Emerge (4 page)

“Come in!” she calls in response to my knock on the archway wall. I part the curtain of hanging seaweed and head inside.

Amethyst, who goes mostly by Amy, lies on her sea sponge bed listening to music on the waterproof MP3 player my father bought her. The bed is elevated, so the water comes to only about half a foot above it. This way, the long, light purple tail that matches her name can stay wet while her torso remains exposed to the cool evening air wafting through the grottos from outside. When I enter, she takes out her earbuds and places the device on the rock formation that serves as her nightstand.

“Lia, you look so pretty! Did Em do your hair?”

“Yep. And the twins helped with the outfit.”

“It’s bold. I really like it.” Her smile is huge and her enthusiasm infectious. Before I know it, I’m mirroring her grin. “I couldn’t wait for you to come down. Something so insanely huge happened today! Staskia got her legs!”

Oh no. It’s started. Staskia is the first of Amy’s close friends to get legs, and now that she has, I won’t hear about anything else until Amy gets hers. As if in a hurry to prove my prediction right, she immediately launches into the story.

“It happened in the middle of history class. Stas was embarrassed but you could tell she was like super excited, too. The first time, her legs only held for a second, so thank goodness Mrs. Cordula had time to cover her up with an extra skirt before they came back.”

This story isn’t ending any time soon, so I grab her hairbrush and a few pins and settle on the bed. I’m not as skilled a stylist as Em, but I’m decent. My fingers work quickly, but they don’t compare to the speed of Amy’s voice as she tells me every detail. “She’s got all ten toes and pretty nicely shaped calves. Her legs aren’t too long, but her tail never was either, so I bet I’ll be taller. At least she has nice ankle bones. Do you think I will? Lia, I’m so afraid I’ll have cankles.”

“You won’t have cankles. No one in our family has cankles except Aunt Dolores, and she eats like a porpoise.”

“When do you think I’ll get mine? Staskia is only three months older than I am, so I’ll probably get them soon, right?”

I know the answer she wants, but it’s impossible to predict. I didn’t get mine until I was fourteen, but that’s on the late side. Lapis and Lazuli were early bloomers at eleven. Em got hers at thirteen, the age Amy is now. “When did your mom get hers?”

“She was fifteen, but you know it takes longer Below. I just can’t wait to be able to go to the movies and go shopping and go out to dinner … ” She trails off, but I understand how frustrating it can be. Until Amy gets her legs, she’s pretty much restricted to the underground canal system the Foundation has put in place. She can swim through the tunnels to her school, like all the children in the Community who have yet to get their legs, and to the underwater entrances of friends’ houses, but she can’t get upstairs to the rest of our house unless my dad carries her. Right now, the whole human world is a mystery to her.

A conus shell lies on her desk. “Did you get a shell call from your parents?” I ask. Amy’s parents still live Below, but they sent her to live with us when she was a baby to keep her safe.

“Yep. I’ll record an answer after the gala, so I’ll have plenty to tell them.” She hesitates, then asks, “Staskia’s legs are so cool. What if when I get mine, they’re short or pasty or misshapen?”

I put down the brush and move so we’re facing each other. “Hey, legs always suit the Mer, so whenever you get yours, I know they’ll be beautiful.”

She blushes. “You really think so?”

“Absolutely.”

An hour and a half later, guests fill the ballroom. Mermaids and Mermen float around the buffet tables, dining on caviar and tuna tartar. A few are already dancing, swimming in intricate circles and figure eights around each other. In one corner, a band plays classical music on turritella shell flutes. And with every passing minute, another guest swims out from the privacy of the antechamber, resplendent in a jeweled tail and their grandest seashell or gemstone accoutrement.

My face aches from smiling so much at my parents’ friends and colleagues.

“So, Aurelia, I keep telling your mother she simply must invite me over for dinner so we can discuss instituting
konklili
restrictions.”

I nod but inwardly hope my mother can put off MerMatron Drusy for as long as possible. The only reason she wants to spend an evening in our home is so she has plenty of fodder for the rumor tides. Since my parents run the Foundation, my sisters and I are like mini-celebrities. Not in the fun, free designer swag sense, but in the everyone-scrutinizes-our-every-move sense.

Even Lapis and Lazuli, who usually push the barrier reef as far as they possibly can, are on their best behavior. In the center of the ballroom, they move together flawlessly in a classical Mer dance called an
allytrill
. As the deep blue tails that inspired their names twirl underneath them in the water, onlookers applaud. I wish I could impress everyone that much. Tonight, it’s up to all of us to be shining examples of land-dwellers who effortlessly blend human assimilation with the preservation of our Mer traditions.

Just as I’m attempting to construct a diplomatic response to MerMatron Drusy’s remark, something over her shoulder tugs the corners of my mouth into my first real smile of the night. Caspian.

“Please excuse me, ma’am. I see a friend who I really must go welcome,” I say, keeping my tone as formal as possible. She follows my line of sight and voices her unsought opinion.

“You don’t mean Caspian Zayle? I have to admit, I’d heard the two of you were friendly, but I never believed it. Dear, take my advice: be careful. A sweet girl like you shouldn’t be mixing with—”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, cutting her off. She looks affronted, but Caspian is swimming toward us.

His arrival has the added bonus of making MerMatron Drusy murmur a few excuses and swim off toward a group of Foundation officials.

“It’s about time,” I say to Caspian as he pulls me into a hug. “I’m dying here. Save me from the small talk.”

“That I can do.” His deep voice smoothes the rough edges of my frayed nerves, like freshwater over river rocks. “Your parents have done it again,” he says, glancing around the lavishly decorated room. “When do the guests of honor arrive?”

“I think in a half an hour or so. There’ll be an announcement.”

He’s listening to my words, but his eyes dart down to take in my
siluess
. Sure, he’s seen me in bikini tops before, but the
siluess
is somehow more overt, more suggestive. I fight a blush.
This is Caspian,
I scold myself.
He doesn’t care.

As expected, Caspian doesn’t say anything lewd. He settles for a straightforward, “You’re looking more traditional than usual tonight, Lia.”

He’s right. By Mer standards, I am. “Well, we are opening our doors to a whole new group tonight. Might as well welcome them in style. Besides,” I joke, “it’s not like I’m showing any more skin than you are.”

Like all the male guests’, Caspian’s torso is almost entirely bare except for a thin strand of limpet shells strapped diagonally across his chest that complements his strong, silver tail. My sisters like to tease me, saying that since his tail is silver and mine is gold, it’s some sign we’ll end up together. I prefer to think of it as a symbol of the friendship we’ve shared since we were guppies.

And that friendship hasn’t changed now that we’re older. Sure, it was kind of strange when his voice dropped and he packed on the musculature of a pro-athlete (he does more laps a day than an Olympic swimmer), but he’s still the same Caspian who helped me bury my tail in the sand and molded me a pair of legs when we were six. The same sandy blond hair that falls into the same knowing, ocean blue eyes.

Those eyes grow haunted as we swim past a couple old biddies who are so caught up in their own blather they don’t see us. I tune into their conversation the instant they mention Caspian’s father.

“It’s no wonder Sir Zayle isn’t here. He and his wife never dare show their faces at events like these.”

“But, Gretchen, I’ve heard they dine with the Nautilus family in private.”

“I hope not. It’s bad enough their son is here. Sure, he seems like a fine lad now, but I’m telling you, you have one bad clam in a family, and sooner or later, there’s bound to be another.”

The protective best friend part of me wants to spin around and tell those Merwitches exactly what they can do with their cruel gossip. I want to shake them by the shoulders and scream that it’s not Caspian’s fault there was a siren in his family. But causing a scene would make him more uncomfortable. So instead, I use all my self-control to keep my mouth shut as I lead him far away from them and toward the extravagant buffet.

“Casp, they have no idea—”

“It’s fine, Lia. I’m fine.”

It’s so unfair. Sure, next to murder, sireny is the highest crime known to Mer—and for good reason. A siren song is a spell that steals away the free will of a human and forces him to do anything the siren commands. I get shivers just thinking about it. But Caspian shouldn’t be blamed for something his great-great-aunt did.

Carrying plates brimming with halibut skewers topped in a spicy dulse seaweed sauce, we make our way to one of the quartz-encrusted tables that line the ballroom’s perimeter.

“So, tell me about school,” I say in an attempt to make him forget the callous words.

“School’s good.” He pauses, wiping his mouth on his napkin. Caspian’s parents aren’t as progressive as mine and don’t want him to lose touch with his culture, so they’ve enrolled him in the all-Mer high school set up by the Foundation. “There’s a dance next Friday.”

“Ooo! Who are you taking?” I poke him in the chest when he doesn’t answer right away. “Who? You can tell me.”

“I don’t know yet.” With his broad build and strong jaw, Caspian looks like the catch of the day, every day, and—even despite his family name—he could probably have any girl he wanted if he put himself out there. But he’s always been the quiet type.

“You have to take someone. Do it for my sake! I’m surrounded by humans at school, so everyone’s off-limits.”

“But there’s someone you’d want to date if there were no restrictions?” His eyes turn intensely quizzical.

I laugh it off. “No, no. That’s not what I meant. It just must be nice for you to be yourself at school and date whoever you want.”

“Not whoever I want,” he mumbles.

“Sure. Pick a Mermaid you like, go up to her, and be your honest, straightforward self. Girls like that.”

“I thought girls like the cocky, bad boy types.”

My mind flashes to Clay in his butter-soft leather jacket and trademark smirk. “Girls just like to feel wanted,” I insist. “So, you go up to a Mermaid and tell her that she’s, I don’t know, made an impression on you and you’d like to take her to the dance.” Yep, I’m great at giving dating advice as long as I don’t have to follow it.

“You’ve made an impression on me and I’d like to take you to the dance,” Caspian says.

“Yeah, just like that.”

He opens his mouth to continue, but the conch horn blares and everyone turns their attention to where my mother has taken her place at the front of the room. “Maids and Men, I’d like to welcome you to our home.” My mother’s voice is pleasant but authoritative. “This is a special occasion for all of us. We are adding to our Community—adding to our strength.”

Palpable excitement suffuses the room. Everyone waits in anticipation of my mother’s next words.

“Of course, we’re overjoyed at the opportunity to embrace more of our kind, but we mustn’t forget what caused this exodus. We must all be sensitive to the trials the new members of our Community have so recently endured.”

With the two hundredth anniversary of the Little Mermaid’s grievous mistake occurring in a few months, conditions Below are worse than ever before.

Her real story’s not as happy as the one most humans know today. When Hans Christian Andersen first wrote it down in the 1800s, he bungled a few things, but he got the gist of it right. The Little Mermaid rescued the drowning prince and sang to him on the shore in front of a temple. When she saw a maiden from the temple approaching, the Little Mermaid dove into the sea to hide. Since the prince woke up with the maiden by his side, he believed she was the one who’d sung so beautifully to him. I bet you can already see what’s coming. Tragedy with a capital “T.” The Little Mermaid traded her voice to the Sea Sorceress in exchange for permanent legs that would allow her to live a human life on land with her prince and would keep him from ever knowing what she truly was. To cement the deal, the Little Mermaid agreed to die if she couldn’t get the prince to marry her.

Despite the fact that she couldn’t speak, at first, her beauty and grace seemed to win him over (what kind of man wants a woman without a voice? It’s gross if you ask me, but whatevs). Anyway, everything would have been rainbows and wedding cake except the prince’s father announced he’d arranged a marriage for the prince with a princess from the neighboring kingdom. The prince declared he wouldn’t marry a woman he didn’t love, and I’m sure the Little Mermaid breathed a huge, silent sigh of relief. But when little miss princess arrived, she was … wait for it … none other than the maiden from the temple who the prince believed had sung to him. He declared his love for the human princess and asked her to marry him. Of course, his choice devastated the Little Mermaid.