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“I know.”
“I’m worried about those fugue states,” I said. “She seems so normal, other than that. Well, that and her independent streak.”
“We’ll hear from the vet soon. All those tests he ran, he’ll find out what’s up with her. He’s good at his job.”
“By Monday. That’s what he said.” I hated waiting. My entire life I’d hated waiting. I wanted everything now. I’d always wanted everything now. I’d wanted to marry Mason now. Three times and counting.
Maybe once we figured this out. Maybe once we found Misty and knew she was safe.
“What do you think Misty is up to? “What’s your stuff telling you?”
I took another sip, then sank back into the water. The heat was relaxing my muscles and mind. “I think the mermaid dream has to mean something. It would be a helluva coincidence for me to dream about a mermaid in trouble, then find out Misty's working as one. And now so is Christy. Not very well, but she’s working as one.”
He listened. There was a pause before he answered. When we’d first started seeing each other, those long pauses had made me wonder if he was listening to me. I knew now that they meant he was listening intently and thinking about his reply.
“When there’s something you need to know,” he said at length, “these ride-along dreams, where you’re inside someone else’s experience, are the way you find out. They’re the way whoever or whatever is out there, tells you. God, or the Universe or?—”
“Or your brother,” I said. I didn’t have this “gift” until Mason’s dead brother’s corneas had restored my eyesight.
“Somebody is trying to tell you something,” he said.
I nodded, went for another sip, and found my glass empty.
“I got you, babe.” Mason slid out of the water and went over the side.
“Water this time,” I called.
In less than a minute he was back in the water, handing me a fresh glass of water with a lemon wedge and a few ice cubes.
I slid around the tub until I was right up against him with a jet pulsing into the small of my back, easing more of my worry knots. “I feel the message is that one of the girls is in trouble,” I said.
“Or maybe the message is that a mermaid is in trouble,” he suggested.
“Oh.” My muscles unclenched a little more and it was more than just the hot tub. “Oh, that might be it. Maybe it’s not Misty or Charity, but someone they work with. But what did that have to do with our wedding? Why did the twins drown at our wedding?”
“You said the wedding dream?—”
“Nightmare.”
“—was different. Not a ride-along. Maybe not even part of your stuff. Maybe just a normal, garden-variety nightmare. Nerves.”
I considered that. “I guess after planning and cancelling three times?—”
“To keep people from getting sick and maybe dying due to an exposure at our pandemic-era wedding.”
“People dying… because of our wedding.” I repeated it slowly.
“The twins have asthma,” he reminded me unnecessarily.
It was true, and while it hadn’t been an issue for either of them in years, we’d been terrified what would happen if they got Covid. Sandra had been so vigilant neither of them had caught it, even when she and Jim had. They’d made the girls move in with us for those two weeks during their senior year.
“We have spent a lot of energy trying to keep them from getting sick,” I said, nodding.
“See?” Mason asked. “And maybe your stuff picked up on the girls’ keeping this mermaid thing a secret, and tangled that up with the nightmare to create the mermaid dream.”
I nodded slowly. “That… that might be it.”
“That might be it,” Mason agreed. “So, we find Misty, just in case. And we should account for all the other mermaids, as well.”
