by Magan Vernon
It was one of the many times I wished my mother was around to talk to. Then again, I didn't know if she knew what I was either.
Then of course, there was my father. The man I'd never met. The man who I was told abandoned us.
Maybe the water called to him too. I tried not to think too hard about it, but it was difficult not to. Strolling along the boardwalk, I watched the waves roll in, crashing onto the sand. Taking a deep breath, I let the sea air fill my lungs. This was home. This was where I always felt like I belonged. But there was something off tonight.
A change.
A shift in the air.
I couldn't put my finger on it until I looked to the sand and saw a man standing near the water's edge.
At first I thought he was just gazing upon the water like I was, but then I saw his familiar limp and immediately recognized the back of Calder's head. And Calder wasn't just taking a stroll.
His arms were out and he walked further into the water like it was taking him home.
"Shit," I muttered, watching the rising tide before the waves crashed over Calder.
I held my breath, waiting for his head to rise above the waves.
But he didn't come up.
Without even thinking, I jumped over the rail of the pier and ran toward the water, my heart beating wildly in my chest.
I didn't stop until the cold water hit my legs and my body tensed up. An overwhelming tingling sensation, like my entire body was on fire, fell over me before I felt my tail flap against the water.
I dove under, knowing I could hold my breath for a few minutes at least and hopefully that was all I needed to find him.
Swimming as fast as my tail could take me, I dove deeper, following the dark water farther out to sea.
That was when I saw him.
His face was empty. Eyes and mouth closed with his arms floating above him.
Calder may have been bigger than me but I knew I had the water on my side to carry him.
Quickly, I grabbed his limp body and pressed my face to his chest. He had a heartbeat. At least that was one good thing.
Pulling him to the surface, I crested over the water, looking toward the beach. It was more than a hundred yards away and there wasn't any sign of life against the white sand.
I moved as quickly as my tail could take me and pulled Calder along.
He didn't make a sound. His body dead weight against mine, but I wasn't going to give up.
When we finally got to the edge of the water, the tide pushed us forward until we were back on the sand. Quickly I positioned myself next to him, flailing slightly with my damn tail. I knew it would shift back soon, I just didn't know how long.
I needed to call for help. Shit.
In my haste, I threw my purse somewhere and had no idea where the hell my phone was. And even worse, as my body slowly shifted back to human form, my pants and underwear were gone.
But I had more important things to worry about than being modest.
With my human legs back, I positioned myself to the side of Calder and tipped his head back before I started mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.
It wasn't until my lips were on his and I blew in the first breath that an overwhelming sensation filled my body. It was similar to my shifting but this time it was a cold burst that started in my toes and caused an almost ethereal moan to escape my throat and into his.
I pulled back, gasping as his eyes opened wide before he turned to his side, sputtering.
I wanted to stay and make sure he was okay.
But as soon as he opened his eyes I knew he recognized me.
Possibly knew that I had shifted.
My legs were just turning back to their normal color and I waited impatiently for them to go back to legs instead of my tail.
I knew I could never see him again if he knew my secret.
Before he could move any more, I stood up as my legs slowly came back.
He put his hands out to stop me, but I was quicker and ran down the beach, hopping back up to the pier.
I grabbed my purse and bolted for my car, thanking god that it was late enough that the beach was deserted. I slid into my car and covered my naked lower half with a discarded hoodie from the passenger seat.
Starting the car, I peeled out of the parking lot before I grabbed my phone and typed in Jessyka's number. I needed to keep my promise to text my friend.
Hey, I saw someone on the beach. One of the guys I served at Ace’s. I think he was trying to take a drunken swim. I’m going to put in a call to 9-1-1, but do you think you can have Benny check on him as well?
I sent the text then immediately dialed 9-11.
“Emergency Services operation, this is Cheyenne, what is your emergency?” the woman said in a very calm voice.
I let out a deep breath. “Hi. I’m outside of Ace’s Bar and Grill near the pier and there’s a man lying in the sand. I think he might have walked out into the ocean, but I’m not sure. I just saw him all wet and laying in the sand half-conscious.”
“Outside of Ace’s Bar and Grill? Okay. I will get an ambulance dispatched out there as soon as possible. Can you give me any more details? Do you know the man’s name?”
“Calder,” I whispered, before I hung up the phone.
I couldn’t get involved anymore than I already had. I’d already made myself vulnerable enough. I just prayed that Calder didn’t simply get up and wade back into the ocean as soon as I was out of sight. I saved him once, but it was up to him to stay that way.
Chapter 4
Calder
Her eyes shone in the darkness.
It was the one thing I kept seeing as I went in and out of consciousness.
A mermaid.
No. That wasn't right.
I had to be imagining it all.
When the EMTs found me on the beach, they immediately took me into the nearest hospital where I was hooked up to a bunch of IVs. I guess my BAC was twice the legal limit. I had pneumonia and some lung damage from seawater inhalation, but nothing too serious. Nothing that would explain my hallucinations.
Or what I thought were hallucinations.
Why I saw a mermaid rescue me from the water. A mermaid that looked just like the bartender at Ace's.
I didn’t tell anyone what I saw. I’d seen enough shrinks after I watched the team I was supposed to be taking care of get blown to bits.
IED’s didn’t discriminate on SEALs, doctors, what have you, but somehow I always felt like I should have been able to save them, instead of crawling away like a coward.
Now a mermaid had saved me.
A knock came at the hospital room door and I quickly changed the channel from HGTV to ESPN, though I was pretty sure Benny got a good look at the screen showing a home remodeling show before I switched it to SportsCenter.
“Hey, Doc, still faking it I see?” Benny asked as he took slow, methodical steps into the room.
I laughed. “Yeah, you know me. Since I’m not in the navy anymore, I need some excitement.”
“Yeah, well, I think you’d better lay off the booze for a bit, Doc. You should know that better than any of us. Jessyka was freaking out when one of her friend’s texted her, saying she saw you in the sand. Imagine my surprise when I found out that guy was you.”
Someone texted Jessyka and said they saw me?
As if he could read my thoughts, Benny ran a hand through what little hair he had. “Yeah, I guess one of the other girls at Ace’s saw you wash up ashore and called Jess. Freaked them both out pretty good. But at least you’re alive, man, and nothing worse happened.”
He kept rambling, but all I could focus on was that he said another girl called.
“Was the other girl’s name Maya?” I interrupted.
Benny laughed. “I knew there had to be a reason you were at Ace’s. You have a thing for the bartender.”
I tried to protest but I couldn’t think of a reason to, so I just shrugged. “Yeah. So?”
Benny put his hand on
my shoulder. “Well then, you’ll be happy to know that she was the one who called. Obviously she’s some kind of guardian angel for you, Doc.”
A guardian angel. One with wings and a tail.
I licked my lips. “Jess wouldn’t happen to have a number or address for Maya would she?”
Benny laughed even harder, shaking his head. “Oh, man, you got it bad. I’m sure I can get her number for you, but I’m not sure about the address. You aren’t going to go crazy, stalker guy on her are you?”
“No. I just, you know, want to thank her properly.”
Benny smiled. “Okay, I’ll see what I can get from Jess and what I can’t get from her, I’ll get from Tex. That man could find a needle in the deepest haystack.”
“Yeah, Tex owes me one since I let him take my spot on the amputee baseball team when we were in rehab.” I laughed.
“All right, Doc, I’ll see what I can do. You get better, okay? No more drinking and late night swims?”
I nodded, even though I wasn’t sure I could agree to that, especially when I knew my guardian angel was a swimmer.
Chapter 5
Maya
Gran’s house was a Mediterranean Spanish style home a few miles from the beach and closer to Tijuana than San Diego, but still about a thirty-minute drive to actually get to the city. Or across the border.
I could’ve had my own apartment in the San Diego area, but I couldn’t leave Gran. She had always been my lifeline.
When I pulled in front of the white picket fence, there weren’t any lights on in the house, so I thought I could sneak in unnoticed, but Gran wasn’t one to be tricked.
The TV was on with some kind of Olympic recap. Of course, Jay Morningstar, America’s new darling, had to be on the show with his pearly white smile and millions of gold medals.
That could have been me. If I didn’t have a tail.
I remembered Jay from my swim club. He had dreadlocks and goofed around in the pool. Guess a lot can change in four years.
I turned, thinking I could just sneak into my room, but before I could shut the door, Gran turned on the light on the side table, looking at me from her recliner. “It’s almost four AM, Maya. Where on earth have you been?”
“I was at work. There were some issues with closing and…”
Gran cut me off. “Don’t give me that crap, Maya. Your mother used to do the same thing when she was out with your father. Just be honest and tell me the boy you were out with and if you’re going to bring him home.”
I sighed, sliding onto the couch.
Before I could speak, Gran balked, pointing a crooked finger at me. “Maya why are you wearing a sweatshirt for pants? What happened? Did some boy take advantage of you? I knew I should have bought you a gun for your birthday, dammit!”
I shook my head slowly, trying to fight back the tears. “Gran, there’s something I have to tell you…”
Gran blinked, staring at me intently. “Oh dear, you’re not pregnant are you?”
I shook my head. Getting pregnant would require having sex and it had been a very long time since that happened. “This is going to sound crazy and I don’t know how to say it, so I’m going to have to show you.”
Gran raised an eyebrow. “Show me what?”
I stood up. “Follow me.”
Slowly Gran got out of her recliner. For being in her seventies, she got around pretty well. She still kept her hair colored and years of being married to my now deceased grandfather, a former plastic surgeon, kept her up with all of the latest procedures. She had the skin of a freaking twenty-year-old with less acne.
I walked down the small hallway until we were in the bathroom and then I turned on the water, plugging the drain.
“Do you really think this is time to take a bath?” Gran asked in a slightly shaky tone.
I sucked in a deep breath and then gradually sunk in the tub, letting the water flow over my legs. Slowly the tingling sensation took over my body until I watched my legs fuse together and turn to their seal form, the sweater that was once covering me now completely soaked as well.
Gran’s eyes widened and she put her hand to her heart.
“Gran? Gran, please don’t pass out.” I put my hand out and she sat down on the toilet seat, shaking her head.
“All those years…what your mother was saying was true…” Gran whispered.
“What?” I snapped my head. My mother knew about this?
Gran swallowed hard, nodding her head and looking off into the space like she was recalling some deep memory. “Your mother liked to go out to the beach. Always a beach bum. She met a young man there, one who she would never bring home, so I immediately didn’t trust him.”
Gran sucked in a deep breath then let it out. “The summer ended and it was time for her to go back to school at USC, but she always kept coming home. Kept going back to the beach and even missing classes. Your grandfather put his foot down and said she couldn’t see the boy anymore. Your mother, of course, refused. So grandfather did some digging. He was going to have a talk with this boy and followed your mother to the beach.”
Gran stood up slowly, walking out of the bathroom.
That was it? That’s all I got?
“Gran!” I yelled, turning off the water and unplugging the drain. I couldn’t move until I had my legs back.
Before I could fully shift back, Gran was in the bathroom, something tightly clasped in her hands. “Your grandfather saw your mother and the boy under the pier. When he went to confront them, the boy jumped into the water. Your father swore he saw him turn into an animal. A seal.”
A seal? My father was a seal?
Gran held her fist together, staring down at it. “Your mother knew he was a shifter. Not long after seeing the boy turn into a seal, your grandfather had a heart attack. We spent weeks at the hospital, trying to make sense of it all and your mother would spend every night at the beach and always come home disappointed. Your father never returned to the pier after your grandfather saw him”
Gran sat back down with a sigh. “It wasn’t until your grandfather’s passing that your mother confided in me that she was pregnant and was scared out of her mind because she didn’t know what would become of her baby. She said she told your father and he said they couldn’t see each other again and left her with this.”
Gran opened her hand revealing a bright blue amulet on a simple silver chain. “She said that he told her it would help you when the time came for your change. Of course she didn’t know what that meant and had so many questions. Even after you were born, she still went looking for him at the beach, but he never came.”
That was why she drowned. She was looking for him and couldn’t take it.
Now this left me with more questions than answers.
“I should have told you sooner, Gran,” I whispered.
I stood up and grabbed a towel from the rack, wrapping it around my waist before stepping out of the tub.
Gran smiled. “You were probably just as scared as your mother was. I would be scared to tell me as well if I were you.”
“What do we do now?” I asked.
Gran put the necklace in my hand and then held it there, looking into my eyes. “We do what we have to do. We always have and we always will.”
“Meaning?” I raised an eyebrow.
“Meaning we figure out who your father was. Your mother has a stack of old letters in her closet. We can start there. You can also ask her old college friends about your father. There has to be someone, somewhere who knows what and who you are. And if all else fails, the internet knows everything.”
***
After everything I went through the night before, I wanted to call into work.
Hell, I wanted to call into life.
But I needed the money and I needed a distraction.
My mom’s old love letters were nothing but a lot of mushy stuff. I was guessing at some point he went on land to write my mother these poetic things. And the internet didn’t give
me any more information than what I had before.
I put my purse in my locker and made my way toward the bar, but was stopped by a smiling Jess.
“Hey, didn’t know you were on the schedule tonight.”
I tried not to meet her eyes as I secured my nametag on my tank top. “Yeah. Um...You didn’t happen to hear anything about that guy that I saw on the beach, did you? Maybe Benny knew him.”
Jess offered a tight-lipped smile. “Yeah, he was that guy Calder that was in here the other night. He’s a retired UMO that Benny and the rest of his team knew. I guess he just had too much to drink and went for a swim, or so he’s telling everyone.”
I nodded. “Okay. I’ll remember to cut him off next time he’s here.”
Jess followed me out to the bar. “I’m guessing he’ll be back as soon as he’s out. Benny said he’s been asking about you.”
I froze. Every hair on the back of my neck stood up as I slowly turned toward Jess. “He is? What, um, what is he asking?”
Jess laughed. “I knew it! I knew there was something going on between you two!”
Shaking my head, I licked my lips before I spoke. “Nothing is going on. I just…”
I couldn’t think of what to say. After everything I learned about my mom, there was no way I wanted to get involved with anyone. Yet, I couldn’t deny that Calder was one of the sexiest men I’d ever seen and there was something about him. Something that was vulnerable and yet strong that I couldn’t help but be drawn to.
“It’s okay to like a guy, Maya. I’ll make sure to tell Benny that you were asking about him too.”She winked.
Jess grabbed a tray and looked at my neck. “Oh my god, I love your amulet! I haven’t seen that before.”
I almost forgot I was wearing the necklace from my mother.
Almost.
There was something about it that made me feel safe. Something that drew me to the blue stone. So I wore it to work.
