by Amberlee Day
Cleo offered Lily a smile, and listened as the girl chattered on. Lily might be excited about being filmed by Alyssa Jones-Blakely, but all Cleo could see was impending disaster.
I wonder what Van will say. She hoped he’d say no.
Chapter 26
The next morning, Cleo had two unexpected visitors knock on her bedroom door. She’d decided to hole up in there until lunchtime, hoping that staying out of sight would keep her away from Van and his friends. She’d borrowed some books from the library, so she had plenty to do while she hid.
The first knock came right after she’d settled into a chair by her window with a book. She couldn’t think why one of the staff would be knocking on her door when they already had so much extra work with the guests. Maybe they needed her help? She hoped not. Nothing could have prepared her when she opened the door to Miss Alyssa Jones-Blakely.
The YouTube star—if Cleo was to believe Lily’s account that the woman was a YouTube star—dressed in expensive-looking jeans, a low-cut silk blouse, and sparkly bling. Still processing who stood at her door, Cleo stood speechless.
“Mermaid Cleo, I found you.” Alyssa stepped into the room and Cleo, too surprised to react, didn’t stop her. “My, for staff you certainly have it nice here. Very cozy.” With two fingers, she picked up one of Cleo’s sweaters from the bed, and dropped it like it was dirty. “Very cozy.”
Cleo found her voice. “What can I do for you, Miss Jones-Blakely? Are you lost? If you are, I’d be happy to tell you where to go.”
“I bet you would. No, I came looking for you. I wanted you to know that I spoke to Van, and he’s fine with Lily being filmed. In fact, he said, ‘Make sure you tell Lily’s mermaid to put on her tail, too.’”
Cleo blinked. “Van said that?”
“Mr. Rivers said that, yes. I wasn’t sure if Lily would give you the message correctly, so I wanted to tell you myself.”
“I can see that. Message delivered. Anything else?”
Alyssa glared at Cleo. She may have had good looks on her side, but—as Cleo’s grandmother used to say—butter wouldn’t melt in that mouth. “No. That’s all,” Alyssa said. “I mean, it’s not like there’s anything else to talk to you about, right? You’re just a hired mermaid here. Nothing else.”
“Whatever you say,” Cleo said with the hint of a smile on her face. It had the desired effect. When Cleo shut the door on her, Miss Jones-Blakely looked like she could be one of the murderers in Cleo’s borrowed novels.
“And good day to you,” Cleo said to the closed door, returning to her cozy chair.
HER NEXT VISITOR CAME about an hour later. This was a knock she recognized.
“Lily? What’s up—oh, my heavens! What happened?”
Lily Bean Sprout Rivers stood at Cleo’s door, her light blonde hair dripping wet and heavily streaked with bright pink. “I highlighted my hair.”
“By yourself?” Cleo lifted bits of it for inspection. Reluctantly, she said, “You did a good job. It’s very even.”
“It came with a scalp cover, with holes in it. I pulled them through.”
“Where did you even get ...” Cleo knelt down in front of the girl, who looked like she’d been crying. “Never mind. Does your uncle know?”
“No. He’s going to be so mad. I thought if I did just a little, he wouldn’t notice, but I think he’s going to notice this.”
“Oh, yeah. He’ll notice. Is this is the kind that says you can wash it out?”
“It says it washes out in thirty washes, but it doesn’t. I already washed it thirty-seven times.”
Cleo hugged the miserable girl. “You’ve had a busy morning.”
“How am I going to fix it, Cleo?”
“I don’t think you can,” she said gently. “I think if you read the package, it says that it may not wash out of really light-colored hair.”
“I didn’t read that part.”
“Nope.” Cleo brought Lily in and sat her in front of her own mirror. Using a pick, she gently began combing it out.
“It’s pretty, though, don’t you think?” Lily said.
“I’m not sure that’s going to be enough to get you off your uncle’s naughty list.”
“I just wanted to look good for the mermaid video.”
Cleo nodded. “I know you did.”
“Can you help me make it look good?”
“I can help you style it. I can’t make it look so good that your uncle isn’t going to mind.”
“How about makeup? Can I have mermaid makeup, too?”
Cleo sighed. “I suppose at this point, if your uncle sees you today, he’ll be distracted enough by your hair that he’s not going to notice a little mermaid makeup.”
Lily sat up a little taller. “Then let’s do it.”
Cleo smiled. “Let’s do it.”
CLEO CALLED DOWN TO the kitchen and asked if someone could send a couple of sandwiches to her room for her and Lily’s lunch. Mrs. Fortney brought them herself. When she saw Lily, the housekeeper’s hand went to her mouth. “Oh, dear. Has your uncle seen you?”
“No,” Lily said. “Hopefully he won’t until after Miss Jones-Blakely makes a video of me.”
“I hope not, too.” Mrs. Fortney looked at Cleo. “I also hope I’m not there to witness it.”
Cleo just shrugged. She felt the same way.
After lunch, they carried their tails down to the poolside. They helped each other get ready, adjusting hair and touching up makeup. At Lily’s suggestion, they were both wearing the headbands they’d made.
“I think we look terrific,” Cleo said. She was looking forward to Alyssa and guests’ arrival like she would a trip to the mortuary, but it was fun to mermaid-up with Lily, and to do it right.
“I do, too,” Lily said. “We look better than any other mermaids on the internet.”
Cleo laughed. “Sure, why not?”
At the sound of people coming, however, her stomach dropped. Putting on a professional face, she told Lily, “Remember, sit tall. Be proud to be a mermaid.”
Lily lifted her chin and smiled.
“Lily Rivers!” Alyssa exclaimed as she walked in. “You look divine!”
Lily beamed. “Thank you, Miss Jones-Blakely.”
Alyssa, standing above the mermaids where they were posed by the pool, gave Cleo a different kind of appraising look. “Well, I can see why you were hired,” she said dismissively.
Cleo ignored that, but she was nervous when she didn’t see the one person she didn’t want present, but thought should be there. “Where’s Van?” she asked.
“Mr. Rivers is taking care of business, again. It seems to be all he does anymore. He’ll join us later, if he has time. And Mermaid Cleo,” Alyssa added, “you really need to work on remembering his name. Mr. Rivers.”
Cleo ignored that too, but she couldn’t ignore the feeling that Van really should be here for this. With all his overprotectiveness of Lily, she’d expect he’d want a say in how she was filmed, at the very least.
While Alyssa turned her attention to directing her friends with cameras, lights, and sound equipment, Cleo and Lily held their poses. Lily planned on dry shots first, then some swimming moves for the camera. Cleo enjoyed seeing the girl show some leadership, even though she worried about how eager Lily was to impress Alyssa, despite the cost of upsetting her uncle.
Van still hadn’t arrived when Alyssa began filming.
“We’re here in Canada,” she gushed at the camera, “in gorgeous Banff National Park. If you haven’t been here, you need to come. Go now, get a reservation. You’re going to love it here. I mean, skiing in January, hiking in July, shopping all year round. And while you know I love to shop, there isn’t much else to do in the spring when everything’s slush outside, like today. So. Gross. So what do the locals do to entertain themselves when they’re bored waiting for the weather to change? They get their freak on, that’s what. And we’ve got a couple of freaks right here.”
Alyssa’s friend
Lana held the camera, and she stepped back to widen the shot and include Cleo and Lily. Cleo was in shock. Was Alyssa really going to spin Lily’s interest in mermaids as something weird? How could she do that to Lily, or Van? Especially if there had been something between them.
“This is Lily,” Alyssa continued. “Lily’s ten, and as you might imagine with a ten-year-old, she thinks mermaids are pretty sweet. Is that right, Lily?”
Lily, never lacking something to say, had clearly picked up on Alyssa’s phrasing, but she didn’t get offended. Instead, she dealt with it in her own way. “Actually, Miss Jones-Blakely,” Lily said, maintaining her pose and smile, “mermaiding isn’t a freak thing. You’re right that a lot of girls my age like mermaiding, but so do a lot of adults. Mermaids are beautiful, and strong, and—”
“You are adorable,” Alyssa interrupted. “Isn’t she the sweetest? Talk about the ultimate in playing dress-up. But apparently adults like to play dress-up, too. I mean, we all know a few, right? I don’t know, might be fun.”
Cleo couldn’t see Alyssa’s expression, but from the way her friends laughed, she imagined their star had made a face of some kind.
Alyssa continued, “We’re lucky enough to have caught a real mermaid right here at Lake Louise—oh, wait, it’s not a real mermaid, just a grown woman pretending to be one. What’s more fun than that, eh?” She bent down next to Cleo. “This is Mermaid Cleo. How old are you, Cleo? I’m thinking you’re older than ten.”
Cleo had had enough. “Where’s Van?” she asked again. “There’s no way he approved this.”
“Mr. Rivers,” Alyssa said. “When are you going to get that straight? So, what do you say, folks?” Alyssa said into the camera. “Ready to see a mermaid swim?”
With that, she pushed Cleo backwards into the pool. As familiar as Cleo was with the water, she wasn’t expecting the shove. The headband slipped down over her eyes, and it took a few moments for her to right herself. She came up sputtering, only to find that she was no longer the focus of Alyssa’s freak show.
Van had appeared, and stood at the side of the pool. Anger practically steamed out his ears. “Who said you could be here?” he asked Alyssa. “Who said you could film my niece?”
Alyssa’s eyes were wide, innocent. “Van, I’m so sorry! Are you upset? I was going to check with you myself, but Lily’s mermaid said it was fine with you.”
“Lily’s mermaid?” Van’s gaze landed on Cleo, who still coughed out the water she’d swallowed, and couldn’t see straight because her eyelashes were messed up by the headband interference. “Cleo, what’s this about? Did you okay this?”
“No,” Cleo tried to say.
Unfortunately, at that moment Van noticed Lily’s hair. “What’s this?” He pulled her headband out, and the hot pink curls stood out like exotic sea anemone tentacles. “Did you dye your hair?”
Lily’s voice actually trembled, from what Cleo could hear over her own coughing. “I’m sorry, Uncle Van. Cleo tried to help me.”
Silence followed. Cleo eventually regained control of her airway, and her eyelashes, for the most part. She looked up to see an angry, hurt look on Van’s face. She wanted to explain everything, but mostly she wanted him to not believe that she’d orchestrated this whole thing. That didn’t seem to be the case, and she wasn’t sure what to say to change it.
Van picked up Lily, tail and all. “This is over,” he said. “Sorry Alyssa, but I can’t allow you to use any film of my niece online. Please delete it, and ... clear these things out.”
With one last glance at Cleo, Van took Lily and left. When they were gone, one of Alyssa’s male friends said, “Whoops,” making the rest of the posse giggle.
Alyssa looked down at Cleo. “Oh, Mermaid Cleo. I don’t know, but I think you may have gotten yourself fired. Anything to say to the camera?”
Cleo swam to the other side of the pool, and pulled herself out. One of the men whistled. Cleo was too angry to talk, too worried about what Van thought. She ignored them while she worked to get her tail off, to make her own exit. She tuned out their voices as they laughed. She finished before they cleaned up, and with a towel around her shoulders and her tail over her arm, she left Alyssa and her friends behind without another word.
Cleo had other things to think about, after all. More important things. She had to figure out just what she was going to say to Van, and just how quickly she could make her escape from Eagle Hill.
Chapter 27
Cleo tried to find Van that afternoon, but he seemed to have left the house. If Mrs. Fortney knew about the pool disaster, she didn’t say anything. Cleo did find out from her that Alyssa and her friends had taken over the basement theater, and had asked for their lunch to be brought to them there. Probably watching footage of Alyssa pushing a freak in the pool, Cleo thought.
She did find Lily in her pink grotto. The mermaid makeup was washed off, her costume exchanged for cozy leggings and a tunic, and her pink hair pulled back in pigtails. When Cleo came in, Lily was curled up in a chair reading one of the Nancy Drew books.
“What’s up?” Lily asked, as if she’d forgotten the morning’s problems.
“Just coming to check on you.” Cleo sat down on the edge of Lily’s bed. “How did things go with your uncle?”
“Oh, fine. Except he put a password on my laptop, so now I can’t get online and order things.”
“I see,” Cleo said. More controls. “Did he say anything other than that?”
“Not really. He wasn’t as mad as I thought he would be. He said I can’t be on Miss Jones-Blakely’s YouTube channel.”
“I thought it was odd he’d say yes.”
“Me too, but I wasn’t going to say so. What are you doing? I figured you probably didn’t want to practice today. That was mean of Miss Jones-Blakely to push you in like that.”
“Yes, it was.”
“Did your headband get ruined?”
“You know, I think I left it down there.”
“That’s okay. We can make another one.”
Cleo reached out and took hold of Lily’s hand. “I’m leaving, Lily.”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s time for me to go. I’ve taught you what you wanted to learn, how to be a mermaid. You don’t need me here anymore.”
Lily’s face crinkled, and Cleo thought she was going to cry. “But we’re still learning things. I need to get better at synchro.”
“I think,” Cleo said, not wanting to put Van in a bad light, “that when you and your uncle are ready for you to join a team, you’ll be ready to progress in synchro. I could work with you more here on your own, but it’s just time for me to go.”
Lily did start to cry, and Cleo brought her over to sit on the bed beside her. She put her arm around the girl.
“You’ll be fine,” Cleo said. “You can still practice every day. Just promise you won’t try to swim on your own, okay? Safety first. Always swim with a buddy.”
“You’re my buddy,” Lily said. “I don’t know why you have to leave. Is it because of Uncle Van? Because he stopped liking you?”
Cleo’s heart lurched. Oh, how it hurt to hear that said out loud. “That’s part of it, Lily. I think it might be uncomfortable for both of us. Besides, I’ve been here almost two months, and that’s how long I told my boss at Florida Adventures I would be gone.”
“Where will you live?” Lily asked.
The truth was Cleo didn’t know if she would have either a job or a place to stay when she got back. She just didn’t know where else to go besides Florida. “Don’t worry about that,” she said. “I’ll email you when I get settled, okay? Then we can email each other.”
“Okay. When are you going?”
“Tomorrow morning. I’ve already talked to Leonard, and he’s making the arrangements.”
Lily’s tears welled again. “Tomorrow? I wish you wouldn’t go, Cleo. I like having you here. Nobody else spends much time with me.”
“We have fun together, don�
��t we?”
“Can you just stay a little while longer?”
Cleo was starting to worry that she’d cry, too. She sat up a little taller. “No, this is the time. In fact, I may have stayed a little too long.” Long enough to be leaving with a broken heart.
BEFORE BED, CLEO TRIED one more time to find Van. She followed voices, and ventured out to the balcony by the main stairway, overlooking the entry hall. Van was there, and Alyssa. They were passing through, going toward the stairs leading down to the theater, it looked like. Alyssa stopped Van, and fiddled with his collar.
“There,” she said. “Can’t have you crooked.”
Van grabbed one of her hands in his. Watching, Cleo’s heart broke. “You look out for me, do you, Alyssa?”
“Always, Van,” came the sweet, flirtatious voice. “You know I’m always there for you.”
Van kept hold of her hand, his eyes on hers. “Come on,” he finally said. “They’re going to wonder where we are.”
“Let them wonder,” Alyssa said, but Van put a hand on her back to guide her on their way to the basement, out of sight.
Cleo wanted to crawl under her bedcovers and never come out. More than that, she wanted to disappear. I guess I’ll just be leaving without saying goodbye. Might be less painful, anyway.
SOMEONE SCREAMED, AND Cleo woke up. Had she been dreaming? She lay in bed, not moving, straining to hear, until a faraway crash and another scream broke the silence.
Grabbing a sweater, she ran into the hall. The north wing, where the servants and Lily’s rooms were, was dark and empty. Cleo rushed to check on Lily. The girl slept peacefully in her pink grotto, with the wave light and gentle ocean noises playing. Carefully shutting the door again, Cleo hurried to the doorway leading out into the south wing, where Van and the guest suites would be.
The south wing was closer to the entryway, and that seemed to be where the noises came from. Guests emerged from rooms, asking what had happened and who had screamed. Everyone seemed to be present, except Van.