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“Trina, stop!” My mom reached forward to pull me back, but my siren flashed before me and I swatted her hands away with my arm.
The sea whispered to me from below, pulling my soulless spirit toward it, drawing me to it like a thirst nothing else could quench. I closed my eyes, drowning out the sounds of my mom freaking out, and almost the sound of Noah and Bellamy screaming my name.
“Katrina! What are you doing?” Noah shrieked. The sound of footsteps approached from behind somewhere mixed in with the whipping sea wind.
I pushed out my breath, giving it to the breeze, and fell forward into the sea. As I hit the water, I felt her take over, and I drew in a deep inhale so that water would rush to fill my chest. There was barely ten seconds between the transition before I was staring back up at the sunlight through the surface from underneath, content and at peace, as though a burning itch in me had finally been scratched. I stayed suspended below by gentle sweeps with the fluke of my tail. A small pod of dolphins swept by, leaping and spinning along with me as we kept pace with the boat beside us until they finally moved on ahead without me.
I could see my friends back up on the boat, like rippling visions in a faraway dreamworld that was only a surface break away. My mom and Noah screamed my name, and Bellamy held my mother back from the edge of the ship. I swam alongside the length of the boat, keeping with its speed as Bellamy rushed away to the helm, leaving my mom with Noah. I noticed the propellers were losing speed and the bubbles left behind diminished as the boat began to slow.
I broke through the water, my thin top clinging to my body, though my shorts were long lost somewhere in the change. Mom watched me with a twisted look of disbelief, horror, and fascination all mixed into one. Noah held her steady as she leaned over the railing.
“This is it, Mom!” I called up boldly. “This is why we’re on a boat in the middle of the ocean and why you’re feeling strange. This is why we used to dream about drowning in the sea and only that necklace could stop it. It was a mermaid scale. This is what we’re descended from. This is what we are.”
I flicked my tail up, slapping the water to make sure she could see the silver-blue glimmer of the lower half of my body. Then I barrel-rolled back down into a dive to show off the entire length of it.
“I...I...” My mom stuttered.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know you’re freaking out, but you’re not drunk. You haven’t had a drink since Thanksgiving. Because I broke our curse.”
More like just traded it for a new one, I thought.
I heard her mutter something to Noah. Bellamy was making his way back to them after stopping the engine. I figured I should get back up there and talk Mom through it a bit more directly. But I wanted to make sure she had no reason to doubt what she’d seen.
“Get back aboard,” Bellamy commanded stoically, lowering a ladder down into the water.
I swam to the ladder and gripped the bars. My upper arms strained with soreness as the weight of my tail dropped when he began to raise the ladder.
He lifted me over the hull gently, but the look on his face was anything but gentle.
“You locked her in her room,” I growled lowly as I looped my arm around his neck and shoulders for support.
“Clearly I should’ve locked you in yours too,” he grumbled. “Why are you doing this?”
“She had to know eventually. This was the safest way for her to find out. I’m not going to keep using my power on her to keep you comfortable.”
“You think this is about me? No, she’s a liability.”
“She’s my mom,” I snapped. “And maybe she’s capable of more than we think.” I couldn’t believe how firmly I was defending her. But my sympathy for her had grown these past few days. And I couldn’t help but think how screwed I’d be if I’d never been given a second chance to fix the things I’d broken. Shouldn’t she deserve one, too?
Bellamy didn’t respond, but the tension between us wasn’t going anywhere. He set me down gently on a seat on the deck. Noah rushed to bring me a towel, and I dried my tail off, hoping I would regain my legs sooner rather than later. My mom watched on as the bottom of my tail left uncovered by the towel slowly split to become my two feet. I winced, still not entirely used to the pain, but much less surprised by it now.
“I heard screaming. What did I miss?” McKenzie came bouncing up from the steps leading down into the cabin, rubbing sleep from her eyes. I stood, keeping the towel wrapped around my otherwise bare lower half.
“They can catch you up,” I said, nodding at Noah and Bellamy. “Right now, I’ve got to talk to my mom.” I did my best to offer her reassurance in the way of a smile, but she didn’t look convinced. I wondered if she knew about Bellamy locking my mom away.
I brought Mom back to her room, where she still looked at me like I had three heads—which I guess wasn’t so much more different than a tail. She was so quiet, but I knew a million thoughts and questions must be racing through her mind. I motioned for her to sit on the bed, and she obliged reluctantly.
“Everything you just saw is the reason we’re here.” I tucked back damp strands of my hair behind my ear. I went on to explain the cursed pirates and Cordelia and how we'd stopped her from drowning away humanity. I explained the scar on my face from being kidnapped by Thane, the Sea Crown, and Bastian everything in between. “Milo’s sacrifice left us stranded centuries apart. And finding this guy might be the only way to get him back.”
She nodded, still visibly shaken. With stammering lips, she slowly reached down and placed her hands on her thighs. “Does this mean that I...” She couldn’t finish the question.
“Yes.” I put my hand over hers. It was weird, but I wouldn’t let myself pull away. I had to help her through this. “And that’s why you felt a sudden need to find me and come to the ocean. It’s the mermaid part of you calling. And it’ll be back.”
She shook her head. “No, no. I don’t want anything to do with that. Even if it’s possible, I could never...”
“Neither did I,” I said. “But eventually you’ll have to answer the call, or it’ll consume you from the inside out.” I thought about whether I should mention that we didn’t have souls, but I decided to save that damning news for another time. “Don’t worry,” I told her. “You don’t have to do anything right now. It could be a long time before you feel it again.” I really hoped it would.
“So none of it was my fault,” she said, which I didn’t quite expect. “None of it was my mother’s fault. Or my grandmother.” Her honey brown eyes shimmered as tears filled them. My chest ached a bit for her. She blamed herself all this time. Just like I did for the longest until I realized none of it was in our control.
