by Naomi Fraser
I nod and hug him close. We stand there, both of us enclosed in misery.
“Number eighteen.”
I turn at the call, and murmur, “My order’s ready. Come up and sit with me. We’ll talk.”
He releases me shakily. I grip his hand and look up at him. “It’s OK,” I say. “We’ll get through this together.”
His body stiffens, and something haunted and lost moves beneath his dull gaze while he stares at me. He peers up to the sky and then I hear him whisper, “That’s the problem. I can’t lose you, too.”
We reach the steps up to the cafeteria, and I tug him toward my table. His body is so unresponsive. “Wait here for a sec.” I dash to the counter and get my sandwiches and ask for an extra small plate. When I get back to the table, I divide the sandwiches between us. “Eat up,” I say. “Before it gets cold.”
He stares at the food as though he’s never seen bread before.
“Not hungry?”
“Starving,” he admits. “I just . . . feel dead inside.”
I rest my hand over his on the table. “The food doesn’t matter. Take your time.” His skin is all clammy, and a deep sadness dulls his eyes. A grey pallor overtakes his glorious tan. Greasy strands of hair hang down his face.
“Do you want to talk about it?”
He hesitates, picks up a sandwich and takes a bite. He chews and swallows as if the food is a brick and then says, “He warned me.”
“Ralph? About the sirens?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. He came to visit me yesterday morning.” I know I shouldn’t tell Lakyn about the books. I told Ralph I wouldn’t, but I can’t help myself. “He dropped off a present and said he was going fishing.”
Lakyn chokes up and looks at his hands. He doesn’t ask what type of present. “He needed to fill a few orders for restaurants.”
My phone rings and I answer. “Hey, Mum.” I look up at Lakyn. “Sure, I’ll be ready in five minutes? OK.” I end the call and venture, “I’ve gotta meet Mum out the front. Do you want a ride home? I can ask her to—”
“No.” He leans onto the table as though he’s having trouble breathing.
I blink at him, concerned. “I don’t like leaving you alone here. Do you have to fill in paperwork or something?”
“No.” The word drops like a stone. “I’m not fit to be around anyone right now.”
Silence hangs between us, and I want to say he’s been just fine with me. Instead I ask, “Do you have enough money to get home?”
No response.
“Lakyn?”
He looks up, nods and then surges to his feet. The table shifts forward at the motion. His face shows no expression. “I’ll talk to you later at school.” Then he turns around and stalks away, heading back along the path through the interconnecting door and into the hospital.
I sit there in stunned silence. He’s taken one bite of the sandwich. One mouthful of food in two days, I’ll bet. A cloud hovers over the cafeteria and the air turns cool and dark. From what I’ve read in the Guardian Training Manual, his demeanour contrasts to the cold, killing mentality finfolk must attain to be an effective guardian. He made it into guardian training at such an early age, too.
It’s strange how we handle the challenge of death. How it changes us. As I rise to meet Mum at the hospital entrance, I consider what happened to me after my father died and who I am becoming.
34
A HEAVY GYM session for Mum gets me a few hours of peace. She slumps onto the sofa; sweaty and thirsty. Exhaustion lines her face. Her triple-layers of singlet, crop top and sports bar must cinch worse than a strait jacket.
A tendril of jealousy snakes around my heart. She looks deliciously numb. Spent. The sudden urge fills me to break free and go for a run. Her favourite show blasts an annoying jingle on TV. I roll my eyes and head along the hall to my bedroom. I can tell tonight will be a help-yourself-to-dinner kind of deal—which means I’m not eating. Not that I care.
With a full day at work, then a heavy gym class, Mum deserves a break. Anyway, after my toasted sandwiches at the hospital cafeteria, I’m full. I finished off the sandwich Lakyn left behind. Blame it on my inbuilt dislike of wasting money. I jump into the shower, and then towel dry my hair ready for straightening tomorrow and quietly shut my bedroom door behind me.
Though, I don’t need to be so secretive. Mum isn’t likely to burst into my room when she’s so tired.
I have a chance to continue my investigation into finfolk culture, and excitement ripples in my veins, but the information inside the books has made for heavy reading since yesterday. The information is dense. I sit on my comfy desk chair and study each word. Some have different meanings than what I’m familiar with, and I try to form the message from the whole sentence, then paragraph and correlate it with the sub-heading.
Lakyn’s scribbles dominate the corners of the pages in all sorts of styles. Some boast strange dates and mysterious lines, which I gather are meant to emphasise something—I just can’t figure out what.
He’s circled text and written other words in capitals, plus what looks like a to-do list at the top of the page. Words appear that I’ve never seen before, which must be something to do with finfolk dialect.
Wait—I recognise one word—but it’s from the list of affirmations Dr. Farrow insisted I use. I flip open the sheet of paper she gave me, and the same word is written in the Norn statements. Since I have no idea what it means, it probably won’t help much. I turn on my laptop and then type the word into an Internet search engine. A few hits come up, but mostly they describe how Norn is the language of the Orkney Islands at the edge of the North Sea and Atlantic Ocean.
He’s drawn arrows, circling the start of words, and I grab a pen to group the notes into categories. Family member names—Dad, Mum and Sister are recorded, plus others as well. How does his family relate to my transformation?
The king is listed. Strange. I write down the names and figure out what the chicken scratch word at the top of the page, ‘hurt’ means. The word after that is ‘wake up’, ‘risky’, and then ‘belonging’.
Can it be the general idea of how the process to human or mermaid happens? I raise my eyebrows at the ‘hurt’. That’s dead on, at least.
One date seems to connect to a capitalised term for someone. Then the word ‘move’ and another date. I can’t help feeling a little overwhelmed as I flick through the chapters. A flow chart covers the bottom half of a page after the text ends.
Transform amphibious–>Naptunus–>Lana–>Sorcerer–>undersea, human–>separate–>strength through magic–>Finman, Finwife—>exploits of magicians.
Then at the start of the next page before the heading is one word.
Cursed.
I blink, thinking through what he can mean.
Someone has strength through magic, but they’re cursed? Well, the strongest is the king, Lakyn’s uncle. He might be a part of the original sorcerer’s family, and maybe that’s why Lakyn could perform the transformation on me?
I groan and rub my forehead, resting my elbow on the desk. If the word cursed is what Lakyn means, his family could have been cursed by a sorcerer. But why would a sorcerer curse his own family? I type in ‘finfolk and magic’ into the search engine on my computer.
Again Orkney Folklore and finfolk appear as hits, describing sorcerous shape shifters making journeys across oceans to abduct humans. I know about the abductions, but the mention of magic makes me hesitate. I glance at the page open in front of me and blow out a breath. Deciding to narrow all my searches into the transformation aspect, I flip through the pages of the book again and try not to get caught up on the why, but focus on the how.
I plug my headphones into my computer and then let everything else go to the back of my brain as I listen and read. Finally, I rewrite the text from Finfolk Lore & Transformations on a word processing document on my computer and then add in Lakyn’s notes where I think they fit.
What I’m left with after an
hour of intense study and concentration is a disjointed text with steps to turn a human into finfolk. There are things on the list I would never have dreamed of: vibration, supernatural words like dimensions and alternate realities. The word ‘love’ features prominently in the text, but Lakyn’s written only one note relating to this: Too many have died.
Does he mean love is not likely to be the key in transformations or something else? Ralph loved his wife—and she died. A nagging feeling digs into my chest, an idea so elusive it skates at the edge of my consciousness.
Lakyn has known this; he’s figured it out after a thousand years by the dates on the pages. I sit back and consider how smart he must be to do that. Brilliant, really. My mind goes through all the times I’ve met with him, how he’s talked to me, the way he infiltrates barriers and hides who he is with others. I’ve never needed to be told he’s more than he appears. Now, even that seems to be a drastic understatement.
I’ve underestimated someone before and been caught out, but never like this. His cleverness makes perfect sense. He’s the first to achieve change by transforming a human being into a mermaid in one thousand years. Everyone thinks I’m the reason—that the magic works because of me.
It’s because of him. The reasons in the pages spell this out after some decoding. I just have to figure out exactly how he did it. Then I can help him return home and stop the sirens from killing people.
I should feel guilty about working behind his back, and in a way I do. But I refuse to accept the possibility he can never return home, that he’s stuck here without hope or fins because of me. Under the sea is where he comes from, where his family originates, and that world belongs to him just as much as this one belongs to me.
I save the document on my computer, exit out and then shut it down. Sliding my arms into my warm hoodie, I wonder if Mum will let me go for a quick walk to clear my thoughts. My head feels too full. Nowhere near the water, but along the road.
She’s talking on the phone while lying on the sofa, so I wait until she’s finished her conversation before I ask, “Can I go for a quick walk? I’ve got a lot on my mind and want to do some exercise.”
She nods, but frowns. “Sure. Are you all right, El?”
“Yes. Why wouldn’t I be?” I shift and push up the sleeves of my hoodie, then tighten my ponytail.
Silence falls between us, and she shrugs. “No reason. How long are you planning to be?”
“Thirty minutes or so.”
She checks her watch. “All right. It’s getting late, though. Take your phone with you and let me know when you’re coming back.”
I tilt my head and look at her out the side of my eyes. She doesn’t normally request I call her on the way back. I can understand if the phone call is a cautionary measure against me getting into trouble.
She sits up, leans back into the sofa and props her feet onto a footstool. “Just so I know you’re safe,” she explains at my quizzical expression.
“OK,” I promise. “I won’t be long. I need some air. Be back soon.”
“Take your time. Enjoy the walk.”
I hesitate on the stairs. My mum just gave me free rein to take as long as I like when there are people dying near the sea. Of course, she believes they’ve caught the killer. I blink and shake my head. The heat outside the house is stifling and sticky. No breeze floats in from the waves I can hear crashing against the rocks.
The green field next to my house stretches toward the cliff, and the sky is a cloudless blue. I start out with a brisk walk, then jog, noting with idle curiosity all the different houses, gardens and cars. My body reverberates with a thump, thump, thump. Legs, this is what it feels like to be free. There’s still plenty of daylight left, although it’s late afternoon. It’s summer and darkness doesn’t come till about seven o’clock at night.
I pass street after street, breathing in a steady rhythm. The sound of the road beneath my shoes infiltrates my mind and combines with the whistle of wind in my ears. The contraction and flex of my muscles.
A pain rips through my stomach, so I stop, panting and bend over, sweat running down my face and torso. I’m too unfit for this, but I need the distraction to clear my thoughts. I continue on with a brisk walk and try to thrust everything else out of my mind except for what Lakyn told me about Ralph’s death. His body washing up on the shore. Pain hits my heart again, and I break into a run. My shoes fly. Blood pumps in my ears and heat travels out from my core, suffusing my skin with warmth. Muscles strain in my arms and legs, but I only go faster, pushing through the approaching barrier.
Ralph, how did they get you?
A thought fills my mind. Him, looking toward the bay as he said he’d be catching something big. They were hunting him.
Terror saturates my skin at the idea he knew he was about to be taken and wanted to help Lakyn first. Plus all the others were watching out for me rather than Ralph. I slow to a stop, my lungs screaming for oxygen. The taste of vomit coats my tongue, and I forcibly stop myself from being sick. He gave me the books and then died that morning. I control the urge to rip off my hoodie; the thought makes me burn so badly.
I haven’t been paying close attention to the last houses I’ve run past, but I certainly notice when a dark shadow hovers over me. It’s only a cloud drifting near a cliff along the Manly foreshore. I keep running, evading speeding cyclists and other joggers.
The trees perch high on the cliff. Driveways wind up to houses that must have magnificent views of Moreton Bay. I doubt I can even walk up the driveways, they’re that steep. The pounding of my shoes centres my rhythm into a discernible beat. My breath matches and pain throbs in tandem. Breathe in, out. The wind is incredible this close to the harbour, assaulting in its ferocity. The burning ache in my chest grows with every step, but I let my mind drift.
Then the mangroves come into view, roots deep in the rotten-egg scented mud, deep green leaves shining like coins in the sunlight. I breathe shallow. Everything in my body protests at the lower oxygen level, so I slow, wiping my brow while in the shade of the smelly mangroves. The silence is creepy. Two more steps and I’ll be at the gate leading toward the hostel. I stop and stand there, uncertain, sweat streaming down my spine
I slip through the chain link fence, pull up my hood and make my way around to the back. I catch my breath at the sight of two police cars parked by the door and step toward the vehicles, but angry voices closer to the water make me quickly turn around to the rocks. I crouch behind the safety of the stones.
Uniformed police officers climb inside their cars and drive away.
Lakyn hunches at the water’s edge, his chin between his knees, hands around his feet. The closer I get, the more I realise he can’t hear me and I’m not trying to be quiet.
“Lakyn.”
He reacts like I’ve fired a gun next to his ear and shoots up to his feet, his back ramrod straight. He spins, perfectly balanced on the rocks that would send me tumbling down and breaking my neck in an instant.
“Ellie.” His nostrils flare, and the word is so icy, I’m afraid. “What are you doing here?”
“I . . . I’m . . .” Thinking I shouldn’t have bothered. “I just went for a run and ended up here. How are you coping? Do you need help?”
The blue wavers in his eyes, and the colour is so impossibly rich it eddies in a liquid pulse. He blinks and the fading light falls upon his cheeks. His lashes appear to be dipped in gold.
I stand there like an idiot, just staring at him. He’s so perfect.
His jaw firms and he leaps from the rocks onto the grass, then stalks toward me. He grabs my arm in a punishing grip.
My mouth does an imitation of a beached fish, opening and closing. “Ow. Lakyn, you’re hurting me.” I tug my arm away from him grasp. “What are you doing?”
“You need to leave,” he growls and jerks me back toward the gate. “Right now. They’re watching, Ellie. You need to leave.”
I struggle against his hold but can’t wrench free. �
�What is going on? What’s wrong?”
“You don’t get it do you?” He looms over me, blocking out any light that might’ve wanted to shine on me. I lean back a little from the fury in his face, but a darker hue sweeps across his eyes, and the flawlessness of his face makes me stare. His hair is skewed to one side, blonde-brown strands sticking up from the force of the wind at the water’s edge. He could’ve walked straight on to a photo shoot and made millions.
“Don’t get what?” I murmur, trying not to ogle him more than absolutely necessary. “That the police were here?”
“Everyone around me dies, Ellie. If you haven’t figured that out by now, you should. I’m dangerous. You look at me and see this boy with regular clothes, a normal personality, but you don’t want to get to know me. My parents died,” he chokes on the word, “my sister, others in my guardian squad and now Ralph.”
His laughter sounds so incredibly bitter, my heart aches for him. “But none of that’s your fault. Don’t blame yourself.”
He looks at me like he doubts my sanity. “It’s because of me you leapt off the cliff.”
“No,” I deny, certain now of how to counter his argument. How to calm him. “Sirens are to blame.”
He rubs either side of his eyes in exasperation. “The sirens tried to kill me because I was decimating their numbers. That’s my job as a finfolk guardian, plus I’m immune to their call. I heard you singing on one of my patrols. I stayed and watched enough times, thinking no one would know. Sirens followed me and took you. The same as they took my mother, father and sister.” He leans over, gripping my arms; though he’s trembling so hard I’m not sure how he stays on his feet. Not that he seems to notice—his eyes don’t release mine. “You died and were transformed because of me. You have to stay away. You need to get out of here.”
I stubbornly stand my ground. “You didn’t kill them. You can’t take the blame and you know it, so stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
“You think I can save you better than Ralph could?” He shakes his head. “Ralph was an old hand, he knew what he was doing out on the sea. They tore him apart. He washed up on shore shredded to bits. They’re coming for me and if you stand in the way, you’ll die, too. You’re not going to be here when they arrive.” He scoops me up in his arms and cradles me against his rock hard chest before depositing me outside the gates. He draws the chain through the loop and secures the lock.
