"Courts?" I find myself saying. "In the stories it"s always just one mermaid."
"The Sea King took away our legs to keep us from straying. But that doesn"t stop some from showing themselves to humans. The easiest thing in the world is to fall in love with one of us. Shakespeare and Donne were particularly obsessed, as were all the poets who"d caught a glimpse. Or thought they did. Besides, it"s usually the mermaids who get caught on land."
"Because mermen don"t like getting dry?"
Kurt takes on a face that Ryan made when he tried to explain to Angelo the difference between a microcosm and a macrocosm. "Mermaids are more likely to seek a human"s affections than mermen. I suppose we lack the same amount of curiosity when it comes to human lovers. So there are fewer merman sightings recorded. Because of that, there"s the misconception that mermen are unattractive. As you can see in the case of you and me, that is not so."
I mean, not to sound like an a.s.s, but I was thinking the same thing.
My father snickers, and my mother purses her lips.
"But enough about us man-hungry mermaids," my mother says. "Are you quite sure you know how to do that, Kurt?"
He holds up the vial to the light and shrugs. "I"ve read all the texts, and I"ve seen it executed on a few lucky merfolk who"ve pleased the king enough and were granted land legs. And the less lucky, who"ve been banished to land for having displeased him as well."
Read. Seen. There is no I"ve done anywhere in there.
"What exactly are you going to do? What do you mean you"ve only seeing it done?" It"s all making me so warm that I let the cold water run, adding another inch to the pool on the floor.
"Many pardons, Lord Sea-"
"Whoa." I hold up my hand. "Don"t you ever call me that again."
But he continues over me. "-I forget you"re half human and have a shorter attention span. It is incredibly rare that a human and our kind can actually conceive a fully human child that is also fully mer-kin. There have been creatures with the heads of fish and the bodies of humans. Sometimes they come out incredibly deformed and, usually, don"t live past a few months.
"But I digress. This"-he holds the vial close to my face so that I can see that the ink is swirling on its own like a tiny black hole collapsing-"is an ink that allows us to shift whenever we want. It is the blood of the abyss, primordial and, of course, painfully difficult to extract. The king has one of the last known cephalopods that carry it. Once that"s gone, we won"t be able to go on land anymore. Not that it would be such a bad thing. Can"t really miss what you never had, can you?"
"Cephalopod?" All those years of wandering through the Coney Island Aquarium, and I can"t even remember that.
"Squid," Dad answers. His voice pulls me out of Kurt"s explanation and grounds me. I"m glad he"s here. Thalia is holding the rainbow fish in a jar. They both press their noses on the gla.s.s, like a double aquarium.
"Do I have to drink it?"
Kurt turns his back to me, and sure enough there"s a tattoo on the center of his back level with his shoulder blades. It"s a trident, the middle spear slightly longer than the outer two p.r.o.ngs. The stem of the trident ends in a sharp triangular point.
"Do you have one?" I ask my mother. The question leaves my mouth before I even know why it matters. It matters because she"s my mother, and I would"ve noticed.
She pulls her hair over her shoulders, like opening a curtain. No, I would not have noticed it. The mark where the ink used to be is the color of pearl, maybe two shades lighter than the rest of her skin. "My father extracted the ink himself. I can never change again."
My fingers hover over the trident, stopping short of touching it. "What does it mean?"
"It is the symbol of the Sea Court." I"m glad she"s not facing me, because now I can smell her sadness pouring over her, like pure sea.
"Okay, so a tattoo. I can deal with that. At least I don"t have to get my lip pierced or have a stick driven though my nose." Kurt stares at me with confused violet eyes. I emphasize, "Right?"
"Oh, yes," he says. "I mean, no. No piercings. Though the trend has become popular among the younger ones."
"Darn that MTV," Dad says.
"I have your permission, right?" I ask him.
"If not, I think we"re going to need a pretty big fish tank." Dad"s smile betrays the smell of worry he"s giving off like burnt rubber cement. "Or we could rent a room at the aquarium. Whatever is cheaper."
Kurt doesn"t try to understand the joke and shrugs off the comment. He kneels beside me, and my mind races. What if he does it wrong and I get stuck like this forever? Can I still have s.e.x with girls or only other mermaids? Where the h.e.l.l does my d.i.c.k go? What if Layla sees me this way?
I don"t have much longer to think, because as soon as Kurt uncorks the vial with a surprising champagne-bottle pop, he tells me, "This is going to sting."
And sure enough, it does.
The ink is a shiny, black blur spilling out of the slim gla.s.s, and it knows just where to find me.
It coils in the air slowly, like a spinning Milky Way. I focus on the things that make it sparkle and wonder why I have to be a creature that"s half glitter. Why can"t my mom be half powerful genie or like a werewolf, anything that doesn"t look like a ten-year-old girl bedazzled the bottom half of her Ken doll.
Kurt is whispering something in what I recognize as Latin, thanks to Mrs. Santos, who drags me and Layla to the Latin ma.s.s at the Greek church, even though Layla says she"s an atheist and I"m not Greek.
The coil freezes, then blurs out of sight. I know where it"s gone the instant I feel the burn in my skin. I let myself fall backward into the tub with a splash. I can feel my fins parting, and the burn is now everywhere. It"s like being ripped in half over a fire pit and then being left there until the fire simmers and there"s nothing left but ash.
The back of my head hits the bottom of the tub, and when I take a deep breath, I forget I don"t have gills anymore. The rose-soap water snakes down my throat. The strangest feeling is not having water go down the wrong pipe but the fact that my leg muscles feel like they"re reverberating right at the core. I push myself up and cough until my throat feels raw.
Mom holds a towel in front of me and I take it, drying my face first, then standing to wrap it around my waist. It hurts to stand, like the day after doing squats in Mr. Loughlin"s fitness cla.s.s.
"I"m sorry this is happening," Mom says. "It wasn"t supposed to."
I"m shivering. I"m shivering, I"m naked, I"m wet, and in a handful of days I"ve nearly drowned, hallucinated, and turned into a mythical creature. Yeah, none of this was supposed to happen.
"I"m going to clean up," Dad says. He runs out and comes back with a mop and every towel we own to carpet the tiles and soak up the water.
"Get dressed, honey," Mom says. She rubs my face with her hand, and part of me wants to rest my head on her shoulder like when I was little and didn"t want to start kindergarten without her. The other part of me, the part that"s angry like I"ve never thought I could be, flinches from her touch.
"Let"s get you kids some clothes," she tells Kurt and Thalia.
"I"m going to bed," I announce.
"But there"s so much we have to discuss," Kurt protests. We stand in the living room. I can hear Mom rummaging through her closet and Dad wringing out the towels into the tub and then laying them out on the floor again.
"Yeah, well, unless the information is going to change in the next ten hours, I think it can wait."
Kurt goes to speak, but Thalia says his name hard. "Kurtomathetis. Remember our place."
Yeah, as in they"re know-it-all mermaids and I"m just a human guy. Or I was.
Kurt"s face changes from a tight-lipped expression to just plain p.i.s.sed-off and then right back to full control in seconds. "Forgive me. This is a lot to gather."
"I"ll see you guys in the morning."
The land-locked mer-siblings watch me sulk to my room and close the door. My navy blue sheets have never felt softer against my abused skin. I feel for traces of scales on my body, but this time there aren"t any. Where my gills are shut against the air, I can feel raised keloids, like the scar on my mother"s back.
I bury my face against my pillow and let my body sink into everything that"s happening. I"d pinch myself if everything didn"t already hurt. The sounds of my house slow down: the squeak of the metal in the pull-out couch as it"s being unfolded, the rustle of Kurt and Thalia helping my parents making it up with sheets and blankets, and their low voices most likely discussing me, or maybe how much they wish they weren"t here.
Duty was what Kurt had said. He has a duty, and it"s me. What"s my duty? Before the storm, before the shift, my only duty was being the best swimmer and saving a life if it needed saving. Can I still do those things without being this-thing?
I look at the clock on my nightstand before shutting my eyes. It isn"t even midnight yet.
I dream of the whirlpool again, but all I see is the water. Clear bubbles. Stillness and the infinite black-blue ocean. This time I"m swimming with the Great White. Up close I can see he"s got his own armor with a gleaming metal ring around his head. The ring has two grips at either side. I tighten my hold on them as he pulls me through the water.
When I wake up, I feel like I"ve been asleep for days. My legs ache when I push myself off my bed. For a moment, sitting in the middle of my blue comforter and surrounded by swim trophies, posters of vintage cars, calendar girls holding surfboards, and pictures of the past seventeen years of my life, I forget about the wave, the whirlpool, the silver mermaid, Kurt and Thalia, my mom"s lack of worry at what"s happening. Everything but the tattoo.
I reach over my back and trace the raised skin. In the mirror, I see myself as I have always been-the same wavy brown mess of hair, freaky turquoise eyes, lifeguard tan. The mirror doesn"t show the other half-the gills and the scales, the giant blue fishtail. The magic hums in my veins, wanting to be released, craving water the way I also crave air, and I wonder if one of those needs is ever going to be greater than the other.
"Honey?" The knock on the door snaps my eyes away from my reflection. "Tristan, are you awake?"
Part of me, the part that wishes I were just a swim-team jock with nothing to worry about but girls and winning, wants to go back to sleep, to never change into a merman again. To know that I"ve just imagined this connection to the ocean. That I"m just a regular guy after all.
But I"ve never been that guy, not really. Kurt said that I"m rare, but being rare doesn"t make you special. I feel like one of the freak-show acts on the boardwalk. Step right up and see the merboy, merguy, merman. Where does his ding-dong go? n.o.body knows! How fast can he swim? Just step right up to the gla.s.s. Remember! He goes to school in your very neighborhood and doesn"t do much else. Actually, come to think of it, he"s not that interesting after all.
Yeah, I"m a crowd-pleaser.
The sky looks like a gray blanket that has been pulled tight at every corner. Not a spot of blue. It casts a bright white light in the kitchen. Angel light, Mom calls it.
When I show up, the laughter stops. There are biscuits and coffee and tea. The orange-juice jar has fresh pulp clinging to the sides. There is a mound of bacon and scrambled eggs, slices of cheddar, and a bowl of green grapes.
Thalia looks lovely in this light, tiny. Now that her hair is dry, it tumbles in soft black waves that look green when they"re under the light. She"s wearing one of my mom"s sundresses that"s two sizes too big. She"s made a necklace out of the multicolored paper clips in Dad"s office and a bracelet out of a fork. I wonder if she slept at all last night.
I take the empty seat next to Kurt, who bows his head slightly. That"s going to get old quickly. Kurt spears a piece of bacon and examines the shades of burnt meat before bringing the tip to his mouth. His face is all concentration at first, then pleased, and settles on satisfied.
"Breakfast of champions," Dad says. He reaches over and ruffles my hair. Any other day, I"d pull away and whine. But today I welcome the gesture for what it is-familiar.
"I called the school," Mom says, pulling a handful of grapes from their stems, "and told them you"d be out just one more day."
"I feel fine." There"s an argument I never thought I"d make.
She doesn"t acknowledge it. "I also told them that we have family visiting and that they are curious about American schools. Since there are only two weeks left to the year, they agreed there wouldn"t be any harm in letting Kurt and Thalia tag along with you."
I choke on orange pulp.
"I understand we will have to be appropriately dressed for this?" Kurt asks. He even eats like there"s a stick up his merman a.s.s. Where is a merman"s a.s.s? How am I supposed to be their tour guide at school? I might as well hold up a sign that reads: I"m with Merpeople.
I speak with my mouth full of eggs and bacon, "There are two and a half weeks left." I don"t know why I"m so against this, other than everything that could go wrong. What if they say the wrong things? What if they lead someone off the pier like in the stories? My mother gives me the eye, and I keep eating in silence.
"They can"t very well stay locked in the apartment," Dad chips in. Traitor.
"When was the last time you guys were around humans?" I ask.
Kurt raises an eyebrow at me. "We just left the Italian coast. Too soon, I must say. But duty calls."
And I go, "Feel free to hang up any time."
Dad clears his throat extra loudly, a signal for me to take it down a notch.
Thalia ignores the knives Kurt and I are throwing at each other and squeals, "Italy is fantastic. The beaches are mostly naked, so we never have to acquire many garments or go inland. We rarely go inland. I"ve never understood the concept of bikinis."
"That"s my kind of girl," I say, before realizing that I"m with my parents and her brother, who shake their heads disapprovingly at me. "Okay, but you guys can"t say things like acquire or I do declare. This is Brooklyn, not a Renaissance fair. Oh! Unless we say you guys are British. Then the uptight thing Kurt"s got going won"t seem so questionable."
"If you feel that would be beneficial, then we will align ourselves to a land nation, yes."
I let my face fall into my palms. This is going to be harder than I thought. "What are we doing today, then?"
"We have to get them clothes," Mom says, "and your father still has to go to work."
"Yep, we"re going to need a lot of fish food around here."
Mom and Thalia giggle. Kurt and I don"t.
Dad kisses my mom on her forehead and says, "You all be good and, you know, have fun." With that, he"s out the door. We help clean up the kitchen after we"ve eaten all the food. I didn"t realize how hungry I"d been until I looked down and saw that Kurt and I had finished the entire stack of bacon.
I lend Kurt a pair of shorts because my jeans are two inches too short, and my T-shirts are one size too small, making him look like a Eurotrash pop star.
He doesn"t seem to mind, or maybe he does and he"s trained not to care. He holds his head high, even though I can"t keep from laughing as we file into the elevator. "We still have a lot to discuss," Kurt says.
"You know, I can tell you"re going to be the life of the party."
What an interesting contraption," Thalia goes.
Before I can stop her, she runs her fingers all the way up and down the elevator numbers. B to 17.
"Thalia," Mom says in her best mom voice, "you must only push one b.u.t.ton."
"Which one?"
"The level you wish to go to."
"Which level do we wish to go to?" Her eyes are less intense than yesterday, her lashes so long they look like they"re reaching out for you.
My mother presses her finger to her mouth to suppress a giggle. Like I said, she"s always wanted a daughter. "Level L to go out to the street. To go back home, Level 14."
I figure Kurt, in his own way, must be amazed by the elevator. That is, until he says, "We don"t need metal boxes in Toliss. We can swim wherever we like. You remember, Lady Sea?"
Mom doesn"t answer, but I can smell her longing-a petal being crushed between fingertips. Then I see Layla"s face in the back of my mind. She loves me not.
"It"s nice to rest your fins once in a while," Thalia says.
"Well, there"s one reason merfolk are not as fat as humans," he says simply.
"The delicious kelp and algae diet?"
"Tristan, be nice."