by Tracy Kiser
“Was it Lana?” Sarah countered with excitement showing in her eyes, echoing Aiden’s question. The first spark of joy ignited in her chest since the morning she had discovered that Lana was missing.
Daniel shook his head. “I think it’s way past time to call a coast guard. They’ll help us find her.”
Sarah nodded in agreement. “Tell them to hurry. We have to find her soon. It’s almost too late; Aiden’s already been searching for days.”
“I will.” Daniel went below deck to use the radio, leaving Aiden and Sarah on deck by themselves.
Sarah turned to look at Aiden. She felt like she should blame him for all of this, but in her heart she knew it wasn’t his fault. “I’m scared, Aiden,” she whispered.
“Me too, Mrs. Winters. You have to know that I never would have agreed to do this if I thought Lana would get hurt, in any way.” He shuddered at the memory of Lana falling overboard.
Sarah lifted her hand to stop Aiden’s train of thought. “I know Aiden. You’re a good kid and I can tell how much you care about my daughter. We’ll find her.” She gazed at the island the boat had become parallel to.
“We’ll find her,” Aiden repeated. It became an oath, and he silently promised to uphold it. No matter what.
* *
“Who should we talk to first?” Lana asked Merric as they reached the underwater city. Merpeople were everywhere, swimming from place to place.
“Are you hungry? We could go to the cook’s parlor. She’s lived here probably thirty years and she makes amazing sushi,” Merric offered. He felt his stomach demand the temptation of the delicious food.
“So she’d know if my dad was here?” Lana questioned.
“Here? As in…the city…?” Merric cautiously asked.
“You know what I mean, around here like on an island. She would have been here when his boat crashed so she could know which island he went to, right?” Her voice was brimming with hope enough to make Merric feel the full weight of guilt on his shoulders.
“Hopefully,” Merric forced a smile.
“I feel so stupid swimming around talking to merpeople about a shipwreck that happened ten years ago. What are the chances that they even remember one? Or even noticed that a shipwreck occurred?” Lana muttered to herself.
Merric led the way to the Cook’s Parlor. Lana’s thoughts shifted. She couldn’t believe that it had taken her so long to realize that merpeople were the secret species. With that revelation, Lana believed everything that had happened. Lana watched Merric’s body as he moved. He was gorgeous. Her thoughts again shifted. Lana stared at his body moving through the water with the grace of a ballet dancer. Trying to shake the thought, an image of Aiden popped into her head and how worried he must be about her. Guilt washed through her. Poor Aiden… Then her mind’s eye morphed Aiden back into Merric. Lana caught herself smiling.
“This is it.”
Lana was jolted back to the present. Merric and Lana were outside of a small building carved completely out of coral. They entered the parlor and were motioned to a table fashioned with some kind of stone that put off a slight gleam.
“Merric, will you have the usual?” The young mermaid that had directed them asked as soon as they were seated. Lana looked up at the girl with long flowing black hair and glimmering golden eyes.
“Two orders please,” Merric replied nodding at Lana.
“Of course,” the mermaid smiled.
“Oh and we’d like to speak to the cook if she has a moment,” Merric requested.
“I’ll be sure to ask her for you. I’m positive that she would want to come say hello to you regardless.” The mermaid’s smile never left her face. Lana found herself looking at Merric who was looking at the young girl.
“Thank you, Rahyra.”
The mermaid bowed, her light pink scales twinkling. She then left the table, swam through a delicately carved archway and disappeared.
“You must come here a lot,” Lana spoke. “And her name, Rahyra, I really like that. It sounds so pretty.”
“Yes, she’s a friend from learning classes,” Merric replied nonchalantly.
“Is that like ‘school’?” Lana tried to draw a comparison.
“Groups of fish?”
Lana laughed. “No, someplace you go to learn new things, with teachers and homework.”
“Hence the name ‘learning classes’?” Merric teased, although homework was a new word to him.
Lana saw the humor glinting in his eyes. Her skin tingled with warmth. She was beginning to realize that she more than liked all of the adventure with Merric. She especially liked the ‘with Merric’ aspect. She knew she shouldn’t be feeling this way. Aiden was still on the surface, probably going crazy with worry and looking for her non-stop. Unless… did he think she was dead?
Rahyra interrupted Lana’s thoughts when she returned with two small clay looking bowls overflowing with sushi rolls. “Cook said that she’d be out here as soon as she could.” The bowls made a muffled click as Rahyra set them down on the stone table.
Lana saw her face flash into another smile.
“Thank you, Rahyra. There’s really no rush, so whenever she has time.”
“Of course, Merric,” the mermaid bowed and retreated once again. Lana took notice of the way the young mermaid bowed to Merric and wondered why she did that each time she came to the table.
“You’ll love these, Lana. They are absolutely delicious.” Merric said while fishing around in his bowl for his first bite.
Lana picked a roll up carefully, not wanting it to break apart. She bit into it and the flavor exploded in her mouth and rolled over her taste buds. The crab was sweet and smooth while the shrimp spread throughout her body. The seasoning took Lana by surprise. She had never tasted anything so delectable.
“Oh my God! This really is amazing! You were right!” Lana exclaimed.
“You think I’d lie to you?” Merric laughed and placed a sushi roll in his mouth. “I told you, excellent.”
“Definitely, I could eat these forever.”
“I’m glad that you’re enjoying them, Lana. Didn’t seem like you were too fond of the squid we had when you first got here.”
Lana looked at Merric with happiness in her eyes. “Better. Much better.”
The couple ate their sushi rolls and laughed at each other, making rather entertaining conversation. Lana forgot why they had even come to the parlor; she was enjoying herself so much. The thought that this is what being a mermaid would be like crossed her mind, more than once. Then Lana was jerked back to reality when the cook came to their table.
“Sir Merric, you wished to speak with me?” A loud velvet voice came from above Lana’s head.
* *
“Sir Merric?” Lana repeated in hushed tones. She stared at Merric and saw his eyes widening. He quickly swallowed his sushi roll and looked up at the cook, his eyes returning to normal.
The cook was delicately poised with long raven hair that flowed gently with the water all the way down to the tip of her fin. She had sea snails carefully positioned around her neck line to serve as some sort of jewelry. Lana stared at the snails stuck to her lavender scales which gave her skin a slight glow.
“Maiden Le Florane, wonderful to meet you once again.”
“Is this the Lana from Syria that everyone is talking about?” Maiden Florane inquired, motioning with her webbed hand.
“You know of her so soon?” Merric laughed. He knew that the news of a new mermaid in the city would bring a little excitement and along with it, gossip.
“As if you don’t know how quickly information swims around here. She’s the talk of the city.”
“It’s a pleasure to be introduced to you, Maiden Le Florane.” Lana nodded her head with respect at the beautiful mermaid.
“So it seems your duty is human detection?” Florane asked bluntly.
“Yes,” Merric replied before Lana could answer for herself. “The Goddess of Syria assigned her this nob
le task to ensure that our race is remaining pure and stays as such.”
Maiden Florane gave a suspicious glance toward Merric. Her eyes slightly widened as if she was holding something back. Merric subtly shook his head but Lana noticed. Her eyes darted back and forth between Merric and the Maiden.
“Of course the race must remain pure. I cannot fathom how anyone would condone the changing process. We don’t want those disgusting creatures down here. They do enough damage above the sea.”
“Precisely,” Lana jumped in, her mind whirling with ways to sound as if her job was one she actually did. “The Goddess bestowed this task to me to ensure those humans that have disappeared at sea are not being changed. As we all know, it’s strictly forbidden.”
“I couldn’t agree more with your thoughts, Lana. It is forbidden for a distinct reason and must not be done,” Maiden Le Florane’s voice swept through Lana.
“So I assume that you know of no one being changed in this city?” Lana asked, hoping for some word of her father, some hint that would tell her he was around somewhere. But how would Maiden Le Florane even know? Did merpeople keep track of humans that lived on surrounding islands?
“Of course not,” Maiden Le Florane assured Lana. “I’d have to report him the moment it happened.” She struggled to find the right words. Had she slipped? “If such a thing did ever happen, that is.”
Lana’s mind zoomed in the ‘him’ that had been the subject of the Maiden’s sentence.
Merric sat watching the two ladies chatter back and forth. He could tell that Madame Le Florane was having trouble not saying the truth. He prayed that Lana didn’t notice how obvious it was that she was lying. Then he noticed the Maiden’s eyes. They were beginning to glow a light purple, sliding into blue. Lana’s weren’t glowing at all.
“Thank you, Maiden,” Merric interrupted. “You have been most helpful. Lana, shall we go? You need your rest.”
Lana turned to look at Merric, not understanding why he had cut the conversation short.
She saw Maiden Le Florane nodding her head, agreeing to end their discussion.
“Sir Merric, wonderful to see you, as always.” Florane turned and began walking through the water toward the archway in the back of the parlor.
“My pleasure, Maiden.”
He smiled at the mermaid and immediately grabbed Lana’s hand as soon as Maiden Le Florane was out of sight.
“What is wrong with you? That was rude to interrupt us, Merric. She knows something.” Lana insisted as Merric pulled her through the city back to their grotto. “Merric, stop! I need to talk to her some more. Couldn’t you tell she was lying about something? She was struggling through a simple conversation and she said ‘him’ like there really is another human down here.”
“Not now, Lana. We have to get inside.”
“Seriously,” Lana tried to pull away from Merric, “what is the matter with you?”
“Her eyes were beginning to glow. As I’m sure mine are too. But yours are not. That’s something a merperson would notice.” Merric explained.
Lana’s free hand automatically went up to hide her eyes.
“That’s why I interrupted.”
“But was she lying Merric? Could you tell? Did you get the sense that she was hiding something?”
Merric pulled Lana into the softly lit grotto that the Order had assigned, not answering her questions. He didn’t want to be another person lying to her.
“Merric, please answer me, did you see how…”
Merric moved closer to Lana and pressed his lips against hers to halt her questions and because he couldn’t wait any longer. Merric felt her body relax against his and returned his spark of passion. He backed away momentarily to look at Lana and breathed in her beauty. She stared up at him in silence and then moved slowly until their lips met once again. Merric felt his heart warm at Lana’s kiss. He felt her hands glide over his chest and up to wrap around his neck. He held her in his arms as if she were the most precious thing on earth.
Chapter 22
Lana awoke with a pain in her chest. She could feel Merric’s arm cradling her against him while the hammock cradled them both. They had lain together, warm and comfortable, all night. Lana remembered how Merric had kissed her. He had ignited a passion within her, a passion she had never felt before, even from Aiden. Yet the guilt consumed her. She loved Aiden and she had just spent the night in Merric’s arms. Did it matter that Merric and Aiden were from two different worlds? Did that justify what Lana had done?
Lana knew that Merric hadn’t been any less passionate than she. Lana felt a love for Merric blooming inside of her. How could she feel this way when Aiden was probably scouring the ocean for her? Was it possible to have such strong feelings for two completely different people? Lana felt Merric shift slightly beside her and she tried to shake the thoughts from her head.
“Good wake-time,” Merric whispered groggily, pulling Lana even closer to him. The water slipped under his arm and tickled her skin.
“Hi,” Lana whispered in return, not sure what to say. She was nervous to break the spell that had fallen on them the night before.
“More interviews today I suppose?” Merric asked in his sweet deep voice.
Lana turned her face to look into Merric’s and smiled. “Yes, I feel like the Maiden knows something she didn’t want to tell me yesterday. I have to figure out what it is. She may know that my father is around here on an island somewhere.”
“Don’t put too much hope in the Maiden. She’s kind of a strange fish,” Merric gently laughed.
“Who are we going to talk to then? Who’s been here over the last ten years?” Lana asked.
“We could go to the blacksmith I guess,” Merric said as he gently ran his hand down Lana’s cheek, pushing her hair back to float behind her.
Lana tried to concentrate. “Blacksmith? How does someone work with fire and heat under the water? Isn’t that impossible?” She tried to imagine a fire in the sea, something out of cartoons and fairy tales.
“He goes to ocean vents. They release enough heat to allow him to work with metals and other stuff. If he isn’t away on a trip then he’ll be in his shop.”
“How long has he been here?” Lana tried to imagine being close to ocean vents that threatened to burn the scales off of her smooth skin and almost cringed.
“Probably twenty years, maybe even thirty. He’s the only blacksmith that I’ve ever known.”
“Sounds like a plan, let’s go over there.” Lana used her arms to float out of the hammock and swam toward the entrance to the grotto.
Merric swam over to her, “No breakfast then?” He reached out and took Lana’s hand. He leaned slightly and kissed her on the cheek. She felt the warmth spread over her face and down her throat to her heart. “Let’s go.”
* *
The blacksmith was an old man with white-silver hair falling down to the middle of his back. In his workshop, there were stacks of scrap metal and tools used for mending and molding hot alloys.
“Hello there, young mers. Come to visit the old Hyzine today have we?” The old merman smiled wide, the wrinkles echoing the movement of his mouth.
Lana studied the black scales that almost completely covered his body and she felt a chill run down her spine. She wondered if the coloring was from age or from his profession.
“Hyzine, good to see you,” Merric replied. “This is Lana. She has been sent here by the Goddess to study other mer-populations to ensure that they aren’t turning humans.”
Hyzine stared at Lana, holding her gaze firmly. Lana saw something dark crawling behind his eyes. The chill of her spine spread throughout her entire body.
“So you came to see the old-timer, eh?”
“She’s interviewing various members of society while she’s here.”
“Well, I wouldn’t really know much. I don’t get away from my work too often, these days.”
“Do you know about any shipwrecks that have occurred which humans
may have survived?” Lana asked, trying not to give away more information on her father’s wreck than necessary. She couldn’t seem as if she were looking for someone in particular.
“Shipwrecks, eh. Sure I’ve heard of a couple, maybe four or five, but the chances of any of us seeing a human alive way down here are pretty low.”
Lana was about to ask Hyzine to elaborate when two mermen rushed into the blacksmith workshop.
“Merric! We need you right now.”
Lana stared at the two mermen. She hadn’t seen them before but they looked like brothers. They both had the same yellow scale patterns across their chests.
“Lomi, Lillen, what’s going on?” Merric swam over the opening of the blacksmith shop and waited for an answer.
“The Order needs you. Right now.” Lomi replied, unwilling to unveil anything else about the matter in front of non-Order members.
Merric turned to Lana with fear in his eyes. “We’ll have to cut this interview short.”
“She can stay and chat with me,” Hyzine offered. “Not common to have a young, beautiful mermaid talk to me every day.”
“Lana? Do you mind?” Merric asked her softly. He didn’t want to leave her alone, but it might be the best way. Merric wondered if the old merman would divulge any secret information while he was away. He knew the blacksmith had ears for hearing all the gossip, but he hardly ever participated.
Lana shook her head, smiling at the old merman. The chills that had overtaken her body had receded.
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Merric promised and then hurriedly left with Lillen and Lomi.
As soon as Merric was gone, Hyzine reached out and took Lana’s hand. She froze. The chill she had before returned and rushed through her once again. Lana felt like she was falling, the water swept over her gills but she couldn’t breathe.
“Lana, there’s no need to be afraid. I know why you’re really here.” Hyzine said assuredly.
Her eyes searched his face. He was still smiling.