I waited until both Zoe and Kyra had gone to our shared bedroom and the sea cows had left for the night. Sirenia was dead silent and the only motion inside were the eddies created by the recently secured windows.

  Our house had always been open, more with the suggestion of walls based on coral placement, but after recent danger that involved Kyra (of all the mermaids, nobody expected Kyra to get involved in something dangerous!), Mother had hired a team of construction manatee to create boundaries. Our lives didn’t change, but when the windows and doors were closed, the water flowed differently. These days it wasn’t unusual to fall asleep in one spot and wake up in another. At least in Mother’s room, I couldn’t float too far from where I started.

  There was another reason I chose to sleep in Mother’s room. It had a separate entrance.

  When I could wait no longer, I bound my long pink hair in a braid that hung past my shoulders, and I rubbed my skin down with eel muck, a favorite product of Zoe (it masked the coral glow of her tail that appeared when she was excited). I slipped out. It would have been nice to have an electric eel or two to light the way, but that would defeat the purpose of swimming alone in the dead of night. Merfolk were genetically dispositioned to see underwater and even though it was dark, I found my way to the barrier reef.

  The closer I swam to the reef, the more heightened my senses became. My aloneness was tangible, and with it came an awareness of my vulnerability, just like that night so many years before. I should have asked someone to come with me, but I doubted they would have said yes if I did.

  It wasn’t like I didn’t know I had a reputation for being stuffy. I did. Even though the other merfolk kept their whispers to behind my back, I knew what they said.

  I could give you a list of every moment where I choose to be aloof instead of free like the other merfolk in our village. It was easy to hide behind being the first born, being named as Mother’s attaché, and being groomed to take over the throne, but the reality was, all of that had been set into motion far earlier than it should have been. The night I was almost captured.

  It’s not a story I often tell. Truth? My sisters don’t even know. They were both too young to understand what had happened at the time. Since then, stories of the great shrimper/mermaid tragedy have been told and retold so often they play as cautionary tales, but what no one talks about, what no one knows, is that the event that singlehandedly changed the relationship between the humans and the merfolk didn’t happen the night nine out of ten parties involved met with their death.

  And it didn’t happen the day before, when the shrimpers first spotted the mermaids.

  It happened the day before the day before. The day when I got tangled up in the shrimpers’ net.

  I’d been swimming by myself, playing out past the edges of Sirenia, practicing mermaid maneuvers, when a net dropped down into the water. It could have been argued to be either late afternoon or early evening, and either party would have been right. The sun hung over the edge of the ocean, a half circle above and below the water line. It was why I hadn’t seen the shrimper boat veer off its chartered course and into Sirenia waters, hadn’t seen the men on board coordinate the casting of their net, hadn’t felt the danger until too late.

  I’d been an easy target.

  The more I struggled, the worse things got. This was before I learned extraction maneuvers at Sea U, before I was named under protection of Poseidon, before people viewed me as part of the leadership regime. It was before I understood there were people who wanted to capture us.

  My memories of that night were fleeting. I was injured. I blacked out. Someone, or something, cut through the ropes that bound me and I floated to the ocean floor where I might have died.

  Clearly, I did not.

  Barely conscious, I got myself into the caves where I lost consciousness. When I woke, I was terrified. I stayed in the caves for two days filled with shame for having ventured away from Sirenia, for ignoring the warnings. I was terrified to tell mother where I’d been and I considered swimming out into the unknown, facing the deepest depths of the ocean, and never returning to my community.

  What I didn’t know, what I couldn’t have known, was in the time I remained hidden, five mermaids had been dispatched to find me. They’d been caught by the very shrimpers who’d left me for dead.

  That was the incident that led to the new rules of the ocean, where mermen were tasked with protecting the waters after hours and mermaids were held to curfew. It wasn’t born out of a human sense of chivalry or men being more qualified than maids, but because, in all the centuries that mermaids had existed, no one had ever tried to catch a merman. Sailors had heard rumors about mermaids. They knew we existed through legends, and like most legends, the descriptions, value, and use of us had gotten enhanced over time. Capturing a mermaid held a novelty that I hadn’t understood until it was too late.

  Four mermaids and five sailors were killed by sharks the night that I remained huddled in a cave, consumed by shame. Had I swum home and told Mother what had happened, Sirenia would be different. The mermaids would still be alive.

  And that one mermaid who had survived, Mad Midge, might have had a whole other life.

  Questions remained about my missing memories. How had I gotten into the cave? Why had I been spared? How had the sharks known to find the mermaids and shrimpers where we were?

  The biggest question that remained unanswered was this: could I remain quiet about the truth my whole life in order to protect everyone?

  I’d long since accepted the fact that there were no confidants for me. No one to listen to my spotty recollections of that night, no one to unburden myself to, because speaking of that night was admitting my role in the tragedy. That was the night I grew up.

  The next day, Mother brought me with her to the underwater council. She introduced me to Poseidon’s cabinet and I waited alone in a locked room while she met with him to discuss my fate. When she returned, it was to tell me that I would be accompanying her to council meetings regularly.

  That was the beginning of my training to succeed her throne.

  I was far too young to understand what was happening, but I knew one thing: I now had a secret.

  I tired of the questions and the teasing and the accusation from other mermaids that I thought I was better than them. Eventually I settled into being what they expected of me. It was easier that way.

  Bossy? Yes. Not because I wanted to control the outcome of who did what, but because I knew what could happen if the others didn’t follow the rules. It was why I hated that Zoe had been approved to work with the human dive team and Kyra had found trouble while going to her music lessons. It was why I rarely flirted with the mermen who hung around Sirenia. It was why I sometimes got frustrated with my sisters and resentful of Mother.

  But I did it anyway, because of the guilt. I couldn’t shake the feeling that if I’d been more self-aware that night, everything would be different.

  Few spots in the ocean inspire a sense of overwhelm. When you’re raised in a place with no walls, no boundaries, and no borders, you learn that everything is meant for you. The freedom associated with mermaids comes from that inherent belief that the ocean belongs to us, that we can go anywhere without restriction. Charters have been drawn up between humans and merfolk to keep the peace, and agreements have been reached between whales and dolphins who occasionally frolic in our territory too. The one group that has resisted any kind of written law are the sharks.

  That’s not to say Poseidon hasn’t tried.

  But sharks know their power. They know the fear they instill. A shark sighting for humans is scary enough to clear the waters immediately. But for those of us who live underwater with a sense of freedom and trust and innocence, an unexpected shark sighting means certain danger.

  Which is why, when my eyes adjusted to the waters in front of the barrier reef and I saw the outlines of three sharks tearing apart their dinner, I forgot everything I’d planned for the night.

  In broad daylight, with a clear knowledge of where it was I wanted to go, I could outswim a shark. But three? In open waters? That I wasn’t familiar with? Tonight? When I was already gripped by fear and anxiety and memories of the worst night of my life?

  A hand grabbed my arm and I spun. Ophelia faced me. She held her finger in front of her face and gestured for me to follow her.

  It was as fine a time as any to learn to accept some help.

  Chapter Five

  I followed Ophelia toward the reef and into a cave-like opening. The closer I got to the opening, the higher my anxiety rose. It was as if the memories, long buried, came flooding back to the surface and the fear had never left. Ophelia turned and looked behind us, and then slowed. “You’re safe now,” she said. “The sharks are preoccupied. They didn’t notice you.”

  “But they will,” I said. “They have the most refined sense of smell in the ocean. It’s just a matter of time before they come after us, and I hardly think two mermaids against three sharks are good odds.”

  “One against three,” she said. “I have no intention of engaging in a losing battle.”

  I crossed my arms and gently waved the fin on the bottom of my tail back and forth to keep me upright and afloat. “Why did you pull me in here? Why not just let me out there with the sharks? If you want me out of the picture, that’s an easy way to make it happen.”

  “You shouldn’t be here. You’re supposed to be at Sirenia acting as boss in your mother’s absence—” she cut herself off for a moment, and then spoke. “You overheard me and Laker talking, didn’t you? I monitored where your sisters were but not you. I just assumed you were hobnobbing with someone now that you’re in charge.”

  “Ophelia, I’m not in charge. Mother is in charge. Until I hear official word that she—” I couldn’t finish that sentence— “that she isn’t returning, then she is in charge and I’m her mermaid-in-waiting.”

  “Then why are you out here? The waters are dangerous. You know that.” She pointed over her shoulder toward the shark. “It isn’t safe for you or for me.”

  I looked past her to the cave opening and considered what she’d said to Laker earlier. It pointed to one thing. “You’re right. It isn’t safe for me or for you. So why are you here?”

  “You’re lucky I am.”

  “Maybe yes, maybe no. You’re planning something, aren’t you?”

  She didn’t answer.

  “Ophelia, I want in. Whatever it is you have going on the side, I want to be a part of it.”

  Her eyes narrowed and she cocked her head to the side. “You expect me to believe that?”

  “Why shouldn’t you? I’ve spent my life in this very position. You don’t know what it’s like where I am. I’m close to the throne, yes, but at what price? I never had the chance to make friends, but I can make things happen. I can be of more use to you if you let me help you than if you shut me out.”

  Ophelia considered my words. Unlike me, she’d left her hair untethered and it cascaded around her head like a cloud, dull yellow strands that made her head look disproportionately oversized to her body. In the darkness, the only features of hers that I could make out were dark holes where her eyes were surrounded by a thick fringe of black lashes.

  The lashes weren’t real, I remembered. Kyra once told me she’d seen Ophelia getting lash extensions at the Ebb Tide Emporium. Dark circles were visible below her eyes, possibly enhanced by the darkness of either our surroundings or several consecutive late night hours.

  “What is it you think I’m planning?” she asked.

  Back at Sea U, I’d had to accept that Ophelia knew how to manipulate those around her to get what she wanted. It was the first lesson in politics I’d ever received, and I learned it by living it. But a lot of time had passed between then and now, and I counted on Ophelia not knowing I now understood the point of having an ally. “You’re right, I overheard you. I want to know what you and Laker are planning.”

  Ophelia looked over her shoulder and then back at me. “Wait here,” she said.

  “No. I go where you go.”

  “No deal,” she said. “It’s dangerous out there. You’re not exactly unrecognizable, you know? And if someone is out to destroy Sirenia, then you’re next. I’d be a fool to hitch my wagon to yours until I know what’s what. Go deep into the caves. Wait until I come back. I’ll explain everything.”

  She had a point, though I didn’t like trusting her. I nodded and turned away, swimming deeper inside the cave. It was as I remembered it from that night in my youth. Teeth, broken off and laying on the floor, were scattered by bones. I recognized them too. Bleached white and smooth from having been dragged across the sandy ocean floor and massaged by the changing currents. At a glance they appeared to be bones that could have come from humans or merfolk.

  But these discarded bones could only have come from a mermaid. It was the distinct skeletal composition that was underneath the scales that made up our tails. Their presence here in the cave indicated the sharks had no compunctions about who—or what—they ate.

  The sharks had been responsible for the deaths of both sailors and mermaids the night of the tragedy. Ophelia had said she was sending me to safety, but she may have been sending me to my death.

  “Who are you?” said a deep voice behind me. I looked over my shoulder and saw a large, muscular shark had entered the cave. Behind him, the outline of two additional sharks hovered. I haven’t spent a ton of time around sharks, but to my untrained eye, they looked hungry.

  There wasn’t time to think about Ophelia’s motivations now. I kicked my tail several times and swam deep within the cavernous structure. With my arms and hands out in front of me, I felt the walls for an opening, something small enough to fit through that would keep the sharks from following me. The first opening I found was a fake out, a crevice between rocks that led nowhere. The second was a narrow squeeze, but I fit. I kept my arms in front of me and moved forward until my hips were wedged into the space. I couldn’t move. An impact shook the walls and the narrow opening widened. The impact had forced a fissure between the walls of the cave, and if I didn’t move quickly, the sharks would soon make their way in.

  A hand reached into the opening and encircled my wrist. I clamped my hand down on a wrist and snapped my tail. Soon I was out of the opening and deeper into the cave. From the current of electricity and the glowing trail of sparkly water that surrounded me, I knew the arm of the merman who freed me belonged to Triton.

  We reached a cavern and glided to a halt. I tried to let go of Triton’s hand, but he held tight. “You’re shirking your duty to Sirenia,” he said.

  “I can’t just sit by and pretend to rule from a chair that doesn’t belong to me. Mother needs my help.”

  “Your mother can take care of herself.”

  “And so can I.”

  For the first time since delivering the news of Mother’s abduction, Triton smiled. “Are you sure about that? Because a coating of eel muck is only going to go so far. And even if you aced defensive maneuvers at Sea U, which I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt and say you did, you didn’t stand a chance against those sharks.”

  “They already ate,” I said. The reality occurred to me while I was speaking. “When I arrived, they were eating. I was lucky. Someone—or something—wasn’t.”

  Triton relaxed against the wall. “How much do you know about the sharks?”

  I studied him. For the first time in my life, I felt an overpowering sense of wanting to share the secret that I contained. I took a breath to speak, and then fear made my throat constrict and no sound came out.

  Triton appeared to take that as indication that I had nothing to say. “That’s the way of the ocean,” he said. “We live a peaceful existence with one exception. The sharks. They live to terrorize. Over time, they’ve organized. They run the crime syndicate and profit from illegal gambling at the Clams Casino.”

  “Why won’t Poseidon banish them?”

  “That’s not the way of the world. They’re the yang to your yin. The evil to your good. The stronger the mermaid culture becomes, the more beauty and peace and creativity you inspire, the more darkness exists on the opposite end of the spectrum.”

  “That’s not fair,” I said. “You’re blaming the mermaids for creating a world where the sharks are a necessary evil to keep balance.”

  Triton rested on a rock and lifted my tail. He draped it over his knee joint, an intimate gesture that felt perfectly natural and organic. Our eyes connected and I felt warmth blossom from my heart and radiate into my arms and torso. He picked up my hand and held it against his chest. “I feel it too,” he said gently.

  “It’s not our time yet,” I said.

  “You don’t know that.”

  “It’s not.” I pulled my hand away from him and twisted my torso so my tail fell away from his lap. I couldn’t think about that now. I knew—he and I both knew—the signs that it was our time, and those signs aligned with the death of Mother or Poseidon. If either one of us contributed to those deaths in any way, we’d corrupt the synergy between us and would never fully realize our destiny.

  “How did you know I was here?” I asked.

  “I didn’t. I met with Poseidon earlier this evening and was on my way out. When I entered the cavern and didn’t feel water passing through the passageway, I knew someone was in there. I didn’t know it was you.”

  He slowly floated up from a sitting position and bent down to pick up his trident. It was a three-pronged weapon with sharp, pointed tips on each prong. It was known to be his weapon of choice, given to him by Poseidon when he redeemed himself from past bad behavior and accepted his place in the dominion.

  Triton held the trident out to me. “Take this,” he said. “I can’t come with you but I can’t leave you unarmed. The sharks will recognize it. They’ll know it came from Poseidon and they’ll leave you alone. They won’t make it easy on you, but they’ll let you pass.”

 

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