Diary of a Radical Mermaid (16 page)

Stella looked at me sadly. “I’d like to know what she finds beyond the Abyss of Forever. I want to know if there’s anything on the other side.”

Isis peered at me, frowning. “I’d like to see her escape from school and have her pet stingray electrocute anyone who tries to stop her. I like revenge.”

Venus clasped a hand to her heart. “I want to know if she’ll ever discover what became of her parents. Won’t her parents please, please come back from the Disappearing Sea?”

Their wistful requests left me speechless again. They didn’t have to sing inside my mind. I knew how it felt to be an orphaned child. “I promise you this much,” I said gently. “Hyacinth will have a family again. She’ll be happy again, some day.”

We heard the distant rumble of an engine. Across the bay, a sleek speedboat zoomed toward us. Rhymer.

“Oh, crap,” Isis said. “Uncle Rhymer is boiling mad. He’ll never let us out of his sight again.”

“He’s very strict,” Venus whispered to me. “We adore him, but he is awfully frightful.”

“Better him being frightful than our own father trying to kill us,” Isis intoned.

Stella hissed at her and cut her eyes at their little sister, who looked horrified. Isis sulked at the rebuke. Venus teared up.

I stood. The chicken of the sea morphed into a protective Mer mother hen. “Move aside, girls,” I said crisply, “I’ll talk to your uncle.” I planted myself in front of them. My heart pounded. I could already see the grim set of Rhymer’s jaw. I cleared my psychic throat and sang out silently, These children are desperate for your approval and affection. Don’t you dare lecture them for visiting me.

Rhymer thundered inside my head, Approval and affection will do them no good if they’re dead. You’re a lure they can’t afford.

Lure? A lure? I didn’t lure them here.

Nor did you chase them away, I see.

What harm has been done? Please, let us visit.

Did they sing to you? Did they touch you? Did they lay hands on Heathcliff?

No. Why would they? What are you talking about —

If they sing, Moll, he’ll hear them. And he’ll come.

They didn’t sing, but I don’t understand —

“Come aboard,” Rhymer said loudly, as he swung the speedboat into place beside the pier. “Girls. Into the boat with you. Not a word. Into the boat.”

The girls looked up at me with quiet regret. I nodded, defeated. “It was very nice to meet you all. When things are better, I’ll tell you everything you want to know about Hyacinth.”

Stella sighed. Isis pouted. Venus moaned and reached toward me. That small, beautiful hand, laced in see-through webbing that folded like invisible silk when the fingers were closed, opened like a diaphanous wing. It took all my will power not to place my open hand against the magic of hers. “Your mother,” I said hoarsely, “is with mine. They live in the most beautiful lagoon of the Disappearing Sea. They want us to smile and be happy.”

Venus’s eyes widened, then filled with joyful tears. She leaned forward. “Melasine sings to us sometimes,” she whispered. “I’m sure she’s very fond of you and glad she rescued you.” Venus and the others climbed down the ladder and into the boat. Rhymer gazed up at me, frowning, his eyes dark and hooded. Stay here and stay safe, Moll. Don’t call to them. It’s for your sake as well as theirs. And mine. Stay safe, Moll. I don’t want to lose any other people I love.

I couldn’t even form an answer. As he gunned the boat and headed back toward Sainte’s Point I stood there on the pier with my hand still held out to Venus, to Stella and Isis, and to him, pledging a troth to mysteries and magic and love I had only imagined, before.

Had I been saved by the ancient and wonderful Melasine years ago? I’d always thought it was a delusion. A mermaid off Cape Cod? And yet, I knew it was true. The water is your friend. The water can never hurt you, she’d said. I’d survived on those words from then on, though I wasn’t sure why, or what for.

Until now.

Meanwhile, Back in the Caribbean
Chapter
15

Araizas are like a box of chocolates. I wanted to bite them and spit out their nuts.

“Oh, come now, Juna Lee,” a silver-haired patrone said in a Ricardo Montalban accent. He laughed. “Look at this wonderful party we’re throwing for you, just to keep you entertained.”

My suite was full of people, all Mers — all of them gorgeous, exotic Araizas decked out in the best resort wear and world-class jewelry, not to mention a lazy aura of privilege with a side dressing of dangerous charm. When I called them the Corleones of the Caribbean I was exaggerating a little, but they do have several centuries of, shall we say, creative buccaneering to their credit. Even by Mer standards they’ve collected a few too many ships’ cargoes the old-fashioned way, without even bothering to leave a tip on the nightstand. I’d always heard juicy rumors about their Soprano-like penchant for sending Landers to sleep with the fishes.

“Yep,” I mused, “It’s always fun to party with kidnappers.”

“You aren’t going to write about us in that blog of yours, are you?” Aphrodite asked, her white smile a wicked sliver. “You like having both your ear lobes, don’t you?”

That was just an idle threat, because no matter what Mers do to Landers, they generally don’t touch their fellow Mers. No, even Araizas would complain to the Council instead. Then a Peacekeeper like Rhymer would show up on my doorstep, and I’d find myself exiled somewhere on a rock.

Those old seafaring stories about sirens singing on rocks?

They were doing time.

“Of course I’m not going to write about you,” I lied.

Around dawn, when the party broke up and the bartenders carted the last of the rum fizzes away, I eyed my two new gorgeous boyfriends. Aphrodite’s boy toys. Guards. They lounged, looking like pouty male supermodels in their open shirts and oh-so-clingy trousers on the deck chairs of my balcony, ensuring that I’d never climb down the mandevilla vines again. So they thought.

“Boys, I’ll slip into something comfortable,” I called, “and then we’ll smoke some herbal stogies and order breakfast.” And after that I’ll turn you into sexually hypnotized guppies, and then you’ll get the hell out of my way so I can escape. They smiled at me and flexed their bare webbed feet. A subtle Mer flirtation.

I went into a bath boudoir about the size of a Manhattan apartment, rummaged through several enormous closets full of fab clothes (Araizas knew my weaknesses all too well), and selected a vintage silk nightgown from a 1930s Claudette Colbert movie. Claudette was a Mer on her grandmother’s side, by the way.

The gown was more see-through than silk. I fluffed my hair down my back, spritzed myself with extra Chanel, a fave fragrance of Mers (oh, yes, Coco had webbed toes), then sauntered onto the balcony with everything set on High Jiggle. “Good morning, boys,” I drawled. “How do you like the view?”

They looked up at me without batting a single pouty eyelash. “We’re gay,” they said in unison.

I stared at them a second.

“Shit,” I said. “Get your own breakfast.”

And I went back inside.

Venus Shines
Chapter
16

A dogfish trying to keep order in a catfish aquarium. That’s what you are, McEvers.

I was no good at daddying my nieces, and not much of a catch when it came to romancing Moll. The incident at the pier made that clear. I’d hurt her feelings. Female-wise, I’d always gotten by on good military manners and a big, thrusting attitude. But with Moll I was swimming in uncharted territory. As for the girls, they needed a daddy, not a sergeant.

Not that I intended to change my bullish ways, you understand. I wanted the girls and Moll to stay alive. I wanted Orion dead. Nothing else mattered.

Uncle Rhymer. Help!

The shriek of dual voices inside my mind. Stella and Isis. I left my station on the mansion’s veranda and bolted upstairs.

The two girls met me at the landing. “Venus has disappeared,” Stella said.

* * * *

Heathcliff was just a kitten when my parents died in the car accident. My mother gave him to me on my fifteenth birthday, only a few weeks before she and Dad were killed. At the hospital, family friends sneaked Heathcliff into my room several times. I was barely conscious, fading in and out between physical pain and grief. Heathcliff would sit delicately on my pillow and nuzzle my face with his head, sometimes licking the tip of my nose and purring. He was my one link to happy sensations, the last remnant of comfort in the world.

In the twenty years since then, he and I had rarely spent a day apart. Now I watched him everyday, my heart breaking, wondering which day would be our last together.

“You didn’t eat well this morning,” I said to him. I cuddled him in my lap as I sat down in a heavy wicker chair on the veranda of Randolph Cottage. He sighed. I stroked his head and pretended to gaze out over the bay, toward Sainte’s Point, while I fought back tears. With all the miracles I’d discovered recently, there was no miracle for him. He had been my dearest friend, my only family, for two decades.

I feared he was beginning to die.

“I’m going inside and get a small can of your favorite fancy tuna,” I announced. “And we’re going to sit out here in this wonderful ocean breeze and nibble on tuna. If you just get some breakfast in your tummy, you’ll feel better.”

I gently set him on the chair’s thick cushion. He sighed again, and curled up with his eyes closed.

I can’t let you go without a fight, I thought, then scrubbed a hand over my eyes and hurried inside.

I was reaching for a small bowl in a glass-fronted cabinet of the cottage’s cozy antique kitchen when I heard a thump on the veranda’s wooden floor. Oh, Heathcliff, no, I whispered, rushing back through the cottage. I pictured him falling off the chair. “Heathcliff.” I slung open the screen door.

I halted, staring.

Venus stood there, her back to me. She was soaking wet; her pale sundress dripped saltwater. A bit of seaweed clung to the hem. She swayed and hummed and hugged Heathcliff. I could just see the tips of his ears above her shoulder.

“Venus, honey, you shouldn’t be here. What are you—”

She turned around. Her eyes glowed with tears, and her mouth trembled. “Please don’t be angry,” she said in her soft Scottish burr. “I couldn’t let the wee old cat keep hurting. And I could hear you crying about him.” She set Heathcliff down. The breath stalled in my lungs. He looked up at me, bright-eyed. His fur was soft and smooth again, each black tabby stripe standing out like the vivid bars of a military chevron against the silver-gray background. He meowed with robust delight, then launched himself at me. I caught him in my arms. He nuzzled his head against my cheek, then licked the tip of my nose.

“Now he’s young and happy again,” Venus said. “And he can be your friend for a long, long time yet. Your heart doesn’t have to break.”

I sank down in the chair, hugging Heathcliff, making small, incoherent sounds of awe and crying. Life always comes with a price. Venus had restored a piece of my heart but may have doomed herself, her sisters, and Rhymer in the process.

Venus, aware only that life can be saved, smiled.

* * * *

I could no’ yell at little Venus. I couldn’t do it, though she’d gone against every word I’d said on the subject of healing. Nor was anything Moll’s fault. She hadn’t called for help with the dying old cat. Now a teary-eyed Moll stood in front of Venus like a female tiger shark, holding Heathcliff in her arms, staring at me sadly but firmly.

Don’t you yell at Venus, she ordered in my head. Venus peeked up at me. “Uncle Rhymer, I did no’ sing out very loud when I healed Heathcliff. I promise. Just a little hum. I could no’ help myself. With scary things all about, and sadness, and worry, Moll needed her kitty fixed. So I fixed him. It was quick, quick and quiet! I promise!”

“All right. I’m not mad, I swear it. Go get in the boat and wait for me.”

“And you’re not mad at Moll?”

“No, I’m not mad at Moll. Now scoot along.”

“I won’t heal anything or anyone else! Except for a wee butterfly with a torn wing here and there. I promise.”

“Aye, we’ll have a talk about your promises later. Now go.”

She scampered off the veranda and through the oleanders, then turned and waved. “Bye Moll, bye, Heathcliff! Oh, but he looks so fat and fine!”

Moll waved and blew her a kiss. The old cat, not old anymore, purred.

When Venus stood safely in the well of my speedboat, I looked at Moll grimly. “You understand what’s happened?”

She gave a pained nod. “Isn’t it possible she only sang out ‘a little,’ and Orion didn’t hear her?”

“Her by herself — maybe not. If it had been all three girls singing together, he’d hear for sure. But even just her alone is too much. This isn’t good, Moll.”

“I know. Rhymer, if I did anything, thought anything, wished anything that drew her here, I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to.”

“She’s had her eye on old Heathcliff all along. It’s near impossible for Healers to resist healing. Especially when it comforts them to do it.”

She hugged the new Heathcliff to her chest. “I’m so glad to have him restored — but not at the risk of the girls’ safety.” She looked tortured. “And yours.”

“I want you to move out of this place. Go stay with Tula.”

“Move out? Why?” She froze, reading fears I couldn’t hide quick enough. “You think he might come here? Looking for me?”

“I don’t know how he might track what he heard. Just to be on the safe side, move in with Tula. Go get your things. I’m not leaving this yard until you’re packed and settled in your car.”

“But—”

“And whatever you do, don’t sing out to me anymore. Not for any reason. Keep your mind quiet.” I paused. “I’ll miss you.”

Her face paled. She understood. We looked at each other sadly. We’d never been together, except in our minds, but that was the most powerful bed of all. And now even that would be empty.

* * * *

“Molly, I’m taking you someplace fun and decadent to get your mind off what happened,” Tula announced. “You’re going to see hot, wild, mermen in action.”