by Naomi Fraser
A stark silence falls, but the ocean outside whispers in a soft hush against the rocks.
“My daughter lifted objects from the human world and brought them back to sell. I’d been injured and couldn’t work,” Joey breaks in and looks down at the table. “They were starving. Human possessions go for a high price. I took her punishment, rather than have her leave home. What use am I in the sea anyway?” His hands slip from the table to grip the handles of his wheelchair. “At least she’s with family.”
“And you’re here. He did it,” Ralph says with a huge grin. “I never thought I’d see the day.”
By this time, my tail is tight and dry, and pain sharpens my irritation. “You mean how Lakyn saved me?”
“Can’t guess?” A slick note enters Ralph’s voice. “How did he swim back?”
Lakyn’s gorgeous face filters in my mind. The wavy motion of his hand, him dictating to me. The speed of his stroke. He’s so elegant and natural in the water. The sound of my heartbeat echoes loudly in my ears. “He held my hand.”
“Uh-huh,” Ralph says. “Lakyn wasn’t here two months ago.”
My hands shake, then my arms, but I still my jaw long enough to ask. “At this hostel?”
“No, not just at this hostel.” Ralph’s direct look makes acid churn in my gut. “It’s more than that. How did he swim?”
I glance at my hands. Perfectly. “He showed me how . . . he knew . . . I was going sideways because of the cord, and he knew.” I lift my gaze to Ralph’s face, understanding. “He’s a—he’s a—”
“Merman,” Ralph finishes, his knuckles white on the table, lights shining in his brown eyes. “That’s it.”
“But he has legs,” I whisper.
“So do you. He couldn’t let you die that night you heard the sirens’ song and went over the cliff. Not after sirens killed his family. The way he tells it, he was there for a minute or two, collecting jewels. Then he heard their song. It’s illegal for sirens to be here, you know, just as much as it is for finfolk to change humans.”
Tears sting my eyes. The incoming tide tastes of grief. “What happened?”
“Listen, they kicked him out for what he did. Worst mistake they ever made in my opinion. He’s one of the king’s guard, youngest to be admitted. Not surprising, since he’s the king’s nephew and the fastest swimmer on the squad. They needed him on all the patrol runs, but the king has to show he’s following protocol or the council will cause more trouble. The boy’s the first one to ever escape the sirens. They didn’t like that.”
“Sirens took his family—”
“That’s the crux of it, isn’t it?” Ralph’s brief smile is grim. “He stopped them from stealing souls so they went after him, but underestimated his speed. He’s immune to their call.” Ralph clicks his fingers. “The boy has royal blood. He escaped but they went after his sister, mother and father.” Silence falls once again. “We’ve all lost somebody here. He’s got no family left, ‘cept the king. Though a fat lot of good that’s done him.”
The light scuff of Lakyn coming down the stairs snaps my head up. He wears blue jeans and a clean, white, polo shirt that contrasts with his deep tan. His damp hair looks as though he’s raked his fingers through the strands. He stops, barefoot, with a pile of folded clothes in his hands and stares at my face, his brows lowering. “Are you OK? Are you starting to change back—you’re in pain?”
I lift my shaking hands to mouth, trying to contain the distress in my voice. “You were there at the cliff the night I leapt off, weren’t you? And you’ve known all along . . .” I hiccup. “What I would turn into. You’re a merman.”
He shoots a frown at Ralph and then stalks toward me. My heart almost leaps at Lakyn’s closeness.
“Not anymore. I’ve lost my tail.” His jaw works and a tic beats above his right eyebrow. “I couldn’t let them take you, Ellie.” Steely resolve echoes in his tone. He grabs my hand, caressing each finger as though trying to rub the warmth back into my skin. “They’re not supposed to be here. I don’t know how they did it without anyone else knowing, but I will find out. I promise you.”
Ralph lights up another cigarette. “Without proof, the council condemns you.”
Lakyn shrugs. “I don’t care about the council. I couldn’t let you die because of the sirens. They lured you out into the water. I know you’re frightened, but everything’s going to be OK.”
“I’m not afraid.” I sniffle. “Well, not exactly.”
“You’d be crazy if you weren’t. Yours is the first successful transformation in a long time,” Ralph says, rubbing his chin as he turns to Lakyn. “When will she get her legs back? What do the books say about that?”
“Dr. Farrow says documentation doesn’t exist about this type of thing. More tactics by the council, I guess. We’ll have to wait and see. Legends speak of transformation, but the information is suppressed. There is one—”
“Dr. Farrow? As in the psych I see at the hospital? She’s a mermaid, too?” How deep do these lies go? “How did that happen?”
“She agreed to temporarily lose her fins to watch you. You haven’t noticed anything different about her?” Lakyn’s brow creases. “She’s been listing all your changes for the records. But don’t worry; she’s not dangerous to you. If anything, she could be an ally,” he murmurs. “However, I wouldn’t mention the tail to her yet.”
“I have noticed odd things,” I concede. “She recommended an asthma puffer for me. I already had one. Bethany said she found it in her school bag.”
“Ah . . . that would’ve been from me.” Lakyn nods at my open-mouthed expression. “I couldn’t be sure what would happen, but I noticed you had trouble breathing. I put it in your friend’s bag, hoping she’d give it to you. No one knew whether you would get a tail or not. Dr. Farrow and I were concerned about your lungs.”
“You’ve been in cahoots with her all along?” I stare up at him. “You changed me into a mermaid? Something you read about being a legend? What if I didn’t change or died? Plus, how did you do it?”
“Here we go.” Ralph laughs.
“Right before you were about to die from the fall, I breathed into you.” Lakyn leans one hand on the table. “I breathed finfolk after the last beat of your heart, so your final breath would be followed by a merman’s kiss.” His arms shake. “I was hoping it would work. Legends state the method forces transformation, but it was . . .” He lifts his hand and clenches it into a fist. “I pushed you up on the sand, safe, and then went after the sirens, but they’d already fled. I was prepared for them, never left home without weapons. But I couldn’t get up on land to see if you lived.”
A sharp pain rips across my scales, and I grimace. “That’s where tourists found me. On the sand.”
“You’re in pain?” Lakyn crouches and removes the towels. He smooths his hand over the tight, dry diamond matrix. I suck in a breath at the caress of his hand, his gentleness, while pin-pricks explode all over my skin. “There is something else I read in my uncle’s library. I want you to try to get up and walk.”
“Are you crazy?” I frown. “That’s asking me to fall flat on my face.”
“Trust me. I turned you, didn’t I?” Lakyn looks to Ralph. “Can you grab a blanket?”
I sigh, shake my head and grasp the edge of the table. I lower my tail fin onto the floor, holding most of my weight on my arms. The table shakes. “It’s too heavy. I’m too heavy.”
“Put one foot forward as if you were about to walk.”
I give him an incredulous look, but shift one leg, almost as if to prove to him it won’t work. My tail is too tight and holds me in, though my muscles press against the scaly matrix in an obvious delineation. I huff out a breath and swipe at my hair.
“That’s right.” Lakyn’s hands come under my arms to hold me upright. “You’re walking now. A human. Remember.”
“Yes.” There’s a photograph Bethany took of me in my favourite skirt. It’s black, short and showcases my legs. I’m w
earing my black Vans. Walking through the shops. A sudden shaft of pain shoots up the back of my right leg. “Ahh, no.” I collapse into Lakyn’s arms and he holds me steady, his cheek nestling against mine.
“Got you. And the next leg, Ellie. Walk.” The order rumbles in my ear.
I struggle to move, but push the next foot forward. Bones shift within me in an ugly crack. Skin stretches across my lower body and the pain has a scream bursting from my throat. I arch back. The light bulbs’ glow blurs in my gaze. Gold is everywhere just like when the siren had me. Hands reach and grip me from out of nowhere.
Skin lifts and then folds down again. Clutching Lakyn’s arms, I cry out as bones push back into my toes. My tail fin retracts through the folds of my feet. Tears flow down my cheeks.
“Let it happen, Ellie,” Lakyn murmurs, his breath hot in my ear. “Let go, you can walk. Another foot in front of that one. Do it now.”
I comply, and my cries turn into an unending wail of agony. Heat flares in my body. Hatches lift open again, tiny pores letting in cold air. There’s a popping sound, but it’s more than a noise. It’s physical. My skin releases the hold my legs have on each other. My knees buckle beneath me, but something braces my body. Lakyn, Ralph, Owen, Patrick and Steven look down into my face. Someone wraps a blanket around my waist and ties a knot at the side.
“She’s—”
The world fades to white.
≈≈≈
MY BODY JERKS, and I grimace at the sharp stench in my nose.
“That’s it, Ellie. Come back to us.” Ralph’s voice is gruff.
“I never would have believed it if I hadn’t seen her change myself.” Owen’s figure is a blur to my right, but his voice is low. “Didn’t look too pleasant, either. Poor girl.”
The sharp reek fills my nose again, and I gag, then turn away. “Enough.” I blink, but my vision is slow to clear. “What happened?”
“You fainted from the pain.” Lakyn’s deep voice calms my shot nerves. “I can’t tell you how sorry I am about that.”
Gentle hands lift me up into a sitting position, and I discover I’m resting on a sofa in another room with a blanket over my body. Ralph hands me a glass of water. I reach for it gratefully and gulp the fluid, then wipe my mouth with the back of my hand. Awareness fills me, and I shift my legs and point my toes. “My legs. They’re back.” A sigh rushes out of my mouth. I hold down the edges of the blanket and cast a wary eye around me, uncomfortable with the idea of being half naked beneath the covering.
“You have some injuries. Now you’re awake, I’ll take you up to the bathroom and get them fixed up.” The other men exit the room, and Lakyn tucks the blanket in tightly around my waist, gathers me close and then carries me up a flight of stairs. “You can get changed there, too.”
The slow rocking motion gradually brings me fully awake. “Injuries?”
He sets me on the counter in the bathroom, and in the bright overhead light, all is revealed. Dried blood mars my ankle. I reach out to touch, and gasp, quickly drawing back my hand.
Lakyn gives me a hard look. “Don’t touch it. I’ll fix you up.”
I bite my lip and shift the blanket over my body, trying to hide any bare expanse of pale skin.
“Leave it.” Lakyn nears with a cotton wad, wet with disinfectant. The heat of his body warms me. His scent makes me want to reach out and slide my hands over his stomach. Bending over, he dabs the cotton to the bloodied cuts. “They dragged you down the rocks.”
I nod, holding my breath against the stinging.
A low growl escapes his chest. “It looks like you fought every inch of the way.”
“I did. Until I couldn’t even move my arms. I eventually kicked up like you showed me.”
He suddenly stops what he’s doing, scrubs the back of his hand against his forehead and curses. “They won’t ever get you, Ellie. You’ll get better at fighting them off. You nearly did it all by yourself.”
“Gregor Bane didn’t kill those boys, did he? It was the sirens who took them. That means everyone is still in danger.”
He leans down and gently blows on my knee to dry the skin. Tingles shoot up my back and cascade down my spine in a chaotic mess. My breathing turns erratic and I melt a little on the bench.
“You lost your fins because you saved me,” I continue, trembling on the counter. His hair shines in the overhead light, all creamy brown and blonde. “Why did you do that when you knew you’d be punished by the council?”
He stares up at me, his blue eyes luminescent. “I didn’t think about it. I was watching you. I heard your scream, their song . . .” He wets another wad of cotton and gently cleans out more open cuts on my ankle. “Next thing, I’m pulling you up. Breathing into you.” He hesitates. “The only way I could make sure you lived was to turn you into a mermaid. You would’ve died as a human. The impact of the fall and the drowning killed you.”
26
I TREMBLE AND glance at Lakyn’s deft fingers as he smooths a Band-Aid over a graze on my knee. I wait for the light press of his thumbs without the barrier of a bandage between us. “Ralph said you lost everything.”
Lakyn grasps my calf to wipe an antiseptic cotton ball over another cut.
His touch is everything I dreamed it would be. I sigh, sink a little onto the bench and grip the edge of the basin with shaking hands. Need burns within me, plus a sense of gratitude I have no hope of ever expressing—but maybe he understands.
“Thank you for saving me.” My voice echoes softly in the bathroom. “It’s the second time you’ve rescued me.” I tilt my head so white curls curtain one side of my face, and I can meet his searching gaze. “I’m grateful, but you lost your home in the process. That’s just cruel.”
He bends over a little, never taking his eyes from mine and then he blows on the cut to dry the antiseptic again. I shiver as his warm breath washes over my skin. He smooths the last Band-Aid over another stinging cut, pauses, and his eyes gleam like the deepest rock pools.
“You know what I’ve heard humans say?”
“No,” I croak. “What?” I try to ignore the excitement skittering along my spine.
He straightens, his hands alongside mine. I yearn to pull him closer, but he grips the bench on either side of my body and leans his face close enough to kiss. “Home is where the heart is, Ellie.”
I stare into his luminescent gaze, and will him to come closer, near enough for me to taste his perfectly shaped lips. “What does that mean? Your heart is back there, under the sea, at your home?”
He grins and looks down with a shake of his head. “Not exactly. It’s right here with me. Obviously.”
I frown. “Then what—”
“Don’t worry about it. You have things here I’ve never seen before. Technology has gone in a completely different direction. I’ve always wanted to see what it was like on land. I’ve been here less than a month and it’s an experience.”
“But not at the expense of your home and your fins.”
“Don’t think that. I can see guilt in your eyes, but it’s not your fault,” he continues in a whisper, as though it’s a great conspiracy. “The sirens do what they’ve always done for centuries. There are restrictions is place, but someone has relaxed them. For a while, I thought it was my uncle. Now, I’m not so sure.” Lakyn’s brow furrows. “That’s what worries me—not losing my fins from the perceived sin of going against what underwater society says I shouldn’t have done, or being on land, nor being here with you. The sirens worry me. They won’t stop if they’re not forced.”
He brushes my fingers with his hand, gathers me close, and my heart tells me I’m hugging the sun. The one. He gently lifts me from the bench and sets me on the ground, tucking a stray lock behind my ear. “In fact . . .”
“Yes?” My knees threaten to buckle again.
He sighs. “No matter what punishment the council decided to give me, I refuse to be dictated to by others’ opinions. Have you ever been told not to do something you
knew was right? So right you didn’t have to think about it?”
“Yes.” My feet look pale and grey. Not good. “I wanted to go into the water at the butterfly breeders, but you told me not to.”
He laughs. “Still angry over that? You felt the call of the sea,” he says, his voice rumbling in my hair. “I felt the call of my heart and soul. We are not so different, Ellie. If losing my fins is a part of saving you, then I don’t care. I’d rather you were alive. I stopped you from going into the sea not because you’d change, but because others might see you and the longer you spend in the water as a mermaid, the more you shift into that reality.”
I frown up at him and rub my eyes tiredly. “Meaning?”
“It’s harder to come home,” he mutters, grasping my upper arms and then absentmindedly rubbing his fingers over my back in swirly patterns. “I don’t want to bombard you. I’d also rather have weapons on me when you go into the water.”
Air struggles in my throat, and I smile. “You said you were watching me. Why?”
His face closes and he steps away to wash his hands in the sink. “I can’t tell you that now.”
A heartbeat of silence, then, “Why? Why can’t you talk to me? I just need to know the truth.”
He beautiful smirk lines his lips. “You wouldn’t believe it. And there will be things I can’t answer yet. I put the clothes in my bedroom across the hallway. I’ll be waiting downstairs.” He turns to me with a carefully controlled expression, though his eyes are a deep, dark blue. “Take your time.”
I swallow and nod. “All right.” A slow smile trembles over my lips. I’m unable to keep up with his shifting expressions that hint at his mood, or the blocks he throws up at questions he’d prefer not to answer.
He leaves silently.
I turn back to the sink with a sigh, staring at my reflection in the mirror, not exactly sure of what I’m seeing. Pale grey eyes, tangled white curls, a girl who should look washed out, drawn and miserable. A fish. Instead, my cheeks are rosebud pink, my grey irises glitter, and I see something else. In the whites of my eyes, there’s an unrelenting steadiness. Determination. A strength I never knew I had inside me.
