The Mermaid's Secret (32 page)

My mother's head breaks the surface next to mine. The smile is gone and her eyes dart rapidly at all the human activity.

“Let's go home,” I whisper.

Her heart beats faster. I can feel her anxiety in my chest, just like I felt the anguish of the mother humpback. Slowly, I realize that I am an injured animal. Predators can detect my distress from miles away. I'm putting us both in danger. “Come home with me,” I repeat. “It's not too late.”

She looks in my eyes. A tear escapes and quickly mingles with the rain and sea and I know that she is not coming. This is as far as she can go. It took every last shred of her humanity to bring me this far.

A foghorn rings out from the ferry. Her eyes widen. She scurries under the water, her hands still lifting me to the surface from below, just like they did all those years ago when I felt like the ocean would never let me drown, not realizing that it was her all along. I think about the sacrifices that she must have made for me and Kay. All those years when she resisted the tempting call of the sea. The grief that she finally was able to submerge.

I slide my hands into hers and pull her up to face me. I want to see her smile one last time. “I love you,” I say, and hug her. She smiles for me.

She hugs me again, and swims away.

Now I am alone, and I am injured. If I want to survive I need to make my way to the
Dauntless,
to Matthew. I need to dig deep and find that last bit of fight in me. I close my eyes and envision the Passamaquoddy symbol for strength—the four concentric circles—swirling around me. I lie on my back as rain pounds down. Staying on the surface, I swim on my back, making an S stroke with my hands. It's early still, and the rain has scared off the tourist boats, so I make it through the harbor undetected.

The white hull of the
Dauntless
is so close I can almost reach it. I inch my way over and reach for a blackened fray of rope hanging off the dock.

I close my eyes.

Matthew's voice comes to me through the haze. “Jess.
Jess!
”

There's a splash next to me. I open my eyes and see Matthew. His yellow raincoat spreads out behind him. His eyes are strange. Worried. Shocked.

“I tried to tell you,” I say.

“It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay,” he says, like he's trying to convince himself. He cradles my body in a lifeguard hold.

“I was stung by a man-o'-war.”

“It's okay. It's okay. It's okay.”

“Can you … get me … out of here?” my voice is starting to fail.

“I'll call someone.” His voice is shaky. “We'll figure this out.”

With my last reserve of energy, I turn my head to face him. “No. Don't tell anyone. Promise me.”

And then I let the pain and fatigue take me.

 

T
WENTY-NINE

A siren startles me out of my sleep.

I don't know where I am. My pillow is drenched. The smell of the sea hangs in the room, and I think, for a second, that I might be at Ne'Hwas County Hospital. The botched amputation that made national news flashes before me. What have they done to
me
? I look around, details seeping in—the beaded corners of the poster bed, the wall of windows looking out on a veil of fog and rain. Slowly, it comes back to me. Matthew pulling me into the Slack Tide skiff. My tail hanging over the side of the tiny boat. Everything slick with rain. Matthew asking me over and over if I am okay. The bleary light of Kotoki-Pun. Matthew carrying me over the rocks and into his house.

I remember the fever burning through me, my lungs adjusting to air. Feeling like I was drowning. Pain searing through me. Matthew at my side all night long, holding me.

Keeping his shock and horror to himself.

I remember him putting me in the bathtub, and how water was the only thing that could soothe me.

I whip off the sheet, not sure what I'll see.

My legs. Pale and unsteady. Little welts like braille on my skin.

I prop myself up and look out the window. The sky is thick with fog. Only the red stripes of Kotoki-Pun light are visible in the haze of gray. The cliffs are gone. The ocean has disappeared.

Matthew is asleep in the chair by the bed.

I hobble to the bathroom and flick on the light. The floor is shimmery with scales. Mine. What I must have put him through! I wipe a cool washcloth across my face and neck. The T-shirt I'm wearing smells like Matthew, and I hold it against my nose, taking comfort in it. I feel lucky to be alive. And so terribly disappointed at the same time.

When I walk back into the bedroom, Matthew wakes up and stretches his arms. His blue eyes land on me.

“What day is it?” I ask.

He rubs his face. “Saturday.”

“How long was I out?”

“All of yesterday and through last night.” He twists his beard. “How do you feel?”

I look down at my legs. “Human.”

He stands and takes me in his arms. “I'm sorry I didn't believe you.”

“I wouldn't have believed, either.”

“Coffee?”

I nod.

He leaves the room and I stand at the windows, staring out at where the ocean should be. I think about my mother and how the sea tugged at her until she couldn't ignore it. The animal in her has taken over, the human side almost gone. And yet, she rescued me. Was that the human or the animal?

Matthew comes back with the coffee in a dainty cup painted with yellow roses. Alice's teacups.

The coffee perks me up. I stretch out my legs and neck, cracking my joints.

Matthew sits on the edge of the bed. “Are you going back?”

I sit next to him. “No. It's over. Tonight's the full moon. My portal disappears.”

“And all that talk about me going with you?”

“It was silly. I can't ask you to give up the life you know.”

Matthew presses a hand to my heart.

“I want you to know that I would go anywhere with you.”

“Really?”

“I'm all-in.” The corners of his eyes turn upward in a smile.

I throw my arms around him and kiss him. But my body is still sore, and I slump into the bed.

“I'm going to run to the pharmacy and get you something for that pain,” he says.

He kisses my forehead lightly and leaves the house.

Once I'm all alone, I get dressed and step outside. I walk over lichen-covered rocks and through wildflowers to the edge of the cliff. The pounding of waves echoes over the point. Fog is so thick it swallows everything—trees, cliffs, ocean. It's beautiful in an eerie sort of way. Alone, I stand at the edge of the island, churning through the possibilities in my mind. What do I do now? Go back to flipping burgers on a fishing boat, after all I've been through? Should I go through that barrel again and take Matthew with me? Can we be happy together in a place as alien as the sea? Will we just end up speaking in monosyllabic sentences to each other and staring off into space, like my mom?

Or was my grandmother right? Is it too late for my mom? Does a mermaid need the heart and passion of girl like Ne'Hwas?

As I head back to the front door I spot a newspaper in the pea gravel driveway. I walk across the wet stone and pick it up. I'll set it out for Matthew. We'll drink coffee and have pancakes and we'll talk about our future. And which animal kingdom we want to spend it in.

He's all-in. What more could I ask for?

I'm still smiling about a future with Matthew, when I look down and see Trip Sinclair's smug face on page one of the
Daily News
. He's standing on the bow of the
Sea Nymphe,
wind blowing his hair, looking like a model for men's cologne. The headline reads “Regatta Favorite Trip Sinclair Returns to the Circuit.”

The article says that the race today is basically Trip's for the taking. Bennett Sinclair is quoted saying that he looks forward to his grandson's long-awaited return to the racing circuit. That the family looks forward to a bright future in sailing and to restoring their tattered legacy.

The anger is like lava in my veins. I need to let it out. I need to unleash the animal and let it do what the human in me can't.

I don't leave a note. I'm worried that just writing Matthew's name will make me change my mind.

*   *   *

My legs are still wobbly as I bike down the driveway on an old cruiser I found in the garage. It must belong to Alice. A wicker basket with big plastic flowers bobs along on the handlebars. Steering with one hand, Matthew's board tucked under my other arm, I make my way out of Kotoki-Pun Point, past the diner, putting Matthew's house farther behind me. All I can think of is Trip Sinclair.

Wind whips up mini cyclones of trash on Barefoot Lane. It knocks down the
LIVE LOBSTERS
sign in front of the lobster pound.

The race will be getting under way any minute. And I will finally get the chance to get Kay the justice she deserves.

*   *   *

The waves are sloppy. Double overhead at least. Closing out left and right. Bad conditions for Regatta. Worse conditions for surfing. No other surfers are out. Nipon Beach is empty. The fog has cleared out, and the ocean is in a fury.

And I'm in a fury, too. The fury attaches itself to me like a remora to a shark. I want blood.

I run into the water. Waves pummel me backwards with every stroke I take. I'm still weak from the fever and dehydration, and there's no lull between waves to catch my breath. It's a relentless force of water, determined to meet the shore.

Once I'm past the break, I don't rest. I spin around and paddle into a wave. It's an ugly one. Rough and frothy. Whitecaps on top of whitecaps. But I don't need pretty. I just need a barrel.

I paddle, paddle, paddle, the wave racing up behind me. I pop up to my feet. Nothing but air below the nose. I drop down the face, my legs wobbly, my heart racing, the cold spray of ocean in my face.

And I fall.

Headfirst, I plunge into the wave. A tornado of white water forces me downward, pushing me into the sand. My face scrapes the bottom. I cover my head with my hand as I somersault in the maelstrom.

When I come up for air, my board is gone, my leash detached. I look up just in time to see my board sailing over the waves in a gust of wind.

And the next wave is almost on top of me.

My strength is slipping. I struggle to keep my head above water. How am I going to surf a barrel without a board? It's like opening a locked door without a key.

I suck in a lungful of air and dive down, as far beneath the churning wash of the next wave as I can get. Sand grazes my belly. Thunder fills my ears.

My stomach aches, my muscles are weak. I should have eaten before I left Matthew's. Matthew will be wondering where I am now. What would he think of me if he knew what I was doing? Would he try to stop me?
Don't think about that now.
I push thoughts of Matthew deep down, away from the surface of my mind.

With my last reserve of strength, I swim seaward. Wind shaves off the top of the next wave, sending razor-sharp spray at me, burning my eyes.

I turn and see the next wave in front of me. It's as tall as a two-story building. A beast. A big, beautiful beast. I swim with it, feeling the energy behind it.

At the crest, I kick like hell and start moving down the face. I'm about to go under, so I thrust my head and shoulders down, adjusting my center of balance, forcing my hips to skim the surface. As I bodysurf down the face, racing to catch the barrel, speed is the only thing keeping me above water.

There's so much spray in my face, I don't even see the lip of the wave curl. This time, the transition is faster than ever. When I come out of the end of the barrel, I can already feel the tightening of my skin, my legs pressing together. My tail, my gills. That cold, delicious feeling of breathing water.

I dive under and swim to the racecourse.

I don't know exactly what I'm planning on doing with him, once I have him. Maybe I'll just scare him. Maybe I'll toy with him like a seal toys with its prey before it goes in for the kill. To do nothing seems like a disgrace. I want him to feel what Kay felt, the day that he crashed her into the rocks and then left her for dead.

I want him to be alone and desperate, slipping under the cold water, unable to swim. I want him to know the fear as urgently and acutely as she felt it. And I want him wondering if anyone is going to save him. If anyone cares about him.

Out here, Kay will finally have her justice because human rules don't apply in the wild. Animals aren't bound by any laws. We kill to eat. Kill to defend ourselves. Kill to keep the balance of the ocean.

I hear the siren under the water. Two short blasts. A pause. A long one. The five-minute warning signal. I need to get to the racecourse and get my hands on Trip Sinclair.

My head breaks the surface to a misty gray sky. A tall peak looms in the distance. Mount Wabanaki. I'm too far away. I dive again and swim parallel to shore, dolphin kicking with furious speed. I follow the north–south ridges in the sand, ignoring the electrical currents pulsing through my lateral line.
Prey nearby,
the electrical currents tell me.
Time to hunt,
my body says.

But it's not fish that I'm hunting today.

When I get to a long, shallow flat, I know I'm at North Beach. Noises come from every direction. Motorboats zip around like flies. Party voices ring out from the spectator boats. The racecourse buoys are directly in front of the harbor, stretching between Kotoki-Pun light and Seal Point in a fifteen-mile loop.

The siren sounds again. A long, shrill blast. The race is on.

I sprint under water, below the great hulls that slice through the water above. I swim alongside the keel of one of them, and break the surface, just astern. I can hear the slashing of rain on sails, of men yelling commands. There are letters across the transom. I make out an
r
. An
o
. Wrong boat.