Suppressed: A Little Mermaid Retelling

by Wendi Wilson

  Rolling my shoulders and wagging my head, I attempt to shake off my dejection. I clasp the chain around my neck and drop the locket underneath my shirt. The cool metal causes a shiver to run down my spine. I press against it through my shirt until it warms. Leaving the room, I finger comb the tangles from my wet hair as I head down the stairs.

  Laughter draws me to the kitchen. I stand in the doorway unnoticed and watch Ana rush around the table and stop on the other side, breathing hard. A squeal erupts from her as she jumps and runs back to the other side of the kitchen. She yells my name when she spots me, then sprints over, pulling me into the room and hiding behind me.

  “Help me,” she whines in a high-pitched voice.

  Before I can ask her what she’s hiding from, electric tingles streak across my cheeks. Warm hands frame my face just before smooth lips brush across mine. I keep my eyes open, seeing nothing but an empty kitchen before me. Yet, the feeling of Bryce kissing me is undeniable. This is so weird.

  “Resurgo.”

  I resist the urge to jump back when he appears, his face inches from mine. He’s proud of himself, if his bright smile is any indication. I can’t help but smile back.

  “Well, that was weird,” Ana says, bringing us back to reality.

  Bryce laughs. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  I open my mouth to comment on how awesome it is, to be able to share everything with Ana, to get rid of all the secrets but the ringing of Bryce’s phone cuts me off. He picks it up from the counter and looks at the screen, his face turning serious.

  “It’s my dad,” he says, tapping the screen. “Hey, Dad.”

  He holds up one finger and mouths, “Be right back,” before walking out of the kitchen and into the living room. I want to follow, to at least hear his side of the conversation but Ana grabs my wrist and holds me where I am.

  “Give him some privacy,” she says. “I’m sure he’ll tell us if it concerns you.”

  I slump my shoulders in defeat and nod. “Okay. You’re right.” I glance around the kitchen. “Why was Bryce chasing you around, anyway?” I ask, cocking one eyebrow at her.

  “Oh, that? Well, I tried to get out of helping by pretending I didn’t know how to chop lettuce. He grabbed the knife from me and started demonstrating. I guess I couldn’t hide my amusement, because he looked at me and accused me of lying. When playing innocent didn’t work, I ran away.” She laughs. “He muttered something and suddenly I couldn’t see or hear him.”

  “Yeah, he does that a lot,” I say, chuckling.

  “I froze, listening for any hint of where he might be, then I felt fingers tugging on my hair. I screamed and ran. That’s when you came in and rescued me.” She bats her eyelashes at me.

  “Hey,” Bryce says from the doorway. I don’t like the look on his face.

  “What is it?”

  “My parents found something,” he says. “It’s Ms. Coraline. I think I know why she is so determined to keep us apart.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  My back is straight and my knee bobs up and down as I wait, unable to relax on the plush sofa. Bryce told me to come in here and wait while he makes us some coffee. Ana sits next to me, any attempt to finish making dinner forgotten in the wake of Bryce’s announcement. I don’t think I could eat anyway. My stomach is tied in knots.

  Ana puts her hand on my knee, exerting pressure to stop the bouncing. “Relax,” she murmurs. “This is a good thing, right? We need all the information we can get.”

  I blow out the breath I’ve been holding and slump back. “Right,” I say, not sounding totally convinced, even to my own ears.

  Bryce walks in carrying a tray with three steaming mugs and I sit up, my back stiff once more. I bite my lip to keep from screaming at him to tell me what his dad said. I know he’ll tell me everything. I just need to be patient. That’s easier said than done.

  “Well?” I demand a few seconds later.

  Bryce’s lips turn up but the smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. He raises the coffee mug to his lips, blowing the liquid for a moment before taking a sip. He doesn’t break eye contact with me. The room is silent but for the soft clink of his mug hitting the glass table.

  “Okay,” he says, turning his eyes from me to Ana, then back again. “First of all, my parents found a spell they think may work to keep you human.”

  “They did?”

  I roll my shoulders to ease the tension and relax my posture. Bryce’s parents may be able to fix me. My body feels lighter, like an enormous weight has been lifted. I’m going to be okay. I try to smile but it drops as soon as it starts to form.

  “Tell me about Ms. Coraline.”

  The pressure of Ana’s hand on my knee increases, an attempt to comfort me. Bryce takes a fortifying breath and lets it out slowly. He picks up his coffee and takes another sip. He’s stalling.

  “Bryce.”

  “Okay,” he says, his voice defensive. “I’ll tell you.”

  “Thank you.” I soften my voice, an apology for my waspish tone.

  “There are certain people… witches, called diviners.”

  “Diviners?”

  “Yes. Kind of like how I have the ability to feel emotions, they have an ability too. Diviners have visions.” His lips take on a whitish hue as he presses them together. “Visions of the future.”

  “Okay,” I say. “That’s cool but what does that have to do with Ms. Coraline?”

  “One of these diviners had a vision about Ms. Coraline and Kai?” Anna says, her voice breathy.

  A nerve ticks in Bryce’s jaw. He’s grinding his teeth together which scares me more than his words. “What is it Bryce? What did they see?”

  “My mom and dad were asking around about a spell to help you,” he says in a quiet voice. “Evelyn, the diviner in our coven overheard them say Ms. Coraline’s name. She recognized it.”

  His voice trails off and he takes a deep breath. Letting it out slowly, his dark blue eyes travel over my face. He’s been standing for the whole conversation but now he sits beside me opposite Ana and takes my hand in his. Small electric tingles race across my palm, causing me to shiver.

  “Do you ever wonder why it feels like that every time we touch?”

  “You feel it too?”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “Huh. I thought it was just me.”

  “Um, what are you guys talking about?” Ana asks. I’d almost forgotten she was there.

  “Well,” I say, looking over at her, “every time we touch it feels charged, like static electricity. I always thought it was just my nerves.”

  “I never really thought much about it,” Bryce says, “except that it felt amazing.”

  “Are you saying there is more to it?” I ask.

  He nods. “Kai, we’re synergetic.”

  The heat of Ana’s body warms my arm as she leans in closer. “What does that mean?” she asks when I remain silent.

  “It means Kai and I are connected,” Bryce says without taking his eyes off me. “Physically, mentally and spiritually connected.”

  A prickling sensation on the back of my neck has me twitching in my seat. “That… that’s crazy. Just because we feel electricity when we touch… Bryce, there’s a hundred love songs about that. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “What about the banana?”

  “You can sense emotions. You’ve admitted mine come through stronger.”

  “Kai, come on. Sending a direct thought about a specific object is a lot more than sending strong emotions. Besides, Evelyn saw it.”

  “What did she see?” My heart beats an erratic rhythm in my chest.

  “She saw us. You and me. We were on the beach under the light of a full moon. Coraline appeared and you said her name. That’s why Evelyn recognized it. We joined hands, and as we did, fire sparked from my palm and struck Coraline in the chest. She screamed, then vanished.”

  “That’s insane. Ana,” I say, looking to her for support, “tell him it
’s crazy.”

  Ana looks from me to Bryce and back again. “No. I think I’ve heard of this. My abuela told me a story once. There was a man, a very bad man, who controlled her village with his money and power. The people lived in fear, until one day, he disappeared. No one knew where he went and no one cared. They were free.

  “But Abuelita told me she saw what happened. She was taking a walk one night near the man’s house when she saw a man and a woman walking hand in hand down his front walk. She said his door flew open when they neared it even though their hands were still joined and neither had touched it.

  “She heard shouts from inside and snuck around the house to peek into the window. She said she’d never forget what she saw. The woman’s hand was still grasping the man’s but her other hand was extended. Abuelita said lightning shot from the woman’s palm, straight into the bad man’s heart, and he vanished. Poof. Just like that. I always thought it was a fairy tale she made up to help me to sleep.”

  “They must have been witches,” Bryce says. “Or, at least the woman was. According to the elders, only a witch can have a truly synergetic connection to another person, be it a human, another witch, or… something else entirely.”

  He smiles at me, a smile full of warmth and affection to let me know that the ‘something else entirely’ part is just fine with him. I don’t have it in me to smile back. This is too much. I can’t. I just can’t. My heart doubles the speed of its pounding and the room starts to spin around me.

  I reach out and grab Bryce’s wrist. “Help.”

  The smile drops from his face and he covers my hand with his, unlatching my grip. He wraps both hands around mine and mumbles something I can’t quite make out over the buzzing sound in my ears. A warmth spreads from his hands into mine, up my arm and into my chest. My rigid spine relaxes inch by inch as the anxiety ebbs away and my heart rate returns to normal.

  “Thanks,” I exhale. “I think I was having my first panic attack.”

  “All good?” he asks.

  I nod. “So, we’re synergetic. Connected. But, what exactly does that mean for us and how did it happen?”

  “It’s kind of the stuff of legends,” Bryce says, staring at our joined hands. He lifts his eyes to mine. “A bedtime story witches tell their young children, like a fairy tale. Every witch’s soul has a twin out in the world somewhere. A perfect match in every way. The magic inside us reacts to the proximity of our twin… it enhances, passing back and forth from one to the other, until the two are connected by the magic.”

  “Are you saying we’re soulmates?” I say, unable to stop the edge of derision in my voice.

  Bryce smiles, ignoring my cutting tone. “Something like that.”

  “That’s so romantic,” Ana sighs, her voice overly dramatic.

  “Shut up,” I say out of the side of my mouth.

  “Kai,” Bryce says and my attention snaps back to him. “I know this is a lot. I grew up on this story. You didn’t. But think about it. The electricity between us, the strong emotional connection, the thought transfer… it all fits.” His stare snags mine, making my eyes burn with emotion. “There’s no one else I’d rather be connected with. It’s you and me, Kai. Always.”

  I rub my eyes until the stinging subsides. “So, we are going to take down Ms. Coraline?” The corners of my mouth turn up at the thought.

  “That’s what the diviner saw.” He pauses and the pressure of his hands on mine increases. “I think Coraline has access to her own diviner. What if, at some point, her diviner had a vision about you and I vanquishing her? It would explain why she was so adamant from the very beginning that we have no contact. She thought she could control the situation by keeping us apart. When that didn’t work, she reversed her spell. If you’re a mermaid, we can’t be together. We can’t stand against her. We can’t defeat her.”

  That makes sense. I can’t believe I’m even thinking that. Witches, mermaids, spells, visions, soulmates… it’s almost too much. Two months ago I was just a normal girl, a maid’s daughter, living a normal life. Now, I’m on the verge of growing a tail and leaving my witch boyfriend behind, exiled to the sea where angry, human-hating merpeople want to kill me for being half human. It’s surreal.

  My eyelids drift down and I take a deep breath. Bryce’s parents will be here tomorrow. They’ll cast the spell and I won’t have to worry about becoming a mermaid. My mom’s face flashes in my mind but I push it away. One problem at a time. First, we need Bryce’s parents to cast the spell to make me human. Then we can find my mom and deal with Ms. Coraline. I open my eyes and steel my spine.

  “The old hag is going down.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  “Mom!”

  I’ve only been in the water for a few minutes and already I feel a tingling sensation in my toes. I need to get out. Sucking a large gulp of air into my lungs, I dive under and swim toward the beach. By the time I get to water shallow enough to stand, the prickling has reached my knees.

  Bryce is waiting for me on the sand, a fluffy towel stretched between his hands. I step closer and he wraps it around me, pulling the ends tight.

  “Everything okay?”

  “It’s happening faster and faster every time I go in. How long was I out there? Five minutes?”

  “Something like that,” he says. “No sign of your mom?”

  I shake my head. “Bryce, I’m getting worried. What if something has happened? She said she’d be back. Where is she?”

  “Hey,” he says wrapping his arms around me and pulling me against his chest, “try not to worry. Your mom is tough. She’ll be okay.”

  I step out of his arms and take his hand in mine. Silent, we stroll down the beach, ambling in the general direction of Bryce’s house. I shiver as the cool air kisses my wet skin. Everything that happened from Bryce’s phone call last night to Ana leaving this morning replays through my mind. The spell his parents found to make me human again. Synergetic soul twins. Prophetic visions. Bryce quietly stating he’d sleep in his parents’ room so I could have my first real slumber party. Ana and I whispering until we both fell asleep. The smell of bacon and coffee waking us up. The sight of Bryce in the kitchen, the early morning light shining in his hair as he flipped pancakes onto plates for us.

  When I headed into the water a few minutes ago, I had the strange feeling of being watched. I look over my shoulder at Ms. Coraline’s house but I see nothing. But that doesn’t mean she’s not there. She is a witch, after all.

  “Bryce,” I say pulling him from his own thoughts. “Why didn’t Ms. Coraline just kill me? Or you? She had us both trapped in my room yet she only teleported you home and reversed the spell that made me human. Wouldn’t killing one, or both, of us been a more effective solution to her problem?”

  “I don’t know,” he says, leading me toward the steps up to his deck. “Maybe she didn’t want to deal with the hassle of getting rid of the bodies.”

  “She’s a witch. I’m sure she could make us disappear just like that,” I say, snapping my fingers. “There has to be something else.”

  Then it hits me. I remember her cackling laughter yesterday after I searched the waves for my mother and found nothing. The way she always looked so smug, ordering us around and reprimanding us for every imagined trespass. The tiny black kitten sailing through the air and landing in the sea.

  “She wants us to suffer.” I walk across the deck and plop down into a chair. “If I’m a mermaid and forced to live in the sea, we can’t be together. I’m miserable, you’re miserable. We can’t use our synergy to defeat her. It’s a win-win for Ms. Coraline with the added bonus that I’d probably be dead within a few days, killed by my own kind.”

  Bryce pulls me up and takes my seat, pulling me down into his lap. “Well, thanks to my parents, that’s not going to happen.”

  “You’re getting all wet,” I say trying to wriggle free as his arms tighten around me.

  “It’s totally worth it.”

  I freeze at h
is tone and the insinuation in his voice. Realizing I had been practically rubbing my butt into his lap in my bid for freedom, my face heats up with what I know must be the brightest, rosiest blush in the history of all blushes. There’s an apology on the tip of my tongue but before I can utter it, I get a look at the smug, self-satisfied smile on his lips.

  “Ugh. Jerk,” I say, relaxing back against him.

  His chuckle resonates through me before I feel his breath against my ear. “But teasing you is so much fun,” he says before letting his lips brush against my cheek.

  I push myself up and this time Bryce releases me. “I’m going to go take a shower,” I say.

  “Okay,” he says dejectedly, giving me sad, puppy dog eyes.

  I lean over and press my lips against his. I quickly pull away, sidestepping his outstretched arms and his attempt to pull me back down into his lap. I run through the open doors before he can stand up, letting my laughter trail behind me.

  I skip the stairs two at a time, feeling more lighthearted than I have in days. Bryce is right. His parents will be here tomorrow, they’ll cast the spell to make me human, then Bryce and I can be together. I’ll worry about Ms. Coraline later.

  I rummage through my bag and pull out some warm clothes. I walk to the bathroom, closing the door behind me. My fingers freeze on the lockless knob. Will Bryce try to sneak in? Shaking my head at the ludicrous thought, I strip out of my wet bathing suit. I turn the shower to hot and run a brush through my hair as I wait for it to heat up.

  Stepping into the humid spray, a sigh escapes my lips. It feels so good, warming the chill that has taken up residence in my bones. The scent of lavender hits my nose and I smile. As much as I love the way Bryce smells, it’s nice to have my own shampoo. I don’t think his scent suits me, anyway.

  I rinse the shampoo out and massage in some conditioner. Letting it sit, I lather up some soap on a washcloth and rub it up and down my arm. I close my eyes, imagining what it would feel like if Bryce were in here with me. If it were his hands slicking soap across my body. I feel my face heat with embarrassment at the thought, yet I can’t stop the fantasy. I imagine him pulling me close, licking the water from my skin as the jets pound against us. His mouth finding mine, his hands roaming, his naked body molding against mine.