Tangled Tides (The Sea Monster Memoirs) (17 page)

"Race?" Delmar asked.

"I won't let you win just because it's your wedding day."

Delmar waved his hand and a large wave crested up out of the water and pulled us deep into the surf. He clutched my forearm and grinned at me underwater.
Stop stalling and race.

He darted off, but I floated in place, watching him swim away. A water sprite flitted around my head like a glowing, miniature tornado. She stuck tiny bunches of kelp in my hair, skidded to a stop and sat on the tip of my nose.

Her tinny voice sounded like coins dropping in an empty fountain.
You always give him a head start.

I winked at her.
Today I'll give him an even longer one.

I
felt a steady push against my chest and opened my eyes to see Treygan turning away. For a moment I was disoriented. Switching so fast from
being
Green Treygan—living and feeling as if I was really him—to seeing Blue Treygan in front of me left me dizzy.

"Treygan, that—that was incredible! I was you! I didn't have any thoughts of my own. Your thoughts were my thoughts. Your feelings were my feelings. I wasn't scared or confused. I was whatever you were. You were peaceful, then sad, then … so happy."

He dipped his head back into the water, wetting his long hair and rubbing his hands over his face. "Do you still think Delmar is a bad guy?"
"I—well, no. But where were we? Or where were you? Everything was so beautiful. That beach had lavender sand and the sky swirled with colors I've never seen before."

"We were in Rathe."

I thought Eden's Hammock or Solis was paradise, but the other realm trumped them by a landslide. No wonder everyone wanted to return home. And I felt awful for judging Delmar so harshly. Was he here without his wife, or were he and Kimber living together in this world?

"Did you let him win?" I asked.

"What?"

"The race."

He squinted into the sun and his shoulders bounced with silent laughter. "Maybe someday I'll let you see how it ended."

"Why did you push me out? I could've stayed there forever. The water sprites were gorgeous. You didn't feel that way about them, though. You felt so indifferent, like they were as common as a fly. I didn't even have an opinion about them until I came back here. Or got inside me—or—I'm still confused about how that was possible."

"Many things about our existence are considered magic or impossible to humans. It seems normal to me because I was born mer. You'll become used to our way of life over time."

Maybe being a mermaid wasn't so bad after all. I searched the stream around me for any sign of flying lights. "How come I haven't seen any sprites yet?"

"They were the first to die off after the gates closed. None survived on this side."

"That's horrible." My chest turned a splotchy red. Had Treygan realized red meant I was sad, or did he even notice the color change? "Some are alive in the other realm, right? They aren't extinct, are they?"

"We have no way of knowing what's happened in Rathe. Not until the gate opens."

"Why did the gorgons seal it off? Koraline said someone broke a promise, but what could've been so bad that they shut so many of you out of your own world?"

His lips parted like he wanted to answer, but then he silently dipped straight down into the water. His long blue strands danced in every direction. He popped back up and slicked his hair back. "Let's get back to your story about the first time you met Lloyd."

He had become a pro at dodging my questions, but I let him win this one. "It's dull compared to your memory. You don't want to hear it."

"You're right. I don't want to hear it." He swam so close that his breath warmed my face. "I want you to share it with me."

Reading his facial expressions was like trying to read a book written in a foreign language. Did the way he slowly batted his wet eyelashes mean he cared?

"Okay." I took a jittery breath. "How do I do this?"

He stared at me and raised his hands, touching my neck with his fingertips. The tingling started again. "Try to remember a detail that stood out. A place, smell, something you felt—whatever triggers that memory for you."

I closed my eyes, trying to ignore the delicious heat Treygan's touch sent through me. I focused on the day my mom and I moved to Eden's Hammock.

"Yarrraaa," Treygan stretched out my name playfully. "It won't work if your eyes are closed."

I felt like an idiot. "Oh, right. Sorry."

When I opened my eyes, he looked at me in
that
way again. The same way he did after I finished reading out loud earlier. All I could think about was the moment at Koraline's kitchen table when I had an overwhelming urge to kiss him.

My muscles had been achy from sitting and reading so long, but when I looked at Treygan, the pain disappeared. Instead, I craved him in a way I had never felt before. I wanted his hands on my skin again, wanted to know what kissing him would be like. Did he have a girlfriend, or a wife, or some lost love on the other side? And if he didn't, could he ever see me that way, think of me as attractive, or want to kiss me?

Days ago I despised him for turning me. I thought I hated him, but now—

No! I mentally yelled at myself, snapping back into the present. I needed to stop daydreaming—especially about Treygan.

I concentrated on a childhood memory to share with him. I stared into his blue eyes as I recalled the feel of sand between my toes, the smell of the baby powder my mother wore, and the peeling cherry nail polish on my mother's fingernails.

Then I transported to a different time and place.

W
alking the sandy road between Uncle Lloyd's house and ours, my mother towered above me, her sandals dangling from two fingers. With every step she took, her red shoes swung back and forth, each time almost hitting me in the chest. I watched her so intently that I didn't notice we were standing in front of a yellow house until a man's deep voice said hello.

"We've moved in," my mother said gruffly. I peered through the fence at all the colorful flowers in the man's yard.

"Cleo, if you need anything, absolutely anything," the man said, "I'm here for you and Yara."

At the sound of my name, I peeked around a bush of bright purple flowers and looked at him. His tan feet were huge and his toes were covered with fuzzy, white hair. A green garden hose hung from one of his hands. The other hand, covered by a yellow gardening glove, waved at me. I waved back and stepped through an arched trellis onto a sidewalk that matched the color of the man's hair. Several worms crawled along the pathway, so I stopped and pointed at them.

"Lot a worms," I said in my high-pitched toddler voice.

"Well, little one," he said, "when the waterin' starts, they tend to want to cross the sidewalk."

"Why?" It was the textbook reply of most four-year-olds when an adult attempted to answer questions.

He looked around his yard while he thought about his answer. "Many reasons, I suppose. The sun may burn too bright and they'll dry up, or a bird may fly over and take them for—" Maybe he thought it wasn't his place to explain the food chain to such a young and impressionable child, because he stopped himself before saying the real answer. "For a change of scenery."

"Seen-or-ee?" I repeated, trying to save the new word to my limited vocabulary.

He bent down and picked up a worm from the sidewalk, then gently set it in the grass.

I giggled, arching my back and throwing my arms open wide. "Why you do that?"

"Sometimes creatures need help getting to the other side," he answered with a wink.

I squatted down and grabbed a slippery worm between my fingers, marveling at how slimy it felt and watching it wiggle back and forth. Then I set it in the grass, looked up at the man's yellow glove, then at his wrinkled face, and smiled. He smiled back, so I stood up, went to the next worm, and repeated the process, each time getting a brighter-than-sunshine smile from the big, friendly man.

"Yara, we've bothered this man enough." My mother grabbed my hand and pulled me away from the two remaining worms that needed help.

"Oh, it's no bother, Cleo," he said.

"Still, sorry for all of this." My mother dragged me along, stumbling behind her. I kept looking back over my shoulder, worried about the worms. The man bent down, then stood up again and held his yellow-gloved thumb up at me. Even at four years old I knew that meant okay—that the worms were okay. The man in yellow would always make everything okay.

I
pictured the cluster of freckles on Treygan's cheek that reminded me of the Canis Major constellation. Instantly, I was back in the present moment, floating in the stream on Solis Island, birds tweeting from nearby trees, water trickling as it flowed past me and Treygan.

"How did I do?" I asked.

I wasn't sure if I had mentally brought him back with me, or pushed him out, or whatever I was supposed to do to end the memory, because he just stared, not blinking and not saying anything.

"Treygan?"

"No," he murmured.

"No, what?" Had I done it wrong?

"The answer is no," he said a little louder, finally blinking.

"What are you talking about? You didn't see my uncle's garden and the worms?"

"I saw the worms, but—" He swam in a slow circle until his back was to me and gripped the grass on the bank. "The first memory you shared, in Koraline's kitchen. You wondered if I had a girlfriend or someone on the other side. The answer is no. I've never had anyone like that."

My heart catapulted into my throat. I wanted to sink below the water and drown. He lived
that
memory as me too? He felt what I felt? Knew my thoughts about him? Knew I wanted to kiss him? I couldn't breathe. I was beyond humiliated.

"And no," he continued in a stony voice, his tensed back turning forest green, his serpent hallmark darkening. "You shouldn't want to kiss me or know everything about me."

I was too embarrassed to say anything, so I focused on the water flowing past me. Hearing my thoughts would have been bad enough, but he felt my emotions. He knew how giddy he made me. The feeling wasn't mutual. I had never felt so exposed—or so stupid.

A blur of bright green appeared upstream. It got bigger and closer until the huge merman I met at the weed island poked his head through the water.

"Hello, Yara," he said, water dripping from his green curls and eyelashes.

"Hi." I couldn't remember his name. Pamby, or Plato, or something.

At some point during my trance of humiliation, Treygan had turned around. His skin had returned to its normal color. His forehead wrinkled and his chin lowered when he asked, "Pango, how is she?"

Pango! That was his name. He drifted toward Treygan. Without a word he wrapped his huge arms around him and they floated there, silently hugging. The urge to vomit returned. Did their hug mean Koraline was dead?

Pango said something, but I couldn't hear him over the gurgling stream. I could see Treygan's face though. His wrinkles and tension fell away.

"Is Koraline okay?" I asked.