Lights at Midnight : A Mermaid Story (Lights at Midnight Series Book 1)

by Orchid Leigh

  I gazed at the creature standing magnificently in front of me. I was awestruck. I wasn’t sure, but I thought it might be the same one I had seen on the night of the storm. It stared at me with the same crystal blue eyes.

  It was big. Enormous. Growing up in the city, I never really got to see too many horses, but I imagined it was probably even bigger than some of the large Clydesdales I’d seen on TV.

  Of course, this wasn’t a horse at all.

  It stood in the open with the moonlight shining down on a beautiful, stark white coat—thick and glistening in the blue beams. Its mane was a medium gray, with shiny, metallic silver strands catching in the light and falling down its neck in long, wavy tendrils. A silver horn, matching the color of its mane, stretched out long and sharp from its forehead, piercing the night sky.

  “Hey there,” I said.

  It stared at me with big eyes lined heavily in black.

  I took a tentative step forward. It showed no signs of fear, and I closed the space between us. I stretched out my hand, finding an urge to touch the softness of its mane. It turned its head and nuzzled its nose against my shoulder.

  “Hey,” I said again, a nervous laugh escaping me. “Aren’t you beautiful?”

  With a friendly touch, I ran my fingers along its strong neck, finding its mane, which was somehow softer and silkier than it looked and was like warm sand through my fingers. It nuzzled into me again and grunted quietly.

  “Hey, Peter,” I whispered over my shoulder. “The apple.”

  Peter was a few cautious feet behind. “This is something else, huh?” he said as he caught up.

  “Yeah, can you believe this?”

  I took the apple from Peter’s hand, offering it slowly up to the creature. The unicorn sniffed at it but didn’t bite.

  “What? You don’t like apples?” I asked, realizing with regret that we had left the carrots in the tent.

  The unicorn sniffed once more at the apple, then followed a scent down the length of my arm, stopping at my neck. It snuffled at my collar.

  “What is it?” I asked, but then I realized.

  I pulled the candy necklace Peter had given me out from under my shirt. The unicorn sniffed more fervently and began to chew on the heart pendant.

  “Oh, you like that, do you?” I said with a laugh. I turned to Peter. “Sorry.”

  Peter shrugged and stood astonished as the unicorn continued to eat.

  “Hey, careful. There’s a string in there,” I said to the unicorn, who kept on with the candy. I guided the necklace around as it munched happily, leaving only the elastic strand remaining around my neck.

  It stopped chewing and we all stood and stared at each other with the stillness of the night, quiet all around us.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked.

  Its eyes stared into mine. It turned its neck and gazed at the forest behind it.

  I glanced at the trail, then at Peter. “Do you think it lives in there?”

  “I don’t know,” said a befuddled Peter.

  We both glanced curiously toward the woods, then back to the unicorn.

  “Do you live there?” I asked.

  The unicorn turned again toward the dark forest, this time taking a step back. It repeated this, moving its head and pointing at the trees in a summoning motion.

  “I think it wants us to follow it.”

  “Ellie, no. Your dad will kill us if we go out there,” said Peter.

  He was right. “I can’t,” I whispered to the creature. “I’m sorry.”

  It nodded at me. Yes. I was sure it had nodded.

  “I think it understands me,” I gasped.

  The unicorn took a few steps back. I thought it was leaving, but it settled itself just a few feet away, keeping its gaze locked on mine.

  It raised its head, stretching its neck high so its horn extended and reached to the sky above. A light flicked on at the tip of the horn, and a bright, glowing orb beamed out, painting a new guiding star in the sky.

  The orb detached itself from the horn and floated freely above us. Higher and higher it rose. It brightened and radiated out, growing larger, and soon a fuzzy new moon hung in the sky, eclipsing our own.

  “Ellie, what’s going on?”

  There was a tremble in Peter’s voice. I too felt the hair on my arms prick, and the fear I had eluded before was now at my door, and it was pounding violently.

  The light, hovering above us, stretched. It expanded out and curved down like the umbrella-shaped bell of a very large jellyfish, and before I knew it, it had formed a dome that encapsulated us on all sides. It pulsed and brightened. It was blinding.

  Peter and I raised our hands to shield our ears as a high-pitched ringing dispensed from the surrounding light. The sound occupied and filled the dome, rising in intensity with each painful note and finally reaching a pitch just beyond our hearing.

  The dome pulsed, and with one last rise in sound, the light shattered and dispersed. And as if a power switch had been turned off, all was dark and quiet once more.

  I looked to the unicorn—its eyes fixed on me. “What just happened?”

  It lowered its head and nudged its big nose toward the house behind me.

  “What?”

  “Ellie,” said Peter. “I think we should check the house.”

  The unicorn nodded.

  “Why? What did you do?” I asked. “Did something happen to Dad? Are they okay?”

  It pointed its nose to the house again.

  Panic set in. Dad! Millie! That light. I didn’t notice how far it stretched. Did it reach the house? What would happen if it did?

  I looked at Peter, scared.

  “I’ll go see,” he said.

  He took off in a sprint. The back door slammed as he went inside.

  I waited.

  It was taking too long. I took a step toward the house, intending to go in after him, but the back door creaked open again.

  Peter stepped out. He slowly made his way back to me. So everything was fine then—Dad and Millie were okay. But as he walked, he came out from under the shadow of the big oak tree. And when he did, the moonlight fell on his face to reveal a look of utter terror.

  “What!” I screamed.

  “Th-the-they . . .” he stammered.

  “What!”

  I was about to make a dash for the house when someone answered me.

  “They are fine!”

  It wasn’t Peter who spoke. The voice had come from the woods behind us.

  Peter and I turned on our heels and stared toward the forest.

  In the shadow of the trees, a dark figure stood.

  16

  “Who’s there?” I called, my lips quivering with fear.

  “You need not be afraid. I am a friend,” the voice answered.

  I glanced over at Peter, who was staring wide-eyed at me. I took a sideways step closer to him, and we stood with our knees shaking in unison as we stared into the darkness.

  He emerged. At first, he was just a silhouette, a shadowy figure coming from the trees. Then he crossed into the moonlight and walked toward us.

  The light lit a tall figure of a man. But as he strode closer, the glow of the moon washed over his strange features and I saw that he wasn’t a man at all.

  I marveled at the figure in white that stood before us.

  He was slender and tall with skin so pale it was translucent. It was milky yet clear like steam trapped behind glass, and it stretched smoothly and youthfully over his face and sizable frame, making me think he was young, maybe just a few years older than me.

  On his head, snow-white hair draped and fell in soft, straight lines, forming a wispy waterfall that cascaded down, framing his large doe-like eyes.

  Around his neck glowed a lavender vial. A vest, white and leathery, draped over his shoulders and lay open at his bare chest. At his naval, his soft skin roughened into bumpy, iridescent scales that changed from a shimmery blue to a shimmery silver when he breathed.
He continued the look of white, with long flowing trousers that looked silky and soft, and sticking out at the ends, his feet were bare in the icy snow.

  He stopped beside the unicorn.

  “Who are you?” I asked.

  “Miss Cordelia Amora Heart, my deepest pleasure.” The figure sank slowly to one knee in a low, poised bow. He rose again. “My name is Levvi,” he said. “I am from the city of Glacia, your native land and home. I have come tonight to seek your help.”

  He waited for my response.

  I stared at him blankly. His words had hit my ears in a jumbled mess that made no sense. “M-m-my help? L-land . . . of . . . Glacia?” I tripped.

  “Yes, I implore you, with my utmost reverence and gratitude for your kindness, to take heed of my plea tonight. You and you alone hold the power and strength to save us. You are Glacia’s last hope. I have been sent here to seek your help, so perhaps with you by our side, we can finally be free again.”

  I stared at him in silence. His words had left me dumbfounded, and an exasperated laugh escaped me.

  “What are you talking about? Glacia? Where is that?” I glanced over at Peter, whose look of confusion confirmed that there were no towns or cities with that name anywhere close by. Dumbstruck, we both stared at the strange creature in front of us.

  “It is my home. Yours, too, if you would have it.”

  “No,” I said with nervous laughter. “You’re mistaken.”

  “I am not mistaken, my princess. I am quite sure,” he said. His eyes, peering into mine, were steady and sincere.

  “What? I’m not a princess,” I said. With these words, I was sure I felt the solid world on which my feet were planted begin to give way to sinking sand. I would soon be swallowed whole.

  “Ah . . .” he said. “But you are.”

  He stared at me with big eyes that did not flinch.

  I looked around, first to Peter, who stared back, wide-eyed and scared. Then to the magically beautiful unicorn, whose eyes locked with mine. Its gaze brought warmth and comfort, and I felt secure there. I then turned to the strange man who had come tonight to utter nonsense. Surely, it was all a dream.

  He saw my disquiet, and a look of compassion shown on his face. “I cannot explain it all here,” he said. “I do not think that would do. I must show you if you are to believe. Come with me now, before it is too late.”

  I shook my head. “I can’t go anywhere with you. My dad will . . .” And then I remembered—Dad! I turned to Peter. “What was wrong with Dad? Are they okay?”

  Levvi spoke before Peter could. “Your dad is fine. He has merely been paused.”

  “What?” I glared at him. My frustration with this night, and with this strange being, was starting to wear on me. “What did you do to my dad?”

  “They were both frozen solid, like statues,” whispered Peter.

  “What?” I asked. I looked at Peter, confused, unsure if I’d heard him right.

  “Everything was stopped, even the TV,” he said.

  I turned to Levvi, expecting an explanation.

  “They are okay. They have been paused—that is all,” he said.

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “I don’t understand.”

  “Midnight, here.” He gestured to the unicorn. “He has slowed time for them. Have no fear. They have no need to worry now.”

  “What?” Again, his words baffled me. “Do you mean to say you stopped time?” I asked. Sand shifted at my feet.

  “Not exactly.” He laughed. “Time is constant. It cannot be stopped or started. We are now merely synced with the flow of our time in Glacia. To us, your father may seem ‘frozen’ or ‘paused,’ but I assure you nothing has changed for him. He is experiencing time as he always has. Though we perceive him as moving slower, it is in fact we who are moving faster. However, I suppose you can look at it either way. Time in Glacia moves much faster than it does here. We are now existing at a speed that is thousands of times faster than that of your own.”

  “And what does that mean exactly?” I asked, because it was all too much for my mind to process.

  “It means your dad is still sitting and watching his movie in the living room. He may have just noticed a quick blur in front of his eyes when Peter, here, waved his hands in his face, but it was only a split-second’s time, and he is likely to give it no thought at all.”

  “How do you know what happened in the house?” I asked.

  “How do you know my name?” asked Peter.

  “We are quite telepathic and can read untrained minds,” he said. “Peter, you are an open book to me. You, Princess Cordelia”—he stopped and looked at Peter thoughtfully—“or Ellie, as Peter would call you, are closed.” He smiled at me. “But that does not surprise me, knowing who your grandmother was and all.”

  “My grandmother? How do you know my grandmother?”

  “Ah, all in good time, my princess. I will explain. But we must go now.”

  17

  I stood, chewing on my lip and staring at the two strange creatures that were waiting by the forest’s edge.

  I turned to Peter. “Come on, Peter. Please.”

  “Do you really think this is a good idea?” he asked. He looked past me to Levvi and Midnight. “For all we know, they could be leading us into a trap.”

  I swayed back and forth, thinking. “I know, but . . .”

  What was I going to say? He was right. It was crazy. But how could I let something like this go? It was all too strange and too puzzling to just leave it. My curiosity wasn’t going to allow for that. “Please,” I begged.

  “But, Ellie . . .” His eyes were pleading back.

  “You don’t have to go, Peter,” I said. “It’s okay.”

  He looked at me, disturbed. “You’re kidding, right? You can’t go alone.”

  I felt my patience waning. I breathed a heavy sigh because it was more than just impatience, more than curiosity. There was something gripping my heart, pulling on me—and it wasn’t giving. “I gotta go, Peter,” I muttered, succumbing to the relentless strain.

  Peter stared at me with defeated eyes. “Okay,” he said, but his tone told me he was still rejecting the idea. He glanced toward the forest again, then back to me. “Okay,” he repeated, still sounding torn. “I’ll go.” He shook his head. “It’s stupid, but . . . I’ll go.”

  ~

  We trailed a good distance behind the two strange creatures, both of us probably thinking the same foolish thing—that if we needed to run, we would at least have a head start.

  Midnight lit the way with his magical light, so bright and beautiful on the tip of his spiral horn. It was a strange, slow walk that was like a weird dream. The night air around us was oddly tepid and eerily quiet—no wind, no leaves, no howl of a coyote in the distance. There was only the faint muffled sound of our footsteps on what should have been loud, crunchy snow and sticks.

  I slipped an arm into Peter’s beside me.

  “You okay?” he whispered.

  “Yeah,” I said, feeling like a guilty fool. Now that we were actually going, I was starting to see how tremendously stupid it was—and dragging Peter with me was the worst of it. If anything were to happen to him . . .

  I took a shaky breath and tried to push down the fears, but they settled somewhere deep and started to ache.

  We came to the end of the trail, where it opened up to the lake. Levvi and Midnight, still a good distance ahead, stopped and waited for Peter and me to catch up. We walked to stand beside their large, peculiar forms, and suddenly I felt very small and frail. A nervous shiver ran through me.

  Levvi met my gaze with concern in his eyes. “We are nearly there,” he said. “Follow me and do not be afraid.” His words did nothing to ease my mind and only worked to renew my fears, as I imagined it was the same thing he would say regardless of his intentions.

  Levvi and Midnight stepped off the trail and started toward the lake.

  I hesitated, a sick worry trickling over my skin. It wa
s as though I was on the edge of something, about to cross over. I whispered a prayer and hoped there would be a bridge and not just a towering precipice to walk over.

  I might have turned back here, for my legs started to shake and my nerves moved my teeth in a noisy chatter, but Peter took the first step, and I followed.

  We were on the beach. Levvi and Midnight sauntered toward the icy lake. Without hesitation, they crossed the foreshore and walked on top of the frozen water.

  Peter and I paused at the edge. It was now spring, and the days had begun to warm enough for us to know it would be unsafe.

  We both looked on as Levvi and Midnight gained in distance. The heavy beast stepped across the ice, but it did not crack. Levvi turned back and saw that we had not moved beyond the shore.

  “You will be fine,” he called out to us. “The ice will hold. Remember, the world around us is frozen. You will have moved past any weak points before the molecules have time to react. You are a weightless bird out here tonight.” He scooped the air with a big outstretched hand, gesturing for us to follow. “Now, make haste. We have not got all night.”

  I hesitated, and Peter took the first step again. He turned back when he noticed I wasn’t moving. “You okay?” he asked.

  “I don’t know, Peter,” I said. “Maybe you were right. This is a little crazy, huh?”

  Peter pressed his lips together, looking unsure. “I think it’s going to be okay. We gotta see, right?”

  He smiled warmly, and I could tell he was trying to be brave for me.

  “Yeah,” I said.

  He held out his hand, and I tentatively stepped forward.

  Peter guided me to the spot where Levvi and Midnight had stopped beside a large boulder peeking out from the frozen water.

  The ice held.

  “Now that we are all here,” said Levvi. “It’s time to go home.”

  “You live in the lake?” I said, panic setting in. How would that work? How would we breathe?

  “No,” he said.

  I breathed a sigh of relief.

  “We live under the lake,” he said with a smile. “Now, Midnight!”

  Midnight acted on his command, lowering his horn to the ice. The tip brightened, and light radiated out, drawing a large circle around us. There was a loud buzzing noise and then a whirl of high notes that accompanied the circling light as it dazzled and danced on the surface of the lake.