Midnight Pearls

  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 sc
anned 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.

  Faye was the first to break the silence. “What could have turned Adriana into a human.?”

  Kale grimaced.’I have my suspicions.”

  She nodded slowly. “It would have to be, wouldn’t it? There’s no other way this could have happened.”

  “None that I know of.”

  “So, can she be changed back?”

  “I wish I knew,” he told her, his heart heavy with doubt. Just as big a problem as changing her back would be telling her what she really was. Having watched her swim, he was convinced she could have no memory of who she really was. Then, provided he could convince her of the truth and find a way to change her back, would she even want to return?

  “Who do you think he was?”

  Startled, he looked at Faye. “What?”

  “The man, who do you think he was?”

  Kale shook his head.“I have no idea.”

  She sighed heavily.“He was so beautiful.”

  Kale threw her a sharp glance. The tone in her voice made him nervous. “Best to forget about him, Faye. Merkin and humans are not meant to interact. What happened today was an accident, and we must try and forget it even happened”

  He recognized the fire that flashed in her eyes. He had seen it there before and it had always meant trouble. He was going to have to keep an eye on his little sister.

  Kale was worried. Faye had disappeared after dinner, and now with the morning it was apparent that she had never returned home. He never should have let her out of his sight, not with what she had said about the human and the look of defiance she had given him.

  There is but one person who could have changed Adriana into a human, he thought. Faye knew that as well, and he feared that she might have done something foolish in her desire to see the human male again. There was only one way to find out.

  He had to visit the Sea Witch.

  The Sea Witch lived outside the borders of the world of merkin, and though all knew how to reach her caves, all merkin were forbidden to have any contact with her. Violation of that law could result in banishment for the merkin foolish enough to speak with her. Years before she had ruled over the kingdom of the dryads and had waged war against the merkin. Dryads were distant cousins to merkin; indeed, the two were often mistaken for one another by humans. Instead of tales, though, the dryads had bodies that more closely resembled sea serpents, long and slender. The Witch had risen to power among the dryads and eventually claimed that throne, killing many of her own kind in the process. During the great war that ensued, Kale and Adriana’s ancestors had been instrumental in defeating the Witch and sending her into exile.

  The Witch couldn’t be killed—at least, that was the legend. The best their forefathers had been able to do was help her own people depose her. She lived in exile from her kind. No one knew how strong her magic was or from where it came.

  Since he had seen Adriana as a human there had been little doubt in his mind as to how she had gotten that way. The Sea Witch, an ancient, evil crone, was the only one capable of performing that kind of magic.

  He shuddered as he thought about all the stories he had heard as a young merchild. Some said that the reason no one had been able to kill the Witch was because she was immortal and that she was actually thousands of years old and had been partly responsible for the destruction of ancient islands and civilizations. A cousin of one of his friends had wandered too near the Sea Witch’s caves, and she had cursed him so that he died excruciatingly, his scales peeling off slowly and his internal organs shifting about on their own. They said, in the end, that he had coughed up his own heart.

  Mother and Father will kill me if they hear I’ve come here, risking my life, breaking the law, disgracing my family … if the Witch doesn’t kill me first….

  As he neared the sea caves he felt a change in the water; there was a chill that wasn’t present elsewhere. All he could think about was the boy choking on his own heart. He pressed on, though everything in him was screaming to turn back.

  At the entrance to the largest cave he stopped. “Hello?” he called.

  “Come in,” a silky voice whispered.

  He floated in slowly, eyes adjusting to a dark that was greater than any he had ever known. The blackness was caused by more than the depth of the sea or a lack of light; it was a darkness that seemed to emanate from the very walls of the cave. At last he came i
nto a sort of room and saw her.

  The Witch was hideous in appearance. Her upper body was like a mermaid’s, only twisted and disfigured. The rest of her body was that of a sea serpent. Coils lay draped over the bare stone and disappeared into the darkness, so that he had no idea of her true length. Hair like seaweed seemed to have a life of its own as it hung around her. The only thing of beauty was a string of pearls she wore around her neck. Each pearl was huge and dark in color, glowing with a luster all its own.

  The only light in the room came from a cage at one end, where a host of iridescent fish swam, trapped and helpless. He gulped, hoping that she wasn’t using the fish for anything other than a light source. I heard she eats her own kind, the thought popped into his head. Aside from them, the room was empty and barren. He looked back at her and realized the blackness he had earlier thought had been coming from the very walls of the cave were instead coming from her, like ink being sprayed by an octopus; her very skin seemed to give off some sort of black oil. Dark as her soul …

  “What do you seek of the Sea Witch?” she hissed, her forked tongue flicking out between her fangs.

  Faced with her, he knew that he had been foolish to think that she would give him answers, foolish to think that he could come here demanding things from her and even manage to escape with his life. Even if he did manage to ask her about Adriana and Fays, she would never tell him—there was no gain in it for her. No, I’ll just have to be clever. There must be some other way to find out if she changed them and how she did it.

  Suddenly he was speaking, and he was astonished at the words coming out of his mouth. “I wish to be human.”

  She cackled, and the sound sent chills up his spine. “And why would a prince of the merkin want that?”

  He gasped, “You know who I am.”

  She laughed, and the sound frightened him more than any he had ever heard. “Of course I know. I am, after all, me.” She paused just long enough to let that sink in and to let him wonder what else she might know.“You are Kale, and you are one of the royal princes of the merkin, descended from Glandria, are you not?”