by Sara Ella
Are you wearing a hat and sunglasses?
Maya replied with a selfie. A wide-brimmed beach hat shaded her face and giant, bug-eye sunglasses covered the rest.
Satisfied, Merrick closed his phone and took in the view. Where are you, Mom? Maya needs you.
And he needed a time-out. A break from worrying about Maya and wondering if his dad would show up any second.
Maybe Coral could be that break for him.
He let the thought simmer as another one formed.
Maybe she could even be more.
Twenty-Eight
Coral
Spring didn’t last. It waved a brief hello, only to be swept up with the heat of summer’s breeze. She wouldn’t miss it, though. Here, summer meant no school. It meant more time to focus on what mattered.
What did matter?
Her sister. Only her sister.
Coral scrutinized her Young Literary entry again. If she planned to enter, it needed to be perfect. The longer days called to her. Days spent sleeping in and writing at the beach and figuring out who she was and who she wanted to be.
And her sister’s prince. There was still the matter of finding him. Merrick would help her. He’d promised. Maybe she should go back to the library, see if he was working. Not because she wanted to see him. Of course not. He was her sole lead.
Him and this bracelet. She touched the delicate pearls with her fingertips. Her sister had never said so, but Coral suspected the piece had been a gift from the prince himself. What if it was a clue to discovering his identity?
Her phone alarm sounded and Coral silenced it. Then she pulled the medication from her purse and stared at the label. At the name printed there. Her heart raced as she read the directions she’d memorized but felt the need to review anyway. She would not speak to Miss Brandes’s therapist. Coral’s grandmother had forced her to see a doctor. He’d prescribed the bottle of pills after asking a handful of questions and not once looking her in the eye.
I don’t need this. I’m fine.
She unscrewed the cap and emptied a capsule into the palm of her hand. Her grandmother would check the count. So Coral dropped the pill into the sand and buried it beneath the grains. She hated the way it made her feel. The way it coated everything in sugar when deep down in her bones she knew it wasn’t real. The anxiety always came back. The thoughts of death and Red Tide lingered forever at the door of her heart.
A pill changed nothing. It only delayed things for a time.
She returned to the handwritten page before her, making edits with a red pen. Coral had convinced herself she didn’t care about the contest. She only wanted to avoid more questions from Miss Brandes or meetings in her office. Still, Coral couldn’t turn in a piece of work she wasn’t proud of. So she focused on the black letters, reading them aloud to help her set the tone and feel.
“My soul is bleeding,” she started.
“The sand beneath me is cool and damp, the high tide from last evening lingering between the grains. The water will turn red crimson soon, the tide transforming into a bloody, poisonous mess. I feel it. Sense it. Red Tide calls for beckons me.”
“Maybe it always has,” she told the sea. Coral shook her cramping hand, glanced up at the waves for an instant, before she took her red pen to paper again.
“I bury my feet,” she read. “Allowing them to take refuge as a hermit crab does on a summer’s day. I could sit here indefinitely forever, listening to the ocean’s song as she sprays her melody onto the shore. She beckons summons me as a mother does a child, pleads with me to return to her arms bosom. To her heart.”
Her own heart ached with each written word she uttered. Maybe she shouldn’t turn this in. What if the humans thought—
Who cared what they thought? She’d been in that position before. She’d never put herself there again. She looked down at the next line. Spoke it, feeling its truth.
“Her heart is where mine wishes longs to be,” she said.
Coral blew a stray hair from between her eyebrows. It floated up, then down. When she tucked it away, it fell right back where it didn’t belong. After placing her pen inside her notebook, she closed it, hugged her knees, and rocked in place.
“She’s never coming back,” she whispered to the sea. “Never.”
Coral blinked and allowed the constant thought to sink in. Shoulders hunched and eyelids heavy, she rested her forehead on her knees. She pictured the crown princess as she once was. A caring sister. A companion. A friend. But then she gave up. On life. On Coral.
For the first time since Red Tide, Coral let herself be angry with her sister. She turned that anger into new words as she flipped over the typed page and wrote new ones. They poured from her. Like a squall, their course could not be stopped. She bit her lip, dug her feet deeper into the sand, and let the words flow . . .
The soul I don’t possess aches with a phantom pain I can neither explain rationalize nor ignore. If I could shed a tear I would, but even this is not a luxury provided to me.
“My prince never loved me.” Coral whispered her sister’s words, hoping the line repeated would bring some sense of comfort. “He never will.” It didn’t. Because words wouldn’t bring her sister back.
Shudders racked her body as the sun dove, then sank, then drowned beneath the horizon.
But then something warm and heavy draped her shoulders. Something smelling of summer and salt and everything warm.
“So we meet again.” Merrick squatted beside her.
“Hi.” She kept her eyes on the horizon, waited for the vibrant colors to sing, though they never even whispered anymore.
“I hope this isn’t too stalkerish, but full disclosure, I may or may not have gone to the school to ask Miss Brandes where I could find you. She told me to check the closest beach.”
She ought to tell him to go. To throw his jacket back at him and race for the pier. But she also wanted to explore the angelfish living inside her center, flapping their fins at her core.
What if my sister was wrong?
Guilt chafed her insides, killing every last angelfish flutter.
She swallowed, then found her voice. “How’d she know I’d be here?”
“She said you walk this way after school . . . and you’re always taking off your shoes.”
“I don’t like shoes. They hurt my feet.”
“That may be the best excuse to go barefoot I’ve heard yet.” Merrick kicked off his own shoes.
They sat that way for a while. Listening to the ocean and soaking in the heat of the sun and sand. The pleasant silence between them contradicted every preconceived notion. Comfort wrapped her.
“Why did you help me that night?” She drew circles in the sand at her feet. “You could’ve been hurt. Duke—”
“Was that the guy’s name? Duke?” Merrick buried his hands in the grains.
“My sister’s boyfriend.”
“For her sake and yours, I hope that’s no longer the case.”
Coral shrugged. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to her in a while.”
“Do you miss her?”
Did she? Maybe. “Sometimes.”
They grew quiet again. The longer Merrick stayed, the more Coral feared his inevitable absence.
She shoved the feeling away. The Disease wanted to fool her. It wanted to make her believe in love and hope and friendship. Lies. False hope. If he ever got the chance, this human would break her.
“To answer your question,” Merrick said at last, “I helped you because that’s what you do when someone is in trouble. As my good friend likes to say, you’d do the same for me.”
Would she?
A frustrated sigh escaped and Coral held her head in her hands. Her eyelids drooped from lack of sleep.
“Anyway, you asked me something last time. You’re looking for someone. A prince? Turns out I’m looking for someone too. Maybe we can help each other.”
“Maybe. I don’t know.” She didn’t know anything anymore. Los
t didn’t cover half of it. Coral drifted without a purpose. Without an end. She existed for now. Eventually she’d be forgotten.
If she was nothing to no one, did she exist at all?
“Seems the universe keeps bringing us together,” Merrick said.
“Or the ocean,” she added before she could stop herself.
“Yes, that too. So, why a prince? Do you have a fairy-tale complex?”
Folks, we have a comedian. “It isn’t for me. It’s for my sister. The one who—” She couldn’t finish. She couldn’t bring herself to say the words. “I think this bracelet was a gift from him to her. It’s the only thing I have left—” Again, Coral couldn’t finish. The more she tried to push the words out, the larger they grew in her constricting throat. “I’d rather keep my reasons to myself.”
She’d thought about her anger for so long, she hadn’t actually gotten to the part where she confronted the nameless prince. Coral wasn’t a murderer, though her thoughts grew murderous at times.
Would Merrick help her if he saw the Abyss inside?
He eyed her.
Coral bristled. She didn’t know if she liked the way he looked at her or if she loathed it.
“Fair enough,” he said. “How about this? If you help me find my someone, I’ll help you find yours. Promise.” He offered his pinky.
Was that fair? That he got his way first? He’d promised to help her. Would he abandon her the moment he got what he wanted?
“I have a reason for doing it this way,” he said. “Trust me?”
Did she? Could she?
The sea seemed to calm, easing the worry in her heart.
Merrick’s consistent gaze had the same effect.
She didn’t want him to stop. “Okay.” She shook his pinky with hers. His cute half smile sent those angelfish in her stomach soaring.
“So here’s the thing.” He released her finger and leaned back on his elbows. “I’m sort of in this predicament where I need information, but I can’t go poking around too much. Otherwise people would figure out who I am, and I need to remain unseen. For personal reasons.” He let out a breath as if he’d had everything bottled inside. “That’s where you come in. You’re not from around here. Your face isn’t in the papers or online.”
He had that right.
“You can ask questions and no one will give you a second glance.”
She lifted a brow.
“You know what I mean. Anyway, will you do it? Be my undercover journalist? You like to write.” He pointed to her pages. “It works out.”
“Who are we looking for exactly?” She flipped her story over so the blank side faced her. She held her pen at the ready.
“My mom.”
She scribbled a note. His mom in exchange for her sister’s prince? Seemed fair. “When do we start?”
Warmth spread through her. Stop it. He’s human. A human could never care for a mermaid. The crown princess made that abundantly clear.
“How about now?” He hopped up from the sand. He offered her his hand in the same way he had the night of Red Tide.
This time she didn’t back away. She took it and he helped her up.
With the sea at their backs and triumph lighting Merrick’s eyes, the Disease wrapped Coral’s heart with an emotion so deep and comforting, she couldn’t have suppressed it if she tried.
And she didn’t.
She let that feeling envelop her as spring melted into the horizon and summer led her up the shore.
Summer
“She laughed and danced with the thought of death in her heart.”
—Hans Christian Andersen, “The Little Mermaid”
Interstitial – Prince Letter
Twenty-Nine
Brooke
After
“Did you see my cake?” Hope barges into my room, beaming. “It’s three tiers high and Mary promised to use strawberry cream cheese filling.” She uses her arms to show me the cake’s size. Then she crosses to my window.
I close my journal, using my pen as a placeholder, and rise from my desk. I try to smile, though it doesn’t reach my eyes.
Hope checks the driveway for the umpteenth time since the sun rose. She’s talked about her twelfth birthday since I returned in the spring. She remains the youngest of our girl pack but brings the most light by far.
“Maybe we should see if Mary needs help,” I offer, attempting to close the curtains.
“I want to see when she drives up.” Hope shoves the fabric back toward me. The curtain rings clink together across the metal rod. “She promised to come when we talked on the phone last week.”
I frown. Empty promises remain an all-too-familiar concept. While Hope’s dad visits at least once a month and video chats with her every Sunday, her mom remains unseen.
I hate the woman for it.
“Are you looking forward to starting school again in the fall?” I long to take her mind off the window and the empty driveway beyond.
Hope shrugs but keeps her eyes plastered to the glass. She’s not herself, though today of all days ought to be about her. Instead, she dwells on the woman who hardly talks to her only daughter.
“I told Jake I don’t want to go home.” Hope cracks the window, allowing a summer breeze to pass through the screen. “I want to stay here.”
I wrap an arm around her, knowing at this point my affection is welcome. I hate how attached I’ve become. She’s leaving—we both are—by summer’s end. Still, we need each other now. Hope is nearly six years younger and has become the best friend I’ve ever had.
“Aren’t you excited to see your friends when you go home?” I tickle her rib cage.
She jumps. Squeals. Snatches a pillow off the bed and tosses it at me. “They’re not my friends.”
This is the one thing she never mentions. The thing she keeps locked away so no one can see. “You’ll make new ones.” When did I become the optimist of our odd pair?
She tugs her sleeves down over her arms, hiding her scars.
I wince, feeling everything she feels and sometimes wishing I could go back to feeling nothing at all.
Taking her hand, I draw her sleeve to her elbow. She resists at first, but I lock my eyes on hers. “You are not nothing,” I say. “And neither am I.”
Her eyes glisten, but then she turns back into her usual self and grins, all teeth. “What sage words, O Wise One.”
“Indeed.” I wink. “Come on. The time will go faster if we help Mary in the kitchen.”
Hope hesitates but at last concedes, letting her sleeve fall and leaving the window behind.
* * *
Hope’s dad brought a karaoke machine for her birthday. While we’re not supposed to have our own electronics here, Jake agreed to let Hope use it for the night. Once it’s plugged in and the controls light up, Hope connects her mic and waves for me to join her.
I freeze. How long has it been since I sang? My throat closes up with one glance at that dreaded machine.
“Please, Brooke. This can be your birthday present to me.” She connects a second mic and holds it toward me, waiting.
I open my mouth to tell her I’ve gotten her a little something. Wrapped it and everything. But then she does the face that makes her look younger than she is and I groan. The other girls clap while the staff and volunteers line the walls of the gathering room.
Great. We have an audience. This ought to be loads of fun.
I rise from the couch that’s been pushed against the bookcase. Chairs from the kitchen have been brought in too. Blue and yellow streamers swoop overhead, and matching balloons move across the carpet like colorful, floating rainbow fish.
The colors stand out more than they have all year.
“What shall we sing?” Hope glances out the bay window and into the evening blue.
Bitterness coats my mouth. Her mom’s not coming. Her dad’s here, though—a quiet man who’s hardly said two words to her aside from “Happy birthday.” But he’s here. He showed up.
“Um, you pick.” I grab the mic. Grasp tight despite my sweating palms.
Hope clicks through the choices on Jake’s smartphone, connected via Bluetooth, and lands on a winner.
I roll my eyes. “This again?”
“What can I say? It’s a new classic.”
Hope begins the first verse of the theme from her favorite movie musical. I think I’ve heard her listen to this soundtrack a thousand times on the community CD player in the rec room. She never tires of it.
She sings of scars and shame and words that cut. Then the chorus ends and the song falls to me. I swallow and search for my voice. I’ve never liked singing. My voice was somewhat of an asset to my family. It defined me. Would they have loved me without the commodity they hoped to exploit?
I’ll never know.
But here, with Hope smiling up at me and a stomach full of cake and a room stuffed with people who have never once judged me, I sing. Because I don’t have to. My voice. My choice.
My heart takes flight with the first lyric. I sing of drowning and sending floods. My own flood releases through the song, and soon I’m closing my eyes and getting lost in the melody. Hope joins in and we find our harmony.
It. Is. Glorious.
The room erupts in cheers, and a high I didn’t know existed encompasses my heart. Hope’s right. It’s going to be hard leaving this place, but we have to step out and do the things we fear most.
“Thanks, Brooke.” She gives one last glance toward the window before she passes the mic to someone else.
Jake and Mary take the makeshift stage next and sing a dance song from their generation. All the girls from Hope’s twelve to my almost eighteen kick off our shoes and move to the beat. We cha-cha-slide right and get jiggy with it. Because, as everyone knows, girls just want to have fun.
We’re on the floor with our sides splitting by the end. When’s the last time I laughed so hard I cried? A perfect day I would have thought impossible a year ago.