“And there’s nothing in his office?” There must be. I don’t trust that oil spill of a man.
“Just way more than I ever wanted to know about some of the ocean’s most disgusting potion ingredients. If I told you what was in the tonic for children’s scale spots … ” He shudders.
“What? I took that a few times as a kid.” I hold up my hand. “On second thought, don’t tell me.” I slide off the platform and into the water, hoping it will soothe my anxiety. Not only am I worried about the Havelocks, but—despite the three hours I spent in the ocean last night—I’m still worked up from tapping into the siren bond. My need for the ocean feels deeper than ever. Submerging myself in the waves helps dampen the call so I can focus on our conversation.
“Where else is there to look?” I ask.
“Mr. Havelock hasn’t left me unsupervised yet, so I haven’t been able to wander around. I haven’t been to the aboveground levels at all, but I doubt anything’s up there. The two of them seem to go up into the human part of their house even less than my family does.”
That’s not suspicious by itself. Sure, it fits with udell behavior, but it could also describe any Mer family that just got to our Community and is still adjusting to life Above.
“My bet,” Caspian continues, “is that if they are hiding something, it’s in the sleeping chamber caves. Those are at the very back of the grottos where the private rooms are. I haven’t had a chance to go back there.” He swims closer to me, levels me with a serious gaze. “Hey, Lia?” He switches back to English. It’s a gesture of goodwill; he doesn’t want his next words to offend me. “Before I invade this family’s privacy, just tell me you’re sure about this.”
“I’m sure.”
“Then your wish is my command,” he jokes.
“Don’t say that.”
I try not to think of them as commands. When I tell Clay to avoid Melusine, to go straight home after school, to say whatever he’d normally say in his classes and around his friends. I try to think of these as ways to protect him, to keep his life as safe and normal as possible. He follows these instructions happily and never thinks to question me. Well, almost never.
“Why don’t you want me to kiss you?” Clay’s face is so open, so vulnerable. I’m not sure if he’ll remember this conversation, but I don’t want to hurt him either way.
“I do want you to,” I answer, and it’s the truth, “but—”
“Then why do you always pull away or turn your head? Do you want me to leave you alone?”
“No. I just … I want to kiss you.”
“Huh?” His thoughts are already all mixed up, and I’m just making things worse.
“Never mind. Let’s go to the pier.”
At the Santa Monica pier, I can distract him with funnel cake and shooting games and oversized stuffed animals. When we ride the Ferris wheel, my head resting on his shoulder, I can distract myself into almost believing it’s real.
“Once she’d achieved fame throughout Denmark for her voice, Astrid Ostergard was invited to court to sing for the royal family,” Clay says, pointing to the opera singer on our display board. “Once she moved into the palace, she was reported to have numerous affairs, which must have been true because by the time she left court, she’d given birth to a son and I couldn’t find any record of his father. So,” Clay says, crossing his arms across his chest and raising one cocky eyebrow, “we can conclude I’m destined for musical greatness and sexual debauchery.”
The class chuckles.
“Okay, Mr. Ericson,” Mr. Reitzel admonishes lightly. “Let’s not digress.” Even he sounds amused.
I jump in and discuss the (largely edited) details about my ancestry, careful to make them sound more like a family tree and less like a family coral reef.
“And so, Clay and I discovered that we both have some family from Denmark who immigrated to the United States before World War I,” I finish.
“Yep,” Clay says. “Who knew we’d have so much in common?” He winks at me, and I hope I’m not blushing in front of the entire class.
“I did!” Kelsey shouts from her seat. Everyone laughs but Melusine. Her glare is downright dangerous.
“All right, you two, excellent work,” Mr. Reitzel says. “Next up, Laurie and Mel.”
I’m quick to return to my seat. I’ve been looking forward to Melusine’s report for the last few weeks. Maybe, just maybe, it will reveal something useful.
Laurie begins the report and, in her usual exuberance, talks so fast that Mr. Reitzel has to remind her to slow down twice. She tells us the entire story of her family’s immigration from Ireland in five minutes flat. At least I don’t have to wait long to hear from Melusine.
“My family immigrated here, too,” she says. Is it only by comparison that she seems to be speaking so slowly? Her voice seeps out like thick honey. “From … an area near the coast of France. I come from a long line of … seamen.”
A few of the boys snicker, and one of the water polo players shouts, “I bet you do.”
She pins him with a look so icy, it silences him faster than any threat of detention ever could.
“As I was saying,” she continues as if she’d merely paused to pinch a bothersome flea between her fingernails, “you could say my ancestors hardly ever stepped foot on land.” She laughs, the sound tinkling around the room. “Sadly, war drove my family from their home, first toward America and eventually right here. Until this year, I’d never been among any … Californians.”
“When you say war, you mean World War II? That’s what drove your family out of France?” Mr. Reitzel asks.
“Sure,” she replies with an indulgent smile. I guess people hear what they expect to hear.
Laurie chirps up again, and the two of them spend the rest of their report discussing Ellis Island. Melusine doesn’t actually say her family was there, but no one else notices. It never occurred to me to be that honest in my presentation. It’s so ingrained in me to hide all the Mer parts of myself; I never considered another alternative.
Still, Melusine’s transparency hasn’t helped me get any closer to useful information. I should have known she’d be too smart to let anything slip. Evil? Yes. Udell? Probably. Stupid? No. My stress creeps into the muscles of my neck and shoulders, tightening them with tension.
The thought has barely swum to the surface of my mind when Clay’s hand reaches up behind the back of my chair and messages my neck in slow, deliberate circles. My tension dissipates under his talented fingers. Is it the siren bond informing him of my desires, or is it just him? Either way, his touch sends electricity tingling down my spine. My whole body hums with it.
I can still feel it hours later when I’m out with the twins. I’ve bailed on hanging with them after school a lot lately, and I really miss talking to them. Sure, their antics can sometimes be eye-roll worthy, but if anyone knows about guys, it’s them. Plus, spending time with the twins means giving myself some much-needed space from Clay’s hands. His warm, strong, wandering hands …
“Have you ever … ” I pick up a bar of soap from a nearby shelf and smell it, an excuse to collect my thoughts. It smells like peppermint and cake batter. Lazuli’s taken us to a specialty shop that sells bath products handmade to look and smell like desserts. “I mean I know you’ve … ”
“You know we’ve what?” Lazuli asks, opening a tester of shampoo and holding it under my nose. Caramel apple. Not exactly what I want my hair to smell like.
“This place is like a brothel dipped in bubble gum,” Lapis says, cringing as she sniffs a bottle of strawberry frosting face wash.
“Hey, I endured that vintage record store you dragged me to last week. Besides, where else could I buy this many chocolates without adding to my waistline?” Lazuli asks, brandishing a pink and black box of two dozen small soaps, each carved to look like a decadent chocolate truffle. “Nothing’s worse than a Mermaid with a muffin top. Now, stop complaining. Lia was tr
ying to ask us something.”
“Never mind. What do you think of this one?” I ask, holding up the peppermint soap.
Lapis tilts her head, staring at me. “Oh no you don’t. Don’t go changing the subject. You have boy face.”
“She does!” Lazuli squeals. “She has boy face.” She turns to me. “You have boy face.”
“No I don’t,” I insist.
I’m met with two identical looks of skepticism. Despite their drastically different interests, the twins are sometimes scarily alike.
“I was just wondering … I mean, I know you’ve hooked up with a bunch of guys from school … ”
“Very true,” Lazuli says. “But we haven’t tapped anyone younger than us, so the junior class is all yours.”
“In case you’re worried about sloppy seconds,” Lapis finishes.
“Ew. No. What I mean is, have you ever thought about,” I look around, checking that no one can hear me in the nearly empty store and lower my voice, just in case, “actually dating a human? Like getting serious?”
The teasing looks vanish. The twins glance at each other, communicating silently like they have since they were toddlers. Then Lapis puts a hand on my shoulder and steers me to an overly-stuffed chintz couch in a secluded back corner of the shop. As she and Lazuli sit down with me, I wish I’d kept my mouth shut.
“It’s that guy you’re doing your project with, isn’t it?” Lapis asks.
“Clay.” Lazuli says. “Clay Ericson, right?” The look she gives me is understanding, but grim. “We’ve heard rumors about the two of you around school, but we figured you were just messing around—finally.”
“We didn’t think you’d ever consider anything serious,” Lapis says. I can hear the part she doesn’t say: We didn’t think you’d ever be that stupid.
I can’t bring myself to admit they’re right. This conversation is painful enough without having to talk about Clay. Besides, what would I say?
“No, it’s not about Clay. It’s … hypothetical,” The lie sounds lame even to my own ears. Great. Now they’ll really rub it in.
But the twins don’t call me on it. Don’t taunt me. In fact, when Lazuli speaks, her voice is comforting. “I’ve never hypothetically,” she emphasizes the word, “thought about getting serious with a human guy.”
“Me either,” Lapis says. “No matter how tempting a mortal guy might be, he’s just not worth it.”
“But what if he’s—”
She cuts me off, “He’s not worth it.”
“Lia,” Lazuli says, putting her hand on mine, “you know you’d never be able to tell the truth, never be able to be yourself.”
It’s the advice I would have given myself before all this happened. But now, after everything I’ve been through with Clay, after feeling what it might be like to be with him … I want to know—no, I need to know—that if I get us to the other side of this, if I stop Melusine and find a way to free him, and if by some miracle he can forgive what I’ve done and feel something real for me, then I need to know that there’s hope for us. Some hope that we can be together.
“And not to sound momish or anything,” Lapis adds, “but there’s a reason we don’t choose mortals for mates.” Her voice is forbidding when she says, “You don’t want a seal, do you?”
These words hit me like a splash of icy, Arctic water. “No,” I whisper. Seal is a slang word. It means a baby born from a Mer-human union. A seal looks just like a human baby and can’t survive living underwater, but it has an innate affinity for the sea. It hears a muted version of the call of the ocean and can never be satisfied with life on land. As far as anyone knows, none have existed for hundreds of years, but stories from before the curse tell about Mer who lived for eternity with broken hearts after being forced to abandon their children to the human world. Seals are a major reason Mer-human romances are so deeply frowned upon, are taboo; they are creatures who belong to neither world and can never be happy.
I can never have a life with Clay. I have to find a way to free him—then I have to let him go.
Lapis and Lazuli must see their words have sunk in. They don’t belabor the point the way Em would. I’m grateful for this because I don’t think I can bear to hear the words again.
All Lazuli says is, “You okay?” I nod. I don’t trust myself to speak.
Lapis squeezes my shoulder. We all get up and head back to the main area of the store.
“You know, Lia,” Lazuli says, the smile back in her voice, “you’re way too young and hot to be worrying about choosing mates. If you like … someone hypothetical,” (I’m glad she didn’t say his name. I don’t think I could stand hearing it right now), “then you should just have fun with him.”
“Definitely,” Lapis says. “That hypothetical guy of yours sure has one grabbable ass.” She and Lazuli laugh. “Enjoy that boy while you can, that’s my advice.”
On the way to the register to pay for Lazuli’s box of chocolate soaps, we pass the baked goods inspired items. From among the cookie-dough lip gloss and devil’s food bubble bath, I pick up a simple bar of cream-colored soap with little brown flecks. I lift it to my nose and inhale the sweet, familiar scent of cinnamon. This one I don’t put back.
That night, I use it in the shower. Later, when I lie in my sponge bed under my blanket of salt water, I zero in on that rope connecting Clay and me. Tapping into that part of myself will make the call of the ocean almost unbearable, but I can stand it if it means knowing Clay is safe in his bed. Knowing he’s warm and content. I rest my head on my arm, and my skin smells like cinnamon. I fall asleep with the scent and the feel of Clay swirling around me.
“If you won’t let me kiss you, can I at least hold you?”
“Um … I don’t think that’s a good idea.” No matter what the twins say, I can’t let myself enjoy my time with Clay. They don’t know the whole story. They don’t know that Clay isn’t my boyfriend by choice.
“I can’t stop thinking about how much I want to touch you,” he says, sounding so sincere.
My cheeks burn. My pulse skyrockets.
We’re lying in the grass in Clay’s backyard. He’s tried to kiss me three times today. That’s up from yesterday. My hold on him must be getting stronger.
Every day, I tell him no. Every day, it gets harder to refuse him.
Today, at this moment, with Clay spread out on the grass, his shirt off so he can fully relish the sunshine, it’s nearly impossible.
I came over on the pretext of doing homework, so now I sit up and try to refocus my attention on my history textbook. But my gaze keeps sliding to Clay’s bare chest, to the line where the dark denim of his jeans meets the skin of his cut abdomen.
“You know you want to.” His voice is teasing. “I don’t get why you keep saying no.”
I tear my eyes away from the tantalizing expanse of skin and meet his eyes. “One day you will.”
“Fine,” he says and stands up. “We’ll study.” I breathe a sigh of … relief? Disappointment? But then, instead of getting his textbook, he sits right behind me, one leg on either side of my body, and reads over my shoulder.
He rests his chin at the base of my neck, and his stubble tickles the soft skin there. It’s an entirely new sensation. New, but not at all unpleasant.
My tank top is low-cut in back, and I can feel the sun-warmed skin of his chest against my nearly bare shoulder blades. My breath hitches.
When I don’t move away, he tentatively wraps his arms around me. I don’t shrug them off. They feel too much like they belong there. Like they’ve been missing for years. There can’t be any harm in relaxing back into his strong embrace, in letting all my worries fall away for a few minutes, can there?
We sit like that, bodies fitted together, in a sun-drenched moment of bliss. The scent of fresh-mowed grass and of azaleas and of Clay’s skin creates a heady combination that has me closing my eyes so I can take it all in. So I can capture this living da
ydream in my memory. After—when all this ends—I want this moment crystallized for keeps.
Clay raises his chin and replaces it with his lips. A slow kiss covers my shoulder, his lips firm and cool against my heated skin.
“Mmm … sun-kissed,” he says.
“Clay-kissed,” I murmur.
He plants a trail of kisses across my shoulder, toward my throat. As soon as his lips make contact with my neck, a shudder runs through me and I want to grab him to me and hold him there forever. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I know I should stop this. I know this isn’t real. But it feels so real.
“This is what I wanted,” Clay says against my skin. “To touch you. To taste you.”
His words melt into the air and caress me alongside his lips.
“Lia, you’re all I’ve … ” He falls silent. Then pulls his head back, his arms loosening, “What … what was I saying?”
I keep my eyes closed—squeeze them shut—willing time to freeze. Clinging to a feeling that’s already slipping away.
“Lia, what were we talking about?”
I work hard to keep the quaver out of my voice when I say, “I guess we both zoned out for a minute there. Don’t worry about it.”
I stay still as a stonefish. Clay’s body remains molded to mine, and I wait to find out what he’ll do. Some days, once the claws of the siren spell retract their grip, Clay continues to hold my hand or stroke my cheek. The persistence of these small touches after the spell wears off makes me hopeful that his feelings are real. I hold my breath. Are they real now?
The moment stretches into eternity, and Clay keeps holding me. My heart swells with relief as his arms stay wrapped around me. He wants to hold me. Wants to touch me. I’m enough. Even without the spell he wants—
When he peels his skin away from mine a mere millisecond later, something shatters inside me.
He scoots backward in the grass and twists his body away from mine. I feel the loss of him in every part of myself.
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