by Erin Hayes
I thought that would excite the other dolphins, though it surprisingly didn’t. I glanced back at them, and they were still watching me, hanging on my every word.
I turned back to Kai. His eye regarded me for a moment before giving me a single nod. “Good.”
“No, that’s not good, Kai,” I said.
“Why not?”
“Because I’m a human. I need to be able to live on the land. I don’t need to worry about breathing underwater.”
“But the ocean is so nice! You can do whatever you want in the ocean. Why would you want to stay on land? You’ve been given a gift.”
Yes, I could consider it a gift. I’d wanted to be a mermaid all my life. Now that it was happening, I didn’t want it to be. I was human. That underwater world was unknown, scary. I didn’t really want to be a...a...what was it that Nereia had said? Merwalker.
“The sea witch called me a merwalker,” I said. “Do you know what that is?”
The other dolphins went crazy, clicking their answers, incoherent in their elation. Kai just stared at me wide-eyed.
“You do know what that is,” I said, frowning.
“It’s a fairytale,” Kai said in awe. “I thought they weren’t real.”
Like mermaids. I nearly laughed out loud in the irony.
“I want to find Nereia again, to undo this. Please.” I reached out and touched his nose. He leaned into it, closing his big eyes. “And I swear, I’ll help you get out of here.”
It was the right thing to do. I was going to find a way if I had to jump into the pool and carry him out myself. I owed him that much. He deserved better.
Kai regarded me for a second more before turning away. I thought he had dismissed me and my hopes fell until he said, “Just go into the ocean and say, ‘Finn, I’m here’.”
“Really?”
“Don’t worry, he’ll find you.”
I heard commotion across the way to the entrance to the dolphin pools. Someone had either found me or they were going to stumble upon me. I grabbed my mermaid tail and clutched it to my chest. I crouched and ran over to the edge of the landing, heading towards the ocean.
“I will be back,” I whispered to Kai. “I will set you free, okay, buddy?”
“Tell Finn hi for me.” It seemed like he, too, was skeptical about my odds of setting him free.
Perhaps he thought that I would somehow be persuaded to stay in the ocean. Even though the idea of it was impossible to me, I promised myself that if it ever happened and I did stay in the ocean, I’d still find a way to get the dolphin calf out of here.
I pulled myself over the fence, careful not to slip and fall. I hop-skipped down the rocks, being very careful not to misstep, trying to move quickly to stay out of sight from whoever was coming.
“Hey, fellas,” a voice said from over the ledge, addressing the dolphins. “Hungry?”
The dolphins went crazy, excited for one last feeding for the night. Their voices jumbled together into an incoherent cacophony. If it wasn’t directly into my head, I would have covered my ears.
Despite their raucousness, I could hear Kai’s voice over it, calling to me.
“Good luck.”
The water below looked like it was lapping at the sharp rocks a bit too forcefully, reminding me of a meat grinder. No wonder I’d hit my head when I slipped off.
I hesitated, struggling to determine the best place to dive into the ocean. Finn had somehow found a place to come up onto the shore without being torn to shreds; I just couldn’t find it. It all looked treacherous and scary.
Then I spotted it, a space where I could leap and land into what I thought was calm water. I could be completely wrong and have a riptide throw me out to sea. I really had no idea how deep it was. I guessed that was where Finn had come in for his rescue mission, and that was going to have to be where I landed in the water.
I gripped the tail to my body, determined that I wouldn’t lose it. Once I got in the water, I would put on my tail and swim. After the spectacle I made earlier that day, I could handle these waves and rushing water.
I closed my eyes, willing myself to take the jump. Finally, I leaped out into empty air and plunged to the churning water below.
Instead of the rocks, I miraculously hit the water with a loud splash, and I scissored my legs open, attempting to stop my descent. Panic jammed my senses all at once when I opened my mouth and filled my lungs with water. At the same time, whatever part of me was turning into a fish knew exactly how to breathe, and I began to inhale normally. Though my mind didn’t know how to handle the ocean, my body did.
That didn’t help the crashing of the waves or my tumbling head over heels. The mermaid tail was torn from my grasp, floating off into the water. Although everything was all discombobulated, I couldn’t let my lifeline get swept away. I blindly reached out, and despite the odds, my fingers found it. I gripped it with everything I had, like my life depended on it.
I kicked, willing myself to get out of the current and away from the churning water against the rocks. That underwater instinct that I’d felt during the performance took over, calming my nerves, and I was able to dolphin kick away and shoot through the sea like some sort of missile.
By a stroke of luck, I hadn’t died or gotten severely injured. I’d had quite a few near deaths in the last twenty-four hours.
After several long, agonizing moments, the water got calmer as I moved further away from the rocks. I surfaced, surprised to find that I was a good two hundred yards from the shore. The aquarium glistened like a miniature city on the edge of land and beyond it, the suburbs of Houston.
“I’ll be back,” I promised Kai. I wasn’t going to fail. I was going to make this work.
After I shimmied into my tail, I started searching the water for Finn. Given that I was swimming like a fish without it, I probably didn’t need it; however, since the odds were so stacked against me, I would take every bit of help I could get.
Besides, it felt like my last touch with familiarity as I was headed into the unknown.
I floated on my back in the water and looked at the dark sky, thinking I’d gone crazy. One, for believing that I was turning into a mermaid; two, for thinking that I could talk to dolphins; and then believing that I could find a certain merman in all of the vast ocean.
“Finn?” I called to the night air. “I’m here.”
I waited, drifting on the waves for what seemed like an eternity but was probably only for a few minutes. Nothing and no indication that anything had changed when I had called for Finn’s help.
Of course.
Okay, so it was going to be a bit harder than a simple request for help. I flipped onto my stomach and submerged, heading out to sea. I had no direction in mind, except away from the shore. I went deeper and deeper, further and further at an impossible depth, distance, and time for an ordinary human.
My mind wasn’t on the impossibility of the situation. I was too busy reveling in how beautiful everything was under the water. The water was a deep blue, stretching out from me in all directions. Schools of fish swam in perfect formation, and based on the murmur in the water, the fish were talking amongst themselves. I could see the kelp sway with the current, and I even spotted a few jellyfish lazing around, speaking in low, unfazed conversations. I heard whales in the distance, singing to each other in heart-wrenching songs that I now understood. I saw a crab swimming by me, musing out loud who I was. Some fish were curious, swimming right up next to me to investigate.
It was magical. I could see why Kai was so adamant that I wouldn’t want to go back to land. Every time I’d been in the ocean before, it was on the shore or in a boat on top of it. I never witnessed how alive everything was around me.
Perhaps my transformation had something to with it as well. I didn’t think normal humans saw this way, and they certainly couldn’t breathe underwater like I was.
I felt sad that once I went back to my old self, I wasn’t going to have this. I brushed the thoug
ht from my mind, scared by how accurate Kai’s predication was.
A snapper wiggled his way next to me, moving his head so he could keep an eye on me at all times. He’d been following me for a while, so I got the sense that he wasn’t just a random fish following a random mermaid.
“Hey?” I asked timidly, strangely remembering my mother’s warning to never speak to strangers. Did that include talking to curious fish?
I stopped swimming so I could face the fish. The snapper’s eyes widened, and he stopped as well.
“I-I’m looking for someone... uh...”
“Who are you looking for?” the snapper asked.
I sighed in relief. “Uhm, Finn,” I said. Do mermen have last names? “Finn, the Merman.”
The snapper swam right up to me and turned to the side so he could get a good look at me. “You’re looking for Finn? I know Finn! What do you want with him?”
“I need to ask him a favor.” I wasn’t sure how far in depth I should go. I remembered Finn’s and Nereia’s reaction when I told them that I was a fake mermaid. I didn’t want to spook the snapper by telling him that I was a human in a mermaid tail. “Do you know where I can find him?”
“You simply ask for him,” the snapper said, confusion coloring his voice.
“I tried that already.” I waited a beat, letting the wave of irritation ebb. “It didn’t work.”
The fish chuckled at me in a fit of glistening scales and bubbly water. I didn’t know that fish could laugh, so I gawped at him, dumbfounded.
“You must not have done it underwater. He couldn’t hear you, silly.”
“What?” Come to think of it, I guess even though I’d been in the water, I had said it outside of the water. “I guess I could try it.”
“How else would he hear you?”
Okay, so the fish was making fun of me. “Hey buddy, this is all new to me.”
“I couldn’t tell.”
His sarcasm made my eye twitch. Who knew that fish could be sarcastic?
I closed my eyes and focused on the problem at hand. “Finn?” My voice trembled, even though I was trying to speak loudly and with authority. “Finn, I’m here. I need you,” I added that last part quietly.
“See? That’s better.”
“Yeah, like he could hear me.” Yes, I had spoken loudly, but even screaming wouldn’t carry that far over the ocean.
“He can hear you.”
I put my hands on my hips and waited in the water, the snapper hanging out next to me. A minute passed by, two minutes. Nothing happened. How long should I wait for a response?
“He didn’t hear me,” I grumbled.
“You really need to learn patience,” the fish chided. “You know how vast the ocean is, right?”
“Yes, which is exactly why I should get going,” I told him desperately. “I really need to find him tonight.”
I flicked my tail to zoom off, and something caught my wrist, holding me back. At first, ridiculously, I thought it was the snapper somehow holding onto my wrist. When I turned back, I saw sea green eyes studying me with the same incredulous look I was probably giving him.
“What are you doing here?” Finn asked me.
“I—I—” I stammered, tongue-tied for the moment. He was still bare-chested, still sporting those rock-hard abs, still gorgeous, and, most importantly, he was here. He had heard me, and he came for me.
Finn’s face twisted into a disapproving frown. “And what are you doing wearing that?”
It took me a moment to realize what he was talking about. I looked down and saw the fake mermaid tail. Despite it all, I burst out laughing, which was more from relief than anything else.
“That?” I rubbed a hand over my tail. “That’s kinda why I’m here...”
Now that someone who could take control of the situation and help me out was here, everything came tumbling down at once, my own emotions coming in like a tide. My fears about what was happening crashed into me, threatening to overwhelm me. Someone else could take care of it, and I wouldn’t be stuck with gills or a real tail.
I could be normal again. And then I could help out Kai, following through on my promise. I’ve been let down in the past by life. I wasn’t going to let him down. With Finn’s help, we could figure out a way. I was sure of it.
I collapsed into his chest, deep sobs wracking me. Awkwardly, he put a hand around my shoulders, not knowing what else to do.
“I’m so glad you’re here.”
Chapter Six
As I learned a few minutes later, throwing yourself at a boy, especially if he was a half-naked merman, makes for an awkward conversation afterward. It took a few minutes for the tears to stop, and I was so embarrassed by my crying afterward, I couldn’t look him in the eye.
“What are you doing here?” Finn asked me again. He steadied me at arm’s length, probably trying to keep me from grabbing at him again. To my relief, his expression was warm and concerned, so that in itself was comforting.
I took a steadying breath, and I felt the gills under my jaw flare as a painful reminder of what was happening to my body. The words threatened to deluge all at once, so I closed my eyes, fighting to hold them back.
“Thank you for saving me yesterday.”
He raised an eyebrow but didn’t say anything.
“But whatever Nereia did to me, it’s turning me into a—a mermaid, I think.” The words tumbled out, and I ended my sentence on a sob. “She called me a merwalker.”
Finn gave me a hard look. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I’m turning into something like you. Surely you noticed that I’m freaking breathing underwater?” I said, exasperation eclipsing any other emotion. I cocked my head back and pointed to the gills. “Those weren’t there yesterday!”
Finn reached out as if to touch the gills, his face unreadable at the too-intimate gesture. He shook his head and cursed under his breath. I didn’t know what the words were exactly. Whatever translated sea-speak into English for me only identified them as vulgar words.
“It was meant to be temporary,” he said, his voice a little strangled. “Only until you returned to the surface.”
“Yeah, well I did, and Nereia did something permanent.”
“I can see that.” He combed his fingers through his hair. “Dammit. I’d hoped that she wouldn’t do that.”
“What, you knew she could turn me into a mermaid?” I shrieked.
“Merwalker,” he corrected. “And it was always a possibility.” He groaned. “Nobody really knows what goes on in that head of hers. She must have thought there was a purpose in turning you into a merwalker.”
I remembered her words. You should come back and visit...
“So you’re saying she’s—”
“Crazy,” he said simply. “She was the only one who could save you, though. I had no choice.”
“Excuse me, I’m still here.”
We both looked up to see the snapper eyeing us warily, his mouth open in a big ‘o’. “Did I just hear you say that you are turning into a mermaid? But your tail...”
“It’s a fake tail, Ponce,” Finn said, his entire demeanor changing when he addressed the fish. He crossed his arms, increasing the distance between us. “She’s a human.”
That stung, like it was some sort of insult. “For now,” I added coldly.
Ponce, the nosy snapper, gaped at me. “A human? A real human? I mean, you were acting funny trying to call Finn here. I just figured that was for a date.”
“No!” I said quickly, my cheeks turning bright red. While Finn looked as embarrassed as me, it looked endearing on him. “I need help. I need to stop this. Can you take me to Nereia’s cave or whatever it was?”
To my dismay, Finn shook his head. “I can’t. She’s not there. She’s...she’s out collecting fire flowers.”
“What?” I asked, feeling the pit of dread clench my stomach.
“Well, you see, I dropped the potion, so she has to go find ingredients for it. My f
ather ordered her to hurry, so she left immediately. We don’t expect to see her until tomorrow.”
“Why? Where?” Then something struck me as odd about Finn’s statement, and I narrowed my eyes. “Wait, who is your father?”
It was Finn’s turn to turn bright red, averting his eyes from mine.
“King Oceanus,” Ponce answered for him in a smug voice.
I bit back a nervous giggle. “King Oceanus? Then that would make you...” I ended up dumbly gaping at Finn, who wouldn’t look at me.
“A prince,” Ponce finished when it was evident that a catfish had got my tongue. “Prince Finn. How did you not know that?”
“Ponce,” Finn warned, and at the same time I stammered, “H-hello, I’m a human!”
Holy crap, I’d been fawning over an undersea prince this entire time!
At my outburst, both merman and fish stopped to look at me. Even underwater, my chest was heaving as I breathed in and out, frustrated and shocked by the whole thing.
“You’re a prince?”
Finn flashed me his gorgeous smile, amused by my bewilderment. “Sometimes. I do prefer to just be Finn.”
My eyes were entirely too wide, and Finn’s expression of delight twisted my insides in a pleasant way. I had to slow my roll or else I was going to fall flat on my face.
“When will Nereia be back?” I asked, my voice mangled as I tried valiantly not to fawn over him.
“Tomorrow,” Finn—Prince Finn, holy crap—said. “It’s a long journey to get fire flowers.” He sighed. “I shouldn’t have dropped the potion last night.”
“Could we get it?”
“No. It has to be fresh. It’s been way too long for it to work. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be a problem.”
Frustration threatened with angry tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. “I thought you said she’s hurrying?”
“She can’t take that long,” Finn muttered, combing a hand through his swirls of hair. I must have looked crestfallen, because his expression softened, and he put a hand on my shoulder, giving it a quick squeeze. “Listen, I’ll take you to my father. He’ll know where Nereia is, and then we can find her. See if she can change you back from being a merwalker.”