Vicious Deep (12 page)

Coach's whistle snaps me awake, and I'm already a second behind Kurt. I don't hold back, because I know he isn't either, not for the lowly humans and not for me. We are equals, mermano-a-mermano, racing across the pool.

Then it happens.

The tingle starts at my spine, like my calamari tattoo is running out of juice. It's a craving and burning all in one, spreading along my legs, my forearms. I reach the far end of the pool where Layla stands and grab the edge, shaking the cramp out of my leg. The feeling subsides as I push against the shift that wants to burst out of me. I look up at Layla, whose eyes are wide on me. I look down at what she's staring at and see the clusters of blue scales that have popped up along my wrist. I press against them and brush them away. They dissolve into sand. I turn around and dive back in, even though I know Kurt has already beaten me. I just have to get away from her. Pretend like she didn't see anything, even though I want her to see. I want her to know, even though it'll be dangerous.

“What the hell happened there, Hart?” Coach is on me the moment I surface.

“Cramp, Coach.”

“Hmm. Don't scare me, boy. We only just got you back.”

Kurt holds out his arm to pull me out of the water. I'm dripping, and I feel heavy, like my tail is showing.

It isn't.

Layla isn't standing at the opposite end of the pool anymore. She's nowhere around. I avoid Kurt's stare, because I don't know if he sensed what was happening. I don't know if anyone saw. Then again, if they did, they'd be a little more shocked than now. Shocked like Layla's eyes. Something in me broke, and as Coach blows his whistle to resume the races, I'm almost positive that I wanted her to see.

Are you joining us?” Kurt hovers around the entrance that descends to the locker rooms.

“I'm going to hang for a bit. I'll meet you guys outside.”

“You're sure?” I don't know what it is about Kurt. His seemingly all-knowing violet eyes, his I'm-103-and-I've-seen-the-world attitude. Or just that he can see right through me.

“I need to swim.”

“Take your time. Your parents aren't gathering us for another forty-five minutes.” He turns and follows the echo of the rest of the team down the stairs.

Coach locked the entrance to the pool, so the only way in or out is through the locker rooms. I grab a towel from the bin, leave it at the edge of the pool with my Speedo, and jump in feetfirst. I let myself float, close my eyes, and feel the shift. I don't hold my breath as I feel the quick burn at either side of my throat where my gills open, and my legs stiffen and cramp where my fins grow. I trace the splatter of blue scales along my forearms. I swim just an inch above the white tiles, flip and twist, then lie right in the center with my arms behind my back. So this is what it's like to sleep underwater. The surface of the water dances with the light, back and forth and back and forth, making its own patterns. I wish I could stay here all day.

Then there's a splash at the end of the pool. I push myself up, willing my legs to shift back. The split is the hardest, a burning that only lasts a moment but feels like forever. My thighs cramp up on the first couple of kicks. I swallow a mouthful of chlorine when my head breaches the surface, my neck stinging where my gills have closed like shutters.

“What the hell was that?” Layla surfaces when I do. She's in her bra and panties.

And I'm naked.

I grab on to the metal steps on the end of the pool. “A little privacy, do you
mind
?”

“Oh, who cares. It's not like everyone else hasn't seen it.”

“Shut up, Layla. You don't even know what you're talking about.” Why is she here? I thought they were all gone. My brain is a distorted jumble of curses and poor excuses. I grab for my towel and pull myself out of the water. Bad move, bad move. I try to rub off where my scales are still dissolving into sand.

“What the hell
is
that?”

“I don't know what you're talking about.” If I've gotten one thing right from my experiences with the opposite sex, it's that I know how to be a jerk.

“In the water. You were—?” She can't say it. She knows how crazy she'll sound. “I thought I saw—”

“—me naked? Congratulations. Your wildest dream come true.”

She grazes her hand across the surface, splashing me. She swims to the steps and pulls herself out. She slides to the towel bin and grabs one to wrap around herself. It's too late, though. I've already seen what I needed to see. It's different from seeing her in a bathing suit all summer or during meets. This is more intimate, all lace and good-night dreams. Her hair is dark with water, curling at the tips.

“Don't tell me I didn't see what I think I just saw. You ignore me for days. And your two new mysterious cousins show up out of nowhere with matching tattoos.”

I breathe in her panic, anger, sadness. “It's a family crest,” I go, pulling on my Speedo under the towel.

“More like the freaky-eye cult.”

I gasp. “You told me my eyes were beautiful!”

“We were
six
.”

“So?”

“And you told me I was your best friend. Or did your near-death experience make you realize that I don't matter anymore?” She's reaching out to me. She holds my wrists in her arms.

I think about the whirlpool in my dreams. The silver mermaid, her sharp white teeth and eyes. Opening my eyes after the storm and seeing Layla's face, the hot white sun around her skin. The smile on her face when she realized it was me. The times we snuck into the aquarium after hours on a dare, and her face at the sight of glow-in-the-dark sea horses. If she got hurt, it would be because of me.

“I—I
can't
tell you. I can't tell you what's going on. Maybe one day. But not now.”

“You can tell me anything.” Her hold tightens.

“This is different—”

“But—
why?
”

When I don't answer, she looks down at our wet feet. She's giving up on me, and I'm going to let her. She's about to say something else, but we're interrupted by the loudest crack of thunder, a reminder that I have somewhere to be. “Good-bye, Layla.”

I turn from her and go back into the dressing rooms, breathing in deeply so at least I can sense her near me—lavender and salt and crushed flowers, sticky between her fingertips.
She
loves
me
not
.

The farther we walk along the boardwalk, the more lost in the mist we get, and the less I can make out the outline of the Wonder Wheel or anything beyond a few feet or even my mom's red hair. This doesn't feel like my Brooklyn, my Coney, my home. Something in the air, the smell of the belly of the sea churning, is a different kind of familiar. My gills itch with expectancy, a longing for something I only feel when I'm in the water.

Funny how a few days ago I was diving off the pier just for the hell of it, and Layla was diving in after me just to show everyone she could. I wish I'd said something else to her, something that might make her still have a little hope in me. I'm losing her, and in the dark fog that hugs us, I fear I already have.

Thalia grabs hold of my hand, our feet crunching on the thin layer of sand on the creaky floorboards. She sighs, and her sigh sounds like a cloud deflating. I don't know what to say to her that wouldn't seem corny. She's wearing the red and black bracelet Ryan gave her after school, a skinny rubber thing with our team logo—the Guardian Knights. She lifts her hand periodically to look at it, as though she can read the time on it.

“Tristan.” My name comes out in such a whisper that I can barely recognize it as my mother's voice. Soft thunder rumbles in the distance. “We're here.” She holds on to Dad's hand and leans in to kiss his cheek. I can't see his face, but I know he's looking down.

“Ready or not,” Dad says in the same way he always did when we played around the apartment, the park, or the white hallways of his office building.

My eyes focus for the first time on the small wooden ship bopping along the pier. Sheer and iridescent sails puff against the breeze. Two small creatures zoom back and forth, pulling on deep green ropes, pushing crates, and rolling barrels. A line of people are making their way onto the deck one by one.

“Solitary merfolk,” Kurt answers before I can even ask. “They're not bound to our court in any other way than being of the sea folk. Still, they make their offerings when we're here, just to have our protection.”

Protection? Protection from what? I'm about to ask, but we've already stopped walking.

Dad pulls me into a hug, and we clap our hands against each other's backs. We've never really had to say good-bye for anything, just the one time at swim camp, and we knew exactly where I'd be going then and when I'd be coming back. Something inside me falters, but when I let go and look at the ship, look out at the darkening skies, I know there are more important things.

Mom holds my face in her hands, our eyes mirrors of each other. “Don't forget. At the offering you must only give the contents of the front pocket. The side pocket is for my father—”

“Relax, I got it,” I assure her while trying to reassure myself. I sling both my arms into the straps of the backpack she stuffed with goodies for our trip.

She sighs, letting go of my face and taking Dad's outstretched hand. They walk back down the way we came and fold deeply into the mist.

•••

I've already tripped on a barrel and stepped on a barnacled claw foot. It isn't exactly the perfect start to a voyage. We aren't moving yet. Kurt and Thalia lead me through clusters of creatures who stare at the Coney Island boardwalk as though they're afraid they'll never see it again. I force myself not to look at it, because part of me feels the same way.

The passengers vary. There's a family of unbelievably hot girls with green faces and webbed hands. They wear little cut-off denim shorts and bikini tops, their oversized sunglasses perched on top of their heads like plastic crowns, as if they're just going on a regular family vacay to the Bahamas or Cancun, not a floating island off the coast of New York City.

Then there's a guy with the body of a man and the head of a gray and blue fish. A tiny light hovers over his face, and I realize it's part of him—like a shiny flashlight dangling out of his forehead. He wears a traveling salesman kind of suit, and the slits on his nose wiggle against the salty wind. When his shiny black eyes catch me staring, I'm afraid he'll flip me off, or worse. Instead he bows.

Here we go again with the bowing.

A boy runs past me; a woman with curling brown hair chases after him. She picks him up, and he struggles against her until she reprimands him in his ear. He looks like he's wearing a turtle backpack, but as we pass them I can see the hard shell is part of him. She picks a spot with an excellent view of the shore. Then I notice her arms. They have no bone in them. Where there should be fingers are tiny suction cups that shift back and forth from fingers to tentacles.

And then there's a guy. Just an average guy, a little older than me with dark jeans, black leather boots with archaic crosses on the shins, a long-sleeved black T-shirt, and disheveled brown hair. He wears a baseball cap to the side and chews on a coffee straw. He's leaning against the side of the boat, watching and holding a small cardboard box with MTA stickers on it. He winks at me as we walk past, which is weird, but finally someone who doesn't bow.

“Let's go meet the captain,” Thalia says. In her ballerina skirt, she looks more like a regular girl than a sea creature. She leads us to the mast of the ship. Out here is just the horizon. Kurt knocks on the mast. There's a series of squeaks, like rope and metal being pulled. A deep voice comes out of the darkness and says, “Kurtomathetis, I was wondering when you would make it.”

Thalia puts her hands on her hips and looks up at him. “But we're ahead of schedule!”

I follow their stare up and over the front of the ship. Where there would be some carving, like a dragon on the Viking ships they had at the Met, is a merman. From the waist up he has the V shape of a football player. His hair seems to be alive in full black curls. His shoulders have splotches of golden freckles where the sun hits the most. He bows his head with a kind smile.

Arion grabs the conch strung over his chest and blows it. The sails expand, and even though there is no strong wind just now, we start moving. The ship is alive with excited whispers. I hold on to the front of the ship, my legs feeling wobbly as we start moving. I'm really doing this. Oh, god, I'm really doing this.

“Lord Sea—” the captain says to me.

“You don't have to call me that,” I shout over the small wave that crashes against us.

Arion looks taken aback. His dark eyebrows knit together, and his black eyes look over his shoulder at me. “What shall I call you?”

“Tristan is fine.”

“Tristan.” He tastes my name on his tongue, pronouncing it a few times before he's confident about addressing me so informally. “Son of?”

“David Hart?”

“Tristan Hart, son of David Hart. Welcome aboard.”

I'm too stunned. “What are you?”

“A merman like yourself.”

“But you're, like, attached to the ship.”

We make a sudden turn to the left. “Whoa,” he says. He raises his hand and makes a pulling motion. A sail drops. He uses his left hand to slap at the air, like he's trying to parallel park. Behind me the ship's steering wheel mimics his hand movement.

“How are you part of this ship?” I ask.

“I have carried my father's debt to the king,” he says. No big deal.

“What do you mean? What did he do?”

“I was a boy. It is so long ago I cannot remember. My father had the choice of being executed or indentured to the king. He was to serve millennia guiding the ship between Toliss and whatever coasts the Sea Court happens to visit. But my father grew old, and his sentence was carried over to me.”

“That doesn't seem fair.”

“That is the way it is, Tristan Hart.”

Arion's baritone laugh sounds like the conch strapped to his chest. He touches the tip of his bushy black beard. He finds something in it, a tiny crab, and pops it into his mouth like a grape.

“Guess you never go hungry,” I go. “But how do you sleep?”

“The sails, they're quite soft.”

“Way to look on the bright side.” I wonder what other kinds of punishments my grandfather has given out, and if I were king, whether I could ever do the same.

There's another bang, and this time the rain breaks. It isn't cold, thunderstorm rain. It's soft, like passing through a warm curtain. “We've crossed the wall!” Arion calls out.

“Should we go below deck?” I instantly regret asking.

“We are of the sea, Tristan. No one objects to getting a little wet.”

Thalia's laughter is contagious. Here the clouds break up. This is the first stretch of sky I've seen in weeks. Around me, the other passengers lift their noses to the sky or reach their hands over the side of the ship, where water will splash and lick their fingertips. Or tentacles, whatever the case may be. The only one I don't see in the crowd is the human guy with the cardboard box. Surely he did oppose getting a bit wet.

“Hang on tight, Lord Tristan!”

My stomach plummets with that tickling roller-coaster feel. I even let myself scream. A small wave pushes us past the wall.

“There's that,” Kurt says.

And yeah, there is that. Behind us, the wall of warm rain stands still. It marks the last of the ugly rain clouds that have latched on to the sky for the past few days. I can see the horizon ahead, and it is grand. The sun has begun to rise on this side of the wall. It's been so long since I've seen the sky. I'm about to tell Thalia as much, but then—

That's when I hear her.

No. No, no, no, no.

“Let me go! Get your slimy hands off me.”

No.

The sound of feet hitting wood.

People shoving.

The pulling and pulling of limbs.

“Intruder!” someone yells.

“Get
off
me!”

It's coming from the main deck. The crowd gathered there reminds me of when fights break out in school. Everyone gathers around in a circle watching the brawl. Layla is being dragged across the deck by two guys who are stronger than they look. Their bodies are wire thin, with mostly human faces, and the scalps of sea urchins. They hold her wrists and ankles and sling her onto the center of the deck.

I've never seen Layla's eyes this wide. One by one she stares at the faces on the ship until she finds me in the crowd. Tiny gasps of air leave her lips, like she's trying to breathe and hiccup at the same time.

A second set of footsteps rushes up to the deck. The guy and his cardboard box.

“Arion,” one of the urchin guys says. “She is an intruder.”

The black ropes that bind Arion to the front of the ship stretch, pushing him up so he can turn around and look down at the scene. He glances back at the island. The speck of land is getting bigger by the second. “State your name and how you managed to get on board.”

“Layla,” I blurt out. “Her name is Layla. She's my friend.”

“Yours?”

“Yes.”

She pushes herself up, standing with her hands down and out to create a barrier between herself and us. When did I become the us?

The urchin boy stands with his hands at his sides. Now I can see his face. His nose is like a button pushed down on his face, which from the temples up to the top of his hair is dark blue. He points to her without smiling. “It is against the king's wishes that humans enter the island. Unless, of course, they're for play.”

The other boy, almost a replica, only more purple, smiles wickedly.

“P—play?” Layla's eyes remind me of the insides of a Magic 8 Ball, moving around dizzily, trying to predict what might just be unpredictable.

“She must be sequestered until the king can decide her fate.”

The crowd gasps. The only human guy chews on his toothpick and scratches the back of his head, then puts his cap back on. He cranes his head to peek at the horizon. We are very, very close.

The urchin guys grab her, one by each hand. She kicks and screams, her eyes burning holes through me.

“Wait, wait a minute.” I jump from the top deck, where I've been standing, to land on my feet. “She's off limits. Didn't you hear me before?”

The blue one puffs his skinny, nonexistent chest at me. “Yeah, I heard you. What of it? Rules is rules.”

“You've got no authority, half-breed,” the purple one says.

Half-breed? No one's ever called me that.

“Even though I am not
your
king, I'm still the king's grandson. I'm of the royal—royal f-family.” I catch Kurt's eyes and take his small nod as a sign that I'm on the right track. “Unless
you
want to explain to the king how
you
let a human best you and board your ship.”

The urchin brothers back down, but not without showing how deeply they'd probably want to ram their spiky little heads into my gut. The crowd looks pretty bored with us, and the group breaks up little by little. Some of them bow to me before turning away to mind their business, and others look down their noses—or the equivalent—at me, cursing me in grunts. Some are just completely disinterested and continue to stare out at the water.