Celeste nodded. “Every time. They can’t really hear the notes, but they don’t like it. You can make them go away as quickly as you can make the boys come out.”
“What song is that?”
“The sailor song,” Ondine declared. “Don’t you know anything?”
“I guess not.”
“Come on, they’ll start without us.” Celeste ended our conversation by swimming off. I always thought I was fast, but I had to work to keep up with her. At the front of the boat, the other girls were waiting.
“Took you long enough.” Rose really didn’t seem happy, but I couldn’t understand why. She’d wanted to go hunting a minute ago. No one was forcing her to do anything.
Everyone popped their heads above the water and started singing. Not high-pitched screeching; not even the almost-impossible-for-humans-to-hear notes of the crab song. They all sang low and quiet, like someone whispering over the waves. I didn’t know the sailor song, but the verses sounded easy enough. A mermaid called out to a sailor, saying, “Swim away with me, swim away, come see the deep blue sea.”
Our quiet voices carried over the waves. In a minute, a group of young men appeared on the boat. They could see us in the water, the golden sunlight on our tails but they weren’t shocked or scared. It was like the song put them into a trance. No one reached for a cell phone or called to anyone else to come see the mermaids. Instead they leaned over the side of the boat, looking at us. I’d been hiding all my life, but the others didn’t seem worried about getting caught. Rose wasn’t worried that they’d see her fins at all. She wanted them to see her. In the middle of a verse she jumped up, her tail coming out of the water, her naked breasts inches away from the guy’s hand.
She started it as she splashed down, then everyone followed her. Each one jumping up, almost close enough to let them touch her, then back down. Ondine even jumped, her body staying farther away than the rest. I stayed in the water, hanging back, but keeping my eyes on the men. I knew which one I wanted, if I had a choice.
Rose looked to me to jump, but I shook my head. I wasn’t used to exposing my breasts like that; I was too modest. She didn’t give me a second to change my mind. Instead she spoke over the song, her voice high and clear.
“Come swim with us, won’t you, please?” She sounded so innocent, and they bought it. Stripped off their shirts and dove off the side of the yacht, falling ten, fifteen, maybe even twenty feet into the water. Not a one of them stopped to think of how they’d get back.
One by one the girls found their picks, wrapping arms and tails around the men. I slipped under the water, feeling more and more unsure of myself. I saw Ondine resting on the sand below. I hadn’t noticed when she left the group, but there she was, her tail folded up, her arms wrapped around it, head resting where knees might’ve been.
“Not going this time?”
She shook her head.
“Me neither.”
She didn’t acknowledge me, just kept watching. The water gave us a crystal clear view of breasts in mouths and hands on waists. It felt wrong to watch, an invasion of everyone’s privacy, but I didn’t turn away. Tails wrapped tighter and swim trunks drifted to the bottom of the ocean floor like petals from a flower. I’d never seen a man naked, now I watched five of them, all erect.
“This is the good part,” Ondine whispered. I didn’t think they would’ve heard her if she shouted. Not now, when the tails tightened and those engorged male organs disappeared. I felt my own pulse start to rise. There might be another man on the boat somewhere, another up there for me. I could wrap my tail around him, feel him hard against me, and then I’d—
The first scream cut through my fantasy, the way scales cut through skin. The couples began to sink under the waves, then come above them barely long enough for the men to get air. They fought to get away, but the tails held them, their breath a rush of silver bubbles under the water. I didn’t think any of the men had even finished, but already there was blood in the water. Ondine had her mouth open, trying to taste it. The look on her face made her an animal, feral and strong. Above us, the others kept moving, their hips thrusting, tails pumping even as the men tried to pull away. The couples began to drop in the water, going low enough that the screams ended and open mouths released only bubbles.
I felt hot shame in my cheeks, shock at what my cousins had done. Worse, shock at how I wanted to join them, how I couldn’t turn away. I shouted at myself to swim away, to go, but it took a pair of legs settling on to the sand beside me for me to move. When they hit bottom, I realized how real it all was, how those men would never see dry land again.
Chapter Seven
I swam fast toward home, all my questions for Mom and Grandma forgotten. I wanted to put distance between the scene and my body. I wanted cold, clean water in my gills. Or maybe I wanted to be there, and swimming fast was the only way not to be. I was out of the water and back to legs without a minute’s wait, shaking and scared at what I had seen and what I had wanted to do.
But an hour later, alone in an empty house, I found myself singing the sailor song under my breath. Practicing it while I studied my favorite subject, humming it while I did my history. After another hour, I knew I needed distraction, human distraction. I snatched my cell phone and checked my texts. Ashley hadn’t written but Sarah had. “Ashley is PMSing. Heather’s still a no-show. Have fun ditching.”
PMS wasn’t something I’d experienced, but Ashley turned pretty evil every month. I’d picked the right day to skip school for sure. Now if only I could forget what I’d seen in the water. But no, every time I closed my eyes, I saw the legs drift down or worse, the bodies moving together.
I checked the clock. If I went back to school now, I could still make the afternoon classes: chemistry, AP English, and driver’s ed. But I couldn’t lie to myself. It wasn’t about a distraction. It was about Sam. Even after what I’d seen this morning I still wanted to see him, even though I knew how dangerous it would be for him.
Yeah, the last thing I needed to do was go back to school. Instead I went for a walk. Our beach didn’t connect to any of the others, but a few blocks away from my house, the public beach did. You could walk from one end of Playa Linda to the other along the water. You’d pass a few restaurants and some parking lots, but the east side would always look at the cool blue water of Mother Ocean. I walked that way now, my feet above the water line.
The beaches were almost empty. September wasn’t the right season for tourists. In January, hundreds of pale-skinned visitors would come, spending money and getting sunburned, none of them imagining the mermaids under the water waiting to hunt them.
I’d walked long enough to sort a few things out in my head, but how I felt about hunting would take more miles than the beach could give me. At least how I felt about the social scene was starting to make sense. I couldn’t be part of it any more. Couldn’t walk the fine line of always having a secret. I had one more year on dry land, probably, and I didn’t want to waste any of it with gossip. I would buy a car, something nice and safe. I couldn’t risk being in an accident. Ashley could either accept it or vilify me. If what mattered to me about school was learning, I could do that without being Miss Popular. I had to get over my childish fear of being locked up in some science lab. There were bigger things to worry about now, like the dead bodies that kept piling up.
I felt the sand under my feet turn cold, and realized I’d walked under the pier without thinking about it. Homeless people stayed here, trying to avoid the cops who would chase them away. Playa Linda didn’t like the homeless; they almost never lasted more than a day or two. You’d see them and then they’d be gone before they ruined our image. I saw one now, a girl sitting on a dirty blanket, her blonde hair lank and dirty.
Then I looked closer and realized that it wasn’t a homeless runaway at all. “Heather? What the heck are you doing down here?”
“Shh,” she hissed the sound and pulled me away from the water. “I saw something.”
“I don’t know. I think it was a…” She looked at me and stopped.
“You can go on.”
“No-o-o-o-o, I can’t. You’ll think I’m crazy.”
My mouth went dry. There were lots of things I might think, crazy wasn’t going to be the first to come to mind. “Trust me, Heather, tell me what you saw.”
“It was big, and, and yellow. With these long arms.” Her eyes were wide with fear.
“Arms?”
She nodded.
“Or tentacles?”
She slapped her cold hand over my mouth, and for a second all I could smell was that ammonia-nail-polish-remover scent. I gagged as I pushed her hand away. Looking at it in the half-light under the pier it looked stained, like she was wearing thin brown gloves.
“Tell me everything.”
“I met this guy, at a club. He drove a hot car.” She smelled terrible, looked like she’d been living under the pier and she wanted to talk about his car. “He took me on a trip, but I wanted to come back for the second week of school. One week is one thing, but two—”
“The point, Heather.”
“When I got back, I ran into Ryan.” She colored slightly at his name, and now I knew why she’d started with the story of the guy in the club. “He and I started seeing each other over the summer. I didn’t want it to happen, but it did. I felt bad about it, going out with your ex. That’s why I went away with that guy from the bar. I was trying to get Ryan out of my system, but I couldn’t. I never will. I love him, Danika.”
Heather lived for this sort of drama. She was forever telling someone how sorry she was and how she couldn’t change her heart. As confused and upset as I was about finding Ryan’s body, I had no tolerance for her crap. All I could do was nod and try not to smack her.
“We came out on Sunday night. We were out on the beach, hooking up. And then in the middle of it, I saw those arms. They had hooks in the end, barbs or nails or something, and they pulled him off me. Then everything went dark, and I woke up here. I didn’t want to go home, because Ryan might be out there still, and because that thing, it came back.”
“It came back?”
She nodded. “Around midnight, I think. My phone got wet and stopped working. Anyway, it came back, this big thing with giant arms. I think it’s…I mean…I guess it could be…”
I wanted to help her out but I didn’t know myself. If Heather had an idea, I wanted to hear it.
“A sea monster,” she finally spat the words out. I must have looked shocked because she quickly added, “I looked them up. The monsters. It’s not like a mermaid.”
I cringed, hoping she didn’t see it.
“And not a salt golem, selkie, or dryad, not like those.”
“Okay.”
“But like a leviathan, a giant squid, a Cthulhu type.”
“Whoa. That’s a lot of names.”
“I Googled it before my phone got wet.”
“Of course you did,” I said. My sarcastic tone was lost on her.
“So the thing, it might not have come completely out of the water, in which case, it was a giant squid. Because the sea serpents totally come out.”
Whatever she’d seen, Heather had gone way over the edge into madness. Not showering, staying on the beach for days, and Googling sea monsters: all pretty far from normal for her.
She turned back to the ocean, locking her eyes on the water beneath the pier.
“Is your car here?” I asked.
She nodded, not moving her gaze.
“Heather, I know this harsh, but you smell.”
She blinked a few times and turned toward me.
“Also, it’s Tuesday.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. When’s the last time you showered?”
“Sunday morning.” I could see the realization dawning on her face. “I’ve been sleeping out here for two days?”
This time I nodded.
“Oh my God. Swear you won’t tell a single soul.”
“I swear.”
“I’m going home. Will you watch for that thing?”
“Sure.”
“I want to know what it is. It was real. Something pulled Ryan off me.”
“Gotcha.”
She brushed the sand off her skin and walked toward the parking lot. I looked at the water for a few minutes, making sure she was gone. I wasn’t about to go in. I might not crave popularity but I wasn’t stupid enough to grow a tail in public.
Mother Ocean watched me, ever changing but always the same. I thought about Ryan, his last moments on this beach, I thought about Tiffany and her life, and about Mara, who I’d never known. The deaths were a mystery to me, but they were rapidly becoming my problem. Bodies found on my reef, in my ocean, one of them my ex-boyfriend. I couldn’t wait for someone else to solve the problem for me.
I watched the sunset over the waves. When it was dark enough, I slipped into the water. I swam without seeing the world around me, my mind focused on the murders.
Chapter Eight
The next morning, I found myself in my regular spot in Ashley’s car. Only without Jen it didn’t feel so squished.
“Taking my seat back, Danny.” Heather greeted me as if I hadn’t seen her on the beach last night.
“I always knew it wouldn’t last.” Then, for the benefit of everyone in the car, I asked Heather, “So where were you?”
She started in on a long story about everything she had done. She’d been to the Keys, stayed at a hotel near the water. She’d been wined and dined and, honestly, spent most of her time in bed. Heather didn’t mind talking about sex, and the car’s passengers seemed captivated by her words. I knew the rest of them weren’t virginal like me, but I still squirmed a little with how crude it all sounded. I half-expected Ashley to chime in with something, reclaiming her spot as the center of attention. Instead, she kept oddly silent until we pulled into the school parking lot.
“So I guess this means you and Ryan are over,” Ashley said, her words casual.
Heather’s face turned white, then bright red.
“Oh wait, was I not supposed to say anything in front of Danny, still? I mean, you’ve been hooking up with him all summer. You said you’d tell her when school started.” Ashley smiled in a way that was supposed to look sweet. Everyone knew it was pure evil.
“I…I…” Heather stammered for another second then ripped open the car door. “I have to go.”
I don’t know why I expected her to be honest and tell everyone about Ryan’s death, she was still Heather. Sarah bolted out of the car after her, climbing over me while Ashley took her sweet time turning off the engine and taking off her seatbelt.
“Wow.” It was all I could say. On any normal day, Ashley’s words could have set off a storm of accusations and gossip. But today, there were far more awful things to worry about than gossip. Ryan’s body was waiting to be found and Heather was covering up the secret.
Ashley opened her car door and waited for me to get out. I did, not sure how I would handle it all.
“She made me swear not to tell you. It was her huge secret all summer.”
“I had no idea. Ryan and I were…”
“On a break. I know. He told the world.” We’d fallen in step with each other. She gave me a short hug with one arm. “I didn’t think it was right, but I figured Heather would move on and you two would get back together.” She sounded sympathetic. I guess, in Ashley’s world, she’d been defending me. Then her voice turned sour. “Then the new boy showed up and I realized you and Ryan weren’t going to get back together. All those football game double dates we had last year weren’t going to happen. I know you didn’t know about Heather, but still, it’s all her fault.”
I nodded, even though it wasn’t Heather’s fault. I’d moved on from Ryan, cried over him, convinced myself our relationship was too dangerous. Heather didn’t have anything to do with me being a mermaid.
“You didn’t say anything
, but I was pretty sure he would be your first.”
“It almost happened at the end of the year beach party.” Ryan, the waves, the way he’d been willing to skip the skinny dipping part of the party for me. We made out on the sand until I told him I changed my mind and wanted to swim. I remembered Ryan’s eager grin when he grabbed my hand and pulled us out into the water.
“Heather should’ve respected that. I’m sorry.”
“Thanks.” Ashley looked at me and decided I needed a real hug. She gave me one, then had to go because we had different classes. I wished I could tell her the truth about it all, how that night at the party really went, why I wasn’t so upset at Heather’s betrayal, and most importantly, why thoughts of Ryan stung so much. If I looked sad, it wasn’t over Heather’s drama; it was because someone I’d cared about was dead.
I slid into my seat in AP English and looked at Ms. Cohen. Her face seemed troubled. For a second, I could believe that everyone in the world was upset for different reasons. I was ready to have a normal day when the bell rang and Ms. Cohen ended all my normal thoughts.
“We’re having a school-wide assembly. I need everyone to head to the auditorium. Danika, will you stay behind for a minute?”
I cringed, wondering what I’d done wrong. Sure, I’d skipped school; but I had a note with a realistic-looking signature in my pocket. I sank down in my seat as everyone else walked away, wondering what new problem this would bring.
Ms. Cohen gestured to the chair by her desk, then took a second studying her grade book. I watched her while she looked at it, with her brown hair in a cute bob and her flashy gold jewelry. She was the youngest and prettiest of the teachers. Ashley adored her, but not enough to risk flunking an AP class. I’d always thought Ms. Cohen liked me.
“I know most of you think I’m hopelessly out of touch.” She closed the grade book, but not before I realized it wasn’t our class’ book. “But I know you and Ryan were an item last year.”
He’d walked me to class each morning, of course she’d noticed. I nodded.
The Mermaid and the Murders Page 8