Vicious Deep (13 page)

Arion clears his throat. “Lord Sea is right. She can stay with him. The Sea King will decide her penalty—”

“
Penalty?
” Layla and I blurt out the word at the same time.

“Outcome,” Kurt corrects, but that doesn't make it any better. My dream of her drowning flashes in my mind.

“Come with me.” I shove the two urchin boys off her and pull her with me, tripping down the stairs and landing below deck. “What. Are. You. Doing. Here?”

She's shaking. She lets go of my hand and wraps her arms around herself. Her wrists are red where the urchin boys were holding her. Something in me is on fire. I want to hold on to her and tell her that it's going to be okay, even though I don't even know what we're going to see when we reach the shore.

“What am
I
doing here? What are
you
doing here? Where is
here
?”

“A ship? The water?” I reply.

“Do
not
mess with me right now, Tristan!” The low light of the gas lamps around us casts shadows over her face so that all I can see are cheeks, lips, eyes. She looks away, sniffling.

“Is this what you couldn't tell me? You joined a—circus?”

Wow, I wish I'd thought of that one.

“How did you even get on board?
Why
would you even get on board is probably the better question.”

“To help you,
duh
? I thought you were involved in some Sharks versus Jets kinda crap.”

I rub my palms on my face. “Well, there are sharks.”

I lean against a stack of barrels. How did I even get here? I'm the worst at protecting the people around me.

The stairs creak under Kurt's weight. I recognize his sneakers as he makes his way down. He stands like a soldier, stone faced, arms behind his back. His stance totally clashes with the outfit and his windblown hair. His eyes scan Layla's face. “I can't promise that you will be completely safe. But, as you are important to Tristan, you are important to me. We will do all we can to keep you safe.”

She takes a step forward, and the light from upstairs shows the red corners of her eyes, the dry trails of dirty tears. “I hate you,” she tells me. “Who the hell are
you
?” she asks Kurt. “His Canadian-Irish-Italian cousin?” She turns back to me. “How long have you been lying to me?”

Seven days, six hours, and forty-five minutes, I want to say.

The ship shakes, and a barrel falls out of place, knocking me to the side. Layla falls forward and Kurt catches her. He helps her to her feet.
Don't worry about me, guys, I'm fine. Just almost got flattened by whatever is in those barrels.

“We're almost there,” Kurt says.

“No shit, Legolas,” Layla snaps.

Kurt stares at her. I don't know if he's going to kill her or let my grandfather do it. “How much does she know?”

“Sharks,” I answer.

He nods, even though it shouldn't make sense. “Very well, keep it that way for now. She needs to see for herself. Perhaps we can interest the king in her.”

“Eww, no way!”

“Not like that, stupid.” I try not to picture Layla in a metal bikini being offered as a trophy bride to the King of the Seas. “Wait, it's
not
like that, right?”

“Hmm? Oh, of course not.” Kurt shakes his head in that way he does when he sighs
humans.
“Do you have anything to offer the king, besides your virtue?”

I don't know whose jaw drops lower, mine or Layla's. I can smell her anger like lit kerosene. She balls up her fists and steeps in her own fury. Upstairs the footsteps have faded. Thalia sticks her head into the opening. “We're here. Hurry up.
Vamos!
” She quotes my dad, and I can hear her scamper around on the deck.

Kurt grabs onto the ladder and stops halfway up. He bends down so he is face-to-face with Layla, their noses just shy of touching. For a moment, I think he's going to hit her. But then he says, “Whatever you do, do not leave Tristan's side.”

I can practically hear her roll her eyes. Up on deck, the sun shines so brightly that I have to shield my eyes against it.

“Where did this come from?” I hold my arms out and welcome the sun against my face. My body is buzzing with excitement, like the first time I rode a wave, when I changed into my fins in the pool earlier, or when Layla gave me CPR the day I washed up from the storm.

“Welcome, young Tristan,” Arion says. The ship bops in the still, crystal-blue water. I stand on the ledge of the ship to jump off. I fall on my ass in the water. The water is the Goldilocks kind of perfect. I want to splash around in it.

Layla and Kurt are already on the beach. The sand is white with black freckles. My flip-flops have come off, and they float on the surface. I grab them and make my way to my friends. Layla is staring at the golden specks on Arion's shoulders. Or maybe she's just staring at his shoulders. Everything looks too vivid here. His skin is more bronze than an hour ago, his hair slick and black, his onyx eyes like inky pools. Under the live black ropes that wrap around his tail, the scales glisten in black and white flecks.

“Holy-shitake mother-flower mushrooms,” she says.

I turn to Kurt and Thalia, who stand in their wet clothes holding on to their shoes. They also look more radiant. This is what they look without their glamours, like the raw colors of a prism. Thalia is greener than before, her hair no longer a subtle black-green. She spins on the sand, the bottom of her dress puffing out in a circle. Kurt's tanned skin has a slight golden tinge. His violet eyes look more like crystal. I wonder if I look any different.

Layla's still staring at Arion, who bows to her. “I apologize for my crew. They're a bit angry.”

“Are they also repaying sentences to the king?” I ask.

Arion laughs. “No, they're just urchins.”

“Thank you, Arion,” Kurt says.

“Give my best to the king.”

“We shall.”

I give him one final wave. The human boy stands waiting with his boots dug into the sand. He holds the cardboard box at his side.

“What's in the box?”

“A gift to the Sea King from the Thorne Hill Betwixt Alliance.”

Kurt doesn't seem too pleased with whatever that is. “You know they'll give it to the elders before they give it to the king.”

The guy pretends to ignore Kurt and holds out a hand to me. “Marty McKay.” He looks at Layla. “First time on the ship, I take it?”

She nods, a sheer layer of sweat makes her glisten in the sun. “Aren't you boiling? It's like a million degrees.”

Marty smiles. “I keep cool. You're in for a treat. You know, if the king doesn't get all off-with-your-heady.” He traces his index finger across with his neck.

“Don't listen to him,” Thalia interjects. “Our court is more civilized than whatever happens on land.”

“Tell that to the guy stuck to the ship with electric tape.”

Kurt points a finger at Marty. “I don't know who you are. I assume you're part of the peace treaty, but I will not have you besmirch the king on our own land.”

“Whoa, easy. I kid. I joke. I make funnies.”

He seems harmless enough. He has a good handshake, and as weird as this sounds, he smells clean—like clear water.

“Sheesh. Mermen. Feisty as hell.”

“Hey!” I resent that.

Layla shakes her head, and her hair is wild around her shoulders, like whatever is going on in her head is spreading like wildfire. “Mermen?”

“Ta-da!” Marty puts the box on the sand and stretches his hands toward me. Jazz hands.

She laughs. “Get the—”

“—mother-flower out of here?” He picks the box up again. “I most definitely will not. Baby cakes, we're on an island that is quite literally stealing the sunshine out of our world with that misty curtain over yonder. The tsunami wave last week, the disappearances on the beach, the funny things you think you see from the corners of your eyes when you're out shopping for underwear?” He raises his eyebrows at her, and I'm about to take back my approval rating. “All of it is because the all-powerful, ancient-as-hell Sea King is having a fantastic feast in honor of his grandson.” He stretches only one hand at me. Jazz hand.

Layla looks at Kurt and Thalia, then back to Marty. She stares at the white sand and the water stretching across the sand to wrap around her ankles before retreating back into the ocean. Her eyes fall on Arion's ship. She looks up at me with those golden doe eyes. Everything I've been keeping from her, from the moment I sprouted a tail, boils down to Marty McKay and his jazz hands. Finally she says, “I'm not speaking to you.”

She doesn't have to whip her hair at me as she gives me her back. The wind does that for her. She grabs Marty's hand, and they walk toward the inside of the island.

“Do you even know where you're going?” Kurt calls after them.

Marty turns around, way too happy for a human on a deserted island full of supernatural creatures. But, hey, he seems like he's used to it. “Follow the yellow brick road, right?”

“He's funny,” Thalia says. “I hope the guards don't kill him.”

“If they don't,” I go, “I think I will.” It feels nice making empty threats. As king, I may not get that luxury.

The moment I turn away from the stormy horizon is the moment that this is for real. Arion's ship is a diminishing speck getting closer to the wall that hides the Coney Island shore—the pier where I put my hand under Catherine Valdorama's bikini top when we were thirteen. The pretty nurse who gave me my tetanus shot when I cut my arm on a broken beer bottle after diving for a volleyball spike. All of that seems like it happened to a different person.

Thalia tugs on the strap of my backpack, because I keep stopping to stare—at the violet flowers that bloom like stars and the sparkling white sand. I grab a handful of it and let it slip through my fingers.

Tall, slender trees form a path into the island. Their leaves are a raw green. I pull on one and rub the leafy skin between my fingers. There's a thin layer of water on them, and when I let it go, the other leaves spray me with a thin mist.

Thalia sings a wordless melody, and soon enough we all march to her rhythm as though she's our pied piper.

The trail leads us to the mouth of a river. There's an archway with pillars that would better fit an ancient Greek temple. But perhaps this is their temple, their church on the sea. I remember asking my mom why we didn't go to church like Layla and her parents, and she'd say, “Because we have this,” lying out on the Coney Island sand with her toes tucked under the surf.

Little things like that make more sense now.

The pillars themselves are majestic: each has a long trident mounted on the front, like the tattoo that decorates my spine. I can feel the magic pulsing through my being, the ink mingling in my blood somehow.

Sea lions are sunbathing on stones the color of their skins, so they blend into each other. They raise their heads, and when they see us, their bodies shimmer and they become slender girls who dive right into the river. They bop in and out of the water, joined by young mermaids and iridescent fish and some things I don't even have names for. They simply follow us with their chimed laughter.

The ground beneath us glitters. The river ends in a waterfall that falls like silk against the boulders. Somewhere inside me, this place seems familiar, like something out of a dream that I can't remember. Layla and Marty have stopped here to wait for us. “I guess this is where the yellow brick road ends.”

“At least we don't have to cross a field of opiatic poppies.” Marty laughs curtly, then adds nervously, “Right?”

“Is there a shortcut?” Layla shields the sun from her eyes as she looks up to the top of the waterfall. The wall keeps going up even past the source of the water.

“Court is behind this wall,” Kurt answers stiffly. “Just—stop asking so many questions.”

She's about to argue, but she catches my eye, and I give her my most pleading look to let it go.

“The other way is through the tunnels underwater,” Thalia adds. “But those are not for foot-fins. The only way is up.”

Marty looks to Layla and mouths,
Foot-fins?
She shakes her head and shrugs.

I place a hand on the rough rock wall. Carved steps in the rock slope up to the top, as though whoever was sculpting the stairs wanted to keep them hidden. From this angle, it looks like they lead right up to the sun.

“At least you know there's only one way up or down.” Marty swallows hard, tapping his fingers nervously on his box.

“I'll lead the way,” Kurt grumbles.

“You okay?” I whisper to him.

He holds on to a root protruding from the earth and uses it to pull himself up, three steps at a time. His violet eyes glance at Layla, who looks as at home behind me as she does on the rock-climbing wall at the Y. “I have a lot of explaining to do,” Kurt says.

“She's not your responsibility,” I go. “She's mine.”

“Still, I should know better.”

I think if I pat him on the back sympathetically, he'll push me right back down the steps. I wonder what it feels like to always be so wound up. If Kurt is this way and he's doing all he can, what am I going to do with an entire civilization on my shoulders? For an ancient being, my grandfather sure has a lot riding on a teenage nothing from Brooklyn.

I stop to catch my breath and wriggle out the cramp in my fingers. I wonder if Kurt resents me for being such a pain in the ass and having to play baby-sitter not just to Thalia but to me too. And for real this time, I'm going to make an effort to be nicer to him.

“Surely you can keep up,” he says when he notices I've slowed down behind him.

Maybe I'll start being nicer to him tomorrow.

•••

The sun beats hard on the ground, which has thin cracks running all through it. From up here I can see the way the thin river snakes through the forest of misty-leaved trees, the pillars that mark the entrance, the shore where the tide has already erased our footprints from the shore, the horizon, the wall, the point where the clouds turn dark—and behind that, Coney Island.

“Quite a sight for someone who's never seen it before,” Kurt says, pulling me up first, then Layla. She teeters with the newness of this height and grabs onto Kurt's shoulders, digging into his skin with her yellow nails. Her eyes focus on the pitfall, the way the dark green of the forest melts into the waterfall so it looks like a cloud of mist. I can hear her gasp, and I don't know if it's because she's scared of falling, or because she's looking into Kurt's eyes and is surprised by their color. She looked at me that way once.

“Hot damn!” Marty holds the cardboard box over his head in a triumphant pose. “I'm the ultimate king of the world.”

Thalia pokes him in the stomach, and he tenses up completely.

“No tickling unless we want me to plummet to certain doom.”

And it is a most certain doom. Below us is a sight I have no name for—grotto, oasis, mermaid paradise? It's like someone took an ice-cream scoop and hollowed out the back side of a mountain and left this. A lake the size of two Olympic-sized pools is nestled in the ground. It's light blue at the top, and the bottom fades into black. Smooth boulders line the sandy lake that sparkles in the direct sunlight. When the shiny things move, I realize it's not the rocks that are glittering but the mermaids curled and napping in the sun.

I knock some loose rocks with my foot. They fall over the ledge, bouncing off the side of the cliff rock wall until they hit the ground. Heads snap up, one by one, like piano keys picking themselves up after a finger slides all along the keyboard. There's a section at the other end of the lake where the leaves are the size of car doors and hung with sheer draping like the sails on Arion's ship.

The mermaids below sigh and gasp. There aren't any OMGs or WTFs or Can-you-believe-its? These sounds are the highest notes on a violin, a melody that is so pleasant I never want it to stop. And for the first time, I wonder if this is what I sound like when I talk, even if it's just a fraction of this?

Kurt leads the way down. Along the side of the cliff is a narrow ledge that zigzags all the way down so we have to press our backs to the wall and walk sideways. The entire court is watching our descent, and suddenly I wonder if I'll ever stop feeling like a sideshow attraction.

I've grown up with pictures of mermaids in my mother's books, and I've been to the Mermaid Parade every year since I can remember. Lots of fishnets and seashell bras. Nothing like the girls clustered down there like handfuls of Skittles. They perch on flat rocks with their fins dipped in the water. Seal girls stand on the shore in their nakedness, hair flowing over their breasts. They wave at us and blow kisses. They push their hair away from their faces and gather it over one shoulder. They wink and let loose with their beautiful voices again. They shine like stars floating on the sea, tails licking at the water from their perches.

I wonder if anyone else's tongue feels as dry as mine.

When we hit the ground, Marty holds on to his box for dear life. “Remind me to bring a snorkel for the tunnels next time around.”

We walk along the water. Groups of mermaids gather under the fan-like leaves of tall trees. I try not to stare, but this kind of weird is different than seeing a guy in drag on the subway: these are mermaids. Some have slender pixie faces with long ears that point out through their hair. Their fins fan wide and outward, elegant and in a burst of scales that vary from subtle yellows to pinks. There is a girl so small and purple that when she smiles her black teeth are jolting. There is a woman with long blond curls holding a baby mermaid in her arms. It wriggles—well, like a fish—and points at us.

I nudge at Layla and point out the baby. “That's how I was born.” And she stares at the family too, wonder and confusion blurring her hazel eyes. She takes my hand because maybe she feels how freaked out I am, and maybe she is too, but at least we're together. At least I can share this with her. She points at the guards. “How come the gladiators are on feet too?”

“Something about a squid tattoo,” I joke. “I promise I'll tell you later.” She squeezes my hand in reply.

The soldiers wear metal shields that cover their chest and a chain-link skirt sort of thing that covers their junk, which I guess makes for an easy shift. They wear gold cuffs on each wrist. Walking past them is like casually walking past a line of armed marines.
Don't mind us, we were personally invited by the king; pretty please keep those sharp and deadly swords in their scabbards.

Past the guards are tent-like sections housing what must be the court merfolk Kurt mentioned once, the ones who are allowed to have feet. These princesses aren't like the mergirls baking on the rocks. These sit up tall. Their scales form around their breasts. Their long hair is gathered and looped through all sorts of shells, dripping with pearls and golden baubles.

One is the most breathtaking of them all, a girl with white-blond hair twisted around an open conch shell. She holds my stare with her gray eyes. She sits at the foot of a guy who reminds me of a naked grizzly, all shoulders and chest and full beard. He crosses his arms over his chest and gives me his cheek. Well, that's not a good way to make friends, is it?

Past the row of decadent tents is a line of the others who were on Arion's ship with us. They stand on either side of the throne. They're holding gifts. I feel for the backpack my mom filled up for me.

And there is a deep
Ahem
, like the sea itself is clearing its throat.

I turn slowly, my eyes flitting from the gray-eyed princess to the rows of guards who kneel, to the merfolk in the water whose heads are bowed. Kurt and Thalia are kneeling. Marty takes a cue and does the same. So does Layla.

I don't know if it's the shock of his face or just because I'm stupid. But I just stand there. There he sits, like a statue that belongs in the middle of Central Park. He is taller than me, taller than anyone I've ever seen in my life. With legs like tree trunks and with his ankles covered in scales and tiny barnacles. They glisten with water and light. The hairs on his legs are golden against skin that is tanned like well-beaten leather, a lifeguard's tan like mine. He wears the same warrior metal as the others, but his armor looks worn from decades of sea air. The scattered scales along his arms and legs are the color of the sky just before twilight, a blue that is hard and endless.

The Sea King.

“Hello, Tristan.” His is a deep baritone, a conch shell with an endless hollow. And my mind goes completely and totally blank, like staring at a test that I know the answers to but stayed up too late studying for and forgot.

So all I can say is, “Uhh. Hi.”

And that's all I've got.