by C. S. Moore
“Priuses don’t have actual keys, just this ridiculous thing,” she said, placing the electric key in my hand.
I smiled. “Thanks.”
“I can take you, if you really want to go—”
“No, I think I need to do this on my own. Will you be able to get home?”
“I can take a cab, but I’d rather go with you. Mari, I’m always telling you to rebel. But I’m mostly joking… what do you have to rebel against. Your life is perfect.”
“No, it’s not.” I walked away before she could argue, more determined and more frightened than ever. My last security blanket was gone. It was just me and the world.
19
Getting out of New Orleans was the scariest thing I had ever done. My driving skills were less than desirable, and the traffic was insane. If it hadn't been for the navigation telling me what to do, I might have died. Highway driving wasn’t bad, there were no cars trying to cut me off, and all I had to do was stay on the road. The drive was scenic, and even after the sun set, the full moon’s light helped me see the beauty of where I was headed.
Every mile that I drew closer marked a change in me; my heart pumped faster, my eyes saw more clearly, and my anger was melting away into excitement. The fight I'd had with Sylvia was like a faded memory. What was truth and what was a lie didn’t matter to me anymore. All that mattered was the miles I put behind me. I looked at the speedometer and slowed down, not being able to figure out cruise control and being totally pumped with energy was making me a speed demon. I blew past a street sign telling me that I had ten miles to go. What was it going to be like to feel the sand between my toes and the salty water lapping at my feet? I had dreamed about this for so long, but there was no worry at the thought of being let down or disappointed by what I would see.
I passed another sign. I had five miles left now. I could taste the sea in the air. The salt and the brine were deliciously exhilarating, and I threw caution to the wind and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The small engine responded more enthusiastically than I would have thought possible, and the car was flying in no time. A beam of light made me squint, and I thought for a moment that another car was coming at me, but it was only the moonlight reflecting off of the water. My skin tightened and my eyes blurred with tears, I was looking at the ocean and it was so much more amazing than I could have imagined. In that moment I knew nothing could keep me away. I didn’t care about going to college or that moving there might hurt my aunt and uncle. All I wanted was to build a little shack on the beach and never leave.
There was a tollbooth ahead, blocking entrance into the park, which looked abandoned. Muffling a curse I dug in the cup holder for change and came up empty. I pulled the car to the side of the road, driving it as far off the pavement as I could manage, and jumped out. A gentle breeze blew off the water, making the scent of the sea thick in the air. I smiled and broke into run, hurdling the sparse shrubs as I went. After a hundred yards of sprinting, the ground started to turn sandy, and I flipped off my shoes. The further I ran the more firm and wet the sand became. I stopped in my tracks and took it all in. The ocean was the most breathtaking site I had ever seen, and it was limitless.
Tasting warm salt water at the corner of my mouth, I wiped the tears from my face. It was like I had returned to an old friend that I hadn’t seen in a long time. I was finally home. The frothy tide pulled toward me and then fell away. After a moment, my breathing patterned itself after steady rhythm. As I stood glued to the spot, the water climbed nearer to me with each spilling breaker. It must have been time for high tide. Under the moonlight staring out at the object of my obsession I recalled one of my favorite poems.
The tide rises, the tide falls,
The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;
Along the sea-sands damp and brown
The traveller hastens toward the town,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
Darkness settles on roofs and walls,
But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;
The little waves, with their soft, white hands,
Efface the footprints in the sands,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls
Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;
The day returns, but nevermore
Returns the traveller to the shore,
And the tide rises, the tide falls.
- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
The water had almost reached my feet. I sighed, unable to wait any longer, and took a step out to meet the coming wave.
“No, Mari!”
I spun around. Jaron was running down the beach, followed closely by my aunt and uncle.
“Don’t go in there,” Sylvia shouted, her face strained as she attempted to run faster.
“Sorry,” I whispered. Even as angry as I had been at them that morning, I’d never want to disobey them when it was something that they were so very obviously against… but I didn’t have a choice. The water called to my soul more loudly than even they could. I turned and ran, diving head first into the ocean.
The warm water hitting my face was heaven. As the wave swallowed me into its depths, my skin prickled in delight. I swam further out and dove under an oncoming wave; the force of it tearing the tie from my hair. The tendrils fell to my shoulders before floating up around me. I peeled my eyes open expecting the water to sting, but it soothed—as if my eyes hadn’t realize how dry they had been until that very moment. The water was far from the clear blue of my dreams, but this wasn’t a Caribbean coast, after all. I only had about thirty feet of visibility through the slightly murky depths. I heard a splash behind me and went to swim to the surface but couldn’t kick my legs. After struggling for a few seconds, I looked down and the little breath left in me escaped in a flurry of air bubbles.
Shimmering gold and coral, where my legs should have been, was a scale-covered tail very similar to the one I had seen in Sylvia’s painting of my mother. Cautiously I tried to lift the—I couldn’t think my—delicate looking fin and surprisingly it responded, sending me backward through the water with little effort. The large flipper was shaped like a butterfly wing and just as beautiful and intricate. My lungs burned for oxygen, but I was too stunned by what I was seeing to care. I ran my hands over the scales. They were the size and thickness of pennies and surprisingly felt smoother than even my fine silk sheets. Realizing that the clashing colors were almost identical to the beads on my bracelet, I noticed one of the charms glowing.
A hand tightened around my arm and pulled me to the surface. As soon as my face breeched the water, I sucked in as much air as my chest could allow.
“What were you thinking, Mari—” Dylan choked at the end of his reprimand. “Your bracelet, let me see it.”
I lifted it up to him. “You want to see my bracelet—did you not see my tail?”
“Did you not see mine?” he asked as he looked closer. My jaw dropped and I looked down. Sure enough, Dylan’s legs had transformed into a glittering gray tail. He held up the charm, it was the one that was a likeness of a horrible snake creature. I disliked it even more while I was floating in the water.
“Dammit,” Dylan whispered.
As soon as the curse left his lips, I heard a strange noise. It started out low but grew in volume, chilling me to the bone. It was the eerie hissing I heard in my nightmares. The water around me dropped in temperature and I shivered. From either side of us a wake appeared in the water, as if something was right below the surface coming toward us at an incredible speed.
“Get to the shore now,” Dylan yelled. “Sylvia, get Mari and get home!”
I turned in time to see Sylvia leap into the water. My view of Jaron was cut off by something large and pale rising out of the water in front of me. I lifted my chin up to watch the creature ascend and was horror stricken to see the life-size version of my charm bracelet. A flat, soulless face with black menacing eyes watched me, and the co
rner of its mouth lifted into a smirk. It had the build and body of a strong man, but he wasn’t a mer like us. He was some other hybrid entirely; part man, part snake with slits for a nose. There was no hair on his head and no ears that I could see. His body was completely covered in triangular shaped scales, no soft skin was visible, and he was so pale. Not white, but a muted pigmentless unhealthy color. The creature’s only humanlike attributes were the shape of his torso, the smirk he wore, and his humanoid hands that were outstretched toward me. His palm had almost touched me when I jerked out of my shocked state and dove into the water, swimming as fast as I could toward the shore.
Halfway there, Sylvia grabbed my arm and propelled us both to the sandy shore. “Pick her up!” Sylvia shouted to Jaron. Without a seconds hesitation he threw me, tail and all, over his shoulder. “Come on, we have to get her out of here.”
“Wait, Dylan’s still out there!” I shouted.
Neither of them responded and I struggled to get out of Jaron’s grasp.
“Didn’t you hear me?” I cried. “Sylvia, Dylan is out there with those things!”
My aunt already had her legs back, and she turned away from me quickly, trying to hide the tears streaming down her face. “Run as fast as you can,” she instructed Jaron.
“Won’t they follow us?” he asked.
“They can’t come on land,” she said before bolting back toward the car with Jaron hot on her heels.
“No! Dylan,” I screamed, beating Jaron’s shoulder with all of my might. I looked at the water All was serene once again.
Jaron dove into the backseat, and Sylvia threw the car in drive.
“What were those things?” he asked as he set me into the seat. My tail was so bulky he had to sit on the floorboard.
“Those are siren—”
“Dylan’s okay, right?” I interrupted. My stomach wouldn’t unclench. I needed to know that he was all right. If anything happened to him, it would be my fault.
“I don’t know,” Sylvia whispered, her voice strained. “If anyone can make it out, it’s him. That’s his gift. He is the fastest thing in the ocean I’ve ever seen, and his senses are amazing.”
“I’m sure he’s fine,” Jaron said reassuringly. “I’m not sure if this is a good time, but… can you tell me what the hell is going on? Is Mari all right, I mean she hasn’t lost her tail like you did.” His voice was two octaves higher than normal.
Sylvia whipped onto the highway. “Well she hasn’t phased in so long, and she's frightened. It’s hard to go back and forth at first. Once her tail is dry of all the sea water, her legs will be back.”
“So you are both… mermaids?”
“Yes, so are you.”
“No—”
“Yes, you are. Your parents must have fled to land just like we did. We were escaping those things. But they have their pawns on the land and humans can still hurt us. Like what happened to your parents… Maybe I should start at the beginning, or at least the beginning of the end…
“Seventeen years ago our kingdom was at peace—”
“An underwater kingdom?” Jaron asked.
“Yes, now don’t interrupt again. This is a hard story for me to tell.” She sighed. “The sirens have hunted and killed us since the beginning of time, but with the enchantments that your mother kept in place, none of them could enter our kingdom. Kora had a beautiful coral-colored tail. Not like yours. You have a tail of two colors. That’s very rare. It means that you have both of your parents' gifts. Your dad has a gold tail and he controls the water—tail color gives clues as to what gifts you have. Kora was the last witch in the kingdom, until you were born. When everyone saw the flecks of coral on you, they saw hope for a future of safety. Many were worried that the witch might die out of the kingdom…” She glanced at me.
“But you put that constant worry to rest.” She turned her eyes to the road. “You were the most beautiful baby and the apple of everyone's eye.”
Somehow picturing what she described was easy, like a small distant part of my mind clung to the memory of a life that had been stolen. I looked down to see the flecks of color that had brought so much hope, but my legs were embarrassingly back. “Is there a blanket in here?” I asked. Jaron turned his head. “Don’t look at me!”
“Oh!” He closed his eyes. “Here take this.” He pulled his shirt over his head, exposing his perfect chest.
The t-shirt didn’t provide much coverage, but it was better than nothing. “Thanks—So, Sylvia, what went wrong?” I asked.
“Your mom was an amazing leader and no one could remember a time of better prosperity and happiness… but Kora had a weakness. And I suppose that it was a good weakness to have, it’s what made everyone love her so. She had a big heart, the biggest. One evening, your parents, Dylan, and I heard a disturbance on the surface. When we got closer, we realized it was a shipwreck. Your mother wanted to help, but assisting humans had been illegal since they'd started hunting us for our magical properties over two hundred years before. She finally agreed, until a baby’s cry reached our ears. We held her back, but she wouldn’t listen. Kora said the baby sounded no older than you and she couldn’t let it drown. She spelled us to sleep and left to rescue the child.
“But it was an ambush. They used the small babe for bait. Your mother’s spell lifted when they killed her. We rushed to the scene… but we all knew that the only reason we were awake was because she was dead. We were almost to the humans and meant to kill them, but when Kora died, our borders opened and sirens stormed the kingdom, killing at will. Your father had to return to defend the city, all of us did. I only ever saw the back of the human who killed your mother, but that faceless man’s bright red hair still haunts my dreams.”
Jaron’s shoulders tensed. My mom had died to save a child… she had been murdered in cold blood by the same man who had killed his parents. I was sure of it.
“Why didn’t you kill the man?” he asked, his voice hard. “Surely the people could have defended themselves. He—”
“A kingdom needs a king, and that is who Mari’s father is. His duty will always be to his people, like any good leader.”
“What?” I shouted.
“Yes, Mari. That makes you a princess, and there isn’t a soul in your kingdom who wouldn’t die for you.”
“No, this is too much! Sylvia, I don’t…” I couldn’t say that I didn’t believe it. “I don’t want this.” My stomach churned. “Pull over. I think I’m going to throw up.”
She slowed and pulled the car to the side of the road. I wrapped the shirt around myself and jumped out of the car, emptying my stomach on the way. When I finally stopped, Sylvia was at my side, rubbing my back.
“You already have it, poor thing, you were made for the ocean,” Sylvia cooed.
“What are you talking about?” I asked before the next wave of nausea bent me back over.
“You’re sea sick. If we go away from our home, we get violently ill. I can make some medicine when we get home. I’ll get sick too, and Jaron might.”
She ushered me into the back seat and sat next to me. “Jaron, you drive,” she said, and he climbed over the seat. Wrapping her arms around me, she whispered into my hair, “Mari, you are a mermaid, you are a princess to our people, and you are the only hope that we have to reclaim our territory and happiness.”
I shook my head.
“And you are stronger than you know. Bravery runs in your family.”
“What do you we do now?” I asked.
“We will do what we’ve been doing for that past seventeen years. Wait for word from your father and pretend to be normal humans—”
“But they know where you are, the people who brought me there,” Jaron interjected.
“Without Dylan, I don’t know how successful we’d be at running from them. He’s the one with the instinct for it. The best thing to do is play dumb; pretend that you still haven’t told us anything about them. They’ll find it harder to bargain without your brother’
s health to use against you. Hopefully my husband will return soon.” She paused and took a deep breath. “Tomorrow is the first day of spring break, so what are we going to do?”
I looked up at her. “Get ready for the annual party?”
“Yes, and we have a lot to get together… I’ll need to think up an excuse for Dylan’s absence as well.”
Jaron was silent as Sylvia and I talked, and I wondered what he would do now. Would he take his brother to his house to nurture him back to health and then leave forever? Sylvia followed my stare and cleared her throat.
“Hey, Jaron, I know that you have your own place. But I really think that we should all stick together right now. Would you like to stay in the guesthouse with your brother? I can help you give him his medicine until he’s better.”
“Really… Sure, I was going to ask if it’d be okay. I don’t like the idea of you two there without Dylan around. What’s in my brother’s medicine anyway?” The car turned down the main street of our hometown.
“It’s just essence of the sea. It helps with the sea sickness, we’ll all have to take it now, or we’ll get very sick.”
“Does that mean Owen went to the ocean and that’s why he started to get sick?” he asked.
“Yes, that’s the only way that he could be in the state that he’s in,” Sylvia said.
“But if he went, he would have found out about… about what we are. He never told me about any of this.”
“It’s a hard thing to tell someone.” Sylvia looked at me with sad eyes.
Our house came into view, and for the first time, it didn’t feel like home. Jaron parked the car and I got out, awkwardly trying to cover myself.
“Go and try to get some rest, Jaron. I’ll be over in a bit to give you some medicine as well, just in case.”
I was inside before their conversation was over, but I didn’t feel like standing around half-naked any longer. I ran up to my room, slipped into some PJs, and walked back out into the hall. I couldn’t hear Sylvia in the house yet, but I didn’t want to wait around for her. All I wanted was to climb the staircase into the art studio and stare at the painting of my mother, now that I knew it really was a true likeness of her.
