by Tobie Easton
I wish Clay were here to see this. The thought flits through my mind again and again. When my family and I swim through the sparkling entrance of the palace, I wish I could grab his hand. As we’re greeted by hundreds of nobles swishing their tails in applause, I imagine the excited words he’d whisper in my ear. And as we start down the center aisle toward the thrones at the other end of the cavernous chamber, I yearn to show him how beautifully this room has been restored since he and I were last here.
Approaching the thrones, we process over an exquisite mosaic made up of abalone, mother of pearl, and troca shell pieces. It takes everything in me to keep my face neutral, to keep my head lifted and my sunbeam crown upright. This is the spot where, not so long ago, Clay risked his life to save mine. I glance around me at the splendor and the celebration. Clay’s sacrifice made today possible, and he’s not even here to see it. He cares so deeply about Merkind, and I can picture the awe that would paint his face as he watched this moment of history in the making.
This isn’t fair. He should get to be here—and I should get to have him here at my side.
With the ceremony about to start, Amy and her parents break gracefully away from the procession, gliding through the water to their seats in the front row. Around the room wade Mer who have waited all day … no, who have waited over two hundred years … for this moment. Even those who try to look dignified on such a formal occasion can’t hide the exhilaration and the hope shining on their faces. I’ll focus on them, I decide. I’ll focus on them and everyone they represent from their villages, towns, and cities across the ocean. They are who today is really about. It’s not about my feelings or my oyster-numbed fins or even my parents; it’s about all the Mer my parents can help once they take that throne. It’s about making lives better.
One of the faces in the crowd stands out as it splits into a welcoming, congratulatory smile. Caspian wades in the front row just a few places away from Amy. Next to him are his parents, grandmother, and seven-year-old sister Coraline, who bounces with excitement, her honey-blond curls bouncing right along with her and her fluttering metallic fins just a slightly lighter shade of silver than Caspian’s.
I’d love, love, love to join them. After a lifetime spent hiding among my human friends and neighbors, being at the center of all this pageantry makes my tail twitch. I take a deep breath and let it out slowly, so the water around my gills won’t ripple too noticeably. Just as we practiced, my parents, sisters, and I stop before the thrones.
Members of the council that voted to approve my parents’ reign swim to the center of the room carrying fabric folded under their arms. The musicians stationed in the corners of the massive chamber start playing a steady beat on their turtle shell drums. In the center of the aisle, half the councilors grab one end of the long lengths of fabric while the rest hold the other end. Then they swim in opposite directions down the aisle, spreading the fabric out in long swaths of royal blue and seafoam green. In measured movements, they bring their arms up and back down, as if laying out a freshly laundered bedsheet. The richly dyed fabric undulates in the water on either side of us in time to the beat of the drums.
We float in a small cluster, turned so our backs touch each other and we face outward. Then, as the fabric bucks faster and faster in time with the ever-quickening beat of the drums, my family and I join hands. We swim forward but keep our clasped hands where they are, forming the shape of a starfish, the ancient symbol of balance and justice. As the beating drums reach a crescendo, the message rings clear: in their new royal family, the people can expect unity and fairness, even in stormy seas.
Everyone assembled breaks into cheers and only falls quiet once the turritella shell flutes replace the drums with a lighter, more melodious song. The Stromeela, the coronation anthem. The notes linger in the surrounding water, intricate and just slightly pompous. Clay would love listening to this song. My chest constricts, and I fight to keep my smile in place as the councilors swim upward and hang the reams of blue and green fabric from the ceiling behind what are about to become my parents’ thrones. Then the councilors formally bow to my sisters and me, each of them offering an arm and escorting us to our seats.
I say my thanks to the councilor who accompanied me before he swims off, and then swap my I’m-a-confident-princess-oh-yes-I-am smile for a smaller but more genuine one as I turn to the person next to me.
“Hey!” I whisper to Casp. “Was I okay? Did it look … official and everything?”
If I floundered anything up out there, he’d be the one to notice. Caspian’s been studying coronation protocol and quizzing me on it for weeks.
“It was perfect,” he whispers back. I raise a skeptical eyebrow. “Nearly. Everyone loved it.”
My shoulders relax. I’ll take it. “How come you didn’t get ready at my house this afternoon? You were still Above earlier today, right?”
“Yeah, but I had an errand to take care of.”
“Well, you certainly didn’t need our help,” I say. His smooth-combed hair and the elegant, polished strand of shells across his chest speak to that. “You look fantastic.”
“Um … thanks.”
Damn it, did I stick my fin in it? Caspian and I have been best friends forever, and it never used to be a big deal to give him a compliment. But ever since he told me he loved me and I made it clear we can only ever be friends, we’ve been in choppier waters than I’m used to. Fortunately, two of the councilors choose that moment to present the crowns to my parents. “Look!” I whisper to Caspian.
The councilor takes the larger, more grandiose of the two crowns and holds it high up. The whole room holds its breath. She swoops the crown in a large figure eight to show its oneness with the current, then slowly—deliberately—brings it down to rest upon my mother’s head.
The anthem swells, and like the heart of every Mer in the room, mine swells with it. My mother is so beautiful. The crown, piled high with pointed cerith shells and precious gems the size of seagull eggs, stretches the length of my elbow to my fingertips, but my mother never wavers. She holds her head high, balancing the new weight with seeming ease, her expression determined and confident. Regal. Everything you’d want in a queen.
My mom takes the other crown—this one of stately lion’s paw shells punctuated by rare blue diamonds—from the second councilor, holds it up for all to see, then makes the same figure-eight movement before placing it upon my father’s head. He straightens to his full height, and they clasp hands. Together, they swim to the two thrones around which this entire chamber was built.
Clay should be here.
They sit, raising their clasped hands up above their crowned heads.
Clay should be here.
From the four corners of the room, conch shells blow, deep and resonant.
Clay should be here.
My parents are the queen and king of Merkind.
Even though this monumental moment feels incomplete because I can’t share it with the person I want to, the sight still sends tingles from the top of my head to the tips of my fins. Wow.
“I never thought I’d live to see this day,” Caspian’s grandmother whispers to me. “And now I’ll live forever.” Tears shine in her eyes.
All over the room, Mer bear similar expressions. Some who have been living Above embrace family members they probably haven’t seen for decades and who they believed they’d never see again.
I didn’t expect to get all swirled up in the symbolism, but bright, gleaming hope bubbles up inside of me the way it does in everyone else. My whole life, my parents, my teachers, everyone told me the curse on Merkind couldn’t be broken and that we’d never see a return to peace under the sea in our shortened lifetimes. Now, the curse is a memory, more distant with every passing day, and my parents rule over a peaceful ocean.
“It’s really happening,” Amy whispers. “I guess anything is possible after all.”
I nod, still dumbstruck. As lantern light glint
s off my parents’ crowns and shines on the faces of the joyous crowd, I feel like I’m floating, like the happiness in this room could carry me all the way up to the surface. Another thought strikes me. If the impossible really is possible, then maybe, just maybe, I really can find a way to be with Clay forever. Maybe I really can find a way to make Clay Mer.
Chapter Eight
Melusine
I’ve died and gone to fairytale hell.
That’s the only explanation for the spinning couples donning their finest jewels and stupidest smiles, the swelling music of the trumpet shells, and the disgustingly joyful royal pair enthroned at the head of the room.
You belong up there! a voice shouts inside my head. That’s your throne.
Did my father really sit there, not too long ago, with Lia’s human bound up over there by that column as we readied ourselves for a ritual we would never finish? For a life we would never have … This room looks so different now.
Instead of lying in ruins across a dirty floor, the smooth columns stretch up to the arched ceiling, standing strong. I resist the urge to bring a hand up to the back of my head, which I almost cracked against one of those columns thanks to Lia and her inane human. Now, the room’s freshly scrubbed walls gleam white and sparkle with ice and crystal. Fish of every color swim in and out through the open amber windows with their troca shell trim, and glowing snail lanterns move across the ceiling, providing both light and decoration. Since the ceremony itself has ended, servants in crisp cream siluesses lay out a grand banquet on one side of the large dance arena.
Smack dab in the middle of that arena float the two of them. From my spot in a corner by a potted seaweed stalk that winds toward the ceiling, I can glance around a column for a view straight out of one of those cartoon movies human children stare at for hours. Caspian, tall and almost too handsome to be taken seriously, spins Lia under his arm, then catches hold of her again when she faces him, one of his hands pressed palm-to-palm with hers and the other splayed out against the skin and scales of her hip. Their fins flick in synchronized motions to the traditional music, a perfect pairing of her gold and his silver. She says something, and laughter rumbles through his broad chest and puts a smile on his face so genuine it makes my palms itch. All around them, nobles sneak glances and whisper with gossipy smiles, no doubt about how well-suited the new princess and her dance partner are, how they wish the two heroes who restored their immortality would finally kiss and give them a real show to tell their friends back home about.
“Didn’t I tell you now that the human doesn’t remember her, the princess will finally see what’s been right in front of her all this time?” chatters a woman wearing so much blush she looks like a lobster. Her friend nods eagerly as she stuffs an entire shrimp cake into her mouth. “I told you she’d come to her senses about Sir Zayle’s son.”
They flit away, and I hide a snort by taking a sip of the kelp punch in my covered goblet. They’re forgetting Lia has no sense to come to. How she can possibly still think she has any hope of making it work with that human when the rest of the world thinks—and must continue thinking—he doesn’t remember her is beyond me. She’s delusional.
She’s also a better dancer than I would have expected. Better than I’d like. On a triple flip, she finally loses her balance and I smile. Caspian has to save her by moving his forearm closer to support her lower back, but he does it so smoothly I doubt anyone else notices her mistake. The two of them execute the finish flawlessly in sync.
The music of the allytrill rounds to a finish, and the musicians strike up an allyqall. Caspian bows and brings Lia’s hand up to kiss it, as is the custom before she moves to a new partner, but at the last instant, he angles his head slightly, so his lips don’t actually touch her skin. Interesting.
He turns to leave the dance arena, and I slide over, putting the column between us as I take another sip of my punch, its tart flavor flowing over my tongue.
You’re hiding yourself away. My father’s words of censure from earlier ring out inside my head. I stare at the column in front of me; I didn’t swim all the way here to get cozy with a hunk of coral. After taking one more sip, I click the mouthpiece of my goblet closed with my chin to keep any remaining drops from floating out and hand it to a passing servant. I used my chin to close the top of a sports bottle once in P.E. class last year, and a girl gawked at me. Humans.
I give my head a subtle shake, so my hair spreads out evenly in the water around me, then leave the column behind. I’m going in.
Unlike outside in the crowded streets with the ignorant masses, here Mer recognize me as I move about the room. Several gasp. More than a few sets of eyes dart between me and the security personnel at the door. No one got in without an invitation stone. I can almost hear their slow brains working it out. Still, their fearful, disgusted stares make my stomach drop into my fins, and make swimming back behind that column awfully tempting. I slap a predatory smile on my face instead. May as well give them something to be afraid of.
Everyone gives me a wide berth after that. So much for mingling.
That leaves me with only one option. Caspian wades on the outskirts of the dance arena, oblivious to the gaggle of Mermaids behind him giggling and prodding each other, trying to work up the courage to ask him to dance. The spineless tube worms.
I glide past them, until I’m floating right behind Caspian. He doesn’t notice. His gaze stays fixed on where Lia now moves with her father around the dance arena. She’s a swirl of carefree laughter and glittering gold, her sunbeam crown catching the light each time she spins.
“Stunning, isn’t she?” I say as he stares at her with his ocean blue eyes. He jerks, startled out of his trance, and turns toward me.
“Melusine!” His smile stretches all the way up to his eyes, and I tilt my head. Could it be his real reaction? “I was wondering where you were. When I didn’t see you at the ceremony, I was worried you didn’t come. I’m glad you did.” Is he?
“Well, you’re the only one,” I say. Most people are pointedly not looking at me—as if the sight of me will turn them to sea foam—but some still glare and whisper, especially now that I have the audacity to talk to their new hero.
His sculpted features soften with understanding. “The whispers can be hard, I know.”
He does know. Looking at him now, the recipient of so much adoration since the curse broke, I sometimes forget he’s spent his whole life a social outcast, his family vilified and shamed for his great-great-aunt’s sireny. Unlike me, he never did anything to warrant those whispers.
“I always tried to tell myself that people’s lives must be really boring and sad if they had to gossip about mine for entertainment. I tried to feel sorry for them.”
Of course he did. I’d roll my eyes at him like I usually do, but if he swims off, I’ll have no one to talk to. “I’ll keep that in mind,” I say instead.
He leans in, chest moving closer, sending ripples against mine. When his lips are right by my ear, he murmurs, “It doesn’t really work, but it distracts you long enough for some of the anger to melt away.”
Why would I want anger to melt when I could use it? “Anger is power,” I say. I instantly regret it.
He pulls back, the space between us widening, and shakes his head like he should have expected this from me. “No. It’s not.”
Damn it! What was I thinking? Even if he invited me here tonight and even if he tosses the word “friends” around, that doesn’t mean I can let my guard down. Clearly. Look at his face, all coated in disappointment. Like maybe I’m the villain everyone says I am.
My mind paddles through things to say, anything to rescue this moment before he drifts off to dance with Lia or one of the simpering dimwits behind me and leaves me alone in the middle of this ballroom filled with people who hate me on sight.
The hairs on my neck float up as some of that hatred sears into me. Before I turn, I know. Sure enough, Lia has spotted me from wh
ere her father now leads her in an allydriss. Her mouth gapes over his shoulder, and I would take pleasure in it except that with one word from her—our new princess, current help us—the guards would escort me off the premises in seconds, invitation or not. I can see my father’s face now, when I report back on my failure to make it through a single night in Mer society. I swallow my dread.
I don’t want to look like a stunned spookfish, the way she does, so I smile sweetly at her. Ever so casually I sweep an open hand through my black hair, making sure she gets a good glimpse of the turquoise invitation stone I still hold. Then I turn all my focus back to Caspian, so she’ll know exactly who that stone came from.
I’d love to peek back at the dismay sure to color her face when it dawns on her that her best friend invited me. Lia hates that he even talks to me, let alone considers us friends. I know they’ve fought about it—I could tell by the tense looks that passed between them while she interrogated me last month after I snuck out to save Caspian from Sea Daughters Academy. All I can do now is hope her desire not to start another argument with him will be stronger than her urge to have me thrown out on my fins.
I angle my whole body toward his, shutting her out.
“She has every right to hate you, you know,” Caspian says. He noticed the exchange. Impressive. He observes people almost as keenly as I do.
Almost as keenly as I’m observing him right now—observing how he looks back at Lia with longing and just a hint of sadness around his eyes.
The need to wipe that sadness away rises in me. I want to see him smile. I mean, it’s in my own best interest to ensure he wants to invite me to another one of these high-society events, right?
You do whatever you have to to resurrect your future. Make friends. That’s what my father said, isn’t it? Here goes …
I soften my body language, letting my shoulders slope and my eyes widen to convey honesty and openness. He has to be the one to bring up a topic that will take our conversation deeper, otherwise he might think I’m manipulating him.