Beyond the Sea (19 page)

“You really need to lock the doors,” Peter said, appearing in her doorway. Melia jumped.

“Peter! You scared me!”

“Exactly.” He smiled and joined her in bed. “Anyone could have walked in.”

“You worry too much.”

“I worry about you,” he confessed. “You’re alone and your house is secluded.”

“I have Wolfy.”

“Oh, and we both know how horribly vicious he is,” Peter joked.

“What if I got a German Shepherd? A really big one?”

“Maybe.” Peter kissed her. “Just lock the doors, ok?”

“Fine.” She smiled and pulled the blanket over them. Peter put his arms around her and leaned back on the pillows.

“What are we watching?”

“A show about lions. You can change it if you want.”

“No, it’s ok.”

“Really?” Melia looked up at him.

“Yea. I don’t mind.” He kissed her again and rested his head on her chest. Melia ran her fingers through his hair.

“Mmmm,” Peter sighed. “That feels good. But it’s gonna put me to sleep.”

“Want me to stop?” she asked.

“No,” he said with a smile. He wrapped his arms around Melia and closed his eyes.

*

Jamie finally crawled into bed at twelve thirty. Everything felt so right in her world: she went to two more horrible horror movie nights since the last one, her best friend seemed the happiest she’s ever been, her mom finally agreed to let her take a cat home from the animal shelter, and her father was home, though not for long. She should have known it wouldn’t last.

“Goodnight, Athena,” she whispered to her black and white kitten. Athena, who was sleeping curled up in a tight ball, didn’t flinch, let alone move, when Jamie stuck her feet under the covers past her. Happy thoughts entertained her sleepy mind and she quickly drifted into a blissful sleep.

But that didn’t last either.

She was walking along the beach. She was looking for something. Nothing was clear, not her vision, not her hearing, not her thinking. She was in pain. If she could find it—the egg—then she could prove what she knew was right. Then she could put a stop to all this madness, hopefully before anyone got hurt.

The dream twisted out of Lana’s perspective. Jamie was alone along the shore, the distant lights of The Ridge barely visible through the fog. Someone screamed. Panicked, Jamie looked around to find the source. Then she realized she was the one screaming. She closed her mouth and shivered as a large wave crashed, spraying her with cold water.

She had to warn Melia. She began running, but her legs could barely move in the suddenly thick sand. She fell to her knees and crawled, screaming for her best friend. A large shadow lumbered ahead. Jamie froze. It moved closer.

“Wolfy!” she cried and grabbed a hold of his collar. With his help, she made it to the house. She pushed the front door open. Everything was quiet.

“Melia!” she yelled. Nothing. “Melia, where are you? They’re coming, we have to go, now!”

She raced through the house, madly running up the stairs. When she opened Melia’s bedroom door, she was suddenly standing on a rocky cliff overlooking the sea. The sun was shining a golden red glow over the water. A bird with a long beak and mottled brown feathers meandered past. A blonde young man, his back to Jamie, was throwing stones into the ocean.

“Peter,” she said. The man didn’t turn around. She took a step forward when he didn’t answer.
 
“Peter!” she repeated. “Melia’s in trouble. We have to save her!”

The man laughed. Jamie put her hand on his shoulder and screamed when he turned around. Instead of Peter’s attractive face, the man had the face of a fish. Jamie stumbled back, tripping and falling off the cliff.

She woke with a start. A feeling of foreboding hung heavy in the air. Her hands shook. Though the dream made little sense, the fear had felt so real. She sat up. Athena had gone and she felt unnaturally alone. A car drove past, casting eerie shadows on her wall.

Had she left the curtains open? Surely she had closed them…

She grabbed her phone and called Melia without looking at the clock.

“Hello,” Melia mumbled.

“Thank God you’re ok,” Jamie breathed, relieved.

“I am, are you?” Melia sounded more alert.

“Yea, in theory. I had a freaky dream that something happened to you, and I-I just wanted to make sure you were ok.”

“What was the dream about? Oh, wait, let me move so I don’t wake him up.”

Jamie hugged her knees. “Wake who up?”

“Peter,” Melia said quietly.

Jamie looked at the clock; it was in the wee hours of the morning-five minutes past four. “Peter’s at your house—in your bed—next to you?”

“Yea.”

Jamie heard a door click. She knew Melia had moved to the balcony. The wind blew harshly over the phone. “OMG! Did you, you know,
have sex
?”

“No, but he did use his—”

“I don’t need to know!” Jamie interrupted.

“Right, back to the dream.”

Jamie quickly explained. When Melia didn’t respond, she grew nervous. “Melia?”

“I’m still here. Jamie…Jamie, throwing stones into the ocean is showing disrespect to the water. It symbolizes something bad is coming. And I think the bird is a curlew. That’s an old sea omen. A
bad,
old sea omen.”

“What?”

“Bad things.” Melia’s voice shook. “I thought I saw something today… in the water.”

“Something like a merrow?”

“Something else.”

“Oh. And it wasn’t a something else that was good?”

“No, there are other things in the ocean besides merpeople.”

“Oh, crap.”

“Yea—wait.”

Jamie waited, her breath coming out rattled. She heard the door open.

“Wolfy almost gave me away,” Melia explained. “He saw it too.”

“He did?”

“Animals are good at sensing things that aren’t natural to them.”

“They are,” Jamie agreed. “Well, I guess I’ll let you get back to Peter. Be careful Melia. Maybe you should stay out of the water.”

“I can’t do that,” Melia said, and Jamie knew she was smiling. “But, thanks for checking on me.”

“No problem. I’ll call you tomorrow.” Jamie hung up feeling better now that she knew Melia was ok. But she couldn’t shake the feeling like she had been given a warning she was eagerly disregarding. And she couldn’t get the word ‘darkling’ out of her head.

*

“I have one more surprise for you,” Peter told Melia. Melia was beyond excited when they pulled into the parking lot of the San Diego Zoo. They had already toured most of the zoo, gone on the
Flightline Safari
, which was a zipline tour over the animal exhibits, watched the Elephant Encounter, fed the giraffes, ate lunch, and visited the gift shops, where Peter bought Melia a stuffed zebra.

“What is it?” Melia asked, one hand in Peter’s, the other holding her bag.

“I can’t tell you.” He gently pulled his hand toward him, pulling Melia closer. He shyly kissed her. “But I think it will be the best part of today. Well, one of the best parts.” He took his phone from his pocket and checked the time. “We’re early. Let’s walk slowly.”

Melia was over the moon with excitement. She was at the zoo. She was seeing animals she never thought she’d ever see in real life: elephants, bears, eagles, and even some she had never heard of, like the honey badger. She enjoyed every minute she spent with Peter, amazed at the effort he put in on this perfectly planned day. She loved learning about the strange, land dwelling animals. They lazily strolled past Panda Canyon, Melia too busy admiring the animals to realize the direction they were headed in.

It was the one exhibit Peter hadn’t taken Melia to. He hoped he hadn’t been obvious in his avoidance. He had hoped to keep her distracted until they were near the exhibit. He asked her questions about her childhood. As always, Melia gave very vague answers.

“…collect shells. Lana was always on the lookout for anything pink. That’s why she—” Melia cut off, realizing where they were. She clapped her hands together. “Lions!”

“That’s not all,” Peter said, feeling somewhat shy as he retrieved a piece of paper from his back pocket. He carefully unfolded it and handed it to Melia. She took it, read it and stared wide-eyed at Peter.

“Really?!”

“Yup.”

She wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. “I don’t know what to say!”

“You don’t have to say anything.” Peter caught Melia’s contagious smile. “But you know it’s not real,” he added feeling the need to explain. He held up the papers again. “I mean, by ‘adopting an animal’ you really just gave a donation—a big donation—to get a fancy paper with your name on it.”

“Yes, I know,” she laughed. Melia didn’t want to admit that the first time she logged onto the zoo’s website and saw the ‘adopt an animal’ link she thought that you really got to take home an animal. Good thing Jamie was there to explain. But this was sweet—the sweetest thing anyone had ever done for her. She couldn’t wait to call Jamie and tell her that Peter ‘adopted’ a lion and put her name on the papers. “Why didn’t you take me here first?” she asked, finally getting the tone of fake anger just right.

“Because we have an appointment.”

“Appointment? With a lion?”

“Close enough.” He smiled mischievously and led her forward. “Part of the adoption thing includes getting to go behind the scenes and talking to the lions’ main zoo keeper. Though I don’t think we will actually get to go in where the lions are. I thought you’d like it, though.”

“I do! Oh Peter! I don’t know how I can thank you!”
“You already have.”

*

The sun had set by the time Melia and Peter returned to San Morado. It was a calm, clear night; billions of stars sparkled above them. Melia let Wolfy out and gazed up at the sky. Peter, who blindly walked through the pitch black house, joined her outside.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Melia asked quietly.

“It is.” Peter gently kissed her. “Like you.”

Melia snaked her arms around Peter’s waist, pulling him close. He wrapped his around her and just held her. After a minute, he asked,

“Do you want to go down by the water?”

Melia nodded. “Can we take blankets so we can lay down and watch the stars?”

“Yea.” Peter’s heart skipped a beat. He knew what he felt and wanted to say it. He kissed her once more before helping her grab the blankets. They found a spot with the least amount of rocks and the most amount of sand and spread the blanket out. They lay down, Melia resting her head on Peter’s chest.

“Are you cold?” Peter asked as he pulled the second blanket over them. The breeze had a slight chill to it.

“I’m perfect,” Melia answered, feeling nothing but good emotions.

“Yes, you are.”

Melia giggled. “I’m far from it. Oh!” She pointed to the sky. “Did you see that? I think it was a shooting star!”