Rising

  “Rise and shine, sweetheart,” Nicole’s voice boomed as she yanked back Sara’s bedroom curtains and let in the horrid, beaming sunlight.

  “What time is it?” Sara croaked as she pulled the pillow over her head.

  “Oh, let me see, it’s 5:51. Nothing like an early start and a morning swim, I’ll go wake Xanthus.” Sara heard her mom trot from her room. At this moment, Sara remembered why she’d left her mother. Her mom had no concept that other people had wants and needs of their own.

  Sara heard Xanthus’s voice boom from down the hall. “Nicole? What time is it? Get out of my room and let me sleep.”

  “Okay, grouchy Dagonian, Sara and I will just go without you. We’ll be a half a mile down the coast. There’s a little beach there and it’s always deserted this time in the morning. I can’t wait to see my baby swim.”

  “Sara,” Xanthus yelled.

  “Huh,” she groaned from under her pillow. She was sure he couldn’t have heard it, but she was too tired to yell.

  “If you go with your mother, I’ll fillet you.”

  “Uh-huh,” Sara moaned, with her face sandwiched between her pillow and the mattress.

  “You’ll do no such thing,” her mother challenged.

  Sara was hit with a cool blast of air when her blanket was jerked away. “Sara Elizabeth Taylor, don’t listen to that fish in the mud. A morning swim is good for you.”

  “Go away, Mom,” Sara said. A moment later, she felt her pillow being tugged away. She held on for dear life.

  “Sara, come on. You can’t want to go back to sleep on a beautiful morning like this.”

  “Mom, please, it’s too early.” Sara felt herself slide across the mattress.

  “You know how much I love to swim.” Her mom let go of the pillow. A moment later, she had her hands around Sara’s fin and began to pull. Sara reached out, grabbed the edge of the mattress, and held on. She knew her mom thought if she succeeded pulling her off the bed, she would relent.

  Sara wasn’t about to let her win this time. It wasn’t a matter of going back to sleep now. She couldn’t go back to sleep even if she tried. It was about exerting her independence. She was an adult. Her mom couldn’t order her around like a child.

  Nicole yanked hard and Sara’s fingertips burned but held. The mattress, however, didn’t have anything holding it in place and so it slid halfway off the box spring onto the floor.

  “What the Hades are you doing to your daughter?” Sara lifted her head and blew her hair out of her eyes. Xanthus stood in her doorway, wearing only a pair of shorts. His hair was tousled and his face had a shadow of whiskers—he looked utterly gorgeous.

  Sara was distracted when her mom jerked hard again. This time, Sara’s fingers gave way and she slid down the length of the mattress like a playground slide, landing at the bottom. Dang it.

  “I’m getting her up,” Nicole said, speaking as if this situation was a daily occurrence. “Sara has always been difficult to rouse.”

  Sara yanked down her nightgown to make sure all her necessary parts were covered.

  Xanthus shook his head. A stream of complaints poured from his lips as he strode over, plucked her up off the floor, and carried her into the kitchen. At least Sara thought they were complaints. She couldn’t tell because he didn’t speak a word of English.

  “Xanthus, my daughter shouldn’t be eating before going out swimming. She might get a cramp.”

  Xanthus sat Sara in a chair and dragged his fingers through his hair. “You think Dagonians can’t swim after they eat?”

  “Well, she’s half-human. That may make all the difference.”

  “Nicole, Sara is not going swimming in the ocean and neither are you,” Xanthus said, exasperated. “Where do you think Gael went after he left? Do you think he’s staying in a hotel? No. He’s out there, in the ocean. You think he wouldn’t jump at the chance to come after you both? If you took Sara out into the water, he’d kill her without hesitation. While you’re here with me, he wouldn’t dare.”

  “Oh, well shoot. I really wanted to see my girl swim. I guess we’ll just have to take a dip in the swimming pool out back. It won’t be as much fun, but I guess it’ll do.” Nicole snatched up a glass of orange juice and took sip.

  “In chlorinated water?” Sara gasped, remembering her experience in the tub. Pool water had to be much worse. “No way, Mom.”

  “To tell you the truth, I could really use a swim right now.” Xanthus crossed his arms over his muscled chest, and eyed her hopefully.

  “What?” Sara’s voice rose an octave. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Sara, all you need to do is hold your breath,” Nicole said. “That’s what normal humans do.”

  “But what if I forget?”

  “After what happened in the tub, do you think you could forget?” Xanthus asked.

  “Well no, I don’t think I’ll ever forget. But, doesn’t chlorine hurt your eyes?”

  “I have goggles, baby,” Nicole said as she pranced down the hall toward her bedroom to change into her suit.

  “Besides,” Xanthus said, “you don’t have to put your face in the water if you don’t want to.”

  “Oh, yes she does. I’ve waited a lifetime to see my baby swim,” Nicole yelled from her room.

  Sara saw where this was going and she was fed up with it.

  She grasped the seat of her chair with her hands, reached her fin out, pressed it down onto the kitchen floor, and lifted her bottom off the chair. Pulling her hips forward, she lowered herself down to floor.

  Once she was sitting, she turned over, lay on her belly, and began to soldier crawl toward her room. She’d made it several feet when Xanthus stepped in front of her, squatted down, and silently commanded her attention.

  She ignored him and crawled around his feet. “Sara? What are you doing?” he asked. There was a hint of amusement in his voice.

  “I’m going back to bed. You and my mom can do what you like, but I refuse to be a part of it.”

  Sara was grateful that he didn’t try to stop her or try to help her to her room. She didn’t need either of them telling her what she could and couldn’t do. And she could darn well get to her room by herself.

  She crawled through her doorway, flicked her fin, and slammed the door shut. She turned her body around, reached up, and locked the doorknob for good measure.

  “Where’s Sara?” She heard her mother’s muffled voice ask.

  “She’s going back to bed,” Xanthus said.

  “Oh, no she isn’t. I didn’t go to all that effort getting her up just to have her go back to sleep. We are going swimming and that’s all there is to it.”

  “Nicole, just let her be,” Xanthus said.

  “What? It sounds like you’re telling me how to raise my own daughter.”

  “Of course not. She’s a grown woman. She has a mind of her own and is determined to use it. And if you don’t begin to understand and respect that, she’ll just disappear again and I can almost guarantee it’ll be longer before you see her again.”

  Sara sat on the floor next to her skewed mattress and listened.

  “But you could make her see me. You’ll be her husband after all.”

  “Nicole, Sara does not like to be ordered around. If I ever tried to do that, she’d leave me too, which is not an option for me. I love your daughter and I’d rather lose my tail forever than lose her. If you’d just let her make her own decisions, you wouldn’t need to have anyone make her see you.”

  “But you don’t understand. I do this all for her own good. When she was little, she wouldn’t even come out of her room. She was so afraid of everyone and everything. If I hadn’t forced her, she would never have had the courage to leave the house. I did everything for her. I even gave up a perfectly wonderful husband in order to keep her.”

  “This perfectly wonderful husband wanted you to get rid of your own daughter?”

  Oh great, here it comes.

  “He knew Sara w
as unstable and he saw how my life was turned upside down because of her. Charles tried to convince me that I should have her cared for in an institution, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I had to protect her. It was because of Sara that Charles left me. So can’t you see how much I’ve sacrificed for her? I think I deserve some respect.”

  A hand clamped down over Sara’s mouth. “If I know my brother, this conversation is about to become a lot more heated. Too bad we’ll miss it.” The next thing Sara knew, Gael’s arm was tight around her waist and they were flying across the room. They flew through her open window toward the cliff. Sara’s stomach dropped as they dove down toward the water. She tried to scream, but Gael’s hand was pressed down too hard against her mouth. She tasted blood.

  Sara fought him with everything she had. Gael yanked hard on her head, and squeezed her waist so tightly it was difficult to breathe. “Stop fighting me or I’ll break your little neck, filthy cur. Don’t mistake me for my brother. I don’t have a merciful bone in my body.”

  Sara stopped struggling. She didn’t doubt that Gael would follow through on his threat.

  Gael and Sara moved fast through the murky waters. Sara couldn’t see much at first. The water churned with silt and bubbles from the battering waves above. She braced herself for impact just before she slammed into the side of a boulder. The water whooshed out of her lungs and Sara struggled to gulp in some oxygen. Gael turned her around to face him. “I wish I had time to play with you now, but my brother can be a bit unpredictable when it comes to a hunt. And from what I’ve seen, he’ll hunt you to the ends of the earth. That is if I’m lucky.”

  Gael began to chant. Sara didn’t know the words but the cadences were familiar. He was speaking Atlantian. A silver light appeared several feet away. It started small, the size of a pea, and then grew into a large, shimmering circle about six feet in diameter. Sara knew it was some kind of a door. She also knew that if she went through that door with Gael, she’d probably never see Xanthus again.

  Sara screamed, wailing high and loud. Gael’s eyes flew open wide in shock as he slapped his hands over his ears and roared. Sara continued to shriek as she saw a fist fly toward her. An explosion of pain knocked her head back and darkness engulfed her.