Tangled Tides (The Sea Monster Memoirs) (35 page)

She pressed two fingers over her chest then placed them against her eyes. She reached for Treygan as her shoulders and arms crackled, hardening into stone. By the time her fingers touched his face they were gray rock.

I didn't need to hear Yara to know her last words to him. Her heart, her soul, she shares with him. He taught me that pledge when we were kids.

Treygan let out a deep bellow that shook the water around us.

I had never seen my brother cry. His tears turned to stone as they poured out of him. He held the statue of Yara in his arms, rocking back and forth, his forehead pressed against lifeless rock.

I looked around at all the tombs, some reaching upward, some wide-eyed, one half-shattered. What had we done? This wasn't how it was supposed to end.

Treygan looked up, glaring at me.
You and Lloyd did this to her.

I had no idea. He said she asked to be transformed into a gorgon. I didn't know it would kill her.

And what good did it do? The sun has set. The gate didn't open!

I glanced at the dark, sealed gate, knowing Vienna was somewhere on the other side. Every breath was a struggle. Every time I blinked I saw Vienna's face—a face I would never touch or kiss again.
I'm sorry, Treygan. Now you know what it's like to be in love. If it was Yara on the other side of that gate, and you had one shot to return to her, wouldn't you try anything to make it open?

He didn't reply. He just hung his head, clinging to Yara's tomb, unable to let go of the inevitable. All of us had blown it. We would never return home.

I
'm not sure how long I stared at the waterfall. The colors were mesmerizing, but a boom of thunder shook me from my daze and I turned to see a luminous woman with flowers for hair standing beside me.

"Hello," she said.

"Hi."

Another clap of thunder rattled through me and I looked to my left, watching an angry storm rip and tear its way through the dark space beside us.

"I love storms," I confessed. Something moved in the waterfall, diverting my attention. "But the light and all those colors are so beautiful."

A slimy Koi fish the color of vomit flopped out of the stormy surf and landed at my feet. Its eyes bugged, a hook hung from its bloody mouth and its scales were peeling.

"Can we save it?" I asked.

The woman nodded to the waterfall. I picked up the fish and lifted it toward the ever-changing wall of color. A hole opened and the fish swam through. The hook vanished, the Koi's eyes returned to normal, its scales changed to a healthy, golden glow.

"Just like that," I said.

"So simple," she agreed. "You may also go."

Why would I need to climb through the waterfall? I looked down at my body. My legs were stone, crumbling steadily into pieces. I stared at the waterfall again and the outline of a tail appeared in the ridges of the water. Something tugged at my memory.

"Through there," she held back part of the waterfall like a curtain. "You'll be free from pain."

I peeked inside as a heron flew past me, landing on the branch of a pink tree. The bird morphed into a woman. My mother. Giant, white wings spread out behind her, the curve of each feather gleaming with hints of pink and gold. She was smiling. I had forgotten how pretty she looked when she smiled. Her eyes motioned at something behind me.

I turned around and watched the storm. "What if I don't go through the waterfall?"

"You would rather weather the storm?" the beautiful woman asked.

"I like storms. Someone told me that after the clouds clear, the sky is a blank page waiting to be filled with sunbeam songs, moonlit poetry, and stories written in the stars." Who taught me that? An old man's face flashed in front of me, but quickly faded to a blur of yellow.

"Sometimes beauty is hidden under a veil of tragedy," the glowing woman said.

A poem. Medusa. A tiny thread brushed against my mind and I grabbed onto it. The fabric of my life raveled back together. Faint memories weaved their way back to me.

The lightning and thunder stopped. Blue and silver clouds disintegrated, leaving a constellation of teal stars twinkling in the sky. Two blue moons shone above them. Something seemed familiar about them. I could almost see a wide nose forming beside the group of stars that made up the Canis Major constellation. The faint outline of a body appeared below a ghostly face. A blue tail formed in the sky. Its iridescent scales shimmered with possibilities of my future.

"Treygan," I whispered.

I looked back and forth between the two of them: my mother, the siren, a breathtaking angel; and Treygan, the merman, my true love.

Medusa stepped closer to me. "You must choose."

"I choose to be a mermaid."

Her laughter shook the waterfall and starry sky until everything blurred around us.

"I meant choose between being an angel or retiring in peace. You do not get to return to life. You died."

"So?"

"So?" She smiled.

"I know who you are. You created a new world with three new species of creatures."

"More than three," she corrected. "You have not seen the other realms."

"See, you did all of that, but you're telling me you can't send me back?"

"That is not how the rules work."

"Then make new rules, Medusa."

She glanced at the waterfall like she might be considering it. I kept pleading my case while I had the chance.

"You wanted me as your replacement. Well, here I am.
You
need
me
. Your sisters need me. I'm the only human-monster mix that's female. I'll do it. Send me back."

She laughed again. "You are a unique conglomerate containing too many types of blood. Your instincts would be in constant battle with each other: warm, cold, light, dark."

"They would balance each other out," I argued, remembering Uncle Lloyd's theory. "I'm perfect for the job. Once a human, now a gorgon, just like you. You created the sirens, selkies, and merfolk. I'm a mixture of all of them. I have a vested interest in all sides."

She glowed brighter—if that was possible. "You are giving up the chance to enter paradise, only to return to a life of darkness as a gorgon?"

I felt powerful and wise. More so than I had ever felt while I was alive. "I'm still part mermaid, I would need the sun." She flinched and I held up my hands. "The only gorgons sentenced to the grotto were you and your sisters. You and Poseidon have children who can roam the land and waters in the other realm, correct?"

She nodded.

"So the curse wouldn't apply to me. I wouldn't need to live in the grotto, but I would agree to visit as much as Stheno and Euryale needed me to. Power would be restored to the trinity in exchange for life restored to me. It's a heck of a deal."

She grinned again. The woman smiled or laughed at everything. "You are only doing this for love."

I smiled too. "Isn't that how all of this started? You and Poseidon broke and bent rules and created new ones, all because of love."

The flowering vines in her hair slithered around her head and some of the petals closed or fluttered to her feet. "You should know I had nothing to do with the curse. Seeing my children suffering, trapped outside of their home, it bemoans my soul. My sisters have grown angry and vengeful over the centuries. I cannot control their actions."

"Then send me back. If they get their third they'll be happy and open the gateway. Everyone wins."

"You make it sound so simple."

"Come on, Medusa. Sending me into an eternal waterfall of peace and healing is simple, but figuring out how to put my soul back in my body is impossible? I doubt it."

Her pearly eyebrows lifted. "You remind me of myself when I was young. Stubborn, fiery, would do anything for love. It was love that helped me achieve greatness. My sisters, Poseidon, my children, they gave my existence meaning."

"Then send me back. Give me a chance to do something great. In the name of love."

"I do not have that power."

I looked at the sky where the celestial form of Treygan once shined. Nothing but black sky was visible. The waterfall had disappeared. We floated alone in an infinite sea of darkness. Medusa glowed brighter than the sun, but she couldn't give me my life back.

According to Uncle Lloyd and Liora, Medusa should have agreed to the deal by now. But I couldn't give up. I refused to take no for an answer. I had to be overlooking something important.

A momentary sparkle of light caught my attention. In the hollow of Medusa's throat, a tiny sphere was embedded in her luminous skin.

"My pearl," I gasped.

She lowered her head and rested her fingers over it. "No,
my
pearl."

Treygan had said Poseidon gave an agape pearl to Medusa. It represented eternal love—just like mine and Treygan's. I had a revelation and prayed that I was right. None of this would have been possible without Treygan. I would have never been turned, never learned to love all the merfolk, never found my soul mate. Treygan was my Poseidon. He said I made him stronger, but he gave me strength and love I never imagined possible. Together, we could do anything.

"Fortunately, you know someone who
does
have the power to send me back." I stepped toward Medusa. "I want to talk to Poseidon … please."

She batted her star-filled eyes. Beams of colored light shot out of the crystal pearl at her neck and blew me backward.

A huge man three times the size of Pango appeared at Medusa's side. He was translucent, ethereal. He spoke in a voice so deep it shook the rainbow-colored sky and water around us. "Yes, my love."

Medusa leaned against his broad shoulder and stroked his beard. The flowers in her hair bloomed again. "Poseidon, this child wants to achieve greatness and help our worlds. Will you help me send her back?"

To say he was intimidating would be an understatement. He studied me with ominous, silver eyes. White-capped waves churned across them each time he blinked. "Why would you want to return to such a tumultuous place? Those worlds have become tragic stories."

My voice trembled. "I want to help write a better version."

He and Medusa glanced at each other and she smiled. Poseidon raised his glowing trident above my head, but I threw my hands up.

"Wait!" I shouted. "If you are sending me back, I would like to make a few requests."

M
y teeth ached from being clenched so tightly.

I failed to keep Yara safe. I failed as a guardian. I failed my people.

Rownan swam away, holding his broken wrist. How could I face the others? How could I face them? How could I tell them we were never going home? Let Rownan tell them. I had nothing left to say. Nothing left to give.

I might as well have turned to stone too. All I could do was cling to Yara, hoping it was all a nightmare. Her vapid, rocky eyes stared back at me. My jaw trembled uncontrollably as my stony tears sank in the water around us. I wrote out the words,
I love you
, across her stone chest. Each breath I took tore the hole in my heart wider.

My own father had done this. Yara had been right, we shouldn't have trusted him. Why did I believe in him? Why did I let him and Rownan through the door of that house? I stayed away from them for years. I should have never let them back into my life. I should have run away with Yara. I should have done a million things differently.

I should have been the one to sacrifice myself.

I leaned down and rested my forehead against hers. The first crack was so quiet I thought I had imagined it.

A second crack zigzagged down her forehead, splitting down the middle of her nose like a porcelain mask. I stopped breathing when I saw flesh inside the seam.

Her hands crackled, bits of rock shooting up into the water. I started tearing away layers of stone from her face, not believing my own eyes. Her skin. More and more of her skin appeared as I picked away crumbling handfuls of rock.

I was sure I was dreaming or hallucinating until her eyelids opened. I carefully brushed away the debris in her eyelashes, revealing long, amber sunbeams.
Yara?