The Girl Who Thought Her Mother Was a Mermaid

by Tania Unsworth

  Stella knew she had to stay hidden until the coast was clear. If she stayed too long, however, Marcie might change her mind and return to check the room. Stella decided to count to three minutes, yet she had only got to one and a half, when something else occurred to her. What if Marcie had slammed the door shut as she’d left? She remembered hearing a bang…

  She clambered hurriedly out of the wardrobe and, to her relief, the door was wide open

  Stella zipped her jacket all the way to the top and slipped into the corridor, as quietly as she could.

  The door to the kitchen was ajar. Stella listened, her ear against the wood, and heard nothing. Quickly, before she had time to lose her nerve, she peered around the door, saw nobody, and darted inside.

  She scurried across the pitted lino, heading for the door at the other side of the room. There was a pair of dressmaker’s scissors on the kitchen table, and a heap of gaudy, sequined fabric. Little Aquabelle’s costume, she thought with a shudder.

  She had never wanted to run so much in her whole life. But the door leading to the viewing gallery was closed, and Stella didn’t know who was on the other side.

  She forced herself to be still, waiting for the slightest sound. She reached for the door handle and levered it down, opening the door, centimetre by centimetre.

  The viewing gallery was deserted, but it worried her that she didn’t know where Marcie was. If she suddenly appeared, she would see Stella straightaway. Yet Stella couldn’t remain hovering by the kitchen door. She set off at a nervous trot, heading for the ramp at the far end of the gallery.

  She had gone about six metres, when she heard a noise, a rapid thudding. It was coming from the front office. Stella froze in her tracks. She could hear the murmur of voices. One was Marcie’s; she’d know that fake laugh anywhere.

  Without pausing, Stella dashed back the way she’d come. There must be another way out. All buildings had back doors, didn’t they? She passed the door to the kitchen, darted through another entrance, to the right of the curtain covering the big tank. She stood behind the door, not daring to close it in case somebody heard, her heart hammering.

  She was in a room filled with clothes rails and untidy heaps of bric-a-brac. Plastic balls and buckets, a cardboard thunderbolt, piles of tangled fishing net, a sagging, inflatable shark and a dolphin in a state of similar collapse. The props room, she guessed. The door at the other end must lead up to the back of the tank. Pearl had described it when they were talking.

  To the left, there was another door, a heavy-looking thing, partly open, with a metal bar in place of a handle. Stella couldn’t spare it more than a glance. She could still hear voices, too low to make out any words, although getting louder by the second. Marcie was in the viewing gallery and, from the sound of it, she was heading directly her way.

  Stella scanned the room, looking for a place to hide, decided against it, and ducked through the door with the metal handle instead. Her feet crunched. She was treading on sand. The air was thick with the smell of damp salt and bleach, and in the dim light filtering down from above, she saw the shapes of large rocks, piled to form a tower.

  She was in the tank itself.

  Apart from a couple of lingering puddles, the place was dry. The door must be designed to be watertight when the tank was full. But Stella didn’t have any time to focus on details. Marcie had entered the props room, boots jangling.

  ‘This is where we keep all our materials for the show,’ she was saying. ‘There’s nobody here, as you can see…’

  ‘Where does that door lead to?’ someone said. ‘Is it made of metal? Why is it so thick?’

  Stella felt a surge of joy and utter dismay. She knew the owner of that voice. There was only one person who fired off questions like that, never able to wait for an answer before the next came shooting out.

  ‘Stella!’ Cam shrieked, stepping with a crunch of sand into the tank. ‘There you are!’

  Thirty-five

  The tank door slammed shut, and she heard the scrape of the metal bar as Marcie locked it into place.

  ‘Hey!’ Cam said, whirling around. ‘Why did she do that?’

  ‘Are you on your own?’ Stella cried. ‘Isn’t anyone with you?’

  ‘I came by myself!’ Cam told her, sounding triumphant. ‘I worked it all out last night, and got the first ferry this morning, before anyone had got up. I remembered the name “Crystal Cove” from that drawing you showed me and—’

  ‘Didn’t you call the police, or tell anyone?’ Stella interrupted.

  ‘You said not to tell,’ Cam said, her face starting to fall. ‘You made me promise.’

  Stella stared at her silently. She was wearing a long, navy trench coat that Stella guessed belonged to her mum. The collar was turned up, and there was a hat perched at a strange angle on one side of her head.

  ‘Why are you wearing that hat?’

  ‘It’s not a hat, it’s a beret. You know, like a French spy?’

  ‘Oh, Cam,’ Stella said.

  ‘I’ve messed up, haven’t I?’

  ‘Kind of. I might’ve escaped if you hadn’t shown up.’

  ‘You mean, we’re kidnapped?’ Cam said, her face instantly brightening. ‘Wow!’

  ‘This isn’t a game, Cam!’

  ‘I knew that woman was shady, I knew it,’ Cam said. ‘She said you weren’t here any more, but she could tell I wasn’t convinced. That’s when she offered to show me around so I could see for myself.

  What a place,’ she added. ‘All those old costumes… so that’s what you meant when you said your mum used to be a mermaid!’

  Stella opened her mouth to tell Cam everything. About finding her way to the Crystal Cove, about seeing the video, and listening to Pearl’s story, and the awful moment Stella had found out what Marcie was planning for her. She’d been longing for the chance to confide in Cam, partly to prove her wrong, but mostly for the sheer relief of being able to share the whole, incredible story with someone.

  Yet she couldn’t, no matter how much she wanted to. It wasn’t just her secret, nor was it just Pearl’s. It was far bigger than that. It was the ocean’s secret. In that instant, Stella knew that she would never tell it. Even more, she would do anything in her power to protect it, whatever the cost.

  ‘That’s right,’ Stella said, looking Cam steadily in the eye. ‘With a tail and everything.’

  ‘Cool,’ Cam said. ‘And I suppose you’ve been kidnapped for money… So how do we get out of here?’

  In the light of day, the tank was a dingy sight. The plastic coral was drab and the sand lay in untidy heaps, mixed with old sequins and fragments of coloured glass, their sparkle no more than a memory. Cam ran her finger over the cloudy glass. Behind it, the curtain was drawn, blocking their sight.

  Stella tried the door, although she knew it was pointless. She looked up. Ten metres over their heads, and a further metre above the top of the glass, she saw another door set into the wall of the upper storey, and a platform jutting over the edge of the tank.

  It must be the platform she’d seen in the video, where the performers entered at the start of the show. Yet it was well above the water level when the tank was full. How did the mermaids with their cumbersome tails climb back out again?

  ‘I think that platform – or part of it, anyway – can be raised and lowered,’ she told Cam.

  ‘What if we climbed the rocks?’ Cam asked. ‘Could we reach it from there?’

  She scrambled quickly to the summit, then bent and hauled Stella the rest of the way.

  There wasn’t much room on the top of the tower. The girls had to stand close together, and every time they moved, the topmost rock wobbled. The platform was still a good couple of metres above them.

  ‘Can you reach?’ Stella asked.

  ‘Maybe if I stood on your back…’

  Stella bent her knees cautiously. The rock tilted beneath her shifting weight, and she straightened up again.

  ‘It nearly fell,’ she g
asped. ‘We have to keep still.’

  Just then they heard a sound. A loud clank, immediately followed by a gurgling noise. They looked down. A dark, inky shadow was creeping over the floor of the tank. When it reached the glass, it rippled and spread sideways, sending long, gleaming ribbons racing to the farthest corners.

  ‘Water!’ Cam cried.

  The sound grew louder. The water was gushing now, tumbling against the base of the tower, turning the rock shining black.

  ‘Somebody must’ve turned it on by mistake!’ Cam said. She raised her voice. ‘Hey! Is anyone there? Hey!’

  But Stella knew the water hadn’t been turned on by mistake. Marcie knew exactly what she was doing.

  The water was a metre deep already, the surface calmer than before, although rising steadily. A broom – used perhaps for sweeping sand – floated by, and lodged against the coral sculpture, creating a small eddy.

  ‘I’m scared to swim,’ Stella whispered. ‘I haven’t done it since…’

  Cam removed the belt from her coat, and flung it wildly in the direction of the platform. The buckle pinged off the edge and the belt fell into the water, twisting like a snake.

  ‘My mum’s going to kill me,’ she said.

  She didn’t get it, Stella thought. She was still acting as if this was some big adventure.

  The water level reached the third rock of the tower, barely two metres below. A string of tiny bubbles rose above the coral from a hole in the plastic.

  ‘Look at that!’ Stella cried, pointing to the other side of the tank. It was a short steel ladder, with curved ends for latching on to a rail. It had been propped against the wall, but was now lying flat at the bottom of the tank.

  ‘If only we’d seen that before,’ Stella said. ‘We could’ve hooked it on to the platform.’

  ‘I can get it.’

  ‘But you’d have to dive all the way down. And how would you bring it up?’

  ‘Things are much lighter in the water,’ Cam pointed out.

  ‘Can you swim that far?’

  ‘Easy!’ Cam said, removing her beret with a flourish. She took off her coat and handed it to Stella. ‘Guard this with your life,’ she ordered. And suddenly, the things that Stella had found annoying about Cam – her big talk, her exaggeration, her drama – didn’t seem annoying any longer, but just the opposite. Stella smiled, her spirits lifting. How could anything really bad happen with Cam around?

  Cam had once swum the length of the school swimming pool underwater, and there was a good chance she would have been able to reach the ladder and haul it to the top of the tower too. She never got that chance. Just as she was about to dive, the platform overhead shook with an almighty clatter. The girls looked up.

  Marcie was standing there, staring down at them. Pearl, in her wheelchair, behind her.

  Thirty-six

  ‘Finally!’ Cam exclaimed. ‘Didn’t you hear me yelling?’

  Marcie ignored her. She squatted on her heels, her spurs ringing against the metal struts of the platform. Her eyes narrowed as she assessed the rising water, then she looked at her watch.

  ‘I’d say we’ve got about seven minutes,’ she said, getting to her feet again. ‘Don’t you agree, Pearl?’

  ‘Pearl!’ Stella cried. ‘Make her stop!’

  Why wasn’t she looking at Stella? Why was she just sitting there, her hooked stick in her lap, her face blank?

  ‘Aren’t they going to switch the water off?’ Cam asked. Stella could see dread beginning to dawn in her eyes.

  ‘No, Cam, they’re not.’

  Cam clutched Stella’s arm, making them both sway and almost lose their footing.

  ‘But if they don’t switch it off, we’ll…’

  Stella looked up at Marcie. ‘Let Cam go. I’ll do anything you want if you let her go.’

  ‘I think you’re going to do that anyway,’ Marcie said, tilting her head as if she was talking to a very young child. ‘Six minutes. Then we’ll see what you’re really made of, Stella Martin.’

  ‘What’s she talking about?’ Cam demanded.

  Stella shook her head. The water was creeping around their feet, turning the rock dark and slippery. She glanced beseechingly at Pearl, although she knew it was no use. How could she – in her wheelchair – fight Marcie?

  ‘You won’t get away with this!’ Stella cried.

  ‘I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it,’ Marcie said. ‘I prefer to focus on the big picture.’ She leaned over the water, her face avid. ‘A new show for a new star! Think of the possibilities!’

  Pearl was right, Stella thought. Marcie really had been driven mad. Over the long, brooding years, the madness had only got worse.

  Stella’s feet were wet; the water was over her ankles, far colder than she expected. She looked at Cam.

  ‘I’m sorry I laughed at you,’ Cam said, her voice quiet. ‘I knew I was being mean.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ Stella said. ‘Really, it is. Thank you for trying to rescue me.’

  Cam nodded sadly. ‘If I get out of here,’ she said, ‘I’ll never go looking for drama or exaggerate anything ever again. Even if I live for a trillion years.

  Even under torture,’ she added.

  Despite herself, Stella couldn’t help smiling. ‘I’ll remember you said that.’

  It wouldn’t be long now. In a few seconds, the water would have risen past her knees. Stella took off her jacket and tied it at her waist. Her arms were shaking; she had to wrap them around herself to make them stop. Perhaps it wouldn’t be as terrible as she imagined. Perhaps her body would turn. For all her longing to be normal, maybe she was of the sea. A hundred times wilder, and a hundred times more alien than any mermaid ever dreamed of.

  She shivered.

  But if she did turn, she’d be able to save Cam. There was that, at least.

  Then she thought of her nightmare again. The helpless sinking. She clutched the stone around her neck, her breath coming fast and shallow. Why was Pearl staring at her like that, with such a fixed expression? Stella’s legs suddenly felt too weak to support her weight, and she would have fallen if Cam hadn’t flung a strong arm around her. A rushing sound filled her ears. Marcie said something, although Stella couldn’t hear what it was.

  ‘Listen,’ Cam whispered.

  Stella managed to lift her head.

  ‘Be careful, Pearl,’ Marcie was saying. ‘Remember I have the tape.’

  Pearl spoke, her voice too soft for them to make out the words.

  ‘You try anything,’ Marcie said, turning to face her, ‘and you’re going in there too.’

  Stella couldn’t see Pearl’s face. Marcie was in the way.

  ‘Lower the platform,’ Pearl said, much louder than before. ‘Do it at once.’

  ‘Or what?’ Marcie stepped sideways, her hands on her hips.

  Stella could see Pearl clearly now. Her eyes looked dark, almost black, and there was something intent and fluid in the way she was sitting that made Stella suddenly hold her breath.

  ‘What are you going to do?’ Marcie jeered. ‘Wave at me with your little stick?’

  Marcie had grown so used to the crushed and broken figure in the wheelchair, she’d forgotten that in another life, Pearl had been quite different. In that life, Pearl had been stronger than the pull of the tides, and faster than an orca’s leap, and her body still held the memory of that power.

  She leaned down, and her arm shot out in a movement that was so swift and sudden, Marcie never glimpsed it coming. Nor did the girls, watching intently from below. All Stella saw was Pearl’s stick as it struck Marcie’s left boot, and the slight, upward flick of the hook catching the spur.

  For a split-second, Marcie stood gaping, frozen in disbelief and confusion. Then, with a tightening of muscle, Pearl’s arm jerked back again, and Marcie’s foot shot out from under her. She hit the platform with a rattling crash, rolled, and fell into the tank.

  Almost instantly, the platform began to lower towards the water.


  ‘Quickly,’ Pearl said.

  Marcie was on the other side of the rock tower, her arms thrashing as she struggled to stay afloat. Stella glanced at her nervously, and then at the platform. It was at the level of the surface now. The water was still rising. Stella knew she was only seconds away from losing her footing.

  ‘I can’t get there,’ she said, her breath juddering with panic. ‘I’m frightened to swim…’

  ‘You don’t have to,’ Cam said, pulling her off the tower and into the water.

  ‘Quickly!’ Pearl repeated.

  Stella clutched at Cam, terrified of the sudden emptiness beneath her kicking feet. Then they were at the platform, and she was clinging to the railing. Cam pulled herself out and turned to help her. Pearl raised the platform until they were standing on the walkway by the upper door.

  ‘Let’s go!’ Cam shouted.

  ‘Not without Pearl.’ Stella grabbed the handles of the wheelchair.

  ‘We can’t,’ Cam said. ‘She’ll slow us down.’

  ‘You don’t understand, you don’t know what Marcie will do… Pearl saved us, Cam!’

  Stella jerked the chair around. Only when she was at the door did she dare to look back down. Marcie was no longer at the surface. Stella caught a glimpse of her through the water. She was bent double, her hands furiously tugging at one of her boots, trying to remove it as she sank.

  Thirty-seven

  Stella flew down the ramp behind the tank, pulled by the momentum of the speeding wheelchair. It was far harder to push it on the ground floor. Cam was halfway across the viewing gallery, while Stella was still navigating her way through the props room.

  ‘Wait for me! Help me push!’

  Cam ran back and took the other handle. Together, the girls manoeuvred the wheelchair through the gallery, into the front office and out into the street.

  Stella stood for a second, dazed by relief to be in the open air. The sun was warm and a breeze brought the sound of music. How ordinary it all seemed, how unchanged. As if the last two days had never happened. Even the Crystal Cove looked unremarkable, nothing more than a faded sign above a dusty window.