The Girl Who Thought Her Mother Was a Mermaid

by Tania Unsworth

  Away with the fairies, poor little thing, such a terrible shame.

  Stella sniffed and wiped her eyes, trying to pull herself together. Her gaze returned to the words below her mum’s drawing.

  Crystal Cove, Lastland Island.

  Gramma had mentioned an island, although she hadn’t remembered the name of it. ‘End something,’ she’d said.

  Could she have meant ‘Lastland’? Stella sat up straight.

  She must have done.

  Lastland Island wasn’t something Stella’s mum had made up for fun. It was an actual place. And if Lastland Island was real, then maybe the rest of it was real too.

  Stella leaped over to her desk. She looked up the name, and quickly found the island on the map. It was a speck in the blue, a few miles off the mainland. She scanned the coast and saw there was a town directly opposite, separated from the island by a narrow strip of sea. Her eyes widened.

  It was the town that Cam was moving to.

  Sometimes a coincidence is so extraordinary, so incredibly unlikely, that it’s hard to believe it can possibly be random. Instead it feels like fate. The instant Stella realised that the town on the map was the same one that Cam’s family was heading to, she felt certainty flood through her.

  It was meant to be.

  Cam had talked so much about the move to her new home that Stella had stopped listening. Now she ransacked her mind for the details. Tomorrow was Friday; Cam and her family were leaving on Saturday morning, and the journey would take nearly two days. But their furniture and possessions were being taken separately – the removal van was due to come the day before the family left…

  It didn’t take long to pack. To avoid suspicion, Stella thought it best to take only what would fit into her school bag. A change of clothes, a torch, five protein bars, two apples, a large bottle of water, a comb, a toothbrush and toothpaste and a month’s worth of saved-up pocket money. She added the book of folk tales as an afterthought. Two days was a long time, she might be glad of something to read.

  The money wasn’t nearly enough, but Stella decided she would worry about that later. She had made up her mind. She was running away.

  She was going to Lastland Island to find out whether her mum had been a mermaid or not. Because if she had been, then what exactly did that make Stella?

  Thirteen

  It was pitch dark, and so hot, even Stella’s eyelids felt sticky.

  She lay curled up on Cam’s mum’s new sofa, horribly worried in case she left sweaty stains all over the blue velvet. Cam’s mum was very particular about her sofa. She didn’t allow Cam to sit on it, in case Cam made scuff marks or spilled something, or just breathed on it in the wrong way.

  ‘If me and that sofa were about to fall off a cliff, my mum would save the sofa,’ Cam had said. ‘It’s the truth, swear on my life.’

  Stella knew she shouldn’t be lying on the sofa, but there was nowhere else to be. Every centimetre of the removal van was crammed with furniture, household items and cardboard boxes. They were packed so tight that even when the van turned a corner or hit a bump, nothing moved, except a piece of loose china buried in one of the boxes to Stella’s right, which made a tiny ringing noise that sounded like a cry.

  Whereare we going, whereare we going? it sang, over and over again.

  Stella covered her ears with her hands, fighting the temptation to check the time again. No matter how long she waited before glancing at the luminous green face of her watch, only four minutes would have passed since the last time she looked.

  It had been easier than she thought to sneak into the removal van. She’d got ready for school that morning as she always did, except that before she went to catch the bus, she left her phone behind on her desk, and a note under her pillow.

  I haven’t been kidnapped, the note read. Please don’t worry. I will be back in a few days.

  She left the house, but instead of heading for the bus stop, she turned in the other direction and walked to Cam’s house. The removal van was already there. The back was rolled up, and two men were busy trundling items to and fro. Stella waited until they were inside the house at the same time, and then made a dash for the back of the van, hiding in the narrow gap behind the sofa while they carried on with their work.

  After nearly three hours on the road, the driver pulled over to take a break. Stella heard both cab doors slam, and the sound of footsteps, then nothing for what seemed like ages, except the tremble and whoosh of passing vehicles.

  She felt around in her bag for a protein bar and an apple, ate them slowly, and took a long drink of water. The bottle felt far lighter than it had. She turned on her torch and saw that the bottle was half-empty already. She would have to ration it more carefully. Just the thought of running out of water frightened her. Stella knew that panic wasn’t far away. It was with her in the van, one shade darker than the darkness itself, and each hour brought it closer.

  The van started up again, and this time drove for so long that Stella dozed and finally fell asleep.

  She woke up a couple of hours later, not knowing where she was, her heart pounding. She reached out, found the back of the sofa and remembered she was in the removal van, running away from home, with only four protein bars and an apple left to eat.

  On top of that, she was desperate to pee. She took out her torch and her book in an effort to distract herself, but it was no use.

  Then she realised she could use her by now empty water bottle.

  Stella was so pleased at overcoming the problem that she decided to have another protein bar to celebrate. She turned back to her book.

  There was once a man who played the pipe so merrily, she read, that even the fish danced. One day a mermaid came up from the depths of the sea to listen. The moment he saw her, the man fell instantly in love…

  Stella turned the page.

  A selkie is a seal that can take human form. But if she loses her sealskin, she must stay on land until she finds it. It’s said that selkies love music, and many a night on lonely beaches and wild, rocky shores, one may hear them singing with voices as pure and haunting as the moonlight itself…

  Ringed by the shifting halo of the torch, the words took on new mystery and depth. There was so much Stella didn’t understand. She had never even seen the sea with her own eyes. Knowing she would be there soon made her feel breathless with excitement.

  Just before midnight, the van stopped for the night. The beam of Stella’s torch had grown yellowish, and she switched it off, fearful of the battery running out. Darkness pressed against her.

  There were no windows or vents in the back of the van, and the air had grown stale. Stella wondered what would happen if she ran out of oxygen, and the more she wondered, the harder it became to breathe. She rested the palms of her hands against her chest, feeling the shape of her necklace, and thought about the sea instead. She was on her way; she would get there soon.

  In a little while her heart grew quiet, and her breathing slowed. She closed her eyes and tried as hard as she could to go to sleep.

  The van was back on the road next morning and didn’t slow down until almost midday. It turned left, and then right, left again, and each time it turned, the loose piece of china cried out in protest.

  Hurts meso bad, hurts meso bad!

  Stella’s body ached and her head spun. The heat and the darkness and the worry had become almost more than she could bear, and she was wondering how much longer she could hold on without screaming, when the van finally pulled over and stopped.

  A moment later, she heard the steely rattle of the back rolling up. Stella crouched low on the sofa. A wall of cardboard boxes – five layers deep – lay between her hiding place and daylight so bright, it was enough to half-blind her.

  Something banged, and one of the men cursed.

  ‘Ramp’s jammed!’

  ‘Let’s get the smaller stuff, do the rest later,’ the other suggested.

  Stella scrambled over the back of the sofa, moving
as fast as her stiff limbs would allow. The air was even staler there and her breath came short and shallow.

  She heard the slide of cardboard as the first layer of boxes was removed. Then the floor of the van shook. One of the men had climbed inside.

  ‘I’ll hand them down, okay?’

  He sounded close. She could hear the slightest shift of his feet, and the low grunt he made as he lifted.

  ‘Heavy one here.’

  Stella hadn’t given much thought to how she would escape from the van without being seen. She wondered if she could crawl deeper into the furniture behind. But it was packed too tightly for that.

  ‘It’s hot,’ the man standing in the van complained. ‘How about a break?’

  They clattered across the back of the van, and Stella heard them thump down into the street, their footsteps fading. For a second, she was too paralysed with relief to move. Then she shoved against the sofa, throwing her full weight behind it. Grabbing her bag, she tiptoed to the end of the van and peered out.

  The man with the phone was standing on the pavement with his back turned. There was no sign of the other. Stella took a deep breath and clambered down. She crept around the side of the van, and took off along the street, walking as fast as she could.

  Fourteen

  The street was wide, with houses set behind trees. When Stella got to the first crossroad, she turned left without hesitation, not wanting to look as if she didn’t know where she was going. Then she stopped to think about what to do next. She could wait for Cam to get there, although Cam and her family had only set off that morning, and wouldn’t arrive until tomorrow at the earliest. Besides, Stella didn’t want to see Cam. Cam had laughed at her mermaid idea. She would think Stella mad to have run away because of it. Mad and ridiculous…

  A breeze picked up, carrying a sharp, briny scent that instantly drove all other thought from Stella’s mind.

  The sea! She just knew it was that.

  She began to walk in the direction where the breeze was coming from, her legs still wobbly from her long journey in the van. The houses thinned and the road began to wind uphill. At the top it curved into one last bend, then levelled to reveal the view.

  The broad, blue banner of the sea suddenly stretched out below. Stella stopped short, the breeze on her face, her hand at the stone around her neck. How vast the ocean looked, how cleanly the horizon cut the sky, how bright the water glittered!

  She’d thought it would be like coming to the end of the world, but it wasn’t like that. It was like coming to where the world began.

  She began to walk downhill, slowly at first, then faster and faster, and by the time she was halfway down, she was running, hair flying, backpack bouncing against her shoulders. The road forked when it reached the bottom, leading towards a group of houses on the left, and on the right in the direction of what was clearly the town, some way in the distance.

  In between, separated from the road by a low line of grassy dunes, lay the beach.

  Without hesitating, Stella clambered over the dunes and into the soft sand beyond. The breeze was stronger on the beach. She could hear the steady pulse of the surf as it beat against the shore, and the long, muttering intake of its breath as it drew back again. She walked towards the water, to where the sand glistened and the waves broke white.

  Raising her hand to shield her eyes, she squinted along the long beach. A woman sat on a towel, and a child carrying a bucket ran fitfully to and fro. Apart from them, the beach was empty. Stella unlaced her trainers, and pulled off her grubby socks. Then she hesitated.

  She had never forgotten her nightmare, all those years ago. Her fear of water had never lost its force. But the sea was so beautiful and, besides, she would only be paddling… Stella took a cautious step into the surf.

  Up close, the water looked even bluer than it had from the top of the hill. Once, Stella had asked her nanny, Deb, why the sea was that colour.

  ‘I suppose it’s because of the sky,’ Deb had said. ‘The water reflects it.’

  But now Stella could see that Deb had been wrong. The blue of the sea wasn’t a reflection. It belonged only to itself, and every other blue in the world was borrowed from it. There were a thousand words for that blue, she thought, and not a single one was right. A thousand words for what she was feeling, standing there, with the water tugging at her ankles. But none of those were right either.

  The feeling was like the blue. It belonged only to itself. And every other feeling in the world was borrowed from it.

  Stella stepped forward, as if in a dream, the foam surging above her knees. How strange the water felt against her skin. Now that she had become used to the cold, she was aware of another sensation, gentle, yet oddly urgent. She cocked her head, listening. It was like voices in a far-off room, she thought, or a swarm of insects half a field away. Something that you sensed was there, although you couldn’t quite hear it. A feeling rather than a sound…

  She swayed, suddenly dizzy. The horizon was tilting. The sky had narrowed to a tiny strip and the waves had become mountains, shining and rushing and terrible.

  ‘Hey!’ piped a voice.

  Her trance was broken. The child with the bucket was standing at the edge of the water, staring at her.

  ‘You lookin’ for the whale?’ he cried.

  Stella shook her head. ‘What whale?’

  She waded out of the water, wringing the hem of her shorts.

  ‘I saw it!’ the boy said. ‘My mum says I didn’t, but I did – I saw the spout of it.’ He gestured with his arms. ‘Whooooosh.’

  ‘Where?’ Stella asked.

  ‘Out there, far out. My mum says there aren’t any whales round here, but I saw it! It was big. A real big spout. It was gigantic!’

  He ran off down the beach, his bucket swinging, his head turned to the ocean. Stella watched him for a moment, then fetched her trainers and put them on, and went back over the dunes to the road. She had suddenly realised how hungry she was.

  Fifteen

  The town was further away than it looked. Stella walked along the coast road for more than two miles before she reached it. It was a sizable place, with a bustling waterfront, and a dock crowded with boats. She spotted a broad white vessel that looked as if it might be a ferry, and went to look at the timetable.

  There were departures to Lastland Island listed four times a day. Stella’s heart thumped at the sight of the name. She checked her watch. The next ferry was leaving in just over an hour. She found a store selling snacks and souvenirs, bought a packet of biscuits and a bar of chocolate, and sat down on a bench to eat.

  Directly opposite, a crowd of tourists clustered in front of a tall, glass-fronted building. It was an aquarium with pictures of turtles and rays decorating the entrance.

  Stella had never seen a real turtle or ray before. She hadn’t even seen many fish, apart from the glass jars full of pickled specimens in the Natural History Museum. She gazed longingly at the aquarium, knowing she didn’t have much money, and should be careful not to waste it.

  But was spending money to see turtles and rays really a waste?

  To Stella, it suddenly seemed essential.

  It was cool and dark in the aquarium. A lady stamped Stella’s hand with a tiny fish as she entered and Stella blew on it to dry it. She stood still, taking in the salty smell, and the rows of glowing, illuminated tanks.

  At last she set off, pausing for a long time in front of each tank. Many of the names she recognised, from the library book about coral reefs. There were angelfish and chubby puffers, tangs and tetras. How friendly they seemed, following her movements with eyes large and small. Even the giant grouper stirred from the depths of its tank, and rose to stare at her, its huge mouth gaping as she passed by.

  She rested the tip of her finger against the glass, and was surprised to see a cluster of frilly guppies instantly swarm to the spot. Living in the aquarium must have made them tame, she thought.

  Stella hovered by a large tank of
schooling fish, entranced by the hundreds of silver bodies streaming along in the same direction. They never stopped or wavered. They simply kept going, endlessly swimming. She saw her own reflection in the glass, floating in front of the fish. The stone around her neck was glowing slightly in the neon light.

  Something flashed, like a mirror shifting towards the sun. Stella blinked. The school of fish was still massed together, still moving at the same steady speed as before.

  Except now, they were going the other way.

  Why had they changed direction? Stella didn’t have time to work it out. She was too distracted by the sight of an even larger tank.

  It was circular; she could walk around it on a ramp that spiralled all the way to the top, two floors above. Inside, Stella caught a glimpse of huge silver bodies and the rippling cloak of a manta ray. She peered closer, and suddenly there was a turtle, her massive body filling the glass.

  Stella could see each marking on the turtle’s ancient shell. She lifted her hand and placed it against the glass, and the turtle turned, her long flippers spread out like wings.

  Stella walked further up the ramp.

  ‘Are you following me?’ she asked wonderingly. But the turtle only stared at her with its calm, dark eyes.

  ‘I have to catch the ferry,’ Stella whispered.

  She was thirsty again. She hurried out of the aquarium and returned to the souvenir shop to buy a drink on her way to the dock. The woman at the counter tutted as Stella handed her a note.

  ‘Have you got something smaller?’

  Stella shook her head. ‘I’m sorry.’

  The woman sighed and rummaged in the till drawer. Stella noticed a small TV screen above the counter. It was showing the news, the sound turned down. A reporter was standing on the beach with a microphone, gesturing towards the sea.