Falling in Deep Collection Box Set
Page 63
He kissed me again. “What did you have in mind?”
Epilogue
Six months later
Summer break was a time for all of my college friends to get jobs or go study abroad. A lot of them were trying to get ahead with internships or squeeze in some summer classes to make up for classes that they’d failed in the spring semester. Everyone had plans, it seemed. Still, I knew they weren’t anywhere near as special as mine.
I’d told my mother that I got an internship on a research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico, so I’d be out of touch for most of it, and not to worry. I was going to be studying marine life and getting good experiences for my marine biology degree at Texas A&M University of Galveston. It was unpaid, sure, and I wasn’t getting any class credit for it, but my board, food, and all expenses would be taken care of, I told her. While she wouldn’t budge on her opinion that I should be studying pre-law or pre-med, she begrudgingly supported my decision.
I loved my mother so much for supporting me, even though my decisions seemed crazy. By all accounts, they were.
I didn’t care, though. If I learned anything, it was to do what I wanted to do.
That was how I found myself on the shores of Galveston’s East Beach, an hour’s drive from the Houston Aquarium, which felt so long ago.
There was no one on the beach with me at six am on a Saturday morning, and that was exactly what I was going for. It was going to get weird in about five minutes, and I didn’t want anyone to see.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, breathing in the salty air.
I wasn’t going on a trip. I was going home, at least for the summer. I’d been here every weekend during my spring semester. I told my roommate Elyse that I was spending it with my boyfriend.
I was telling her the truth.
I dipped a toe into the ocean, the sea foam cold against my bare skin. My skin turned to goosebumps initially, and before my very eyes, I saw the spread of scales trail up my legs.
I took off my shirt, revealing a bikini top underneath. Here was where it got weird, no matter how many times I did it. I took off my shorts, the bikini bottom along with it. I wasn’t going to need it where I was going.
I stowed the clothes in a waterproof plastic bag between two rocks. I hoped they’d be all right for two months. If not, I’d cross that bridge when I got to it.
For now, I was itching to get back to the sea and see everyone.
I started out at a run and dove into the waves. They parted, welcoming me with open arms, like the ocean had been expecting me. I dolphin-kicked, and as I did so, I felt the skin between my legs zipper all the way down to my feet, which weren’t feet anymore. A long, beautiful tail fin sprouted from where my feet were, iridescent in all its splendor.
I looked down at it, and despite myself, I grinned. It never did go away did it? I was a full merwalker, one of the few that could go between the sea and the land.
I submerged, swimming farther out to sea, meaning to call the two most important people to me. “Kai,” I called out softly, “I’m here.” I took a deep breath, because my voice wavered in my anticipation, and said, “Finn, I’m here. I need you.”
The length of time impossibly stretched out before me. Impatience tugged at me, I couldn’t wait to see them.
I saw a dark shape in the water first, much bigger than I remembered. It barreled at me like a torpedo, slowing down enough before he got to me so he wouldn’t crash into me. Kai stopped and embraced me with his fins much like a human would. I held him back, feeling the tears of happiness spring to my eyes.
“Kai!” I cried happily.
“Tara!” he said, like he couldn’t believe I was here. I couldn’t believe it either. “How long are you here this time?”
“A long time,” I told him. “Did you think I’d forget you?” Kai eyed me suspiciously and I laughed.
“For good?”
I shook my head, feeling the dark cloud of sadness come over me. “Not yet,” I said. “But soon.” Finn and I had been discussing what was next in our relationship. The plan was to eventually end up living together somehow. For now though, I was busy being his eyes and ears on land.
“Tara!” another familiar voice cried.
“Ponce!” I grabbed the snapper and hugged him close. “You look great! How are you doing?”
I swear, the fish flushed scarlet. “I’ve got a girlfriend,” he said sheepishly.
“A girlfriend?” I laughed. “She’s a lucky girl.”
My voice caught in my throat when I saw the other familiar figure in the distance. Unlike Kai or Ponce, he stopped further out, watching me. My heart fluttered.
“Hello there, stranger,” I called out to him playfully. My heart was pounding in my ears, as it always did when I saw him.
“You’re here.”
Before I could react, I found myself in his arms, his lips on mine, his hands holding me to him. He kissed me with the fervent passion of someone who had found everything he wanted.
I knew because I was kissing him that way too.
He pulled back and wrapped his arms around me. I couldn’t tell who was doing the holding and who was doing the clinging.
“I’ve missed you,” he said.
“Me too.”
“Tara, so much has happened while you were gone!” Kai interjected. With finals and everything, it had nearly been a month since I had joined them in the water.
“I’ll bet,” I said, offering him a smile. “A lot’s happened on land as well.” Whatever translated my words into Mermish changed “two months” into “two moons”.
Finn held my hand, not taking his eyes off me. “You can tell us all about it,” he said, his sea green eyes soft.
“Just so long as you keep showing me how to be a proper mermaid.”
He smiled at me, the brilliance of the entire city of Thalassa in that one smile. “Of course.”
About the Author
Sci-fi junkie, video game nerd, and wannabe manga artist Erin Hayes writes a lot of things. Sometimes she writes books, like the fantasy mystery novel Death is but a Dream, the sci-fi middle grade book Jacob Smith is Incredibly Average, and the Her Wolf paranormal series.
She works as an advertising copywriter during the day, and she moonlights as an author. She has lived in New Zealand, Texas, and now in Birmingham, Alabama with her husband, cat, and a growing collection of geek paraphernalia.
You can reach her at erinhayesbooks@gmail.com and she’ll be happy to chat. Especially if you want to debate Star Wars.
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The Glass Mermaid by Poppy Lawless
Kate
I’m the last mermaid.
I’m back on shores of Lake Erie, but the cold waters are silent. There is nothing here for me but ghosts and the beach glass that litters the rocky shore. Long ago, I lived below the waves. Now, I am the sole survivor, and at long last, my mermaid glamour is leaving me.
Every day, I walk the beach. Every day, I wonder what happened to my people. The little pieces of colored glass that wash ashore give me simple pleasure. They are gifts from the lake, reminders of home. I fashion them into trinkets: necklaces, earrings, bracelets. They are beautiful things. The humans seem love them.
Every day, I walk the beach. Nothing ever changes, until the day he says hello.
Cooper
I’m dying.
It’s not a question, it’s a fact. The cancer is eating me alive. They told me I have six months to live, maybe less. I came home, back to Chancellor on Lake Erie, to die. The sunsets are vivid there, and I will relish every one.
I’ve never seen anything more beautiful than a Lake Erie sunset until I see her.
All life is as fragile as glass.
What would you sacrifice to save the one you love?
Chapter 1: Kate
“There you are,” I whispered, bending to pick up a piece of green beach glass. I lifted it and looked at it in the diming sunlight. It was tear-shaped and worn smooth from its time in the water. A soft white sheen coated the green glass. That made seven green pieces, five light blue pieces, eight white pieces, and seven amber pieces. Not a bad haul. Alas, no red. I rarely found red anymore. The lake had stopped giving up her most beautiful treasures. If I wanted, I could swim down deep to the troves of wave-kissed glass. But I hadn’t been below the surface in nearly three hundred years, and I certainly wasn’t going to ruin that stretch over some sparkly bauble, even if all my customers begged for red beach glass.
I tucked the green beach glass into my satchel, pulled my long, straw-colored hair back, and then bent to pick up my sandals. I looked out at the lake. The sun was dipping below the horizon. There was nothing more glorious than a Lake Erie sunset. Shimmering shades of rosy pink, orange, and magenta illuminated the sky and reflected on the waves. Breathing in deeply, I tried to inhale the scene. The briny scent of the fresh lake water was perfumed with the lingering smell of snow and flowers. Not for the first time, I wondered what my old home looked like now. Forgotten under the waves, the eerie sea kingdom had been left to be ruled by ghosts and memories.
I sucked in a breath and turned to go. I wouldn’t cry. Mermaids’ tears were, after all, a special and rare commodity. They carried life itself, and I didn’t have much of that magical spark left in me. A single tear could spell my end, sapping out the last of the gift from the deep. No, I’d managed to live for over three hundred years. It wouldn’t do to weep over an amazing sunset, a nearly-forgotten past, nor the realization that I was truly alone. It was what it was. I couldn’t change the fact that I was the last mermaid.
Chapter 2: Cooper
I dipped my brush into the purple paint. Not quite the right shade. Swiping my brush in the red, I fattened the color then spread it across the canvas. The sunset was particularly striking tonight. It was a perfect summer sunset, except for the fact that the wind still thought it was early spring. A breeze blew across the lake. It had an icy edge, like it had swept down from some far-off glacier. It chilled my fingers.
I dropped my brush into the jar of water and blew on my hands. For the love of God, would I have to wear gloves in May? I didn’t remember Mays in Chancellor being so cold. Maybe all my years in Pensacola, stretched out along those sugar-white beaches, had spoiled me. I loved the water. That’s how I’d ended up in Florida in the first place. Marrying my love of people and the sea, my degrees in marine biology and psychology had landed me at the Dolphin Key Sanctuary. I’d made my career doing research on the therapeutic relationship between dolphins and children with disabilities. I’d spent every day in the water until…well, now I was home, back in Chancellor. Lake Erie had been my first love, but she’d grown so cold in my absence.
I blew on my fingers again, picked up the brush, and looked at the fading sunset. I tried to take a mental picture, knowing the colors were about to fade. Too bad, it had been an amazing view. I played the last bit of paint across the canvas then picked up a smaller brush, dipped it in black, and scrawled a number in the bottom: forty-three. This was the forty-third sunset I’d painted. One-hundred forty, give or take, to go.
I leaned back and zipped my coat up to my chin. I told myself I was just taking in the last of the sunset, or letting the pain dry, or stretching my back, then I’d go. But the truth was, I was waiting for her. I shouldn’t have been, but I was.
She was strolling up the beach toward me. I’d seen her head out earlier. Like every night, she set off down the beach with her little satchel strung bandolier-style across her curvy body. At first I’d thought she was hunting for shells. It took me almost a week to remember that beach glass washed up on the shores of Lake Erie. She was hunting glass. Every night, she would head down the beach, returning just after sunset. I loved to watch her. It was almost like she melted into the surroundings, her yellow hair the same color as the dried grass, her eyes—the one and only time I’d yet had the courage to look into them—the same dark blue as the waves. Today she was wearing khaki cargo pants, a white T-shirt, and an aquamarine-colored scarf. She was, without a doubt, the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. But she seemed a little sad, and her sadness helped me stay away. I had no business flirting with women, at least not now, but it was still nice to look at her. And sometimes, when I felt bold, more than look.
Today, I felt bold.
Today, I had something more to say.
While I knew I had no business with her, I couldn’t quite get myself to stop looking for ways to break the ice. Today, I found one.
As she neared me, I rose, took a deep breath, and stepped down the beach toward her. “Good evening,” I called gently, hoping like hell I wasn’t going to annoy her.
She startled a little, like she’d been lost in her thoughts.
Great, scare her to death, moron.
She looked at me with those deep-blue eyes and smiled. “Hello,” she said in a voice as soothing as the deep.
Chapter 3: Kate
The painter. Although he was smiling, his awkward stance told me he was nervous. Perhaps me nearly jumping out of my skin had set him on edge. I smiled back at him.
The painter had shown up in Chancellor a little over a month earlier. I’d noticed him one morning as I was headed out to open my shop. My small, A-frame cottage sitting along the beach has wide windows that look out at the water. I’d seen him trudging along with a canvas, easel, and painting kit. It was rare to see anyone walk along the rocky beach outside my house. Pebbly and narrow, it wasn’t an ideal place for sun bathing. Almost everyone went to the small, man-made sandy beach at Chancellor Park. I noticed him again and again. Every morning, he would head out with a canvas. Every night, when I went out on my evening walk, he’d be there once again. I tried not to bother him, but I’d snuck a peek of his work. He always painted the fiery sunsets. And in the morning, he would paint the lake and the pastel hues of the sunrise. Sunrises on Lake Erie were not vivid, but they always cast an opalescent sheen on the water. The result was a cloudy mixture of color like the inside of an abalone shell. Beautiful. From what I had seen, the artist’s paintings were glorious…almost as glorious as him.
Our exchanges had been little more than polite nods and smiles. I was too hesitant to engage him further even though he was undeniably handsome. He was trim like a cyclist or surfer, his head shaved to a shadow of dark hair, which was usually covered with a cap. He often wore a scarf or a jacket zipped to the top. I guessed him to be a southerner, not acclimatized to Pennsylvania weather. His clear blue eyes were so lovely, but it was his smile that was without compare. It made something dangerous light up in me, something I hadn’t felt in a very long time. Despite the danger, I liked the feeling.
“Sorry,” I said. “I was a million miles away.”
He moved down the beach toward me. I crossed the distance to meet him, hoping I could evoke that smile again. I was relieved he’d finally spoken. We’d had our little routine going on for a month now. I was starting to think that maybe, after all these years, I’d started to lose my mermaid glamour. Most men can’t resist the allure that lives inside my skin. In the past, it made living among the humans almost unbearable. But lately, I didn’t mind the attention. It felt like my last hurrah. As for the painter, though I would never take anything beyond a simple conversation, it annoyed me that my charms didn’t seem to affect him.
“I…I found something I thought you would like,” he said hesitantly, holding out his hand. In his palm was a piece of red
beach glass. The awkward cut made it look like a jagged heart. It was stunning.
Without thinking, I gently took him by the hand and looked at the glass. I lifted it to admire it in the dimming sunlight.
“Beautiful,” I said. “Red is so rare. Where did you find it?”
“On the beach near your boardwalk. Sorry, I know that came out weird. I’m not a stalker or anything. I just happened to notice you outside your house a couple of times.”
I smiled reassuringly at him. The last thing he looked like was a stalker. “I must have walked right past it,” I said, staring down at the glass. Slowly, I became aware of the fact that I was still holding onto his hand. His skin was ice cold.
“Oh, my gosh, you’re freezing. I was just heading back home now. Would you like a coffee? Tea maybe?” What was I doing? Had I lost my mind? I let go of his hand, but then he stuck his hand out to me.
“I’m Cooper,” he said.
I smiled. Introductions first, you lusty mermaid. “Kate,” I said, shaking his hand. Katherine, Kathy, now Kate. It always changed with the fashion of the day. If I stuck around another hundred years, I’d have to go with Katie or Kat. When I’d first come ashore to live among the humans, Katherine was the closest name they had to my real name, Katlilium.
“Thank you for the offer, Kate, but I need to get back,” he said with a soft smile, letting go of my hand.
“Oh, okay,” I replied, feeling stupid. What was I thinking?
Cooper seemed just as embarrassed as I did. He turned and started packing up his things. Great, now I’d scared him off. Maybe he was married or something. I never even thought to check for a wedding ring. I was getting rusty at this game. That was a good thing. It was a game I had no business playing. I was too old for random flirtations, and had no business falling for anyone with my end so near. Stupid. Feeling awkward, I looked for some way to break the silence.