The Emperor's Shadow War (Tales of Alus Book 2)
Page 55
Water entered her mouth causing the young woman to inhale involuntarily, but she didn’t choke. Another shock to be laid on top of the others, Phoebe breathed in the water twice more on instinct and released the breaths again. So surprised was she, that the girl actually began to calm a bit though her eyes were wide in fright, her mind was on overload trying to take in all of these wonders at once.
Sitting up to get her head above water, Phoebe gasped as the air entered her lungs as easily as the water had only moments before. Trying to take stock of what had happened, the girl’s mouth opened in wonder as she looked down at her torso. The pink top had disappeared and her breasts were now covered tastefully in pink scales that crept slightly onto her upper stomach.
With all the splashing, the water had become murky around her obscuring her legs. Lifting them clear of the water, her eyes went wide in wonder at a long mermaid’s tail of a light blue. Scaled like the pink on her chest, the tail showed nothing of the human legs that should have been there in its place.
Letting her tail fall back into the water, the wonder was beginning to disappear as fear took its place. Phoebe lifted her left wrist to look at the bracelet, a cursed bracelet, she realized now. It seemed to have tightened and spread slightly on her wrist. There was no way she could have pulled it free to save herself, if there even was a way, the girl suddenly worried.
She looked at the raised shoreline wondering if leaving the water would end the curse. There had been a movie about a mermaid that needed her tail dried to have human legs. Could that movie be right? The young woman flipped over and tried to pull her new body towards the shallows. With a mind of its own, her tail tried to propel her forward causing her head to dunk under once more. It was a fight that took several minutes as Phoebe fought to pull her mermaid tail out of the water up the two foot rise at the edge of the river. The water seemed to push with her as if it responded to her need as waves came towards the mermaid lifting her slightly higher before dropping low again.
Grunting with the effort of a tail that seemed at least twice as heavy as her real legs, Phoebe fought her way onto land at last and looked on the tail in dismay. If it was a fish instead of her own body, the girl would have said the colored scales were pretty, but this was her body and fear of being cursed forever outweighed any thoughts of beauty.
Again she looked at the cursed bracelet and waited as her tail began to dry. The gold band had definitely flattened out on her skin and expanded from less than an inch to nearly three inches along her forearm. It was definitely cursed she thought to herself as tears began to well up.
A breeze began to rise helping her skin dry. It was as if the wind was answering her need to find out if it would work. As she concentrated on her legs, the wind seemed to concentrate more on the blue scales as well. Phoebe didn’t question it. Things were already beyond her comprehension. Reality had been altered to where story books were now the norm.
As she sat, Phoebe suddenly thought of the other girls. Were they all cursed? Looking towards the house, the young woman wished she could get up and warn them, but her tail remained taunting her.
When Emily awoke, she noticed that her cousin had snuck out of bed again. It was still early and the first true rays of sunlight were being held back by the closed drapes now.
Sitting up in the bed, the blond shifted the tie in her hair. It had been placed low enough that her blond tresses didn’t have a knot where she would lay her head, but it helped keep her hair from getting all tangled as she slept. A big stretch followed even as she tried to stifle a yawn.
“Did she get up early again?” a voice managed to both ask and complain at the same time. Katie’s blond hair was the opposite of Emily’s tied and straight tail. Only a couple inches shorter, the wavy locks partially covered the girl’s face as one blue eye peeked over at her friend sitting up in bed.
“Yes,” was the quiet reply. Emily hoped that perhaps Taylor wouldn’t come awake with their brief talking at least. “I think I will get up and take a shower now instead of waiting. For some reason, I am feeling really wide awake like I need to get up early myself today.”
“Aren’t we grounded or something?” the tired voice complained from beneath the wavy hair once again.
A quiet chuckle started the reply as Emily said, “Well, they’re not your parents, so you’re probably safe, but Faith and I might not be.”
“Why? It wasn’t your fault and Faith already admitted it to your mom.”
Sniffing non-commitally, the other girl replied as she pulled the sheet from her legs and stood beside the bed a moment, “Even so, Faith always seems to get me into trouble somehow.”
“Gah, doesn’t your mom know that you’re basically a goody two shoes? If I didn’t corrupt you a little bit and make you do things, you’d be completely boring,” the wavy haired blond said with a smirk as she picked up her head and brushed back the stray hair. “I mean seriously. You are the most dependable person I know, so why would they ground you?”
Shrugging before straightening the long, white t-shirt that she had slept in that night, Emily stated, “Thanks. I think, but mom will still say I was in charge, so I don’t know.”
“Whatever,” Katie sighed and lay her head back down on the pillow.
Once more ignored by her friend, Emily pulled an outfit together from the dresser and walked down the hallway to the bathroom stopping only to grab a fresh towel from the hall closet along the way. Closing the wooden door behind her before opening the shower to turn the knobs to start the water, the blond took a moment to look at herself in the mirror.
The pretty face, with the bright blue eyes haloed by her long blond hair, was a little red thanks to the previous day’s prolonged exposure to the sun. Despite a reasonable tan from their time at Folly Beach, she was lucky that her skin wasn’t fully sunburned yesterday. It was the protection of sunscreen that had saved her, which led Emily to consider Katie’s words. A goody two shoes, who said that anymore? Maybe it was such an old term that was reserved for people that lived like old people?
An exasperated grunt left her mouth as the girl turned away to take off her clothes. It wouldn’t be nice to run all the hot water out when there were so many people in the vacation house that would probably be looking for their own showers sooner or later. Emily nearly smacked her head. There she went again, being the worry wart who was so dependable and kept thinking of such mundane things. The girl doubted Katie would have worried about something as simple as a shower. Perhaps her friend had been right that she would have been boring without Katie’s chaotic tendencies in her life.
Taking the tie out of her hair, the last strip of cloth on her, Emily opened the door that was already trapping some steam within the enclosure. Reaching in to add some cold to the mix, some of the hot spray caught her left arm as it spun the knob for cold tap water. It was definitely too hot.
Emily wiped the hot water from her hand and forearm waiting for the cool water to temper the heat. Testing with her left a moment to make sure that it was safe, the lean blond stepped into the shower. The temperature was perfect.
Letting the water cascade over her head and down her body felt great. She must have been dirtier than originally thought though as her skin began to tingle. Wind and sand must have worked into her legs and upper body more than she realized.
A blue glow from her bracelet made Emily open her eyes. She quickly noted that the glow wasn’t just from the piece of jewelry. Enveloping her in bubbles of bluish light that looked like water flowing back up into the air, Emily’s wonder at the phenomenon quickly dissipated as she felt a change to her balance.
Looking down, a tail of pink scales marginally different in color from her skin seemed to grow nearly instantly before her eyes. It was so long that the glass door was knocked open which changed her position too much and Emily grabbed for the tiled walls around her trying to catch herself in a fall. With a slap and a thud, the new mermaid flopped onto the floor of the shower and the bathroom floor
as the shower head continued to drop the perfectly warm water onto her body.
“Ow,” she complained as her hands reaching to rub her backside found the feel of scales which made her eyes widen with shock. Her eyes hadn’t deceived her. A mermaid’s tail sprawled out before her seated form and out the shower stall door. As Emily tried to get her mind around this strange twist of magic, she noted the floor of the bathroom getting wet. Her mother was going to be mad at the mess.
“Oh my goodness, what is with me?” the girl complained to herself wondering at what her mother would say about water on the floor when there was the small concern that her daughter had somehow been turned into a mermaid. “How…?” she questioned the air until she heard footsteps hurrying towards her from the hall.
“Emily, are you all right?” Katie’s voice carried through the door conveying her worry. “I thought I heard something fall in there.”
Unsure of what to say at first, the blond mermaid sat mute as the warm water continued to fall. A rattling of the door handle proved that the impulsive girl outside wasn’t going to wait long if she believed Emily had fallen and hurt herself.
When the door opened letting Katie into the small room already filling with steam, the mermaid gasped wondering at how her friend had gotten inside so quickly and then on to how she could possibly explain what had happened.
“Oh my god,” the wavy haired blond breathed in awe. “You’re a… a… mermaid? How in the world did that happen?”
“I don’t know!” the normally calm Emily exclaimed in a near whine as panic began to overwhelm her. Hearing her friend speak the word almost seemed to drive the point home more than just seeing it for herself. She was almost ready to cry, but the shock held them at bay as she added, “Just close the door. I don’t want anyone else to know until we figure this out.”
Obliging her friend’s wish, Katie pushed the door closed with a nod. She then moved to stand with a foot on either side of the pale pink tail. Her feet made small splashes in the water already pooling on the tile floor. “Maybe we should try and get you out of the shower at least?”
With a nod of relief that Katie wasn’t panicking in the face of such a fantastically weird situation, the new mermaid began to calm down a little more as well. She watched as the wavy haired blond reached over her to turn off the water despite her red t-shirt getting wet since the mermaid forced her to reach the knobs through the spray. Emily noticed the other girl’s bracelet begin to glow blue and change shape.
“Oh no,” she breathed and watched as blue sparkling lights encompassed her friend.
“What…?” Katie started to look at Emily before noticing the blue lights.
“The bracelets, they must be cursed. Get out of the water quick!” the mermaid warned but she was too late. Emily watched as the girl’s red shirt and short black boxers disappeared into the blue glow to be replaced with red scales across the girl’s chest and a tail of black instead of her legs. Falling across Emily, both girls cried out in pain as Katie crashed onto the person she was trying to help.
Chest to chest and eye to eye, Katie glanced up and stated, “Well, at least the water’s turned off.”
“Yay,” was the less than enthusiastic reply.
A new set of footsteps came running for the bathroom. “Are you guys all right?” Taylor questioned and pushed on the door that was still slightly ajar. A new gasp of shock filled the room as the two mermaids groaned in dismay.
“I thought I asked you to close the door.”
“I thought I had, but pardon me if I was a little distracted by my friend turning into a mermaid!” Katie snapped as she attempted to roll off her friend.
Taylor started to enter the room exclaiming, “What in the world?! You’re mermaids!”
Noting Taylor’s bare feet and the bracelet around the girl’s wrist, Katie warned, “Stop, stop! Don’t come in here, Tay!”
“What?” the girl complied coming to a startled stop.
“The bracelet, take it off. They must be cursed.” The wavy haired blonde’s eyes turned to Emily asking, “You remember the gold mermaids on the chest? Could it have been a mermaid’s chest instead of a pirate’s chest? Maybe it’s there to lure in girls to make more mermaids.”
As she asked her rhetorical questions of Emily, Katie missed as Taylor tried to pull the bracelet off her wrist. The girl shook her head with a deep frown etching her forehead, “I can’t get it off. It’s like it shrank.”
“Then don’t step in the water,” Emily stated wondering how she and Katie were going to get out of the shower let alone do anything with mermaid tails. Her mind was in chaos as she tried to take in what had happened including what events led to her turning into a mermaid. It was preposterous. Mermaids weren’t supposed to exist and magic was just sleight of hand, not something that could do this to her and Katie.
There was a bit of a rustling from the younger girls’ room and Emily thought maybe even from the other rooms further away like her parents and brother. Panicking and not wanting any more people knowing of their curse until she could figure out how to end it, she waved at Taylor as she asked for help, “Taylor, close the door so no one can see us, then stand guard. Please!”
The brunette nodded to her friends realizing how awkward being discovered would be. How would the others react to seeing mermaids? None of them could know. Closing the door behind her, Taylor left the two girls to stare at each other while trying to figure out what they could do to get out of the situation.
“Now what?” Katie asked of the future doctor. “Do you think this is permanent?”
The other girl’s mind raced trying to recall anything that she had seen or read about mermaids. She wasn’t one for science fiction or other fantasies. Emily had never bothered to have an imaginary friend when she was a child. Often others had said that she was very mature for her age, so now the rational young woman was left trying to sort through a very irrational situation.
“Well, a true mermaid probably has no options unless there’s something magical involved. I guess. But we’re cursed so maybe if we tried drying off it will go away?”
“You’re asking me?” Katie retorted in annoyance at the other girl. The situation already had both of them totally rattled and the wavy haired blond quickly winced at her own words. She hadn’t meant to attack Emily like that. “Sorry, but is that all you can think to do?”
“I vaguely remember a movie I saw when I was a little girl and I think there was a television show too, where dry legs made them turn back to human. When I started the shower I had wet hands and arms without turning into a mermaid. It wasn’t until I actually stepped into the shower that it happened.” Emily shrugged and noticed her pink scaled breasts rise with the gesture. She was covered, but felt noticeably bare. Needless to say, the girl felt the situation was remarkably awkward.
Katie squirmed and tried to back out of the shower. “It’s still wet on the floor out here, but if I can reach the towels, maybe we get dry enough on the tile or by sitting on the toilet?”
While helping get Katie out of the shower first, hands and tails were often bumping into each other. The two girls began to blush even in the midst of their predicament. The whole thing just seemed too weird, Emily thought.
It wasn’t long before they could hear voices outside the door. Taylor fended off Faith and Brook while the two younger girls complained about them hogging the bathroom. Meanwhile, Katie pulled down the towel Emily had brought from the closet as well as the hand towel and full size towel that was usually hanging in the bathroom for anyone to use to dry themselves.
Between the two of them, the girls were able to get Katie up onto the toilet with her tail resting on top of Emily’s where she now sat on the tile despite it being wet. They figured with the limited towels maybe they could get Katie dry first and if possible they’d try for Emily.
“We should have asked Taylor to get more towels before the others got here,” Emily regretted as she acted like a foot rest.
With a sigh, Emily took the towel and began rubbing at the black scaled tail. After several more moments, a blue light seemed to start with Katie’s bracelet before moving to envelope the rest of her mermaid body. As it ended, the girls were rewarded by seeing human legs once more. Her clothes returned and the scales were lost with the blue light.
The wavy haired blond wiped at her forehead before tucking her feet up onto the seat cover. “Shew, well that’s a relief. Now we just need to get you dry apparently.”
Emily nodded feeling slightly better even though her own condition hadn’t changed. “Toss me the big towel and I’ll try to dry off the floor so we don’t have to worry about you changing back. Then you can dry my tail for me.”
Grinning down at her, Katie replied, “I’m always willing to return a favor.”
Rolling her eyes in reply as she finished drying the puddles on the floor, Emily asked, “Since when? Last time we washed your car, you suddenly had something up and left mine all dirty.”
“Oooh,” the girl groaned forlornly, “I can’t wash my baby now. I always looked so cute in my swimsuit too.”
Emily shook her head at her friend’s priorities, but she noted the floor appeared dry. “It should be safe now. Let’s hurry and get out of here before my mom comes up to yell at us. You know Faith’s going to wind up going down and complaining to my parents instead of just using the bathroom down there.”
Getting onto her knees, Katie began attacking the job of drying the pink tail with vigor. “You mean like she did yesterday when you were in the bathroom when your sister got up?
“So how are you going to tell her that she’s cursed? Do you think that might make her stop telling on you for a minute?”
The blue glow started and Emily’s naked form was a relief to see. Katie’s eyes flicked up towards the wall, even though the two had been through enough gym classes to have seen each other in the showers there more than a few times. Grabbing the clothes she had picked out, Emily quickly dressed and reopened the door.