by Kelly, Holly
“I don’t know how they do things where you come from,” Gretchen said, “but here there are laws, laws you are not exempt from. You can’t just go chasing after criminals. You can’t.”
“Mm hmm,” he hummed in agreement as he took a step toward her.
“You need to let go of your anger. Let go of your need for revenge. Let go of…”
“Gretchen?” He took another step in.
“Yes?”
“Stop talking and kiss me.” He moved toward her.
She stiffened. A flame ignited at his words. She wasn’t sure if it was fueled by anger or desire, but she sure wasn’t going to kiss him after he avoided her at every turn the last few days. “Take one more step toward me, and I’ll make you wish you were dead.”
His eyes widened, and a slow smile spread across his face. “You are not like any other woman I’ve ever met.”
She narrowed her eyes.
“I shouldn’t want you,” Kyros said, his voice as smooth as silk, “but I do.”
“You can want all you wish. You won’t be getting anything more from me.”
“Gretchen…?” He paused. What he was waiting for, she had no idea.
“What?”
He traced his fingers over her jaw and down her neck. She trembled at his touch. “Your body betrays you.”
Stiffening, she clenched her fists. She’d like to see how well he could kiss with a fat, bloody lip. Instead of giving in to her violent impulse, she turned on her heels and walked away. Before she reached Xanthus and Drakōn, she shot Kyros one more message over her shoulder. “Do what you want. I hope he shoots you through your black heart.”
The sound of the surf outside penetrated Gretchen’s consciousness as she lay in bed. Worry assaulted her. Worry for Kyros, worry for Sara, and worry about her world coming to an end. But finally a troubled sleep found her, and unbidden, another reality thrust itself upon her. Another life, another girl, another place, a place that held memories that only served to torment her.
“It’s okay; you’re safe,” Ambrosia said. Her voice was the sweet voice of a child. It was the type of voice that loosened tongues, emanated kindness, and made you want to pour your heart out.
“What’s your name?” Ambrosia asked.
There was no response from the young girl at her side—only a blank stare. She was shaking. Her teeth chattered in her mouth.
“Don’t you have a name?”
Still no answer.
“Are you hungry? I could catch you a fish or a sea urchin.” Still nothing.
“Why are you shaking?”
Silence.
“Here, maybe you just need to sit and rest.” Ambrosia tugged the girl, pulling her to the back of the cave. Pointing to a pile of seaweed, she said. “This is my bed. It’s softer than it looks.”
Despite the friendly overtures, the girl stood, unblinking.
“Let me show you.” Ambrosia pulled her down to sit on the weeds.
“See? Nice and soft.”
Ambrosia frowned at the girl. She didn’t seem happy. Perhaps a little song would help. Ambrosia sang a simple tune, a song about rainbows and jellyfish. It was light, and it was soothing. A song one would sing to a friend. When her song was through, she tried again. “What is your name?”
“Gretchen,” she finally answered. Ambrosia smiled; pleased she was now speaking to her.
“Do you like being human?”
“Um, I guess so.”
“What is your favorite game?”
“Mario Party.”
“It’s a party? Do you play it on the beach?” Ambrosia asked.
“It’s a video game.”
“What’s a video game?”
“It’s a game you play on a TV.”
The questions poured from Ambrosia’s lips, but the answers seemed to only multiply the questions in her head.
“Do you live with other humans?”
“I live with my mom, dad, and brother,” Gretchen answered.
“Do you love them?”
“Yes.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Do they love you?”
“Yes.”
“How do you know?”
“They tell me.”
Ambrosia noticed tears leaking from the girl’s eyes. “Are you sad?”
“Yes.”
“Why? I haven’t hurt you. Aren’t I being nice to you?”
“I miss my family.”
Ambrosia didn’t ask any more questions. The answers only made her heart ache.
Ambrosia laid Gretchen down to sleep. She couldn’t ignore the tears streaming down the girl’s cheeks.
Tears of her own began to fall when she realized she couldn’t keep her human. She had to take her back. But it was night. She’d wait until morning. She would absolutely take her to shore later. For now, she would spend a little more time with her. She curled up next to the girl, relishing the contact, drifting to sleep with a smile on her face.
Hours later, Ambrosia awoke to an ear-piercing scream. She blinked her eyes open and sat up. Her mother was dragging Gretchen toward the water.
“Where are you taking her?” Ambrosia screamed.
“The humans have about twenty boats and divers out there. They’re looking for her.”
“But, I’m not ready to give her back yet.”
“Ambrosia, you will not argue with me. I have to let them find her.”
“How will you return her without them seeing you?”
“I’m not going to stay out there with her.”
“But… can she swim? Some humans can’t swim. I’ve seen it. The small ones often can’t.”
Her mother laughed. “I don’t care. You think I care about a human?”
“But she could die.”
Her mother smirked at her. “Oh, she’ll die. I’ll make sure of it. We can’t have her blabbing to the humans about us.”
“No!” Ambrosia screamed as she raced toward her mother. “I won’t let you kill her.”
She met her mother’s fist, while running full on. The pain was blinding just before everything went black.
The next thing she was aware of was the throbbing pain in her head. It was excruciating. She opened one eye; the other one seemed glued shut. She gingerly touched it. Her face felt all puffy.
Pain slammed into her heart when she remembered what happened. Her mom was going to kill Gretchen.
She dove into the water. Her legs tingled as they changed into a fin. A moment later, she raced out, swimming toward the shore. Surfacing, she looked around. Her mother had said there were humans searching for the girl. The moon shone above the empty beach. There was no sign of her friend. No sign of the humans. Tears sprang to her eyes. She was too late.
Her mother had proven her cruelty again. She didn’t care about the girl. She didn’t care about anyone. She didn’t even care about her own daughter. Ambrosia swam aimlessly through the water, sobbing. She should have taken the girl back last night. If she had, she would still be alive.
Guilt crushed down on her, making it hard for her to breathe. Her mother was a monster. Ambrosia hated everything about her life. Why couldn’t she have been born a human? Why couldn’t she have a mother and father who loved her, who would search for her if she’d gone missing?
Finding herself back at the cave, she swam in and kept swimming. She didn’t go back to her sleeping area, but wandered through the endless maze of tunnels.
Looking up, she was surprised to find herself in a place unfamiliar to her. She continued to swim, uncaring where she was. She just wanted to escape the reality of her life. The darkness deepened. She could have turned on her lighted necklace, but she found the blackness comforting. She could pretend she didn’t exist… pretend the world didn’t exist.
As she swam, she was assaulted with a smell. It wasn’t horrible, but it wasn’t a pleasant smell either—just strange, ancient. She’d never smelled anything like it. Swimming into the room, she
could feel seaweed brushing her skin. How seaweed grew in such a dark place, she didn’t know. But it would help to keep her hidden from the world—hidden from her mother. She settled in among the weeds and fell fast asleep.
She didn’t know how long she slept, but eventually, consciousness returned. Her head didn’t hurt nearly as much, and her mind was clearer as she awoke. She needed to make a plan. She dreaded going back to her mother, but where else could she go?
A thought struck her. What if she went to shore? What would the humans do to her? Would they hurt her? Would they accept her? She’d never seen humans hurt or mistreat each other the way her mother did. Could life on shore be any worse than the life she had?
Ambrosia finally turned on her orbed necklace.
Her scream echoed off the cave walls. She’d found herself face to face with a white skull haloed with long wisps of hair. She continued to shriek as she turned and swam into a tiny skeleton. It floated in front of the bones of a small tailfin. She turned around again only to find countless more skeletons floating above a pile of bones. She knew at once who they were—these were her brothers and sisters.
She swam through them on her way to the exit. Their skeletons floated like specters—their eyes gaping wide, their jaws grinning at her. She frantically swam through the caves, the scent of her own cavern leading the way. But she didn’t stop there. She kept swimming—leaving the cave system and heading into open sea.
She swam with no destination in mind. She only wanted away from the island, away from the nightmare, away from her cruel mother. How far she swam, she had no idea. She only knew the sun arched over the sky many times on her journey.
Sleep was a torment, and wakefulness a nightmare. She didn’t eat much on her journey. Sharks would give her food along the way, but she could barely choke it down. The sickness afflicting her mind also affected her stomach. Just the thought of food turned it sour.
When she finally spotted land, she wasn’t sure whether or not she was dreaming. The sound of laughter and the soft roar of human voices seemed to penetrate her consciousness. Finally, she snapped out of her stupor.
Popping her head above the surface, she took in the view before her. There were humans, hundreds of them. Giant, rectangular rocks with shiny, square holes in them stood behind the humans. Ambrosia looked closely to see whether the people looked angry, mean, or threatening in any way. She was relieved to see they looked pleasant, many of them smiling.
It took hours of coaxing herself to go ashore. She had to. She could leave the sea. Leave the horror. She could make a life for herself among the humans. She could be human—forget what she was.
She found an area of the beach that seemed to be free of people. Surfacing was the hardest thing she’d ever done—even scarier than talking back to her mother.
Pulling herself from the water, her fin turned to legs. No one shouted, and no one looked shocked. She’d done it without a single witness. Her legs felt weak, wobbling as she walked. Going days with little food had sapped her strength. But, she was more concerned with the humans than her empty stomach. As she walked toward them, their eyes shot open wide and their jaws dropped. She wondered if they could tell she was a mermaid after all. She’d thought she looked human. Was there something she’d missed? Something they could see that let them know she wasn’t one of them? She backed slowly away.
“Mommy, that girl’s naked,” said a small child to a woman, who snatched her up in her arms. All the humans were gawking at her.
Naked? Then she noticed it. The humans were all wearing clothing. A plump woman with white hair approached her with a wide, rectangular piece of cloth. “Are you okay, sweetie? She walked right up to Ambrosia. “Here, let’s get you covered.” She wrapped the scratchy material around her, and all the humans seemed to relax. Okay, humans did not like to see people naked.
“Where’s your mother?” the woman asked.
Ambrosia didn’t answer. She didn’t know how she should answer.
“What’s your name?”
Ambrosia thought about how to answer that question. She wanted to start a new life, wanted to escape her past. She needed a new name. But she didn’t know any human names. Well, actually, she did know one.
She looked up into blue eyes framed with worried creases and answered. “My name is Gretchen.”
Gretchen awoke to a dark room, with tears streaming down her face. She remembered everything with crystal clarity. She’d pushed her memories back so many times she’d actually convinced herself they were not real—that they were false memories.
But coming out of that dream, she knew it was real. Her past was real. She wasn’t crazy. Still, doubt tickled her mind. She had to prove something to herself.
After fifteen years, it was time.
Gretchen walked across the dark room, pulling out a nail file from her makeup kit. Stepping over to the window, she carefully shoved it under the sensor. It easily popped off. She kept it close to the other half of the sensor to prevent the alarm from tripping. She stuck the freed one directly on top of the other. The adhesive stuck tight.
Ah ha! Now she could open the window without alerting her overprotective guards. She slid the windowpane up and was greeted with a cool Caribbean breeze.
Looking down, she searched to see how far it was to the ground. She was on the first floor, but this house was huge. Its first-floor windows were surprisingly high. Still, she’d probably be fine getting down. Climbing back up might be an issue. She’d just have to find a ladder or something. Maybe the garden shed held one.
She shimmied her body backwards out the window. Holding on to the sill, she dropped down and stumbled before falling on her butt in the soft grass. That wasn’t too bad. Standing up and brushing herself off, she looked toward the beach. It looked amazing. The moon shone through the cresting waves before they crashed into the sandy surf. She breathed the salty air deep, allowing the scent to fill her mind and comfort her.
Gretchen approached the shore. Looking around, she tried to locate any late-night beach goers, or crazed killers. She seemed to be alone. Then she saw it—the twinkling of lights coming from a ship offshore.
Her heart pounded. Why it did, she wasn’t sure. But something didn’t seem right. She jogged behind an outcropping of boulders and pressed her back against its rocky surface. Through the thundering surf, she could hear something squeak. She turned her head toward the sound and saw only more rocks with deep, black crevasses. It quieted for a moment before growing louder. A black, flailing shadow covered her vision as she squeaked out a cry. Her heart pounded in her ears, and she sank to the sand.
A bat. A stupid bat.
She stood and brushed the sand off. More squeaking. Where’s it coming from?
She stepped toward the boulders and began to climb. She scrambled up and slid down, scuffing her skin against the rocks as she drew nearer to the noise. Then she saw it—the mouth of a cave. As she scooted down a u-shaped crevice toward the opening, some rocks jostled loose and tumbled down. The sounds of leathery wings beat in her ear, and a cloud of shadows flew up and over her. When they were gone, she stood. Stepping through the cave door, she could see the lapping water of a sea cave. A vice clamped around her heart. This place looked all-too familiar. But no, it wasn’t the same. Deep in the repressed memories of her mind, she remembered the other one. And it didn’t have a land-based entrance. The only way in and out of that cave was through the water.
Gretchen’s legs were shaking as she approached the water’s edge and looked down. She half expected to see the empty sockets of a skull looking up at her.
Gretchen wanted to run away, but she forced herself to stay. She’d been running for fifteen years—running from the horror, running from the memories. But her mother was not here. With her heart in her throat, she stripped out of her clothes. She’d been fighting since the day she’d left her birth mother—fighting for her independence, for her happiness. But there was one fight left to wage, one she’d been too af
raid to confront—the sea itself.
It had been a long time. Would it still work? Had she been human too long? She sure felt like a human. She’d gone to public school, all the way from elementary to high school—she had the emotional scars to prove it. She’d gone to college, joined a sorority, and kissed more boys than she could remember. She’d talked to her mom—her real mom, the one who adopted her—on the phone every weekend since leaving for college. She’d practically forgotten who she used to be, where she’d come from. But here, standing on the tiny shore of this dark sea cave, she was ready to confront it.
Inching her way forward, her toes were nearly touching the ocean water. She pressed her lips tightly together and decided to take a leap. Well, her leap was actually only a small step. But, with fear pulsing through her veins, she slipped one foot into the cool water, and then the other.
The world rose around her as her body changed, plunging her into the salty sea. She sat in water a foot deep. It had been fifteen years since she took her first, terrifying steps on an open shore, leaving her previous life behind. Fifteen years since she’d touched the sea, but regardless of her heartless abandonment of the ocean those many years ago, it seemed to welcome her back in its soft, lapping arms.
Gretchen lifted her tail from beneath the rippling water and examined it in the dim, moonlit cave. It was pale, flesh colored—not like the ridiculous, scaled fins of mermaid legends. Did the humans really believe mermaids were descended from lowly fish? No way. Mermaids were daughters of the sea—daughters of Triton. Gretchen had never actually met her grandfather, but she had always dreamed he would come and rescue her. She didn’t know a lot about him, but her birth mother was angry with him. Angry he had banished her. So he couldn’t be too bad, could he? When he took too long to save her, she had simply rescued herself.