Immerse

by Tobie Easton

  What? Clay asks.

  Um, I’m in the library—by myself, but still, in the library—and during your dream I, well, my legs … I need a sec. All Mer get the ability to transform into legs at puberty because we need them for, well, for … mating. So, thinking about Clay’s dream, about being with Clay in the R-rated sorta way, brought out my legs without me even noticing. As what I’ve told him registers, his cockiness achieves tidal-wave status. He thinks something at me that makes me reply, Clay, that’s not helping.

  Okay, okay. I’m in the same boat, Nautilus. The innuendo in his words means that the next burst of pride I get is all my own. How about we each take a couple minutes?

  When I disconnect from the bond, I’m blushing harder than ever. Detached from Clay’s presence, it’s much easier to call up my tail. In my eagerness to talk to Clay now that he can hear me back, I’ve gotten sloppy about accessing the bond. I’ll have to be more careful and only do it from my room from now on. With the door locked.

  Decision made, I go replace the konklili on the shelf and listen to the titles of several more that prove of no use before I risk nudging again.

  Now okay?

  Yeah, I’m all done. I mean, all set. His tone turns more serious. Any news on Havelock?

  No, nothing yet. Are your guards still there?

  Yeah. That pool-cleaning service truck is still parked right across the street.

  And you’re sure it’s them?

  They keep tugging on their shirts like they’re not used to wearing ’em.

  Yep, that’s them.

  There’s another truck near school, and I spotted one of the same guys the other day when I went to my scuba diving lesson.

  I breathe a sigh of relief. That’s good.

  How about you? Are you being safe?

  Absolutely. I haven’t left the palace at all, and there’re guards at every doorway and window.

  What about … Tension rolls off him through the bond.

  Melusine? I haven’t seen her since the night they moved her in. My parents refused to have her in the family wing even though it’s the safest, so the security team added extra protection to some room in a different part of the palace.

  I hate that she’s there with you at all. If anyone hates Melusine more than I do, it’s Clay. Protectiveness saturates his words, and a feeling rolls across the bond: longing. To be here, to hold me.

  Me, too. But at least she seems smart enough to be staying away from me. Try not to worry. The idea that I’m under the same roof with that scheming, manipulative sea slime makes me … ugh. But I don’t want Clay stressing about it when there’s nothing he can do, so I change the subject. Okay, so, I’ve been researching Project Mud all morning, and I was wondering if you have any new leads on your end.

  Yeah, he thinks. I stayed up late last night on one of those myths and legends message boards, going through a whole backlog of past posts. That’s why I slept in so late today. Anyway, I found one human myth from the Alps about a Merman who could transform into a fish and back again, and one from the UK about a Mermaid who turned into a fairy, which is kind of closer to a human, I guess? Maybe not. He grabs his laptop and reads me his notes. There aren’t many details. It’s not a lot to go on, but at least they’re about transformation.

  Those are both good. I’ll see if we have any myths that correspond to those down here. Then, because I can feel our conversation coming to a close, I think, I wish I were with you.

  I do, too.

  Clay leaves to jump in the shower, and I leave with two new leads to follow. But hours later, neither myth has held water. I couldn’t find a single record of the one from the Alps, which means its origin must be human make-believe, not Mer magic. And while Mer records from the waters near Somerset do shed light on the one from the UK, it turns out to be a reference to the Lady of the Lake from Avalon, the ancient land of the Fae. So she was a fairy all along, not a Mermaid—she never transformed at all. Another dead-end to add to Clay’s and my growing list. Thinking of Clay brings a flashback of slipping so effortlessly into his dream, of the two of us holding each other in a way we can’t with miles of ocean separating us.

  “Are you okay?” Caspian asks as he swims into the room. “You’re all flushed.”

  I jump, my hand flying to the konklili in my lap, so it doesn’t fall. “Oh, yeah. I’m fine. I’ve just been at this for too long.”

  He throws me a kombu-wrapped ball about the size of a bagel, and I catch it. “I brought you this. I thought you might have forgotten to take a break for lunch again.”

  Lunch already? What time is it? “Thanks! I didn’t realize how hungry I was.” I take a giant bite of the kombu ball. The seaweed wrapper is filled with sweet crab and spicy dulse. Yum!

  “Any progress?” he asks, nodding at the strombus shell konklili I’m holding. It’s the size of my head.

  “Well, I’ve learned all about what the fairies of Avalon liked to eat for breakfast but not a drop about magical transformation.”

  The corners of his mouth dip downward. I can tell he wants to say something encouraging but doesn’t want to lie. “You can’t blame yourself if you don’t find anything. There may just be nothing to find.”

  I don’t know what to say to that. Clay is counting on me. I’m counting on me.

  “I don’t mean to be discouraging,” Caspian continues, “but don’t you think, if a human had ever turned into a Merman or Mermaid, we’d all have heard about it. I mean, that’s …”

  “Major. Yeah, I know. It’s just, if I give up hope, then what?”

  I study Caspian’s face, searching it as if it could provide an answer.

  “Then you’d stop being an idealistic dolt and set some real goals.”

  My head snaps up, and Caspian’s snaps over his shoulder. How did she get in here without making a sound? The door is shut behind her, but I never heard a thing. That sneaky reef snake. And now she’s heard more than I ever wanted her to.

  “You’re not supposed to be here,” I blurt out.

  “Aren’t your parents restocking this library so it serves as a resource to the public?” She raises an eyebrow and says, in the most condescending voice imaginable, “You do know the meaning of the word ‘public,’ right?”

  “Did you need something?” Caspian asks her, his voice unusually frosty. Did they have a fight? Maybe he’s finally coming to his senses.

  She stiffens. “The dull-as-smelt new tutor they assigned told me to get Criminal Punishment through the Ages before next week. Subtle, right?”

  My parents didn’t want me to have to spend any more time near Melusine than necessary, so while Amy and the twins have joined Caspian and me in our classes with MerMister Pelagios, Melusine has her own tutor somewhere downstairs.

  “All recordings about the legal system are down that row on the top left.” Only Caspian spends more time here than I do, and he does it out of sheer enjoyment. But his tone as he speaks to her now holds no joy. It’s odd to hear Caspian sound cold.

  Something almost human, like hurt or regret maybe, passes over her angular features, but she wipes it away with cool indifference. “Aren’t you helpful? First giving Lia advice, and now helping me.” Her sapphire eyes skewer me to my seat. “He’s wrong, though, princess. You should blame yourself.”

  She swims toward me, and I brace myself for whatever she’s about to sling at me.

  “Blame yourself all you want for letting some fantasy cloud your judgment. I should have known you’d be looking for a way to make your loverboy human. Putting all your hope in some grand gesture that will never work. Did you tell him you could do it just so he’d stay with you? So he wouldn’t dump you for some human girl who could give him a real relationship? What do you do, wake up every morning and ask yourself how you can prolong his suffering? And you claim you love him.”

  She hurls insults at me like knives, each one sharper than the last. “You’re the one who made him s
uffer,” I throw back at her. She’s the one who stole his free will with her siren spell, then stabbed him.

  “At first, maybe. But who went to meet with his naval officer father and made the Tribunal nervous enough to steal his memories? Who cast a dangerous spell on his mind to get those memories back? Not me, that’s for damn sure. You’re lucky that memory spell worked. If it hadn’t, he’d be in a constant state of torment and confusion because of a risk you took. And now he remembers you, and you string him along with the hope of a future together instead of accepting reality and letting him move on with his life.” She shakes her head. “You say I’m cruel.”

  I find myself stunned into silence. It’s Caspian who says, “Melusine,” in the same tone my mother uses when the twins talk to her disrespectfully.

  “Tell me you disagree with me,” Melusine says. She purses her lips as she awaits his response.

  Of course he disagrees with her!

  “I disagree with the way you’re speaking to Lia about a topic that—”

  “You disagree with the way I’m speaking but not with what I’m saying. You think she’s feeding the human false hope.”

  Caspian looks from her to me, then down, rubbing the nape of his neck with one large hand. She smiles at me, triumphant.

  “You both don’t believe I can do it? Fine,” I say, rising from my seat and pulling myself up to my full height. “Tell me I’m wrong all day long. It won’t matter. I’m not going to stop trying when I know I can do this.”

  Do I know that? Just last week, and even this morning, didn’t I have all the same doubts they do? Yes, but if freeing Clay from sireny was possible and getting him his memories back was possible and getting my parents to reign over a united Merkind was possible, then I have to believe this is possible, too. And if it is, then who’s to say I’m not the one to accomplish it? I turn to Caspian, resting my hand on his upper arm. “I understand why you’re skeptical, I do. But with all the magic and possibilities at our disposal, if we haven’t found a way to make this work yet, that just means we haven’t been creative enough.”

  He rests a hand on top of mine.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” Melusine says. “Please don’t try to convince yourself you’re going to pull some kind of reverse Little Mermaid. We all know how well that worked out the last time. What will it take for you to get it through your head that fairytales aren’t real?”

  Reverse Little Mermaid? What does she … tides!

  “Lia, what is it?” Caspian asks.

  “Nothing.” But my head spins with the possibility. How did I not think of it before? “Nothing,” I repeat. I can’t let Melusine guess that she may have just given me the answer I’ve been searching for. She’s taunting me because she thinks I have no hope of succeeding, but I wouldn’t put it past her to sabotage me out of spite if she thought I had a real idea for how to make this work.

  A real idea that, right this moment, foams and froths inside my brain.

  I don’t have time to go back and forth with Melusine. Not now. “I’m not going to stay here and be spoken to this way,” I say, swimming over to replace the konklili on the shelf. Without another word, I swim out of the varellska.

  The instant my bedroom door closes behind me, I tap into the bond with Clay. Stop everything you’re doing. We need to read the Little Mermaid.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Melusine

  “Here’s your konklili.” Caspian places a harpulina shell in my hand, then swims to the other side of the varellska and sits on a stone stool that looks far less comfortable than the cushioned captain’s chairs right here.

  I follow him, waiting for him to start talking to me the way he usually does. He doesn’t. With a flick of my coral fin, I move in front of him.

  “Was there something else you needed?” he asks.

  “I haven’t seen you this week.” I loathe stating the obvious—words should always have purpose, my parents taught me—but I don’t know what else to say.

  “I’ve been here,” he says.

  “Here in this varellska?” I make my tone teasing.

  He purses his lips. “Here in the palace.” Without another word, he brings his own konklili to his ear.

  “I just thought you might come see me again. You came to visit me when I was hours away at the Foundation, and now I’m just a few floors that way.” I gesture downward with the point of a fin.

  “I came to visit you at the Foundation—”

  “To pass the time while Lia was visiting Clay? I thought that was it. That’s fine. I—”

  “Because I thought we were friends.” His baritone cuts me off before I can say something dismissive. His lips turn down and lines crease his forehead. “But you made it clear the other night that you don’t consider me a friend. I’ve been trying to respect your wishes and not bother you.” Ocean blue eyes shining with hurt meet mine, but in a flash he looks away and places the konklili back up to his ear. Conversation over.

  No. Conversation not over. He’s giving me an out. How many times have I implied, or outright snapped, that we’re not friends? At first, I said we weren’t because I couldn’t believe he meant it. I thought he was just too noble to leave me to those horrible, ego-inflated bullies when I started attending his school. I thought he said we were friends as a way to make himself feel better about eating lunch with me when no one else would, when really he was only doing it out of pity and some deeply instilled sense of righteousness. Which, let’s face it, he probably was, and I wasn’t going to delude myself. But …

  He kept sitting with me at lunch and talking to me in class even after the bullies got the message and stopped acknowledging me altogether. Then, he started coming to see me every once in a while at the Foundation, and he kept it up even after he moved Below and we didn’t go to the same school anymore. I told myself it was because he felt like he owed me for trying to help him escape from Ondine and the sirens, but that was almost two months ago. And there’s no explanation for why he made me the esslee and invited me to the coronation, except if he really does care about me, at least a little.

  He sits there in front of me, his silver tail drifting with the water’s natural flow. I could tell him all that, all the reasons I didn’t believe him before about wanting to be friends, but am starting to. Saying those words, though, would make me feel more naked than pulling my siluess over my head right here in the middle of the library. But I have to say something. “That night, it was … I was in a bad place. Finding out my dad left without a word to me …”

  When I fall silent, he says, “I thought it must be. That’s why I came to check on you.”

  “That’s not true.” My anger spikes, the same as it did in my room, and in a flood of it, I remind myself why I’ve been avoiding him all week, even while I wondered where he was. “You came to interrogate me for Lia under the guise of friendship. Don’t deny it.”

  He lowers the konklili and rises from his seat, looking me directly in the eye. “I don’t deny that Lia asked me to. But I need you to know, I was already planning to come over.”

  Do I believe him? Either way, I scoff so he won’t think I’m gullible.

  “I handled it badly,” he says. “I should have told you up front that Lia had asked me to find out some things from you while I was there. She thought you’d be more open if you thought the questions were coming just from me.” I hate that she was probably right. “But I shouldn’t have gone along with it. Melusine, I’m sorry.”

  How does he do that? How does he say exactly the thing that makes me want to like him, to believe him, to trust him, without any angle toward manipulating me? He doesn’t let defensiveness or rationalization or even humor color his words. He lets them stand on their own, bare and honest. It’s … annoying. That’s what it is. It means I only have one option.

  “Fine. I forgive you.” Something lifts off my chest, and my lips quirk up without permission. For good measure, I add, “Do
n’t do it again.”

  “I won’t,” he says, that same honesty pouring off his face.

  We float there, across from each other in the empty library.

  “So,” his tone lightens, “we’re still friends, then?”

  I shrug. “You can call it what you want.”

  He laughs and shakes his head. “Want to go play some spillu or something in the courtyard? I’ve been feeling kind of cooped up.”

  “I’m going to beat you,” I say with a grin.

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  Once we’re swimming through the halls, Caspian says, “As your friend, I have to tell you something you’re not going to want to hear. When you were talking to Lia earlier, or even the way you talk to me, well, you can’t talk to people the way you do. Not if you expect them to like you enough to listen to your point.”

  I want to snap back that I don’t care if anyone likes me. I only catch myself at the last second and stop myself from proving his point. All right, I kind of care if Caspian likes me, but only because he’s the one person who talks to me. And he’s still willing to talk to me even after the way I screamed at him the other night. That’s … I don’t know if I could do that.

  “I’m not saying you shouldn’t be clever or that you shouldn’t hold your own. But, sometimes you cross over that line to hurtful. And when you do, you just keep twisting the knife in deeper. It’s …”

  I think he’s going to say cruel or malicious. I take a deep breath, preparing myself for the blow.

  “… unnecessary.”

  Hmm. He might have a point there, but, “It wasn’t unnecessary to tell Lia how irrational and naïve she’s being. I mean, thinking she can turn a human into one of us? It’s laughable. Someone had to say something.”

  “But no one had to say it the way you said it.” He raises an eyebrow at me. “And don’t pretend for a second like you did it with good intentions.”