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Even Leander’s hands were trembling when he’d left, and I couldn’t blame him. King Eamon scared me, too.
But he was Leander’s father, so surely he wouldn’t be too harsh with his son? Especially now that we knew the effect I had on their curse. It wouldn’t be long before the trident was back in King Eamon’s hands and I could finally put my past behind me for good.
I passed through the rolled-up door to the warehouse and hurried out onto the gravel before anyone could stop me. A car was still parked in front of the door, and I eyed the dark tinted windows as I snuck past, wondering where the king’s captains had taken the two visitors from earlier.
If they were unfortunate enough to receive similar treatment as I had, well, I hoped the captains had more pallets handy. Especially since one shadow had looked remarkably massive when the warehouse lights had flashed on, though I hadn’t seen much before King Eamon’s voice pulled my eyes away. Something about the coldness of his presence commanded your full attention. Like you couldn’t quite trust that he wouldn’t strike you down if you happened to turn away.
A “NO SMOKING” decal clung to the passenger-side window, and my jaw slackened in wonder. I swung around to look at the license plate, just to verify my suspicion.
A rental.
That was unexpected.
Were these visitors really from another ocean kingdom? It seemed unlikely a mer could hop on a plane or figure out how to rent a car, let alone put up the credit card to reserve one. Maybe Leander was wrong and these weren’t merfolk at all.
A strong draft hit me, and I spun toward the ocean on instinct. Moonlight brightened the clouds in the distance, and I followed their silver wisps until my eyes settled on the dark water of the harbor.
Suddenly stricken, I wondered how long it had been since the night Papa carried me out into open water. A night much like this one.
I took another step toward the harbor.
There were many things I’d forgotten about my childhood, but that was one moment I’d never forget.
Some nights, I could still see the kingdom’s amber-lit lanterns when I closed my eyes, like their magic had etched the image into my eyelids. Would they still haunt me if I hadn’t watched them glow in the distance that night, the first and last time I could remember swimming after the call of the feast horns?
I remembered looking over Papa’s shoulder as we left the safety of the kingdom’s walls, his strong tail propelling us closer to the forbidden place where the water turned into shadows with each quick stroke. I’d been so curious—excited, even—for the adventure my papa had promised me when we’d first slipped through the gates that night.
Had I been more of a burden that day than others? I’d played it over endlessly, but the answer never came.
That morning had started like any other: a trip to the palace where I spent the greater part of the day watching the royal staff swim past me like I wasn’t there at all.
I was so innocent back then.Stupid. Happy. Not a care in the world.
I’d smiled at each face that darted by, clinging to the small sack of pearls at my hip just in case some mer were to take pity on a captain’s useless daughter and indulge me with a round or two of shooters.
Had Leander come around that day? That was one detail I couldn’t recall. I’d rarely let him touch my pearls anyway, fearing he’d snatch them away from me if he lost.
Was it when Papa adjusted me, exchanging one resting spot on his shoulder for another, that I noticed I’d left my precious sack behind that night?
“Papa, can we go back? I forgot to grab my pearls,” I’d said, because if I didn’t have my shooters with me, then what else did I have? “What if I meet a mermaid while we’re gone and she wants to play with me?”
His tail had stalled, and I’d thought for one delightful moment he might turn back to get them when he shot forward again.
“… There are no pearls where we’re going.”
I let out a bitter laugh as the scene played out in my head. He’d been wrong, of course—there were pearls on land. Not a foolish merfry’s bag of polished beads or necklaces at jewelry stores, but something much more precious—Dad and Gram.
“I suppose I should thank him,” I snorted under my breath as I backtracked, heading for the dumpster on the side of the warehouse.
There was one thing I had brought to the surface with me, though. The one thing my birth father had forgotten to strip away from me before he threw me away like trash: my mother’s hairpin.
That was my one petty revenge, because if he had ever truly loved anyone, it had been her. She was practically all he talked about, filling my imagination with stories of her grace. Her loveliness. Always ending each tale by recalling the way he’d spotted her singing to an audience of jellyfish the morning they first met, as if I hadn’t already listened to the same story the night before.
As nice as that might have sounded to a naïve child, I now saw it for what it was. Nonsense.
She was my mother, and I knew in my heart that I wouldn’t even recognize her if she stood in front of me now. Whenever I tried to recall what she looked like, all I got was a vague impression of a blank face crowned with an inferno of red hair. Because apparently, beauty and a pleasant voice was all that really mattered, and staying with your daughter and the merman you supposedly loved just wasn’t in a mermaid’s nature.
“Mermaids are like waves,” Papa had told me. “They aren’t meant to be stagnant. It goes against their nature.”
