“NO! Let me alone! I did nothing wrong!” Two Ravenflames shoved Maryweather down the steps.
“Then you should have no problem passing my father’s test, should you?” said Kyle, his broad back facing me.
“I won’t go through it, I wont! Noooo!” Her screams changed to an otherworldly shrill, and her eyes disappeared inside her sockets. With one final piercing cry, Maryweather exploded into a large cloud of golden dust.
“Damn it!” screamed Kyle.
“What now, Kyle?” asked the smallest of the five Ravenflames.
“We return to the sea. I hate being on land—the smell of Normals is repulsive,” he said, roughly rubbing his nose. “At least the old hag is dead. One less problem to deal with.”
Once they were out of sight, I ran to the spot where Maryweather disappeared. The only thing left was her little charm bracelet, resting atop the ashes of its owner. “I’ll get this to your family, Maryweather. I promise.” I tucked the bracelet in the front pocket of my bag.
With hours to kill before Mom could pick me up, and the thought of going back to the library making me physically ill, I needed to find somewhere isolated to hang out. I didn’t have to look far. There, just a short walk ahead, stood a glorious cliff, the base of which housed a massive cave. Perfect.
I ran as fast as I could for the mouth of the cave, silently hoping Trey would be inside. Reaching its core looked a bit challenging. Two small slivers of slippery pebbles lined both sides of the cave, allowing the sea to quietly flow in and out. I wondered if my skin against the water was the only trigger for random sea monsters to come after me.
“So long as my feet are in socks and shoes, I should be all right.” Still, the idea of rows and rows of teeth barreling for me wasn’t exactly appealing. Best to keep out of the water altogether, says I (lame attempt at pirate talk).
Although, I could face another giant squid sting…Troy would have to rub his hands all over my stomach and…STOP! Shut up, you hormonal idiot! Seriously, finding a bright side to a squid sting after just witnessing a kind old woman die out of desperation was just plain sick! While arguing with my hormones, I somehow skirted along the side of the cave and safely reached dry land.
“Trey? It’s Marina. Are you here?” Nothing.
Though it seemed odd to think of a cave as breathtaking, this one was truly something special. Colorful sea flowers covered bright green, seaweed-like grass that carpeted the whole of the cave. The walls glowed blue, green, and purple from embedded pāua shells. I heard a melancholy tune from somewhere inside the cave. Strangely, it didn’t seem out of place. The lilac scents and soothing melody forced my mind to empty of all the negative junk. I felt far away from everything and everyone.
Taking a seat on the plush grass, I gazed at the sea. It was so beautiful, so still, and terrifyingly massive. Only now did I realize how very small humans were when faced with the sea, yet we think we’re in control of the world. Rubbish. The sea silently controlled our lives—it chooses to give us serenity and beauty, or destruction and death. The ocean has never been our home, but we continue to use it as if we have some invisible, unspoken right. I couldn’t help but wonder if some of the most horrific sea disasters were actually unavoidable accidents. What if, in an effort to man the sea, we forced it to act? Perhaps the tragedy of the Titanic was a warning…a warning we failed to recognize.
Meet Mom time. Reluctantly, I left the cave. With every intention on returning, I hurried back to the library to wait for my mom. Fifteen minutes later, she zoomed up.
“Hello, darling!” she sang out the window. “You look disheveled. Really, dear, you should try to take greater pride in your appearance.”
“Hi, Mom,” I said, eyeing her closely. She was acting…odd. “You okay?”
“Oh, yes, sweetie, just fine. Did you find anything useful?”
“You could say that.”
“Good. Now, I have news about Meikle.”
I hadn’t wanted to ask. After everything, I was afraid to hear about Meikle. “How is she, Mom?”
“She’s very sick, Marina. She’s in the hospital under quarantine. Doctors think she could be there for quite some time. Her mom has taken a room near the hospital.”
“Do they know what she has?” I asked.
“Not really. They think she may have had a combination of pneumonia and an allergic reaction.”
“An allergic reaction from what?” I asked.
“Still unknown.”
“Meikle said she had been eating candy earlier that day. Maybe she was allergic to it?” I suggested.
“Very possible. I’ll be sure to tell Mr. Anderson.”
“No! Not Mr. Anderson.” I didn’t mean to scream at her.
“Watch your tone, young lady. Do not disrespect Mr. Anderson. He knows everybody in this town. He knows who could best help Meikle,” she said.
“Sounds like he’s a regular aristocrat.”
“I will not tolerate this attitude. Mr. Anderson has been nothing but kind to us.”
“Yeah, and nothing spells kindness like an ulterior motive.”
Her face turned maroon. “I don’t want to hear another word out of your mouth.”
We drove the rest of the way home in silence. Once home, I stormed ahead, stomped to my room, and slammed the door. I have never seen my mom so angry with me…worse still, I have never seen her so defensive over Mr. Anderson.
I threw my bag down, yanked my sweater off, and ripped at my jewelry.
“Oh, no. No, no, no.”
I lost the necklace Troy gave me for Christmas. It must have fallen off in the cave somewhere. Heck, it probably washed out to sea by now. Shoot.
“What if…no, I couldn’t have,” I muttered, shaking off the passing thought that I may have lost the necklace in the private library room. “I couldn’t have because that would be very, very bad luck.”
Very bad luck.
Chapter Ten
The Cave & the Man
The cave has been my home for the last couple of weeks. I’ve returned every afternoon under the guise of researching in the library. I hated lying to my mom, but since we were hardly speaking, I thought it best to spend as little time around our cramped quarters as possible. My mom has always been my best friend, but lately she has been more like a stranger to me. She doesn’t even care about me walking alone to and from the library—before she grew closer to Mr. Anderson, she would never have allowed such a thing.
Without my mom to talk to, my mind felt a bazillion times fuller. Meikle was still in critical condition, with no new developments on what might have caused her allergic reaction, and Trey was still M.I.I. (missing in inaction). I honestly couldn’t feel more alone if I tried.
Friday afternoon. I was anxious to get to my cave. Yes, my cave, for I have claimed it. Truthfully, it was the only place where I felt mentally and physically peaceful. In town, and lately in my own house, I’m the outsider, the lone Normal with nacho cheese hair. When I’m in my cave, I’m not an outsider or an insider…I’m just me.
Having skillfully mastered gliding over the slippery path to my heavenly little perch, I headed inside, only to find someone sitting stiffly in my spot.
“What are you doing here?” I asked.
“Good to see you, too,” Troy said.
“Sorry, it’s just…well…what are you doing here?”
“Last I checked, this was a public cave,” he quipped.
No, it’s mine, fish prince. “Guess it is,” I said. “I discovered it the day you dropped me off at the library. It’s kind of my friend.”
“You talk about it like it’s alive,” he snorted.
“It is, in a way. It sings to me. Yeah, I know, I’m sounding nutty again.”
Troy didn’t smile or crack a joke. Instead, he frowned. “You can hear them?”
“Uh, sure. But, who is them?”
“Come sit with me, if it’s not offensive to you,” he said, dropping his eyes.
Offensive
was the last word I would use to describe sitting next to him. I couldn’t say that to him, of course. “It’s not offensive to me,” I muttered, taking a seat on the soft grass beside him.
“We call this cave The Serenading Soldier. It’s our belief that those who have fallen at sea—those we could not save—leave their souls for us to put to rest. Instead of burying their bodies under the ocean’s floor, we house their souls here, inside the pāua shells as a place of honor. It’s their song you hear,” he said, studying my face.
“How incredibly kind,” I whispered.
“What?”
“That you and the merps would do such a thing for mere Normals,” I said, glancing at the pāua shells.
“Not all merps participate. Wait, how did you know about merps? Only Merpeople call each other by that name,” he said, raising an eyebrow.
Working to keep the heat from rising to my cheeks, I simply replied, “You told me the night you saved me.” Please believe it…please believe it.
He eyed me for a minute. “I don’t remember ever saying that.”
Dang. “Well, you did.” If this keeps going, Santa can forget Rudolph—my cheeks will guide his sleigh.
“Hmm, maybe I did.”
Hurray! “So, why did you give me the horror-movie-face when I told you I could hear them?”
He thought for a moment. “Only those who helped saved them can hear their song.”
“Am I weird or something?” Wrong question. “Could you laugh any harder?”
He fell backward, grabbing his stomach. “Well, you like to sniff books, you’re afraid of school libraries because they make fun of you, you like to write poems about your butt, so…” For a few minutes we laughed—funny, how something so simple can be so freeing. “Seriously, though, why do you like it here so much?” he asked.
“It’s the only place I feel comfortable as myself.”
He nodded, smiled, and then took my hand, caressing it between his own. This time, I didn’t pull away.
“Your hands are soft,” he murmured.
“It’s just hand lotion,” I said, squirming around on the usually comfy grass. “You looked upset when I first got here. Even now, I can see something is bothering you.”
“You could tell that?”
“I’m pretty good at reading people. So, cough it up like a wad of phlegm.”
“Ever the eloquent speaker.”
“Don’t knock my slang. My grandmother used to say it. Now, up with it.”
“Have you ever wanted something so bad, you were willing to risk everything to get it?”
“My freedom from the institution. Why?”
He continued gently playing with the tips of my fingers. “Lately, I’ve been going against everything. I really shouldn’t talk about it with—”
“With a Normal,” I supplied.
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I know my place,” I said, shrugging my shoulders.
“It’s getting close to dinner time for you. Want a ride home?” he asked hopefully.
“Well, um, how-did-you-get-here-exactly?”
“Do you think I’d throw you on my back and take you for a swim?” he asked, laughing. “I drove, silly.”
Blushing, I agreed to leave with him. He helped me through the cave, obsessively watching my feet. “I won’t touch the water. I’m a water-skirting sand crab,” I teased.
“Yeah, but I’m the king crab,” he said, lifting me onto his shoulder as though I weighed no more than a sand dollar.
“Is this necessary?” I asked
“It’s the only way I know you won’t touch the water.”
“Control freak,” I whispered in his ear.
“Takes one to know one,” he said, carrying me all the way to his truck. Setting me down in the passenger seat, he asked, “Want to drive through town? I think you might want to see it.”
“Sure.”
After a few minutes, we reached the main street, which has been renamed Love Lane—the name change should have prepared me because, Dear Mother of God, I have entered hell. It looked like some freaking fat cupid ate one too many cream puffs and barfed pink, red, and white hearts, bows, arrows, doves, and all sorts of lovey-dovey crap all over the town.
“Nice, huh?” he said.
“Mmm.” No, it wasn’t nice. It was cruel and inhumane to those of us who were perpetually without a boyfriend. It’s a crap day, in a crap month, designed to feed crap to stupid girls. “Surprised they get started so early.”
“Valentine’s Day is even bigger than Christmas here,” he said, proudly pointing out various decorative feats.
Fabulous. So, we’ll just add Valentine-loving town to the growing list of things Saxet Shores was doing to make my life suck.
“Are there any holidays you don’t celebrate?”
“A few, like Independence Day. And we don’t acknowledge birthdays or anniversaries. It’s probably why we overcompensate during the bigger holidays.”
“Seriously?! No Fourth of July fireworks fun or birthday cakes and presents? And I can’t imagine the married mermaids are very happy getting zero, zilch, nada for their anniversary,” I said.
“Every year, someone from a nearby town fires off some pretty big fireworks on Independence Day, but other than that, we don’t partake. It’s not really something we can relate to, I guess. As for birthdays and anniversaries, they’ve never been a part of our culture.”
“Reckon it’s not such a bad thing. You never have to worry about ticking off your significant other by forgetting their birthday or anniversary. Little bummed about the lack of red, white, and blue patriotic pride, though.”
“Why’s that? Are you a Yankee Doodle sweetheart?”
I laughed. “Well, it’s kind of my birthright. I was born on Independence Day.”
“That’s right! You’re a July Fourth baby! It really explains so much.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?” I asked, nudging him.
“If you don’t know by now, then I’m sure as hell not sticking my foot in it,” he said, chuckling.
I playfully punched him in the arm. “Ooh, you are such a giant butthead.”
“Stick around.”
We teased each other the rest of the way through a downtown that was clearly in the process of overdosing on paper hearts.
After far too long in cupid’s belly, we finally pulled up to my house. “So, are you doing anything tomorrow?” I asked.
“I have a…meeting,” he said slowly.
“Ah, you mean under the sea.” Must stop the urge to sing.
He nodded. “You really want to channel a little red Jamaican crab, don’t you?”
“Huh? What? Huh? Yeah, I should get inside.”
“Can read you like a book, Rubylocks. Hey, Marina?” He took my hand, keeping me in the truck. “Thank you for listening to me. It’s nice to have somebody to talk to—somebody on the outside with everyone else in town, but on the inside to me.”
“You don’t need to thank me, Troy. It’s not like you tell me very much.”
“I’ve let you in further than anyone I’ve ever known,” he said.
“Well, then, you’re welcome,” I breathed. “Good luck with your meeting.”
“Night,” he said, releasing my hand.
For my own sanity—and safety—I knew I had to make my very first New Year’s resolution: I resolve not to kiss Troy Tombolo. A kiss always leads to deeper feelings—deeper feelings lead to complications—complications lead to love—and love leads to heartache. So, start with no kissing and all should be well. I think.
Saturday night. My mom has hit an all-time high on the stupid meter. At this very moment, Mom was eagerly beautifying herself for a private dinner date…with Mr. Anderson.
“It’s just dinner, Marina. Grow up!”
“Grow up! Me? Why don’t you take the blinders off?”
“Don’t back talk, young lady! I’m going to his house strictly as a colleague, not that it’
s any of your business,” she said, adding more blush to her already dolled-up cheeks.
“What about Mr. Gibbs? You were so happy whenever you went out with him. Your face would light up every time he called. You’re the Bennet to his Bingley.”
“He’s all right. But, Mr. Anderson is better connected with town aristocrats,” she said, sticking her nose high in the air.
“Are you possessed? I don’t even know you anymore!” I shouted, trying to fight away the tears.
“Well, maybe if you weren’t so blind, you would see I have always been like this.” She brushed her hand through my hair. “Too bad you’re not as pretty as I am.”
“What have they done to you? This is me, your daughter, Marina! Look at me!”
She turned to face me, but I saw no one behind her eyes.
“I have to get out of here.” I grabbed my coat and headed for the door, but Mom swept in front of me, blocking my path. “Please, just let me go! You go on your date with Mr. Anderson! Really live it up! I don’t care!”
“You’re not going anywhere.” She yanked my arm and spun me around.
“Let me go! You’re hurting me!”
She tossed me in my room, slammed the door, and locked it from the outside.
“If you had just been happy for me, you could have had dinner and watched a movie. Now, you leave me no choice.” Her voice sounded nothing like the woman who sang me to sleep as a child.
“You know what you are, Mom? You’re just like those cruel, needle-happy bitches at the institution!” It killed me to say it, but it came out before I could think.
For a minute, she didn’t say anything. “Marina? Darling, why are you crying?”
“Like you don’t know! I’m out of here,” I shouted, jumping out the window. I could faintly hear her crying after me, but I didn’t care. I had to get to my cave.
Once I reached the cave’s entrance, my body, riddled with sadness, quivered so badly, I didn’t know if I would make it safely inside without falling into the water. After several narrow escapes, I finally made it to my little spot amongst the souls of the sea. The sky looked black as ink, and the sea seemed unusually angry. Thunder and lightning signaled the start of a storm moving in.
FINNED (The Merworld Water Wars) Page 11
