by Kristy Tate
CHAPTER SIX
Alicia stood beside the campfire, whispering to her best friend, Devon.
Devon laughed and whispered something back. Both of their gazes slid toward Chase Dillinger. He was coming out of the water, shaking his head like a wet dog.
Brock zipped up his wetsuit, grabbed his board, and headed into the surf. Feeling the cool air slap his face, he felt more like himself. He had surfed in South Carolina, too, although it was different there. The water was warmer, the air thicker, and the sun not as direct. But the vastness of the ocean was the same.
Brock knew that the Pacific and the Atlantic differed, but they both made him feel small—in a good way. He liked knowing he was just a drop in the sea of the universe. He put his board on the water, climbed on, and paddled out—away from the gossip and giggling girls.
Brock had to break up with Alicia, but he didn’t know how. Using his arms to splash through the surf, he put as much distance as he could between him and the shore. Girls, he decided, should come with an instruction manual. But maybe each girl, like car models, would need her own how-to guide, because not all were the same. Girls had to be even more complicated and unique than engines. He mentally rehearsed the words he’d say to Alicia.
It’s my junior year so I have to focus on my classes, cuz college-wise, this year is the most important.
But then he couldn’t go out with anyone else. Grace’s face flashed in his mind. He shook her away. Better to be honest.
I’m sorry, Alicia. I’m just not feeling it.
Too vague.
The pheromones have gone.
Too medical…and kind of creepy.
Alicia, you’re mean.
Too harsh.
Water splashed in his face and he blew it out of his nose and mouth. A pelican darted in front of him. He watched it wing away, wishing he could follow it. As he looked for the next wave to catch something caught his eye.
A swath of ebony hair just below the surface.
#
A woman with flaming red hair and startling green eyes stared at Grace.
“The mirror,” she sang without opening her mouth. “What have you done with the mirror?”
Grace tried to talk, but water rushed into her mouth. She shot to the surface, gagging. She gasped and choked on the salty water stinging the back of her throat and burning her eyes.
“Blanche, Blanche, you must return.”
Grace sank back beneath the waves. The woman was still there, staring at her. Grace felt drawn to her. She wanted to follow her. She wanted to say her name wasn’t Blanche. Before the woman turned away, she pressed a cold stone into Grace’s hand. Grace curled her fingers around it.
The woman’s hair swirled around her like a red cape. She was naked from the waist up and glided through the water without using her arms. Grace followed, aware that she was moving further and further from the surface.
She didn’t care.
Something took hold of her hair. Grace tried to scream, but once again, water flooded into her mouth. She gagged and tried to pry loose the fingers that held her.
Above her, someone swore. The hand released her hair. Grace sank as if her feet were made of iron, but strong hands grabbed her arms. She kicked and squirmed, but her captor refused to let go. The air stung her face as she was hauled onto a surfboard. The bright sun blurred her vision. Her head pounded. Her arms and legs weighed a hundred pounds each. She tried to see who had pulled her from the water, but she was too tired to lift her head.
The woman’s voice still called to her, but the singing faded and the ocean’s roar soon drowned out everything.
Mermaids. Greek mythology. Sirens singing, luring sailors to watery graves. Mermaids foretold the future, but they were also death omens. She had tried to follow a mermaid. Or had she? The sun warming her skin told her she lived. She had only to open her eyes.
Voices floated above Grace. Someone repeatedly called her name. Her real name, not the name the mermaid had given her. Grace. Grace. Grave. A breeze lifted the hairs on her skin.
Blinking, she dimly focused on the faces peering at her. A sea of faces. She didn’t know any of them, except one. She tried to recall their names, the girl who had brought her to the beach, her friend, the sister, the boy still in love with the girl. Beyond them was a group of people she didn’t know, but to whom she’d been introduced. The only one she remembered was Brock. It came to her that she needed to tell him something. Something important.
“I’m sorry.” It hurt to talk. Her voice sounded as rough as sand. She rolled onto her belly and tried to push onto her elbows. It was then that she noticed the aquamarine stone in her hand.
“Are you okay?” someone asked.
“Scary beans,” someone else said.
“What is she sorry about?” a guy asked Brock.
Brock ran his fingers through his wet hair.
Grace tried to sit up and her stomach rolled. Please don’t let me vomit. She closed her eyes, flopped back down on the sand, and tightened her hold on the stone.
Someone brushed the hair away from her face. She peeked open an eye to see Brock peering at her, his nose inches from her face.
“Grace?”
“I’m okay,” she lied with her sandpaper voice.
“You don’t look okay.”
Grace tried to sit up again. Her name was Grace, not Blanche.
There was no such thing as mermaids.
So why was there an aquamarine stone in her hand?
Brock put an arm around her shoulders, steadying her. “You want to go home?”
She nodded.
“Gabs, you ready to go?” Amy asked.
“Sure,” Gabby said, pushing to the front of the small crowd.
“I can take her,” Brock said. “She lives next door.”
“I do?” Grace croaked.
He smiled. “You didn’t know?”
Grace shook her head, and was immediately punished with a pounding headache. She put her hands on her ears. “I think I have water in my ears.”
Brock laughed, and so did a few others, but only his laugh echoed through her.
“Come on,” he said, taking Grace’s elbow and helping her to her feet. Her legs felt like wet spaghetti. Brock tucked the blanket around her. “We’re borrowing this,” he said to someone.
That someone grunted an assent.
Grace shuffled through the sand, past the bonfire, and through the parking lot. When they got to the BMW, she slid a glance at its bumper to see if she’d hurt it. It looked flawless.
Bock opened the door for her.
Grace paused. “I’m going to get your car all sandy.”
“It’s okay.” He leaned against the BMW, waiting for her to get in, standing so close she felt his warmth.
Grace hesitated, and cast a quick glance at the bonfire where the Barbie look-alike watched with slit cat-eyes. Knowing she’d probably made an enemy, Grace slipped into the passenger seat, holding very still, trying not to knock any of the sand clinging to her onto his upholstery or carpet.
“Why are you being so nice to me?” she asked once Brock got behind the wheel.
He lifted an eyebrow as he started the engine. “The Golden Rule?”
“Then shouldn’t you be kicking my car?”
“’An eye for an eye was part of the Mosaic Law,” he said as he pulled the BMW out of the lot and onto the Pacific Coast Highway. “And who’s to say that I haven’t duked-out your bike?”
Grace snorted an ugly laugh. “It’s not like you can hurt it.”
“I absolutely could.”
“It wouldn’t look any worse than it already does.”
“Don’t underestimate my bike destruction powers,” he said in a Batman voice.
“It’s my dad’s,” she told him. “I don’t think anyone but me has been on it since the sixties.”
“It’s cool,” he said, his voice full of laughter.
“It makes me feel like Dorothy in The Wizard of
Oz.”
He laughed. “Isn’t that your grandmother’s name?”
“You know my grandmother?”
“And Hank, your grandfather. They live next door, remember?”
“How come I don’t remember ever seeing you before?” she asked.
“We moved here two years ago.”
It had been at least four years since their family had been to visit, which sounded mean, but it cost a lot of money to drive all the way from Oregon to Southern California, and money was something her family had never had.
Palm trees flashed by. The blue ocean sparkled on the horizon. The smell of bonfires lingered in the air.
“I’m sorry you had to leave early,” she said.
“I’m not.” He shot Grace a quick smile before returning his attention to the road.
At the intersection, he turned onto the Crown Valley Parkway, following a string of Mercedes, BMWs, and a lone Honda. Grace wondered if she’d ever get used to living here. With a start, she realized she’d forgotten her bag with her towel and Heather’s beach cover-up.
“My things!” she gasped.
“Text Gabby and ask her to bring them by.”
She didn’t want to admit she didn’t have a phone. Brock must have read her expression because he pressed a button on the dashboard. “Call Gabby,” he said.
A phone rang. Gabby’s voicemail answered. Brock looked at Grace expectantly.
“Um, Gabby, can you bring my bag to work with you tomorrow? I’ll pick it up. Thanks.” She felt like she was talking to a computer on the Starship Enterprise.
Grace settled back against the seat.
“What’s in your hand?” Brock asked after he ended the call.
“I…” She couldn’t tell him about the mermaid. “I found it in the ocean.” Uncurling her fingers, she showed him the stone. It glistened in her palm.
“Wow. It’s beautiful. You just found that?”
Grace nodded.
“Is that what you were doing? Is that why you went under?”
“Oh, maybe. It’s weird. That whole thing is fuzzy.”
“Understandable.”
“Really, you think so?” Hope tinged her voice.
“Sure.”
“So it wouldn’t seem weird to you if I thought I’d seen something in the water?”
“No. Not really.”
Grace let out a long breath, feeling better.
“What did you see?”
“I can’t tell you.”
“Why not?”
“It’s too weird.”
“Come on, I saved your life.”
“You’re going to play that card? Is this like in Aladdin where I have to be your slave now?”
“No, I just pulled you out of the ocean. If I had rubbed your lamp, then probably.” He paused. “Absolutely.”
“You’d be really disappointed. I’m not a genie.”
“But you have an aquamarine stone. The legend is those are mermaid’s tears. They’re supposed to give protection.”
“Who needs a stone when she has you?” Shock at what she’d said made her gasp. “I didn’t mean that. I don’t have you. I didn’t mean it like that. I just meant…you know what I meant. I meant thank you for saving me, for not being mad about my kicking your car, and everything…”
He looked pleased by her babbling confusion while she searched for a new topic of conversation. “Tell me about Santa Magdalena High.”
“What do you want to know?”
“What do I need to know? I’m new.”
He sucked in a deep breath. “It’s a Catholic school, but probably less than half of the students are actually Catholic, although most also went to Sierra.”
“The desert?”
“No. Sierra Grade School. It’s a K through eight school over by the country club. I’m sure you’ve seen it.”
“It has a large cross and it sits on the edge of the canyon?”
“That’s it.”
“So most of you have gone to school together since kindergarten.”
He nodded. “But remember, I just moved here two years ago.”
“Where from?”
“Charleston. Two years before that, we were in Boston.”
“Wow. I’ve lived in Salmon Dale my whole life…until now. And this is supposedly temporary. What made you move so often?”
“My mom’s an antiques collector slash dealer. She likes to go where the antiques are.”
“But there aren’t antiques here. The town of Santa Magdalena is only thirty years old.”
“Shows what you know. The town might only be thirty years old, but the Santa Magdalena Ranch has been around since the eighteen hundreds. You should know that. Bear Ranch has been around forever.”
“I still don’t get it.”
He tightened his grip on the steering wheel. “To be honest, I don’t always get it, either. Moving’s rough. It’s hard to be the new guy.” He paused and shot Grace a smile. “Or the new girl. Although I’m sure you’ll be great.”
She thought about confiding in him, spilling all her worries and fears. How she knew she’d never fit in. How she wasn’t even sure she wanted to. Somehow, fitting in here would be a betrayal to her parents who considered Orange County and all its glitz and wealth tacky. “Ostentatious”, “flamboyant”, and “pretentious” were some of her dad’s adjectives for Santa Magdalena. She wondered if her dad knew her mom had enrolled her in St. Mags.
Brock poked her thigh, interrupting her thoughts.
Grace flashed him a smile.
“Where’d you go?”
“I was thinking about my dad.”
Brock pulled up at an intersection and waited for the light to change and for Grace to continue.
“I don’t think he knows I’m going to St. Mags.”
“How’s that?”
They rounded a hill and the Bear Ranch gates came into view. The stone pillars rose from a carefully groomed greenbelt and black iron gates closed around the guard shack. The golden prison, her dad called it. She missed him with a tender ache. “He’s in the reserves. He’s been deployed.”
“At least you know where he is,” Brock said.
“You don’t know where your dad is?” she asked.
Brock pulled up to the gates and waved at the guard. The man in the navy and white uniform must have recognized him, because a second later, the gates rolled open to let them pass.
“Or my birth mom,” Brock said. “Cordelia adopted me when I was a baby.”
“Oh.” Grace didn’t know what else to say, and Oh seemed really inadequate. The trees lining Bear Drive cast long shadows over the road. Her dad complained of claustrophobia whenever they visited.
“She’s the only family I have.”
“Wow. No cousins, aunts or uncles?”
Brock shook his head.
“Would you like to have my grandparents?”
He laughed and once again the sound echoed through her in a way that no one’s laugh had ever done before.
“I’m serious, you can have them. And I can even throw in a few cousins from my dad’s side. There’s a ton of those.”
“They’re disposable?”
“No, but there’s so many of them I wouldn’t even notice if a few went missing. My dad’s one of eleven kids.”
“Wow.”
“I know. We get together every year at my Grandfather James’s farm. Cousins outnumber the cows—well, maybe not, but it’s a close call.”
“Cows, huh?”
“And chickens and pigs. Only a couple of horses, though.”
“Sounds nice.”
“No. It’s smelly, mostly. My dad calls it ‘derriere’.”
“Where is this place? Oregon?”
Grace looked out the window as if she could see the farm in the distance past Saddlehorn Mountain. “Central Oregon. My parents met at Berkley.”
“You’re lucky.”
“I guess so, although lots of people would think you�
�re luckier.”
He pulled down Grandpa Hank’s long driveway. The house had been built by her great grandfather back when Bear Ranch was a hunting lodge, a playground for the wealthy before Rancho Santa Magdalena even existed. A boxy colonial with a cranberry colored door and black window shutters, it looked very stodgy compared to the English Tudor next door.
“Is that your house?” she asked.
He nodded.
“It looks like something from a fairy tale.”
“It does.” His voice told her that he didn’t think that was a good thing. Brock pulled the car in front of the house and put it into park. “See you tomorrow, Grace James.”
“Thanks for driving me home, and for saving my life.”
“You’re welcome,” Brock said.
#
As Grace lay on her bed, staring at the ceiling, Toby’s phone buzzed with a text from her best friend, Kelly.
Kelly: You there?
She sent a smiley face.
Kelly: So weird you won’t be here on the first day of school.
Grace wanted to tell her that as strange as a first day of school would be, it wasn’t nearly as strange as meeting an underwater woman. She still couldn’t bring herself to call her a mermaid.
She texted Kelly back. You think it will be weird there, just imagine how freaky I’ll feel in my red and navy plaid uniform.
Of course the uniform wasn’t the most bizarre thing going on. She had to tell someone, but that someone wasn’t Heather, her mom, or Tobs. They all had enough to worry about. She didn’t want them to think she’d lost her mind. She glanced at the closed door, knowing that any minute Heather could walk in.
Kelly: You’ll totally rock it.
Grace studied the rock in her hand, wondering how Kelly knew she was, at that very moment, thinking about rocks. Or this one rock in particular. But they had known each other so long and so well they could talk without words—a look, a raised eyebrow, a twitching lip was usually all that was needed to know what the other was thinking. But now they couldn’t talk face to face. Grace had to speak to her, but not here.
On the other side of the door, she heard the TV. Her grandparents and Toby were watching Wheel of Fortune and calling out letters loud enough for Vanna White to hear them all the way in Hollywood. The smell of simmering spaghetti sauce floating from the kitchen told her that Heather was making dinner. Even though she knew she should be helping, Grace pulled open her window and climbed out. The warm night air engulfed her. She slunk to the side of the house, found a patch of lawn beneath the shade of an orange tree, and called Kelly. In a couple of breaths, she related all the weirdness.
