“I love you,” David whispered in her ear.
“I love you, too.”
As the island grew quieter with the coming of nightfall, the pounding waves were all that drowned out the evidence of their passion.
* * *
Faren and David lay on the beach wrapped in each other’s arms, their wedding clothes lying on the sand like a shimmering sea drift.
David kissed the top of Faren’s head and closed his eyes to block out everything but the feeling of her in his arms. When she groaned in pain, his eyes popped open, but he didn’t need to ask her what was wrong. The moon and stars told him all he needed to know.
“Come on, baby,” he said, jumping to his feet. “We need to get you back into the water.”
As they hurried to the surf, the white breechcloth Servio had given David grazed his tanned thighs. He followed beneath the waves and entered a world very few humans knew existed. The moonlight seeping down into the depths of the Atlantic magnified the couple’s vision that much more. They were living a fairy tale–a life most people could only imagine.
Intertwined in each other’s arms, David and Faren floated in a passionate embrace. They twirled in circles, paying no mind to anything but each other, dancing only to the music of the majesty of the sea, theirs alone in that moment.
A silhouette emerged from beneath the surface and flipped high into the air. As Lola dove into the waves again, another form joined her. Before long, there were a dozen dolphins dancing and playing in the moonlight. In an instant, the world had become at one with the heavens; it was a captivating place, where anything was possible.
Epilogue
YOU’RE GOING TO FALL,” FAREN WARNED David, stifling her laughter.
He swung past, clinging to the vine for dear life. “Oh ye of little faith,” he called back. “You have to admit I’m getting pretty good at this.”
“You’re five feet off the ground.”
David swung higher. Back and forth, the same trees flew by, and birds scattered to get out of his way. The wind rustled through his hair and stroked his body, and the ground swayed rhythmically under him. “See?” He caught Faren’s amused glance on his way past again. “I told you I’m a pro.” Ten feet off the ground, the vine snapped and he fell into a shrub. He could hear Faren laughing as he stood and brushed the dirt off his breech cloth, his pride more injured than his skinned knees. “I meant to do that,” he said, walking over to her.
Faren giggled. “You’re a pro all right.”
David took a closer look at the strange-looking animal she was holding and scrunched his face up. “What is that? It looks like a bug-eyed monkey with frog feet.”
“For reasons unknown, mers have abandoned the language of our ancestors–excluding the High Council anyway–but we still use a few words here and there. We call this particular animal paria sati–a Romean word meaning night stalker–because they usually come out when the sun sets.” She stroked its head and smiled. “We don’t see them very often. This is a treat.”
“Oh, wait,” David said, stepping closer. “That looks like a tarsier I saw on the Discovery Channel a couple of months ago.” The animal wiggled its bat-like ears and twitched its nose. “Yep, that’s definitely a tarsier.” David put his hand out to pet it, but changed his mind when the animal pulled a leaf bug from behind its back and bit it in half. He jumped back. “Gross!”
“Isn’t he’s cute?”
The tarsier shook its lunch at David and jumped onto a low hanging branch of a nearby kapok tree. It looked back and crammed the rest of the leaf bug into its mouth.
“Ugh... well... he’s cuter over there.”
Faren laughed. “Come on,” she said. “I want to show you something.” David let her take his arm and pull him away from the strange-looking creature, but not without taking one last glance.
They walked hand in hand, listening to the sounds of the forest. Monkeys chased one another through the trees, and giant cats watched them through the heavy foliage. Just another day in paradise.
They followed a natural trail to a large pond. The water glistened beneath the sun’s hot rays. The surface was shiny, like a mirror, yet choppy like the ocean. A faint blue light glowed from beneath its depths, creating a hazy fog that settled over the surface.
David walked up to its edge and knelt down. “This is really cool,” he said, skimming his hands along the surface. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
Faren sat down beside him and dipped her toes in the water. “My ancestors called it Rhiek Ey Yu; it means waters of mystical power. Legend says if a mer swims here after dusk they gain the ability to walk along the shore after night fall.”
“And nobody’s tried it?”
“With the seashore so far away, that would be very dangerous. As far as I know, there isn’t a mer alive that desperate to find out the legends aren’t true.” Faren leaned back on her elbows and gazed up at the sky. “Magical or not, I still love it here.”
David lay down beside her. “What are you looking at?”
“The clouds,” she answered with a smile. “My mother and I used to swim to the surface and float on top of the waves, just staring up at them... for hours sometimes. She swore she could see different shapes. Dolphins and seashells–things like that.” Faren’s voice grew softer, and David could see her mind drift back in time. “I always hoped to see something, especially after she died, but I never could.”
* * *
Angry eyes watched the happy couple through the trees. The figure clenched and unclenched her fists as she witnessed the loving spectacle.
“Wait… I think I see something,” the stranger heard Faren say.
David scanned the sky. “You can? What do you see?”
“A baby,” she said with a small smile. “I’m pregnant.”
The stalker’s breathing became forced. Blood dripped from her palms where her fingernails had cut into her skin. “The question is… will it ever make it into this world alive?” she mumbled under her breath. She turned and stomped away, plotting the baby’s death.
About the author
Heather McLaren is a Cherokee writer who lives in southern Illinois with her husband and four children. Mythos, the first of five books in the Mer Chronicles, is her debut novel. She is currently working on the second book in the series, Beyond Legend, and plans on bringing fantasy into the hearts of young people for years to come.
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Mythos Page 27