“There.” He pointed to Zain, who began to fuss and crawl away. “Your sadness and anger affects him.”
“What am I supposed to do?” She rubbed her chest roughly as though trying to scrape her negative feelings away. “I missed the first year of his life. He doesn’t know me. And I’m the only one who upsets him.”
“That is because he is closest to you.”
She snorted. “He’s closest to you, obviously.”
True as well. He and Zain had an unbreakable connection. But so did Zain and Zara. And it meant more because Zain hadn’t seen Zara since birth. The connection existed powerfully even after a year.
But she couldn’t break the cycle. Zain’s apparent rejection hurt her heart, which then caused them both pain.
Facing Zara head-on never worked. But approaching her sideways was a good option.
“It is as your Vaw Vaw said,” he said softly, squatting beside the two of them and tucking a loose strand of silky hair behind her ear. “You are his important person.”
Her light swelled with his touch.
Zain lifted his upper body on his hands and looked up at his mother. She softened and stroked his back. He crawled toward her, his palms pushing and his fins paddling in the air, wiggling forward. She stroked his soft dark hair and fat cheeks.
“It takes time,” she said softly, mostly to herself. “Ugh. I just want to be over this already.”
“You can be together more naturally in the water. Your feelings will flow.”
Her smile twisted to wry irritation. “You know what I think about the water.”
Anger pushed him to stand abruptly. “Why?”
She squinted up at him as though to ask, Really?
“You must grow your power. You have never backed away from a fight, Zara.”
“That was before. Now I’m smart.” She clenched her fists on her lap. “I don’t want to lose Zain again.”
Not him. Zain.
He was jealous of his son.
The pettiness only made him angrier. “The best way to protect him is to capture your power. Go to the beach today. Now. Dive beneath the waves and grow your confidence. Then you can make your fins.”
Her brows rose. “Which one of us isn’t listening?”
Frustration gnawed on him.
Last night she’d claimed not to hate him, and she’d slept beside him, giving him the comfort he most craved. He’d slept well for the first time in a year.
But this morning impatience welled in his heart. Biting self-loathing, fearsome anxiety. Her refusal to go into the water was like a denial of his existence. She tolerated him as a human, rejected him as a mer.
“Zain has never spent so long above the surface,” he snarled, reminding her that her own son was also a mer.
“He’s never spent any time above the surface,” she returned, “so another few days won’t hurt.”
“Zara.”
“You said he’s half human. Humans don’t need the water.”
“Do not ask him to deny half of his heritage.”
She gritted her teeth. “Why not? You do it all the time.”
Her accusation stabbed him.
This judgment of traditions also denied him. Criticizing Zain’s raising denied him. Rejecting her power denied him.
But he did not fight her. He waited.
She rubbed her forehead. “Sorry. I know it’s not you.”
A small bit of the impatience eased.
“You, Zara, drank the elixir. You, too, are mer.”
“Not according to your people.”
“That is their error. Do not let them determine your destiny.”
She frowned.
“Did you not love swimming beneath the waves? Diving through unseen lands, dancing with incredible creatures?”
The corners of her lips turned up. She sighed. “Don’t quote my own words back at me.”
“You shone so brightly then. You can do so again. When you deny this part of yourself, you shrink and your soul light darkens.”
She nodded slowly. “I’m still feeling muddled. Blurred. Like, I can’t tell if I’m happy right now or terrified. All I know is I feel something, and that’s still a change.” She looked up at him with her dark brown eyes. “Can you give me time?”
Impatience gnawed at him.
He forced his nod.
She folded her lips, stroked his cheek in thanks, and focused on Zain.
He straightened. His limbs felt too loose and his chest wanted … something. She had agreed to consider going into the ocean and he wasn’t satisfied. No, in truth, he was more irritated than ever. He rubbed at the worrisome itch beneath his heart.
What was wrong with him?
He had confessed. Why was he not healed of these dark feelings? She had forgiven him. Unfathomable. So why wasn’t he already better?
He pushed. “We will go to the beach.”
“After Border and Immigration.” She rose. “Eat. It’s going to be a long day.”
They attended the offices and filled out reams of paperwork. Despite her reluctance to claim her power, she did claim him as her husband.
Something had changed.
And even though she quickly exhibited signs of irritation and impatience in the waiting room and then in the offices, he felt increasingly settled. So long as he was with her, he could endure. And sitting was no problem.
“How soon until we can get passports?” she asked the officers. “I want to take my husband and son to California as soon as possible.”
“It is not so simple,” the agent replied. “If Portuguese citizenship is granted to this merman, what of others who arrive on our shores? They do not carry paperwork. How are we to know if another country has already claimed them? Do they have rights to our medical care or state benefits?”
“Their medical care is the magical tree in their underwater village,” she said dryly. “The Life Tree? From which all the super valuable, healing Sea Opals come from? Maybe you’ve heard of it?”
“Then what about voting?” The agent shook his head. “There are many questions. They must be answered thoroughly for all mermen who arise from the sea.”
“I don’t care about voting. This is life or death.”
“Elan has already explained he will experience no risk if he remains on land.”
“But he’s likely to go into the sea. He’s a merman.”
The agent stared at her as if he had no remedy for bad decisions.
She tried again. “We’re on a tiny island in the middle of a vast ocean, which you can see from every point. If the other mermen decided to come onto the land, they’d find us.”
“We will deal with that unlikely scenario when it occurs.”
“By then it will be too late!”
The agent’s face closed.
“Please? Can’t you give us the passport now and decide on voting later?”
“This explosive display of emotions does not help your case,” he said primly and dismissed them.
She stomped out of the office into the evening sunset.
“You are frustrated,” Elan identified.
“Of course! These guys have us pinned to a rock with a trident and then he’s like, ‘Don’t get upset.’ Of course I’m going to get upset.” She swore at the absent agents. “Why don’t they just turn you and Zain over to your people right now and be done with it?”
“No,” he said faintly. “That would not be good.”
“Obviously. Jerks!”
He had followed enough of the proceedings to understand that his unprecedented appearance had repercussions. If Portugal granted Elan refugee status, then it opened the door to any other mer who might arise from the sea. And if Zara tried to get him American citizenship as her husband, then she needed to go through the American Embassy, which was still trying to decide the nationality of the first merman to request asylum — a warrior from the Gulf of Mexico named Torun who married an Oregonian named Lucy.
Zara led t
hem to Milly’s car for a second evening with Vaw Vaw’s family. There, amongst friends, she calmed down enough to hold a conversation with her sister.
“I researched the queens at school like you asked me to,” Milly told Zara over creamy seafood chowder. “Well, I did it before, actually, but I went looking for updates.”
“What did you find?”
“The old Facebook videos are still up. The ones of Lucy channeling her powers. You weren’t impressed before, but want to see them again?”
“I would like to see,” Elan said.
They huddled around the moving images on Milly’s cell phone. It was difficult to make out. Blurry moving shapes, bubbles, and flashes of light underwater.
Zara sighed. “I remember now. The footage was so bad it’s like a Bigfoot sighting or UFO lights. Squint and you can see anything.”
Elan squinted. He did not see anything. “What is happening here?”
Milly popped olives and cheese into her mouth, chewed, and answered. “Torun’s pinched between his people’s army and Lucy’s psycho ex. She’s too far away to help, so she channels her power into a magical shield.”
“No fins,” Zara mused.
“Wrong angle. She’s holding the camera. Well, I guess the camera was attached to her dive gear.” Milly popped in another olive. “She made her fins on Oprah.”
“Did she make a magical shield on Oprah?”
Milly shook her head. “That only works under water. The powers work like sound waves. Air is too thin.”
“I’m guessing no one’s done a scientific study.”
“You can read a bunch of theories. But yeah. There’s only three ‘mermaid queens’ and none of them have worked their magic in an MIT swim tank.”
“Because they can’t or because they won’t?”
“Good question.”
Zara rubbed her forehead like she had a headache.
Milly smiled sympathetically. “I’ll keep researching.”
“Thanks.” She dropped her hand.
Elan caught it. “What is wrong?”
“Nothing.” She traced his battle scars cracking the aquamarine ink of his honor tattoos. “I can’t believe I’m actually considering risking my son’s safety on the experience of three people.”
“They are only the first,” he assured her. “Tonight, after this dinner, we will go to the ocean.”
She untangled her fingers. “It’s dark.”
“Darkness does not matter under the water.”
Her soul light flickered, flaring with anger and then collapsing into a distant emotion he couldn’t reach. “It’s dangerous.”
“Going into the water will make you whole.”
She scowled in disagreement.
But to his shock after dinner Zara asked Milly to drop them off at the beach for an hour. He divested his clothes and checked the reefs for signs of other warriors, then returned to collect her and Zain.
“Come in with us,” he urged her, while Zain crawled across the moonlit black sand toward the crashing waves.
She sat by the piled clothes and hugged her knees. “This is a bad idea.”
“There are no mer.”
“So you think.” She rocked gently. “They can guess you came here. It will be safer in California.”
“There are mer near your California.”
“But not from your city.”
“No, but under the water is total war. Here. Dragao Azul. Nehwas. All the cities under the oceans.”
“But the other cities don’t care about us.”
“The other cities do care about a warrior taking his young fry into exile. Even if I am not their citizen, they cannot allow our family to exist.”
She frowned harder.
Elan gripped her shoulders and rested his forehead against hers. “Please. Zara.”
“You heard the Border and Immigration agent. There is no risk if we remain on land.”
“For how long?”
She bit her lip. The relatives at Vaw Vaw’s house thought their situation would not be resolved for months. But this was more than a dispute of nationality. Elan was a different race. It could take years.
He could not remain on a prison of land for years. Neither could Zain.
And neither could Zara.
“You avoid the water out of fear. But that makes you a half person. Come into the water now. Defeat your fears, embrace your radiance, and heal your soul.”
“Not all enemies can be fought head-on.”
“Zara—”
“Forget it.” She pushed him back and hugged her knees again. “Even assuming I do have these powers, which I don’t, jumping in now would be foolhardy. I’ll try it where it’s safe.”
“Where is safe?”
“Somewhere else.”
He released her reluctantly. Her soul shone brighter than the moon and she would not be swayed. She remained on the shoreline while he slipped beneath the waves with Zain. Re-entering the mer world, for a few hours, that was his natural home.
Under the water, spiraling coral made a labyrinth against stunning volcanic chasms and obsidian cathedrals. Zain whirled and played, darting after singing silver fish and giggling. Zara would not worry if she could hear him with her mer-ears beneath the waves.
He had to convince her to accept her power. Their solitude would not last forever. She needed to come into the water for Zain and for him.
And for herself.
It was the only way she would ever find wholeness.
Maybe it was the only way he would find wholeness too.
Elan kicked his long fins, diving through shimmering schools of nocturnal fish, Zain his baby shadow. Perhaps the one Elan concentrated on healing should not be Zara. Perhaps the one who most needed healing was himself.
Because if their survival as a family depended on him, then he would fail.
His webbed fingers flexed for his missing trident.
He would fight to the death. But it would not be enough. He would fail. And he would die.
12
As Elan and Zain slipped beneath the waves, a sharp pang sliced into Zara. This was how it would feel when they left her. She would be on the beach like this. Alone, in the darkness, the scent of sand and surf and decomposing fish in her nostrils.
Just like all the past year.
Refusing the water was like pretending what had happened to her … hadn’t. That was deeply shameful but she couldn’t help it. Zara couldn’t ever be helpless like she’d been that night. Never.
She lay back against the cool sand and stared up at the cloud-scuffed, star-studded sky.
Why had she remained on the Azores?
She’d been dumped on the beach that night because she’d fulfilled her purpose, the police had said. They didn’t know about mermen then, so they blamed a human trafficking cartel. But they hadn’t been far wrong. Human trafficking cartel or undersea warriors’ covenant, the end result had been the same.
In the first days, she’d looked for Elan everywhere. In the hospital. At the police station. He’d promised if the worst happened and they were forced apart, he would come for her. She had believed him.
Until … she hadn’t.
It set in slowly, like the dropping of a fog. Depression, Milly’s therapist called it. The realization that he wouldn’t come. The one man she had trusted, had given her heart to, would not be coming to give it back. All the possible reasons why — he couldn’t, he’d been injured, he was dead — all faded into the same truth. He wasn’t coming. Numbness dulled the raw, stabbing ache. But like a terminal illness, the pain never went away.
Now he was here.
Her baby was here.
A year later — her mind screamed as it came awake — but they were all, as promised, here.
He said she had special powers.
He’d been wrong before.
So what if he was wrong now? What if warriors in the water had already dragged him and Zain away? What if she was lying on the shore,
oblivious, and they never appeared above the waves?
She rubbed her chest.
A crab scuttled past, shuffling in the moonlit dark.
Elan had told her everything. He’d always been completely honest with her. Overly optimistic, young and arrogant, but always honest.
I have nowhere to go.
When he hit the end of himself, he swung back around and came to her. In his darkest hour, his final thoughts had revolved around returning to her.
Which was why she made him part of her escape plans. Milly was right. Despite complications, in her heart, she wanted Elan.
He was her one.
Once they resolved the passport and citizenship issues, she would take Elan and Zain home to her aunt in California. Safely away from Dragao Azul, she could try to discover her … it sounded so stupid saying it. Her power.
If Elan and Zain weren’t kidnapped already.
How long had they been gone?
She closed her eyes and hugged her chest.
Her parents called her stupid. Falling for scams like Elan’s claim was about as crazy as believing in mermen.
And yet there were mermen…
Zara wasn’t running. She was being smart. Escaping. Some enemies were too powerful to fight head-on.
Too well-connected. Too sociopathically charming.
Like her parents.
We own you, her father had snarled at her once. We gave you life. You can’t run away from that. You owe us.
We’re family.
To her parents, neither she nor Milly were actual people. They were only extensions to use and abuse, like long hair that could be chopped off or fingernails that could be painted.
The only option was to run, fast and hard, and hide behind an impenetrable defense so they could never break in. Never get the advantage.
If they had an in, the moment they had something over her or Milly, they would twist that vulnerability around like a knife and hold it to her throat.
Zara had studied narcissistic personality disorder and psychopathy in college. Both fit her parents. They were so normal when interacting with other people. Reasonable, friendly, ordinary.
When they turned on their own children, the mask slipped off, revealing the evil inside.
And Elan’s so-called city’s warriors, “honorable” and “trustworthy,” were exactly the same.
Sirens and Scales Page 62
