Midnight Pearls (7 page)

She stopped flailing wildly and began to move her arms back and forth rhythmically. She made a little bit of headway.
James was right.
He had been right about her skirt, though, too. Wet, it weighed so much more and slowed her down. She kicked free of her shoes and that at least helped. Focusing on the land, she started to kick.

The water became more rough the closer she got to the shore. She started to panic again, but a memory stirred. She had once seen James carried into shore by cresting waves, riding on their peaks on his stomach. She fixed the memory in her mind, studying it, remembering the way he had started to move just a second before the wave hit him.

The waves began to crash around her and she swallowed seawater. Her arms and legs felt as if there were dead weights attached to them. As she turned, she spied a large wave coming that she judged would make it all the way to the beach. Moments before it reached her she started to swim again. The wave caught her and lifted her up. It carried her all the way to the beach and she ended up on the sand, where she coughed and gasped for air.

She crawled farther up the beach, away from the waves crashing around her, and then finally collapsed. She lay for a minute, catching her breath and gathering her strength.
I’m alive!
she thought. Relief and gratitude flooded through her as she grabbed fistfuls of sand and let it run through her fingers. Finally she struggled to her feet.

“James, we made it” she called. She moved her hand to her throat to stroke her pearl and reassure herself that she hadn’t lost it in the ocean. It was warm to her touch, but as her fingers twisted about it, it slowly regained its coolness.

There was no reply, and she glanced down the beach in either direction. Nothing. Panic began to swell in her as she cast her eyes back toward the sea. There was nothing, no dark figure, not even the remnants of their boat.

James was gone.

D
own, deep down, in the darkness of the ocean, Kale and Faye swam. He smiled as he watched her flit around the sunken ship. She shone bright against the darkness of the wreckage. Her glowing hair reflected against her silver scales and made it easy for him to keep an eye on her.

He laughed at her antics. His sister was only a year younger than he was, but he felt much older. She was fearless and full of passion, never hesitating to pursue what she wanted. He admired her joy. For years his own heart had been too heavy to allow him to play.

Always uncannily quick to sense his feelings, Faye turned to him. “You’re thinking of Adriana,” she accused in a soft: voice.

Adriana had been gone for years, but the sound of her name still sent ripples of pain through him. He nodded slowly. “Someone has to.”

With a flick of her tail, Faye was at his side. “She has not been forgotten, brother.”

“I wish I could believe that,” he answered bitterly.

“It’s just, the world of Merkin cannot mourn forever. We need to move on with our lives. What you’e doing, it’s not good.”

“I am not mourning!” he snapped. “You only mourn the dead. She is alive, I can feel it. And I will never stop searching for her.”

Faye flipped her tail in frustration. He couldn’t say he blamed her. It had been years since everyone else had given up Adriana for dead. He couldn’t even speak with his parents anymore about his quest for her.

He sighed deeply and bubbles formed in the water. Faye giggled and poked at them. He envied her. Nothing could keep her spirit somber for long.

She flipped over and smacked him playfully with her tail. Suddenly she shivered, and spines rose up along her back. A mermaid’s spines, ordinarily hidden in the smooth skin of her back, only rose for one of two reasons: fear or a premonition.

Kale glanced around uneasily but could neither see nor sense anything in the water, at least nothing that would elicit that reaction from her.

“What do you feel?” he asked in hushed tones. Only mermaids had premonitions; mermen did not. It was a defense honed by centuries of watching out for the safety of merchildren. As near as he could understand how it worked, they received strong feelings that told them when they needed to do something. The premonitions seemed to be uncontrollable. For most mermaids the sensation was so mild, it only pierced the subconscious. For a few, though—Faye included—the sensation was much stronger.

“ We should go to the surface,” she answered just as quietly.

He shuddered as though his scales had been rubbed the wrong way. He did not want to go. He had only been to the surface twice, both within days after Adriana’s disappearance. It was an experience he had hoped never to repeat. He knew better, though, than to ignore one of Faye’s premonitions.

He took a deep breath, and sucked in the water through his mouth. The gills on his throat flared widely for a moment as carbon dioxide was pushed out.“Let’s go, then”

A flick of his tail sent him soaring upward through the water. A moment later Faye was back by his side. He whipped his tail back and forth and exhilarated at the feeling of the water rushing past his face and flowing over his body. Beside him, Faye kept up until they were flying through the water.

As they neared the surface, light began to stream downward, illuminating the darkness. As it grew brighter, Kale began to squint and his eyes burned. He slowed down, caution springing to mind. Beside him he could feel Faye’s hesitation.

He reached out and took her hand and together they broke the surface with a gasp. Out of the water his cheeks stung and his eyes felt dry and scratchy. His lungs began to burn, and he eased his mouth back down into the water, chiding himself for forgetting to hold his breath.

He was about to ask Faye what they should do next when he sensed a change in the motion of the water as it moved around him. Turning his head to the left, he spied a small boat.

It was tiny compared with the ones he had seen at the bottom of the ocean. It bobbed up and down on top of the water as it moved slowly toward them.

They’ve seen us!
he thought. A moment later he realized it could not be so, because the two occupants of the boat seemed to be looking only at each other. He slipped below the surface of the water and pulled Faye with him. Together they moved closer to the boat, circling it warily. At last, the vessel stood still. A minute passed and nothing happened. Slowly they let their heads break the surface again.

He could hear the people speaking before he could see them. The sounds were strange to him and he could not glean any meaning from them. At last he could see the speakers clearly. There was a man leaning close to a woman. He had hair the color of the lava rock found in the deep parts of the ocean. He seemed to be speaking quite earnestly, but Kale couldn’t understand the words.

He turned to look at the other occupant of the boat and felt his heart stop.
Adriana!
His soul knew her and cried out in such a mixture of joy and anguish as he had never felt.

He turned to Faye to tell her. The young mermaid was staring at the human male with rapt attention. Her eyes were wide, and she was drifting closer to the boat as though drawn to it. She reached out her hand to touch it.

“Faye!” he hissed.

She whirled, startled, and her spines raised. One of them hit the bottom of the boat, puncturing it. Moments later the man stood up in the boat and Kale and Faye both ducked beneath the water.

“Did you see?” he asked, gripping her arm.

“Yes, he was so beautiful.”

“No, not him, her, it was Adriana!”

“What?”

“It was
Adriana
, in the boat”

“But that’s impossible! Are you sure?” Faye asked, her face scrunching up in bewilderment.

“It was Adriana. I felt her”

“But … how?”

The boat began to move away, and he turned to follow it. He had spent years searching for her, and he wasn’t about to lose her now. Faye swam beside him.

After a short distance the boat stopped again.
What are they doing?
Slowly, carefully, he lifted his head out of the water. Adriana and the man were both standing up. Suddenly, Adriana jumped overboard. The man jumped as well, but his foot got tangled in something that looked like seaweed in the bottom of the boat. He fell into the water, hitting his head with a dull thud against the bow.

Adriana was swimming on top of the water. Kale noted that she was moving and splashing with wasted motions, as though she were an infant. Her legs, swathed in heavy garments, flailed about uselessly, poor substitutes for the glorious tail she had once had. He moved to intercept her, but a motion he saw from the corner of his eye stopped him.

The man had sunk, unmoving, below the surface of the water. Faye reached out for him and before Kale could stop her, she clasped the human around the chest and hauled him back to the surface.

She coughed and sputtered as she struggled to keep her mouth below water and the man’s above it. Kale moved to help her, but she waved him off.

“Make sure she makes it,” she croaked.

For a moment he was torn between following Adriana or helping his sister.
At least Faye is not in any real danger as long as she takes a breath of water from time to time
, he told himself. With a flick of his tail he was off after Adriana.

She finally seemed to find her own rhythm. It was awkward looking, but it seemed to be working. He swam just behind and below her, keeping a watchful eye.

All the time, his thoughts were racing. He didn’t know which was harder to believe: that he had finally found her, or that she had been turned into a human. He needed to make contact with her, and find a way to turn her back into a mermaid.

She faltered in the water and he surged forward, ready to buoy her up if she needed it. She picked up her own rhythm, though, and pressed on.

The closer they came to shore, the more relieved he became regarding her safety and the greater he worried about his own. She came to a stop and he waited. He watched her as she treaded the water above him. The pull of the ocean toward the shore had grown strong, and he had to start putting energy into keeping himself from letting it carry him forward.

She started swimming again, and moments later a wave picked her up and carried her to dry land. He lifted his head out of the water, watching as she lay on the sand, coughing. Slowly she stood to her feet, and he breathed a sigh of relief. She didn’t seem to be hurt.

She began shouting and then turned and ran up the beach. She was probably looking for the man. He turned and scanned the water for Faye. She was out past the waves, still supporting the human. He moved to help her.

“We have to get him up onto the land without her seeing us.”

“Why? If it truly is Adriana, why should it matter if she sees us?” Faye gasped, her voice sounding unnaturally loud and piercing to him as she spoke into the air.

“She has been turned into a human. Who knows if she has any memory of who she is? I need time to think how best to approach her.”

“Kale, you worry too much,” Faye informed him.

They watched as Adriana raced down the beach in the other direction, still shouting. She turned again and began to walk, half stumbling back up the beach again.

“All right, now,” Kale said.

“How will we get him up on the sand?”

“Let a wave cany him in.”

She shook her head fiercely: “If he remains unconscious with his head in the water, he’ll die”

“We can’t risk getting closer to the shore.”

“I didn’t bring him this far to let him drown now. We’re awake, so we have a better chance of helping him get to the land without hurting ourselves than he has of getting there carried by the tides”

Kale knew she was right. They had to keep the human’s head above the water. “I have an idea. When I say so, start swimming, on top of the water. We want the waves to lift us up on the sand. Remember to take a deep breath and hold it.”

She nodded, eyes wide.

He turned and studied the waves. A large one was rolling toward them. “Ready. Now!”

He took a deep breath, turned, and grabbed hold of the man. The wave caught the three of them and lifted them up onto the sand. Kale lay for a moment, stunned. Involuntarily, he gasped. As the air rushed into his lungs he began to suffocate. He flipped over on his stomach, beating at the sand with his tail He grabbed fistfuls of wet sand and began dragging his body back to the water. He started to grow faint. His lungs were burning, and his vision swam. Just when he thought he was going to collapse, a wave splashed up higher than the others and flooded his mouth with water. He breathed in with a great gasp and used the last of his strength to propel his body into the water, where he drifted for a moment gathering his strength.

He heard a sound beside him and turned to see Faye doing the same thing.“Will he live?” he asked.

“I don’t know. I think so,” she answered.

He nodded.“Time for us to go.” He dragged himself a few more feet into the water before he could get his tail clear. Then he shot forward several yards and turned when he felt himself a safe distance from the sand.

Faye was still at the edge of the water, and he grew alarmed. Did she not have the strength to drag herself into the water? She stirred then, and he could not believe his eyes. She was dragging herself back to the man’s side!

She bent low over him, and he watched in disbelief as she kissed the still figure. Then she jerked her head up as though startled and quickly pulled herself back to the water. Within moments she had cleared the sand. She glided up to him with a guilty look on her face. “He’s alive,” she confirmed.

“Did he see you?”

She dropped her eyes. “Yes,” she whispered.

He felt himself grow cold inside. “Then we must go, quickly”

“I don’t think he saw my tail.”

“We can’t take that risk. We must go now and we shall not speak of this to anyone”

As they dove beneath the waves, Kale was afraid to think about what they had just done. They didn’t speak until they had reached the sunken ship Faye had been exploring earlier.