Mermaidia: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  He just held her.

  And by doing that, he melted my heart.

  It was either late at night or early in the morning when we all finally fell asleep, one by one. First, Isbeil rested her head on a pile of soft pillows and soon her eyes were closed. The room had thick carpets and furs on the floor, so it was easy to stretch out. I thought Triton would leave and return to his own quarters, but he stayed with us.

  He was lying on his back and drowsily staring up at the ceiling when I finally closed my eyes and my breathing slowed.

  I forgot where I was and who I was with. I forgot everything that had happened in the past several months.

  I dreamed I was all alone, caught in a swift ocean current and I couldn’t break free. Then, just when I thought someone or something had rescued me—a hand reaching out to pull me to safety—I realized what it really was. A horrible sea monster had wrapped its thick tentacles around me and was pulling me deeper and deeper below the ocean’s surface. Farther and farther we went, until the water pressure grew so strong that it felt like I was wrapped in iron.

  I dreamed I was drowning.

  So, I gasped and I flailed and I fought and I bit. I sank even deeper, though I wanted nothing more than to escape and get back to the surface.

  All the while, the sea monster screamed, a high-pitched, unearthly wail that made me cower in fear. Panic surged through me when I realized I would never escape this beast—

  Because I was going to turn into a Hinquememem myself and then I would hunt everyone I had ever loved—

  That was the monster’s greatest secret.

  It didn’t kill you.

  Not really.

  It traded places with you.

  That was when I rose up, screaming and crying, my hands curled in fists, the words, no, no, no, no, bursting from my lips—

  “It’s all right, you’re safe,” a soothing voice said. “Riley, no one will hurt you.”

  It took all of my courage to open my eyes and see that the nightmare wasn’t real. Triton had his arms wrapped around me.

  “The sea monster is going to find me, I know it is,” I whimpered.

  “It won’t. It can’t get in here,” Isbeil said. She had turned up the lantern and the shadows disappeared. “We have incantations and spells on all of our doorways to keep it out.”

  “My sister speaks the truth. This is the one place where that sea beast can never hurt you,” Triton said.

  I leaned into his arms, forcing myself to quiet.

  I had come to the one place where I would be safe from the monster that loved me.

  But I hadn’t known there were other monsters here who were almost as bad. If it hadn’t been for Triton and his sister, I would have been dead by now. I wouldn’t have the hope of freedom ringing through my veins.

  “Why are you helping me?” I asked Triton. I think part of me wanted to hear that he cared about me and that he thought he might be falling in love with me.

  Instead, he confessed a different truth.

  “Because wild things need to be free,” he said.

  Then he gave me a long, deep, soul-stirring kiss, one that washed away all of my fears and made me focus on this right now, his flesh against mine, his chest pressed against me, both of our hearts beating faster and harder and louder. I’d tried to deny it, but he and I were almost like one flesh. I could barely tell where I ended and he began.

  We were destined to crash and burn whenever we were together, like fury itself.

  We were both wild things, desperate to be free.

  Triton:

  I waited until both Riley and Isbeil had gone back to sleep before I crept out into the corridor, quietly closing the door behind me. Neither one of them knew what I was going to do next. I couldn’t tell them.

  They would have tried to stop me.

  So, I padded through the blue-torch midnight, trying my best to keep to the shadows but failing. Here, the corridors were too narrow, the torches too bright, the King’s guards too close.

  Still, this was the path I needed to take.

  This was the part of our journey that I had to walk alone.

  Whenever I rounded a corner, I imagined that I saw Riley standing up ahead of me, both fire and fury in her eyes, a weapon in one hand, a knowing grin on her face. I secretly hoped that she’d seen through my deception and somehow knew what was really going to happen tonight.

  I wished she could have been by my side. Always.

  But Selkies and Mermen weren’t supposed to be together, any more than we were supposed to be with humans.

  Our stories always ended in tragedy.

  So I lied.

  And I ran.

  And I dreaded everything that would happen on the morrow, when my trickery would be revealed. I only knew that I had to get as far away from their quarters as possible before I set this last part of my plan in motion.

  I would have to walk through the most dangerous part of the palace tonight.

  Right past the quarters of the King.

  I grabbed a torch in my left hand as I picked up my pace, my walk turning into a jog. Everyone was asleep on this side of the castle, even the guards. It was that Witching Hour of old, when Kings used to prowl silently toward the Talla Na Cloinne to kill their own children, so it was customary for everyone—even the King’s guards—to look the other way.

  I planned to use the sins of our fathers as a cover for my own dark deeds.

  Riley:

  We snapped awake at almost the same exact moment, Isbeil and I, rising from the floor with a gasp and a heavy sense of foreboding. Her quarters were cold and dark.

  I knew Triton was gone.

  I should have felt it in his kiss, in the way he held me, in his confession that we needed to be free.

  But I have known for a long time that freedom always comes at a high price.

  I should have listened to his words more carefully, looking for their hidden meaning, but I didn’t. And now he was gone.

  An ache centered in my chest.

  A thin curl of smoke crept beneath the door to the outside corridor. I coughed, my eyes stung.

  “There’s a fire!” I yelled, then I covered my mouth and nose with my hand.

  Isbeil’s eyes widened.

  We both understood the danger immediately—an uncontrolled fire in this underground kingdom could kill us all. It would begin by consuming the oxygen, and then produce so much smoke we would all choke to death. This was one of those horrific moments when I didn’t know how we were going to survive.

  Destiny was never what you expected.

  The door flew open and thick black smoke rolled in. If I’d been afraid before, I was terrified now.

  Isbeil’s cousins, Bran and Niall ran inside, as if they had just discovered the danger and wanted to warn us.

  That was what we believed.

  “Hurry, this way, Triton is just ahead of us,” Bran said, as he grabbed Isbeil. His grip may have been too firm, but she didn’t say anything. The two of them raced out of the doorway and took a sharp turn, disappearing from sight. I frowned, worried that I wouldn’t be able to find them in the midnight-black halls.

  Then Niall latched onto my arm with such a fierceness that I started to fight back.

  “Niall! You’re hurting me—” I said and I tried to pull away from him.

  He slapped me hard, not once, but twice, so hard I was stunned into silence, then he threw me over his shoulder and ran. I would have struggled, if he hadn’t knocked me almost senseless. My ears rang, my head ached, and my nose was bleeding.

  I caught dim glances of other people rushing past us, sometimes hearing Isbeil’s voice up ahead, calling out first my name, then Triton’s. I realized she was somewhere in front of us, though I couldn’t see her through the heavy smoke or the darkness.

  “Put me down!” she said, but Bran refused.

  “If we have to, we’ll bind you both,” Niall told us, his voice rough.

  Triton was supposed
to be with us.

  Something must have gone horribly wrong.

  My eyes thundered shut, my head ached, yet I found the strength to cry out his name.

  “Triton! Where are you?”

  Part of me thought Niall preferred me silent and would strike me again, but he didn’t. We raced through winding corridors and down several flights of stairs until finally, we reached a great open hall. There weren’t as many people here, not yet, so Niall and Bran paused for a second to catch their breath before jogging toward a large doorway that led outside.

  There the boys put us down. I could barely stand up. My balance was off, and my head felt like it was full of burning cotton and sparks.

  “Riley! Are you all right?” Isbeil asked.

  “Where is he?” I asked, my words slurring slightly.

  I thought we would see Triton once we left Talla Na Cloinne, then I thought we’d see him in the Great Hall, but he had been nowhere in sight. Now Tràigh Neamhnaidean—the beach where I first woke in this kingdom—stretched before us, pale as silver beneath the fiery night, every passing body a faceless black silhouette. All streets began and ended on this beach, and those streets were filled with people running, trying to escape the flames and the smoke.

  To survive, we had to get to the water. There, we could breathe.

  Bran and Niall ran a few steps ahead of us, leading us toward the nearest shore. Isbeil held my arm as I stumbled.

  Already the Mer people were leaping into the water, leaving their chained slaves untended. The humans couldn’t swim because their iron shackles would pull them down and they couldn’t breathe underwater either. They fretted nervously, standing ankle-deep in the sea.

  They glanced at one another, the tallest one gave a short nod, and a heartbeat later they all plunged in and quickly sank from view, arms flailing, bubbles rising.

  They chose death over slavery.

  I winced in pain, wishing I’d been able to help them. Then I turned aside and scanned the shore for Triton.

  “Where is he?” I cried, hoping to see him. “He has to be here!”

  Isbeil spun around, looking for her brother.

  “He’s already on the boat, getting it ready for us,” Bran said. “We must hurry—this was all part of his plan. He forbade us from telling you anything until we reached the shoreline. Follow us.”

  Then Bran plunged into the water, expecting us to jump in after him.

  Instead, I climbed atop a nearby rock, searching the crowds for a familiar face, a boy taller than most, his shoulders broad, his skin the color of the summer sky. He would see me, his expression concerned, his brow low, but then he would grin, he would laugh because I had been worried—

  Except he wasn’t here.

  He was nowhere in sight.

  Isbeil grabbed my hand, her expression pleading.

  “He must be at the boat, Riley,” she said, hope in her words. “Bran must have been telling us the truth.”

  “We must go now!” Niall said to us and I realized he was right.

  For that was when the crowds funneled onto the beach, more blue people than I could count, all of them in a wild frenzy. They were trampling each other, hitting each other, throwing spears and knives, trying to break through the growing horde and make their way to the water.

  We had no choice then.

  I ran across the sand, Isbeil and Niall at my side, and together we leapt into the foaming sea. As soon as I was in the ocean, the cold water soothed my injuries—the sea often did that. I pushed with my feet and kicked my legs and pummeled my arms, swimming faster than I had ever done before.

  Even faster than the time I had been chased by the Hinquememem.

  The Cave of Teeth was tricky, the spiny rocks so close together that we could only pass through one at a time, but there were too many of us trying to escape. Mermen and mermaids alike got trapped, stuck in the narrow crevices, unable to free themselves. More and more Na Fir Ghorm shoved past them until those who had gotten stuck were impaled on the knife-sharp rocks. Lifeless faces stared at us as we dove deeper, trying to find a safe route.

  Then the dangerous fangtooth fish approached, drawn by the scent of blood in the water. I couldn’t afford any of their poisonous bites.

  I let out a warning shriek that scattered them all far away from us.

  Once we had gotten past the Cave of Teeth, we took a sharp turn and swam in a different direction than the rest of the Na Fir Ghorm. All of their glistening blue bodies merged into a large school, which then headed toward the safety of the ocean deep.

  We went toward the shore.

  We needed to pass over rugged shoals before we would reach the port where Finnegan and Triton were hopefully waiting for us. There up ahead, we saw Bran as he rose toward the surface, his long tail changing into human legs. None of my Na Fir Ghorm friends had learned how to make themselves look human yet—not even Isbeil—but I vowed to myself that I would teach them on our journey. By the time we crossed the Atlantic, they would all be able to disguise their blue skin and walk safely on any shore.

  Meanwhile, the water brightened as the ocean floor lifted to kiss the shore. I eagerly searched for Finnegan’s boat among the other vessels bobbing above us. Isbeil had described it to me many times, the white hull, the red and white striped sails, the pink script that proclaimed his love for her.

  The Isbeil written in large letters on the side.

  But I couldn’t find it.

  Then I glanced down.

  A suspicious whirlpool spiraled below us. Dark cloudy water, spines of sand and rock and broken wood, sharks darting in and out, searching, snapping, small boards floating up toward us.

  It was a shipwreck.

  Isbeil saw it too and she shrieked, her siren blood giving her more strength than I thought she had, the cry so fierce it stunned the sharks. They fell to the ocean floor—either dead or stunned—and she swam toward the wreck.

  I saw it then, the name of the boat, the pink letters, her name, Finnegan’s boat—

  No.

  Niall swam with us, he tried to stop us, shaking his head and pointing toward the surface, but Isbeil would not be deterred. Bran was swimming down toward us then, something dangerous in his hands. I would not have believed it if I hadn’t seen it for myself.

  He clutched a fisherman’s net in his hands.

  There was nothing more deadly to a sea creature.

  I stopped and began to swim in the opposite direction.

  But Bran didn’t seem to care. Niall looked up just in time to get out of the way.

  Bran unfurled the net and it quickly sank, the edges weighted down by small rocks. Both Niall and I managed to avoid being trapped.

  But Isbeil, my sweet friend, was caught, her tail wrapped in the lattice weave. The harder she tried to free herself, the more it tangled and spiraled around her, growing tighter and tighter with her every move. Then, both Niall and Bran grabbed onto the edges of the net and they began to haul her toward the surface. She gasped and wept and shrieked until the fine strands began to clog her gills, choking her. I swam to her side, both of us gnawing and fretting at the knots, trying to set her free.

  But in the process, I ended up getting trapped in the net too. The web snagged on my scales and my fins, and in a few moments, I was held fast.

  Both seals and Selkies often died when caught in nets like this—surely that hadn’t been Bran’s intention. Still, if we didn’t get out soon, we were both going to drown.

  Isbeil and I were both weak by the time we finally got to the surface. We gasped and tried to pull in air, our movements awkward.

  Voices were yelling as we were dragged across the rocks toward the shore. I kept hoping to hear Triton, to see him, to feel his touch.

  But he wasn’t here.

  “What were you thinking? You could have killed them both! Isbeil!” The frantic, impassioned tone of a young man caught my attention as he leaned over us. He began to cut through the nylon mesh with a knife and I reali
zed who it must have been.

  It was Finnegan! He was alive, despite the shipwreck.

  That meant Triton had to be here too.

  Isbeil twisted and turned, trying to see Finnegan, her mouth opening and closing wordlessly. She still couldn’t breathe.

  With a quick, carefully placed snip, he cut off the strands that had been choking her gills. A second later, he did the same for me. I now crawled and tugged at the remaining latticework that pinned me in place.

  I finally managed to get enough air in my lungs to say one word. It was the only thing I wanted to know.

  “Triton.”

  Was he here, was he safe?

  Bran and Niall avoided my gaze as they lifted me and carried me into a boat that was tethered nearby.

  Finnegan pulled Isbeil into his arms, crying and saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, your brother made me promise to do this. We couldn’t take a chance on using my own boat to escape.” Then he took her to the same vessel where I lay. There, they bound us in iron chains, as if they knew we would try to escape. A few moments later, the boat set sail.

  But through it all, no one answered me. They didn’t tell me where Triton was or what had happened to him. I only knew that we were leaving without him.

  And that my heart was broken because of it.

  They had been right to chain us up.

  Without a second thought, I would have plunged back into the ocean, looking for the boy who was not here.

  Triton:

  The fire spread faster than I expected, sweeping through the royal section of the palace like a red demon. Golden flames licked the doors, then curved toward the ceiling, latching onto every bit of dry wood and straw, devouring fur and fabric and tapestry. This part of the castle boasted the most ornamentation, from corbel to statue to carved furniture. Draperies hung from niches, carpets covered the floors. Maps and scrolls and paintings, every treasure stolen or purchased over the centuries was housed here.