by Roan Hart
Faith rubbed reassuringly at Seibal's bare shoulder. Tried to ignore the way the word human really distracted her. "No killing here," she said just as quietly as Seibal had. "You got lucky, I guess."
The smile Seibal flashed her was weak and shaky but beautiful nonetheless. "I really did."
There was a moment of stillness and expectancy where Faith was absolutely sure she was going to get to kiss the mermaid the way she'd wanted to all afternoon. She'd even started to lean in, and Seibal's eyes were fluttering closed, but then all of a sudden Seibal jerked away from her like she'd burned them
It was so sudden that Faith nearly face planted into the sand and she was forced to catch herself on her hands. "What the hell?" she said, mostly out of surprise and not anger. When she glanced up Seibal's attention was completely on the water.
Trying not to feel rejected and failing just a little bit, Faith glanced out at the ocean too. "Is there something out there?" she asked when nothing met her gaze but dark waves and the moon's wavering reflection. Shit, when had it gotten so late? She hadn't even noticed the sun setting completely.
Seibal just shook their head, offering up a rather sheepish smile. It was hard to tell in the dim light, but it looked like there was a flush to their dark skin. "No, sorry, I just suddenly realized how late it had gotten," they said, then bit their lower lip. "Can you, um… I know it's going to sound really rude, but can you leave now? You can come back tomorrow! But I just…"
Despite her limited experience, Faith could tell when she was being let down gently. She smiled as best she could through the ache spreading through her chest to the rest of her body. "Yeah, sure thing."
The plain relief on Seibal's face was the finishing blow. "Great, yeah, thanks. Um, see you tomorrow?"
Faith stood, trying and failing to brush the worst of the sand from her jeans. "See you tomorrow," she confirmed, and it was so, so difficult not to look back as she walked away. But she didn't. Seeing Seibal all laid out in the moonlight would have been too much, really.
When she got back to her car, she seriously considered driving straight home. She'd be exhausted by the time she got there, but at least she'd be back, and her parents would know she was safe. They'd be overjoyed, and she'd probably wake up to an apology breakfast of epic proportions, though really she was the one who should be apologizing.
But as much as the rejection hurt, and as surprising as that hurt was, she'd promised Seibal that she'd see them tomorrow.
Sighing, Faith dropped her head none too gently against the steering wheel, and then cursed because freaking ow. God, she was an idiot. She didn't even know Seibal, had barely learned their name earlier that day. But, as she pulled out of the parking lot and away from the beach, she knew she was going to keep her promise.
She didn't really have the funds for it, but she found another motel for the night. And she didn't even bother with the laundry room this time; the maids would have a lot of sand to vacuum up from where she'd beaten her clothes out like a rug, but it was better than nothing. She hung them up, hoping gravity would help pull some of the remaining sand out, and collapsed into the bed in just her underwear.
It was strange really. She wasn't someone who opened up easily. Even when it came to friendships, it took a long time for her to get comfortable with someone. It wasn't about being distrustful, she was just slow moving when it came to all her relationships, and nobody had ever called her unfriendly or cold. Romantic endeavors were even worse. She never accepted dates from people she barely knew (much to the chagrin of friends and family, who were always telling her she needed to put herself out there) and usually anyone she was attracted to mistook her gradual interest as reluctance, and left before anything could happen. As a result she'd only ever dated two people, and neither of those relationships had lasted very long in the end.
All that history, all those personal preferences for slow-and-steady, and here she was feeling heartsick over someone she'd met yesterday.
Maybe it had something to do with Seibal being a mermaid. It made them especially alluring, unique or something, and that's what was drawing Faith in.
But even as she thought it, Faith dismissed the idea. If Seibal had been some human surfer, a beach bum, or even some weird person hanging out in a laundry room in the middle of the night, she still would have been head over heels for them.
Faith pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes. The first time she'd ever connected to someone so quickly, so strongly, and they didn't want anything to do with her. Well, they wanted to be friends. They wanted to see her again. But they didn't want to kiss her, didn't want to be close in the way that Faith desperately did. She should be happy with what she could get, right?
Moaning like she was dying, Faith rolled over in the bed, buried her face into a pillow, and screamed until she was breathless. It didn't really make her feel better in the end, but it did forcefully remind her of her exhaustion.
Tomorrow. Tomorrow she would go see Seibal, and then she would finally go home.
Part Four
Day number three bloomed hotter than the last two as the grey of the sky was finally eaten away by the sun's shining rays. It put Faith in a better mood as she walked down the beach barefoot and in her dirty, forever-and-ever-going-to-be-sandy clothes. She'd probably have to burn them when she got home again. Damn, she'd liked this hoodie too.
The water was blindingly bright under the sun to one side, and the sand was just beginning to truly bake on the other. If she wasn't, you know, on the beach, this would be the perfect weather. As it was, she had to walk in the surf because only the water kept her poor feet from burning. What she wouldn't give for some chanclas right about now. They'd help keep her from tracking sand back to her car, too, though that was probably a moot point by now. She could already foresee many a carwash trip just so she could use the big, industrial-strength vacuums.
Today when Faith rounded the corner, Seibal was floating in the little horseshoe pool. A quick glance confirmed that the tide was down but it occurred to Faith suddenly that it might not make much of a difference. If they spent time in the water, it would carry their scent even when they got out, right? Like wearing clothes only… wetter. And though the cove barely felt the brush of the ocean, the water still circulated when the tide was at its highest. Wouldn't that just whisk Seibal's scent right out to sea, where it could be tracked?
On the other hand, they were a mermaid. And though Faith had seen them spend almost an entire day out of the water, it couldn't be very good for them in the long run. Maybe the need outweighed the risk?
Faith had every intention of asking after that little dilemma when she approached, but one look at Seibal's face had the questions dying in her throat.
They were floating on their back close to the edge of the pool where they usually sat during the day. Spilling around them in a dark cloud, their hair looked tangled and brittle even in the water. On top of that, their skin was oddly pale in a way Faith hadn't seen before, washed out and clammy, and their scales looked less vibrant than usual. And their eyes. Even from a distance Faith could see the huge purple bags under them, so large they could be mistaken for actual bruises. If she didn't know any better, Faith would wonder who had punched them in the face. Repeatedly. Because through the odd paleness of their skin, she could tell the color was high on their cheeks, and their full lips, normally plush and rather inviting, were cracked and split.
What the hell had happened?
Faith sunk down onto the sand in what, after two days, had become her usual spot and watched as Seibal lazily—or was it weakly—inclined their head towards her. They blinked open dull eyes, gave a small smile on torn lips. When they rasped out a quiet, "Hey," that sounded like it had to be torn from their throat, Faith hit her limit.
"What the hell!?" she said, scooting as close to the little pool she could get without actively climbing into the water. "What happened, you look like hell!"
Seibal sighed softly, eyes slipping
closed. "I thought you weren't gonna come back today," they murmured. Faith felt her lips tighten at the obvious dodge, but allowed it anyway.
"Yeah, why's that?"
"Last night. You looked…" the corner of their mouth quirked, barely, "Well, you looked like I socked you in the stomach. I didn't think you'd come see me again."
Unable to help herself, Faith leaned over the water and put a hand to Seibal's cheek. They were burning up under her touch, but she just stroked their face anyways. "You're an idiot," she told them, and again their mouth quirked in what Faith was realizing was self-deprecation.
"I know."
"Then you should have known I would come back. I'm not that fragile, I can take a rejection."
Still not opening their eyes, Seibal turned into her touch, nuzzling into her palm. "Wasn't a rejection."
Her heart thumped painfully against her chest. "Yeah? Felt an awful lot like one."
Lifting a hand from the water, Seibal gripped Faith's wrist gently, their skin cool and wet but with that burning heat lurking beneath it. "'Cause I'm an idiot," they slurred, mouth pursing. "There was—I was trying—the moon…" Sighing, they seemed to slump even further, though Faith wasn't quite sure how that was possible. Finally they blinked, staring fuzzily at her with their features all pinched in concentration.
"The full moon was last night," they said slowly, each word clearly taking effort now, but still they drudged on. "That's when my magic's at its most powerful, so I tried to do a spell. But it was old magic, dangerous magic. I wasn't strong enough to complete it. Food isn't abundant so close to shore so I was weak anyways, but I kept trying, over and over again until I'd completely drained myself. Idiot, I'm a freaking idiot." With a heavy sigh they let go of Faith's wrist and closed their eyes again, seemingly done with their tale. But they murmured "Idiot," one last time, just under their breath.
Faith had a sinking suspicion she knew exactly what kind of spell Seibal was trying to use. She sat back on the sand and studied the mermaid a moment before daring to ask. "That spell. You were trying to become human, weren't you? Or something like that."
They gave a tiny twitch of their head that she guessed was a nod. "Something like that," they repeated, and now they sounded on the verge of sleep. Faith didn't know whether she should let them sleep or if magical exhaustion was like a concussion and you had to keep the person awake.
"You're not dying, right?" she asked, a little embarrassed when her voice cracked.
But Seibal just gave a painful sounding huff. "Not yet." Their breathing slowed right after that, their body finally succumbing to whatever horrors Seibal had put it through. Had they slept at all, or had they waited to see if she would show up? They hadn't thought she would. They'd thought she wouldn't keep her promise. Honestly she couldn't blame them though. She hadn't thought she'd keep her promise. Not at first anyways.
Despite the weak (very weak, what kind of response was 'not yet' anyways?) reassurance that they weren't dying, Faith couldn't bring herself to leave Seibal's side. The rational part of her brain said they could use something to eat, that they hadn't eaten properly in who knows how long (and really, anything caught in the Gulf couldn't be that great) and it would probably help a great deal with their exhaustion to get something warm and nutritious in them. But the irrational part of her, the emotional part, the one that was already completely sappy and gooey over them, insisted they could die if she so much as took her eyes off them for five minutes.
In the end the rational side won out, as it often did with Faith. But the irrational part had her touching Seibal's cheek again before she left, practically sprinting to her car, and going ten miles over the speed limit the whole time she was in it.
The closest place Google Maps could find was a little surf 'n turf shop a few miles away. She spent a minute going over their homemade menu board before ordering a couple fish sandwiches with nothing on them for Seibal, one with everything for her, some water bottles, and two bags of chips. Her bank account didn't thank her when she was done, but, well, some things were more important than the healthy buffer she liked to keep. It was for emergencies anyways, and this was probably an emergency.
Back on the beach, Seibal hadn't moved an inch. Faith sat staring at them for a long moment, making sure they were still breathing, then heaved a sigh of relief when she could see the rise and fall of their chest. With their hair flared out in the water, she also caught a glimpse of slim, golden gills on their neck that she'd never noticed before. On land their hair fell luxuriously over their shoulders, blocking the view, but not so when they were floating. The gills flared, slow and steady, with the breaths Seibal was taking. It was even more reassuring, honestly.
Faith sat back on the too-hot sand and ate her lunch, alternating between watching the mermaid and watching the horizon. She wasn't quite sure what she was looking for exactly, but there was a gentle anxiousness under her breastbone that said any minute now someone could come to whisk Seibal away. Take her mermaid and vanish, make them live a life they desperately didn't want. She hadn't felt any anxiety yesterday after hearing why they had run away, but now… It was probably the fact that they were injured, in a sense. That irrational part of her was still screaming they could die at any minute, though it was much smaller now than it had been.
Hours later, she cracked open another water bottle, drinking half of it in one go. The sun would set soon, she could tell, and her stomach was starting to growl. The sandwiches she'd bought for Seibal had long ago grown cold, but she hadn't touched them or the chips meant for the mermaid.
Maybe she should try waking them? They needed to eat. Also, the tide was coming up. They needed to get out of the water.
"Seibal," she tried, and wasn't surprised when they didn't even twitch. So she scooted closer and leaned over the water to shake their shoulder. It made their face screw up a little, as if annoyed, but they didn't wake up.
Faith frowned, studying their wan features, the bags under their eyes that looked maybe a little smaller than they had earlier. How did one wake an exhausted mermaid? She leaned precariously over the water and poked Seibal's cheek. Huh, they weren't quite as hot as they were earlier. That was a good thing, right?
Another poke had Seibal's nose wrinkling rather adorably, and a tap to that wide, cute nose finally had them squinting up at Faith through thick, clumped lashes. Immediately their features relaxed from annoyed to happy, mouth curving up into a small smile.
"Hey," Faith said, suddenly aware of how close they really were. She hadn't meant to get quite so close, and the wrist of the hand she was leaning on to balance her weight was starting to cramp. But she didn't pull away and was glad when, rather than answering her greeting, Seibal leaned up to gently kiss her.
It was a soft thing, with chapped lips and salty skin, and for all of two seconds Faith's heart trilled happily. And then something seemed to snap, to give, and suddenly there were harsh fingers in Faith's hair dragging her down, down, down.
She tried to gasp, but couldn't. The mouth against hers was too insistent, pressing harshly against her with a foreign kind of strength. She'd been dragged into the water, she realized, but all she could hear was a loud ringing, like church bells right inside her head, and her body felt too heavy and hot to struggle against those hands pulling at her. There was something happening, she could feel it, a pulling sensation that went so far beyond the physical she swore her soul was being sucked from her very body. It spilled hot and liquid from her mouth, an inexorable stream she couldn't fight. What has happening? Had she been tricked? Her mind blindly groped with half-forgotten tales of sirens who ate their victims after luring them into the sea.
But just as suddenly as it had begun, it stopped. The mouth retreated and the hands released her, pushing her away, and blindly she swam in search of the surface. She emerged gasping and coughing from the water, blinking against the sudden light after the darkness behind her eyelids, the darkness of the little pool.
Trembling, she c
rawled out onto the sand, exhausted for no reason she could name and more than a little shaky. Uncaring of her clothes, she collapsed. Her body pulled in air in huge, heaving gasps, like she'd never get enough of it.
Behind her, she could hear the movement of water from the pool, and despite the heaviness of her limbs she jerked, turning to watch with wide eyes as Seibal's head bobbed just above the surface.
Their own eyes were wide, hair even messier than before, and face completely flushed. But they looked far healthier than they had earlier, their skin closer to its natural dark pigment and the bruises under their eyes all but vanished.
"Holy shit," Seibal murmured, and Faith felt like laughing. Or maybe crying, she couldn't tell which.
She swallowed heavily, her mouth full of salt and copper. "What the fuck was that?"
"I—"
"You tried to kill me!" Faith found herself interrupting, tone incredulous and hurt but still trembling.
"I didn't!" Seibal hurried to say, looking stricken now as they swam closer to the shore. Faith had to fight the urge to back away but she did watch them warily.
"Then what the hell was that?"
"You didn't tell me you weren't human."
"I—What?"
"You're not human," Seibal murmured. "If I had known I wouldn't have kissed you like that."
Faith opened her mouth, closed it, stared down at them in disbelief. Three days later and she still hadn't come to terms with it yet, being what she was. It was why she was here in the first place, it was what had made her panic and go running when she should have stayed for a more thorough explanation. But her mother had… shifted, her face elongating, her arms erupting into shimmering, emerald scales.
Basically, Faith had lost her shit and hadn't found it again until she'd realized she was in Galveston.