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My breath, on the other hand, comes in short bursts. I force myself to slow down, to do the Nogare breathing George taught me but without perceptibly moving my body. I don’t want to disturb whatever is happening right now. Even with my super hearing, I can’t make out any siren call over the blood rushing in my ears and the pounding thump of my heart as if I am running a city marathon, not taking a leisurely paced walk down a quiet boardwalk.
A curtain of cloudy gel seems to cover his eyes. The general effect reminds me of when the trolls spelled George. Rory’s neck uncurls, and his gaze levels ahead of him. Then he begins walking forward without hesitation. I follow.
At the next access point to the beach, he turns right, casually contorting his six-foot-three body to bend under the chain hanging across the gap in the railing due to the hour. I follow, impressed at my relative grace and the fact that I didn’t get any of my hair caught in the chain that’s long rusted from exposure to the sea air.
The pat on my back, however, was premature as I stumble to keep up with Rory’s confident strides down the sandy slope toward the beach. I kick off the tennis shoes I mistakenly expected to be practical for this adventure. I don’t bother taking the time to pick them up. If they’re gone when we come back here, oh well. Shoes can be replaced. Best friends, not so much.
As our feet kick up sand, it occurs to me that Rory shows no signs of slowing down. He marches toward the water’s edge. Thankfully, before he marches himself to a watery death, he hangs a sharp left and continues his journey mere feet from where the white-tipped waves kiss the smooth, dark sand that glitters wet in the moonlight.
My heart kicked up another notch when I thought I was going to lose him too. Visions of Eliza drowning herself while on a hypnotized quest make my stomach twist into a hard knot.
This is all your fault.
My inner voice hisses at me. Only it isn’t my voice at all. In the back of my mind a movie is playing out. No, not a movie, a memory… My father drunk, stumbling around a campsite, cursing at my mother and me.
This is all your fault.
It must have been all my fault if he said so, but what wasit?
A crisp voice snaps me back to the beach, to this night, to this moment. “Hey you, Guardian!” I hear to my right.
My right. Where the waves are. Where the sea is. Where this voice calls to me in a way that I suspect is different than the one that is illusively beckoning to Rory.
I hesitate, but the risk of losing Rory in this straight stretch of sand is low. So, I chance a look at the ocean beside me as I continue following in his footsteps.
Out a bit, farther than I would feel comfortable trying to swim if I everwantedto swim in the ocean, which I really don’t, I see a head bobbing and arms waving to get my attention. I stop, and my shoulders collapse at the sight.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Do I have to save someone else now?
I hear a soft silky giggle, and she stops waiving her arms. I see her black hair in an intricate up-do. “No, Guardian, you do not need to save me.”
While that’s good to know, at the wordGuardian, my spine tingles and straightens, putting me on high alert.
What the fuck? I’m not talking out loud, am I?
I continue behind Rory, having fallen only a few feet further behind him.
“That is correct, Guardian, you are not talking out loud. I am Mazu. I am protector of the humans on the sea.” She jumps up and dives down into the water, looking like a whale breaching, and shows me her fin. Tail? Fin. Fin tail. Tail fin? Whatever I should call it.
Are you a mermaid?
“That is one word for my kind, Guardian. We have been called mermaids. We have been called sirens. We have been imagined in many forms. And, as all things humans have created in their minds, most of those forms have existed in your world, at one time or another.”
I start to get a headache. Trying to follow this conversation and Rory may make my brain eat itself.
Mermaids and sirens are the same things? Are mermaids the good ones?
“Are all humans good?”
I chortle.Oh hell no. But we’re not all bad. I’d even say any one human is neither all good nor all bad.
“And that is where we overlap. Mermaids are sirens; sirens are mermaids. But we are neither good nor bad. Though some of us are more good, and some of us are much, much more bad.”
I don’t understand how I can hear her so clearly when she is so far out at sea. She doesn’t sound like she’s yelling. But I also am not hearing her in my head. I remember what that feels like, unfortunately, from back when I first found out about all this Guardian shit.
“The waves are carrying my voice to you. And as for how I can hear your thoughts, well, humans give off subtle sound waves with your minds that no other human can pick up on. All mermaids are more sensitive to these sounds, but I must admit, yours are…less subtle than most.”
Gee, thanks. What do you want m—
