by Anna Banks
And neither am I, not really. At least, I’m not the same Emma she brought down here. The one who followed her around the halls at school like a white shadow. The one who stayed a few feet behind her while she flitted around like a bee, pollinating each of her social groups. A wispy, forgettable phantom.
I wonder if Chloe’s bigger-than-life personality would have room for the upgraded Emma. An Emma who lied to her mother to jump a plane with a strange boy-fish. An Emma who’s already waist-deep in the water without an ounce of terror splintering her nerves. An Emma who’s more prone to pick a fight than stop one. Maybe upgraded isn’t the right word for the new me. Maybe it’s more in the neighborhood of different. Possibly even indifferent.
The humidity is almost thick enough to drown in. Any second I expect rain to mingle with the tears as they slide down my cheeks. So much for indifferent.
I dive in.
The gulf is nothing like I remember it. Of course, that’s because last time, the salt hurt my eyes. Also, the water felt cool and refreshing against the suffocating Florida heat. Now, like the hotel Jacuzzi, the Atlantic, and every puddle between here and there, the water feels lukewarm.
It’s almost as frustrating as Galen’s game of hot and cold. Thing is, I’m not sure it’s a game. From his expression, there’s out-and-out war going on behind the scenes. He leans in, pulls away. Leans in, pulls away. It’s like a battle between good and evil. I’m just not sure which one he thinks kissing me is.
Probably evil.
Which is pathetic. For the next twenty-four hours, I’m going to be stuck in a hotel room, unsupervised, with a guy who’s trying his hardest not to kiss me. Lovely.
I swim my grouchy self along the sloping bottom, making a game out of how many crabs I can irritate into snapping at me. Most are good sports and have a go at it. Even if one actually latches on to my finger, it won’t hurt anymore than a clothespin. But my strategy only works for so long before Galen and his succulent lips creep back into my thoughts. He’s like the club remix of a song I already hated, one I couldn’t get out of my head the first time around. One that plays over and over and over.
I wonder what Chloe would tell me to do. God, I miss her. Unlike me, she was a connoisseur of all things male. She knew when they were cheating. She knew when they were talking trash to their friends. She knew when they wanted her number even when all they asked for was a pencil. She would be able to take one look at Galen and tell me why he won’t kiss me, how to make him, and where to hold our wedding reception.
Too irritated to go farther, I turn around. The smell of metal hits me like a wave. Smell? Is that even possible? Then I see it. A cloud of blood. The ripple of a struggle. A fin. Two fins. I scream. It hears me. They hear me. They stop thrashing, pieces of a dead something falling around them like confetti. Bloody confetti.
Turning back around, I already know I’m dead. The good news is, two sharks will kill me faster than one. Two sets of jaws have a better chance of slicing an important artery right away. It should be quick. Part of me wants to stop and get it over with. The other part, the bigger part, wants me to swim like mad. Fight and kick and gouge. Make this their hardest kill ever. Hope they choke on my thick Syrena bones.
I hear the swish of their approach and tense up. One of them rams into me, knocking air bubbles from my lungs. I cry out and scrunch my eyes shut. No one wants to see their own death. A jaw clamps around my waist, powerful and tight. It lunges us forward so fast my head snaps back. This is it. I wait for the penetration of teeth. It doesn’t come. Just keeps swimming. I’ve heard of alligators doing this, of snatching its prey and taking it somewhere else. Saving the meal for later. Saltwater is probably a great preservative for keeping a corpse like me fresh.
I force one eye open. And gasp. Not a jaw around my waist, so powerful and tight. A pair of arms. Arms I’ve memorized every contour of.
Galen. And he’s so burning mad the water around us should be boiling. Maybe it is. Maybe we’re just moving too fast to see it. By the look on his face, he’s thinking about killing me himself. Maybe I was better off with the sharks.
Galen swims for a long time. He won’t look at me, won’t talk to me. I know better than to talk to him. After a while, jet lag, near death, and the security of Galen’s arms all team up against me. If I weren’t underwater, I’d yawn. Instead, I close my eyes.…
“Emma! Emma, can you hear me?”
The slap to my cheek startles me awake. “Huh?” Not my most attractive moment. I rub my eyes. I’m cradled in his arms, princess-style. The stars come into focus. When did we surface? Billions of beautiful stars on a clear night. Fish Prince Charming holding me. It’s probably the most romantic moment of my life.
Galen ruins it by growling. “I thought you were dead. Twice.”
“Sorry.” It’s all I can think of. Oh yeah, and, “Thanks for saving me.”
He shakes his head. Obviously it’s not my turn to talk.
“I wake up and you’re gone,” he says, his jaw tight. “Then you don’t answer your cell phone.”
I open my mouth, but his eyes widen. Still not my turn then.
“I told you to never get in the water alone—”
And that’s my cue. “I don’t take orders, Highness.” Oops. I can tell by his glower that I’m the opposite of smart.
He takes several breaths. Then several more. I wait for him to start hyperventilating. He doesn’t. Instead, he grabs my chin. Hard. Eyeing my mouth, his expression softens. Releasing my chin, he peers down into the water beside us.
Then he pulls us under.
Still holding me like a bride over the threshold, we descend faster than a free-falling elevator. But it’s the I-know-something-you-don’t-know smirk on his face that has me almost squirming.
Finally we stop. He nods behind me, then changes to blended form. By default, I dread turning around. And I’m right. I press myself into Galen, but he won’t let me get behind him. A whale. A ginormous one. And since Galen’s blended, I’m the only one it can see. “What are you doing, Galen? Get us out of here.”
“You’re the one who wanted to go swimming. Alone. Change your mind?”
“I said I was sorry.”
“You also said you don’t take orders—”
“I was just kidding.” Ha ha.
He snickers, materializing. “He won’t hurt you, Emma.”
“He’s getting closer. Galen.”
“He’s curious about you.”
“You mean about how I taste?” And why isn’t Galen speeding us away yet? Lesson learned already!
“No.” He laughs. “Although, I’m dying to know that myself.”
I whirl on him. “That’s not funny. At least you can Blend. Get us away from him. Please.”
He shakes his head. “He won’t hurt us. He’s a Knobby. Humans call them sperm whales. They eat squid mostly. I’ve never heard of one attacking our kind. He’s just coming over here to investigate—I swear it.” With one hand, he turns me around in his arms. The gigantic fish is so close I can see his eyes, which are about the size of my whole head. “Talk to him,” Galen whispers.
I gasp. “Have you lost your mind?” The trembling in my voice matches the trembling of my body. Galen’s nose nudging my neck calms me—a little.
“Emma, talk sweet to him. Tell him we won’t hurt him.”
We won’t hurt him? “You tell him. You’re the fish.”
“Emma, he understands you. He doesn’t understand me.”
“Galen, let’s go. Please. I’ll do anything you want. I’ll never step foot in the water again without your permission. Ever.”
He turns me around again and lifts my chin with his thumb. “Listen to me, Emma. I would never let anything happen to you. I’m trying to show you how special you are. But I need you to calm down.”
He grabs my face, doesn’t let me turn away. Locking eyes with me, he strokes my hair. Brushes his fingers against my cheek. Presses his forehead against mine. After about
a minute, I do calm down. He smiles. “You stopped shaking.”
I nod.
“Are you ready to turn around?”
My gulp is involuntary. “Is he close?”
Galen nods. “He’s right behind you. Emma, if he wanted to eat you, he would have done it already. You’re only afraid of him because he’s so big. Once you get past that, it’s like talking to a goldfish.” I don’t get a chance to mull over the comparison because he whirls me around so fast, it startles both me and Goliath. “Talk to him, Emma.”
“What do I say to a whale, Galen?” I hiss.
“Tell him to come closer.”
“No way.”
“Fine. Tell him to back up.”
I nod. “Right. Okay.” I lace my fingers together to keep from wringing my hands raw. Even more than terror, I feel the insanity of the situation. I’m about to ask a fish the size of my house to make a U-turn. Because Galen, the man-fish behind me, doesn’t speak humpback. “Uh, can you please back away from me?” I say. I sound polite, like I’m asking him to buy some Girl Scout cookies.
I feel better in the few moments afterward because Goliath doesn’t move. It proves Galen doesn’t know what he’s talking about. It proves this whale can’t understand me, that I’m not some Snow White of the ocean. Except that, Goliath does start to turn away.
I look back at Galen. “That’s just a coincidence.”
Galen sighs. “You’re right. He probably mistook us for a relative or something. Tell him to do something else, Emma.”
“Galen, can’t we just—”
“Tell him.”
Goliath has put some distance between us. Now he only looks as big as a single school bus instead of three. The little movement it takes his enormous tail to fan him away reminds me of a flag swaying lazily in a gentle breeze. “Wait,” I call out. “Come back. You don’t have to leave.”
When that whale stops, when he turns around, when he lumbers toward us again, the doubt leaves my body like water from a busted hydrant. Goliath comes so close that if he opens his mouth we’ll be sucked in. He’s ugly. His giant noggin makes him look like a bobble head. And he forgot to floss; there’s a squid tentacle the size of my arm flapping out the side of his mouth. Hopefully it’s not still alive.
But I’m not afraid anymore. Galen is right. If Goliath wanted to eat us, he would have done it already. Those huge eyes seem gentle, not like the feral emptiness I expected to find. Not like the blank, mechanical stare of a shark.
“Talk to him,” Galen murmurs again, tightening his hold on my waist.
I do more than that. Galen lets me ease from his arms but holds my wrist for safekeeping. With my free hand, I reach out and touch Goliath’s nose—or at least, the vicinity of his nose. “I was afraid of you, because I thought you would eat us,” I tell him. “But you won’t eat us, will you?”
While I’m not expecting Goliath to start speaking with a French accent or anything, a small part of me expects him to communicate back to me somehow. Still, the way he shifts quietly with the current speaks decibels. He’s not tense or still, like a cobra ready to strike out. He’s calm, curious, serene.
“Listen. If you can understand what I’m saying, I want you to swim away in that direction,” I say, pointing to my right, “and then come back here.” Goliath does exactly what I tell him to. Nofreakingway.
My new friend follows us to the surface when my lungs get tight. On the way, Galen points to different fish to see if they all understand. As we pass, I call out my instructions. “Swim that way, swim in a circle. You swim fast, you swim slow, you swim straight down.” They all obey.
By the time I—and Goliath—refuel on oxygen, enough fish surround us to fill a swimming pool from top to bottom. Some jump out of the water. Some nibble at my toes. Some swim through my legs or between me and Galen.
They follow us until we reach shore. There are so many fish flitting in the shallow water that the surface looks like it’s getting pelted with rain. We sit on the beach and watch them play. When the seagulls start to take notice though, self-preservation wins over curiosity, and my fan club dwindles.
“So,” I say, turning to Galen.
“So,” he returns.
“You said I’m special. How special am I?”
He takes in a breath and lets it out slowly. “Very.”
“How long have you known I’m a fish whisperer?” He doesn’t get my joke. But at least he understands what I’m asking.
“Remember when I told you Dr. Milligan saw you at the Gulfarium?”
I nod. “You said he recognized my eye color and thought I might be one of you.”
Galen rubs his neck, won’t look me in the eyes. “That’s pretty much true. Your eye color was significant. Especially since Syrena aren’t supposed to be consorting with humans.” He grins. “But he really got excited about the way you interacted with the animals there. He said you bonded with them. All of them.”
I gasp. Not just my imagination then. Not a fluke. I’d convinced myself the animals were trained to be friendly to visitors. But didn’t I notice they weren’t friendly to everyone? Didn’t I notice they seemed to single me out, pay me exclusive attention? Yes, I noticed. I just didn’t acknowledge that it meant anything. Why would I? What does it mean? And why didn’t Galen tell me this before? “You kept it from me. Why? Does Toraf know? And Rayna? And how can I talk to fish, Galen? Especially when you can’t? And if Dr. Milligan saw me doing it at the Gulfarium, then I could do it before I hit my head. What does that mean? What does any of it mean?”
He chuckles. “Which question do you want me to answer first?”
“Why did you keep it from me?”
“Because I wanted to let you adjust to the fact that you’re not human. You have to admit, it would be a lot to try to absorb all at one time.”
I nibble on that for a minute. I detect some BS in there somewhere, but what can I say to that? He’s right, even if he is lying. I nod. “I guess that makes sense. So what about Toraf and Rayna. Do they know?”
“Toraf does. Rayna doesn’t. And by the way, if you want everyone to know your personal business, just tell Rayna.”
“Why don’t you want her to tell other Syrena about me?”
“Because what you have is a gift of the Generals. The Gift of Poseidon. So technically, you’re my enemy.”
I nod without understanding. “Yeah. No.”
He laughs. “When the generals made their peace agreement all those millennia ago, they made provisions for the Syrena in the form of certain gifts that would ensure their survival. Each house has a different gift. Yours shows that you’re of the house of Poseidon.”
“Is that why you make me get out of the water when you sense someone close? Because you could get in trouble for hanging out with me?”
He nods, thoughtful. “You could get into trouble, too. Don’t forget, your house sits on the shore of Triton territory.”
So we’re enemies. The battle in his mind isn’t between good and evil. It’s between the house of Triton and the house of Poseidon. Which I couldn’t possibly care about. But I can’t change who I am and neither can he. If he won’t kiss me because I’m of the Poseidon house, do I really want him to anyway? Yep, yep, I do.
Since I’ve inched myself to the verge of blushing with thoughts of kissing Galen, I decide on more neutral questions to keep the heat at bay. “But how does talking to fish ensure our survival?” Did I just say “our”?
Galen clears his throat. “Well … whoever has the Gift of Poseidon can ensure that we always have something to eat.”
Swallowing the instant bile, I shake my head. “You’re saying that I can talk to fish … to kill them … and eat them.…”
Galen nods. “I mean, you might not have to ever use your gift for that. Right now, we’ve got plenty to eat. But I think the generals must have anticipated the humans overstepping their boundaries and invading the waters. I think eventually, maybe as soon as decades from now, we’ll n
eed the Gift of Poseidon in order to feed ourselves.”
I hope I don’t look as sick as I feel. “The generals couldn’t have picked a worse candidate for that Gift!” Holding my stomach doesn’t stop it from churning. I can’t imagine befriending Goliath and then leading him to the Syrena to be eaten. But I also can’t imagine letting Galen or Toraf starve. Probably not Rayna either. It’s time to introduce my new friends to the world of pizza.…
“The generals are dead, Emma. They didn’t pick you. It’s a gift passed through bloodlines. Dr. Milligan calls it genetics.”
Genetics means that my parents really aren’t my parents. I know Galen has thought this all along, but I still can’t accept it. I also can’t completely shun the possibility either. Especially after I just conducted a symphony of fish. How would I even start that conversation with my mom? “So, Galen thinks you’ve been lying to me for the past eighteen years.” Even if I didn’t say it directly, that’s what it amounts to. And when she asks where I’d get an idea like that? “Well, I recently discovered I can hold my breath for almost two hours and tell fish what to do. I couldn’t help but notice that you can’t.” Yeah, not happening. There’s got to be some other way.… “Hey!” I almost shout, startling Galen. “Isn’t that Rachel’s specialty? Finding out stuff ? She could investigate where I came from.”
“She’s already done that.”
“What do you mean? She did a background check or something? I’m talking about digging deep—”
“Your birth certificate says you were born in a hospital. Both your parents signed it, and so did the attending physician. He happens to be a college professor now who teaches aspiring doctors how to birth humans. Rachel also found a picture in a newspaper of your father and mother celebrating an award he received. Your mother was pregnant in the picture. From the date of the article, it looked reasonable to assume she carried you in her womb.”
My mouth hangs open but no words come out. Galen doesn’t notice. He says, “Your school records showed attendance since kindergarten to present, and your address never changed. Your medical records can pass as human, though you’ve never had the chicken pox. You broke your arm when you were four years old, you’ve never had surgery, and all your immunizations are up to date—”
