Silver Tides (Silver Tides Series) (22 page)

son of the sea

I tried to act normal for the rest of the night but I was overwhelmed. My body ran on autopilot, smiling and laughing at the correct times, but my brain was tuned into the dull roar of my own thoughts.

I didn’t feel like myself till I was in my tiny room looking up at the universe of glow-in-the-dark stickers that Mum had stuck up on my ceiling. They had all but lost their luminance over the years, but their presence comforted me. I lay on my sea-themed comforter, reading the different motivational slogans plastered around my room. The ginger kitten hanging from a branch saying, “Hang in there,” did nothing to ease the churning turmoil.

An oval mirror sat on my chest of drawers, surrounded by my favorite photos. I surveyed all the pictures of my family and Jaimie and me. In the past week I had added photos of Daniel and me from a photo booth; while they fit in, I wondered if I had added them prematurely. Everyone had warned me to refrain from getting attached too soon, but I’d gone ahead and done it anyway. Now he could well be a mythical creature, out to serve my family at some mermaid’s banquet.

I couldn’t bring myself to answer the phone or call Daniel for the rest of the weekend. It wasn’t that I was avoiding him, but I was processing what had happened on the beach, and that made me withdraw from him.

Tuesday night Daniel knocked on our front door, uninvited and clearly agitated. Mum and I had reached the door together, and my heart sank when I saw him. His eyes had dark circles under them, and even though I’d only seen him a few hours ago at school, it felt like weeks ago.

“What’s wrong?” Mum asked, picking up on the strange vibe.

“I just need to talk to Mya,” he answered, noncommittally.

Mum looked decidedly worried as we retreated to my cluttered bedroom. I sat on my bed with my back against the pillows, holding my childhood soothing fish in my lap. Most kids had teddy bears, but I had a big bright clownfish that had weathered seventeen years with me and still held the key spot on my bed.

My bedspread looked like the waves of the sea. I always loved nature, which was reflected in my room with all the stuffed animal toys and the beach theme painted on my walls, under all the motivational posters.

Daniel sat at the foot of my bed tracing the waves on my bedspread before he spoke. “I feel like you’re avoiding me.”

I let the words hang in the air, till he lifted his blue eyes to look at me.

“I guess I have,” I replied honestly, feeling like my tummy was full of frogs jumping around.

Daniel inhaled sharply, pained by the truth. “Why?”

“Who was that woman on the beach?” I asked, looking him in the eyes to see if he would tell me.

“Which woman?” He looked away, trying to deflect my question.

“We promised we wouldn’t lie.” I sighed. “The woman on the beach after the dance.”

Even the memory of her made the hairs on the back of my neck stand on end.

“You remember that?” he asked reluctantly, his eyes meeting mine.

All his hedging was frustrating. “Yes, Daniel or Reef or whatever!” I snapped.

“I was just hoping that...” Daniel sighed. “She’s my mother.”

“Like your biological mother?” I clung to the only explanation that was rational.

“No.” Daniel grinned. “She’s my mermaid mother.”

I gasped involuntarily, his words confirming what I refused to allow myself to believe. “How?” I pushed the hurricane of questions and emotions from my mind, so that I could focus on what Daniel was saying, but I knew they wouldn’t stay there for long.

“You saw the photos,” he said dismissively. “I became a fish, my biological parents dropped me into the sea, and Cordulla, Mother retrieved me and returned me to the city.”

He explained it like conversing about a Youtube clip, as though what he was saying was totally rational, even amusing. My mind reeled as I tried to work through what he was telling me.

“Which city?” I asked, barely able to speak around the knot in my throat.

“We call it Atlantis.” He grinned, searching for my disbelief. “Some call it Finfolkaheem; it’s on the floor of the ocean, although legend suggests it was an invisible island. Three kinds of Merfolk live there; Mermaids, like the ones with tails you read about in fairytales. Then there are Finfolk, they are shape-shifters, and they can sprout a tail or legs as the need arises. Finally there are Switchers, like me and Cordulla who were once human and then transformed into sea dwellers.”

“What do you all eat?” I asked, wanting to make sure that I wasn’t on the menu.

Daniel threw his head back and laughed, filling the room with his melodic laughter. “Fish.” He smiled, reading my body language. “You’re safe.”

I released the breath I’d been holding, comforted by his assertion. “How did it happen? Like the change...”

“It just did.” Daniel shrugged nonchalant. “No-one knows how or why it happens, but every hundred years or so, a human couple switch; they are trained by their Switcher parents, and then take their place.”

“Take their place?” I asked, confused.

“As the rulers of Atlantis...” Daniel said, the mantle of responsibility heavy on his shoulders.

“Kinda like a king and queen?” I tried to align the story with what I knew.

“Exactly like the king and queen,” he replied seriously, placing his cold hand on mine. I pulled my hand away; pretending that I had a hair that I needed to brush from my face, but the hurt in Daniel’s eyes was unmistakable.

“It’s a lot to take in.” He forced a laugh, but his eyes were boring into mine pleading for understanding.

“What happened when you arrived in Atlantis?” I asked, looking away so I wouldn’t have to meet the hurt in his eyes. My fingers toyed with my clown fish’s lips, the small motion being the only thing keeping me from tensely pacing the floor. The conversation was going to make or break our relationship. I cared so deeply for Daniel, but what he was telling me would test any reasonable person.

“I lived in my pupa for a while and then emerged as a fully fledged mythical creature,” he joked, trying to lighten the somber tone.

“A pupa like a butterfly?” I tried to understand how thorough his transformation had been.

“Yes, a proper pupa like a butterfly; I liquefied and emerged with the ability to breath under water,” he explained, pulling up his shirt and motioning toward thin lines across his back that looked like fine stretch marks. “They’re gills that help me take the oxygen from the water.”

I chewed my lip and traced one of the fine lines with my forefinger. “So, you’re a real-life mermaid?” The words were filled with disbelief and wonder.

“I prefer merman,” he joked.

I hit him with my fish. “Ya dag.” I giggled, the small release cutting through the heavy tension.

“I know that dating a mythical creature is a bit overwhelming.” He sighed, pulling me closer to him, so that our foreheads were touching. “But please don’t give up on me; I need you.”

The intensity of his eyes drew my affections toward him so keenly that I ached, but I couldn’t help feeling betrayed. “I don’t have a problem with dating a mythical creature; I have a problem with you not telling me!”

The minute the words were out, I knew they were true. Once he’d explained what he was, and that he wasn’t a threat to anyone, I could accept him. The realization that he hadn’t trusted me enough to tell me stung.

“I’m sorry,” he said, holding my face gently. “I was sure you would change and then it would be more believable.”

“Change how?” I asked, fearing that I already knew the answer.

“That you would become like me,” he said quietly. The air was heavy again, laden with emotion. The ache of wanting to be with Daniel, matched my desire to stay with my family and finish university. I felt torn in half.

“And what? Leave my family? My life? My dreams?” I whispered, taken aback.

“It’s what we are,” he pleaded, his eyes holding mine. “I saw you walking on the beach, a golden light emanated from you. That’s why I swam in; that’s why I nearly drowned and broke the treaty. I didn’t want to be without you.”

His words drew me in, and slapped me away, when I realized that there was even more he had to explain.

“Back up now?” I said, pulling away from him. “Explain.”

“I saw you on the beach. The merfolk and selkies have a treaty that prevents our kind from coming on land.” The way he said ‘
our kind
’ filled me with apprehension. “When I tried to meet you, the selkies pulled me back on such an angle that my gills filled my lungs with water. Wobbegong’s have the same kind of gills; it’s a fish thing. That’s why I nearly drowned. But I had to meet you and I’d do it again because you are worth it.”

His frigid hand reached out tentatively to caress my cheek; I had to steel myself against his beautiful eyes.

“That’s crazy,” I whispered, feeling overwhelmed. It thrilled me to hear how much I meant to Daniel, but I didn’t want to mean more to him than his life. While I cared about him, the thought of becoming a half-fish was less than appealing.

“I know it’s all sudden and intense.” He sighed, clasping my hand. “It’s fate. You’ll turn; I know it.”

“And if I don’t?” I asked. I wasn’t mermaid material; I had hips like a bear, and boobs that would look terrible in seashells. I missed the days when I feared a super model girlfriend; it was far less complicated than pressure to turn into a supposedly mythical sea creature.

“I still want you and no one else,” he replied, kissing my forehead.

His cold lips brushed across my skin, filling my body with a tingly sensation; his blue eyes were so genuine. Daniel Esso was offering me his heart, and all I had to do was accept. In that moment I decided to follow my heart or lust or whatever it was that drew me to Daniel, because it felt right, fateful. I smiled wrapping my arms around him.

“I want you too,” I whispered, kissing his cold cheek.

We kissed for a long while reacquainting ourselves after our brief estrangement.

“So, you’re a prince?” I stated chagrinned, as we reclined on my bed holding each other.

Daniel ran his hand awkwardly through his hair. “Yeah, I guess. Mother is the queen, so it stands to reason.”

“Doesn’t she have any other kids?” I asked.

“Our kind doesn’t procreate. That’s why we’re the royal family; we don’t have children to distract us. We start out human and then a mutant gene makes us Switchers, never to walk among humans again. Your delayed turning has given me a chance to come home, to remember my parents and my life. Most of our kind never have that opportunity; it makes us cold-blooded in every sense of the word.”

My head felt overfull from all that he was saying. Choosing Daniel meant leaving my family and never being able to have children and ruling people who were essentially fish.

“I don’t want to lose my family,” I told him, looking at our fingers intertwined. The words made tears well in my eyes.

“You won’t,” he assured me. “I remember, so when you change, I’ll remind you. I won’t let you become like Mother.”

“It’s so weird; the average girl has one mother-in-law to hate on her, and I’ve got two,” I joked. In the short time I’d met Cordulla, I was convinced that her hatred was no laughing matter. I winced remembering her cold demeanor.

“Lucky Sophia adores you then,” Daniel laughed, assuming there was no truth in my words.

“She knows that I’m the one keeping you on shore,” I said, realizing why Sophia was so fond of me.

“I don’t know if she could articulate it, but I think she strongly suspects that you’re the reason I’m back,” Daniel agreed, squeezing my hand.

I snuggled closer to Daniel, filling my nostrils with his aquatic scent.

"I'm glad I could finally tell you all this," Daniel said his voice bubbling with excitement.

"Me too." I smiled feeling normal for the first time in days.

"The full moon is in less than a week," Daniel mused somberly. "I wish you could come with me to the parley. The selkies are our sworn enemies; I don't trust them not to ambush us at the meeting. You’ve had lots of experience with crazy people, dealing with Miranda and all …"