Son of a Mermaid (12 page)

Shea dropped his fishing pole next to hers and helped her pull the net up the rest of the way. He knelt next to the blue now flopping on the dock, and put one hand over the net covering the fish’s side to stop the struggle. The pair watched as the jaw opened and closed. The blue sucked at the air, gills wagging uselessly. “Look at those teeth!” He pointed to the needle-like razors lining the fish’s mouth. “How am I going to get the hook out of there?”

“Very carefully,” came a voice from the shore. Both Hailey and Shea looked up to see Mr. Guenther standing at the end of the dock, watching them. “Would you like help?”

“Sure, Mr. Guenther,” Shea answered, giving Hailey a sidelong glance. “We can use all the help we can get.”

The old man reached into his back pocket and extracted a pair of long thin pliers. “Now the thing about blues,” he said as he approached and knelt beside them, “Is you never want to get your fingers anywhere near those teeth.”

“I can see that,” Shea said as the fish snapped again.

With a swift, practiced movement, Mr. Guenther pushed the ends of the pliers deep into the fish’s mouth and extracted the hook. Blood spurted out onto his hand and Hailey gasped. “Just a little fish blood,” he reassured.

“Will it die now?” Hailey’s voice sounded very small.

Shea’s hand still rested on the blue’s side. It was no longer struggling. The gill flaps behind its head strained open and shut with its effort to breathe.

“Only if Shea wants him to,” Mr. Guenther said.

Shea continued to stare into the bluefish’s unblinking eye. “Throw him back.”

“But he’s bleeding,” protested Hailey. “Won’t he die anyway?”

“Minor mouth wound,” Shea said. “It’ll heal quickly in the salt water. He needs to get back to his group. He’s one of the oldest, one of the leaders.”
Too much information,
he thought
. How do I know all this about the stupid fish?
But he knew, just as surely as if the fish had spoken out loud to him. He reached into the net, past the sharp teeth to grab the blue’s tail end. Lifting the fish out of the net, he swung it out over the water. It splashed into the river and disappeared. Moments later, it broke through the surface of the water, jumping more than a foot into the air and landing with another big splash.

Shea waved farewell, and turned to smile at Hailey. She stared at him, eyes wide and mouth hanging open. Shea shrugged his shoulders and glanced at Mr. Guenther, who had a mysterious smile upon his face. “Uh, thanks for your help, Mr. Guenther. We appreciate it.”

The older man stood slowly from his kneeling position and then bowed at the waist before Shea. “Whatever you need of me, Sire, I mean, Shea…” He straightened up and quickly walked off the dock and up the hill.

Shea stared after the old man’s retreating form.
Sire? What was that all about?

“Well, that was a little freaky,” Hailey finally said, breaking silence. “What’s going on with the old dude?”

He looked at her, shaking his head. “No idea. But can I tell you something?” He paused for a moment, checking to make sure Mr. Guenther was out of earshot. “The weirdest part is when I was touching the fish? It felt like the fish was telling me stuff. And I could understand what he was saying.”

Hailey’s mouth hung open again.

***

The afternoon wore on without another bite. By mutual consent, neither one brought up anything that had happened that day, instead discussing the merits of random television shows, and the sad fact that Shea’s grandmother had flat out refused to install cable television. At six o’clock they said goodbye, each heading home for dinner.

Shea’s shirt and shorts had dried, but the salty water left white lines along all the creases. He hoped he could sneak into the house quietly, but the stairs creaked rather loudly as he tried to creep up them.

“So fishing was fun?” Martha called as she came down the hall. Her voice woke the black Lab, who’d been snoozing behind the living room couch. Shea gave up on the idea of sneaking and pounded his way up the rest of the stairs. Lucky bounded past Martha, scrambling to follow the boy, toenails clattering on the wooden stairs.

“The stuff is in the shed,” he yelled over his shoulder. “I need to change because I stink of fish. Be down in a minute.” Lucky reached him before he could close the door.

“I want to hear all about your afternoon with Hailey,” Martha called after him. Shea could hear the kitchen timer beeping on the counter, and Martha’s footsteps retreating down the hallway.

In the bedroom, Shea hit the light switch as he slammed the door. Ripping off the salty shirt, he flung it toward the laundry basket in the corner. It almost made it, landing in a heap beside the basket. After Shea pulled a new shirt from the drawer and over his head, he spied Lucky licking at the salty white lines on the shirt in the corner. Sighing, he bent to retrieve it, thinking to push it to the bottom of the basket. Lucky licked Shea’s neck instead.

“Cut it out, boy,” he commanded, reaching to wipe the dog slobber from his ear. He froze as his fingers slid along the side of his neck.

It felt like there was a row of tiny slits behind his ear.

Quickly, his fingers flew to his other ear. He felt the same thing there.

Panicked, he ran to the mirror and leaned in as close as he could, pulling his ear forward to try and see behind it.

He wasn’t crazy.

He’d grown gills.

Under the undulating waves off Windmill Point’s beach, Kae turned to her companion. “I know I saw tons of jellyfish here yesterday, Lailani. Let’s keep searching a little more.”

The other mermaid wore a skeptical look on her round face. “I don’t know, Kae. I think there’s too much of this spongy codium weed around here. The bigger swarms of moon jellies tend to like more open spaces.”

“Why don’t we spread out a little then, and find the sandier areas?” Kae suggested. She really wanted to take another look above the surface to check for Shea. Not that she could talk to him today, not with Lailani tagging along. But she wanted to
see
him. If she could only get away from the other mermaid for a few minutes…

“Your mom made me promise to stick close to you,” Lailani said, crossing her arms over her chest, her left hand gripping two medium-sized mesh bags. “With the Adluos around, it’s not safe for a mermaid to swim alone. Besides, we need to stay together to fill these nets. It takes two, you know.”

Kae sighed, a rapid stream of bubbles exhaling from her gills. “Fine. Where is it you have in mind to look for moon jellies?”

Lailani grinned. “A little north of here there’s a big, more open beach. There’re always tons of jellyfish in those waters. And some of the cutest drylander boys you’ve ever seen, too! They come right out into the waves, floating on long boards.”

Kae was shocked. “You know we’re not supposed to talk to drylanders!” Her cheeks grew hot as she thought of Shea and her own rule breaking.

“Everyone does it,” the dark-haired mermaid retorted. “The war is practically over, you know. C’mon, what are you, a scared little cuttlefish? Let’s have some fun!” She spun in the water and headed east with the current, looking back to make sure Kae followed.

“Okay,” Kae agreed reluctantly, swimming with Lailani away from Windmill Point. She wondered with a wry smile if her mother had planned for Lailani keeping Kae away from the humans. Apparently “everyone” was talking to the humans these days. With a few sharp kicks of her tail, she was soon swimming abreast with the other mermaid. “So,” she started, not looking at her companion, “What drylanders have you ever spoken with?”

The other mermaid was silent for a long while as they swam into deeper waters. “Well, none actually,” she finally admitted. “But I heard Mirabella in the kitchen yesterday telling Ciara and Juliet about a surfer she met. It sounded like such fun.”

Kae shook her head. “Mirabella’s older than we are, Lailani. She’s already back from Atlantis.”
And back early,
Kae added in her head. According to the kitchen rumors, Mirabella had been sent home for disciplinary reasons. There were consequences for getting caught talking to drylanders.

“So?” The dark-haired mermaid was still defiant. “If she can do it, we can do it.”

“I’ll swim with you,” Kae warned, “but I’m not getting in trouble so you can one-up your older sister.”

Lailani flashed a brilliant smile at Kae. “There’s no harm in looking, right?”

***

After thirty minutes of swimming, Kae still hadn’t seen any jellyfish to fill their nets. “Are you sure there are jellyfish along this stretch of shoreline?” They’d had to veer further to the east to go around a series of barrier islands. Curious harbor seals swam along with them as they passed several beaches filled with the big furry creatures basking in the spring sunshine. One baby seal stuck by Kae’s side as they continued northward along the coastline. “I think there might be too many seals around for us to find any moon jellies.”

Lailani nodded her head, the current rushing through her short dark hair making it spike up all around her head. “Mirabella brought back a lobster trap full of nettles yesterday. She said all the jellyfish were plentiful.”

“Nettles?” Kae wrinkled her nose. “Aren’t those the stinky poisonous ones?”

“Only if they’re cooked wrong,” Lailani said with a grin. “Mirabella collects them for the King’s sister. She says the old mermaid likes her food with extra stink.” She pointed toward the surface. “We should be almost there. Shall we take a look around again?”

Kae agreed. “Hopefully we can see more than seals this time.” The baby harbor seal swimming next to her snorted as if in full agreement with the mermaids. Slowly the three poked their heads up among the waves and looked in toward the shoreline. They could see humans sitting on colorful cloths dotted along the beach and splashing in the shallow waters closest to the sand. “I think we made it!”

“Shall we watch from out here or go closer?” Lailani said, her head bobbing in the waves next to Kae’s. Now that she’d dragged them all the way up the coast, she sounded nervous at the prospect of talking to the drylanders.

“We can watch from out here,” Kae agreed, “As long as those swimmers don’t get too close to us, everyone will think we’re just another bunch of seals playing in the waves.” The baby seal barked in agreement.

This beach seemed so much larger than the one at Windmill Point. The sand dunes looked like they were reaching for the sky, the long stretches of tall sea grass swaying and moving like green waves upon the land. A cacophony of seagulls wheeled overhead, calling to one another.

It had been a long time since Kae had ventured this far from the King’s castle to explore the waters around Cape Cod. She knew there were many vast stretches of secluded beaches around the Cape and the islands of Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard, and many more teeming with human life like the one they were observing at the moment. She wondered if she’d have time to explore them all after the Solstice celebration.

She smiled at Lailani. “Thanks for dragging me out here. It’s such fun to see new places.”

The other mermaid shook her head. “According to the whispers in the kitchen, you’ll be seeing plenty of new places soon enough. Rumors are that the Adluos plan to bring our Princess home with them this summer, after the Solstice.”

The smile faded from Kae’s lips. “This summer? So soon?” She gazed back toward the humans along the shore, wondering how they could be so clueless about everything happening below the ocean’s surface. She was about to tell Lailani they should turn around and go home, when she spotted a familiar figure by the water’s edge. Even from this distance, she could tell it was Shea. Her Shea. Walking with a short girl in an ugly shirt the color of dead seaweed. “I have an idea,” she said to Lailani, not taking her eyes off Shea. “Let’s one-up your sister for real. Let’s transform and go ashore.”

“Transform?” Lailani’s olive skin looked a shade or two paler.

“Now who’s the spineless one?” Kae wrapped her fingers around the medallion at her neck. “Coming with me or not?”

Lailani hesitated. “Can we swim in a little closer first? If we transform way out here, won’t it be hard to swim in to shore?”

Kae glanced toward shore and saw that Shea was moving steadily away. She made up her mind and turned back to Lailani. “Do what you want. I’m going to talk to that blond boy over there on the beach.” She ducked under the water and swam several yards closer to shore.

When she surfaced, she looked for Shea, lifting one arm above the water to wave to him, catching his attention. Cupping the hand next to her mouth, she called out, “Hey! What are you doing here?” Her green mermaid tail swished beneath the waves, easily keeping her safe from the riptides.

“Kae? Is that you?” Shea yelled back, stopping mid-step and shading his eyes with a hand. His companion turned toward the water as well. “You’re out pretty far.” He took a step toward her, the waves washing over his ankles as he stood at the ocean’s edge.

“I’ll swim in. Wait for me.” Kae concentrated on the
transmutare
hanging from her neck. Usually, she climbed up onto the rocks at the end of a jetty to transform her tail into a pair of human legs. The process took several moments to complete, during which time the lower part of her body was immobile. She knew it was theoretically possible to change while still in the ocean, but this was her first attempt at a water transformation.

Holding the medallion in one hand, she whispered the incantation. Tiny bubbles swirled around her tail, popping with effervescence as they rose to the surface making the seawater around her look like sparkling champagne. The bubbles forced their way through the middle of Kae’s tail, the magic pulling it apart down the middle, cleaving it in two. The ocean around her warmed as air bubbles swirled swiftly to surround each of the sections, tingling like millions of tiny pinpricks as they smoothed the scales into the shape of human legs.

With one hand still clutching the
transmutare,
Kae struggled to keep her head above water for the sake of appearances, moving her right arm rapidly back and forth as the temporary paralysis gripped her newly forming legs. As her face dipped below the water line, she blew a stream of bubbles out of the gills behind her ears, hoping the paralysis would wear off before any lifeguards decided to swim out for a rescue.

After what seemed like forever, Kae felt the intense warmth of the transforming magic ebb away, leaving her with two human legs and a yellow bikini bottom. “Swimming can’t be easy for humans,” she said to herself as she kicked her new legs to tread water. Lailani and the baby seal were nowhere to be seen.

When she was closer to shore, she called, “I wasn’t expecting to see you on this beach.” Her feet touched the sandy bottom, feeling a crab scuttle across her toes. “I thought this was a spot for swimmers and surfers only.”

“The water is way too cold for swimming,” he mumbled as Kae shook salty ocean from her wet hair. “And the blues and stripers are both running close to shore this time of year. You could get hurt. I mean, you got hurt enough on the bicycle, right?”

“The cold doesn’t bother me,” Kae said with a smile, ignoring his crack about her bike riding skills. She nodded toward the dark-haired girl. “Who’s your friend?”

He looked at the girl by his side, seeming surprised to see her standing so close to him. “Oh, this is Hailey. I told you about her the other day, remember?”

“Hey,” said Hailey, a friendly-enough looking smile on her face. Dark sunglasses hid her eyes, but Kae could feel her cold gaze. This girl wasn’t happy to see her.

Kae didn’t smile back. An unfamiliar burning sensation churned in the pit of her stomach. She turned her gaze back to Shea, wondering how many more chances she’d get to talk to him before she had to leave Cape Cod forever, for her new life in the Southern Ocean. She wondered if everything she’d been told about Shea was true. Her conversation with her father replayed in her mind and a chill ran down her spine.

“You’re cold,” he said, untying a long sleeve shirt from around his waist. He stepped closer and slipped the shirt over Kae’s head, staring into her eyes. This close, she could see how big and ocean-green his eyes truly were.
Jumping jellyfish
, those eyes looked so familiar, as if she’d known him all of her life... She blinked hard, finally turning her head away and taking a deep breath.

Trying to distract herself, she slipped her arms through the sleeves and searched for a safe topic of conversation. “So, what’re you doing here? This is pretty far from Windmill Point.”

“My mom was meeting a potential new client here in Orleans,” Hailey answered. “She dropped us off here at Nauset to hang out. I would’ve preferred to walk along Main Street but she wouldn’t give me her credit card. And my stupid brother had to tag along, too, and he said he wanted to check out the surfing scene. Mom figured there’s a snack bar if we’re hungry so we’ll be okay on the beach for a while.”

“Yeah,” Shea interjected, stopping the girl’s flow of words. “Hailey has to eat, like, every five minutes.”

Hailey elbowed him in the ribs. “Can I help it if I have a super-fast metabolism? And a weakness for onion rings?” She grinned at him and Kae felt the churning in her stomach kick up a notch.

“Cape Cod has many wonderful beaches to explore,” Kae said carefully, trying not to let her jealousy show. “But you’re not wearing swimsuits?” She looked at Shea.

Hailey answered for him. “No swimming for this dummy. Says he never learned, which at fifteen is a mystery to me. I mean, he almost drowned the other day,” she said, bumping her shoulder into his in a familiar way. Too familiar for Kae’s taste. “I saved him.”