Marty turns around, way too happy for a human on a deserted island full of supernatural creatures. But, hey, he seems like he’s used to it. “Follow the yellow brick road, right?”
“He’s funny,” Thalia says. “I hope the guards don’t kill him.”
“If they don’t,” I go, “I think I will.” It feels nice making empty threats. As king, I may not get that luxury.
The moment I turn away from the stormy horizon is the moment that this is for real. Arion’s ship is a diminishing speck getting closer to the wall that hides the Coney Island shore—the pier where I put my hand under Catherine Valdorama’s bikini top when we were thirteen. The pretty nurse who gave me my tetanus shot when I cut my arm on a broken beer bottle after diving for a volleyball spike. All of that seems like it happened to a different person.
Thalia tugs on the strap of my backpack, because I keep stopping to stare—at the violet flowers that bloom like stars and the sparkling white sand. I grab a handful of it and let it slip through my fingers.
Tall, slender trees form a path into the island. Their leaves are a raw green. I pull on one and rub the leafy skin between my fingers. There’s a thin layer of water on them, and when I let it go, the other leaves spray me with a thin mist.
Thalia sings a wordless melody, and soon enough we all march to her rhythm as though she’s our pied piper.
The trail leads us to the mouth of a river. There’s an archway with pillars that would better fit an ancient Greek temple. But perhaps this is their temple, their church on the sea. I remember asking my mom why we didn’t go to church like Layla and her parents, and she’d say, “Because we have this,” lying out on the Coney Island sand with her toes tucked under the surf.
Little things like that make more sense now.
The pillars themselves are majestic: each has a long trident mounted on the front, like the tattoo that decorates my spine. I can feel the magic pulsing through my being, the ink mingling in my blood somehow.
Sea lions are sunbathing on stones the color of their skins, so they blend into each other. They raise their heads, and when they see us, their bodies shimmer and they become slender girls who dive right into the river. They bop in and out of the water, joined by young mermaids and iridescent fish and some things I don’t even have names for. They simply follow us with their chimed laughter.
The ground beneath us glitters. The river ends in a waterfall that falls like silk against the boulders. Somewhere inside me, this place seems familiar, like something out of a dream that I can’t remember. Layla and Marty have stopped here to wait for us. “I guess this is where the yellow brick road ends.”
“At least we don’t have to cross a field of opiatic poppies.” Marty laughs curtly, then adds nervously, “Right?”
“Is there a shortcut?” Layla shields the sun from her eyes as she looks up to the top of the waterfall. The wall keeps going up even past the source of the water.
“Court is behind this wall,” Kurt answers stiffly. “Just—stop asking so many questions.”
She’s about to argue, but she catches my eye, and I give her my most pleading look to let it go.
“The other way is through the tunnels underwater,” Thalia adds. “But those are not for foot-fins. The only way is up.”
Marty looks to Layla and mouths, Foot-fins? She shakes her head and shrugs.
I place a hand on the rough rock wall. Carved steps in the rock slope up to the top, as though whoever was sculpting the stairs wanted to keep them hidden. From this angle, it looks like they lead right up to the sun.
“At least you know there’s only one way up or down.” Marty swallows hard, tapping his fingers nervously on his box.
“I’ll lead the way,” Kurt grumbles.
“You okay?” I whisper to him.
He holds on to a root protruding from the earth and uses it to pull himself up, three steps at a time. His violet eyes glance at Layla, who looks as at home behind me as she does on the rock-climbing wall at the Y. “I have a lot of explaining to do,” Kurt says.
“She’s not your responsibility,” I go. “She’s mine.”
“Still, I should know better.”
I think if I pat him on the back sympathetically, he’ll push me right back down the steps. I wonder what it feels like to always be so wound up. If Kurt is this way and he’s doing all he can, what am I going to do with an entire civilization on my shoulders? For an ancient being, my grandfather sure has a lot riding on a teenage nothing from Brooklyn.
I stop to catch my breath and wriggle out the cramp in my fingers. I wonder if Kurt resents me for being such a pain in the ass and having to play baby-sitter not just to Thalia but to me too. And for real this time, I’m going to make an effort to be nicer to him.
“Surely you can keep up,” he says when he notices I’ve slowed down behind him.
Maybe I’ll start being nicer to him tomorrow.
•••
The sun beats hard on the ground, which has thin cracks running all through it. From up here I can see the way the thin river snakes through the forest of misty-leaved trees, the pillars that mark the entrance, the shore where the tide has already erased our footprints from the shore, the horizon, the wall, the point where the clouds turn dark—and behind that, Coney Island.
“Quite a sight for someone who’s never seen it before,” Kurt says, pulling me up first, then Layla. She teeters with the newness of this height and grabs onto Kurt’s shoulders, digging into his skin with her yellow nails. Her eyes focus on the pitfall, the way the dark green of the forest melts into the waterfall so it looks like a cloud of mist. I can hear her gasp, and I don’t know if it’s because she’s scared of falling, or because she’s looking into Kurt’s eyes and is surprised by their color. She looked at me that way once.
“Hot damn!” Marty holds the cardboard box over his head in a triumphant pose. “I’m the ultimate king of the world.”
Thalia pokes him in the stomach, and he tenses up completely.
“No tickling unless we want me to plummet to certain doom.”
And it is a most certain doom. Below us is a sight I have no name for—grotto, oasis, mermaid paradise? It’s like someone took an ice-cream scoop and hollowed out the back side of a mountain and left this. A lake the size of two Olympic-sized pools is nestled in the ground. It’s light blue at the top, and the bottom fades into black. Smooth boulders line the sandy lake that sparkles in the direct sunlight. When the shiny things move, I realize it’s not the rocks that are glittering but the mermaids curled and napping in the sun.
I knock some loose rocks with my foot. They fall over the ledge, bouncing off the side of the cliff rock wall until they hit the ground. Heads snap up, one by one, like piano keys picking themselves up after a finger slides all along the keyboard. There’s a section at the other end of the lake where the leaves are the size of car doors and hung with sheer draping like the sails on Arion’s ship.
The mermaids below sigh and gasp. There aren’t any OMGs or WTFs or Can-you-believe-its? These sounds are the highest notes on a violin, a melody that is so pleasant I never want it to stop. And for the first time, I wonder if this is what I sound like when I talk, even if it’s just a fraction of this?
Kurt leads the way down. Along the side of the cliff is a narrow ledge that zigzags all the way down so we have to press our backs to the wall and walk sideways. The entire court is watching our descent, and suddenly I wonder if I’ll ever stop feeling like a sideshow attraction.
I’ve grown up with pictures of mermaids in my mother’s books, and I’ve been to the Mermaid Parade every year since I can remember. Lots of fishnets and seashell bras. Nothing like the girls clustered down there like handfuls of Skittles. They perch on flat rocks with their fins dipped in the water. Seal girls stand on the shore in their nakedness, hair flowing over their breasts. They wave at us and blow kisses. They push their hair away from their faces and gather it over one shoulder. They wink and let loose with the
ir beautiful voices again. They shine like stars floating on the sea, tails licking at the water from their perches.
I wonder if anyone else’s tongue feels as dry as mine.
When we hit the ground, Marty holds on to his box for dear life. “Remind me to bring a snorkel for the tunnels next time around.”
We walk along the water. Groups of mermaids gather under the fan-like leaves of tall trees. I try not to stare, but this kind of weird is different than seeing a guy in drag on the subway: these are mermaids. Some have slender pixie faces with long ears that point out through their hair. Their fins fan wide and outward, elegant and in a burst of scales that vary from subtle yellows to pinks. There is a girl so small and purple that when she smiles her black teeth are jolting. There is a woman with long blond curls holding a baby mermaid in her arms. It wriggles—well, like a fish—and points at us.
I nudge at Layla and point out the baby. “That’s how I was born.” And she stares at the family too, wonder and confusion blurring her hazel eyes. She takes my hand because maybe she feels how freaked out I am, and maybe she is too, but at least we’re together. At least I can share this with her. She points at the guards. “How come the gladiators are on feet too?”
“Something about a squid tattoo,” I joke. “I promise I’ll tell you later.” She squeezes my hand in reply.
The soldiers wear metal shields that cover their chest and a chain-link skirt sort of thing that covers their junk, which I guess makes for an easy shift. They wear gold cuffs on each wrist. Walking past them is like casually walking past a line of armed marines. Don’t mind us, we were personally invited by the king; pretty please keep those sharp and deadly swords in their scabbards.
Past the guards are tent-like sections housing what must be the court merfolk Kurt mentioned once, the ones who are allowed to have feet. These princesses aren’t like the mergirls baking on the rocks. These sit up tall. Their scales form around their breasts. Their long hair is gathered and looped through all sorts of shells, dripping with pearls and golden baubles.
One is the most breathtaking of them all, a girl with white-blond hair twisted around an open conch shell. She holds my stare with her gray eyes. She sits at the foot of a guy who reminds me of a naked grizzly, all shoulders and chest and full beard. He crosses his arms over his chest and gives me his cheek. Well, that’s not a good way to make friends, is it?
Past the row of decadent tents is a line of the others who were on Arion’s ship with us. They stand on either side of the throne. They’re holding gifts. I feel for the backpack my mom filled up for me.
And there is a deep Ahem, like the sea itself is clearing its throat.
I turn slowly, my eyes flitting from the gray-eyed princess to the rows of guards who kneel, to the merfolk in the water whose heads are bowed. Kurt and Thalia are kneeling. Marty takes a cue and does the same. So does Layla.
I don’t know if it’s the shock of his face or just because I’m stupid. But I just stand there. There he sits, like a statue that belongs in the middle of Central Park. He is taller than me, taller than anyone I’ve ever seen in my life. With legs like tree trunks and with his ankles covered in scales and tiny barnacles. They glisten with water and light. The hairs on his legs are golden against skin that is tanned like well-beaten leather, a lifeguard’s tan like mine. He wears the same warrior metal as the others, but his armor looks worn from decades of sea air. The scattered scales along his arms and legs are the color of the sky just before twilight, a blue that is hard and endless.
The Sea King.
“Hello, Tristan.” His is a deep baritone, a conch shell with an endless hollow. And my mind goes completely and totally blank, like staring at a test that I know the answers to but stayed up too late studying for and forgot.
So all I can say is, “Uhh. Hi.”
And that’s all I’ve got.
My grandfather.
The Sea King.
White hair curls around his shoulders. He has a short beard, like General Grant and George Clooney, and I wonder if that is how I’ll look when I’m his age. If I ever get to be a couple of thousand years old.
“You brought us something?” His turquoise eyes, framed by a strong brow and bushy gray eyebrows, look to Layla and then back at me.
“Uhh—” I bow awkwardly before taking a step forward. “No, no. She’s a friend.”
Kurt stands and walks over us. “It is my fault, sire. She—”
“No, it’s my fault—” Layla says.
“Lord Tristan, I take responsibility—” Kurt tries again.
“I say they blame it on the urchin brothers,” Marty chimes in.
To the right of my grandfather, a little green boy with webbed feet and a raw redness around his gills, like acne for merkids, blows on the golden conch strapped around his chest.
“Now,” the king says. “You, girl, state your name and purpose.”
Layla stands with her hands shaking at her sides, like the time her dad caught us drinking his imported Ecuadorian beer in their basement. My heart skips with the fear that she might not say anything. Or the completely wrong thing.
“My name is Layla Santos. I am—”
“She’s my friend,” I say. Kurt presses his hand on my chest, because I’m standing. He pushes me back down to sit and shakes his head. With his face all serious and the sun hitting right in his eyes, I can almost picture what he’ll look like when he gets older. Kind of like my grandfather. He whispers to me, “Let her speak.”
“Am—Tristan’s best friend.”
The court breaks into cafeteria-style jeering and cackling, only broken up by another honk from the little green boy.
“And how did you get on my ship?”
“I didn’t mean to. Tristan and I were fighting at school, and he was all vague and I can’t tell you. I thought he was in trouble. So when the—they—the urchin men?—were pulling up the ladder to set sail, I just jumped on and hid below the deck. It was busy, too many people moving around. No one noticed me.”
“You thought my grandson was in danger, so you stowed away on a ship despite your own safety?”
She nods. I’m ready for him to laugh, to tell her she’s a tiny human and squish her between his giant fingers.
He bends forward and down to her so that he can get a closer look at her face. Something passes over his turquoise eyes—amusement. I recognize the way he goes from serious to smiles in seconds like my mom does. “You are a most brave girl.”
Layla smiles at him, and the effect is the same that she has on anyone: it warms him. I can see it in his face. It looks like it’s going to be all right, but someone in the crowd yells, “Intruder!”
And that’s followed by “Land-dweller!”
“Skin-sack!”
“Trespasser!”
“Punish her!”
I turn around, but the taunts come from everywhere at once, so I can’t point out the source. I shut my eyes against a sudden ache that goes away as quickly as it came. I can recognize the hunger in their gem-colored eyes. It’s the same hunger as the silver mermaid in my dreams—empty, expecting.
The king taps his lips with a finger, thinking. “My dear, do you know where you are?”
She hooks her thumbs on the loops of her shorts. “Apparently, an island with mer—maids?”
“Merfolk, if you wish,” he says shortly. “What you are seeing is not something we allow humans to walk away from. Not alive, anyway. It is how things have always been.”
“What about him?” I point at Marty.
“He is not exactly—human—as she is,” my grandfather says.
Not human? He looks human enough. Marty shrugs, standing there with his cardboard box.
“I would offer you a chance to stay and live with us, as you don’t seem much of a threat. However, I do not think that is an option for you.”
She shakes her head slowly, panicked eyes searching my face. I’d like to try to explain to Mr. Santos—Sorry, sir, but I had to l
eave Layla on a mystical island with my other half of the family because she just doesn’t listen. Please don’t take out that machete you have from your time in the Ecuadorian army.
“Very well.” He nods, and I get ready for him to trace his finger across his neck and a guard to take her away. Instead he says, “You will have to make an offering. As you were all late, you will be the last ones to offer your tithes.”
I breathe a little easier. We sit to the right of the throne on a row of boulders and watch as one by one, everyone who was on the ship with us steps up to my grandfather’s throne, bows, and presents a gift on a giant shell held on either side by boys who look like miniature versions of the gladiator guards, tattoos and all. The offerings are anything from jewelry trinkets to crayons to Pillow Pets to hammers to what look like pieces of bicycles.
I lean closer to Kurt, “What happens to all that stuff?”
“It gets distributed among everyone.”
The turtle boy reaches up to the shell and drops in a toy, probably his favorite one by the pout on his face and the way he pulls away when his mom tries to put her arm around him.
It’s our turn.
Marty, the human-looking non-human, hands the cardboard box to the king directly.
“Representing the Thorne Hill Betwixt Alliance, I, Marty McKay, present your Sea Lordiness with a gift.”
One of the guards moves as though to take the box, but the curiosity on my grandfather’s face radiates. He holds up his palm, and the guard returns to his post.
“May I?” Marty pulls off the red-and-white MTA tape and reaches inside the box. He pulls out a long, rectangular glass box. Inside is a cluster of neon flowers that glow in whites and pinks and purples, their stems twisting on themselves, alive.
“Orchids. They grow in salt water, best in the shade,” Marty says.
The king’s laughter is booming, wondrous. “This is most acceptable.” A girl, a slightly bluer version of Thalia, walks up and carries the flowers away. Marty bows and steps to the side, which leaves just me and Layla.
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