Authors: Tera Lynn Childs
I’m not sure why, but I feel compel ed to keep Daddy’s—
and Doe’s—secret.
“Just felt a little homesick,” I say, which is always true.
“That’s completely understandable,” she says absently, stil absorbed in her cutting and pinning.
Usual y I wouldn’t go out of my way to protect Doe, after how awful she’s been to me since, oh, forever. But if Daddy thinks it’s important for her exile to remain a secret, then I trust his judgment. If she were the type to repay debts, I’d say she owes me for this. Since she’s not, I’l just content myself with taking the higher road.
“How long wil you be here?” Mrs. Wentletrap asks, floating back to evaluate her work.
“Hopeful y just until morning,” I say. Then I remember I’m supposed to be here by choice. “I mean, unfortunately only until morning. I have a real y important meeting.” Mrs. Wentletrap turns to Peri. “What do you think?
“I think,” Peri says, pul ing the sheet from the mirror and gesturing for me to take a look, “that it is going to be spectacular.”
The vision in the mirror, the girl with silky blond hair, fair freckled skin, and a fin-tight dress that hugs—and accentuates—al the appropriate curves… wel , she doesn’t look like me. She looks like a grown-up with my features, and I definitely don’t feel like a grown-up.
With a sigh, I turn away from the mirror. “It’s beautiful.
Truly.”
“Excel ent.” Mrs. Wentletrap swims to my back and starts pul ing out the pins that hold the gown form on my body.
“We’l get the dress pieced this week, and as long as you come back for a final fitting before your birthday, it wil be as perfect as we can make it.”
As they peel the dress off me, I ask, “Have you thought about colors?”
I’m picturing the same water-inspired colors as my sixteenth-birthday gown, only in a more adult shape. Maybe more blue toned, with pale sapphires the color of home.
The color of Quince’s eyes.
“Of course,” she says.
“But,” Peri adds, “we’re going to surprise you.” My gaze drifts around the room. Just about anything they could choose wil be amazing, and I definitely trust their sense of color and fabric. If they told me to wear brown, gray, and orange, I’d say okay. They have never sailed me wrong yet.
“I can’t wait.”
And I only let myself have a tiny melancholy moment thinking that this wil be my last royal gown. Ever.
“I’l be back next weekend,” I say to Peri and her mom as I swim out their front door. “I’l come by for the final fitting as soon as I can.”
They wave good-bye and I disappear over the palace wal , intent on heading for my room and a good night’s sleep in my own bed. I push through the palace doors, hoping to sneak up to my room without drawing the attention of the (frequently oversolicitous) palace staff, and stop short when I see a merman admiring the mosaic in the entry hal .
There is something arresting about his posture.
He is near my age, maybe a year or two older, with cinnamon red hair and a flame-colored tail fin, and wearing a jacket of black and red—the royal colors of Acropora, a kingdom to the southeast of Thalassinia. Though I don’t recognize him, there is something extremely familiar about his profile.
He turns my direction, breaks into a grin, and exclaims,
“Liliana!”
Liliana? Only one person ever cal ed me that. A boy I haven’t seen in ages.
“Tel in?” I ask in disbelief.
“The one and only.” He swims the short distance between us and spreads his arms wide, inviting me into a hug.
I kick into his arms. “I can’t believe it’s you!” I throw my arms around his neck with the enthusiasm of the little mergirl I was when I last saw him. “You’re so grown up!” I swim back to get a good look at my childhood friend. He is so very different from my memory. As a merboy, his hair was a brighter, more flamelike red and his fin was a solid orange. I once heard the terrible trio cal him goldfish boy—
behind his back, of course, because, after al , he
is
a royal prince.
Not only has his hair deepened into a more flattering shade, but so has the tip of his tail fin, giving the impression that someone dipped him in dark red ink. His body has fil ed out into that of a young man, and his facial features are a little more chiseled than a nineteen-year-old’s should be—a little more drawn in the eyes and beneath the cheeks. He looks like life has been hard on him.
The only thing that hasn’t changed is his eyes. They are stil the palest blue I’ve ever seen, kind of like the sky right where it meets the horizon. And they stil sparkle with a mischief that drew me into more games of what if than I can remember.
For a time it felt like we played together nearly every day, from morning until night. Then one day, he was gone, disappearing back to his home kingdom. Daddy told me there had been a disagreement with Tel in’s father and they wouldn’t be returning anytime soon. They never did.
“You’re grown up, too,” he says with a deep laugh. “It’s been more than a decade. You were seven, I think, and I was eight.”
“I can’t believe it’s been that long,” I say. “What are you doing here? I thought our fathers weren’t speaking.”
“They’re not,” Tel in answers, a worried look settling onto his face. “But my father has fal en il , and I am acting king for the time being.”
“Oh,” I say lamely. “I’m sorry to hear that.” I always liked his dad and never understood why the two kings, once the best of friends like their children, had a fal ing out.
“Then are you here in an official capacity?” I ask.
“Of a sort.” He presses a hand to his stomach. “I’m starved. Does your palace cook stil make the best sushi in the west Atlantic?”
“The best in al the seven seas,” I boast.
Moments later, we’re on stools at the kitchen counter, with palace chef Laver serving up dish after dish of sushi delicacies. This alone is worth coming home for. Even under Dosinia-related circumstances.
“So,” Tel in says after swal owing a bite of maguro tamaki,
“I hear you’ve been living on land.”
“I have.” I study the offerings on the platter and select a Philadelphia rol —I’m a sucker for cream cheese.
Tel in grabs the other Phil y rol . “Me, too.” My head shoots up. “Real y?”
“Uh-huh,” he hums around his mouthful.
“Where?”
“Puerto Rico.” He captures a tako nigiri with his seasticks. “It’s the closest inhabited island to the palace.”
Puerrrto Rrrico
. The words rol through my mind. I wonder how different human life is in Puerto Rico from in Seaview.
It’s stil tropical, stil part of the United States. Stil human.
Maybe not different at al .
“My Spanish has definitely improved,” he says.
“I’l bet.”
We spend several minutes devouring the sushi, with Tel in eating two for every one I take—he wasn’t joking about being starved—while I ask him about Puerto Rico. Other than a few day trips into Miami for flea-market shopping with Aunt Rachel, I haven’t been anywhere on land besides Seaview. I’m curious to know more.
The stories he tel s of salsa dancing and scary
caretas
and
cocina criolla
make me want to explore more of the world above the water. Who knows what else I’m missing?
“It’s too bad,” Tel in says when we’ve finished off the last of the sushi and waved away Laver’s offer for more.
“What’s too bad?” I ask when he doesn’t explain.
“That our worlds have to remain so separate.”
“You mean Seaview and San Juan?”
“No,” he says with a sad laugh. “I mean the mer world and the terraped world.”
“Oh.”
I’ve wished things were different, too. That wish, that question has definitely come up more than once during my three years on land. Every time I had to lie to Shannen about where I was going for the weekend—thankful y, not an issue anymore since she knows the truth. Every time I had to check over my shoulder ten times before sinking beneath the waves at Seaview Pier, lest some overeager lifeguard try to save me from drowning. Every time Mrs.
Ferraro complained about her coffee going cold and I had to fight the urge to say, “Hey, hand it to me. I can warm it up.”
Those were the times that made me wonder, Wouldn’t it be nice if humans knew? If I didn’t have to hide the truth about myself at al costs?
As nice as it would be, it’s just a dream. A very dangerous dream.
“Yeah,” I final y agree, “it’s too bad. But also necessary.” Tel in absently swirls his seasticks back and forth over the empty platter.
“Is it?” His eyes have a faraway look. “I don’t know.”
“Of course it is,” I insist. “You know what might happen to us, to al the mer kingdoms. It’s just too risky.” He looks up, his eyes sparkling with mischief. “What if?” he asks, starting the game we used to play as guppies.
“What if terrapeds knew?”
“Okay,” I say, turning to face him. “What if. What if… we cal ed a press conference with the kings and queens of al the mer kingdoms?”
“What if,” he continues, “our fathers stood side by side to tel the terraped world that merfolk exist?” The what-if game is kind of like verbal chess, or math proofs. There is a starting point—what if terrapeds knew—
and an end goal—the mer and human worlds coexisting.
We have to alternate what-ifs to get from the starting point to the goal.
It’s not a game with a winner or loser. The journey is the game.
I ponder my next move, ful of the fears about what might actual y happen if this came to pass. “What if the governments of al the developed human countries sent troops to capture merfolk around the world and lock them away in labs for scientific study?”
Tel in shakes his head. “Out of bounds,” he claims, accusing my what-if of going off track. “We’re thinking positive.”
“Okay,” I relent. “What if the governments of al the developed human countries”—I force myself to think positive—“invited the mer kingdoms to join the United Nations?”
“Better.” Tel in nods. “What if finfolk around the world walked out of the oceans, rivers, and lakes and shared their knowledge and culture with the terrapeds?”
“What if,” I say, imagining this utopian paradise, “humans treated merfolk as equals, rather than mutant creatures?”
“What if…” Tel in shakes his head. “Sounds like a dream world to me.”
I sigh. “Me too.”
“Why don’t we do it?” he suggests. “Why
don’t
we come out of the ocean?”
I give him a you’ve-got-to-be-kidding look. “You know why.”
“I know it’s fear that keeps us trapped in the water,” he says, slamming his seasticks down onto the counter. “The fear of what
might
happen. But we don’t
know
. It might unfold just as we said.”
“That’s the dream, Tel in,” I say sadly. “But the fear, the thing that
might
happen, that’s too terrible to even think about. It’s not worth the risk.”
“I know.” His anger washes away, and he gives me a glowing smile. “But it’s a lovely dream.”
“It is,” I agree. “A lovely dream.”
Unfortunately, the dream can only exist in our what-if game. Too many lives are at stake to reach for the dream and risk facing the nightmare.
wake early the next morning to find Daddy sitting on the Iedge of my bed, gently nudging my shoulder to rouse me from sleep. I blink him into focus before wrapping my arms around him in a fierce hug.
“Good morning, Daddy.”
He smiles, making little crinkles around his eyes. “Good morning, daughter.”
“How have you been?” I ask, even though I’ve only been gone a couple weeks.
A distant look starts to drift into his eyes, but he shakes it away. “I have been missing you, of course,” he says. “But I understand you have had your fins ful with your cousin.” I groan and rol my eyes and make a
tsk
ing sound with my tongue, al at once. “Holy Capheira, yes. You know how she can be.”
“I do.”
There is an ocean of subtext in that tiny phrase, and I can guess what it’s about.
“Why did you send her to me in exile?” I ask. “What did she do? It’s not like she hasn’t broken rules before.” And laws, I add silently, because Daddy might not know about those. I’m taking the high road again. Doe owes me double.
“This was…” Again he shakes his head. “I think this is a matter best kept between Dosinia and me.”
“Okay.”
Daddy has on his king-of-the-seas persona, which means there’s no negotiating. Besides, the way everyone is fin-dipping around the issue, I’m starting to think I’d rather not know what Doe did. It might scar me forever.
“Cid tel s me you have brought another boy for separation,” Daddy says.
“He’s not mine,” I explain, even though Daddy should know I would never cheat on Quince. “Dosinia kissed him.” Daddy heaves a deep sigh, his chest rising and fal ing beneath his uniform jacket. “I guess I didn’t take away enough of her powers to keep her from getting into trouble.” I’ve seen that sigh before. Doe lives with our aunt Bel s and uncle Portunus in a big manor house at the center of Thalassinia’s historic district. But she’s spent enough time in the palace that Daddy and I have both experienced plenty of her antics. Like the time she burst into the throne room in a panic, claiming there was a great white on her tail. Or when she hid stinky lobsters beneath the mattress of every bed in the palace—everyone had to sleep in the hal s for a week. Or, most famously, the time she convinced the male members of the palace staff that Daddy wanted them to appear shirtless at a royal ceremony involving the heads of several other kingdoms. I was amazed Daddy didn’t fil et her alive then.