Seaweed (10 page)

“Except that it’s painful,” I said. “That would be a deterrent.”

“Yes, it would, I suppose.”

“Okay, so with me?”

“Well, if you go the other way, from land to sea, the signs that your ability to shape shift is eminent are red scaly legs and gill buds behind the ears.”

I was strangely embarrassed, like I was discussing my period with him or my need for a bra. “Wouldn’t I have webbed fingers and toes?”

He chuckled. “Now
that’s
a myth.” Then he said, “Are you still bruising?”

“What do you mean?”

“I remember seeing you with a bruise on your shoulder.”

“Yes, actually, I am. I think it’s from running into my door jam on my way to the bathroom half asleep.”

“Let me see.”

I loosened my hoodie to reveal one shoulder. It was blue and green with swirly bruises. Tor gently rubbed his fingers along them and nervous electricity shot down my arm.

I breathed in deeply. “They’re not real bruises are they?”Tor shook his head. “No, I don’t think so.”

I took a moment to let this news sink in. I went back to the part about a merfolk/human love affair happening before in Eastcove.

“Who was it?”

“What do you mean?”

I thought he knew but I spelled it out. “If I’m a mermaid, then someone in my genealogy, on my human side, fell in love with a merperson.”

“Oh, yeah, that’s true.”

“So, spit it out, already, Tor. Who was it?”

“Your grandmother.”

“You mean, like great-great-grandmother?”

Tor shook his head again.

I sucked in air. “Not Nana?”

“Yes.”

“No. Way!”

I tried to picture this. Nana and Grandpa were married for thirty years, almost forever, before he died. I told this to Tor.

Tor ran his hands through his hair; clearly this conversation wasn’t comfortable for him, either. “Your mother was a love child.”

Suddenly, I found it hard to breath. “You’re making this up.”

Tor locked his green eyes with mine. “Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know. A sick joke.”

“I wouldn’t joke around about something like this.”

“Okay, say I believe you. What you’re saying is Nana had a fling with a merman, got pregnant by him, but married my grandfather and passed the kid off as his?”

Tor nodded carefully.

I felt sick, seriously. I’d never see Nana the same way again.

“So, how come my mother isn’t a mermaid?”

“Same reason your brothers aren’t merfolk. Why kids get their parent’s eye color or don’t. It’s genetics. Actually, it’s on both sides of your family.”

“My father’s too?”

“Yeah, but farther back in the ancestry. Merfolk activity used to be quite high in these parts.”

My heart beat so hard the blood swooshed in my ears, drowning out the roar of the ocean. Seagulls squawked and circled above and I wanted to run and chase them away. I wanted to throw something. Or maybe just throw up.

“Are you okay, Dori?”

“I’m not sure.”

I jumped off the rocks and started walking. Tor was right behind me. He clasped my hand and stroked it with his thumb. It had a soothing effect.

“What do I do now?”

“About?”

“About becoming a mermaid, if I am even one, like you think.”

“You need to swim. In the ocean. Not the pool. I think you need to quit swim club for a while. If it happened there, it would be catastrophic.”

“I’m not exactly popular on my swim team at the moment.” Not to mention that I was on temporary suspension until they cast a verdict. “I won’t be showing up there for awhile.”

“Good.” Tor squeezed my hand. “Everything is going to be fine.”

I wished I could believe him.

That evening at dusk I stood, oh, so self-consciously, in front of Tor, in my bikini as per his recommendation. It wasn’t fair since he was still fully dressed and unable to keep the smirk off his face. I had goose bumps on my goose bumps and somehow, even in the chill my legs were flaring red.

“I make a good light house beacon,” I said.

Tor laughed. “I think you’re beautiful, and you better get in the water before I declare a change of plans.”

I was nervous. It wasn’t like I’d never gone swimming in the ocean before, even at dusk, but I’d never gone swimming with the intention of turning into a mermaid before. Especially with an audience.

I got my toes wet, and glanced back at Tor. He gave me an encouraging nod. We’d decided ahead of time that I would start off alone, with Tor watching from the shore. The plan was if I got in trouble with a current or rip tide, or, if
it
happened, he’d jump in. If he came in with me now, he wouldn’t be able to come out with me if nothing happened.

The anticipation of entering mermaid-dom was causing an inner pillow fight, feathers flitting and flying everywhere throughout my nervous system.

“This is it!” I shouted back at Tor. I dove in, my breath escaping as the chilly water encased my body. I popped my head out of the water and breathed, looking hopefully at Tor. I waited for the tingling sensation that Tor described to begin, but all I felt was the cold.

I swam, diving down, holding my breath as long as I could until my lungs were bursting. I watched my legs—they were still legs. Nothing happened.

When I tired out, I swam back to shore. Tor handed me a towel.

“I’m sorry,” I said.

“You’ve got nothing to be sorry about.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’m not a mermaid.”

“Give it time.”

“Tor?” I said as I rung out my hair. “What would I have done if I hadn’t met you? If I’m really a mermaid, that is? What if I had changed in the pool? All your secrets would’ve been exposed.”

“You wouldn’t have changed if you hadn’t met me. Or someone like me.”

I stopped and thought about this. “
You’re
changing me?”

“In a way. Association with me, with one of our kind, at the right time triggers the change.”

“Hormones or something?”

Tor grinned.

Wow. I was turning because of some cosmic connection with Tor. If he was right and I actually turned, that was.

We walked back to my house, and Tor gave me a deliciously long and tasty kiss good night.

Nana was visiting again, sitting in the reclining chair by the living room window and my heart jumped a bit when I thought she might have spotted me kissing Tor. Mom sat across from her and they were both cradling a cup of tea.

“Were you swimming?” Mom said. “It’s dark.”

“It’s summer, and it only just got dark,” I said. I offered Nana the slimmest greeting I could get away with, and headed to the kitchen to make myself a snack. Cereal sounded quick and easy. I just wanted to escape upstairs to my room before Mom tried to pull me into a cozy girls’ night.

I could barely look at Nana now that I knew her secret. First of all, I found it hard to believe that Nana would do something like that. Not just have an affair when she was with Grandpa, but continue to let my mom think that he was her biological father.

Tor couldn’t say who her biological father really was.

And the way she was sitting there, across from my mother, making small talk and girl-bonding, all with that GREAT BIG SECRET sitting in the room with them, it made me want to barf.

If it was all even true. Maybe I was being totally unfair. I hadn’t turned into a mermaid yet and this whole story about Nana could be a big mistake—I’d probably end up laughing it off sometime in the near future and we’d go on like before. Like normal.

I slurped the milk at the bottom of my bowl.

When I put my bowl on the floor for Crosby to lick up the remaining milk, it dawned on me. Maybe Nana suspected something. That was why she kept staring at Tor like she was trying to decipher a code.

That was what she meant when she told me I could tell her anything. She wanted me to confide in her about him.

How much did Nana really know about the merfolk world? Did she go swimming with her merman the way I have with Tor?

Probably. For some reason this thought made me gag. No one liked to think of their parents getting intimate, much less their grandmother with a merman.

Like anything would ever be normal again. Nana might have her secrets but I had mine, too.

My dreams that night were lucid. I was swimming joyfully, underwater, doing somersaults like a little kid. I never felt panic about drowning. I didn’t have a tail, but I could breathe. Tor was in them, too. We swam together, effortlessly. The funny thing was, he didn’t have a tail, either. He had legs.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

A crowd had gathered at the boardwalk when I arrived for work. I couldn’t tell at first who was causing the commotion, and then I saw Crazy Jim’s greasy head. He wore layers of drab clothing that hadn’t been washed in eons. I could see the gap in his teeth a mile away.

“I swear to you that I saw her again, early this morning, I did.” His growly bass-like voice spread across the beach. “She has long red hair and a tail. We have our own mermaid, folks, right here in the Bay of Fundy!”

I moaned.

“I think he really believes it,” Becca said.

Samara tut-tut-ed. “He’s delusional. They may have to lock him up soon.”

I bit my lip, listening as Crazy Jim went on and on.
Shut up, already.

“I’ll prove it!” he shouted when the crowd mocked and laughed at him. “I’ll prove it, I swear. I’ll catch’er in my net and bring her to this very beach. I will, mark my words. Then we’ll see who’s laughing.” Crazy Jim marched away with a determined scowl on his weather-beaten face.

I didn’t doubt he’d make good on his threats for a minute. I had to let Tor know they had a merfolk hunter on their hands.

“Excuse me.” I took off before Becca or Samara could object, and raced to the other end of the boardwalk to Tor’s kiosk. If he’d been there, he would’ve heard Crazy Jim’s proclamations himself, but it was empty.

A dark sense of foreboding blanketed me and I rushed down the beach in the direction of Tor’s cave.

The problem was, I’d only been there a couple of times and Tor always led the way. I wasn’t sure how to find it.

I climbed rocks and pushed through forest bramble where it interfaced. I scoured the landscape for something that seemed familiar, a landmark of some kind, but drew a blank.

Tor and Dex knew what they were doing when they chose a spot that no one else would stumble upon.

I was thirsty and worn out, but my desperate need to see Tor again pushed me on. It had to be around here somewhere. Then I spotted the crack in the rocks. The slim crevice that I’d needed Tor’s help to get down.

I reached blindly for purchase with my foot. I managed to grip a ledge with my toe but then was at a loss as to where to place my hands. I gripped the edge tenuously, groping one hand at a time until I caught something to grab. The decent was precarious, and I missed the bottom by a foot and crashed to the sandy floor.

I moaned, examining my ankle, but, except for scratches and (real) bruising, everything checked out.

I crept up the rock precipice to the opening of their cave. It was dark. The lanterns were out. Fear taunted me; I was too late, they’d left.

I couldn’t believe that Tor would leave without me. Or, at least, that he would leave without saying goodbye.

“Tor?” I called out. “Are you here?”

“Dori?” Tor’s silhouette appeared in the semi darkness, and relief washed over me. He took a moment to light a lantern. I could see his face, pinched with worry.

“Crazy Jim is telling everyone he saw a mermaid. Again.”

“I know.”

“Well, did he? Was it Shava?” I climbed up the steps and Tor stepped aside as I entered the cave.

“I’m afraid so.” He touched my lower back and guided me through the dimness.

“Why is she being so careless?” We’d never even met and I wanted to ring her neck.

A baritone voice called out, “She’s jealous.” Dex appeared out of the shadows. “Of you.”

I looked at Tor. “I thought you said she was a cousin?”

“She is.”

“Then why would she be jealous of me?”

Dex answered for him, “Our world is small. Cousins mate all the time.”

My head swiveled back to Tor. “She wants to mate with you?” I wanted to vomit on the word “mate.”

“It’s a long story,” he said with a sigh. I bet it was.

After my eyes adjusted, I saw that the laptop was opened, and a pile of maps and books were lying on the table and over the floor.

“What’s going on?” I said. “You’re not leaving because of this? No one believes anything Crazy Jim says. It’ll be an old story in a few days.”