by Dee J. Stone
The storm was pretty massive last night. “And you got hurt?”
He stares off in the distance. “I do not remember. I was swimming away…”
“From what?”
He doesn’t answer. Unease clouds his face again. Clearly he doesn’t want to talk about it.
“So…what happened before?” I ask. “With the rash on your neck and the wailing. You needed to be in water? Salt water.”
“This is my first time as a human. I do not know.”
My eyes analyze his face and upper body. He’s very broad and heavily muscled. Then my gaze moves to his neck. The rash is no longer there, but something else is. I can’t quite make it out.
I uncross my legs and crawl closer to him, reaching out my hand. “Can I?”
He looks unsure, but nods.
I lower my hand toward his face and take hold of his chin, tilting it to the side. Two small things protrude from both sides of his neck. I study them for a few seconds until I realize what they are. Gills. “They were all red before,” I say.
Damarian is staring up at me. My breath catches in my throat. This is the closest I’ve been to him since he’s woken up. It’s the first time I see his eyes clearly. They’re so blue I could drown in them.
I should be terrified. He’s a different species, one I know nothing about. He could be dangerous. But I’m not scared. There’s something about him that makes me feel like I can trust him. Like I can get closer.
He slowly brings his hand to my face and runs his fingers across my cheek. His hand is cold and sticky. I put mine over his and pull it away from my face. I hold it on my palm. His hand looks human-like, but it’s webbed. Thin pieces of skin between each finger. That’s why he was studying his human hand so strangely earlier.
He moves his hand to one of my braids and softly tugs on it. “You bind your hair.”
I laugh a little. “It’s easier to surf that way.”
His eyebrows knit. “Surf. Is that what you were doing yesterday?”
“Yeah.”
“Is it quite dangerous?”
“Sometimes.”
His brows knit even more. “Then why do you engage in such an activity?”
Now I giggle. “Hey, you gotta live a little, right?”
His lips tug into a small smile. “Father would not agree.”
It’s weird to hear him talk about others—other merpeople. To think there are more out there. “Are there a lot of you?” I ask.
He opens his mouth, then shuts it. I wait for him to answer, but I realize he doesn’t plan to. For a second, I feel upset, hurt for some reason. But it dawns on me that he doesn’t feel safe telling me. His kind has to remain hidden. We are supposed to believe they don’t exist.
“I’m sorry for prying,” I say.
He nods.
My eyes trek to his tail swaying in the pool. It continues to shine in the sunlight, like crystals. He follows my gaze, and my cheeks heat up. “Sorry for staring,” I mutter.
“It is all right. I am fascinated by human legs.”
“Can I…?” My eyes search his. He nods.
I jump into the pool. He’s still at the shallow side, so the tail touches the floor. I’m about to take a deep breath and dive under to take a peek at it, but Damarian lifts it for me. It has sapphire scales with a matching fin. I reach out to touch it, then pull my hand away. It’s sticky and slimy.
“May I?” he asks, gesturing to my legs.
I heave myself onto the edge of the pool and hold out my leg. He studied his own legs earlier, but he can get a better look at human legs by examining mine. He lifts a hesitant hand to my bare right leg and wraps his fingers around my calf. My wetsuit reaches my knees. His touch is soft, gentle. He moves it lower and lower, over my heel, until he reaches my toes. He glances at me before gently pinching them, one by one. Then he bends them. He brings his other hand to the same foot and parts two of my toes. Every place he touches burns and tingles.
His eyes widen in wonder. “Peculiar to have fingers on your legs.”
“I guess it’s to help us walk.”
He takes hold of my hand and touches my fingers with his webbed hand. He parts my index finger and middle finger, feeling the space between them. “Very peculiar.”
My whole body heats up and my breathing grows uneven. I can’t believe I’m getting turned on by a fish.
Damarian drops my hand. “What is that noise?”
“Noise?”
“Ringing.”
I strain my ears, but don’t hear anything. It’s hard to hear outside noises from in the pool room. Maybe merpeople have special hearing? “It’s probably the phone.”
“Phone?”
“Yeah. We use it for communication.”
He gives me a blank look.
“It’s like this handheld device that…you know, never mind.” I doubt informing a creature from the ocean about our methods of communication will accomplish anything. Unless he’s dying to learn about us, which doesn’t seem likely from what I’ve learned about him so far.
“It is incessant,” he says.
“It is?” I rise to my feet. “It’s probably important. Do you mind if I check it out?”
He shakes his head.
I head for the door and turn the knob, but glance back at the merman. He’s swimming in the pool, occasionally leaping in the air and diving into the water like a dolphin.
I hear the phone shrilling when I’m halfway up the stairs. It’s not my cell phone but the home phone, which means two things: this call is really important, or this call is anything but important.
I dash into the living room and reach for the phone. “Hello?”
“Cassie, where are you?”
I fall back against the couch when I hear Uncle Jim’s frantic voice. I check my watch. Crap, my surfing class. I got so caught up with the merman that it slipped my mind.
“Sorry, Uncle Jim, I just—”
“I got a call this morning from a parent informing me that her son’s surfing teacher failed to show up.”
I run my hand down my face. “Dammit.”
“Are you okay? What’s going on?”
Well, if you really want to know, I rescued a naked guy from the beach this morning and he turned out to be a merman. Now he’s swimming around in my pool filled with salt water because he can’t survive on land.
“I’m okay,” I tell him. “I just got caught up with some…stuff.”
“What did we discuss last month, Cass?”
I sigh. “That if I was really serious about this job, I’d make an effort to show up every day and not blow it off like I did at my last job.”
Now he sighs. “You know how much these surfing lessons mean to me.”
“I know.”
Uncle Jim injured himself surfing last month, and I begged him to let me substitute for the class. I was working at a shop near the beach, alongside the dreaded Ex and I needed something, anything, to take me away from there. Uncle Jim was great for giving me a chance, and I realized I loved teaching kids to surf. But he can be a real hardass sometimes. To him, missing a class is like missing a meeting with the president.
“I’ll cancel the class for today,” he says. “Will you come in tomorrow?”
Merman in the pool. I have no idea what’ll happen by tomorrow. “I’ll let you know tonight, okay?”
He agrees and hangs up. When I return to the pool room, Damarian is still swimming around. I watch him for a few seconds. This doesn’t look real. I feel like I’m in a fairy tale.
I sit down, dangling my legs over the edge of the pool. What do I do with him?
He pops up a short while later, sprinkling water all over me. “Hello.” He grins.
I’m glad he’s having fun in my pool. “Did I thank you for saving me?” I ask.
“Have I thanked you for saving me?”
I smile and my cheeks grow warm. I stare down at my toes sweeping the surface of the water.
He places his co
ld hand under my chin and lifts my head until our eyes meet. “You are kind for helping me,” he says softly. “My king has taught us not to trust humans. You destroy our home by throwing waste into the sea. You injure whales and other creatures by trapping them in your nets. If one of us were to be discovered, we will all be hunted.” His hand moves to my cheek. “I watched you struggling in the sea,” he continues. “Such a helpless creature. I could not believe what my king has told me. You did not seem menacing or dangerous. I could not have allowed you to die.” He tucks some hair behind my ear. “Any other human would have exposed me.”
I don’t say anything, because I don’t want to admit how right he is. Had Leah and I been five minutes too late, other people could have stumbled upon Damarian. Assuming they wouldn’t call the cops, they would have dumped him into a pool with salt water, just as he asked me, and they would have seen his shiny tail. The next step would have been a call to the news stations.
“I am very grateful to you,” he says.
“Thanks for saving me,” I whisper. “Another merperson might have let me drown.”
He nods.
The room grows quiet.
After a bit, Damarian says, “I will need to return to the sea.”
My heart drops. I don’t know why. It’s obvious he wants to return to the ocean. It’s not like he came on land on purpose so he could learn about humans or have an adventure. Washing up on shore was an accident. He doesn’t want to stay here.
“Okay,” I say, trying to mask my disappointment.
We’re both quiet. My toes dip into the water and his webbed hands finger the tiled floor.
“How do you turn back into a human?” I ask.
“I am not certain.”
“You don’t remember changing?”
His eyebrows crease. “Last I recall is swimming in the storm.”
“You’ll need to change back to a human if you want to get back to the beach and into the ocean.”
“I understand.”
But how exactly does that happen? There could be a million possibilities. “Did you do anything before you changed?” I ask. “Eat anything? Did someone do something to you?”
He shakes his head.
I sit here, stumped, watching his tail sway in the water. Is it possible that all he needs is to be out of seawater for a while? After all, he washed up on shore and remained like that for a few hours. He might have changed after being out of salt water for some time. It’s kind of like throwing a fish back into the ocean once you catch it. It flaps around, desperately searching for water. Once you throw it back in, it swims away, as good as new.
I scan Damarian for a few seconds. I don’t know this guy, but I don’t want him to just go. Is that weird? Maybe I’m looking for a distraction to make me forget about my mom and dad and Kyle. But he wants to go home—he needs to. He belongs in the ocean, just like I belong on land. I’ll do anything to help him.
“Maybe you need to be out of seawater for a while and then you change,” I tell him.
He nods slowly as he digests my words. “That is a fair assumption. Perhaps we shall attempt it.” His face fills with anxiety and fear.
I reach for his hand. “It’ll be okay. If it doesn’t work, we’ll try something else. I’ll help you in any way I can.” I swallow a lump forming in my throat. “You’ll be home soon.”
“Thank you. You are most kind, Cassie Price.”
“You can call me Cassie.”
He stares into my eyes. “Cassie.”
I don’t blink. It’s like some force is pasting our gazes on one another. I feel something spark between us.
I pull away and stand. “We should test it out now to see if it works. But if it does, we’ll have to wait until late night or early morning to go to the ocean, before the fishermen come out. No one can see you.”
“I understand.”
He glances around the pool. So do I. I have no idea how to do this. The easiest way would be to drain the pool, leaving Damarian without salt water and hopefully prompting his change back to a human. But that’s too risky. What if it doesn’t work? I might not be able to refill the pool in time.
Damarian puts his hands on the edge of the pool and tries to heave himself up.
“Oh, yeah! Good idea.” If he manages to hurl himself out of the pool, he will no longer be in salt water. And if he doesn’t change into a human, he can always jump back inside.
But hauling his body over the edge proves to be harder than we thought. His tail is too long and heavy, and his arms tremble as though they can’t support the lower half of his body. He huffs and puffs like he’s losing all of his energy.
Unlike humans, he can’t throw one leg over the side of the pool for leverage. His hands slip and he crashes down into the water.
I rush to the edge. He splashes around a bit before gathering himself. “Are you hurt?” I ask.
“I am all right, thank you,” he says, his chest rising and falling quickly. He looks down at his tail. “I do not believe I am able to climb out.”
“Give me your hands. Let’s work together.” The only other option I see is to drain the pool, and I really don’t want to do that unless we have no choice.
Damarian raises his hands toward me. I’m not sure I can pull him over— he must weigh much more than the average human guy. But if we work together, we might be able to do it.
I take his hands, gulp in a deep breath, and pull with all my might.
It’s like pulling on a tree.
But I’m not giving up that easily. I pull harder while he tries to throw his tail over the edge of the pool. I feel my face grow hot as I pull harder and harder. Damarian presses his lips together and groans.
My arms grow weak. He groans louder. I don’t know if we can do it.
Just as I’m about to give up and lower him back into the pool, Damarian swings his tail with so much force that I’m thrown back and hit my head against one of the lounge chairs.
My head throbs. But as I rub the spot, I grin. Because Damarian is out.
Chapter Four
We’ve been waiting for a few minutes.
Damarian half-lies on his back, putting all his weight on his elbows. His tail lies next to me like a dead fish. It looks a little different out of water. Still beautiful, but less mesmerizing and shiny. I have an urge to run my hand down it again, to feel it for one final time. But I curl my fingers into a fist. Damarian tugs the towel tighter around his waist.
He seems pretty dry. I don’t know how long we need to wait, or if this is even going to work. Pushing my knees to my chest, I ask, “How old are you?”
“Soon I shall reach my two hundred and fortieth moon.”
I raise an eyebrow. I guess merpeople consider one year as twelve moons? That would make him almost twenty. “Are you considered an adult in the merworld?” I ask.
“Yes.”
I run my hands up and down the back of my legs. “I just became an adult a few months ago. I guess that’s a few moons in your world.”
He nods. “Is it difficult?”
I press my toe into one of the cracks of the tiles. “I don’t know. Yeah, I guess.” It’s exciting to start a new part of my life, to move forward and discover who I am. But it’s also scary.
“Humans do not differ that much from children of the sea,” he says.
I look at him. He’s right. From my short time with Damarian, I learned that he and I have the same emotions. We have a will to be good people and do the right thing. We have compassion for a race we don’t know or understand.
“Maybe you can tell that to your king,” I joke.
He doesn’t return the smile, just stares at the spot in front of him. I’m guessing he plans on taking this secret to the grave. I’m pretty sure his family and friends would give it to him for swimming in a nasty storm, washing up on the beach, turning into a human, and actually speaking to one. My heart muscles constrict at the thought that I’ll never see him again.
I scan his body, specifically his tail, waiting for the transformation. His eyes are on his tail, too. We continue to wait.
And wait.
And wait.
Nothing happens. Maybe this won’t work after all. Maybe his transformation to a human was a one-time thing or a mistake. Maybe he can’t turn back.
My eyes trek to Damarian. He looks terrified.
I rest my hand on his arm. “Are you okay? Is it coming?”
“I feel…odd.” His chest rises and falls like he’s having a small panic attack.
“It’ll be okay,” I say softly, moving my hand to his webbed one and giving it a light squeeze. “Just remember to breathe.”
He nods. I’m not sure if it’s sweat gathering on his forehead or the water from the pool.
Suddenly, Damarian groans. He collapses to the floor, his tail bouncing. I scramble to my knees and watch, holding out my hands to grab him or help him or something. His head knocks onto the floor and he produces another groan.
I’m about to reach for him, but his tail changes. The sapphire scales slowly turn white and his fin fades away. I gasp as toes replace it. Damarian cries out in pain as the rest of his tail disappears into legs.
With my hands on my mouth, I stare at them. Just like this morning, they’re that translucent color, matching the rest of his body. He lies there, his eyes shut tight, his mouth slightly opened. The towel is wrapped around his hips.
I crawl closer. “Damarian?” I rest my hand on his shoulder and shake it. “You okay?”
His eyes flutter and he moans.
“You hit your head pretty hard. But you’re human again.” I try to sound happy and encouraging, but I’m really freaking out. Witnessing a merman shift into a human was the most mind-blowing thing I’ve ever seen.
He opens his eyes, then closes them. “I am exhausted.”
“Do you want to take a nap? We have some time before nightfall.”
“All right.” His voice drifts away.
“I mean, on a bed.”
They’re still closed and his breathing gets heavy. Did he fall asleep?
I watch him for a bit. He looks peaceful and beautiful.
My eyes start to droop. Sleeping must be contagious. From carrying him home this morning and into the pool and freaking out that a merman is in my house, my body is in major need of a nap, too. Curling down next to him, I close my eyes.
