03 The Fate Of The Muse - Marina's Tales

Copyright © 2011 by Derrolyn Anderson

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved, including the right to
reproduce this book or portions of it. This book is a work of
fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are the products
of the author’s imagination or are used fictionally. Any
resemblance to actual events, locales or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.

PROLOGUE

The sun descended into the sea, and when the
truck dropped him off at the familiar sign, his heart leapt. He was
finally back. After months of rough travel, evading authorities and
relying on the kindness of strangers, he had arrived at his
ultimate destination. Night was rapidly falling, and he knew that
he’d never find the house in the dark, so he cast about, looking
for something to bed down on. He pulled a cardboard box out of a
ditch, and searched out a hidden hollow in some brush that would
do.

He was close to her now, he could feel it.
All the weeks of travel, all of the pain and suffering would be
worth it, just to see her face again. He clung to the memory of it,
closing his eyes and remembering her sweet smile, the sound of her
voice, and the scent of her soft skin. He recalled every little
detail about her; the way she moved, the color of her hair, and the
way her aqua eyes sparkled when they met his.

He realized he had done wrong, and he vowed
that he would prove it to her. He knew what they had planned, and
he swore that he would never let them have her again. When she saw
him she’d realize that she loved him too– he just knew it– and soon
they would be reunited. He was on a mission to find her or die
trying; there was simply no other alternative.

They had tried to stop him at the border, but
he was far too wily for them. His military training made it easy
for him to suffer the depravations of hunger and sleeplessness; he
was accustomed to the cold. When he finally made it to a port, his
strong back and enormous muscles made it easy for him to find work
aboard a cargo ship, and Canada’s largely unguarded borders were no
challenge for his survival skills.

Hitching rides had been a little more
difficult. His sheer size intimidated most drivers and more than
one had pulled away at the last minute when they’d gotten a
close-up look at his battle scarred face. But slowly, surely, the
trains he jumped on and the trucks that stopped for him brought him
closer and closer to his goal. Many friendly people had offered him
food and drink along the journey, and when he managed to explain to
them in halting English that he was on a quest for love, they had
shown him surprising kindness.

He drew a deep breath through his flattened
nose, savoring the fresh ocean air. He was so close he could taste
it; he knew it wouldn’t be long now. He spread the cardboard on the
damp ground and rummaged through his pack, pulling out a bottle of
beer and a hunk of bread. He sat with his back to a tree, eating
and imagining their reunion with a sigh.

When it was fully dark he climbed into his
bedroll, turning his collar up against the foggy night air, and
rolling onto his side. He was certain that the powerful urge that
gnawed at his soul was there for a reason, for surely the creator
would never set him on such a path without a purpose. He settled
into the most comfortable position possible, falling asleep
contented in the knowledge that it was his destiny to see her
again.

Now it was all up to fate.

CHAPTER ONE

PROM

“When we’re married, I’ll bring you breakfast
in bed every morning.”

I laughed, “Really? Don’t you think that
could get a little messy? I mean, what if I want to eat leftover
Chinese or something? With chopsticks…”

I reached over for a nail file, pinning the
phone between my ear and shoulder.

He kept talking, “We’ll get a couple of dogs
that we can take to the beach every day.”

“Will they go surfing with us?” I asked
teasingly.

“They’ll probably want to fetch sticks out of
the water,” he replied, “Or footballs.”

“I think our poodles might be too small for
that,” I said sternly.

“Not if they’re the big kind,” he laughed,
“But I was thinking more, like, golden retrievers…”

It had become a kind of game with us, gently
teasing each other about how things would be when we could finally
be together. Ethan had been bringing up the future more and more,
describing to me our potential lives in detail. Clearly, it was
something he’d been thinking about a lot. I couldn’t tell if it was
to reassure me, or simply to convince himself that we’d eventually
get there.

I wasn’t so sure where we would end up a
month ago, when I’d returned from a disastrous spring break
vacation to discover yet more unimaginable facts about myself. Ever
since I’d learned that my mother was a mermaid, my life kept
getting stranger and stranger. I began to have random visions of
the future, and found that I had inherited the power to inspire
excellence in others. I was, in fact, kind of a reluctant muse.

“There won’t be any puppies in my future if
Cruz kills me for not doing my nails,” I said, looking down at my
ragged cuticles. I had been chewing them nervously lately, and Cruz
was anxious for me to look my very best when I debuted his latest
creation.

“I’ll see you tonight,” said Ethan.

I smacked a kiss into the receiver, and heard
one in return as I put down the phone.

So Ethan and I ended up attending the senior
prom, and I was a little surprised to find myself enjoying it. I
smiled warmly up at him, gently squeezing his hand. I was starting
to feel lucky again, grateful that the school year was finally
coming to the end, and relieved that nothing out of the ordinary
had happened in a while. I was happy that we’d made it to this
point.

So far, so good.

When my cousin presented me with the prom
dress he’d designed and sewn I was touched. He’d poured his heart
and soul into making the most amazing dress imaginable, and like so
many of his other creations, it was truly a work of art. Cruz saw
the dance as his last chance to show everyone at school how
talented he really was; he planned to go out in a blaze of glory. I
suppose it was his version of closure, an opportunity to put the
final period on a traumatic chapter of his life. Like me, Cruz had
always considered high school to be a form of slow torture.

I hadn’t wanted to leave the house for much
of anything lately, but confronted with Cruz’s big brown eyes and
relentless pleading, I’d softened and agreed to go. I simply
couldn’t rain on his parade. After all, he had already made the
dress.

He’d also crafted beautiful gowns for our
friends Megan and Shayla, and had been bugging them about going to
the prom for weeks. Shameless in his use of emotional blackmail,
Cruz alternately whined and bullied until he finally ground down
their resistance. They ultimately rolled their eyes at each other
and decided to go as his double dates. After all, they had to
admit, how could they complain about getting custom dresses made
for them by a soon to be famous fashion designer?

We all stood, listening to a local band
butcher some popular music, watching a bunch of overdressed
teenagers dancing self-consciously to the beat. I stifled a yawn
and leaned against Ethan, disoriented by the bright sparkling
flashes reflecting from a mirrored ball. Light swirled and twirled
all around the darkened ballroom, reminding me of fractured
sunbeams filtering down into the depths of the dark sea. The crowd
swayed like waving seaweed, and the only thing missing was a
battalion of phosphorescent glowing mermaids.

Cruz the designer had outdone himself as
usual, dressing and styling “his girls” down to the tiniest detail.
I smoothed my skirt and admired his exquisite craftsmanship. In my
opinion, I had on the most beautiful dress there; he’d made me an
ethereal ballgown that it could have come right out of a fairy
tale. It had a perfectly fitted strapless bodice that sparkled with
tiny crystals sprinkled onto the palest lavender chiffon. The skirt
was full and long, whispering when I moved with the rustling of
crisp taffeta, a dozen or so layers of tulle netting contributing
to the skirt’s lavish volume. It made me feel like a princess, but
I drew the line at the tiara Cruz wanted, opting instead for a
loose Gibson Girl style up-do that suited the romantic dress.

I enjoyed watching Cruz bask in all the
attention we were attracting. It was exactly the sort of
vindication he had imagined, and he reveled in it. He stood there
holding court, Megan and Shayla on his arms, answering questions
from the popular girls who wanted to know where our trio of
unusually gorgeous dresses came from. I had to smile, knowing that
one day they’d all be bragging to their friends about how they’d
gone to school with him.

If anyone remembered that just a few short
months ago Cruz and Megan were pariahs, with Shayla acting as their
main tormenter, it didn’t show. Former mean-girl Shayla hung on
Cruz’s every word, laughing with exaggerated gestures at his
constant stream of witticisms. His kindness to her had changed her
life, and she’d become his biggest fan. She proudly told anyone who
would listen how talented he was, and that he was going to be a
famous designer one day.

Megan had morphed into a sultry looking club
singer, sporting a Marilyn Monroe inspired halter dress that suited
her voluptuous figure. Cruz had broken all the rules by dressing a
redhead in red, and the effect was stunning. She had even
straightened her normally curly hair for the occasion, wearing it
pinned back sleekly, exposing the pretty face she used to go to
great lengths to hide.

She looked far older and more sophisticated
than your typical high school senior, and she also looked
irritated. Megan never did like suffering fools, and she was
itching for the whole night to be over.

Shayla smiled happily and stood up straight,
towering over almost everyone like a goddess among mortals. Cruz
had outfitted her lean and lanky figure in a classic white column
dress accented with hand-braided gold trim. Her makeup was
flawless, her long blonde hair worn down and loose, and I could see
many of the other girl’s dates sneaking a few furtive glances over
at her. She looked every inch the sophisticated supermodel she
would soon become.

Cruz caught my eye, standing in the middle of
a crowd, surrounded, and yet somehow still alone. He watched the
dancing couples with a wistful expression on his face, and it
suddenly occurred to me that despite having all his friends around
him, he was lonely. I wished that he had someone special in his
life– someone that meant as much to him as Ethan meant to me.

“Look how much you changed Shayla and Megan,”
Ethan whispered in my ear. I looked reproachfully at him, wishing
he wouldn’t bring up my so-called muse powers.

“Cruz is the one who dressed them up,” I said
defensively.

“Look how much you changed Cruz,” he
countered, smiling wryly at my protestations.

I had started looking for any possible way to
avoid taking credit for anything that my friends achieved. I hated
the thought that their success was due in any part to me. The idea
that I had somehow nudged them along made me uncomfortable, and I
was having difficulty grappling with the ramifications.

Only Aunt Evie and Ethan knew about the
strange power I had to enhance people’s innate gifts and talents,
and that was one secret I desperately wanted kept from everyone
else. As a fellow mermaid-human hybrid, my Aunt Evie was possessed
of the same ability. Unlike me, she was a practiced manipulator,
and she wielded her power with relish.

Evie couldn’t really describe exactly how it
worked, but she said I’d know it when I felt it. She was right
about that, for seeing my friends flourish brought me feelings of
intense satisfaction that went beyond mere altruism. Apparently,
the power was strongest when I really truly wanted someone to
succeed, and capriciously affected some people more than others.
Most disturbing, it wasn’t always positive, for I was capable of
bringing out the worst as well as the best in people.

“C’mon,” Ethan slipped his arm around my
waist, “Let’s dance.”

He’d surprised me earlier in the evening by
knowing all the ballroom steps, and he took me out onto the floor
for every slow one, leading us smoothly and expertly.

“Where did you learn to dance?” I asked him,
watching as his face clouded over a little.

“I, uhm, well… I had to go to the prom last
year.”

I realized that his former girlfriend had
made certain that he knew how to dance properly for her senior
prom. I smiled to myself; it had taken some doing, but I’d mostly
gotten over being jealous of her. He was all mine now.