Authors: Naomi Fraser
“NOT THE USUAL reaction,” Ralph murmurs.
“Fainting
dead away.
How much does she know?” Concern tinges his voice, but then
he says, “Maybe she hasn’t been eating. You teenage girls—”
I sigh, shooting him a glance.
“Ralph!”
He shrugs. “What? I’m just
saying—”
“Hey, Beth?”
I lean out the car. Exhaustion slurs my words. “Beth, can you hear me? Wake up.
I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you before.”
“Since you only found out
yesterday, I’m sure she will forgive you, but Lakyn’s not
gonna
like this. Watch.
The more people who know, the more danger
to you.
That boy is not about to let anything happen to you.”
“They were investigating for me.
I didn’t know what happened that night I jumped off the cliff. And they’re my
friends.” A snaking sensation of dread twists its way up my spine, even though
I know this is Bethany and Cal, two people I trust. They must have my safety in
mind to follow me and hold up the hostel guys at gunpoint simply because they heard
me scream.
“Bethany!” I shout again.
“Beth?” The sound of Cal’s
footsteps thump along the ground, and he drops to his knees beside the car,
picks up Beth’s head,
then
looks down at her with a
frown.
“
Cuz
?”
He sucks in a
breath and drops the gun. “What’s wrong with her?” His eyes flash up to me in
the car. “Ellie,
wha
. . . ?” His gaze stops,
focuses.
I wait. Ralph waits. The storm
rumbles overhead, and the scent of clean ozone blasts us all. Apparently, it’s
not in the mood to postpone anything. The shouts die down nearer the water’s
edge, and the quiet has me shifting in the seat, nervous tingles shooting up my
spine. The hard knot of the bikini top digs into my back. Ragged edges of the
worn leather seat scrape my palms.
Cal’s gaze drags along the same
route as Bethany’s, though slower, from my waist, along my tail, zeroing in on
the tail fin and then slowly climbing back up to my face. Wet towels only hide
so much, especially when the outline is in the shape of a mermaid’s tail. The
darkness of the storm closes in, filling the air with an atmospheric menace.
A crack of thunder rumbles in the
sky, and an electrical charge makes my fingertips tingle. My tail vibrates. I
close my eyes, opening them again while longing for the depths throbs in my
muscles. I flex my legs and the tail moves.
I want to go back into the bay,
to heed the warning to hide from impending doom, but I need to get away from
here. Sometimes you say more by being quiet, though; it’s probably only because
I’m holding my breath.
Cal’s face scrunches up and his
eyes narrow with obvious confusion. “Why are you dressed like a mermaid?
Swimming out in the b—” He looks at the water and stops.
“Ellie?”
There’s no mistaking the tremor in his voice. “What’s going on?”
Lakyn stalks around the bonnet,
his jaw hard, hands clenching and eyes shining like blue topaz. “She cannot
discuss that with you.
Ellie,
shut your door.”
“Listen, I don’t know who the
hell you are.” Cal glares at Lakyn and turns to me again. “But I do know Ellie,
and I’m asking her the questions. Why isn’t Beth waking up?”
“She fainted when she saw my
tail. Bit of a shock. My tail is drying.” My voice is gravelly and I sit
straighter. “It’s OK, Cal. I’m not in any trouble. This is Lakyn.”
“But . . .” Cal swallows,
obviously not wanting to finish that sentence. “Why did you scream?” He glares
at Lakyn again. “He wouldn’t tell me. Beth thought you’d be in danger.”
“No. No danger. My
chest . . . remember
. . . I get pain. Put Bethany in the
back of the car and climb in,” I say gently. “I’ll tell you more. You’re safe
with us. We have to get out of this storm.”
“This isn’t a storm.” Ralph
flicks ash into his palm and rubs his hands together. “This one’s
gonna
be rough. I just saw some tree limbs fall. I don’t
know but this has a feel of magic to it. I’m thinking squall.”
Lakyn nods in agreement.
“I remember.” Cal doesn’t budge
an inch. “You were having trouble breathing. Did it hurt when you went
swimming? You held your breath for a long time underwater, but I thought you
shared his oxygen. We watched you for a while.”
“I know. Bethany said. But no, no
I didn’t share his oxygen. And Cal, I didn’t hold my breath, either.” I meet
Lakyn’s gaze through the gap between the door and the car, not exactly asking
for permission to confess, but willing him to be OK while I tell Cal what he
deserves to know. “I breathed water. I
can breathe in
water,” I say
clearly all the while looking at Lakyn, and a frisson of dismay crosses his
eyes. The towels almost fall down my waist, so I might as well finish the job.
I take a deep breath, hook my thumb under a layer of wet cotton and push them
down my tail. “I didn’t mean to scare Bethany.”
“If you say one word about this
to anyone, I will lead the sirens directly to you.” Lakyn’s smile is predatory.
“If you tell a single soul . . .”
Cal sets Bethany aside gently,
his focus on me. The way he holds up his hands to his temples and stares can’t
be good. He pinches the bridge of his nose, rubs his eyes and then looks again.
A quick shake of his head and his eyes open wider.
Nothing comes out of his mouth for a minute or two. Fat raindrops splash on his
nose, forehead and dribble down his cheeks.
“I had to warn you,” I say, my
voice shaking. “If you go back out in the water, you’ll both be in danger. This
way you’ll believe and
stay alive.
”
Lakyn stares down at me in shock.
“Is that what you think?”
Cal glares at Lakyn and growls,
“What did you do to her, you bastard?”
Lakyn lunges for him, but at my
shout, he stops, chest heaving in and out, hands clenching into fists. “I saved
her life,” he spits, with blue chips for eyes.
Disbelief etches the lines around
Cal’s forehead. He taps his fingers against his knee, falling into silence
again. Bethany moans, and he shrugs out of his flannelette shirt and places it
under her body, then wraps it around her middle. He’s wearing a white singlet
underneath, and the clear outline of his muscles makes it obvious he works out.
I can feel the heat of eyes piercing the back of my skull and glance up to find
Lakyn looking at me.
Our gazes meet, hold,
lose
focus. He steps toward me, walks around the door as if
in a dream and then crouches by my side. “I have to hide you again,” he says.
“We have to be safe, Ellie.”
“Explain.” Cal’s tone is hard.
The answers should come from me.
The downpour buckets, though I’m sure Cal hears my shout of, “Get in and I’ll
tell you!”
Attempting small talk in the tiny
Hyundai is harder than I realise once Cal climbs into the back with Bethany in
his arms. Ralph starts the car and gets the engine warm. Cal and Lakyn are both
soaking wet, and I turn on the heaters, ensuring the vents blow their way.
“Hopefully that warms you up. Is your boat going to be safe?”
Cal presses his lips together and
doesn’t reply. For a while I think he won’t until, “The anchor’s down. I’ll
find out when I go to pick it up again.”
I cringe at his brusque tone,
hoping I haven’t lost his trust because of my deception. I should have told
them earlier. My reflection catches in the side mirror. The white in my hair
shines brighter than ever before, holding a natural wave. I lick my bottom lip,
tasting dry saline. The skin around my eyes glows, as though lit from within.
My normally grey, storm cloud eyes reflect the light around me, like a
preternatural hue of clear water on a hot summer’s day.
Alive.
I
smile. I might not be completely human, but I’m alive.
“Explain about the tail,” Cal
snaps again, his voice tight.
I look to him over my shoulder,
though he stares at Lakyn stonily.
“I found out that I was a mermaid
yesterday. The night I jumped off the cliff, I was lured by sirens. You know
the mythical sea creatures?” I sigh. “Well, they’re
real.
Lakyn saved
me.”
“OK. Let’s say I believe you.
You’re taking his word for it that’s how it happened?”
“You doubt what’s in front of
your eyes?” Lakyn asks silkily.
The tension heightens in the car.
“I know what happened to my body, Cal. I saw a siren myself when she tried to
drag me down, and again, Lakyn saved me. So yes, I trust him.”
I feel more than see Lakyn relax behind
me as his hand releases the back of my seat. Ralph presses the accelerator, and
the car moves, but I suddenly slide across the leather, banging my hip against
the door.
“Hell.” Ralph thumps the wheel,
and the tyres slip across a patch of sand. Rain hits the windscreen so hard;
it’s difficult to see through the glass, except for the odd flying tree limb
and flash of green. “Who has magic this strong? The king?” He presses harder on
the gas. The wheel spins out of his hands, but he doesn’t stall the car and
drives up a patch of grass, forging a new path around sparse trees.
“Lakyn?”
I hang onto the handle above the
window and tense all my muscles, praying we avoid impact.
“Why would my uncle travel
through? It can’t be him.” But Lakyn doesn’t sound sure. “Many others from
strong families can control magic, just not as well. There have been political
rumblings lately as to who is the strongest. Other secret factions have been
formed. The king, my father and I were the strongest combined, but now my
father’s gone.”
Ralph shoots Lakyn a cynical
look. “And so are you.”
“Ralph, look out!” I scream.
He swings the wheel back,
narrowly avoiding another casuarina tree. The car bumps, and the hard jerk
lifts me off my seat. My head bangs against the roof and I slam back down.
“Sorry ‘bout that. Hold on,
nearly at the road.” The windscreen wipers beat so fast they look like they
might fly off and have no impact on the rain clouding the glass.
Ralph rubs a circle on the
windscreen in front of him, a worried look on his face.
“Don’t stop, Ralph,” Lakyn says
from the back, but it sounds remarkably like an order.
Glass shatters and I tilt my head
automatically to the right to avoid the branch spearing my window. Tiny glass
shards scatter across my lap, my tail, and I can’t move for fear of cutting
myself.
Cal swears in the back, but Lakyn
reaches a hand between my face and the glass and pushes the limb back through
the broken window. Rain slips through and drenches my face. “Don’t touch the
glass,” he orders. “And don’t move.” He grabs a spare towel and tries to hold
it over the window. Then, “Ralph, I’ve got a hint on the trace with the magic.
It’s not my uncle’s. It moves differently, but it’s powerful.”
“Great.
Just
what we need.”
The car skids on the asphalt, and the gum trees resemble
high sentinels with great branches and green leaves swaying in the gusts, ready
to crash down onto the road.
Suddenly, the wind stops, but the
rain doesn’t. The deluge roars, and Ralph continues to drive as though he knows
exactly where he’s going. The towel against the window becomes sopping wet,
dripping water onto the floor of the Hyundai. The narrow road winds around a
huge cliff face, slightly protected by trees, until we come to the boat yard
and the hostel.
The lights are off when we
arrive, and the wind howls against the old building, making projectiles out of
old buoys.
Ralph stops the car, gets out and
hurries to Cal’s side. “Out you get, lad. Come on in. We have to carry Ellie
inside, too.”
Rain sluices the outside of the
car, but Cal slides out the car with Bethany in his arms and the gun tucked
into the back of his jeans. He runs for the front door and finds shelter under
the overhang.
I wonder where he got the weapon.
It isn’t easy to obtain a firearm in Queensland; you can’t just go to a corner
store and get one. Lakyn opens my door, rain pouring over his back, and his
gaze meets mine with a flash of light blue. I know he didn’t want me to tell
Bethany and Cal anything, but he has to realise I’d feel responsible for them
if a lie by omission led to their deaths.
“I had to tell him.” I
tentatively touch Lakyn’s hand. “They’re my friends. Bethany wouldn’t have
survived, and Cal’s career is out on the water. I’d never forgive myself if
something happened to them because of me.”
“What if they feel the same way
and tell their brothers and sisters, mothers and fathers?” Lakyn asks tersely.
He doesn’t try to come out of the rain. The droplets splash icy cold against my
arms and I shiver. His gaze softens.
“C’mon Ellie.”
He
bends down, lean muscles bunching in his biceps, and then he lifts me with
ease, cradling me against his chest. “We have to be careful about the broken
glass.”
I nestle my face into his neck
and murmur against his salty skin, “I’m sorry. I know you wanted me to stay
silent. I just couldn’t.”
He kicks the door shut and runs
to the open door of the hostel. Inside, the warmth of the pot belly stove seeps
into my skin. I sigh, and he places me in the chair nearest the fire. I
immediately reach out toward the flames, rubbing my palms together and
spreading out my cold fingers to soak in the heat.
“You’re chilled.” Lakyn caresses
my shoulder and flicks back my hair. He crouches to inspect my skin. “You don’t
look like you’ve been cut. Just to be safe, I’ll remove the towels and get
fresh ones and a robe.”
“Thank you.”
“That was a close one.”
I lift up my chin and smile at
Cal. He stares at us, but seems to be relaxing. He’s taken the seat at the far
corner of the room with Beth across his legs, her head against his shoulder.