Just close enough to make out the sounds of the human world, the music playing from their boats and the laughter of people upon them. The smallest taste of a world he would never know, never see. As his tail cut through the waves now, he fought off the hundreds of warnings from his family about venturing too close to land.
Reed could safely observe the town without getting close enough to be spotted. He was certain of it. Even in broad daylight like this, his turquoise tail blended in with the sea and helped himremain hidden. Every so often, he peeked his head above the water’s surface to see how far he was from the Coastline.
When a strange noise caught his attention, he paused. A small boat must be somewhere nearby, judging by the sound of the gently whirring motor but no change to the actions of the fish and wildlife. The faintest cry reached his ears—above the water, then, not below. He hesitated.
Moments later, the small white boat came into view. There were two humans on it, both wearing those long seal-skin suits surfers wore. One had dark brown hair cut short and the other had hair the color of the sea, braided down their back in a pretty design. The short haired one reached out of the boat and a baby seal chirped in reply.
At that, Reed moved slightly closer. This area had a lush undergrowth of seaweed and kelp in which to hide, so he slipped into the gently waving plants. From here, he could see the human held a little gray seal. It was tangled in something, likely a human-made piece of trash that had wound up in their waters after careless visitors left.
The short-haired human cooed at the seal, making sounds Reed had never heard from a human mouth. He sounded like… like a seal. As if he spoke directly to the seal in its own language. The little one calmed at his tone, his touch. Reed’s head tilted to the right as he tried to get a better view of the interaction.
Suddenly, the baby seal made a happy sound, and shot off into the open sea. The sound of its family on a nearby beach called the little one home and he could only watch as it disappeared. While he stared in surprise, processing this interaction, the boat sat still.
The murmur of voices above the water was hard to understand, giving Reed the chance to ponder what these humans were doing so far out into the ocean. Had they known this seal was trapped? Had they come looking for it? He couldn’t figure out what their goal was.
A big splash and the sound of a body hitting the water startled him. By the time Reed realized what had happened, the short-haired human rolled through the waves and turned into a sea lion. One with soft brown fur and deep brown eyes, he thought to himself as he hurried back into the kelp forest and out of sight.
Another splash drew his attention back toward the boat, where he caught sight of the other human tumbling head over feet into the sea. They weren’t meant to do that, were they? Panic coursed through his body as he tried to assess whether the human with sea colored hair was drowning.
“Elliot!” she shouted into the water, air bubbles trailing from her mouth back to the water’s surface.
The sea lion chortled and raced past the human, swerving nimbly rough the water and around their legs. Now, Reed could clearly understand the barking sounds he emitted.
“Come on, Tempest!” said the sea lion shifter.
Though Reed knew the human in front of him surely could not understand him, he saw her face light up. Her smile stretched from ear to ear, her blue-green eyes sparkling with joy as she chased the sea lion shifter through the waves. The deep blue braid down her back kept her hair out of her face in a way that Reed had never seen before.
Mer always kept their hair loose and long, a testament to the suns they had lived. He stayed very still as they splashed around, playing like any other sea creatures he might come across in thisplace. They remained entirely unaware of him.
When happiness radiated off of her, the sea lion shifter made a pleased sound and shot up out of the water. He landed in the boat, shook himself off, and resumed his human form. Reed couldn’t quite see the entire transformation process from his vantage point below the boat, but he heard the pained groans of the sea lion become the sounds of the man instead.
The furry flipper that had been visible over the edge of the boat moments before disappeared, quickly replaced by a tan human arm with dark brown hair. When the shifter, Elliot, stretched his arms above his head and shook out his wet hair, Reed could only stare in amazement. He had shifted so easily between forms, as simple as breathing.
Water dripped from Elliot’s hair and skin as he reached down to the human still treading water below.Tempest. His hazel eyes tracked her every movement. The way her legs kicked out underneath her, as if keeping her body steady against the rocking of the sea.
The human took the shifter’s hand, then held up one finger with the other. In one swift motion, she had removed the piece of cloth that held her hair in its braid and shook out her waves of teal. His heart stumbled in his chest.
She was the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. Ocean waves flowed from her face, framing those blue-green eyes filled with emotion. This human, this woman, held such sorrow and joy in equal measure. Reed gasped at the way her powerful feelings seemed to ripple through the water and right into his chest.
Then she gripped the sea lion shifter’s strong arm and he hauled her back onto the little boat they had arrived in. A melodic laugh drifted to him as she shook out her wet hair and dried off with a large cloth. For a long moment, Reed found he could not look away from her. That face that shone like the sun with the simplepleasure of having swam in the wild sea.
Then the motor started and the boat began to thrum in the water. As suddenly as they had arrived, the two humans—no, not humans. At least, not both of them. The two creatures disappeared into the distance, their white boat skimming the surface as it cruised away.
“They must be from the magical town,” Reed whispered aloud, still in disbelief. “She thought nothing of him transforming, and he did not hide anything from her.”
The stories he had heard from time to time, of a place called Crescent Cove, echoed in his mind. Hidden from mundane humans, the place was supposedly populated entirely by magical creatures, and therefore safe for those like him. Which meant that the human—the woman, Tempest— must not be just a regular human, either.
What kind of people lived in such a place and were considered magical beings, Reed did not know. There were no stories passed through the generations of Cascadian mer about humans with magic, no rumors of magical creatures that remained in human form after they submerged in the sea. Plenty about the danger of humans and avoiding them, but nothing remotely similar to the pair he had observed.
Curiosity gnawed at him as he tried to place anything that might tell him what she was, what kind of magic she possessed. His thoughts swirled like a tidal wave, his mind racing at the new information: Crescent Cove was real. A magical town, protected from humans.
This changed everything.
Moonlight Market Nights
TEMPEST
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