The Tail of Emily Windsnap (3 page)

She didn’t say anything for ages, and I was starting to get fidgety when a familiar noise broke the silence. I opened my eyes the tiniest crack to see Mom in the opposite corner — fast asleep and snoring like a horse! I snapped my eyes quickly shut again and fought the urge to giggle.

“Now, visualize yourself next to some water,” Millie said in a low voice. “Think about how you feel about the water. Are you scared? What emotions are you experiencing?”

The only thing I was experiencing was a pain in my side from trying not to laugh.

“And now think of somewhere that you have felt safe. Somewhere you felt happy.” I pictured myself swimming in the sea. I thought about the way my legs became a beautiful tail and about the feeling of zooming along with the fish. I was on the verge of drifting into a happy dream world of my own when —“Nnnnnuuurrrggggghhhh!”— Mom let out a huge snore that made me jump out of my chair.

I kept my eyes closed tight and pretended I’d jumped in my sleep. Mom shuffled in her chair and whispered, “Sorry.”

“Not to worry,” Millie whispered back. “She’s completely under. Just twitching.”

After that, I let my mind drift back to the sea. I couldn’t wait to get out there again. Millie’s voice carried on in the background, and Mom soon started snoring softly again. By the time Millie counted from one to seven to wake me up, I was so relieved I hugged her.

“What’s that for?” she asked.

“Just a thank-you, for curing my fear,” I lied.

She blushed as she slipped Mom’s twenty-dollar bill into her purse. “Think nothing of it, pet. It’s a labor of love.”

Mom was quiet on the way home. Did she know I hadn’t been asleep? Did she suspect anything? I didn’t dare ask. We made our way through the town’s narrow streets down to the promenade. As we waited to cross the road, she pointed to a bench facing oceanside. “Let’s go and sit down over there,” she said.

“You okay, Mom?” I asked as casually as I could while we sat on the bench. The tide was out, and little pools dotted the ripply sand it had left behind.

She peered out toward the horizon. “I had a dream,” she said without turning around. “It felt so real. It was beautiful.”

“When? What felt real?”

She looked at me for a second, blinked, and turned back to the sea. “It was out there, somewhere. I can almost feel it.”

“Mom, what are you talking about?”

“Promise you won’t think I’m crazy.”

“Course I won’t.”

She smiled and ruffled my hair. I smoothed it back down. “When we were at Millie’s . . .” She closed her eyes. “I dreamed about a shipwreck, under the water. A huge golden boat with a marble mast.
A ceiling of amber, a pavement of pearl
. . .”

“Huh?”

“It’s a line from a poem. I think. I can’t remember the rest. . . .” She gazed at the sea. “And the rocks. They weren’t like any rocks you’ve ever seen. They used to glisten every color you could imagine —”

“
Used
to? What do you mean?”

“Did I say that? I mean they did — in my dream. They shone like a rainbow in water. It’s just, it felt so real. So familiar . . .” Her voice trailed off, and she gave me a quick sideways look. “But I suppose it’s sometimes like that, isn’t it? We all have dreams that feel real. I mean, you do. Don’t you?”

I was trying to figure out what to say when she started waving. “Oh, look,” she said briskly, “there’s Mr. Beeston.” I glanced up to see him marching toward the pier. He comes around for coffee every Sunday. Three o’clock on the dot. Mom makes coffee; he brings honey buns or doughnuts or bear claws. I usually scarf mine down quickly and leave the two of them alone. I don’t know what it is about him. He makes the boat feel smaller, somehow. Darker.

Mom put her fingers in the edges of her mouth and let out a sharp whistle. Mr. Beeston turned around. He smiled awkwardly and gave us a quick wave.

Mom stood up. “Come on. Better get back and put the water on.” And before I could ask her anything else, she was marching back to the boat. I had to run to keep up.

I snuck out again that night. I couldn’t keep away. I swam farther this time. The sea was grimy with oil and rubbish near the shore, and I wanted to explore the cleaner, deeper water farther out.

Looking back across the harbor, Brightport looked so small: a cluster of low buildings, all huddled around a tiny horseshoe-shaped bay, a lighthouse at one end, a marina at the other.

A hazy glow hovered over the town. Blurry yellow street lamps shone, with the occasional white lights of a car moving along between them.

As I swam around the rocks at the end of the bay, the water became clearer and softer. It was like switching from grainy black-and-white film into color. The fat gray fish were replaced by stripy yellow-and-blue ones with floppy silver tails, long thin green ones with spiky antennae and angry mouths, orange ones with spotted black fins — all darting purposefully around me.

Every now and then, I swam across a shallow sandy stretch. Wispy little sticklike creatures as thin as paper wriggled along beneath me, almost see-through against the sand. Then the water would suddenly get colder and deeper as I went over a rocky part. I swished myself across these carefully. They were covered in prickly black sea urchins, and I wouldn’t be thrilled to get one of those stuck on my tail.

Soon the water got warmer again as I came to another shallow part. I was getting tired. I came up for fresh air and realized I was miles from home — farther away than I’d ever been on my own. I tried to flick myself along, but my tail flapped lazily and started to ache. Eventually, I made it to a big, smooth rock with a low shelf. I pulled myself out of the water, my tail resting on some pebbles in the sea. A minute later, it went numb. I wiggled my toes and shivered as I watched my legs come back. That part was still
really
creepy!

Sitting back against a larger rock, I caught my breath. Then I heard something. Like singing, but without words. The wet rocks shimmered in the moonlight, but there was no one around. Had I imagined it? The water lapped against the pebbles, making them jangle as it sucked its breath away from the shore. There it was again — the singing.

Where was it coming from? I clambered up a jagged rock and looked down the other side. That’s when I saw her. I rubbed my eyes. Surely it couldn’t be . . . but it was! It was a mermaid! A real one! The kind you read about in kids’ stories. Long blond hair all the way down her back, which she was brushing while she sang. She was perched on the edge of a rock, shuffling a bit as though she were trying to get comfortable. Her tail was longer and thinner than mine. Silvery green and shimmering in the moonlight, it flapped against the rock as she sang.

She kept singing the same song. When she got to the end, she started again. A couple of times, she was in the middle of a really high part when she stopped and hit her tail with the brush. “Come on, Shona,” she said sharply. “Get it right!”

I stared for ages, opening and closing my mouth like a fish. I wanted to talk to her. But what exactly do you say to a singing mermaid perched on a rock in the middle of the night? Funnily enough, I’ve never had that come up before.

In the end, I coughed gently and she looked up immediately.

“Oh!” she said. She gaped open-mouthed at my legs for a second. And then, with a twist and a splash, she was gone.

I picked my way back down the rocks to the water’s edge. “Wait!” I shouted as she swam away from me. “I really want to talk to you.”

She turned in the water and looked back at me suspiciously. “I’m a mermaid, too!” I shouted. Yeah right, with my skinny legs and my Speedo bathing suit — she’d
really
believe that! “Wait, I’ll prove it.”

I jumped into the water and started swimming toward her. I still had that moment of panic when my legs stuck together and stiffened. But then they relaxed into their new shape, and I relaxed, too, as I swished my tail and sped through the water.

The mermaid was swimming away from me again, faster now. “Hang on,” I called. “Watch!” I waited for her to turn around, then dove under and flicked my tail upward. I waved it as high as I could.

When I came back up, she was staring at me as though she couldn’t believe what she’d seen. I smiled, but she ducked her head under the water. “Don’t go!” I called. But a second later,
her
tail was sticking up. Not twisting around madly like mine did, more as if she were dancing or doing gymnastics. In the moonlight, her tail glinted like diamonds.

When she came back up, I clapped. Or tried to anyway, but I slipped back under when I lifted both arms out and got water up my nose.

She was laughing as she swam toward me. “I haven’t seen you before,” she said. “How old are you?”

“Twelve.”

“Me, too. But you’re not at my school, are you?”

“Brightport Junior High,” I said. “Just started.”

“Oh.” She looked worried and moved away from me again.

“What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s just . . . I haven’t heard of it. Is it a mermaid school?’

“You go to a mermaid school?” The idea sounded like something out of a fairy tale, and even though I’ve
totally
grown out of fairy tales, I had to admit it sounded pretty cool.

She folded her arms — how did she do that without sinking? — and said quite sternly, “And what’s wrong with that? What kind of school do you
expect
me to go to?”

“No, it sounds great!” I said. “I wish I did, too.”

I found myself wanting to tell her everything. “I mean. . . I haven’t been a mermaid for long. Or I didn’t know I was, or something.” My words jumbled and tumbled out of me. “I’ve never even really been in the water, and then when I did get in, it happened and I was scared, but I’m not now and I wish I’d found out years ago.”

I looked up to see her staring at me as though I were something from outer space that had washed up on the beach. I stared back and tried folding my arms, too. I found that if I kept flicking my tail a little, I could stay upright. So I flicked and folded and stared for a little while, and she did the same. Then I noticed the side of her mouth flutter a bit and I felt the dimple below my left eye twitching. A second later, we were both laughing like hyenas.

“What are we laughing at?” I said when I managed to catch my breath.

“I don’t know!” she answered — and we both burst out laughing again.

“What’s your name?” she said once we’d stopped laughing. “I’m Shona Silkfin.”

“Emily,” I said. “Emily Windsnap.”

Shona stopped smiling. “Windsnap?
Really?
”

“Why? What’s wrong with that?”

“Nothing — it’s just . . .”

“What?”

“No, it’s nothing. I thought I’d heard it before, but I guess I couldn’t have. I must be thinking of something else. You haven’t been around here before, have you?”

I laughed. “A couple weeks ago, I’d never even been swimming in a pool!”

Shona looked serious for a second. “How did you do that thing just now?” she asked.

“What thing?”

“With your tail.”

“You mean the handstand? You want me to do it again?”

“No, I mean the other thing.” She pointed under the water. “How did you make it change?”

“I don’t know. It just happens. When I go in water, my legs kind of disappear.”

“I’ve never seen someone with legs before. Not in real life. I’ve read about it. What’s it like?”

“What’s it like having legs?”

Shona nodded.

“Well, it’s — it’s cool. You can walk, and run. And climb things, or jump or skip.”

Shona gazed at me as if I were speaking a foreign language. “You can’t do this with legs,” she said as she dove under again. This time her tail twisted around and around, faster and faster in an upside-down pirouette. Water spun off as she turned, spraying tiny rainbow arcs over the surface.

“That was fantastic!” I said when she came back up again.

“We’ve been practicing it in Diving and Dance. We’re doing a display at the Inter-Bay competition in a couple of weeks. This is the first time I’ve been on the squad.”

“Diving and Dance? Is that a class you take?” I asked, a wish already forming in my mind.

“Yeah,” she went on breathlessly. “But last year, I was in the choir. Mrs. Highwave said that
five
fishermen were seen wandering aimlessly toward the rocks during my solo performance.” Shona smiled proudly, her earlier shyness totally vanished. “No one at Shiprock School has
ever
had that many before.”

“So that’s — that’s good, huh?”

“Good? It’s great! I want to be a siren when I grow up.”

I stared at her. “So all that stuff in fairy tales about mermaids luring fishermen to watery graves — it’s all true?”

Shona shrugged. “It’s not like we want them to die. Not necessarily. Usually, we just hypnotize them into changing their ways and then wipe their memories so they move away and forget they saw us.”

“Wipe their memories?”

“Usually, yes. It’s our best defense. Not everyone knows how to do it. Mainly just sirens and those close to the king. We just use it to stop them from stealing all our fish, or finding out about our world.” She leaned in closer. “Sometimes, they fall in love.”

“The mermaids and the fishermen?”

Shona nodded excitedly. “There’re loads of stories about it. It’s
totally
illegal — but so romantic, isn’t it?”

“Well, I guess so. Is that why you were singing just now?”

“Oh, that. No, I was practicing for Beauty and Deportment,” she said, as if I totally would know what she was talking about. “We’ve got a test tomorrow, and I can’t get my posture right. You have to sit perfectly, tilt your head exactly right, and brush your hair in a hundred smooth strokes. It’s a pain in the gills trying to remember everything at once.”

She paused, and I guessed it was my turn to say something. “Mmm-hmm, yeah, I know what you mean,” I said, hoping I sounded convincing.

“I came in first in last semester’s final, but that was just hair brushing. This is the whole package.”

“It sounds really tough.”

“B and D is my favorite subject,” she went on. “I wanted to be seventh-grade hairbrush monitor, but Cynthia Smoothflick got it.” She lowered her voice. “But Mrs. Sharptail told me that if I do well in this test, maybe they’ll give it to me in the spring.”

What was I meant to say to that?

“You think I’m a goody-goody, don’t you?” she said, waching my face. She started to swim away again. “Just like everybody else does.”

“No, of course not,” I said. “You’re . . . you’re . . .” I struggled to find the right words. “You’re . . . really interesting.”

“You’re pretty swishy, too,” she said, and let herself float back.

“How come you’re out in the middle of the night, anyway?” I asked.

“These rocks are the best ones around for B and D, but you can’t really come here in the daytime. It’s too dangerous.” She stuck a thumb out toward the coast. “I usually sneak out on Sunday nights. Or Wednesdays. Mom’s always out like a tide by nine o’clock on Sunday. She likes to be fresh for the week ahead. And she has her aquarobics on Wednesdays and always sleeps more soundly after that. Dad sleeps like a whale every night!” Shona laughed. “Anyway, I’m glad I came tonight.”

I smiled. “Me, too.” The moon had moved around and was shining down on me, a tiny chink missing from its side. “But I have to get going soon,” I added, yawning.

Shona frowned. “Are you going to come back some other time?”

“Yeah, I’d like that.” She might be a bit strange, but she was a
mermaid.
The only one I’d ever met. She was like me! “When?”

“Wednesday?”

“Great.” I grinned. “And good luck on your test!”

“Thanks!” she shouted. And with a flick of her tail, she was gone.

As I swam around Brightport Harbor in the darkness, the beam from the lighthouse flashed steady rays across the water. I stopped for a moment to watch. Each beam slowly scanned the water before disappearing around the back of the lighthouse. It was almost hypnotic. A large ship silently made its way across the horizon, its silhouette briefly visible with each slow beam of light.

But then I noticed something else. Someone was standing on the rocks at the bottom of the lighthouse. Mr. Beeston! What was he doing? He seemed to be looking out at the horizon, following the ship’s progress.