“We do look different. We are glamoured,” Kurt says indignantly. “It’s a light spell to tone down our natural colors. We are no longer achingly beautiful. Now we’re just exceptionally beautiful.”
English lit is just down the hall. I open the door for Thalia. This time Layla sits in the front row facing the window so that unless you’re craning your neck, you can’t really see her face. That smell of burnt sugar mixed with something else is back. Ms. Pippen sits at the edge of her teacher’s desk, facing the door and waiting for the latecomers. Today she’s wearing a skirt that ends tightly around her knees in a purple-and-green paisley pattern and a white button-down shirt that’s one button shy of being inappropriate. She has the kind of waist that looks like it disappears under the cinched belt. I bet if I put my hands around it, my fingers would touch.
Her face is delicate and pointy, with shiny brown hair that is always perfectly waved to the side. If she said she was twenty-five or thirty-five, I wouldn’t be surprised. She seems more like she should be teaching first grade in 1955 rather than a high-school English class in Brooklyn circa now.
“Old habits, Mr. Hart,” she says. Ms. Pippen walks over to her desk. I can smell the springy wood cleaner she sprays on it between classes. There are two piles on her desk: homework coming in, and homework going out. She uses a small Mason jar as a pencil holder and a red marble apple as a paperweight.
“Now, Mr. Hart, who are these lovely young people joining us today?”
“These are my cousins, Kurt and Thalia, visiting from Canada.”
Kurt says, in his awkward splendor, “But we also travel a lot, which is why we aren’t so pale.”
Everyone laughs a little. Look at us: it’s like we’ve been lying our whole lives.
As everyone giggles and fawns over Thalia and Kurt and how their favorite place to visit is Italy, I let myself look over at Layla, who stares out the window. The gray overcast sky is so bright that it floods everything on that side of the room, and she’s cast in this kind of angel light, her golden-brown hair loose around her shoulders. She leans her face against one hand and doodles in her notebook with the other one.
On a normal day, before the storm, we’d have written each other letters throughout the day. Nothing specific, just our ramblings. She showed me how to fold the letters into four-pointed stars. I have a whole drawer full of them. I can’t remember the last time we wrote each other one, and that’s when I realize I can pick out her scent mingling in the expectant burnt-sugary sweetness of everyone else. The smell of disappointment that’s coming from her—crushed flowers and dew and the fog before it rains. I lay my hands flat on my desk to give me something to do, because if I don’t, I’m going to get up and go to her. What is wrong with me?
“Now, because there are still a few days left to our time together, we will continue with our Greatest Poems by the Greatest Poets anthology. Mr. Morehouse, flip so you land on a page randomly. Please read the poem on the page.”
Wonder Ryan nods, sits up straight, and flips through the pages like a deck of cards. He lays the book out flat, open to a page somewhere in the beginning. He glances at Thalia before looking down at where his index finger is pointing, and his smile falters. It’s incredible: Wonder Ryan’s kryptonite is poetry. “Uh, it’s ‘Because I Could Not Stop for Death’ by Emily Dickinson.”
“Lovely,” Ms. Pippen says.
Wonder Ryan clears his throat and gives a well-I-guess-I-have-to kind of smile and reads:
Because I could not stop for Death—
Uh, He kindly stopped for me—
The carriage held but just Ourselves—
And, uh, Immortality?
We slowly drove—He knew no haste
And I had put away
My labor and my leisure too,
For his civility—
Someone in the back shouts, “Go, Wonder Bread!” and the short burst of jeering stops. For a moment, Ms. Pippen frowns. I wonder if she’s going to reprimand him for being such a shitty reader and the class for being jerks, but then I think it’s something else. She smells of lament, of the sea before the storm. Her eyes trace Ryan’s face and look away just as quickly. “Interesting, Mr. Morehouse,” is all she says.
I start to feel light-headed with all these smells mixing together. How the hell can Kurt stand this all the time?
Ms. Pippen stands right in front of Kurt. Her peach mouth is pursed curiously, and a tiny part of me is annoyed that she never looks at me like that. When Wonder Ryan has finished, she says, “I wonder if our visiting Canadian gentleman would do us the honor?”
“Yes,” Kurt says. He flips open to a page in the beginning and leans against the desk with his forearms. I try to picture him with his tutors, learning whatever merfolk learn—how to catch dinner, how to avoid human nets, how to fight a pirate? He’d have no one to pass notes to, no one to throw him a ball in between classes. But he reads like a pro, enunciating everything as though he’s up on stage and this is his own soliloquy.
“‘Ozymandias’ by Percy Bysshe Shelley.”
I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert…Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
‘My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!’
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
There’s a silence in the room that has a lot to do with everyone staring at him. The scent of burnt sugar is so strong that it makes my stomach turn. Whatever. He’s just reading. It’s not that impressive.
“That was wonderful,” Ms. Pippen says. She looks out the window, like she’s trying to remember. Or maybe there’s something she wishes to forget. Either way, she gives a small sigh and crosses the span of the room to the window. She cracks it open to let in the cool fog. “I believe it’s your turn, Mr. Hart.”
I look down at the book. I hate reading in front of people. I always stumble over the words. I’m great at making my own stuff up, but have me read Romeo’s lines aloud and I fumble.
Kurt hands me the anthology, and the pads of my fingers flip through the pages, hoping to land on something written at least in the twentieth century. Then the bell rings.
“You can start us off tomorrow,” Ms. Pippen says, stepping around her desk and sitting on the edge like an owl as she watches us leave her classroom.
I’m the first one out of the classroom and into the hall.
The lights flicker, poltergeist-style.
“That has nothing to do with you, does it?”
Kurt shakes his head. “Not unless I decided to play with electricity.”
“This smell thing isn’t getting much better.”
“That’s because we’re not meant to live among humans for too long, especially in such close quarters. It’s making me rather land-sick, to be honest.” He leans in to whisper. “Like I told you. It’s a predatory scent. It’s different when you sense something underwater.”
“Like a shark?”
“Oh! Like a typhon eel in the reefs,” Thalia answers. “Oh! Or those nasty little Buccas near the British Isles. Or those giant electric jellyfish that are hard to see. But you can steer clear of them if you can sniff them out.” She taps her little nose.
I hook him and Thalia w
ith my arms. “I know we’re in New York and all, but we’re trying to keep this incognito.” I change the subject. “Ms. Pippen was even weirder today than usual.”
“I think she might be a seer,” Kurt blurts out.
“A what?”
“A seer. She can see things that exist in other planes. There are all kinds of seers. Some can see the future, some only see the past, and some can only read your soul. In Ms. Pippen’s case, I think she’s a very rare kind that I’ve only heard about. She can see the future, but only when she’s entranced in the words of others. For instance, when she had us read those poems, she was probably seeing at the same time. Either that or she gets extremely bored listening to you all butcher the poetic form.”
“There’s no way. She’s, like, psychic? How—”
“Hey, guys! Wait up.” Ryan jogs ahead of us and slows down to a backward trot. “You guys sure do walk fast.”
I’ve got to give it to Ryan. As annoying as he is, he’s persistent as hell.
Kurt nods. I push the cafeteria double doors and am thankful for the smell of sloppy joes and curly fries mixing with whatever my sixth sense is picking up.
“He has a good heart,” Kurt says, nodding slightly toward where Ryan talks to Thalia. Ryan’s eyes are lit up so that they’re almost as blue as mine. He runs his hand through his hair with a kind of confidence I’ve only seen him give his science-fair projects and election videos for student council. I wonder if I should warn him he’ll never be president if he has to keep his wife in a fish tank.
“Is that a mer-thing she’s giving off?”
Kurt considers this for a moment. “No, I believe it is just his pure heart.”
I grab a tray and hand it to him while we wait in line. “Pure heart?”
“As in all of his intentions are pure, and that radiates off him. In other times he would have been the queen’s right-hand knight, a just leader, an honest politician.”
Figures. “But she’s definitely glamoured?”
Kurt nods once. “Our kind is naturally alluring to humans, since humans have weak minds. Her beauty, his pure heart—they’re like magnets.”
“Is that supposed to be like magic?”
“It’s not magic, per se. It’s a trace of it. Our father had true magic. Some have more. In the old days, we were more part of the sea than human. Our powers are rooted in the elements. My father could summon fires that melted sand into glass. He was one of the main architects who rebuilt Glass Castle after a battle with some nasty fey.”
“So what do you do for fire now?”
“Barter with witches. Trade with dragons, the Chinese, not the Hungarian ones, of course—” He presses against the Styrofoam tray so hard that it cracks on either side and we have to get another one. “Sometimes pirates, but they’re shifty.”
Pirates! The eight-year-old boy in me is jumping for joy. Okay, the thirteen-year-old. “You and Thalia don’t have any powers?”
“Thalia can speak to her sea horse, Atticus. Our father could do that too. Thalia and I can completely shift into fish form. We get it from our mother. It’s temporary but useful when you need to get into tight spaces. I believe because of that, we are most valuable to the king—”
“Like in the bathtub?” I stick out my tray, and Lunch Lady Lourdes ladles a mess of chili onto my plate. “Which I’ll never forgive you for, by the way.”
Kurt smiles at me and then at the extra curly fries Lourdes gives him, along with her fake-eyelashed wink. I grab two apple juices from the cooler and a water bottle. He grabs an orange juice and two water bottles. Lourdes winks at him and gives him an extra ticket for dessert.
“You know,” I tell him as we make our way to where Ryan and Thalia have found the rest of the swim team, “you’re going to be bad for my image.”
We walk into Jerry leaning too hard against Thalia. “I bet Italy was off the hook. Angelo went one time, and he came back with hickeys everywhere.”
“I’m pretty sure you’re confusing hickeys with bruises,” Ryan corrects.
They laugh and it makes me feel easy again. Bertie leans closer to Thalia and goes, “You like it here best, though, right? I mean, it’s Brooklyn, baby.”
Thalia licks the sloppy joe off her wide smile. It has the same effect on all the boys, a deep sigh I don’t think they’re even aware of. “It’s my favorite place,” she tells him.
“Really?” Kurt says. His mouth is full of fries and chili sauce, and his violet eyes glint mischievously in the cafeteria light. “I always enjoyed the Galapagos Isles.”
“What’s in the Galapagos?”
Her voice sends a jolt right down my center. Layla pulls up a chair beside me. The suddenness of her voice makes me jump, and I squeeze the packet of ketchup outward. A big red blob lands on a girl at the next table.
“Ugh!” she squeals. And before I can apologize, she runs off in the direction of the bathroom.
Bertie pulls over her tray of fries. He shrugs. “What? It’s not like she’ll have time to eat them now.”
I start mixing mayo into my mound of ketchup, until the swirls of red and white become a pale orange. I dip a fry and push the tray in the middle of the table so everyone can have some.
“So these are your cousins,” Layla says. There’s a tightness in her voice. It may be because she doesn’t believe me, or because she hasn’t been invited.
“Kurt, Thalia.” I clear my throat. “This is Layla.”
“Nice to meet you,” Thalia says. “Would you like some of Tristan’s special sauce?”
Layla shakes her head, ignoring the jeers from the guys. “No, thank you.”
“Is there something else you would like?” Kurt goes.
She studies his face. I wonder if she remembers him from the beach. “No, I’m fine.”
Bertie burps long and hard. “Ahh. Much better.”
“How come you’re flying solo, Layla?” Jerry takes a break from stuffing his face with curly fries and my special sauce. “Where’s your other half?”
“Yeah, well, I’ve been without a lot of my friends lately.” She isn’t wearing any makeup, but her eyes look naturally bright and sparkly. She looks past me to where Kurt is sitting, eating curly fries and drinking water like he might just die of thirst. It’s her way of avoiding my face. “So how long have you guys been here?”
Kurt instantly sits up straight and smooths out the front of his shirt. He tucks a loose strand of hair behind his ear. “A few days. We’re visiting.”
“Right. Canada. Ireland. Italy. I remember.”
“Oh, you’re so quiet in classes that I wasn’t sure you were listening.”
She looks up at the great clock against the wall. “Does this mean you’re tagging along to art next period?”
Kurt looks to me and I nod at him. “Yep, art is next with Mrs. Elise. It’s basically a free period.”
Part of my ignore-Layla-for-her-own-well-being plan isn’t going to work as long as we’re in school together. We have the same friends, the same classes. I’m not going to outright diss her in public, but I can’t let her in like I’ve always done. I can’t say, “So guess what? I’m a merman. And I’m not just a regular merman. I’m a merman who can shift into human form, and my grandfather, whom I’ve never met, is the King of the Seas.” And even though I can feel the words on the tip of my tongue now that she’s sitting here, something in me falters. I know I shouldn’t. But she’s my best friend.
“So what did you do yesterday?” I ask her. But between Thalia talking about which beach has the most naked people, Kurt explaining why surfing is underrated, Bertie showing off his supreme burping skills, and the general cacophony of phones ringing and iPods blasting, she doesn’t seem to hear me.
This time I’m not in the middle of the sea waiting for the glint of silver t
hat’s going to attack me in the dark.
This time I’m not the one who’s drowning.
I stand on a shore of white rock I don’t have a name for. It isn’t shiny like marble, but it still glistens, like sand that’s been compacted together with tons of tiny crystal bits. There’s a giant lake in the center, the edges blurry as dreams go. Just me on the white ground watching the water.
This time the same white arms aren’t reaching for the surface as on the day of the storm. This time it’s Layla. Her head breaks the surface, gasping for air before something pulls her back down. I feel everything at once—the sun on my back, fear in my veins, the pit of my stomach falling, because the ground feels like quicksand and I can’t move. She opens her mouth to scream, but she gets sucked beneath the surface.
I take a moment and breathe in deeply, closing my eyes against the dark gray sky. I don’t know what I was expecting. Maybe for the school to look different, because now I’m different. Like all of a sudden everyone else is going to change just to match me, a big, freaking under-the-sea world right in front of me. And I wonder how many other people are changing just like me, well minus the fins part, but keeping it to themselves.
My body aches from lack of sleep. There was no way I could fall asleep again after that dream about Layla. Drowning. And I didn’t do anything to stop it.
Maybe it’s because there are only a handful of days till the end of school. Maybe it’s the weather. Whatever it is, the groups of students waiting for the first bell to ring are pretty thin. A group of girls walks past me. I don’t know what they’re doing with those bikini straps playing peekaboo from under their T-shirts, but I don’t really mind. They walk a little slower past me and Kurt and smile their lip-glossed smiles. They smell like whatever perfume they doused themselves with this morning, and underneath that somewhere they smell like the freshness that comes with having zero to worry about.
“Is there a cut day that no one told me about?” Ryan climbs the steps in twos to get to us.