**********
“You’re getting better,” I laughed as Jonas took another wobbly step forward, his hand gripped in mine as he attempted to cross the few feet from the wall back to the bed.
We’d been practicing for over an hour, me holding him up as he toppled over repeatedly, his balance thrown off by the unconscious sway of his body. Even upright his motions were flawless and smooth as if he were swimming, his back arching every few seconds as if he planned to dive right into the floor.
“Don’t…” I reminded him again as his arms extended as if to propel us both forward. “We’re not in the water,” I reminded him gently, smiling as he shook his head in frustration.
“This wasn’t in the stories…” he murmured, his concentration on his bare toes as they inched across the floor.
“So what happened in Altonia…?” I whispered, not wanting to throw him off guard, but desperate for answers I thought I would have by now.
“It’s a long story…” he sighed as we reached the bed, his newly grown legs trembling with exhaustion as he sat down, almost pulling me with him.
“We have all night. I’m staying in here with you,” I nodded to the chair I’d placed beside the nightstand.
As much as I wanted to sleep, I didn’t trust Roman not to kill him once he had the chance. I’d have to wait until they were at school before I could even think of closing my eyes.
“You may look at me differently once I tell you how I came to be in the river…” Jonas finally said, his eyes lowering as I took a seat in the chair beside the bed.
“Whatever you have to say…it won’t stop me from helping you get back home…”
“I can’t go home…”
“But why…? I don’t understand…”
“I’m not a pure breed…” Jonas interrupted me, his fingers curling into a fist that now rested on his thigh. “In Altonia, it’s all about your lineage. There’s royalty and peasants…same as the stories here. My family line has always been poor, absent of any pure essence you might find in a merman born royal. It means that we serve for the greater good of Altonia. My father was one of the king’s guards, and so was I.”
“You’re not anymore?” I asked, noticing the pained expression on his face as he pulled himself back on the bed until he rested against the headboard.
“My father is dead, killed in battle…I’ve been banned, but it wasn’t supposed to happen like this…” Jonas trailed off with a shake of his head, his electric blue eyes growing dull as he looked at me finally. “My grandfather is a sorcerer; the only sorcerer that Altonia has, and so he is protected. My mother died giving birth to me, and once my father died, he took me under his wing, teaching me everything I would possibly need to know to take his place one day. Except, this is forbidden by the king. There is only one sorcerer for a reason. We are a calm people, living on what is given to us by the sea. Magic of the water world is only used for good, and used very sparingly as it interrupts the entire lifecycle of this earth, affecting human and merman alike. Because of this, I’ve performed very few spells, and was assigned my father’s position as part of the king’s guard once I was old enough. I was happy there, working, and doing my duties for Altonia. But I was reassigned within the king’s court. His daughter…Zerrin…” he paused as the name slipped from his lips a heavy sigh following as his gaze lowered again. “She requested me. I…I…loved her…”
I watched as his hands covered his face, sliding up through his hair and then back down again, leaving a smudge of blue on either palm. The silence between us stretched as I waited for him to continue, not quite understanding what he was trying to tell me.
“At first, we were just friends. I was the only one her age allowed in the king’s court. But…I fell in love…I couldn’t help it. Her essence…so pure…so…beautiful. It was like a hum through my veins when I was near her, and when I wasn’t…it was as if my own essence was suffering. I could never have hurt her,” Jonas shook his head now, his eyes already pleading for me to believe him. “She wanted to see the outskirts of the city. She’d never been before; so I cast a spell of shadows, hiding her from the other guards so I could sneak her out of the court. I thought we would come right back. My life was on the line for even granting her that one small wish, but she wouldn’t listen. Once we were beyond the city’s limits she wanted to go further…to the surface…just to see.”
“And it was forbidden…?” I asked now, recalling pieces of what he’d told me earlier.
He nodded his answer, shaking his head again before continuing.
“Padigonia, the colony of the Pacific has been waiting for a chance to get back at Altonia for their lost king. They blamed us for not coming to their aid in the war with the frozen ones…”
“Wait…wait…slow down…” I stopped him, my hand on his leg as I tried to put together the pieces. “Padigonia…? There’s more than one mer colony?”
“There are three: Altonia of the Atlantic, Padigonia of the pacific, and then Artonia of the artic…the frozen ones. At one time, we all lived in peace, the three kings: Triton, Poseidon, and Arcon ruling over the colonies. Triton is my king. Poseidon is now dead, and Arcon wants his kingdom. With Triton gone, there’s no one to stop him. Padigonia is full of chaos now that their king is dead. He has no seed to take to his place, and his brothers continue to argue while Arcon steady closes in on us. Triton saw that we were no a match for the frozen ones, and so he forbade all Altonians to go beyond the city’s borders. It was safer that way.”
“So…Zerrin…what happened,” I nodded, anxious for him to continue now.
“She wouldn’t listen. The city limits weren’t enough for her. She wanted to see the surface… I tried to bring her back… We fought, and then she disappeared… I thought she was hiding from me, but then I saw it…a frozen one. He was hiding just under the entrance of a sea cave. I tried to call to Zerrin, but it was too late. He grabbed her when she tried to come out. He never saw me, but I watched him rip her to shreds, spilling her essence into the sea as if it were nothing,” Jonas spat out, his fist slamming down on the bed.
“So she’s dead…?” I whispered as I watched his face, his eyes sparking a brilliant blue as he met my gaze.
“I’m the only one who knows she’s dead. I went back to Altonia for help, but the alarm had already been raised. The king’s guard was all over the city’s perimeter performing a search. They questioned me and I told them she ran from me, that she must have been taken… I feared for my life, so I lied…”
“It wasn’t your fault…not entirely,” I murmured, trying to console him now.
“It was my fault! I never should have cast that spell. I never should have let her leave the court. The king was furious; he blamed me, just as all of Altonia blames me now. They think the frozen ones have her, and I couldn’t bring myself to tell the truth. It was my responsibility to guard her, and I let her get out of my sight.”
“But your injuries,” I pointed to the cuts that had greatly improved in appearance in the last hour, some of the smaller ones barely visible now that they had closed. “You heal fast…”
“Which is why I couldn’t stay in the ocean. The salt preserves what fresh water takes away…. Publicly I was sentenced without a trial, banned to the outskirts of the city, destined to wander alone until Zerrin was found. Privately…King Triton did not trust my story. He knew I was lying, and he was out for revenge. He had me thrown into a bottomless dungeon, my fate to be decided by the creatures that live within its darkest recesses…scavengers mostly…nothing to worry too much about unless you’re already dying. It’s the Jelly fish that prepare the way…their reach alone makes four of me, their sting so deadly that I wouldn’t have survived without a coating spell my grandfather taught me. I didn’t know how to use it properly, and by the time I figured it out, I was almost dead anyway.”
“So how did you…?”
“Get out?” Jonas finished my question, with a shrug of his shoulders, his eyes gr
owing dark now. “My grandfather…he came for me under the same spell that got Zerrin killed.”
“The spell of shadows…”
“I didn’t want to leave him there. If King Triton knew that he released me… I couldn’t risk being caught by any of the guards. I had to leave the city…leave my grandfather behind. It was too much… It killed me to lose her, and I wasn’t about to lose my grandfather too. I wanted to die, but I was too scared to do it myself. Swimming into a sharks nesting place would have been easy…too easy a death for me; so I swam until I couldn’t swim anymore. The more energy I burned, the less time my essence had to replenish, so instead of getting better, the stings got worse, becoming infected once I found myself in fresh water. I could have turned back, but…where would I have gone? Zerrin is dead, and there is not sort of magic I know of that will bring her back…” Jonas trailed off, his words catching as he looked at me oddly, and then away as if he were embarrassed.
“So, hiding under the dock…was a suicide attempt then…?” I asked, still slightly confused. “…But your song…you called to me. Meant to die, banned from my home, help arrive, please hear my song…” I whispered the words out loud, a familiar fog clouding my thoughts as I watched him watching me.
“You misunderstood… In our stories, humans only want to hurt us. If they find us, they kill us…that's what I wanted. I felt your presence near, and I was tired of being in pain. Not only was I losing my essence, but I was also being eaten alive, and had no way of getting out of the water. I thought you would see me and…”
“Kill you…!” I gasped in understanding now, my hand covering my mouth as he confirmed with a nod.
“It’s what I wanted then…but now…I’m not so sure…”
I was at a lost for words as I processed all that he’d told me. He’d never meant for me to save him…never wanted it, but now that I had, where would he go…
“You’re not supposed to do that you know…” Jonas murmured softly, snapping my empty gaze back into focus so that our eyes were locked.
“What…?” I asked now, his humored expression lost on me.
“Look into a merman’s eyes…you’re not supposed to do that. It’s one of our defense mechanisms… It…”
“Draws you in…” I answered for him now, noting the pull I felt every time our eyes locked.
It almost made me feel like crawling into his lap, and wrapping my arms around him. The fog in my head…the bubble that had circled around me in the river…the pull was coming from him and I hadn’t even realized it. Where human eyes were a steady pigment, opaque in whatever color your genetic makeup designed, his were restless, the waves of the sea almost visible in the sheer blue. It was almost…electrifying… I decided as the hairs on the back of my neck raised, my mind growing fuzzy as I continued to lose myself in the deep blue pools.
“I have told you everything of me, yet you have told me nothing of you, Alana… Cassidy…” he paused as he said my full name, the words coming more as a tingling sound that anything else.
“You remembered…” I smiled as he broke our stare, heat rising in my cheeks once I realized that I’d been leaning on the bed, almost between his legs.
“Where to start…” I sighed now, the pain of my parent’s death gripping me before I’d even begun to speak.
“We have all night right…?” Jonas asked before I could continue, patting the space beside him on the bed.
I only hesitated for a moment, guilt shooting through me as I thought of Roman and the twins. I would check on them in the morning… Give him time to calm down… I decided as I crawled into place beside Jonas, careful to leave enough space in between us so that our legs didn’t touch. He nodded as I looked up at him, tears already brimming my lower lid as the weight of the last two days settled around me.
“It happened five years ago, but I still feel like it was yesterday…”
The Proposition
“Tell me you didn’t sleep with him,” Roman’s voice caught me off guard as I slipped into the darkened hallway, my hands grabbing for the wall as I tripped over his feet.
“What are you doing on the floor!” I hissed as I righted myself, my hands going over my heart in surprise.
“Waiting for you to scream I guess,” Roman shrugged now as he shifted his position, pulling himself slowly to a stand. “You were in there all night… It’s almost time to get the twins up for school,” Roman commented just as the alarm went off in his room, signaling that it was indeed time to wake them up.
“How dare you ask me something like that!? I told you…he’s just a friend,” I whispered now, pulling him away from the Pernickle’s door, just in case Jonas wasn’t really sleeping.
I hadn’t meant to stay on the bed with him all night, much less fall asleep on his chest, but it is where I had woken up, my body buzzing from one nerve ending to the next. His eyes had been closed when I slipped off the bed, but I doubted that he had slept through the bumps in the hallway.
“Well did you?” Roman asked, his tone accusing as he pulled my arm so that I faced him.
“No I didn’t sleep with him Roman. He’s injured, and…and…”
“Not even human!” Roman reminded me, his tone harsh as he swiped at a patch of blue that had dried across my forearm.
“You wouldn’t understand…”
“Well explain it to me Alana… Explain how you brought a stranger into this house without even telling me first. Explain how I’ve become the bad guy when I’ve done nothing but try and stick up for you. Explain how…” he trailed off suddenly, his lips pressed together in a thin line as I looked up at him.
“I can’t explain it…” I sighed now with a shake of my head, going over the story Jonas had told me the night before. “All I know is that I was meant to help him…and I’m going to,” I added before he could protest, my hand already on the knob of my door.
“He can’t stay here…”
“I know that…”
“So what are you going to do with him then…”
“I’ll figure it out…today…I promise…” I stammered, regretting the words as soon as they’d left my mouth.
I had no clue what I was going to do with Jonas. Roman was right. Once the Pernickles returned from their trip, we already had hell to pay. If they found Jonas here…
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” Roman asked, changing the subject as he held a wrinkled envelope up in front of my face.
“You opened it!” I accused, snatching the letter away from him and turning it over.
“The twins opened it; they found it under your mattress…”
“You read it then…?” I asked, my heart leaping in my chest as I pulled the single piece of paper free.
“You’re being adopted Lana. That’s what this trip is all about. Your parents’ house finally sold, and all their belongings… The money is yours once you’re eighteen…unless…”
“Unless the Pernickle’s adopt me, and they become my legal guardians…” I whispered as I skimmed the page, my hands trembling uncontrollably. “They can’t do this! I’ll be eighteen next month!”
“Which is probably why they made this trip in such a hurry…”
“Expedition of Adoption… Hearing date…” I paused swallowing hard as I counted the days in my head. “…Today…oh God…I think I’m going to be sick…” I muttered, dropping the letter to the floor as I ran to the bathroom.
“Go away!” I moaned to Roman as he followed behind me, closing the bathroom door behind us.
“Once you’re eighteen you can fight…get the money back…go to college…”
“By then it will all be spent. Look at how they live! They probably can’t wait to ditch all of us and take off!”
“Well you have to try…it’s your money Lana, not theirs…”
“I don’t care about the money Roman… I don’t want to be adopted! I don’t want to be…Alana Pernickle…” I spat out, my stomach heaving at the thought of Martin Pernic
kle legally becoming my father.
“So what are you going to do…?”
“I don’t know Roman! You’ve had longer to think about this than I have!” I snapped now, wiping dripping from my mouth before splashing cold water on my face from the sink.
“I’m only trying to help…”
“Well… I think you’ve helped enough!” I shouted now, my anger misplaced as I gestured wildly to the pellet ridden wall of the bathroom.
“If that’s how you feel…” Roman whispered, hurt evident in his tone as he backed towards the door. “I wasn’t trying to hurt you Lana…” he said as he opened the door, stepping into the hallway again.
“Roman…”
It was too late; he had already disappeared into his room, his door slamming before I had a chance to go after him.
“UGH!” I screamed now, kicking my foot against the wall before storming back in to the bathroom.
How could they do this behind my back? This had to be illegal right? The questions kept coming, all of them blackened with anger at their audacity. I’d done everything they asked of me… I fought the tears, but they came hot and fast, blurring my vision as I looked at myself in the mirror. Bloodshot eyes greeted me, my normally silky smooth, strawberry blonde hair tangled in a mass about my head, tinged with streaks of blue. Darkened bags had begun to form just under my cheekbones, giving me a homeless appearance.
Run Away…
The words barely registered, my mind too numb to form a cohesive thought through the rage that was building inside me. I couldn’t stay here another three months as their child. The thought sickened me, causing bile to rise in my throat as I remembered all the threats Martin Pernickle had promised to make good on. Once I was legally theirs, there would be no need to hide the bruises… They could get rid of me, and no one would ever know any different. No one would come looking for me…
It was more than I could handle. My arm shot out, my fist slamming into the mirror before I thought to draw it back. The mirror shattered instantly, sending a million tiny pieces of glass spraying across the sink. I closed my eyes to the pain that now ran from the cuts across my knuckles, up my hand and settled into a throb in my arm. The light at the end of the tunnel I’d been stuck in waned as I saw my future away from this place slipping away. They would never let me go…