“It’s okay. You’d better go. They’re waiting for you.”
He pulled back. His eyes searched my face. Just do it, I kept thinking. Just go for it. I wanted to yank him toward me. I wanted a real goodbye. But he released me and turned to go, his eyes lingering on me for a moment. Then the Scotsman walked up the path to where the Irishman, the German, and the South African waited.
Samantha would be furious at me when she found out. Not as furious as I was with myself though. I closed the door with regret and went to go to my room. I hadn’t taken more than two steps when the door flew open. I whirled around.
“Calder, what—”
In two long strides, he was there, holding my face in both hands, his lips on mine. I drew my arms around him and kissed him back, breathed him in, and held him as his arms wound around my waist. My heart soared, finally free of fear. I don’t know how long we stood there. Not long enough. When our lips parted, we remained in our firm embrace, our foreheads pressed together, his breathing quick and earnest.
Then, sooner than I wanted, his hold on me loosened. His hand touched my cheek. He kissed my brow. Don’t go. Please don’t go.
“I’ll call as soon as I can,” he whispered. I nodded. He let me go. His desire to stay shone deep in his eyes. But all too soon he was out the door again and didn’t come back. My once flying heart fell back to earth.
After my return to Aunt Shannon’s house, I had to find a new normal. Every morning, I woke up early and thought of Calder. Then I would head down to the beach to wait for Samantha to come. But she didn’t. I had no idea how long it would take for her to change into a mermaid, then change back into human form for the visit Seidon had promised.
Still, every day I went. And waited.
I volunteered at the San Diego Aquarium most days, soaking in all the knowledge I could. The aquarium brought in several animals from the Oceana Marine Adventure Park, which closed down not long after Linnaeus’s death.
Brock Mallory still hung around the beach every once in a while. But I only ever saw him from a distance. If he noticed me, he chose to ignore it. Daddy dearest must have told him that mermaids were nothing but trouble—or, if he was smart, that they weren’t real after all.
I got an email from Eamon a few weeks after they left, telling me all was well, and Uther had ensured that Detective Mallory wouldn’t come within a mile of where I was.
The week before Aunt Shannon was due home, I left the house early. The sun had only been up for about half an hour, but I had plenty of light to see from. The sky was gray, the ocean misty. The waves washed over the craggy rocks of the tide pools with docile persistence. The pools themselves teemed with life—crustaceans and minnows, snails, spiny barbed urchins, and a tiny, dappled octopus no bigger than the palm of my hand. The sea gulls screeched overhead.
It was early enough in the morning that no tourists could cumber me. I relished the time alone to identify and catalog each specimen I saw. I leaned back from the pool and rolled my shoulders to loosen my tightening muscles. I picked up my new cell phone and leaned over again to get a picture of a sea star I had spotted.
The wind picked up, throwing my hair into my face. I brushed it aside.
Something clattered on the rock behind me. I turned with a gasp. No one was there. But as I looked, I saw something sitting on the rock: a cell phone.
My new phone almost got a seawater bath like the first. I tucked it into my bag with my books and stepped over the rocks. My heart hammered as I stooped down and picked up the cell phone. It was definitely my old one; the dolphin sticker on the back had worn off, but there could be no mistaking it. I searched the area, straining to see how it ended up on the rock, but the sea and rock were empty. I shook my head.
“Olivia…”
I gasped and dropped the phone again. It landed on the rock. Like the voice I heard out of the vessel many weeks ago, it felt more like it was in my head than in my ears. I looked everywhere—in the ocean, on the rocks, up on the cliffs—but again, saw no one. It must have been my overactive imagination yet again. I kept hearing voices every time I got near the ocean, hoping Seidon kept his promise.
“Olivia.”
“Who’s there?” I said. On the other side of an outcropping of rock, near the clinging shadows of the rocky bluff, something came out of the water. Or, someone—a slender, brunette-haired someone. My hands flew to my mouth.
“Samantha!” I said in a strangled whisper through my fingers and scurried around toward her.
“Hi, Liv!” Her wet arms embraced me.
“I missed you so much,” I said, unable to stop my tears from coming. “Do you have any idea what it’s like to think your best friend is dead?!”
“I’ve missed you too.” She held me at arm’s length. “You got my letter, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, I did. Thank you for that.” I swallowed, trying to control my crying. “How are you?”
She smiled, then propped herself to a sitting position on the rock. I gaped in astonishment at her new body. Her long, sinuous tail ended in a graceful, slender fin. Her silvery-blue scales grew smoothly from the skin around her hips. Her sark twisted around her torso, covering the parts needing covering with scaly, leathery material similar to Cordelia’s.
“Pretty cool, huh?” she said, running her hand over her tail.
“Did you have
