by A. L. Knorr
The fierce determination on her face gave me goosebumps. "Dante's demon should be very afraid, then," I murmured. I took another drink and then said, "What about you, Targa? You haven't told us anything at all about your summer. I've talked enough. It's your turn now. Spill."
Akiko, Georjie, and I waited expectantly, our eyes on our friend.
Targa's eyes went down to her feet, where they were crossed at the ankles and she bit her cheek. "I fell in love."
"With Antoni, we know," Georjie said. "He must be an amazing guy to have turned your head."
"He is, but he's not the only surprise."
"Finally," I rubbed my hands together and shifted closer to Targa. "We're getting to the good stuff."
"I inherited a billion-dollar multi-national company," Targa said.
A beat passed.
"That is so not what I expected you to say," I rasped.
We listened with amazement of a different kind as Targa told us about the elderly man who became attached to Targa and Mira while they worked on his salvage job with the Bluejackets team. Targa was still absorbing it herself and told the story in a halting way. She explained that Martinius had passed away shortly after she and Mira arrived home, and that Antoni himself had delivered the news along with documents for her to sign to finalize her inheritance. She had signed them, and Mira had signed for the rights to the wreck, a ship called The Sybellen.
While Targa told her story, I kept waiting for the other shoe to drop. There had to be more, otherwise the story didn't make sense.
"So, what are you going to do with this company, Targa?" Georjie asked.
"I don't have to do anything with it." She shrugged. "Antoni says it will run on its own just fine. I'd probably bankrupt it anyway—what do I know about shipping? Or running any company for that matter? And I don't want to sell it, that would feel like a betrayal of Martinius's memory, you know? He wouldn't have willed it to me if he'd known I would just turn around and put it on the market."
"Mira's not interested in running it until you decide what to do with it?" Akiko asked.
Targa laughed. "You need to spend more time with my mom if you think she'd be remotely interested in such a job. She can barely stand working for the Bluejackets, even with all her perks. She's on another job right now, in Nassau. You should have heard her grumble before she left."
"She must be happy about her rockstar status," added Georjie. "I've collected about a dozen articles about that woman. She's a legend."
"You have?" Targa looked surprised.
"Yeah! Your mom is a role model for me."
"You never said."
Georjie flushed. "Well, it’s a little embarrassing, but I've always felt in awe of her. Not just because she's amazing at what she does. There’s something else I've never really been able to put my finger on."
"Oh?" Targa cocked her head at this revelation.
"Wait a minute," I interjected. "This can't be it. No one else thinks there has to be more to the story?" I targeted Akiko and Georjie with this question.
"What do you mean?" Targa sounded cagey.
"It doesn't make any sense. Why would some old guy you'd never met just hand you the rights to his company? It's weird. There has to be something else. Plus, look at her." I gestured at Targa. "You can't tell me something supernatural didn't happen to her."
"She'd tell us if it did," Akiko said. "Wouldn't you, Targa?"
"I…I…" Targa stuttered.
I narrowed my eyes at my beautiful, now raven-haired friend. I pulled the fire up to my eyes and let them glow like lanterns. "I know you haven't told us everything. We've all spilled our secrets.”
"She'll tell us when she's ready," said Akiko.
"No. I call bullshit." My eyes were flaming now. "We love you, Targa. Whatever you went through or are going through right now, we only want what's best for you.”
Targa’s lips pressed together. She dropped her eyes.
"Friendship is a two-way street," said Georjie, quietly.
"You don't understand," Targa said. "It's not just my secret."
Now we were getting somewhere. I said, "My secret isn't just mine either, Targa. Jack is involved now, as are Gage and Ryan, and Basil, and a host of other magi."
"I made a promise when I was barely old enough to understand what a promise was," Targa explained. "I don't want to betray—" Her eyes went glassy and a tear slipped down her cheek. She wiped it away with an almost angry movement. There was only one other person I knew of who could get Targa's emotions all stirred up like this.
"Your mother?" I guessed.
The look on her face told me I was right.
"Whatever you are, it’s genetic, isn't it?" I asked.
"It's easier if I just show you."
With this pronouncement, Targa slipped into the pool.
Saxony
Targa's shape was a blur in the pool. She slipped off her bathing suit bottom and tossed it from the pool. It landed in a lump on the moss. She stretched her legs out and they just kept on growing. My throat tightened as her shape changed before our eyes. Her legs thickened and fused together. A long, elegant white fin swayed gently in the water.
I forgot to breathe.
"She's a mermaid," Georjie said on an exhale. She looked up at Akiko and me in shock. “Is that why Mira is such a diving legend? Do you think the Bluejackets know?” She blinked and mimed her brain exploding. “Mind-blowing!”
I shook my head. “There’s no way. Targa wouldn’t have had such a hard time telling us if a whole team of divers in Saltford already knew.”
Targa began to circle the pool in graceful, sinuous loops, her tail appearing to propel her effortlessly, her long black hair flowing behind her like a pennant. It was as though she'd transformed into a liquid, so smooth and silky were her movements. Her tail was pearly white at the back and a metallic silver on the front—a mercurial glimmering hue that was no color and all colors at the same time. Her skin seemed iridescent and transitioned smoothly into scales at her waist. Her tail was full and thick—muscular looking.
Her gleaming head broke the surface, her vibrant eyes open. Water trickled over her face and neck and down her hair. Her lips parted as she looked at us. On her face was a thicket of emotions: relief, anxiety, love, wonder, and a question.
"Mira would be very unhappy with me to know that I have shared our secret." Targa's white shoulders lifted and her expression said, but what else could I do? "I have to trust that after everything you have all shared, I was supposed to share this with you. You now understand how important keeping your identity a secret is." She swam toward us and came half out of the water. She held out her hands.
Akiko, Georjie, and I went to the pool’s edge and grasped her hands.
"Promise me," Targa began. She didn't have to finish her request, but she did anyway. "You'll tell no one what you know about me and my mother, and I will keep your secrets, too."
We promised. It was unnecessary, yet necessary at the same time. Somehow, saying the words made everything feel more real, more sacred.
Targa's face lost some of its worry. We released our hands.
"Did this just happen to you this past summer?" I asked.
Targa nodded. "I was born to a siren…"
"A siren?" Akiko cocked her head. "I thought sirens were different from mermaids?"
"There are many varying mythologies about sirens and mermaids," Targa explained. "I've read pretty much everything that has ever been written about us, and most of it is wrong. Even the stuff that seems like it was written by someone who met a mermaid doesn't get it all right. Maybe there are other creatures called sirens who are more like the bird-women of Greek mythology, but we mermaids have hypnotic and irresistible voices which we can use to make humans do whatever we wish. Most mermaids use this voice to win themselves a mate and ensure the survival of the species with the strongest human male they can find. My mother and my father—"
"Nathan," said Georjie, her eyes sad.
"What a sweet man your dad was. He was your biological father?"
Targa nodded. "They were so in love. My mother didn't use her siren voice on him and the outcome was me. At first, we thought I was a dud. Turns out I had never made the transformation because we didn't know how to trigger my siren genes. For most mermaids, all it takes is exposure to salt-water when we're very young. For me…" She gave a secret smile. "It was a little more complicated than that. I had to die."
"You had to what, now?" I croaked.
"I had to drown. I had to take seawater into my lungs, and my heart had to stop and then start again before my mermaid genes were fully expressed."
"You died this past summer?" Georjie squeaked. "Geez. I think that wins the prize."
"I believe that is what happened." Targa nodded. "Antoni and I got caught in a storm. I drowned. When I came to, I had this." She gestured toward her tail. "And a lot more power than even Mira has."
"Powers over water?" Akiko was leaning so far out over the pool, peering at Targa, that I thought she was going to fall in. I resisted the urge to give her a little push.
"Show us?"
Targa sank into the pool and swam backwards. Behind her, an explosion of water sprayed upward, making a backdrop that framed her. With a crackling sound, the entire wave turned to ice. A hail of ice chips splattered into the pool like rain, but the main body of the wave stayed intact and bobbed in the water like an ice cube. Targa was smiling.
The girls and I laughed with delight.
Targa lifted her arms, fingers spread wide, and before our eyes, she lifted herself on a pillar of water high enough to touch the glass ceiling.
"Show off," called Georjie.
"Nah," Targa called back with a glimmer in her eye. "This is showing off."
The water reversed direction. The pillar Targa had been riding sank back into the pool and continued descending, a dimple formed, around which Targa circled. The water at the edges of the pool climbed, and kept climbing. The pool did not overspill its banks, but rose while keeping its square shape.
Akiko reached out and touched the water, swirling it back and forth in front of our faces.
Georjie and I did the same. The water closed over my hand but when I pulled it back, it dried instantly, as though the water was not allowed past where Targa had put it. I put both hands in the water and swept them in circles. I tried to splash Georjie, but the water wouldn't do my bidding.
Targa's shape swam past us and I reached out and touched her tail, feeling the smooth scales. The water became noticeably warmer. I gasped and looked at Georjie, who looked back at me, feeling it too.
"Is there anything you can't do with water?" I asked.
Targa circled and poked her head out of the wall of water. It was a bizarre sight as all the water squeezed out of her hair and from her face. Her head emerged, totally dry, her long hair dangled and swayed.
Targa just shrugged and smiled. Her shoulders emerged, then her chest and stomach. She was out of the water to the waist now, her spine bending as she held herself upright. Her tail moved sinuously behind her.
"That's so weird," Georjie said, pulling back to take a better look. "You look like one of those stuffed animal heads mounted on a wall."
Targa slid backwards, swallowed up once again. She released the water with a crash and the three of us squealed as we were soaked from head to foot. Plants dripped and saltwater landed in our drinks.
"Ack!" Akiko's hair was plastered to her face and when she pushed it back it stuck out in all directions.
"That was for telling her she looked weird," I gasped, water dripping off my nose.
Georjie flicked her hands and arms to get rid of some of the water and started to wring out her hair.
I cranked up my internal flame until my clothes and hair started steaming.
Georjie and Akiko watched as I evaporated all of the water on me with a smug smile.
"Brat." Akiko shook her head.
Targa emerged from the pool in her human form and pulled on her bikini bottoms. "Got a little wet, did ya?"
"Yeah, thanks for that." Georjie pulled her sodden hoodie away from her body. "Gross. Now I have to go change again." Her eyes were sparkling.
Targa noticed my fluffy, curly hair and dry clothes. I shot her a flinty, arrogant grin and crossed my arms.
With a flick of her wrist, a wave jumped out of the pool and splashed over only me. The water was freezing and shocked the breath out of me.
Georjie and Akiko bellowed laughter as I sat there in frozen wet surprise. "You know," I gasped, "it's not like I can't burn all your hair off if I wanted to."
"Go on then," she taunted me.
"Gawd, four seconds into sharing our most intimate secrets and you two already want to do battle." Akiko had her robe off and was wringing it out over the pool. "Seriously."
Again I used my inner fire to steam off all the water from my clothes, skin, and hair. Vapor misted off my body.
"You can't get off that easy," Georjie called from the sliding door where she stood with her palm on the handle. Her eyes flickered white.
"Don't you—" I started.
A green vine came out of nowhere from across the pool, snaked around my waist and jerked me backward into the water. As soon as the plant released me, I stood up, coughing and gasping.
"—dare," I finished.
I glared at Georjie, one corner of my mouth lifted. I turned up the heat until the water around me started bubbling and boiling.
Thick steam clouded the greenhouse, obscuring everything from view—the plants, my friends, even the pool. The water drained around me as it evaporated at high-speed. Only when it was thigh-deep did I turn off the heat.
It began to rain. Not just rain, but pour in heavy sheets. The girls squealed and laughed.
"You are in so much trouble," I heard Georjie yell from the doorway.
The sound of a torrential downpour was so loud I fought the urge to cover my ears. I could see my friends crouching beneath the deluge. I climbed out of the pool as the water rose, and I took shelter under a broad-leafed plant.
Akiko groaned as the rain began to let up. "You're worse than guys! Seriously? Enough with the pissing contest!"
Targa raised her arms. Her fingers beckoned to all corners of the room as she turned. Watching her was hypnotic.
Saltwater ran from every surface; off plants, off our clothes and hair, from the moss surrounding the pool. It poured back into the pool, every last drop. Everything was dry again, and it was as though nothing had happened. Targa put her hands down.
"Are we done now?" she asked.
Georjie returned from where she'd been near the door, her hair and clothing dry.
"I am if you are," she shot at me. She looked ready to raise her hands and call some of her plant friends into mischief.
I put my palms up. "I'm good. I think we've established who is the most powerful around here."
"Have we?" Targa canted her head.
"Well, obviously." I said. "Fire is clearly the most dangerous and powerful element. It destroys everything."
"Here we go." Akiko rolled her eyes. "I'm surrounded by children."
"Water puts out fire. I don't get how you think fire is more powerful." Targa rocked back on her tailbone and wrapped her arms around her shins.
"Fire dissolves water, didn't I just prove that?"
"But it can't destroy it," Targa shot back.
"I'll bury you both in about four tons of earth right now if you don't quit it." Georjie settled herself into an Adirondack chair and crossed her legs.
Akiko smacked her palm against her forehead. "Elementals," she groaned.
"Elementals," Georjayna echoed. "That's what we are." She put an index finger to her chest. "Earth." She pointed at me. "Fire." She swung her finger to Targa. "Water."
We all looked at Akiko and I said, "Air."
Akiko shook her head. "I'm not Air. I have no power over air. I don't even think I'm an Elemental."
I frowned. "But it fits. You said you can fly to the Æther, thirty-thousand feet above the earth's surface. If that's not an Air Elemental, what is?"
"But shouldn't I be able to make storms and high winds or something? I can't do that. Plus, Æther is not considered an element by most cultures. Æther is something different, belonging more to the realm of spirit than flesh."
"Whatever you are, you're a supernatural," Targa said. "We're all supernatural. We all know each other, we've been friends for years. So, why us? And why this summer?"
"You know why you," I said to Targa. "With you, it’s genetic. Your mom is a mermaid. You've always had the genes in you."
Targa nodded. "But you and Georjie aren't from supernatural parents, as far as you know."
"My mother is definitely not supernatural," Georjie said with a laugh.
"My parents aren't, but my brother Jack…" I began to say this without really thinking about it, then stopped. Would Jack mind if I told the girls about his power? I thought not, since they knew about mine and they all had their own, but I wasn't sure. On the other hand, after the way I'd pressured Targa, it wasn't really fair to keep any more secrets. This was an all-in situation.
"Jack, what?" Akiko encouraged.
"Jack is some kind of supercharged empath," I explained. "He and I butted heads hard when I first arrived home, because of all those arson incidents in Saltford."
Targa's eyes widened. "He thought that was you?"
"Thank you," I said, grateful that she didn’t even question my innocence. "Yes, he did. The twit. Although," I shrugged a shoulder, "can't blame him for thinking it. Every time he came near me, all he could feel was heat."
"Sorry, but what's an empath?" asked Georjie. "I don't think I've heard that term before."
"Someone who can pick up on the mental or emotional states of others," Akiko explained. "But you mean this in a paranormal way, I presume, not just that he's sensitive?"
"Yeah, seriously paranormal. He could tell me how I felt about telling my parents my secret and how much I want to attend Arcturus. It was unnerving. Feels like I can't have any secrets from him, like ever, now."
