“Ms. Revere! Look this way! Ms. Revere, look over here!” Dozens of cameras flashed. I squinted, put on my public smile, and waved awkwardly at the crowd. Even after three bestselling books and one hit movie — the film of my first Water Hyacinth novel had grossed 300 million dollars, with a second film already in the works — I could barely believe the public acclaim was for me. Didn’t they know I was just a Boston librarian who, a few years earlier, had gotten looped on cold medicine during a literary festival and blurted to a book agent, “Just for fun, in my spare time I write stories about children who go to a magical underwater school run by mermaids. I don’t suppose you’d want to read something by yet another J.K. Rowling clone, would you?”
The answer was Yes. A thousand times yes.
Now I was in the lobby of the Peabody, leaning on my cane, a dozen ducks zeroing in on me like web-footed cruise missiles, while half-a-thousand fans cheered either the rebel ducks or me or both. Camera flashes blinded me. I saw splashes of color punctuated by green mallards. It was like a hallucination starring Daffy Duck.
A cool hand suddenly gripped my arm. “Come with me,” a dulcet female voice ordered in my right ear, “before these goofy quackers embarrass us both. And the ducks, too.”
The next thing I knew, I was being led into one of the elegant shops that lined the lobby. Blinded, squinting, hobbling along unceremoniously with my cane thumping the marble floor like a drumbeat, I have no idea, even to this day, why I let a stranger lead me off that way, or how my escorts and five hundred fans let her, too. She cast a spell. She was no ordinary stranger.
“My name is Juna Lee Poinfax, and I’m your fairy god-mermaid,” she announced the instant she slammed and locked the shop’s glass door. Before I could absorb that bizarre statement she shoved me into the shopkeeper’s office and shut that door behind us, too. My vision cleared and I stared at her.
I’d been kidnapped by Hairstyle Barbie. You know. The 1960s model with impossibly long hair you could pull from a hole in the top of her head. But this Barbie was real — amazing, auburn tresses spilled from a tight topknot at her crown and spilled in thick waves to her waist. Winged eyebrows flattened in perfect symmetry in a perfect face as she scrutinized me. Green eyes assessed me as if I were up for auction at a slave market. Her cleavage heaved inside a low-cut silk blouse inside a tailored blue silk jacket. She went Hmmm, in a beautifully musical way, as she drummed perfectly white-tipped fingernails on one hip of her blue miniskirt. A foot, encased in a lethally pointed high-heeled pump, patted the floor. “This is not good,” she finally said. “Lilith didn’t tell me you look like a gimpy Allie McBeal.”
Splat. The sound of my ego hitting the floor. Hairstyle Barbie was an evil bee-atch. An evil, astute bee-atch. Yes, I was a gimpy Allie McBeal, but I was no pushover. I leaned on a desk for balance, raised my cane like a sword, and said in a very low, Clint-Eastwoodish tone, “I don’t know who you are or what you want. I don’t want to know. I’m backing out of this room. Don’t try to stop me.”
Her hand shot out. Lithe fingers clamped the cane’s tip. She jerked, I was startled, and my cane ended up in her possession. She smiled as she slowly twirled it. “What a lovely baton. Hmmm. Mahogany. And hmmm, look at this! I’ll have to give you credit for at least a little good taste.” She stroked the sterling silver mermaid who formed the cane’s handle. “Your great-grandfather, Paul Revere, was such an excellent silversmith.”
I held onto the desktop and stared at her. I could walk without my cane, but not fast enough to escape. Surely my security guards would come looking for me at any second. Surely the ducks would rescue me. Humor her. Stall for time. “I’m not related to Paul Revere,” I said as if having a normal conversation. “My great-grandmother was an actress. She was raised in Boston. She took Revere as her stage name. That cane belonged to her. It’s an heirloom. Please, give it back.”
“No. If I do, you’ll only try to escape.” She pointed my own cane at me. “I know more about this cane and your great-grandmother than you do. She wasn’t just an ‘actress,’ she was a writer, a Revolutionary activist, and Paul Revere’s mistress. They had a son together. She taught Paul everything he knew about silversmithing. She was the one who inspired him to make that little midnight ride. ‘Oh, my, the British are coming. One if by land, two if by sea.’ Yada yada yada. And she wrote the poem about it, too. But to be discreet, she let Longfellow claim the credit. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was a Mer, by the way.”
I slid one hand closer to a plastic letter opener on the desk. “Oh? One of the greatest poets of American literature was a merman? And my great-grandmother — not my great, great or great, great, great — my great-grandmother was a grown woman in the late 1700s? And she had a son with Paul Revere? And I’m descended from him? Why, you’d think there’d be a historical plaque somewhere. Or a record in Ripley’s Believe It or Not.”
“Very funny.” The stranger sighed, clamped my cane under one arm like a British general, then studied me with obvious resignation. “All right. I know you have to rush back to your little booksigning and your duck fan club, and my personal magic can only hold a lobby full of slack-jawed Landers at bay for so long, so I’ll make this quick. Listen up. Whether you believe me or not, your great-grandmother was a mermaid of the Singer class. She died in 1905 at the age of one hundred and seventy. Her son — your grandfather Nicholas Revere — was a halfling, because his father was Paul Revere — a Lander — but Nicholas inherited so many of his mother’s traits that he qualified for the Singer category, nonetheless.
“Nicholas married a halfling who was a Floater, producing a son — your father — who was a Singer but who didn’t have webbed feet. These classifications aren’t rigid, you see. Genetic anomalies, throwbacks, et cetera. It’s a very fluid system. Anyway, your father married a Floater — your mother — and that’s that.” She sighed. “The end result is you — a significantly watered-down Person of Water — no webbed feet, no well-developed psychic or sonar abilities, et cetera. But that doesn’t mean you’re a Lander. You absolutely love the water and can hold your breath for at least twice as long as the average Lander — a talent you’ve never dared tell any of your Lander friends about, because you know they’d call you a liar and a freak. You also hide your talent for luring small creatures — a typical charismatic charm of our kind. But you can’t hide from the truth. And the truth is that you’re a mermaid, okay?” She paused. “Even if you are a geek.”
I stared at her for a few seconds. Careful, she’s crazy. Not to mention, long-winded. I edged around the desk’s far end, glancing at the plastic letter opener again. If she started to drool and leapt at me, I’d give her a nasty indention. “I’m a mermaid? That’s nice. That would explain why I write novels about mermaids. And why I like canned tuna and the Beach Boys. Yes. Of course.”
“Oh, please. Drop the pathetic attempt to patronize me. And don’t pee on yourself in fear. I’m not a psychopath.”
“Of course you’re not. Look, I have a lot of avid fans — children and adults — and I’m very, very grateful for them. I understand how easy it is to get caught up in a fantasy world — after all, I do it myself when I’m writing. So I’m not patronizing you, and I don’t think you’re dangerous—”
“Oh? Then why are you planning to stick me with a plastic letter opener?”
I froze. One hand rested on the desk, inches from the wickedly ridiculous weapon. “What letter opener?”
This brought a sigh from my attacker so profound it rattled an invoice on a bulletin board. “Okay, time to pull off the kid gloves.” She leaned toward me, her eyes becoming slits. “You’re dying. And your old cat is, too.”
I went very still. “That’s not . . . how dare’—”
“Dying. Shriveling. Drying up. You’ve got leukemia. Or something like it. You’ve been through two bouts since childhood. Lander physicians freak when they treat you. What amazing resilience. What amazing white cells. They can’t quite figure you out. It’s a wo
nder some government research goons haven’t spirited you away to a secret lab for testing. No doubt they’ve got lots of little vials of your blood in storage, all being eyeballed by specialists, trying to figure out what makes you different from the other plain-footed dying leukemia patients in Lander-land.”
I leaned toward her, trembling. “I have been in remission for ten years,” I whispered between gritted teeth. “And my medical records are private. How could you possibly know—”
“Oh, please. And your old cat — well, he’s just old. Old and decrepit and sad; your only true friend since your teenage years with a dotty old aunt who took you in after your parents died. Twenty, isn’t he, the cat? His kidneys are failing, his heart is weak, and you — you dote on him desperately, because you don’t have another living thing that loves you, or that you love.”
I stared at her. My hands were not violent of their own accord, not violent or sexy or emotional or reckless, just callused from pecking at computer keys ten hours a day; they were obedient assistants. All my fierce emotions I kept hidden deep inside me, and channeled them into my books, not my fists. So Hyacinth Meridian, the ten-year-old star of the Water Hyacinth books, cheerfully thumped sharks on the head. Often.
The redheaded creature from the black lagoon smiled at me. “Hah. Thump this shark-bitch. That’s what you’re thinking. You won’t do it. You don’t have the guts. To thump me. See? I know what you’re thinking. I can hear the furious little song. You could hear me thinking, too, if you’d only listen. You know you can do it. You know you hear the vibrato of our people inside your mind — voices you can’t quite make out, messages you can’t decipher.” She frowned. “If you weren’t such as a watered-down specimen of a Floater, you’d have figured it all out by now.”
“Why do you keep calling me that?”
“Floater. One degree higher than a Lander. One degree lower than a Singer. Like I said, your father, grandfather, and great-grandmother were Singers. I met your grandfather as a child. Nineteen fifty-three, I think. At a gala in Seoul. He was quite a hunk. Died blowing up Russian submarines for the CIA. What a waste. Only Landers go to war to control land. Why do those pathetic excuses for human beings care about land that much? At any rate, your grandfather died trying to help them.”
“Let’s see. You were a child in nineteen fifty-three. So you’re . . . over fifty years old, now. Hmmm uh. You just happen to look twenty years younger than that. I didn’t know a person could get full-body Botox injections.”
“Yes, I’m over fifty and guess what? In Mer terms I’m just hitting my prime and you’re just a kid, just what — thirty-five? Barely old enough to flirt. Look, Lolita, just because you don’t believe what I’m telling you, just because the rules of reality have veered off on a tangent in your boring little assumptions in your boring little Lander world doesn’t mean I’m lying. You know, deep down, that you’re not a Lander. That you’re different. You’ve always been different.”
“My leg was injured in the car accident that killed my parents. I’ve got leukemia. I’ve always been frail. I’ve devoted myself to literature and to writing. Of course I’m different.”
“Well, la de dah, you’re the Bronte sisters and Emily Dickenson all rolled into one. A delicate flower of martyred bookworm-hood.”
What insults! Suddenly I remembered: I was M.M. Revere, the world’s bestselling children’s novelist next to J.K. Rowling. I was filthy, stinking rich. This loony dimwit couldn’t talk to me this way. I was M.M. Revere. Ducks adored me.
“I am leaving this room—”
“Oh, stop saying that. It bores me. Okay, I grant you: You don’t have the feet of a Water Person, but believe me, you’ve got the intuitions. Despite your tepid personality, with coaching you could develop some respectable abilities. Floaters aren’t hopeless, I always say. Just somewhat . . . retarded.”
“Your delusions are matched only by your lack of kindness and good manners.”
“Delusions? Try this on for size, you dusty little plain-toed ingrate.” She shut her eyes. “Lilith? Oh, Lilith? I need some help here. I told you I don’t make a good diplomat.”
The most amazing sensation filled my head. A beautiful voice sang to me, a voice like the finest alto in the finest choir, yet without melody. It was both sensual and maternal, orgasmic but spiritual.
You know where you belong, you know what you need, to live. Now come along, come along, Molly. Find out who you really are. Don’t be afraid. Dive in. Visit us in Georgia.
The voice, the vibration, faded away. I stood there, stunned, hypnotized.
Juna Lee Poinfax sighed dramatically. “I should have known Lilith would sing you into submission with one little pulse from her psychic cell tower. You are so easy.”
“What just happened to me?”
“Destiny, my little gimpy geek, destiny. That’s what Lilith calls it, anyway. You know you’ll come. You’ll come with me to the coast. If you don’t, you will get sick again, and eventually you’ll die. You need to be around your own kind — Water People. You need to find someone to love and be loved by before that decrepit Meow of yours goes to Kitty-Puss Heaven.”
Decrepit Meow? I snapped back to reality. I loathed Juna Lee Poinfax. “If this Lilith wants me to come to the coast and meet my . . . my alleged kind, tell her to write, call, e-mail, or visit me herself with the invitation. I’m certainly not trusting one word you say. You . . . you knot-headed Barbie. May I go now?”
Juna Lee Poinfax gave her last sigh, then handed me my cane. “You’ll regret it. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon, and every day for the rest of your life.”
“At least issue original threats. Don’t spout Humphrey Bogart’s lines from Casablanca.”
“Bogie was a Floater on his mother’s side.”
Trembling, I marched out of the shop. The ducks were waiting. The crowd applauded. “Oh, there you are,” my publishing rep said, as if I’d wandered off and everyone just noticed. “Ready to sign a few hundred books for your devoted fans?”
I was too shaken to do more than nod. How could I announce that my life had just taken a turn into The Twilight Zone?
* * * *
I kidnapped M.M. Revere the next day. Kidnapped her. Me, Juna Lee “Al Capone” Poinfax. So what? Once you’ve dissed Donald Trump and been banished from polite society, why not go all the way into a life of crime? Landers put up with celebrities who diddle children, with superstar jocks who ought to be neutered, and with politicians who steal the proverbial cookie jar and sell the cookies to China. Compared to that, I’m the Mother Theresa of Fin City. So cut me some slack, okay?
Here’s how I did it.
Her literary highness, Molly “Mallard” Revere, was a geek and a gimp, but she was also a Mer, whether she’d admit it or not. Which meant high altitudes made her want to hurl, so she didn’t take airplanes. Plus she carted her old kitty around with her when she went on book tours, and she’d decided the old puss needed the comforts of home. So she traveled in a gigantic customized bus, like some kind of gospel choir or country-western singer. Her personal bodyguard and driver was a fat middle-aged Boston-raised Irishman named Scotty. I guess he liked irony. Coaxing him away from the Peabody’s parking garage was like shooting Leprechauns in a barrel.
“Scotty, cute, handsome Scotty,” I purred, wrapping an arm around him as he stepped from the bus’s door. “Molly won’t be down from her room for at least twenty minutes. You deserve to treat yourself to a short pint and a smoke at the lobby bar before you steer this lummox back up the eastern seaboard.”
“Why thanks, lass, I believe you’re right. Uh, who are you? Have we met?”
“Only in your dreams.”
He laughed. Then he went inside the hotel, just like that.
Damn, I’m good, I thought. I’m the Obi-Wan Kenobi of mermaids. May the farce be with me.
I climbed inside the bus and prowled around. Molly’s framed bookcovers, a large poster from the first Water Hyacinth movie, and dozens of writin
g awards decorated the walls. There was lots of sage green upholstery and creamy cabinetry. The bus’s broad windows were all tinted a dark blue, for privacy. Shelves overflowed with books and seashells. The feeling was submerged and cozy. It was like a lagoon on wheels. Despite myself, I approved.
Thump thump thump. My victim climbed the steps, banging her cane against the narrow well of the entrance as she wrestled a large wicker cat carrier. She was dressed in a floppy sheath dress the tie-dyed color of a bad Easter egg. Her shoulder-length brown hair was stuffed up under a straw hat. She looked like a Holly Hobby. Suddenly she spotted me. And froze.
“How in the world did you get inside my—”
“Nab her,” I ordered.
Charley the Tuna leapt onto the bus and grabbed her from behind. My cousin Charley had been hiding on the bus’s far side — no small feat for a six-foot-seven, 350-pound merman dressed in jeans and a WWF T-shirt. Charley looked like a Caucasian Buddha. He was hairless from his bald head all the way down to his webbed feet. Most Landers knew him by his pro wrestling nom de smackdown: The Great White Shark. But I called him Charley the Tuna. You could say he wasn’t a typical merman. Bulky and trusting. Not smart enough to avoid my schemes, I mean.
“Sorry, Ms. Revere,” he grunted, then hoisted her and the cat carrier off the floor and elbowed the door lever as he did. The bus’s doors accordioned shut before Molly recovered from shock and shrieked. Not a soul heard her except us. Victory.
“What have you done with Scotty?!” she yelled, dangling from Charley’s beefy, hairless arms. Inside the wicker cat carrier, a scruffy old tabby hunched down on a sheepskin cushion and hissed at me.