An Elemental Tail (2 page)

And that was probably why Sarah had given
them to her. They held no value to her mother. The cash wouldn’t
show up in the will. The necklace had been hidden in the folds of
brown paper. Sarah had known exactly how to protect her gifts from
the avarice of her niece.

Isla expanded, knowing the names meant
nothing to her mother. “All my favorites from when I lived there.
‘The Little Mermaid,’ ‘Snow White’—”

“Any first editions?”

Her mother was always grasping. Men, money,
or both.

“They’re children’s books.” Illustrated with
loving detail. She’d spent hours poring over the pictures, not
needing the words. Going home to her mother had been the saddest
day in her ten-year-old life. She’d wept as her mother’s beat-up
Ford had pulled into Sarah’s driveway to drag her away from the
home and school she loved.

Something had happened after that, and Sarah
and her mother had never spoken again. Now she knew that Sarah had
asked for her to stay, and her mother had refused.
What’s mine
is mine
.

But Sarah hadn’t forgotten her. Each birthday
and Christmas she’d receive pencils, crayons, paper, paint,
charcoal. She’d filled her and her sister’s bedroom with fairies
and princesses, castles, and unicorns. It had been her escape from
the yelling and the baiting as her mother worked to keep her
expanding number of children at odds. For her eighteenth birthday,
it had been a plane ticket so she could go to college. This
birthday there would be nothing from the woman she used to wish was
her real mother. The book was Sarah’s last gift.

“Typical Sarah, no idea how the real world
works.” Her mother muttered her words like acid drops. “Carly needs
a new pair of shoes. You’d better send some money home.”

If she sent money home, her mother would
spend it on herself. That’s where all the money always went.

“What size is she?”

“How the hell should I know?”

“Let me speak to her.”

It was a long shot. When she’d left for the
Massachusetts art college six months ago, her mother had cut off
all communication with her siblings. She didn’t want their minds
poisoned by Isla’s newfound independence.

A slow drag on the cigarette. A cough, and
then the lie. “She’s not here. Just send the money for the shoes.”
The phone clicked, the empty line humming.

“Love you too, Mom. College is great. I love
it here.”

****

The plump woman slipped off her robe and
arranged herself in the center of the room. Isla’s fingers closed
over Sarah’s book, the leather warm and silken under her fingers.
After doing some research, Isla figured it was probably eel skin.
She hesitated, the book halfway out of her satchel, but couldn’t
bring herself to mark the creamy pages with just anybody. The man
from the restaurant shimmered in her thoughts. None of her rough
sketches had come close to the memory, so she had left the
leather-bound book unmarked.

Instead, Isla pulled out her standard
sketchbook. With a soft pencil she started drawing. Gathering the
soft curves of the woman and putting them on the page. Rolling
hills of flesh, shadowed valleys. She got lost in the minute detail
of crossed legs and the creases in the woman’s thigh.

The hair on the back of her neck trembled as
if she were being studied. Isla turned and looked over her
shoulder. Her lecturer stood one step behind her. Too close. But
she’d always liked her personal space. At Sarah’s she’d had the run
of the whole house; at her mother’s she’d shared a bedroom and had
a corner to herself.

Mr. Gardner’s hand brushed against her
shoulder. “You’ve really captured the female form.”

The softness of his words made her skin
shudder as if a snake had slithered over her foot. The gold ring on
his finger glinted under the lights.

“Thanks.” She rolled her shoulders.

His hand fell away. For a couple of long
breaths he watched Isla, then moved on. He stopped to talk to
another student and his hand never left his side. Her stomach
crashed to the floor. It was only her space he was invading, her he
was touching. He glanced back, eyes hooded, and smiled.

Isla pretended she was thinking, her pencil
resting against her lip, her eyes unfocused, her brain scrambling
for an escape. Not her. It wouldn’t be her. She’d heard the rumors
when she’d selected this unit, but life drawing was her favorite
class, and she wasn’t going to be put off by campus chatter.

She flipped the page and started another
sketch. She drew the woman’s arm. The pointed elbow jerked out of
the paper when she filled in the shadows. It was an angry drawing,
all lines and darkness. Not what she usually did, not one of her
better works, but it made her smile all the same. Art didn’t have
to be pretty; it had to evoke emotion.

At the end of the class the model dressed,
and everyone packed up. Isla shoved her things into her bag, ready
to bolt to her next class.

Mr. Gardner beckoned her over. She looked at
her watch. One minute, and this would be over. He would find
another student to pursue when he realized she wasn’t interested.
She folded her arms as other students filed past. The noise of
their feet on the linoleum scraped like scalpels over parchment,
wearing on her nerves. She didn’t want to be standing in front of
her forty-year-old lecturer, waiting for him to hit on her. She
didn’t have time to date anyone, especially someone taken and twice
her age.

“Isla, I find that scholarship students need
extra guidance and tuition to maintain the high standard required.”
Mr. Gardner arranged his face in an expression that was supposed to
look pleasant and caring. Instead, he looked like a psychopath
apologizing for killing her while sharpening the knife.

“No one else has expressed any concerns over
my work.” So far her grades were above what was required. They had
to be. She needed the scholarship.

“I have high expectations.” His fingers
brushed her arm as he moved closer. “I’d like to look over your
portfolio one afternoon.”

Her heart crawled up her spine, taking all
warmth with it. He was using her work as an excuse.

“My portfolio isn’t ready for viewing. I was
of the understanding that it would be examined at the end of the
year.” She stepped toward the door and adjusted her satchel;
looking at her watch would be too rude.

His smile thinned until his lips disappeared.
“I’m offering private tutorage.”

“I enjoy developing my own style.” Her voice
remained level as she held his gaze, but her palms were slick. She
refused to be taken for a ride to smooth out his midlife crisis.
She hadn’t moved to the other side of the country to give up her
freedom to a man.

Seconds ticked past. Mr. Gardner nodded.
“Very well. If you change your mind, I’ll be here.”

Isla kept her back straight, but every muscle
supporting her spine sagged with relief.

“Just remember, Ms. Williams, you’re required
to attend eighty percent of my classes.” With his pen he placed an
X
next to her name.

She paused mid-stride, victory snatched from
her hands by the casual mark of a lying pen. If her attendance
fell, she would lose the scholarship. Her job as a waitress covered
living expenses and little else. She’d already banked Sarah’s cash
for a rainy day. It wouldn’t cover a term of college expenses.
Without the scholarship, there would be no college.

Mr. Gardner smiled like a snake watching a
fat, caged mouse. “See you on Friday, Isla.”

****

Friday came around too fast, and Isla hadn’t
made a decision. It wasn’t too late to switch electives, but then
she’d lose life drawing for the rest of her course. Was losing her
favorite subject better than having no course at all? She’d made
too many sacrifices to get here. This was her dream; she didn’t
want it to be second-rate. She pressed her lips tight together. She
wouldn’t let a man take from her. She was stronger than her
mother.

Isla rolled her pencil between her fingers
and watched the same woman settle on a chair this time. The light
from the window illuminated the curve of the model’s back, the
sweep of her spine. The pencil took over and her worries faded,
forgotten for the moment. The page filled with detail, but not the
full person. Never the complete figure. Always just the fraction
that caught her interest.

She stopped for a drink, and her hand swept
reassuringly against the leather-bound book in her satchel. She
hadn’t drawn in it yet, but she carried it to every class. Sarah’s
legacy was becoming a talisman, a touchstone when she needed
strength. Isla knew when she did put pencil to paper that the
result would be magical...like the crimson-haired man who slipped
into her thoughts just when she thought he was gone. She shook her
head and put her drink back.

This time her fingers lingered on the leather
for a moment. Her back warmed as if she was sitting in the sun. She
was being watched. Isla lifted her gaze and glanced carefully
around. Mr. Gardner was talking to someone else. She twisted around
and faked a stretch, glancing toward the door. A dark flicker
passed the window in the door, as if someone had been looking
through. More likely her imagination was getting the better of
her.

But for the rest of the class it was a battle
not to keep turning around every time she felt the mystery gaze on
her back. The female model didn’t hold her attention. She couldn’t
find refuge in the light and shadow of her form. Instead, her
fingers itched to take out the leather-bound book, to see what a
sketch would look like on the creamy translucent pages. The tiny
thrill that always accompanied a new idea bubbled in her stomach.
She made a promise to herself: next class she would draw in the
book. And there would be a next class because she wasn’t going to
quit.

She was going to fight Mr. Gardner—she just
didn’t know how.

When the class ended she walked out, ignoring
Mr. Gardner’s signal to talk. If she was going to stay in his class
and not have him mark her absent, she was going to have to tell
someone what he was threatening. But who was going to listen to
her, much less believe her? She was only here because someone else
was paying.

Nik leaned against the wall, pretending to be
casual. Dressed in black, with his crimson hair tucked under a
black newsboy-style cap, he looked like any other student. He was
virtually invisible. The other students ignored him, obsessed with
their own mini-dramas as they filed past in clusters of two or
three, a mix of the affected artisan and those who could blend in
to an ordinary crowd.

He was waiting for a woman, of that he was
sure. The fleeting touches on the leather had given him a glimpse
into a mind filled with turmoil and longing. Years of humanity had
taught him that men’s minds were simpler. Most of the class was
female, and any one of them could be carrying the book that had
once been his tail. Anticipation and excitement surged in his blood
like a spring breaking free of the earth and into sunlight. Freedom
was only a breath away. It had been decades since he’d been this
close. He hadn’t spent a nauseating flight in a tin can across the
Atlantic, filled with turbulence put on by the air Elementals for
his benefit, to not succeed.

He righted himself as a dark-haired woman
with too much worry aging her young face brushed past. Then he
stood a little straighter; she was the woman from the restaurant.
The waitress with the curious gray eyes and the tentative smile now
looked more stressed than any woman should. She glanced back,
throwing a mis-aimed apology, like he had more right to the space
than she did. Nik opened his mouth to call after her and then
thought better of it. While he might be able to give her something
to smile about, he wasn’t here for fun.

Peeping through the window had told him what
class he needed to get into if he was going to reclaim the book and
get home.

Life drawing.

Students poured into the room. Nik kept an
eye on the door, waiting for his waitress to appear. She hadn’t
been at work last night. If she had been, he might have stopped for
dinner. When she entered the room she didn’t notice him, since she
was talking to another student. Nik turned his back to the door and
rolled his shoulders. Hands shoved deep into the bathrobe’s
pockets, he tried to act as if he took his clothes off for money
all the time. He would have done it for free if it meant getting
his skin back and being whole again.

As much as he liked his chosen human form, a
legged version of his mer-body, he wasn’t human, he was Elemental.
He missed the water, being water. Formless. Fleshless.
Weightless.

An older student did a double-take when she
looked at him. Nik flashed her a wide grin. His hair had that
effect on people. At first he’d either shaved it off or dyed it
black. Four hundred years ago people hadn’t liked odd-looking
strangers poking around their towns. Now he’d let it grow so it
hung down his back. The color matched his tail, an unnatural shade
of crimson and black.

A shiver swept down his back. He turned,
scanning the class to see who was holding his tail. His gaze paused
on his waitress and he willed her to look up, but she was
contemplating the contents of her satchel as if it were a matter of
life or death.

The book that had once been his tail was
inside one of the students’ bags. Like a siren’s song he heard it
calling to him, singing to be reunited with him, but he could only
track it when someone was touching it because he felt those
sensations. Two hundred years ago his tail had slipped past him in
Paris, sold to a dealer of rare books. He’d traced it to London
through the grubby touch of greed on his skin, then lost it when it
was packed away. He fisted his hand. Waiting for it surface again
had driven him to distraction. He’d gone to antique fairs, joined
clubs, and followed every faint lead in the hope of stumbling
across his tail.