck a match and gingerly held it against
a piece of wood. Finally, after a few false starts, the branch caught.
“Ow!” Christian yelped, holding his finger with his hand.
Miranda smiled. He seemed like such a cool, beyond-everything guy, but then he freaked over a match burn. “Aw, poor baby!” Miranda teased, throwing another match onto the fire. It seemed to be slowly catching on, the flames tentatively reaching toward the center of the stack of wood.
Christian rocked back on his heels. “But I thought . . .”
“What?” Miranda asked, looking at the dancing flames.
“Is this dangerous?”
Miranda shook her head. “Nope. It’s about as safe as you can get. Don’t freak out, just enjoy. At least it keeps the sea witch away.”
Christian stiffened. “What do you mean?” he asked in a strange voice.
“That’s what everyone on the island believes. That fire will kill Sephie, who’s supposed to be this mermaid that controls the tides for Whym. And I think she’s supposed to control the tides for the other islands around here. Maybe even for the whole world. I don’t really pay attention to the legends.” Miranda smiled tightly. “So, anyway, because she’s all-powerful in the water—but fire will destroy her—a lot of times, people say you have to make a fire to protect yourself on the beach.” She shrugged, her face blazing. She knew this wasn’t a date, and that nothing about the interactions between her and Christian were typical, but she found herself saying the oddest things when he was around. “Anyway, Fletch believed in that, I didn’t. I just get cold.” she shrugged and tilted her face up to his.
“Oh.” Christian nodded and Miranda followed his gaze to the matches.
“Can I take these?” Christian asked shyly, passing them back and forth from palm to palm.
“Yeah, I don’t care,” Miranda shrugged, disappointed that was all he had to say. Why was it that every time she went out on a limb, he didn’t meet her? It was time to change that. The light from the fire was flickering on Christian’s face, and he looked lost in thought. Her heart twisted in her chest. She just wished things could be different.
She took Christian’s hand and brushed her lips against his hand. And then she looked back into his eyes, and raised her mouth up until her lips grazed his. She gasped, as if struck by lightning. The kiss was nothing like what she’d felt with Fletch. She knew she had to make an instant decision: keep kissing or leave forever? But before her rational mind could decide, her body reacted, throwing her arms around Christian’s strong shoulders. She felt his hands brush against her back and she felt her own hands in his hair, the warmth of the fire and the softness of the sand and . . .
“No!” Miranda yelled, pulling away and scrambling to her feet.
“Are you okay?” Christian said, his hand brushing her arm. Miranda pulled away and faced the water. This was crazy. What had she been doing? She took a few deep breaths, but they came out all shaky, and then she realized her face was wet. She touched her cheek experimentally and pulled her hand back. Wordlessly, Christian stood next to her, his hand only millimeters away from touching hers. He reached up and brushed a few tears off her face.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked.
Normally, Miranda hated that question. If someone wanted to talk about something, why didn’t they just come right out and start talking? And if they didn’t just begin talking about it, that probably meant that, no, they didn’t want to talk about it.
She shivered. The temperature had dropped substantially since the sun had gone down, and it was freezing away from the fire. Out in the distance, Miranda could just make out the twinkling lights of the Sephie.
Just then, the fire popped loudly, sending sparks up toward the sky.
Christian jumped. “What was that?” he asked.
“Just the fire. Why? Are you afraid of it?” Miranda tried to joke.
“Maybe,” Christian said. He didn’t sound like he was joking.
“Do you want to swim?” She asked finally. She didn’t care if it was freezing. It was the only place she could think of to avoid kissing and avoid talking about not kissing.
Christian nodded and, not bothering to take off her clothes, Miranda ran into the inky black surf and began swimming. She didn’t know how long they swam, except finally, her lungs and legs burning, she stopped and treaded water in a patch of moonlight. Her teeth were chattering, her arms felt numb, and she knew she needed to get out soon. But not yet.
Miranda noticed a tiny trail of glowing particles that surrounded Christian. “Phosphorescence,” she observed.
“Hmm?” Christian asked absentmindedly.
“Those little bright things floating on the water,” Miranda explained. He definitely wasn’t an Islander if he didn’t know. Miranda was vaguely aware that it was just one more thing she didn’t know about him—while she’d spilled her life story, and all she knew was a first name. “In eighth grade we had to do a science experiment with it. They’re like, little fluorescent microscopic plankton, which is kind of gross. Like, we’re just swimming through their hometown,” Miranda babbled.
Christian shifted from one foot to the other.
“But then my friend Lydia thought they meant something magical. Like if you saw them, it meant . . .” Miranda trailed off. What had Lydia said it meant? She couldn’t remember now. “It meant something. See what I mean about superstition around here?” She asked, suddenly sick of talking. Christian swam closer to her. His lips grazed hers. But she didn’t stop him. She continued to kiss, not caring about anything but the way his lips felt on hers.
FOUR MORE DAYS, JUDGING FROM THE SUN JUST GLIMMERING over the horizon. Christian watched Miranda sleep. Her face lost the guarded expression it had when she was awake, and Christian got a sense of what Miranda must have been like pre-accident. Now, even when she was smiling, her eyes looked pained, as if the act of smiling actually hurt.
He brushed a strand of hair off her face. He knew Miranda felt the same connection to him, that when they were together, their love or chemistry or passion or whatever-it-was-called was palpable. But what would happen if he admitted the truth about himself? Would she think he was a monster? Would Miranda blame him for the accident?
He couldn’t have seen the accident coming. When he’d Surfaced, the water had been still and calm. There’d been a far-off storm, but he hadn’t thought anything of it. What he’d thought about was how free and easy Miranda and her friends had seemed when he’d been quietly watching them on the boat, how they seemed utterly at ease with each other. It was so different from the fear and distrust that plagued even the most benign of Down Below interactions. He’d been envious, and had gotten closer and closer until . . .
The more he thought about it—the event turning over and over in his memory like a piece of seaglass, worn smooth by the surf—the more he knew Sephie must have started the storm. It was the type of thing she was rumored to do, a capricious way she could show dominance over Up Above. And it wouldn’t be as easy as he thought to find a substitute for Miranda’s soul. There was no substitute. Miranda was unique and passionate and intense and angry and every time he saw her, he wanted to be with her forever. And the only way he could do that was to kill Sephie.
After all, although powerful, she wasn’t all-powerful. She didn’t control death. That was why she stirred up storms Up Above: So she could at least give herself solace in the knowledge that if she did not have supremacy over her own mortality, at least she had it over the ocean.
But if Sephie were dead, there would no longer be the quixotic storms stirred up for her own amusement. There would no longer be the impenetrable barrier between Up Above and Down Below. There would no longer be fear ruling the ocean and serving as an undercurrent for the affairs on the islands. And Christian and Miranda could live in freedom, Up Above.
But how? His mind kept drifting back to the fire. Legend had always had it that Sephie—that all mermaids—could be killed by flames. But he’d always assumed that water was superior. After
all, water could conquer fire.
But fire could conquer Sephie. If that was the legend of humans and mermen alike, it must be true. Or, at least, it was the closest to truth Christian had right now.
But the fire Miranda had started seemed too small and elegant to possibly ruin a force as great as Sephie. Besides, it would never work underwater, and he’d never seen her rise above the surface. Unless there was a way to lure her, then create a fire . . . but that was useless, too. Fires, Christian had learned, burnt out quickly, and often required a few tries before a blaze started to grow. He wouldn’t have time.
Miranda stirred on the sand, and Christian closed his eyes, pulling her more tightly toward him. She relaxed into Christian’s arms. It was clear she trusted him. The question was, how could she ever trust him once he actually told her the truth?
MIRANDA WOKE UP TO THE CRYING OF GULLS. THE SKY WAS mostly dark with some orange streaks, and she felt groggy and disoriented. She turned and found herself face to face with Christian. He was wide awake, gazing at her with a curious expression.
“Hi,” Miranda croaked. Her throat hurt, her head was throbbing, and the skin around her eyes felt raw. She squinted, trying to get her bearings. What time was it? She reached over her head to her bag and dug out her phone. Dead.
Christian pulled her closer to him and Miranda snuggled against his chest. She was still wearing her clothes from yesterday, which were now completely damp from their impromptu swim last night.
“What are we doing?” Miranda asked. It was a valid question. Even in the best of circumstances an actual relationship would be unsustainable. They had nothing in common. For all she knew, Christian lived on the beach. She remembered hearing a proverb that said if someone saved your life, they were responsible for it forever, but she couldn’t remember if it was real or from some half-remembered Star Wars movie that she’d watched with Teddy. But in this situation, it sort of made sense. After everything, Christian was still hanging around.
