by ReGi McClain
The glow of Nelly’s hair and eyes dampened. Her tail thrashed in the water and her face took on the frightening scowl her father had made when they discovered the camera. She spouted several ear-splitting words in her own language.
Harsha drew as far from the mermaid as the bubble allowed and curled into a ball. She’s mad at SoPHE, not me. It’s like with Grandmother and Nanny. She won’t hurt me. She breathed a deep sigh of relief when the tirade ended.
“I am sorry. This thing, this to make me angry.”
“Yes.” Harsha unfolded herself. In trying to make herself small, she’d curved her spine, and as a result her neck hurt. “Me too. That’s why I took her in.”
“If you to be mother for her, you to be human.”
Harsha rubbed the back of her neck to ease the ache. “She has Zeeb.”
“Zeeb?”
“Maura’s adoptive father.”
“Ah! This Zeeb to love you, to be father for child yours.”
Harsha looked away and tried to squash the heat rising in her cheeks. “It’s not like that.”
“I not to know ‘like that.’” Nelly twirled a strand of her hair and fell silent.
Harsha watched fish swim by outside her bubble. Their scales flashed in the filtered sunlight. After her night of sleeplessness, the hypnotic shimmer lulled her into quietness. She missed Nelly’s next words.
“Huh?”
“I to want you to be mermaid, for you to teach me.”
Harsha laughed. “But I told you everything I know.”
“No. You to tell me what you to think you know.”
“True, but if you really want to learn, you should talk to Kaito. He’s a scientist.”
“I know this work, scientist. You to bring this Kaito to teach me?”
“Yes, when I see the doctor next. He’s the one who came with me last time.”
“This is good. You to ask me questions, now.”
Dozens of questions tumbled into Harsha’s mouth, all vying for first place and, thankfully, helping her push aside her internal conflict. She asked about family life, the monetary system, food, fashion and the lack thereof. Nelly seemed to enjoy the conversation. She smiled and gesticulated, using charades and onomatopoeias to supplement her broken English. Her antics resulted in several shared rounds of laughter.
In spite of her enthusiasm for the talk, Harsha began to find it difficult to keep her eyes open. She was working to stay awake for a fascinating explanation of the value of the various beads the merfolk used as currency when Nelly slapped her.
Embarrassed, Harsha rubbed the spot. “I’m so sorry. I don’t know why I can’t keep my eyes open.” Her eyes fluttered shut.
Nelly slapped her again, harder. “You to breach. Now. Fast.”
The mermaid grabbed Harsha’s arms and, wriggling and straining, pulled her out of the membrane. Next thing Harsha knew, they broke the surface of the water. With her first breath, Harsha’s head spun with shooting pain and she realized she’d used up the air in her bubble. She took several deep breaths before giving her hostess a nod of thanks.
Chapter 35
Harsha and Nelly took their time swimming back to the boat. Nelly paused now and then to point out a type of fish and squeal in her own language. Harsha tried to imitate the sounds. To her ears, she sounded like a dying crow, but Nelly smiled with every new vocabulary word Harsha screeched.
When they neared the boat, Nelly said goodbye and dove back to her world. Harsha watched until the mermaid swam out of sight before returning to the boat. She bobbed out of the water, to be met by a chorus of gasps.
The captain and three of his crew, all with brows knitted, yanked her up as soon as she climbed high enough on the ladder for them to reach her. They stood her on the deck and threw vicious looks at her and her friends. When they let go, Harsha flopped onto the deck, arms and legs too tired to keep her upright. The crewmen shook their heads at her and left, but the captain crossed his arms over his chest and lifted a brow.
Maura, with puffy, red eyes, fell to her knees and wrapped her arms around Harsha. Seraph’s hug came next. Miniscule puffs of steam wafted off her cheeks. “Oh, Harsha. We thought you were gone. Gone -gone, not just gone.”
Uh oh . “How long this time?”
“At least five hours!”
Harsha winced. No wonder everyone was upset. Guilt and shame writhed in her gut—familiar feelings these days. “I’m so sorry. I only intended to be gone for a few minutes.” That was only partly true. She’d known she was taking the risk of being dragged to her doom when she jumped in, but she’d gone anyway. The feelings of remorse intensified. “It felt like a few minutes.”
The captain took a deep breath. “No awkward questions, as agreed, but if you pull another stunt like that, this trip is over.”
“Yes, sir.”
He grunted and walked away.
Harsha pulled herself to her feet, using Seraph and Maura for support. “I’m sorry.” She felt like she needed to apologize a hundred times, or more. “I’m so, so sorry. I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding everyone. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you where I was going. I’m sorry ” She would have kept pouring out her sins if her voice let her, but it cracked under the weight of her guilt.
Seraph sniffled. “You needed space.”
Maura declared, “The sea calls you,” with a certainty that caused a hiccough in the accusatory voices in Harsha’s head.
She looked at the water, speculating. All her life, the ocean had seemed to speak to her in words. Her mother had kept them landlocked, because her sister, when little, once wandered into the sea and almost drowned. Harsha wondered if Ami had felt the water calling and tried to obey. With that thought came the question of whether Ami died younger than the rest of them because Mother took her away from the water. That question led down a dangerous path, lined with blame and bitterness. She navigated her thoughts back to the present. The cure she’d worked her whole life to find required her to live in the water.
Maybe that’s as it should be.
Kaito’s face appeared, yanking her out of her reverie. He sported a black eye, but otherwise looked cheerful and eager. “So, where’d you go, Boss? Did you find anything interesting?”
She considered giving him a sarcastic, ambiguous answer, since he had interrupted her pensive moment. The expression he wore changed her mind. She suspected she wore the same one whenever a doctor offered her a new treatment, back before she kept a grain of salt on hand.
“I went to talk to a mermaid.”
“But how? You can’t breathe under water.” A hint of mania touched his bright eyes and smile. “Can you?”
“No.” She braced herself for the reaction she expected. “They have visiting bubbles.”
“Visiting bubbles?” Sure enough, he started bouncing on his toes.
“And one of their… I think she’s kind of like an anthropologist. The mermaid who took your camera. She wants to meet you.”
The bouncing turned to jumping. “Chance of a lifetime.”
She ducked to avoid the impending smooch. Seraph, on the other side of Harsha, caught the kiss instead.
“Oops.” Kaito ran before Seraph could react.
Harsha cringed and checked Seraph’s expression. Instead of looking angry, Seraph looked sick, and puffs of steam continued to flitter up from her cheeks. “I hate this day. As if it wasn’t bad enough that I almost lost one of my best friends, now I have mammal cooties.”
That got a laugh out of Harsha, and Maura flashed a half-smile. Seraph pouted.
“Is that how Kaito got the black eye? Did he make a move on you?”
That cheered Seraph. She snorted, and a little puff of smoke eddied into the salty air. “He wouldn’t dare.” She pointed her chin at Harsha’s cheek. “How’d you get yours? You look like you got in a catfish fight. Did you flirt with the wrong merman or something?”
Harsha groaned at the bad joke. “The bubble ran out of air. My new friend and I didn’t reali
ze it until I started falling asleep. She smacked me a couple times to keep me awake until I got back to the surface.”
Tired and hungry, Harsha leaned the direction she wanted to go and dragged her limbs after her. Seraph caught the hint and started toward the stairs, supporting her. Maura kept close on her other side, so the three moved together in a clump. Harsha felt like the lemming leading its companions to the cliff, albeit at a laughable pace. The simile set her mind back on her search for a cure. Seraph, Zeeb, and Maura had followed her here, eyes wide open to the danger. What would honor that friendship more? Taking the cure they had worked so hard to get her, or staying with them? She didn’t know.
They reached the cabin. Harsha flopped onto her berth, heedless of her wet clothes, and lay down. “So, how did Kaito get that black eye?” she asked, to give herself a distraction from her internal commotion.
“Zeeb gave it to him.”
Harsha jerked her head back in surprise. “Zeeb hit Kaito? That hard, I mean?”
“Knocked him clear across the deck.”
“Why?”
“He had the bad taste to compare you to a siren. Zeeb didn’t appreciate it.”
Harsha wasn’t sure what that meant, but she doubted it justified the violence. “So he was, what, defending my honor?”
“Yes.”
Harsha rolled her eyes. Typical overprotective Zeeb . “I’ve been called worse.” At least, she thought she had, but she needed to learn the insult lingo among hiders before she knew for sure. Either way… “Zeeb shouldn’t have hit him.”
“He agrees. That’s why he’s not around. He gave himself a time-out, before he did permanent damage.”
Where on the boat Zeeb found a place to hide, Harsha couldn’t fathom. Then again, the other men on the boat probably knew better than to pester a guy who threw punches that sent people flying.
“Well, I’m glad he didn’t do permanent damage. I definitely have to transfer Kaito more money now.” She meant the remark to lighten the mood. It failed. As soon as she mentioned one item of business, the list of things she needed to do before she died pounced on her consciousness and started sucking out her willpower.
“Ugh.” She draped her arm over her eyes to minimize the input she needed to filter. “I need to transfer money, call Kel, clean up my emails, and a hundred other little things in case I don’t come back.”
“I thought you did all that before we left.”
“Well, yeah, but…” She realized her to-do list was an excuse, a way to procrastinate. That recognition intensified her guilt until she felt she needed to offer sacrifices of repentance to the universe. Time ran short; more fool her if she wasted it with menial tasks.
She half-sighed, half-sobbed. “My appointment is tomorrow and I’m no closer to a decision. No matter what I do, I lose. I lose all of you, or I lose any chance of living to reach fifty, and that’s assuming I don’t lose my life trying to keep it. Do I let everyone move on or continue the drama?”
“When the sea calls, there is no choice.” Maura spoke with the monotone firmness of absolute conviction.
Harsha uncovered her eyes to look at the soul-damaged young woman. Those deep, dark eyes were filled with matter-of-fact certainty. Maura knew Harsha belonged in the sea. She didn’t speculate or feel it. She knew .
Harsha felt the same squirmy feeling she’d experienced when she faced Dr. Brown’s conviction of the existence of hiders and Seraph’s simple labeling of herself as a dragon. Twice she had tried to convince herself she knew better, twice she had learned otherwise. Both those times, she’d wanted to believe them, wanted to reject the world she knew and cling to the tiny sliver of hope offered by the unknown. This time, if she chose the unknown, she lost her loved ones. If she chose the known, she lost her life, sooner or later.
No one spoke for several minutes. Harsha’s mind took a macabre turn and she let the morbidity swirl in her brain. It stirred up anger, bitterness, hurt, and a sliver of eager anticipation that disturbed her. She had never once considered suicide—apart from the time she thought about using dragon sleeping potion to skip the end of her illness—but perhaps her willingness to put herself at risk for the chance to keep living showed a desire to go out with a bang.
Seraph’s voice cut through Harsha’s maelstrom of ghoulish ruminations. “I don’t know if it helps, but I like your drama. Maura and dozens of other suffering hiders would still be stuck at SoPHE if not for your drama. Kel took Zeeb and me in stride, so I don’t think he minds, and Ralph and Ylva adore you. I think even Kaito loves the insanity that is you.”
Seraph’s words lifted Harsha out of her gloom. Her morbid reflections whirled faster and faster until they closed in on themselves to form a single revelation: she didn’t mind dying. Not really. Not as long as she died trying.
She made her decision.
She sat up, heart lighter. “That does help. Thank you.”
Seraph smiled. “Good.”
Then Harsha looked at Maura and faltered. Maura’s certainty remained firm. Her eyes held haunted resolve, as though she saw the future and intended to face it.
As if she heard Harsha’s doubts, Maura reiterated, “When the sea calls, there is no choice.”
Seraph turned to stare at Maura. The dragon’s eyes dimmed and took on a strained quality. She swallowed hard a couple times, and when she spoke, her voice was husky. “Maybe talking to Zeeb would help.” She turned back to Harsha. “After you get into dry clothes, take a nap, and eat.” A little puff of steam came off her cheek when she smiled. “It’s never good to make a decision when you’re hungry, tired, and, uncomfortable.”
Maura shook her head. “When the sea calls ”
“There is no choice,” Harsha finished with her. She was stunned by how deeply the words sank into her soul, where they set her thoughts to spinning, again.
Harsha took her walker and shuffled around the deck until she found the ladder leading to the roof of the control room. The sun had set and a cool breeze blew, flapping her windbreaker. She took a deep breath, grasped the cold rungs, and heaved herself up the ladder, stopping to rest every other rung. It took her five minutes to climb to the roof, but she’d checked all the other potential hiding places and this one alone remained. Sure enough, Zeeb lay on the roof in wolf form, his fur glistening in the moonlight, his jeans and t-shirt lying in a heap near the ladder. Harsha picked up the clothes and hobbled over to him, placing her feet with care to avoid slipping.
He lifted his head in acknowledgement, but set it back on his paws when she sat next to him. She set the pile of clothes between them.
She stared at the ocean and waited until she felt his human form settle nearby. They watched the wavering reflection of the moon, neither of them trying to make eye contact. She didn’t know how to start this conversation. She considered several openers and settled on an apology. She owed him many.
“I’m sorry about this morning. I should have spoken to you or Seraph before I left.”
“It’s your life.”
Desperation took her by surprise. She needed him to sweep her into his arms, or yell at her, or turn his back in petulant refusal to speak to her. Anything but indifference. Didn’t he understand how hard this was for her? Didn’t he care? One word from him could sweep away all her doubts and replace them with a new kind of hope, a new dream.
A lump swelled in her throat. She cursed herself for a fool. She knew his canine nature, knew he had his pick of any female werewolf he wanted. Why she entertained notions of being a long-term option when illness ate at her and healthy girls abounded, she failed to discern. She knew better.
Nelly’s concern for her wasted tears came to mind and she stifled the urge to let them fall. Hoping to chat away her disappointment and work up some indifference of her own, she tried small talk. “I met a mermaid.”
Zeeb bobbed his head in disinterested acknowledgment.
“We have more in common than I ever imagined.”
“That’s nice
.”
His reticence annoyed her and she drew on the irritation to quash the feelings of hurt. She set her jaw, determined to wait him out. The wind whistled between them, catching her windbreaker and snapping it against itself. It reminded her of the dragon flight to SoPHE headquarters and the tension that had stretched out between them then. One memory led to another. Bits and pieces, along with long strings of recollection, played through her mind. Zeeb had crossed oceans, broken rules, risked his life, endured illness and discomfort, all for her. He loved her.
The remorse of causing so much trouble to one so willing to help fought her irritation. Whatever happened the next day, she wanted Zeeb to know she appreciated him. She took a deep breath while she gathered courage for her next words. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry for dragging you, and Seraph, and Maura into all of this. I know I’m bossy and demanding, but you’ve always helped when I asked, and I do appreciate it. You’re the best friends I could ask for, and I’ve been so selfish.”
“You’ve been desperate.”
“It doesn’t excuse risking the lives of all my friends.”
“It’s okay.” He stood and walked toward the ladder.
She put a hand up. “Wait!”
He stopped, but kept his back to her.
She struggled to her feet and limped to him. She stopped a few feet short, uncertain whether he wanted her close. She caught his scent, closed her eyes, and memorized it, tucking it into the memories she wanted to keep near her heart. “You’ve been with me every step of the way.”
She opened her eyes. His shoulders rose and fell, but he kept silent.
“What do you think I should do?”
His head tilted her direction. “You deserve the life they’re offering. You should take it.” He jumped down to the deck, landed in a crouch, and walked away without looking back.
She watched him go. So. He wanted her to leave. She knew in her head he meant it for her sake. He had worked hard to save her life, and he wanted it to be the best life possible. It made sense. It was how she felt when Jason sprang a new sister-in-law and nephew on her, how she felt when Ms. Hernandez took Kel into the foster system, though that had been heart-wrenching. She knew it in her head, and between his opinion and Maura’s conviction, she changed her decision. A new life waited, and she needed to take it. For everyone’s sake.