She had been there.
He frowned at the contained. How could he get the note out?
Seeing no other alternative and impatient with the puzzle, he dropped the vessel and smashed it beneath his heel. He lifted the envelope from the pile of shattered glass. He turned the envelope to rip open the flap. The stiff sharpness of the jagged edges cut his index finger. As he pulled the single sheet from inside, a smear of red blood turned brown on the heavyweight sheet.
Calder wiped at the mess, but gave up when he added another apostrophe shaped trail across the leathery page. Instead, he decided to trade the letter from one hand to the other, shoving the injured finger in his mouth to keep from spoiling the words further.
My dearest Calder,
I never meant to startle you at the bar. Our appointed time has not yet come, but I could not wait any longer. Long ago, I met the Land Lost at Three Fingers and begged them to teach me to appear as a woman, just to find you and touch you.
I have been the woman in your dreams for so long. I find myself frequenting the Bay, hoping to catch sight of you on the beach. When you’re there, I watch you from a distance. Hiding behind driftwood, I came close enough to recognize the longing in your face.
I share your yearning.
I cannot bear the delay. The waiting is driving me mad. I am more than dreams and muse to you now. I will find a way to come for you. Please be patient. There is so much at stake.
The Fates fashioned you for me,
Gàire
The ink glowed in the same dark green of Gaire’s eyes. He lifted the paper to his face once more and kissed the swirling signature.
“The Fates fashioned me yours,” he repeated.
She might be a magical mermaid, but she was real, and she was his.
An idea flared in his mind. They always had people at the mansion. He crossed to the window and considered the backyard.
Ah ha.
An older man carefully clipped errant branches from the shaped bushes at the rear of the house.
Calder opened the window. “Excuse me,” he called.
The diminutive man halted. He bent to retrieve leaves from the pebble walkway. Tucking the bits into the pocket of his white pants, he paused with a serene smile. When Calder drew near, the older man bowed slightly. “Yes?”
“Did you see anyone in my shop today?”
“I did not.” His response was stiff.
“Are you sure?” Calder pressed.
“I did not.” The man bowed slightly once more and turned back to the bush, continuing to pick and trim small branches.
Calder turned back to his shop, his movements slow. Making small strides, he sighed.
All right, Gaire, I’ll wait. I will wait until I figure out how to get to you.
Calder’s thoughts turned toward work, and he glowered. With the gallery opening, he could not realistically spare a day to wander the beach, checking behind driftwood.
The social parts were his least favorite, but nearly the most important to selling his pieces to the local art-lovers. Surely, he could talk Mike into tagging along to the show opening.
Chapter 6
The next morning lacked the usual layer of opaque fog on the Strait and Bay.
Calder’s message for Mike had not yet been answered, but he wasn’t concerned.
Mike always arrived for occasions dressed well and on time. Social niceties were important, both in the home and in the circles Mike frequented.
Almost as if on cue, the phone rang, and Mike’s number displayed on the screen. Calder put the phone to his ear. On the other side, the handset jostled. When Mike spoke, his came through muffled.
“What time’s the thing?” Mike asked. Again, Mike murmured something Calder could not understand. He had to be chatting with someone next to him.
Calder instinctually craned his head, trying to make out what Mike muttered. “Is that girl still with you?”
Mike uncovered the receiver. “One sec, Calder. What?”
“You heard me. Is she there?”
Mike cleared his throat. “What are you painting today?”
“Mike.”
“Yeah, I’ve spent time with Venora since you took that nosedive. What of it?”
Calder crowed with delight. “I knew she’d keep you busy. Bring her opening night?”
Mike turned silent.
Calder pictured Mike’s face while he considered the long-term implications. “It’s at 7:00, formal, you know the drill.”
“Venora wants to know what she should wear?”
“I’m wearing my beach bum get up – trashy jeans, sandals, polo shirt, the whole bit. You know how they all like the quirky, and it makes the socializing bearable.” He paused. “Nothing at all.”
Mike coughed. “Hey, that’s not—”
Calder snickered. “She can wear anything she wants.”
“Got it. I’ll dress in a tailcoat and get something sparkly for Vee.” Mike fell silent again.
No doubt thinking of dressing her, Calder thought wryly. “Do you like her pretty well?” he asked.
“Yes. That’s affirmative.”
“Tell me about her?”
“Yeah, I’ll let her tell you. Our usual lunch tomorrow?”
“Sure.”
The line went dead, and Calder stared at the screen. What kind of women could get Mike to turn his head like that?
The next day, lunch found Calder fidgeting on the curb in front of the main house, his back to the costly, Mediterranean-style dwelling and its manicured lawn. He assumed Mike would show up in one of his fancy cars since he’d specifically asked Calder to wait there.
Gaire hadn’t shown up the night before, and it bothered him. He couldn’t find out if she was okay or if she needed anything. Calder couldn’t even look her up on social media. He had no options, and helplessness wasn’t a feeling he likes. For the first time, he considered giving Gaire an ultimatum. He dismissed the thought a moment later. There had to be some way to together forever.
When Mike pulled up, he wasn’t in a sports car, but a Ford Raptor. Raised from a normal height, it boasted a custom paint scheme accompanied with oversized mud tires.
Calder opened the rear door. “Hey.”
Mike’s eyes were covered in sunglasses but the lower half wore a smile. The woman from the bar sat in the passenger seat, also smiling beneath her shades.
Mike gestured for Calder to get in. “Brought something you wouldn’t have to sink down into for once,” Mike said.
Calder grabbed a handhold and stepped up into the truck. “Have I seen this one before?”
“Nope, Vee helped me pick it out. I told her we needed something that the three of us could ride in. Those back seats in the sports wouldn’t have worked for you at all.” He patted Venora’s knee. “You can thank her over lunch,” he added.
They zipped away, weaving in and out of traffic and around curves. Mike never did anything cautiously. Ten minutes later, they pulled up short under the awning of a fusion restaurant. Calder hopped out of the truck to hold the door for Venora as she carefully climbed down from the fashionably lifted truck.
Mike drove forward to the far part of the lot and parked across four spaces. The horn honked several times as he jogged toward the restaurant, key fob in hand.
As Vee walked past Calder to go through the door, she pulled the sunglasses from her eyes and caught Calder’s gaze. She paused as if to make sure he watched.
Then she glanced down to tuck the shades into her shoulder bag but when she looked up, Calder leaned back, nearly letting the door close on her. What the…
Her pupils were narrowed to slits. The irises were red, surrounded by black etching-like markings in the whites. He blinked rapidly and looked again. Her eyes were human, dull brown, her expression bland.
Shock slackened his jaw. He craned around to watch Venora walk in.
Mike slowed from his jog. “What’s the matter, Cal?” He stepped through the open door. Over
his shoulder he tossed, “See something you like?”
Calder tried to smile, but involuntarily grimaced instead. Striding into the dimly lit interior, Calder jabbed Mike’s elbow. “Hey, where’s Venora from?”
Mike didn’t answer but kept walking.
Calder’s eyes adjusted slowly and by the time he could see clearly, the Mike and Venora were already being seated at a small round table in a private corner. Crossing beneath the whomp-whomp of an off-balance art deco ceiling fan, Calder joined them.
Mike instructed the fluttery waiter. “We’ll have a fruit and cheese tray before, with the house special in forty-five minutes. Waters for each.” Mike nodded toward Calder. “He’ll have a whiskey on the rocks and I want a martini. Vee?” Mike turned to the straight-backed woman.
Calder stared at her eyes. Would they change again?
She demurred, saying, “Alcohol is so drying, Mike. I’ll just have a water.”
The waiter hurried away.
Venora smiled sweetly but the happiness did not quite reach above her cheeks.
The cocktails arrived, and the flighty waiter handed Calder a short glass. The ice cubes tinkled against the crystal with the twitching of Calder’s hand, his gaze darting back and forth between the lovebirds roosting across the black expanse of tablecloth.
Venora reached into her small purse and withdrew a shaker filled with gray crystals from her purse.
“What’s that?” Calder asked, still intent on Venora’s face.
“Sssea ssalt. For my water.”
Calder stilled. Had she hissed at him?
“A sprinkle makes the taste is better.” She sounded normal again. When she turned the grinder over her water glass, a small tattoo on the inside of her left forearm caught his eye. A white-haired mermaid clutched a trident in one hand while the other gripped a crown in a tight fist.
Calder blinked, and the tattoo disappeared. The clink of silverware faded, his scrutiny riveted to the form across the table.
Venora peered back at him. Her eyes were brown.
“You okay, Calder?”
“Sure, Mike. Sorry. Paint fumes must have gone to my head.”
Maybe Calder hadn’t seen anything. He took a drink, trying to sort out what was happening. As the amber liquid disappeared with each new chime of ice cubes, Calder felt more and more at ease.
Nothing new appeared, so he pulled his sketchpad from his messenger bag and began drawing an underwater scene. Sucked into the creative process, he did not hear anything until Mike kicked him under the table.
Calder startled and glanced up at the couple as they sat, huddled together. “What?”
Two long thin tongues quickly retracted from Mike’s ear into Venora’s mouth.
Calder blinked, his grasp on the charcoal tightened until it snapped. What the hell?
Six inches, six inches, where was her tongue. No. Her tongues. Plural.
His heart thudded in his chest, his pulse drumming in his ears. He didn’t imagine that. It had been there. “What did you say?”
Mike frowned. “Sorry. I just asked what you were working on.”
The silence stretched as Calder tried to sort the information before him.
What was going on? What was that she… thing? His thoughts jumbled from the shock. Gaire’s warning sprung into his mind. They were at the same place, on the same night.
Realizing the silence grew more and more awkward, Calder forced himself to relax and smile. He grinned, but a foreboding settled in Calder’s stomach.
“What do you think? What do I always have on my mind?” Calder asked. If Gaire was a mermaid, then whatever sat across the table… Real. Real. The tongues must be real, too. All the moisture disappeared from his mouth.
Mike’s eyebrows reached toward one another. “You okay?”
Calder kept smiling to cover his horror, ignoring Venora’s mud brown eyes. “Yep. Yep.”
Mike moved away from Vee and pulled Calder’s sketchbook onto the table. “Will it be her?”
“Probably,” he said.
Mike scoffed.
Calder braced himself for the scolding while watching the two-tongued she devil from the corner of his eye. Mike studied Calder’s sketch and then shared the image-in-progress with Vee.
Mike pointed at the blank portion in the center of the paper, the drawn water shading, fish and seaweed framing the white space. “She’ll go here, Calder?”
Calder nodded. His hand closed around the steak knife next to his plate. If Venora showed her tongues again, he could chop them off.
Mike kept flipping through the images, muttering to himself as he worked his way through the images.
Venora squinted at Calder as though she could hear his thoughts. Beneath her scrutiny, perspiration beaded on his upper lip. She wasn’t human, but she appeared that way. If she had two tongues, what other weird things could she do? His hand brushed across his pocket even as he stared down the creature across the table.
He needed to get Mike away without upsetting Venora.
Mike flipped back in the sketchbook a few pages, oblivious to the tension building between his best friend and his girlfriend. “This one’s not bad,” he said.
Calder drew the knife into his lap and then leaned forward. “Where are you from, Venora?”
Mike continued through the sketches.
“The Pacific Ocean.”
“The Pacific? That’s pretty generic.”
Mike stopped on a finished sketch of Gaire. “Here she is.” He held the page out for Venora. “Look, sweetie.”
Calder didn’t miss the sharp intake of breath or the way Venora’s feminine lips pulled tight, exposing her teeth in a fierce snarl. If Gaire was a mermaid… What did that make Venora?
Mike frowned, “Are you okay, hon’?”
She nodded, reached forward to tap on the page. Her gaze strayed to Calder. “Who is that?” She asked it nonchalantly, but the corners of her eyes pinched together.
She. She cannot find me here.
Gaire’s words echoed in Calder’s mind. Was the she Gaire meant seated across the table? Did the she have Mike? Somehow, Calder knew the truth of his suspicion, right down to his bones.
Mike chuckled. “Well, if he won’t tell you, I will.” He tapped the page. “This is the woman Calder is looking for.”
A derisive sniff wrinkled the graceful slope of her nose. “Well, she’s not very pretty, is she? Poor thing.”
Mike frowned and studied the image. “Really? I think she is…” His gaze moved to Venora, and his words faded at her vehement countenance.
Venora baited Calder, and Calder knew it. She wanted him angry for some reason.
A flush crept across his neck, but he forced a laugh instead. “I can’t possibly hook all the women Mike does.” He reached for his sketchbook, gently easing it from his friend’s hand. “I guess my subconscious knows that.”
Calder kept his movements leisurely, relaxed, much like he moved when coming across a poisonous snake in the hiking trails in the mountains. He didn’t want to spook whatever evil creature sat across the table from him, hanging onto Mike.
How could Calder protect his best friend?
Gaire… where are you?
Chapter 7
Cathair Uisce
Standing in the Queen’s garden, Gaire chewed her fingernails while Mariella paced in front of Gaire. Her teacher didn’t know what to do.
Mariella clasped her hands and then rubbed her hands together, still pacing. “What have you done, fishling? You shouldn’t have gone.”
“I didn’t know who else to tell,” Gaire whispered.
Mariella spun toward her, her long skirts flaring around her legs. “You could have waited for the right time. You should have waited until the Mother Mistress sent you striding. Then he would be yours.”
“But I see things,” she whispered.
“What do you see?”
“I see him drowning, and I see my own death after his. How can I let that h
appen? I can’t let that happen, Mariella. I can’t watch that over and over again and do nothing.”
Mariella advanced. She pressed her blue tipped, tattooed index fingers to her lips. “Ssshhh. You musn’t say that.” She returned to pacing. “I didn’t know you had premonitions.”
“They’re new.” Stepping back until she bumped against a corral sculpture, Gaire trembled. “What’s wrong with them, Mariella? I shouldn’t say what? What’s wrong with visions?”
Marielle took Gaire’s hands between her own. She met Gaire’s gaze. “You have had visions about this land man? Visions?”
Gaire shrugged. “He is my fated mate, son of a mer. Isn’t a strong link expected?”
Mariella’s face twisted, and she released Gaire. “But visions? Do you know what that means?”
“I think I’m broken, Mariella.”
“Oh, no, you’re not broken.”
Gaire sniffed. “I didn’t know what else to do. I couldn’t find anything in the library about having visions or premonitions.”
Mariella waved her fingers over blooming polyps. “You wouldn’t have.”
“I was too afraid to ask the keeper. What if she figured out I’d already been to visit Calder? Who else could I tell?”
The teacher’s shoulders drooped even farther. “No one. You’re right. You had no one.”
“I think Venora is hunting my mate, Mariella. I can’t let him die.”
“No,” Mariella agreed. She took a deep breath. “But the Mother Mistress will want to punish you.”
Gaire gasped. “Does she know I’ve been land-striding?”
“I did not tell her, but young mermaids always imagine themselves to be sneakier than they are. It won’t be long. Another trip risks your freedom. Maybe your life.”
“He’s in danger. I feel it,” Gaire breathed, wiping tears from her cheeks. “Calder is in danger. Something terrible is happening. His trepidation echoes in my soul.”
Mariella shook her head. “What should I do? By custom, I am to report you to the Mother Mistress.”
Mermaidia: A Limited Edition Anthology Page 39