Landlocked (A water witch novel) (35 page)

“And Jaron?” she asked quietly.

I turned away from her and began examining a colorful purse sitting at one of the stands. “I don’t think any of his feelings for me are real, and I’m pretty sure that I couldn’t ever trust him again.”

She put a hand on my shoulder. “Well what does he say his feelings are?” she asked, her brow knitted in concern.

“It doesn’t matter what someone says… if you can’t trust them.” I wiped away a tear before she could notice it. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but must have decided against whatever she was going to say. “What is it?”

“Nothing, let’s go see if we can find you something pretty.”

We stopped at the nearest booth with glittering jewelry. I tried to smile along with Clarissa, but it was hard to pretend like everything was okay. How could my entire world come crashing down so quickly? The sheltered life I had known was over, and there was no going back to it. If what Sylvia said was true—no it was impossible. My mother had died peacefully, my dad hadn't given me up, and I wasn’t a mermaid.

“Look at these!”

I shook my head and tried to turn my attention back to Clarissa, who was pointing at a wall that carried dozens of old-fashioned pocket watches. “Maybe I’ll get one of these bad boys to keep track of your real swim times.”

“I had forgotten about that,” I said, recalling the time changing at our last swim meet.

“A rip-off that big? How could you forget?”

Anger tore through me. Cala, that’s how. Someway she really had made me forget things. But I wasn’t mad at her. I was mad at Sylvia and Dylan. It wasn’t enough to lie to me—I didn’t know which story was the lie, what they had told me all of my life, or what Sylvia had said that morning—But they had to mess with my mind using some kind of crazy voodoo too.

“Mari, are you okay?” she asked.

“No, I’m not. Come on, drive me to the beach.” Turning to go, I caught a look of apprehension of Clarissa’s face. “What’s the matter?”

“Nothing,” she said through a strained smile. “I just really wanted to take you to… go see St. Louis Cathedral. It’s really pretty.” I rarely saw her nervous and she was nervous, her eyes desperate.

She was stalling.

“Why are you trying to keep me here?” I asked, keeping my eyes on hers.

She looked down. “I’m not trying to keep you here—”

“Yes, you are… now why? Do you not want to make the drive, because I can go by myself.”

“That’s not it—”

“Then what is it?” I asked completely perplexed.

She sighed. “Sylvia and Dylan aren’t like my mom—they’d never do anything to hurt you. They love you so much…” She trailed off.

“What does that have to do with…” Suddenly I knew what she was doing. “No, you didn’t. You didn’t tell them where we are, did you?” I asked, taking a step back.

Her quivering bottom lip answered me before she did. “When did you even… Oh, when you went to the bathroom—”

“Sylvia told me to keep you here and not take you to the beach, that it was a safety issue… If she’s worried, you shouldn’t go. Sylvia wouldn’t lie about that.”

Sylvia did lie. All the time, apparently. The only way for me to know for sure what was true was for me to go to the ocean. There I’d learn that I wasn’t a mermaid, and then all of the other awful things she'd told me couldn’t be true. And my and Jaron’s abilities would have another more reasonable explanation like radiation or government experiments.

“If you’re my friend, you’ll give me the keys.” I held out my hand.

She hunched her shoulders. “I can’t…”

If she wouldn’t give me the keys, I didn’t know what I’d do. I might not ever be this close to the ocean again, at least not if my aunt and uncle had their way.

“Priuses don’t have actual keys, just this ridiculous thing,” she said, placing the electric key in my hand.

I smiled. “Thanks.”

“I can take you, if you really want to go—”

“No, I think I need to do this on my own. Will you be able to get home?”

“I can take a cab, but I’d rather go with you. Mari, I’m always telling you to rebel. But I’m mostly joking… what do you have to rebel against. Your life is perfect.”

“No, it’s not.” I walked away before she could argue, more determined and more frightened than ever. My last security blanket was gone. It was just me and the world.

19

Getting out of New Orleans was the scariest thing I had ever done. My driving skills were less than desirable, and the traffic was insane. If it hadn't been for the navigation telling me what to do, I might have died. Highway driving wasn’t bad, there were no cars trying to cut me off, and all I had to do was stay on the road. The drive was scenic, and even after the sun set, the full moon’s light helped me see the beauty of where I was headed.

Every mile that I drew closer marked a change in me; my heart pumped faster, my eyes saw more clearly, and my anger was melting away into excitement. The fight I'd had with Sylvia was like a faded memory. What was truth and what was a lie didn’t matter to me anymore. All that mattered was the miles I put behind me. I looked at the speedometer and slowed down, not being able to figure out cruise control and being totally pumped with energy was making me a speed demon. I blew past a street sign telling me that I had ten miles to go. What was it going to be like to feel the sand between my toes and the salty water lapping at my feet? I had dreamed about this for so long, but there was no worry at the thought of being let down or disappointed by what I would see.

I passed another sign. I had five miles left now. I could taste the sea in the air. The salt and the brine were deliciously exhilarating, and I threw caution to the wind and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The small engine responded more enthusiastically than I would have thought possible, and the car was flying in no time. A beam of light made me squint, and I thought for a moment that another car was coming at me, but it was only the moonlight reflecting off of the water. My skin tightened and my eyes blurred with tears, I was looking at the ocean and it was so much more amazing than I could have imagined. In that moment I knew nothing could keep me away. I didn’t care about going to college or that moving there might hurt my aunt and uncle. All I wanted was to build a little shack on the beach and never leave.

There was a tollbooth ahead, blocking entrance into the park, which looked abandoned. Muffling a curse I dug in the cup holder for change and came up empty. I pulled the car to the side of the road, driving it as far off the pavement as I could manage, and jumped out. A gentle breeze blew off the water, making the scent of the sea thick in the air. I smiled and broke into run, hurdling the sparse shrubs as I went. After a hundred yards of sprinting, the ground started to turn sandy, and I flipped off my shoes. The further I ran the more firm and wet the sand became. I stopped in my tracks and took it all in. The ocean was the most breathtaking site I had ever seen, and it was limitless.

Tasting warm salt water at the corner of my mouth, I wiped the tears from my face. It was like I had returned to an old friend that I hadn’t seen in a long time. I was finally home. The frothy tide pulled toward me and then fell away. After a moment, my breathing patterned itself after steady rhythm. As I stood glued to the spot, the water climbed nearer to me with each spilling breaker. It must have been time for high tide. Under the moonlight staring out at the object of my obsession I recalled one of my favorite poems.

The tide rises, the tide falls,

The twilight darkens, the curlew calls;

Along the sea-sands damp and brown

The traveller hastens toward the town,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

Darkness settles on roofs and walls,

But the sea, the sea in the darkness calls;

The little waves, with their soft, white hands,

Efface the footprints in the sands,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

The morning breaks; the steeds in their stalls

Stamp and neigh, as the hostler calls;

The day returns, but nevermore

Returns the traveller to the shore,

And the tide rises, the tide falls.

-
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

The water had almost reached my feet. I sighed, unable to wait any longer, and took a step out to meet the coming wave.

“No, Mari!”

I spun around. Jaron was running down the beach, followed closely by my aunt and uncle.

“Don’t go in there,” Sylvia shouted, her face strained as she attempted to run faster.

“Sorry,” I whispered. Even as angry as I had been at them that morning, I’d never want to disobey them when it was something that they were so very obviously against… but I didn’t have a choice. The water called to my soul more loudly than even they could. I turned and ran, diving head first into the ocean.

The warm water hitting my face was heaven. As the wave swallowed me into its depths, my skin prickled in delight. I swam further out and dove under an oncoming wave; the force of it tearing the tie from my hair. The tendrils fell to my shoulders before floating up around me. I peeled my eyes open expecting the water to sting, but it soothed—as if my eyes hadn’t realize how dry they had been until that very moment. The water was far from the clear blue of my dreams, but this wasn’t a Caribbean coast, after all. I only had about thirty feet of visibility through the slightly murky depths. I heard a splash behind me and went to swim to the surface but couldn’t kick my legs. After struggling for a few seconds, I looked down and the little breath left in me escaped in a flurry of air bubbles.

Shimmering gold and coral, where my legs should have been, was a scale-covered tail very similar to the one I had seen in Sylvia’s painting of my mother. Cautiously I tried to lift the—I couldn’t think my—delicate looking fin and surprisingly it responded, sending me backward through the water with little effort. The large flipper was shaped like a butterfly wing and just as beautiful and intricate. My lungs burned for oxygen, but I was too stunned by what I was seeing to care. I ran my hands over the scales. They were the size and thickness of pennies and surprisingly felt smoother than even my fine silk sheets. Realizing that the clashing colors were almost identical to the beads on my bracelet, I noticed one of the charms glowing.

A hand tightened around my arm and pulled me to the surface. As soon as my face breeched the water, I sucked in as much air as my chest could allow.

“What were you thinking, Mari—” Dylan choked at the end of his reprimand. “Your bracelet, let me see it.”

I lifted it up to him. “You want to see my bracelet—did you not see my tail?”

“Did you not see mine?” he asked as he looked closer. My jaw dropped and I looked down. Sure enough, Dylan’s legs had transformed into a glittering gray tail. He held up the charm, it was the one that was a likeness of a horrible snake creature. I disliked it even more while I was floating in the water.

“Dammit,” Dylan whispered.

As soon as the curse left his lips, I heard a strange noise. It started out low but grew in volume, chilling me to the bone. It was the eerie hissing I heard in my nightmares. The water around me dropped in temperature and I shivered. From either side of us a wake appeared in the water, as if something was right below the surface coming toward us at an incredible speed.

“Get to the shore now,” Dylan yelled. “Sylvia, get Mari and get home!”

I turned in time to see Sylvia leap into the water. My view of Jaron was cut off by something large and pale rising out of the water in front of me. I lifted my chin up to watch the creature ascend and was horror stricken to see the life-size version of my charm bracelet. A flat, soulless face with black menacing eyes watched me, and the corner of its mouth lifted into a smirk. It had the build and body of a strong man, but he wasn’t a mer like us. He was some other hybrid entirely; part man, part snake with slits for a nose. There was no hair on his head and no ears that I could see. His body was completely covered in triangular shaped scales, no soft skin was visible, and he was so pale. Not white, but a muted pigmentless unhealthy color. The creature’s only humanlike attributes were the shape of his torso, the smirk he wore, and his humanoid hands that were outstretched toward me. His palm had almost touched me when I jerked out of my shocked state and dove into the water, swimming as fast as I could toward the shore.