Hades was the only Olympian god left that man truly believed in after the Creator’s son walked the earth, though he was now known as Satan or Lucifer. The sad and shallow Olympians had thrived on and drawn their powers from the prayers, offerings, and adoration of their followers instead of from the elements of the earth like the elder gods did. They had withered away to oblivion as their followers dwindled to a few scattered cults.
But Medea—the Hag—was still here. She fed on something much stronger than prayer and adoration … something more reliable and empowering. She fed on hate and fear. Her demons of the deep, her atrocious children the skarzs, devoured both flesh and soul with equal relish.
It was foolish and pathetic to dwell near the grotto, but she drew strength from looking at the darkened mirrors of the dead princesses of the sea. When all but Helmi’s mirror was darkened, she had rejoiced and let her children free to roam the depths of the ocean.
The skarzs had been sired from the cast-off descendants of Cronos’ son, Poseidon. They were spawned by the last of the cyclopes and Medea in a repugnant breeding program conceived by Cronos. The blood of the god of the oceans coursed through the cyclops, for Poseidon was his grandfather.
The cyclops sired skarz after skarz using Medea as a vessel to produce an army of Cronos’ instruments of revenge. She grew older and more amphibious with each skarz she bore, turning into a hideous hag. After centuries of this, her mind became as twisted as her body, and in revenge for this betrayal, she severed the cyclops’ single-eyed head from his neck.
She did not let Cronos have the last laugh either. Immortality may not have kept her young and beautiful, but it gave her more power and strength with each passing century, and eventually she captured and tortured Cronos.
His death should have been centuries long and painful at her hands, but he’d escaped from the Hag, only to be trapped in Tartarus by Zeus after the explosion of Pompeii. How she hated Cronos! How she hated all immortals! Yet, through Cronos, the Hag had given birth to a new race of children that now served her, though all but a handful of her skarzs had died in the battle of Krakatau.
The next time she fought for rule of the ocean, she would be ready, and the Little Mermaid and her kind would disappear forever! There was no mermaid king now to wield the Scepter of Atlantis. And though a mermaid could command the Trident, no female could tap the power of the Scepter of Atlantis.
The Hag had made plans, plans that had died with Miranda. Now she realized that Princess Adara’s return could change all that.
A low, evil rumble disturbed the waters around her, spreading her filth throughout the grotto as she roared with glee, “Welcome back to the sea, my new little mermaid!” Then she hissed in a guttural tone, “I’ll give you a few seasons to settle in, and then, my pretty little fishy, I’ll hook you and finally have my revenge!”
Departure
Holger arrived at the Honolulu airport and found every TV throughout the terminal playing footage of Pearl’s transformation. As he walked from one end of the facility to the other, Holger kept seeing his niece transform again and again. Oddly, he saw no one was waiting to board any planes to leave the island.
As he arrived at his departure gate, the ticket agent informed him, “When the news of the mermaid hit and the announcement of the reward for her capture was made, everyone turned around and raced for the exit!”
“They … they put a price on her head?” Holger stammered in shock.
“Animal Planet started off by offering a million dollars for her capture, and their footage of her is being turned into a primetime special tonight. They evidently got a lot of footage of the little girl before she transformed, since she was having some sort of birthday party at Dolphin Quest. They got her name, and they’re pulling a lot of information about her life right now.”
“They offered a million-dollar reward for her?” Holger gasped.
“Oh that was just the first offer. Then the San Diego Aquarium offered three million, the Russians knocked it up to five, and Disney topped them all with an offer of ten million dollars!”
“Oh my god!” Holger closed his eyes to keep his head from reeling.
“I know,” the ticket agent replied. “It’s a lot of money. I’m taking tomorrow off and looking for her myself. If you want to cash your ticket in and stay, I’ll only charge you the seventy-five dollar fee.”
“Oh no,” Holger said. “I’m out of here tonight!” And he grabbed his duffle bag and walked toward the gate. Getting his ticket changed over the phone had been a snap, but he hadn’t realized it was due to all the cancellations. Thank God no one caught my face on camera, or I never would have made it out of the terminal, he thought.
“Flight 752 to Bermuda now boarding,” a voice called over the loudspeakers. “Flight 752 to Bermuda now boarding. All passengers to gate B15.”
Holger could see the gate up ahead and the flight attendant standing by the door to take tickets, but no one was standing in line as he trotted the last few feet.
“I guess I just made it,” he commented with a smile.
She looked at his tall, lean, tan frame, glanced down to see that he wasn’t wearing a wedding ring, and smiled right back. “Actually, we’ve had a lot of cancellations due to the mermaid shenanigans,” she told him. “There’s plenty of room in first class if you’d like to move forward. We won’t even bother with an upgrade charge.” She winked. “If we didn’t have a bunch of connecting passengers in Mexico, the company probably would have cancelled the flight,” she gushed up at him batting an eyelash or two.
“Thank God for Mexico then.” He smiled at her and then walked down the gangway into the plane where he let out a long, slow sigh of relief.
Sphere of Sorrow
Pearl drifted out of sleep feeling like she was floating. Eyes still closed, she experienced a soft gentle swinging back and forth, and she had the feeling of dappled light on her face.
There was an herbal tang to the air, and for a moment, in her half-conscious state, Pearl thought she had fallen asleep on the huge hammock her parents kept on the back deck of their house. Time to wake up and see if mama will make me some blueberry pancakes or some waffles with fresh strawberries and whipped cream, she thought.
“Heeee hee hee!” Pearl heard two high-pitched voices twitter. “She wants to eat very strange things!”
“Quiet, you naughty kits, or I will nip your tails!” Sandy rumbled deep within her.
The rumbling reminded her of lying on her stomach in her father’s massage chair. It tickled. She did want some strawberries, though … and where was her father?
Pearl suddenly lurched awake and tried to struggle to her feet, which sent her sliding off Sandy’s back. The kits spiraled off in opposite directions, and Sandy arched up wildly to swoop back around to catch her. Echo stopped her constant, soothing hum as she clung on tighter to Pearl’s head, and Pearl’s hair spun out in every direction.
“Feet! I have no feet!” wailed Pearl. “This is really happening. I thought it was just some weird dream I had after I fell asleep watching ‘The Little Mermaid’ for the bazillionth time, but it’s real!”
“Princess, Princess!” Slammer and Jumper, who had been swimming in the vanguard at the surface, came swooshing back down. “Save the princess from strawberries!”
“No, no! I’m fine. I was just confused and dreaming. I’m really fine!”
But she wasn’t fine. She’d forgotten all about her parents and felt terrible. They must be worried sick and terrified for her. How could she forget all about them?
They were so good to her, and her mother always brushed her hair in the morning and sang her songs. Her father read the comics from the paper to her at breakfast every morning, and he always buttered her toast when it came out of the toaster so the butter melted just right. He also gave her a kiss on the forehead for luck every day before she went to school. Echo purred tenderly in Pearl’s ear again and resumed her soothing hum, but it didn’t help her distress.
Where are they? How are they? Am I ever going to see them again? Pearl wept. She cried underwater. She didn’t know how, but as she floated, she cried so hard it felt as if all the water in the ocean was made up of her tears. She floated and shuddered and ached for her parents, and every creature in every corner the sea for hundreds of leagues wept with her.
When Pearl finally stopped crying—actually,
sobbing was a more apt description—she tried to wipe her tears away, which instantly made her feel really stupid, since you can’t dry your eyes underwater.
Duh! Pearl thought, then sighed and looked up to apologize to her new friends for her behavior. Then she gasped.
She was floating in the middle of a sphere of life. She was surrounded by thousands, or maybe even millions of creatures in every direction, for as far as she could see.
There were fish from the tiniest striped cleaner wrasse, to sperm whales, schools of tuna, marlins, sharks, and sea turtles. Packed in between were shrimp, jellyfish, angelfish, rays, dolphins, and others she had never seen before of every shape and size. They were all floating still and silent and staring at her, waiting to see if she was all right.
“Oh my! I did it again, didn’t I?” Pearl asked no one in particular.
But Sandy, upon whom she was once again lying, answered her. “The ocean and all its creatures feel your sorrow, Princess, and we would all give our lives to help you or save you from such grief,” she rumbled softly.
Echo hummed gently in agreement.
Pearl looked all around her again and felt so humbled, so loved, and so undeserving of all this devotion. It was awe inspiring and made her start to realize how tied to the ocean she really was. It was important for her to deal with her own problems the best she could without risking or disrupting the lives of all these precious creatures.
“Thank you all,” she said, and did her “Princess Diaries” wave. “Oh!” she said, adding the big smile they taught princesses to use in public events. “Look, I’m really fine now. You can all go back to doing whatever it is you do, and we’ll be on our way. But thanks for stopping by to say hi!”
The massive sphere of life seemed to pulse and then shimmered into clouds of creatures swimming off in every direction. The small group of travelers was left relatively alone again, except for one sea turtle.
He was larger by far than any turtle she had ever seen, possibly almost gigantic. But he didn’t look incredibly old, so Pearl didn’t think he was the Turtle King.
“Your Highness, I am Patches, from the court of the Turtle King. He sends you greetings and has a message from the Queen of the Oceans.”
“The Queen of the Oceans?” Pearl shrugged as she tried to hide a sniff at the thought of her mother and the strawberries she wouldn’t be having for breakfast.
“Your grandmother, Queen Helmi, daughter of Poseidon, and ruler of the seven seas and all the oceans,” Patches intoned with a touch of pomp that was absolutely Disney-esque!
“Wow, Anne Hathaway’s character was only the princess of some crummy little country. Take that, Julie Andrews! My granny’s really big stuff!” Pearl giggled. She was really still in shock from worrying about her parents or she would have been totally overwhelmed at the thought. She just needed to keep things simple at this point.
“Will my grandmother be at the Turtle King’s palace?” Pearl asked.
“The Turtle King does not live in a palace, Princess.”
“Where does he live?”
“On a rock.”
“A rock? Just a rock?”
“It is a big rock, Princess, called an island, but a rock is all it is. He will be able to tell you how to reach one of your grandmother’s sea palaces and the fastest way for you to travel to her. He was also instructed by the queen to send you a tutor to teach you how to use your powers.”
“A tutor? So I am going to get classes on how to be a mermaid?” Pearl asked.
“But you are a mermaid, Princess,” Patches responded.
“I mean a good mermaid.”
“You do not seem evil to me, Princess.”
“No, not good as in ‘good or evil,’. . . I mean good as in – ‘Wow look at her swim! She really uses her tail like a Princess,’ or, ‘My, she doesn’t scream with her mind so the whole darn ocean goes bonkers when she gets upset.’ Can you teach me how to be good at whatever mermaids are supposed to be good at?”
“Yes, I see, Your Highness. That is why I am here.” Patches nodded. “I am here to teach you how to use your mermaid powers.”
“You’re my tutor, Patches?”
“I am indeed.”
“Well then, start tutoring!”
A Sense of Family
They had moved Holger up to first class, since the 747 was practically empty. He had slung back a few shots of Pedron Tequila in an attempt to relax and was now switching channels on his personal satellite TV screen when he came across the Animal Planet TV special: “The Mermaid Among Us.”
The opening shot was of him with his back to the camera as Pearl told him her name, where she was from, and that she wanted to be a marine biologist. They had zoomed in on the package she’d given him and gotten a shot of it over his shoulder as he unwrapped it, revealing the painting of a mermaid and child. The picture dissolved to a shot of what must have been Pearl’s bedroom in her home. There was a big, framed photo of her in a mermaid costume and all kinds of mermaid figurines, dolls, pillows, and stuffed toys everywhere the camera turned. Holger was oblivious to the narration as he stared at the screen. The scene dissolved to show the front of the house Pearl lived in, in Renton, Washington.
It was an average house, meticulously maintained, in a very nice neighborhood of paved sidewalks and lush green gardens. The show’s host was trying to talk to Pearl’s neighbors who kept saying she was a perfectly normal girl. Neighbor after neighbor slammed the door in his face in disbelief when he tried to convince them she had turned into a real mermaid.
Holger then saw the screen fill with a picture of himself from one of the Dolphin Quest pamphlets … then with another shot from his book jacket. “Damn!” he hissed, and pulled his baseball cap further down on his face.
“Is this the face of a mad scientist experimenting on an innocent young girl?” the TV reporter asked. “Where is Doctor Thorson now? Is he hiding out in some secret deep-sea laboratory? Where are the little girl’s parents? Are they merfolk too? Did they sprout tails and dive into the sea to follow her?”
Holger switched off the TV, grabbed his bag, and headed to the lavatory. He was an outdoorsman. His hair was shaggy, unkempt, and usually covered with a baseball cap. His beard and mustache constantly needed trimming, and his eyebrows were bushy.
Ten minutes later, Holger came out of the bathroom looking as if he might be headed to a modeling gig from his college days. He was clean shaven, his brows were trimmed, and his black curls were brushed into waves, then slicked up and back. He’d put on a white polo shirt and looked more like a movie star than a mad scientist.
For now, he could relax. He sipped his tequila, then tilted his seat back to catch a couple of hours of sleep before they landed in Mexico City. He had a feeling he was going to need the rest.
He awoke as the plane came in for a landing. As soon as he got off the plane, Holger pulled out his satellite phone and called Hal to see if everything was all right.
“Everything’s cool, Dad,” Hal told him. “There are so many boats out searching for Pearl there was no way the Coast Guard could find us. We slipped right out of the harbor and out to sea.”
Holger told Hal he loved him, to be careful, and that he’d call him again as soon as he landed in Bermuda. “What a terrific kid,” Holger murmured to himself as he settled into a seat to wait for his next flight. And from the brief conversation he’d had with Pearl before her transformation, he knew his brother would feel the same about her. As crazy and bizarre as this whole thing was, he somehow felt whole and reconnected with the world again now
that he knew the truth about his brother—and found he had a niece.
Halder was really dead, and that was both a great sadness and a great release. Halder was still alive through his daughter, and through Pearl, all his wildest childhood fantasies had come true. He had not only uncovered secrets from the sea connected with the past, but Halder had mixed his bloodline with those secrets and joined part of the future.
Were the legends all true? Did mermaids live for thousands of years? Was there once really a Poseidon, ruler of the sea? Did that make Atlantis real? The world just kept spinning wildly around him with limitless possibilities. Somehow, this magical creature, this precious little girl gave Holger and Hal a family again, a family created out of a whirling vortex that was carrying them all out to sea.
He heard the airline call last boarding for his next flight and sat back in his seat. He slipped his hand into his pocket and brushed the cool steel of the key. Whatever was in the safety deposit box couldn’t be more of a shock or revelation than he’d already had. But if he knew his brother, it would still hold a few interesting surprises.
When Holger landed in Bermuda, pictures of him, Pearl in her mermaid costume, and Pearl transformed into a mermaid were plastered everywhere, on every publication. The headlines all carried the same news with slight variations. “NUMA charges Disney with mermaid hoax!” the first paper read. “Disney sues for slander,” read another. The third paper had the same headline with “‘Little Mermaid Five’ opens next months in theaters everywhere!” tagged on at the end.
All The Mermaids In The Sea Page 9