Son of a Mermaid (9 page)

Shea and Kae walked down the street in silence. The mermaid worried at how far from the water Shea was leading her.
This is not the smartest thing I’ve ever done
, thought Kae.
Especially since I was told to stay away from the humans, and from this boy in particular. But… I need to get that medallion back.

She wondered what kind of creature a bicycle was, and whether she would be able to ride it. She already knew how to ride a dolphin by holding on to the dorsal fin with one hand. She even knew how to ride a giant leatherback sea turtle, gripping the front edges of its shell with both hands. But how do land creatures swim without water? And were land creatures tame like dolphins, or wild like sharks? Finally, Kae asked, “Are bicycles dangerous?”

Shea smiled, shaking his head. “Nah, not dangerous at all.” He stopped in front of his grandmother’s house. “Here we are. Wait while I put Lucky in the backyard and grab the bike.” He left her by herself as he went through the wooden gate.

Kae looked up the street nervously. No one else seemed to be around. Her bare feet ached from walking so far on the pavement, so much harder than the sand on the beach.

She turned back to stare at Shea’s dwelling, and realized it and the other buildings were made of wood! How impermanent! She smiled, remembering that her father had told her the humans didn’t live as long as the Aequoreans.
Probably all that exposure to the harmful air,
she thought.
Maybe that’s why they don’t build their homes to last very long.

Her very next thought that occurred to her was that
she
was part drylander. She had a human grandfather, her father’s father.
What does that mean? Am I not fully a mermaid? Is my father less of a merman because of his drylander blood?

“Hey!” Shea called, interrupting her internal debate as he emerged through the fence. With both hands, he pushed a metal contraption that seemed to glide along two turning wheels. Blue cloth dangled over one of his forearms as he steered the machine with the other hand.

“It’s not a living creature after all,” Kae murmured under her breath.

Shea wheeled the bicycle to a stop directly in front of her and narrowed his eyes. “What’d you say?”

“Never mind,” Kae said with a smile, and nodded at the clothing draped over his arm. “What’s that other stuff for?”

“I pulled some jeans off the clothesline for you,” he said, holding the material toward her. She saw that it looked like the cloth he had covering his own legs. “They’re mine so they’ll be a little baggy on you, but you and I are almost the same height so they should fit okay. It’s in case you tip over, so you don’t scrape your knees into a bloody pulp.”

“My knees?” Kae looked down at the bare legs stretching under her bikini bottoms. “Oh, right. The knobs on my legs where they bend.”

Shea shook his head, laughing. “You girls are strange creatures sometimes, you know that? C’mon, put these on and we can start the lesson.”

Hesitantly, Kae held the jeans in front of her, staring at them. She’d never worn such things. She’d never even had to put clothes on her legs as she usually conjured them with her
transmutare
.

Two tubes of rough blue material hung down from a single opening with a metal button at the top. She glanced over at Shea, noting that he seemed to have one leg in each of the tubes, and the metal button was up near his belly
. How did he get his legs inside, though? What am I supposed to do?

“What’s the matter?” He frowned. “They’re clean, you know. Don’t you think they’ll fit? Or are you afraid the fashion police will arrest you?” He took the jeans back out of her hands and held them up against her waist. “They look long enough.”

It suddenly dawned on Kae that if she lifted one of her legs, she could probably put it through the larger opening at the top and down into one of the tubes. She lifted her leg high, grabbing onto Shea’s shoulders with both hands to steady herself, and put her leg down into the jeans he was holding. Her toes emerged from the opposite end of the tube and touched the grass.

Shea dropped the pants, staring at Kae with his mouth hanging slightly open. The jeans slid slowly down, pooling around the one leg already inside. Kae stepped her left foot into the other leg tube now scrunched into a heap on the ground and let go of Shea’s shoulders, bending to grab the top of the pants he’d been holding a moment before. Sliding the blue jeans up over her long legs, she wrinkled her nose at the scratchy feel of the rough material against her bare flesh. She tried to ignore Shea’s stare, hoping she was acting like a human girl would.

Glancing down at the metal teeth in the vee of the opening, Kae wondered how they fit together like the one on Shea’s jeans, forgetting for a moment that the boy was watching her so intently.

“Don’t you know how to zip a zipper?”

“It’s my first time wearing…jeans,” she told him, reaching her hand to her medallion and rubbing her thumb in a circle around the stone. “Could you help me?”

He shrugged and reached over to tug on the zipper pull. He buttoned them for her, saying, “They’re loose, but I think they’re okay for this lesson.” She shivered as his warm fingers brushed against her bare belly. He turned away as if nothing strange had happened.

Kae smiled. She was glad Kira had shown her some of the other uses for the
transmutare
, besides the transformation of mermaid tail to human legs. The stone could also be used to gain help from humans, dazzling their minds so they forgot what had happened.
A very useful bit of magick
, Kae realized.
I’ll have to ask mom if it works on other merfolk as well. That would be truly helpful at University.

“This is a bicycle,” Shea explained, wheeling it forward toward Kae. “Basically, you straddle it between your legs and push the pedals with your feet to make the wheels spin.” He demonstrated as he spoke, lifting one leg over the machine, and resting his bottom on the small cushioned triangle. He kept one foot on the ground as he put the other onto one of the hard square pads attached at the center.
Those must be the pedals
, thought Kae. She watched as Shea’s hands gripped the bars at the front.

“Why don’t you ride first?” suggested Kae, brushing her thumb around the
transmutare
once more. The boy nodded, and pushed off from the ground with his other foot, moving the bicycle forward off the grass and onto the pavement. Kae watched with fascination as Shea’s feet moved the pedals in small circles, which in turn moved the bigger circles – the
wheels
– around. The bicycle rolled forward in a straight line until Shea seemed to lean to the left, turning the bike around until he was heading back toward Kae once more.

He came to a stop in front of her, putting both feet solidly onto the ground. “The pedaling part is easy, you kind of pump your legs up and down. The tricky part is to stay balanced. If you lean too far to the left or the right, the whole bike’ll tip over. Gotta know where your center of gravity is.” He lifted his leg over the machine so that he was no longer astride it, and leaned the whole thing toward her.

“My father tells me my balance is excellent for someone so young,” Kae said with a smile. She hesitated for a moment, then put her hands on the grips next to Shea’s. He let go of the machine and she lifted one leg over the center of the bike, straddling it as Shea had done.

“Get a feel for it first, by walking along with your feet on the ground while you sit on the seat,” he suggested. “The tires will roll the bike along with you as you walk.”

It seemed easy enough, and Kae decided to try pedaling. As she put her weight on the left pedal, the whole bike tipped in that direction, and she crashed to the ground. Shea rushed to her side, concern etched on his face. “Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” she assured him, very glad she had the blue tubes protecting her legs. “Just embarrassed. Let me try again.” Shea helped her to stand back up, the bike still between her legs. “Balancing is harder with two legs,” she said without thinking.

Shea laughed, and teased, “How else would you balance?”

“Oh, right,” Kae answered quickly. She tried again to put one foot on the pedal, this time making sure not to lean too far to the side. Kae rolled the bike forward a little with the other foot still on the ground, and then put that foot up onto a pedal as well. She balanced there for almost a full minute, before the bike began to tip to one side and she quickly planted her feet back onto the ground.

“Good, you’re getting the balance part of it.” Shea nodded, a smile on his face. “Now let’s try moving forward at the same time.” He put one hand against her bare back below the bottom edge of her halter-top. With his other hand he grabbed the end of the handlebar, his thumb brushing against her knuckles as she squeezed the rubber grip. “This is the way my friend helped me.”

“Okay,” Kae said, feeling the heat from his hand warming the skin on her lower back. It felt strange to have this human touching her. Strange, but in a good kind of way. She scrunched her forehead in concentration, trying to ignore the feelings curling through her body. “Don’t let me fall again!”

“I won’t,” Shea said with another smile. A smile that said,
Trust me
. And for some strange reason, Kae did trust him. There was something about this boy that was different than the other humans she had observed over the years, and even the few she had been allowed to speak with. There was something in his eyes that told her he was different than the others.

“Now put both feet on the pedals.” As she did, he began to push the bicycle forward, keeping a steady pressure on her back that reassured her. “Pump your legs, one at a time. Push this one down, now that one. See? You’re doing it, Kae!”

She realized she was moving slowly forward, her legs moving up and down independent of one another. “Jumping jellyfish! I get it – it’s like walking!” She kept her eyes straight ahead of her as she spoke, the bike wobbling underneath her as she pushed down on one pedal and then the other. “The legs must move separately.”

“I guess you can think of it that way if you want,” he agreed. “Just keep pumping. There you go. You’re getting the hang of it. Try going a little faster now.”

The breeze pushed her hair back from her face. Shea let go of his hold on the handlebar as she started to pump faster. She realized he was running alongside her to keep up, but then suddenly his warm hand was gone and he wasn’t next to her anymore as she glided forward on the bicycle, gaining speed and feeling the wind against her cheeks. It felt exhilarating and dangerous at the same time, gliding along on this strange machine, slicing through the air as if it were water.

“Slow down! I didn’t show you how to stop!”

“What?” Kae looked back over her shoulder to find him. The movement caused her to lean too far left and the bike crashed to the pavement, pinning her beneath its still-spinning tires. She cried out in pain as the black gravel of the road dug into her flesh.

Shea rushed to help, yanking the machine off her body and tossing it aside. “Are you okay?” He gently took both of her hands and slowly helped her to her feet.

Her legs felt bruised and sore beneath the covering of the jeans. Bright blood oozed from her left elbow, where the rough pavement had scraped the skin completely away. Small black pebbles clung to the raw wound like sea leeches.

“This looks kind of bad,” Shea said, sounding worried. He was cradling her arm, inspecting the scrape. “I guess I’m not that good a teacher. Sorry.”

Despite the stinging pain, Kae watched the blood pooling and dripping from her arm with detached interest. Open wounds are rare in the ocean and demand immediate attention. They attract scavengers. Like sharks. Luckily there were no such worries on dry land. “Don’t be sorry,” she said, distracted by the sight of her own blood. “You didn’t harm me, you clownfish. It was my own fault.”

“We should clean this up and get you a Band-aid,” Shea said, releasing her arm and catching her eyes with his. His brow was knotted with concern, his green eyes the color of the ocean in the morning, after a storm. Kae felt her knees weaken and her heart race, and knew it had nothing to do with the tumble she’d taken.

“I don’t want you to get in trouble, going home injured,” he was saying, cupping a warm hand against her cheek. Little tingles of excitement flowed through her body at his caring touch. His eyes still held hers in their gaze. His other hand rested itself at her waist, where it had helped to steady her on the bicycle moments before. Now the sensation of his strong hand on her bare flesh caused an ache deep inside of her that felt anything but safe.