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I wanted to scream. I wanted to go back in time and ask my brother what the hell he was thinking! I couldn’t do either of those things, so I stomped through this posh little cabin and out onto… oh damn. This was… beautiful.
My bare feet slowed as the feel of sand, no. Not just any sand, rose quartz sand, pink and soft leading to… water. Oh, the smell of the salt air on the breeze had the gills popping out on my neck. I wanted to get in there so badly, but I was… banned.
My little brother was a nightmare wrapped in a perfect package no one seemed to see except me. And maybe Max. I didn’t know what she knew about his crazy ass other than they had dated for almost a year. Almost a year and he did not commit to her. She is a Mayhem. A name synonymous with fame and fortune for the witch and wizarding community. Her parents were against it. I remember Loudan, Loud as we called him, taunting me with that. His forbidden romance with the princess of the magic community had caused quite the scene in the news.
News. Yeah, like who Maxine was dating should have even been news. Still, it helped Loud get attention and he sure loved attention. Not me. I didn’t want attention. I didn’t want to be an ambassador for the ocean kingdoms. I didn’t understand why the so-called monster communities were so eager to get into the politics of the magical ones that looked pretty much like humans. A witch was not a human. A human couldn’t open a door in their closet and step into a whole other part of the house much less… where the hell am I?
“This is different.” I looked around and understood something was very right about this place, but also very wrong. It was too much. Max hadn’t caught up to me yet, but I could hear her. She stalked me. I was aware of it. Not at this moment, because there was no need for her to sneak around. She both amused and unsettled me on so many levels that I realized the moment I stepped into their room I was walking into a trap. I just didn’t realize that was literally a trap. I thought Braz and I were going to take a bro trip and he shoved me into this… place with Maxine Mayhem.
My feet kept carrying me closer to the water’s edge. I began to forget what I was here for other than to see how long I could submerge myself in those waters before guards came to escort me out.
I didn’t share that little tidbit with anyone other than the school when they invited me to attend. I may have been a bit wild in my younger stages but I was honest. About all of it. Which is why I got banned from the realm of my people. Sure, I wasn’t the first, but the other merman on this campus had been on land so long he was almost out of blue pigment. It was like the water–life was fading every year from him. That would probably be my fate.
That was really all it took to remind me that I may never get to see this type of water again. The waters leading to the academy were obviously part of a larger system, but like most things, filtered through magic. Made sense. I wouldn’t want to have a school, which could be ideally located for a fortress, to be vulnerable to any one population.
The headmistress was brilliant, tactical even, though most seemed to just focus on the fact that it was a diverse institution and it allowed others, to include monsters like me, to pursue interests beyond entertainment or labor fields. Strength and ability were admired and needed, but when a wand with the right spell could do the lifting, and a case like the little toe crusher could pack an entire house worth of goods in a handheld package, the qualities many of us possessed were not as needed or desired in the conventional sense.
We were special and nothing special at the same time. I pulled the shirt over my head and tossed it down next to me. The salt air I inhaled deeply had my lungs refreshing, recharging in a way. I had to supplement with salt-laced oxygen masks back in the dorms.
“Are you going in?” she asked from behind me.
“For as long as I can, yes.” I didn’t want to be grateful to her for this once in a lifetime opportunity. I wasn’t allowed this close to ocean waters anymore. I sometimes dipped my toes in streams around campus to see what, if anything, would happen. The liquid didn’t even acknowledge my presence. I was not one with it. Not a part of it. So, whatever it was made up of, may have come from the ocean, but was now part of and loyal to the academy. Smart magic.
I wondered what this water would do to me as she stepped up next to me and said, “You can go in as long as you like. It’s… not connected to anything.”
I looked down at her and the confusion on my face was clear because she did not hesitate to explain.
“The reason I can’t just unlock the door is because this place is… a… spell. You can touch the bottom of that salt water, find the ends of it because while it is real ocean water, this island.” She reached her hands upward and then parted the clouds, the sky, and revealed a mountainscape. “It’s on a planet farther out than most know. It’s where I get sent when I misbehave, when they don’t want me along on vacation, or when I need a witchy time-out. Over the years, it’s become everything I love about isolation, but,” she closed the clouded curtain, and it was a beautiful day again, “it’s not exactly… real.”
I had an uncontrollable smile on my face. “You mean… that’s not connected to the oceans of any—”
She shook her head. I was running for the water. It was as if she just took the leash off a thousand creatures inside of me. I pushed my shorts down as soon as I was at the edge and then dove in. Spinning, swirling, soaking the salt water into my flesh, using lungs that longed to breathe this way. Three days? I may never leave this island of hers again.
CHAPTER 3
Maxine
I was given the briefest flash of blue ass before Thurst went into that water and… stayed. I went to the edge and gathered the shorts he had dropped a moment before diving in. I let the cool water lap at my toes and I giggled. I wasn’t much for water, which was a complication when in love with a merman, but I figured I could learn or I would die trying and my experience in the woods during the trials for the monster games taught me I might do both. At least, some part of me might die if I keep on this path. I knew that. I didn’t care. My heart was on this path and had been since the moment I met him. He could deny it all he wanted, but I saw how he looked at me. How he reacted to me. It wasn’t in my head. A fantasy, like this island prison my father built for me and I turned into an awesome place if I did say so myself.
I sighed as I stepped back from the water. I was not able to swim. Not in salt water. Not in any water. I tried to learn when I was younger, but my mother explained I was cursed with zero buoyancy which meant I should remain away from wild waters and only get in a pool if I had flotation support.
Therefore, my best swimming strategy was to float on my back, on a raft, with a sweet and fruity drink in my hand. It never made sense to me how they could create this place, but couldn’t spell me a way to swim. I did try that once when I was younger and almost drowned in the tub, so I took showers from that point forward in my life.
My greatest fears were in that water, so were my deepest desires. I could only have one when I was able to face the other. And here I was. Standing at the edge of my destiny, waiting for Thurst to appear.
I saw a ripple in the water and watched as it pushed closer, faster, and then a bottlenose dolphin popped out, spun around, and dove back in with a splash. I laughed. That had to be him. There were no other creatures in there that I was aware of. Again, this was all put together by my father’s most powerful magic to contain me and my outbursts. Outbursts. Like crying because I wanted to go with them on trips was such a problem for parents. My mother always seemed to want me to go, but my father was the alpha male and he decided everything for all of us like he was the absolute sovereign and we were but pretty adornments to his crown.
My head throbbed when thoughts like that entered. I pushed it aside. I’m magical, powerful for my age, but I’m not dangerous like Ellie. I couldn’t absorb the magic of this place and blow up this planet. She could do that. Probably. I don’t know. I’d like to think she could do that. I’d like to think that my best friend was more powerful than my father. It just helped to ease my fear of him. I didn’t know why I was so afraid of the man who I should love, respect, and admire. I just was. At times, I was certain my mother was as well.
But Ellie didn’t have to be afraid of anything. Ever. Her powers were boundless. Fortunately, she had bound herself to a really sweet monster who loved her dearly.
That was all I ever wanted.
That was not all my family wanted for me. The times of royalty were long gone, but wealth and expectations remained part of that social hierarchy all the same. For as much as the magical realm trash talked humans for their blatant disregard for humanity, we weren’t any different.
My monster, Thurst, saw only a future as an entertainer in the games. Most of the exceptional monsters found their place as entertainers of some sort. It wasn’t like they were all eager to hide themselves among the witches and wizards and why should they? Some did, though. It required magical spells. It seemed that no one’s history was kind on the whole witches and wizards front. Humans had persecuted what they thought were our kind. We had a history of mistreatment of the newfound creatures. Long past, but political parties were always searching for something to keep us divided.
I sighed and watched the water. Nothing. It felt like hours, but was probably minutes before the water began rushing my way. A fin protruding out of it, I drew a little bit closer to see. A… shark fin? Instead of surfacing farther out and doing a spin that had me giggling, this time, he surfaced and opened his giant mouth to display a mouth full of shark teeth that could slice me in half with one simple bite.
