by Tracy Kiser
“Merric, sit down. It’s okay; we’ll take you to the hospital and have your arm examined.” Aunt GiGi explained calmly. “Ben, get Ary. We have to go to the hospital.”
“Gillian, we can’t. He has no I.D., no birth certificate, no insurance, nothing. The hospital will check that stuff,” Ben said to his wife.
“Can’t you skip all of that stuff? You work there. Merric needs to go, Ben.” Gillian urged.
“You can’t just skip things like that, honey.” Ben shook his head, hands up in surrender.
“But Ben, he’s hurt.” Tears came to GiGi’s eyes.
Merric sat quietly, listening to his Aunt and Uncle. He had no idea what a hospital even was. The confusion was beginning to hurt his head. A dull ache pounded at the base of his neck. He wanted to just lie down on the couch and relax, his arm was killing him and Merric wished that Lana was here with him. She’d know exactly what to do to make him feel better.
Gillian paced the living room, her mind reeling. “You could do it here! Ben, you can examine him and make a cast or whatever.” She paused her pacing and looked at her husband with pleading eyes.
“I guess I could. We can figure out what’s sprained or broken, set it, and cast it.”
“Perfect! Then we don’t have to go to the hospital, or lie our butts off.”
Ben turned to face Merric. He walked over to the dark green couch and sat down beside his nephew. Ben placed his hand on Merric’s back. “Buddy, we’re going to fix your arm, but it’s going to hurt. A lot.”
Merric nodded. “What are you going to do?” He hadn’t heard half of the conversation. The half he had heard he had barely understood.
“Figure out which part of your arm is hurt, determine if the bone’s broken, and fix it.”
“Okay,” Merric agreed, not completely knowing how that was going to work. He stared down at his arm, expecting there to be some clue as to what had broken, but Merric didn’t know what he was looking for.
“Be right back, gotta’ grab some supplies from upstairs, first. Then we’ll work on that arm.”
Merric hung his head. Walking had turned out to be a lot harder than swimming. After Ben fixed his arm, he’d practice some more before he went to find Lana. Merric tried to keep exactly what he was working toward in the front of his mind to avert the pain: love.
* *
“How’s your arm feel?” Gillian asked as she walked into the bedroom they had given to Merric. He was lying back, propped up with pillows, his arm in a sling.
“Better than it did,” Merric admitted sheepishly.
“At least it was only a dislocated shoulder and not a broken radius,” Aunt Gillian said, trying to stay on the bright side.
“What’s a radius?” Merric asked, shifting slightly so he could sit up.
“One of the two bones in your lower arm,” Gillian answered, pointing to Merric’s forearm, showing him where the bone was.
“Oh,” Merric nodded, understanding.
“So how was the darkness?” Gillian sat on the edge of the bed, facing her nephew.
“Horrible. Do you remember it?” Merric imagined Gillian writhing in pain, and then his thoughts went to Lana. They always went back to her. He didn’t want to think that she had gone through that much pain twice.
“Like it was yesterday. It was the worst pain I’ve ever felt.”
“I know,” Merric agreed. “Sorry about turning, I know you wanted to think it over. I didn’t know Ary would do that or else I would have been more careful.”
“Ary’s a very special little girl. She picks up on things so quickly. We had to tell her all about the merpeople and the changing process already because of what happens when she gets in water,” Gillian explained. “She probably picked up on the fact that you wanted to change and knew that she could help you.”
“What do you mean what happens when she gets in water?” Merric questioned, not understanding what Gillian was trying to say.
“She’s half mermaid half human, Merric. When she gets in water, she changes instantaneously. Then she walks out of the water a human again. She can be either one, whenever she wants, which isn’t going to be too easy to control when she’s at the running away age,” Gillian laughed.
“Are you serious? She can do that? I’ve never heard of that before in all the history lessons or biology I’ve taken at school. That’s… unbelievable,” Merric said, completely astonished at the power his cousin had.
“Yea, we had no idea, until the first time we went swimming. Thank God it was in our back yard instead of a public pool.”
The two sat in silence for a moment. Gillian didn’t want to leave her nephew in here alone, but she knew he needed the rest.
“GiGi, when will you take me to see Lana?” Merric broke the stillness of the room.
“We’ll go in a few days. I really think it’s a bad idea, but I understand that you love her and you have to try to win her back. It’s a popular theme in some of the novels I’ve read,” Gillian teased. “And if Atargatis said it was okay then who am I to argue? She is the Goddess. But it’s a long ways away. I know you don’t really know any geography about the United States, but we live in Louisiana and Lana lives in North Carolina.”
“Yea, I have no idea what that means,” Merric replied shaking his head.
“It’s kind of like the different merpeople populations, only they’re called states. Does that make sense?” Gillian watched Merric nod, taking in the information. “And each state has a name to describe its location in relation to the whole. Our state is Louisiana, and her state is North Carolina.”
Merric continuously nodded his head, thinking over what Gillian had just described. “I think I get it.”
“I’m going to let you get some more rest, so just take it easy and I’ll see you in the morning.” Gillian rose from the bed and stood beside Merric. She leaned down and kissed his forehead. “Goodnight Merric.”
“Goodnight GiGi,” he replied, watching her walk out of the room, wondering exactly how far away Lana was from him.
Chapter 33
Lana stood in the empty living room. Everything that reminded her of home was gone.
The hard wood floor was cold and bare, even the sunlight illuminating the grain sent a chill up Lana’s spine. Family memories danced on the edge of Lana’s mind. Would moving away mean giving up the memories? She would take them with her, but without the house to feel them, would they begin to recess into blurred images of a time that she could no longer remember?
Leaving the living room, Lana walked into the kitchen. The stools for the island were still present and she climbed up to relax. With elbows on the bar, Lana’s hands covered her face. She didn’t want to move. This was her home. It was a part of her. She wasn’t ready to part with it. Not like this. Not to move into Daniel’s house so that they could be a family.
They already were a family. Did Daniel really have to the take on the role of father, when she loved him more as her adopted Uncle? Lana understood that it wasn’t the house that made the home, but with her father still living in the middle of the ocean, the house was all she had left of her former family. The family that she loved more than anything even if her mom was OCD and Daniel was the wacky Uncle who still called her ‘kid’ like she when she was ten.
Lana did not want to give that up, but the choice wasn’t hers. Her mother had already been living with Daniel for a while. At least, practically. Most nights Lana stayed at their house alone, getting lost in a novel or walking down to the pier to see the sail boats, wishing she was however many miles out on the water, waiting for Merric. Even spending time with her best friends, Tara and Addie, didn’t help cheer her up.
She still missed Merric more than anything. Sometimes Lana wished that she would have never read that logbook. Never read any of them. If she would have just left them alone, she would be ignorantly happy with Aiden, not knowing that someone who she would have loved more lived underneath the ocean with her father. Better yet, if
her father would have never gone on that trip, then none of this would have happened. She wouldn’t have grown up without a father. Lana’s family would still be complete. The play of her life wouldn’t be missing any characters. Then she wouldn’t have to worry about moving away from her childhood home or about starting a new family where everyone had different labels, different roles.
But the past was the past. Lana couldn’t change it. She couldn’t go back and make her father stay home. Or make her mother not have feelings for Daniel. Or force herself to be satisfied with a ‘lost at sea’ father or a sweet boyfriend who cared more for her than she did for him. She would forever have to accept that this was how her teenage life turned out and move on. Merric was a merman, no matter how ridiculous that sounded. And she was a human who needed to finish packing her room.
Lana slid off of the bar stool and forced herself up the stairs into a bedroom filled with cardboard boxes and bare walls. But she couldn’t pack. She sat on the edge of her bed and let the tears come as if they were her only companions. With tears streaming down her cheeks, Lana realized that she wasn’t crying for the things in her life that she couldn’t change. She was crying because she wouldn’t change anything even if she could. The heartache that filled her chest was justified because she had fallen in love. The world had given her happiness after living under a storm cloud for ten years.
The world had given her a chance at real love. Greater than the love that she and Aiden had. As a girl on the brink of adulthood, she had found something that many people would never find. How could she possibly want to go back and change that?
Lana laid back on her bed and let the heartache wash over her. She’d never regret her trip to the Bermuda Triangle. She hadn’t failed at bringing her father back. Lana had succeeded at finding love.
* *
Merric was eating pancakes, with a contraption that Ben had called a fork. Half of the stack still remained on his plate completely drenched in butter, maple syrup, and powdered sugar. Pancakes were officially his favorite food. His Aunt Gillian had made them every morning along with bacon, eggs, and toast. Merric hadn’t seen much of the human world, but he was thoroughly enjoying it.
“Ready for the big trip?” Ben asked as he watched Merric scarf down a huge chunk of pancake bliss.
“What?” Merric asked, coughing.
“Whoa, slow down buddy,” Ben laughed, taking a bite of bacon from his own breakfast.
Merric’s eyes shot to Gillian. “Today?” He froze, fork in hand, staring at his Aunt, waiting for her answer.
She nodded. “We’re going today. I figured if we leave today then that’ll give us Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. Just in case it takes some time to find her. It’s a long trip and we won’t get into Morehead City until late.” Gillian shook her head back and forth, “I still can’t believe I’m doing this.”
“Morehead City? Is that the population she lives in?” Merric questioned, increasing his eating speed so that they could leave sooner.
“Technically, yes. Morehead is the city she lives in. It’s near the beaches of North Carolina.” Gillian slowly took a bite of her pancakes, being careful not to drip any syrup on her clothes.
“How long will it take us to travel there?” Merric pushed his empty plate away and gulped at his orange juice.
“About eighteen to nineteen hours. Maybe more depending on how many times we stop to fill up the tank or grab some food,” Gillian estimated.
“What do you mean fill up the tank?” Merric’s face was the ultimate portrayal of confusion. He had been a human for a mere five days and he had yet to see a car, let alone ride in one.
“How do I explain this?” Gillian asked her husband, who only shrugged, motioning her with his hands to begin.
“I have to hear this,” Ben chuckled.
“Well, we’ll be traveling by car. It’s a machine that allows people to get from one place to another quicker and more efficiently.” Gillian smiled nervously as she stared at her nephew. He had no idea what she was talking about. “You’ll just have to see it for yourself.”
Ben laughed. “You’ll like it Merric. Cars are one of the ‘guy’ things I was telling you about.”
“Guy things?” Gillian’s eyebrows raised in perfect arcs. “What do you mean you were telling him about guy things?”
Ben took a quick bite of his pancakes to buy some time. “Oh, you know, just the usual, sports…cars…”
“Beer,” Merric added smiling. “I guess that’s one of my favorites since I don’t really know about sports or cars yet.”
“You gave him beer? Ben! I can’t believe you. You gave our nephew beer!”
“What?” Ben raised his hands in mock surrender and innocence. “He’s twenty-one! Not like I was supplying to a minor…”
Gillian continued to shake her head in disapproval as Merric turned to face his Uncle. “Did we do something wrong?”
Chapter 34
“This is a car?” Merric stared with wide confused eyes at the huge white mass of what looked like metal and see through walls. “Why are there invisible parts?”
Ben chuckled. “It’s called glass. You can see through it but it also keeps you separated from the outside of the car.”
Gillian loaded the travel bags into the trunk while Merric circled the automobile. “What are you doing Aunt GiGi? Where are you putting our stuff?”
“This is the trunk. It’s a space where you store things you need for traveling.” She showed him how the bags fit into the trunk and then slammed the lid down. “Keeps stuff out of the main part of the car so there’s more room for the people riding.”
Merric circled the car once more taking in what Gillian and Ben had just told him. He lifted his hand and knocked on the glass. The small noise surprised him. He stopped and stared at Ben. “How do we get in?”
Gillian laughed and Ben joined her almost immediately. A heat crept into Merric’s cheeks. “Sorry,” Gillian stammered. “I didn’t realize how strange a car must look to someone who has never seen one before.” She walked around the where Merric was standing. “All you do is lift the handle.” Gillian demonstrated the motion and then waited for Merric to open the passenger seat door.
Merric slowly lifted the handle. “Now pull towards you,” Gillian instructed. The door swung open with ease. Gillian pointed to the front seat. “That’s where you sit.”
Merric hesitated. “What about Uncle Ben?”
“He’s staying home this weekend with Ary. Just you and me on this trip,” Gillian smiled.
Merric turned away from the car and sat down in the passenger seat. He found it surprisingly comfortable. He could definitely sit here for the next however long until the car took him to Lana. He didn’t understand how long 19 hours was, but was certain it would go by quickly.
When Merric swung his legs into the car Ben leaned in. “Have a good time, buddy. And good luck.” He smiled and shut the door, closing Merric in the car. Merric watched as Ben and Gillian said their goodbyes and had a quick kiss before Gillian got in the driver’s seat.
“Buckle in,” Gillian said indicating the safety belt that hung above Merric’s shoulder. With his arm in a sling, it took him a minute to reach and buckle the belt. Gillian nodded her head in approval. “Ready to go?”
Merric nodded, taking in the interior of the automobile that would take him to Lana. Gillian turned the key in the ignition and the car roared to life. Merric automatically grabbed onto the arm rest and the door handle in shock. “What was that?”
“Just me starting the car,” Gillian replied, stifling a laugh. She shifted it into drive and the car started pulling forward.
“Is this supposed to happen?” Merric’s eyes held fear. This couldn’t be right. The car was supposed to take him to Lana, but Gillian was controlling it.
“This is exactly what’s supposed to happen.” Gillian put on her blinker and prepared to stop at a signal light a block away from the house. “Calm down Merric. I promise, I�
�ll get you to Lana.”
Merric let out a sigh of relief and tried to relax, leaning back into the cushioned seat, releasing his grip on the arm rest.
* *
“Are we almost there?” Merric asked yet again, hoping that this time the answer wouldn’t be no. He stared out of the window, understanding almost nothing he saw.
“Another hour or so,” Gillian answered, staring straight ahead.
Merric was getting restless. They had been in the car for what seemed like forever. Gillian hadn’t been kidding when she said it was a long ways away. They had stopped five times already to either fill up the gas tank, get Gillian coffee, use the restrooms, or buy some food. Merric had hoped that the drive, as Gillian called it, would go by quickly, but it hadn’t. It had dragged on. The sun had set hours ago and sleep time was upon them. They were never going to make it.
“GiGi, I don’t know what that means…” Merric’s voice held frustration and Gillian wished she knew how to explain it so it would make sense.
“See that clock on the dash board?”
“Yea,” Merric replied seeing the glow of designs coming from the darkness. “But I don’t know what the numbers mean.” Being a human was so complicated. Being a merman was a lot easier. He didn’t understand how Gillian already knew everything. It seemed like it would take him a lifetime just to figure out cars and beer and speaking correctly.
“Well, it’s about to be light outside and it will be about five, when the clock reads five we’ll be really, really close.” She glanced over at her nephew’s face and knew she hadn’t made any sense. “Never mind, I’m sorry that I’m not good at explaining these kinds of things.”
“It’s okay. I haven’t been human very long but I can tell there are lots of things that I don’t know.” Merric’s voice held a tone of sadness to it. Would it be this hard to be with Lana as a human? Merric didn’t know if Lana was going to want to go back with him to the Bermuda population right away, or wait a while so she could say a proper farewell to her family. He just hoped he got the “hang of it,” as his Uncle Ben assured him he would.