by D. S. Murphy
“How do we start?” I said.
“First things first, you need to learn how to swim.”
20
Sebastian insisted on seeing me home. He rode my bike and I balanced on the handlebars. When he dropped me off, he leaned in and kissed my cheek.
“There’s one more thing I need to tell you,” he said.
“What’s that?” I asked.
He inhaled deeply.
“You smell amazing.”
“Excuse me?”
“That’s one thing we don’t have underwater; smell. Up here, I can’t get enough of it.”
That evening, I couldn’t stop smiling. Even though my world was just shattered and someone tried to kill me—and even though both Sebastian and I were in mortal danger—at least I wasn’t alone anymore. Sebastian’s lips on my cheek made me feel like I was on fire. The frustration I’d felt for weeks was gone. As I sat in front of my typewriter, instead of my normal furious purge of confusing thoughts, I felt a deep calm. One thought filled my being, and for the first time in a long time, I had a clear goal.
I’m part merrow, but I’ve put Sebastian’s life at risk by making him tell me. If I can become full merrow, he’ll be safe…
Part of me felt like I was throwing my life away, for a guy I barely knew. But I wasn’t just doing it for him. Since my parents died, I’d had absolutely no control over my life. If I really thought about it, maybe I’d given up control long before—that day in Oregon when I almost drowned. Since then, I’d always relied on others to take care of me. Maybe it was time to take my life back into my own hands… even if it meant growing fins.
But how exactly does one become a mermaid? Sebastian said it was possible, but not certain. And if it really happened, would I be willing to live with the consequences? I decided to research everything I could on mermaids before committing myself to something irreversible.
I opened my laptop and started with Google, pulling up all the pages I could find, and sorting them into chronological order. The earliest mermaid-like figures were the ancient Syrian goddess Atargatis, who watched over the fertility of her people, and Ea, the Babylonian god of the sea. Both had the lower body of a fish and upper body of a human, and were worshipped almost 7,000 years ago. Ea would later be co-opted by the Greeks as Poseidon and the Romans as Neptune.
In one text, Ambia, the monstrous daughter of Cain, had the tail of a fish and could travel by land or sea. The Roman naturalist Pliny the Elder wrote of the nereids. He called them nymphs, but they were half-human, half-fish. Legatus of Gaul once wrote to Emperor Augustus claiming he found a “considerable number of them dead upon the sea-shore.”
I took a break from reading to make some tea. Miscreant followed me into my room, and jumped onto my lap when I sat back down at my desk. It was getting late but I couldn’t stop searching. Everything I read seemed to suggest that the merrow were older than civilization, even that civilization and technology had come from them, as gifts from the gods—Ea or Atargatis. I was surprised to learn that Christopher Columbus had seen mermaids on his trip to the new world, and even John Smith had seen them before he met Pocahontas.
But then things got strange. Mermaids became mythological, fanciful. Nobody had seen one for centuries, so all we had were recycled stories and myths. In 2012 Animal Planet put out a fake documentary, with actors pretending to be scientists, claiming to show evidence that mermaids were real. Despite being attacked by critics as fraudulent pseudoscience, it had been the most watched program in the channel’s history. A month after the program aired, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration posted a statement on its website denouncing the supposed existence of the half-human, half-fish beings, saying “No evidence of aquatic humanoids has ever been found.”
Modern experts believe that Columbus, Smith and other mermaid-spotting explorers were really just catching glimpses of human-sized marine mammals like manatees, but it strained belief that they could be mistaken for humans, unless all the sailors were super drunk (which they probably were, since they drank nothing but beer and rum all day long).
Stories about the merrow were common on sites of Irish folklore, though most of them just talked about how to “catch” a merrow wife. Apparently merrow have special clothing, or at least the women do, called a cohuleen druith or “little magic cap” that helps them navigate ocean currents. In order to come ashore, the merrow abandoned her cap, so any mortal who finds it has power over her. She cannot return to the sea until it is retrieved. Hiding the cap in the thatches of his house, a fisherman may persuade a merrow woman to marry him. But after some “years in succession” she would inevitably return to the sea, her “natural instincts” irresistibly overcoming any love-bond she had formed with her terrestrial family. To prevent her acting on impulse, her husband kept her cohuleen druith “well concealed from his sea-wife.”
My blood chilled after reading that passage. Could that have been what happened to my grandmother, if she was indeed a merrow? Had Aedan forced her to marry him against her will, and she’d abandoned my mother as a child because she couldn’t resist the call of the ocean? I hoped that wasn’t true.
At school the next day I was practically beaming. I’d been self-conscious before, because I thought I was weird. Now I knew I was different, but it didn’t make me strange. It made me special.
It seemed like ages since I’d talked to Derry or Jackie. I was glad I hadn’t told them about the note from Barbara Dubbs. They would have wanted to know how it went. What could I tell them, that instead of showing up, someone had stabbed me and pushed me into the water? Although I wasn’t certain, in retrospect I’d decided the note was probably sent by someone else, just to get me alone. And how would I explain my instantaneous healing? I couldn’t tell them about the merrow without putting their lives in danger. Sebastian and I couldn’t help what we were, but Jackie and Derry were safe, as long as they didn’t get involved.
I couldn’t hear a word my teachers said in class, I was so excited. After school, Sebastian was going to take me somewhere and teach me how to swim. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get past my fear of drowning, but what choice did I have? Also, I think my experience in Portrush made my terror less palpable. It was like I’d already lived through my worst fears.
“What do you want to be, Clara?” Jackie asked at lunch.
“Um, what?” I’d been thinking of pearls, shells and green eyes.
“For Halloween. We’re discussing costume ideas,” she prompted.
“You guys have Halloween here?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? Halloween is an Irish holiday,” Derry said. “It comes from the old Celtic festival Samhain Eve. Immigrants brought Halloween to America.”
“Where it got corrupted.” Patricia said, smirking.
“Families usually cook a special dinner with boiled potatoes, cabbage and raw onions. We wrap coins and hide them in the potatoes for kids to find,” Jackie said.
“Don’t forget the barnbrack cake,” Derry said.
“The what?” I asked.
“It’s a fruitcake that has a rag, ring and coin hidden inside it,” Jackie explained. “The rag represents a doubtful financial future, the ring represents impending romance, and the coin represents prosperity. If you get one of them, that’s your fate.”
“Do you carve pumpkins?” I asked.
Jackie rolled her eyes at me, “Pumpkins are from America.”
“Original jack-o’-lanterns were carved from turnips or potatoes,” Jackie said.
“Carving turnips is for kids,” Patricia added. “We’ll have a bonfire on the beach. It’s a huge party, you should totally come.”
“Of course she’s coming.” Jackie smiled at me. “We wouldn’t go without you.”
“I’m going to be a fox,” Patricia said. “I have these furry ears and boots, and a sexy bodice with a mini skirt. Derry is going to be a giant squirrel.”
“So I can say I’m looking for nuts,” Derry said.
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“I want to be Tinkerbell, I think,” Jackie said. “Or Athena. How about you?”
“Maybe you should be a mermaid,” said Sebastian, with a sly grin on his face. He squeezed in across from me. He had a habit of appearing out of nowhere.
“I’m sure I’ll come up with something,” I said, kicking him under the table.
“Even if we’re not mermaids, we can pretend… with a little skinny dipping,” Patricia said. She held her palms up and arched her hips like she was doing the butterfly stroke.
“I’m in,” said Kyle, watching her body gyrate under her uniform.
“You can’t go swimming,” Jackie said. “Didn’t you see the news?” When we didn’t respond she pulled out her phone and looked up a video. Biggest shark attack in history: 17 people injured, 3 dead, the headline read.
“When did this happen?” Sebastian asked, the color draining from his face.
“Yesterday,” Jackie said. She hit play on the video.
A reporter stood on the beach holding a microphone. Behind him, paramedics carried stretchers across bloody sand to the ambulances. “It’s a scene of total chaos behind me, and the largest maritime tragedies the little town of Brighton has ever witnessed. I’m here with Professor O’Donald of the Ocean Science department. Tell me, professor, what makes this incident so extraordinary?”
“Well, you’ve got to understand, firstly, that Great Whites—and sharks in general, actually—very rarely attack humans. People get the wrong idea, from watching Jaws and shark attack movies, but the truth is, sharks don’t like the taste of humans. We’re too bony, too hard to digest. Almost all of the so-called attacks were just test bites. And even this only happens when the water is murky or under other conditions when the sharks’ senses are diminished.”
“So they bite just to figure out what we are, and then don’t eat us?” the reporter asked.
“Of the 147 unprovoked great white shark attacks since 1990, only 29 of them were fatal—and almost all of those were from loss of blood. Sharks don’t eat humans.”
“Can you explain what happened here in Brighton?”
“I cannot. Most sharks would bite a human and then swim away. To see this amount of injuries, in the same place on the same day…I’m not even sure if a single shark could have done this.”
“Are you saying that this the result of multiple sharks?” the reporter asked.
“We won’t know that until we measure the wounds and compare teeth marks, but Great Whites don’t hunt in packs, so that’s unlikely too. But if it was just one shark, there would be no motivation for it to injure so many people at once. Maybe there was something in the water that confused them. But honestly, we’ve never seen anything like this before.”
The video clip ended with a close up of a man’s leg. The deep row of gashes in his leg was still oozing blood. “I’m just lucky to be alive,” he said.
“That’s awful,” Patricia said. “But Brighton’s pretty far south of here.”
“Not far enough,” Jackie said. “If it happened there, it could happen here.”
Sebastian nodded. “Swimming at night would be a very bad idea.”
“Okay, fine,” Kyle said, groaning. “We get it. But you’re robbing me of potentially the greatest experience of my life.”
Patricia laughed and slapped his arm.
Derry rolled his eyes, “You guys are dating, you shouldn’t need some elaborate excuse to see each other naked.”
“And on that note,” Kyle said, “I exit. Gotta run, babe.” He kissed Patricia and waved to the rest of us. Class was starting soon so we said our goodbyes. Sebastian and I did an awkward, lingering handshake, like we didn’t want to let go of each other.
“What was that?” Patricia asked after the guys had left.
“You guys are together now?” Jackie asked, raising her eyebrows.
“Kind of. Maybe. I’m not sure,” I said.
“Did you kiss him?” Jackie asked.
I shook my head.
“Sleep with him?” Patricia asked.
“I just said I didn’t kiss him!” I said.
“You can do either one without doing the other, darling.” Patricia said. “I don’t know how you roll.”
She smiled at me and I shoved her. My cheeks were heating up, and I pretended to be too embarrassed to talk about it. Were we together? It seemed like it. But if we hooked up, Sebastian would be hunted down and executed by the fish people. For now, I was happy just hanging out together. I didn’t think I was ready for anything else.
In choir class, I wasn’t afraid of standing out anymore. Singing was in my blood, it was my heritage—mermaids were famous for singing. And my voice was one thing I could enjoy and show off, without endangering myself. I relaxed and closed my eyes, allowing myself to revel in the feeling of the music. Roisin and Brianna had given me dirty looks at the beginning of class, like they always did, but by the end of it Roisin actually smiled at me. Weird.
I was almost to my next class when I heard Ethan’s voice.
“Give it back. Now.”
Mark and Ryan had him pinned up against the lockers. Brody stood in front of them looking at a piece of paper. Bullying is alive and well. Ethan clenched his fists, and I smelled something burning. He twisted to the side and pulled his arms free, then reached out and shoved Brody with the palm of his hand. It was a light push, barely a touch, but Brody flew back and slid across the floor. The piece of paper drifted to the floor. How did he do that? Ethan was holding something with his other hand. Something powerful. I could feel the energy pulsing from it.
“Why you little shit,” Brody said, standing up and preparing to charge. “That’s it.”
“Ethan,” I called, stepping in front of Brody like I didn’t see him. “I need some more help with my paper, do you have time? Oh hey, Brody,” I turned and said casually.
I felt Brody’s anger, but also his confusion, spiced with a touch of relief. He was happy I interrupted this fight. I sent soothing emotions, like I’d done with Galen, and I watched his face relax. I was getting better at that.
“Oh, hey Clara, you know Ethan?” Brody said.
“Yeah, we’re old friends,” I smiled sweetly.
“I didn’t know that,” Brody said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his head. “Sorry.”
“We were just playing around. You know how boys are,” Mark said. He picked up the paper and passed it to Ethan, who snatched it quickly. But not before I saw what was on it: a charcoal portrait of a girl who looked a lot like me. I felt my blood heating up. Did Ethan draw that?
“We didn’t mean anything by it, you know that right?” Ryan punched Ethan on the shoulder. Ethan held his gaze without flinching, his body tense.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he said after the boys had left. “I can take care of myself.”
“So I noticed.” My gaze lingered on Ethan’s rippling muscles, still taut from the fight. That’s twice I’d seen him do mysterious things that looked like real magic. I had a feeling he could take care of himself.
“Picking on you seems pretty stupid to me,” I said.
“A year ago I was a scrawny weirdo.” Ethan flashed a bitter grin. “I was an easy target, and I didn’t fight back. They’ll learn soon enough, I’m not the same kid they used to push around.”
I nodded, but was only half listening. I reached into my pocket and pulled out the note with the inked message. If he could tell me more about it, maybe I’d figure out who was after me.
“I have a problem, and I have a feeling – an intuition – that you’re the only person who can help me,” I said.
“I’m busy,” he sneered. “Why don’t you go ask your boyfriend?” The anger on his face was so strong that I pulled away from him. He opened his backpack to stuff the drawing inside, and I caught a glimpse of something else, tucked between his notebooks and binders. An antique dagger, with a white handle, and decorative grooves running down the blade.
21
> I had to warn Sebastian. I didn’t think Ethan was my attacker—though I couldn’t explain where he’d gotten the knife. Maybe it wasn’t the same exact one, or maybe he was somehow involved with the same people who were after me… but I was pretty sure he didn’t know what I was. When he mentioned Sebastian, I’d felt hot jealousy radiating from him. Plus, there was that picture he’d drawn. I didn’t get the impression that he wanted to kill me. But why would he have a knife like that, or bring it to school with him? Unless it wasn’t me he was after…
I didn’t see Sebastian for the rest of the day, which worried me, though I knew his attendance left much to be desired. We’d agreed to meet at my place after school for my first swim lesson, so I went home, put my suit on under my clothes, and then waited by the window. When he pulled up in a little black car, I was so happy to see him, I gave him a hug.
“What is that?” I asked, pointing at the vehicle. The car looked like a miniature hearse, with round edges and sweeping curves along the glossy black body. The seats were bright turquoise.
“1957 Austin a35,” he said. “A classic.”
He held the door open for me and I squeezed inside.
Once we started driving, I told him about Ethan and what I’d seen. “You can’t stay here,” I finished. “It’s too dangerous.”
“We already knew someone was hunting merrow,” he said. “How does this change anything?”
“Because Ethan goes to our school. He brought that knife with him for a reason. If he doesn’t already know what you are, he suspects something.”
“If that’s true, and it probably is, you’re not safe either. I’m not leaving you here alone with him.”
I frowned and crossed my arms. After seeing how powerful and fast Sebastian was, I couldn’t imagine any human actually hurting him. But that didn’t mean he should be reckless, or put himself in harm’s way.