Katherine nodded. “I told your dad that I wanted to be the one to tell you. He knew the real me. He wanted to tell you before you left, he admitted that. Only because I’d waited and he thought you could do with someone else to talk to. So this is me telling you now.”
Katherine touched the tops of her ears and snapped them. Noah gasped loudly. All Natalia did was watch, her mouth agape. Instead of clean rounded edges to her ears, Katherine had ears that reached a point.
“I wanted to tell you before.” Katherine fiddled with the fake ear-tops. “Now things are calm enough, it was time I told you the truth. It’s what you deserve.”
Natalia started. “You’re a—”
“Nymph.”
“Of?”
“Water.” Katherine offered a sad smile. “I’m still Katherine, the woman from Brazil, the boss of this café, the lover of life, the woman who appreciates and loves a pink lippy. I’m just not Human.”
Natalia let the words wash her, waiting for them to consume her. They didn’t. She released a breath, launching herself at Katherine and wrapping her in a hug. The woman laughed, though Natalia was sure she heard a sniff.
As she pulled back, Natalia said, “Thank you, for thinking of me and for not adding to the pile I was already burning through. I just wish you had told me sooner. You’re my boss but you’re also my friend, Katherine.” Natalia managed a smile, hoping it was certain and steady. “I would’ve been able to handle that.”
“I’m not going mad, am I?” The girls turned to Noah. He was fanning himself with his hands as if he might pass out. “Did my new boss take off her ears?”
Katherine chortled. “I did.”
“I’ve been here,” he looked to the clock, “not even five minutes and the world’s gone weird again.”
“The world’s never not been weird. The difference is you can see it now.”
“I think I want a refund and to be sick.” He went over to the sink and splashed some water onto his face, coming away with droplets stuck to his lashes.
“Speaking of seeing,” Katherine turned her gaze to Natalia, “have you seen the Darby’s recently?”
Truthfully, Natalia hadn’t. Since coming home from Atlantis she’d only seen Peri a handful of times, Archie and Alex in passing once, and had heard from Sarah and James when they’d rung up to announce there was still no news on her application to train and become a full Creature.
Despite having been judged a Creature at heart, clearing the Council’s stupid trial, she wondered if shouting at them for their lack of care hadn’t been her best move. All she wanted now was to be validated and deemed viable enough to become a Creature like she was meant to, and according to their rules she couldn’t train until the papers were cleared. The Council wouldn’t withhold her application as a way of punishing her for testing them, would they? Everything still seemed so out of reach, her fingers slipping through fog as she tried to grasp onto what she wanted, what her birth-right was.
Katherine took Natalia’s blankness as her answer. “You should go see them,” she suggested. “Even if you haven’t heard anything, it might be good to be around them?”
“Maybe after work.”
Natalia went back to her work. Several moments passed before footsteps echoed softly through the room, and she spied the door closing behind Katherine. She sighed, shoulders dropping.
Noah cleared his throat. When she faced him, Noah had closed the gap between them. She turned away and picked up the icing bag. Whatever he was about to say, because he would say something, she didn’t know if she wanted to hear it.
“Katherine’s right,” Noah began. “Seeing them might be good.”
She began to make the icing swirl. “How? How exactly would it be good?”
Noah pulled her round, icing squeezing across the counter and onto her shoes. He didn’t look at the mess, his eyes focused on her face. “Because you,” he indicated to all of her, “need to settle everything. They’re your friends too, aren’t they?”
“Of course they are!”
They’d all done more than they ever should have for her. She considered them friends. They’d taken her dancing and had readied her for the Council. They’d saved her life. But what actually had she done for them? Did they think of her as a friend or just someone to feel sorry for?
“Whatever is going on, you need to sort it out.” Noah’s eyes showed no signs of a jest. “Why not start training early, on the basics that you don’t need clearance for? The Council might have already phoned or sent a letter? You might be approved now!”
“As it regards me personally, they can tell me if I’m approved or not,” she barked.
Noah ignored her outburst. “You’ll be with these people all the time. They offered to train you, remember? So sort out whatever is going on before you get accepted and things become tenser.”
“If,” Natalia felt like she was spitting venom, “If I fucking get accepted.”
Noah let her go, face dawning with realisation. “Is that what this is about?”
Natalia put her back to him, placing the icing bag down, blinking to rid her eyes of the sharp tears that threatened to spill. Did all Creatures have to be vetted before they accepted? Natalia doubted it. What would happen if they didn’t accept her? She’d still be a Creature, but wouldn’t be able to follow her Purpose. But how could they stop her if she went after a Monster? What happened to those who did choose to leave over the years; why would they leave? Did they sometimes follow their Purpose despite probably not being allowed too? What happened then?
“I’ll see them after work,” Natalia promised. The longer she kept away, the longer things stewed. She turned back to her friend, giving him a weak smile.
Noah eyed the door to the café. “How about now?”
“After work is fine.”
“But what if this was the only chance?”
“I need the money and I’m not disrespecting Katherine like that. Plus, they’ll be there when I finish.”
“You’ll be paid in gold by the Council soon.”
Natalia scoffed. “I doubt that.”
“Quit acting up. You have a short window of opportunity here.”
Natalia tried thinking of more excuses, stalling for more time. “It’s your first day. I can’t have you covering for me already.”
“Did you hear Katherine or not? She’s expecting you to run out every now and again. And if you become a fully-fledged Creature, you’ll have to run out of here if there’s a Monster attack,” Noah pointed out.
“I can’t.”
“Can’t or won’t?” he challenged.
Natalia blanched. She felt a pull towards the Darby’s, her heart yearning for them as if they were tied by strings, but she didn’t know if she was ready. She hadn’t been accepted. In her mind, she was still partially Human because she wasn’t a fully accepted Creature yet. It was as if she was stuck between two worlds, a limbo. She felt like a failure, and she couldn’t face them with pride until she’d been accepted into their life.
Noah grabbed her and marched her to the back door. “You can,” he insisted. “And I’m making sure you will.”
He threw her coat at her and opened the door. Before Natalia could stop herself or argue, Noah pushed her out. She nearly fell and as she steadied herself, the door slammed shut in her face. Her fists pummelled it several times, to no avail. Noah was silhouetted behind it, his body propped up against it to prevent her from getting back in.
Like it sensed her frustration, the sky surrendered too, releasing the looming storm. Rain pelted down from grey clouds as the howling, warm wind shifted the air. So much for a perfect spring.
Natalia huffed and shrugged on her jacket. Now she was locked out of work and it was raining.
Gradually, she made her way from the café, no more excuses left to avoid what she’d been putting off. Thunder rumbled across the sky and inside her chest.
◆◆◆
Peri slid down the embankment, not t
aking care as she went. Really, it didn’t matter if she fell in. She’d just transform faster and maybe lose some clothes in the process.
This part of the Island, this beach in particular, was separate from the rest – it was its own private space. The path to the diving point on the cliff was steep but someone over the years had had sense, putting wooden steps from the top to the mid-way point. In the weeks Peri had been living here, she’d come to notice that there wasn’t much beach; only an area below she currently was had a patch of stony sand. It wasn’t much but Peri rarely came to the beach for its sand.
Peri slipped off the flip-flops and tucked them into a cliff nook then removed her dress, leaving her in plain black underwear. Her feet padded against the wood and stopped at the diving-point as she turned to face the cliffs.
Lashing wind whipped her hair into her face, her body tipping. She raised her arms and took a lasting breath.
The thrilling chill of the water sent a spark across her body as she crashed into it. She sank, not as an anchor, but as a willing victim to the waves. As her toes curled into the sandy bottom, a familiar sting rippled throughout her nerve endings.
Her feet seized until they joined together as a single fin. Her legs fused from ankle to hips; bones twisted and warped as her skin was replaced by shiny dark grey scales extending up her waist and covering her bellybutton. Where her bra had been, two equal patches of dark grey scales now concealed her breasts. Her neck pinched, sending a spasm rocking through her entire body, but she didn’t dare move before it was over.
Then, she breathed in.
Cold water rushed in and out, air moved slower. Despite being alone, she grinned. Land was welcoming enough, but water encompassed every part of her soul. The water made her what she was; her given home while land was her found home.
Her fin swayed rhymically in the small current. Peri glanced up and noticed she wasn’t far from the surface. Her fin twitched. She knew what it wanted. What she wanted.
Weaving through the water, she raced upwards. The sunlight drew nearer the harder she pushed. Before she could scream, or laugh, her head burst above the surface. Mid-air, she tried flipping. It had only worked a few times before – she needed the momentum and the right angle.
Her body indeed dived round on itself until she hung upside-down, facing the water. The air pricked her skin and she tried to breathe it, but pure air did little in this form. Then gravity kicked in. She crashed back into the water, a lot less gracefully than her original dive from the cliffs.
She stayed by the surface, only her eyes above the water. As she searched surroundings, a string-like trail caught her attention.
The attachment was on land, high above the cliffs, the source moving. The grey tone of the string was easy to identify. Drawing her face from the water more, she caught a hint of smoke in the air.
Peri darted for shore and heaved herself out, lying with her back against the sand. Her neck spasmed as her gills shrank, her legs descaled and separated. The remnants of a tattered bra covered her chest, and slowly, her hands and feet appeared too. For good measure, she wiggled them; last time she’d transitioned, she’d gotten up too early and had been stuck face down in the sand as a half Mermaid half Human for a while. She cringed at the memory.
“Need some help?”
Peri looked up to find Alex grinning down at her, and she moved her umbrella to cover Peri’s half-naked form. Not all water could make Peri transform, and since she’d been a Mermaid her whole life, she could control her shift the same way Alex could control hers. She could dive into the sea and keep both legs, or she could sit on the edge of a paddling pool and transform. But regardless, she was thankful for the cover now that her Human skin was beginning to shiver from the rain that had begun.
Alex handed a bag of clothes over and Peri stood, nodding gratefully. Alex turned her back to give Peri privacy but kept the umbrella raised between them.
Peri changed swiftly, wondering how Alex had known where she was. As if reading her mind, Alex threw down Peri’s flip-flops at her feet.
“It’s like you’re stalking me,” Peri joked.
Alex turned, her face giving nothing away. “Maybe I am.”
Peri narrowed her eyes. “Did Archie put you up to this? Is he making you spy on me? I can find out,” she warned. Alex didn’t flinch and Peri was a little disappointed but not surprised; it took a lot to shake Alex these days.
“No, he didn’t. I was feeling cramped inside the house and saw you dive off the cliff. I got your clothes when I saw you break the surface and then came down to meet you.” She pointed to the second set of wooden steps that led down to the hidden stony beach.
Peri’s gaze went over Alex’s head, clothes forgotten. “Did you sense—”
“The smoke?” Alex shifted the umbrella, though it wasn’t raining anymore. “I don’t have the ability to sense it in the air as wiggly lines like you, but I can smell it.”
Peri fought the urge to roll her eyes. If she tallied up every time people assumed her mood sensory appeared as wiggly lines in the air, she’d have covered an entire house with scratches. “It’s more like a string tied to a person’s chest,” she tried. “I’d see an aqua blue string if you were sad. A deep sea blue string means confusion.”
Alex groaned. “Sounds complicated.”
“It is, and we don’t always get it right.”
“What? What do you mean?”
Peri’s chest prickled. Though the girls lived in the same house, they’d always respected each other’s spaces. Before, they’d barely talked about their gifts or powers; the middle of battling Monsters was hardly the best placed to explain one’s abilities. Outside of battle, Alex rarely asked for specifics and unless she did, no one brought it up to avoid overwhelming her.
Peri smiled weakly. “We can confuse emotions, like sadness for pain, or happiness with anger. Sometimes we get it right, but other times, emotions get wrapped and become crossed. Mainly because people feel more than one thing at a time, unless it’s overpowering, which it can be in Creatures.”
“But you can tell that it’s happening? That there’s something?”
Peri peered up at the cliff-top again, watching as the grey-string drew closer. “At least your senses tell you things more accurately.”
“Like how someone smelling of smoke is heading towards our house?”
Alex was right. The person smelling of smoke, who had to be the same person as the one with grey string around them, was heading right towards their house. Curiosity and protectiveness wrapped around Peri, and the girls said nothing as they marched up the wooden stairs together.
◆◆◆
Archie went to the door after the fifth consecutive knock. The rain had subsided for a while, but now a full blown storm with high winds and lightning had come. Who could be outside in this weather?
When he opened the door, he tried to put a smile on his face.
Natalia, drenched through so bad that her layers of clothing were doing nothing to keep her warm and her hair was dripping down her face, stood before him. She shivered, her arms wrapped around her body in an attempt to keep her warm.
“Come inside,” he told her, ushering her in. She stepped in and shivered in the heat of the hall. There was no time to think, he only had time to act. Turning to the stairs, as loud as he could, he yelled, “DAD!”
Archie fumbled around in the downstairs bathroom. He grabbed a hand-towel and came out, catching Natalia’s hair in it, tying it up into a twist on top of her head without a word. She seemed too numb to do anything for herself but gave him a single nod of consent before he peeled off her jacket, throwing it onto the bathroom floor. As he pulled off her soppy cardigan, struggling to make her elbows bend, James bundled through the doorway. Archie hadn’t asked for more towels, yet his dad had a stack of them in his arms. Archie took one and wrapped it over Natalia’s shoulders.
What had possessed her to walk here during a storm? Creatures weren’t susceptible to th
ings like the common colds – though they had their own variation of the flu – because they healed. But that didn’t mean they were invincible all-together.
Archie guided Natalia upstairs, leaving his dad to fuss with the sodden clothes. They made their way into the bathroom and Archie sat Natalia on the toilet so he could turn on the shower. She took some encouragement, but finally went beneath it, sitting down as the stream poured down on her.
“You just sit and warm up, okay? There are soaps and stuff if you want to wash and clean.” Archie indicated to the shelf stacked with bottles of shampoos and body-washes. “I’ll be right back,” he promised her. “I’m just going to get you a drink.”
“Okay,” she mumbled.
Shaking his head, Archie raced back downstairs and into the kitchen. He flicked on the kettle and grabbed a mug, shovelling chocolate powder into it.
Footsteps padded against the floor as the kettle pinged off, and Archie was aware of someone behind him. Years ago, his heart may have stirred wildly at the thought of something at his back. But he’d had years of dealing with Monsters and what they’d come to do, and years of dealing with mischievous siblings. So he finished making the drink and then turned with it in his hands.
Jasper sat on the kitchen island, legs swinging, his damp hair dangling long he too had been in the storm. “What’s all the commotion?” Jasper’s eyes searched his brother’s face before locking on the mug. “Is that for me?”
“Natalia’s here,” Archie answered.
Jasper didn’t shift his eyes from the mug. “Is she?”
“She came through the storm.”
“I wonder why.”
The phone rang in the other room and Archie wondered if that was his mum. She was back in Atlantis, only for the day, to hopefully finally close Natalia’s deal on becoming a Creature. The application was taking a while, so Sarah had gone to “see what was wrong.”
Archie held out the steaming mug. “You could go find out?”
Archie heard their dad down the hallway picking up and answering the phone. Jasper jumped off the island. “Seems like dad’s now busy,” he said. “Maybe I should go and be the good child of the family, and finish sorting the washing I saw him dealing with?”
Starlight Page 18
