Emerge Read online

  A conus shell lies on her desk. “Did you get a shell call from your parents?” I ask. Amy’s parents still live Below, but they sent her to live with us when she was a baby to keep her safe.

  “Yep. I’ll record an answer after the gala, so I’ll have plenty to tell them.” She hesitates, then asks, “Staskia’s legs are so cool. What if when I get mine, they’re short or pasty or misshapen?”

  I put down the brush and move so we’re facing each other. “Hey, legs always suit the Mer, so whenever you get yours, I know they’ll be beautiful.”

  She blushes. “You really think so?”

  “Absolutely.”

  An hour and a half later, guests fill the ballroom. Mermaids and Mermen float around the buffet tables, dining on caviar and tuna tartar. A few are already dancing, swimming in intricate circles and figure eights around each other. In one corner, a band plays classical music on turritella shell flutes. And with every passing minute, another guest swims out from the privacy of the antechamber, resplendent in a jeweled tail and their grandest seashell or gemstone accoutrement.

  My face aches from smiling so much at my parents’ friends and colleagues.

  “So, Aurelia, I keep telling your mother she simply must invite me over for dinner so we can discuss instituting konklili restrictions.”

  I nod but inwardly hope my mother can put off MerMatron Drusy for as long as possible. The only reason she wants to spend an evening in our home is so she has plenty of fodder for the rumor tides. Since my parents run the Foundation, my sisters and I are like mini-celebrities. Not in the fun, free designer swag sense, but in the everyone-scrutinizes-our-every-move sense.

  Even Lapis and Lazuli, who usually push the barrier reef as far as they possibly can, are on their best behavior. In the center of the ballroom, they move together flawlessly in a classical Mer dance called an allytrill. As the deep blue tails that inspired their names twirl underneath them in the water, onlookers applaud. I wish I could impress everyone that much. Tonight, it’s up to all of us to be shining examples of land-dwellers who effortlessly blend human assimilation with the preservation of our Mer traditions.

  Just as I’m attempting to construct a diplomatic response to MerMatron Drusy’s remark, something over her shoulder tugs the corners of my mouth into my first real smile of the night. Caspian.

  “Please excuse me, ma’am. I see a friend who I really must go welcome,” I say, keeping my tone as formal as possible. She follows my line of sight and voices her unsought opinion.

  “You don’t mean Caspian Zayle? I have to admit, I’d heard the two of you were friendly, but I never believed it. Dear, take my advice: be careful. A sweet girl like you shouldn’t be mixing with—”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” I say, cutting her off. She looks affronted, but Caspian is swimming toward us.

  His arrival has the added bonus of making MerMatron Drusy murmur a few excuses and swim off toward a group of Foundation officials.

  “It’s about time,” I say to Caspian as he pulls me into a hug. “I’m dying here. Save me from the small talk.”

  “That I can do.” His deep voice smoothes the rough edges of my frayed nerves, like freshwater over river rocks. “Your parents have done it again,” he says, glancing around the lavishly decorated room. “When do the guests of honor arrive?”

  “I think in a half an hour or so. There’ll be an announcement.”

  He’s listening to my words, but his eyes dart down to take in my siluess. Sure, he’s seen me in bikini tops before, but the siluess is somehow more overt, more suggestive. I fight a blush. This is Caspian, I scold myself. He doesn’t care.

  As expected, Caspian doesn’t say anything lewd. He settles for a straightforward, “You’re looking more traditional than usual tonight, Lia.”

  He’s right. By Mer standards, I am. “Well, we are opening our doors to a whole new group tonight. Might as well welcome them in style. Besides,” I joke, “it’s not like I’m showing any more skin than you are.”

  Like all the male guests’, Caspian’s torso is almost entirely bare except for a thin strand of limpet shells strapped diagonally across his chest that complements his strong, silver tail. My sisters like to tease me, saying that since his tail is silver and mine is gold, it’s some sign we’ll end up together. I prefer to think of it as a symbol of the friendship we’ve shared since we were guppies.

  And that friendship hasn’t changed now that we’re older. Sure, it was kind of strange when his voice dropped and he packed on the musculature of a pro-athlete (he does more laps a day than an Olympic swimmer), but he’s still the same Caspian who helped me bury my tail in the sand and molded me a pair of legs when we were six. The same sandy blond hair that falls into the same knowing, ocean blue eyes.

  Those eyes grow haunted as we swim past a couple old biddies who are so caught up in their own blather they don’t see us. I tune into their conversation the instant they mention Caspian’s father.

  “It’s no wonder Sir Zayle isn’t here. He and his wife never dare show their faces at events like these.”

  “But, Gretchen, I’ve heard they dine with the Nautilus family in private.”

  “I hope not. It’s bad enough their son is here. Sure, he seems like a fine lad now, but I’m telling you, you have one bad clam in a family, and sooner or later, there’s bound to be another.”

  The protective best friend part of me wants to spin around and tell those Merwitches exactly what they can do with their cruel gossip. I want to shake them by the shoulders and scream that it’s not Caspian’s fault there was a siren in his family. But causing a scene would make him more uncomfortable. So instead, I use all my self-control to keep my mouth shut as I lead him far away from them and toward the extravagant buffet.

  “Casp, they have no idea—”

  “It’s fine, Lia. I’m fine.”

  It’s so unfair. Sure, next to murder, sireny is the highest crime known to Mer—and for good reason. A siren song is a spell that steals away the free will of a human and forces him to do anything the siren commands. I get shivers just thinking about it. But Caspian shouldn’t be blamed for something his great-great-aunt did.

  Carrying plates brimming with halibut skewers topped in a spicy dulse seaweed sauce, we make our way to one of the quartz-encrusted tables that line the ballroom’s perimeter.

  “So, tell me about school,” I say in an attempt to make him forget the callous words.

  “School’s good.” He pauses, wiping his mouth on his napkin. Caspian’s parents aren’t as progressive as mine and don’t want him to lose touch with his culture, so they’ve enrolled him in the all-Mer high school set up by the Foundation. “There’s a dance next Friday.”

  “Ooo! Who are you taking?” I poke him in the chest when he doesn’t answer right away. “Who? You can tell me.”

  “I don’t know yet.” With his broad build and strong jaw, Caspian looks like the catch of the day, every day, and—even despite his family name—he could probably have any girl he wanted if he put himself out there. But he’s always been the quiet type.

  “You have to take someone. Do it for my sake! I’m surrounded by humans at school, so everyone’s off-limits.”

  “But there’s someone you’d want to date if there were no restrictions?” His eyes turn intensely quizzical.

  I laugh it off. “No, no. That’s not what I meant. It just must be nice for you to be yourself at school and date whoever you want.”

  “Not whoever I want,” he mumbles.

  “Sure. Pick a Mermaid you like, go up to her, and be your honest, straightforward self. Girls like that.”

  “I thought girls like the cocky, bad boy types.”

  My mind flashes to Clay in his butter-soft leather jacket and trademark smirk. “Girls just like to feel wanted,” I insist. “So, you go up to a Mermaid and tell her that she’s, I don’t know, made an impression on you and you’d like to take her to the dance.
” Yep, I’m great at giving dating advice as long as I don’t have to follow it.

  “You’ve made an impression on me and I’d like to take you to the dance,” Caspian says.

  “Yeah, just like that.”

  He opens his mouth to continue, but the conch horn blares and everyone turns their attention to where my mother has taken her place at the front of the room. “Maids and Men, I’d like to welcome you to our home.” My mother’s voice is pleasant but authoritative. “This is a special occasion for all of us. We are adding to our Community—adding to our strength.”

  Palpable excitement suffuses the room. Everyone waits in anticipation of my mother’s next words.

  “Of course, we’re overjoyed at the opportunity to embrace more of our kind, but we mustn’t forget what caused this exodus. We must all be sensitive to the trials the new members of our Community have so recently endured.”

  With the two hundredth anniversary of the Little Mermaid’s grievous mistake occurring in a few months, conditions Below are worse than ever before.

  Her real story’s not as happy as the one most humans know today. When Hans Christian Andersen first wrote it down in the 1800s, he bungled a few things, but he got the gist of it right. The Little Mermaid rescued the drowning prince and sang to him on the shore in front of a temple. When she saw a maiden from the temple approaching, the Little Mermaid dove into the sea to hide. Since the prince woke up with the maiden by his side, he believed she was the one who’d sung so beautifully to him. I bet you can already see what’s coming. Tragedy with a capital “T.” The Little Mermaid traded her voice to the Sea Sorceress in exchange for permanent legs that would allow her to live a human life on land with her prince and would keep him from ever knowing what she truly was. To cement the deal, the Little Mermaid agreed to die if she couldn’t get the prince to marry her.

  Despite the fact that she couldn’t speak, at first, her beauty and grace seemed to win him over (what kind of man wants a woman without a voice? It’s gross if you ask me, but whatevs). Anyway, everything would have been rainbows and wedding cake except the prince’s father announced he’d arranged a marriage for the prince with a princess from the neighboring kingdom. The prince declared he wouldn’t marry a woman he didn’t love, and I’m sure the Little Mermaid breathed a huge, silent sigh of relief. But when little miss princess arrived, she was … wait for it … none other than the maiden from the temple who the prince believed had sung to him. He declared his love for the human princess and asked her to marry him. Of course, his choice devastated the Little Mermaid.

  Desperate to get her back, the Little Mermaid’s family made a bargain with the Sea Sorceress. If the Little Mermaid killed the prince with the sorceress’s enchanted obsidian dagger, his blood on her legs would transform her back into a Mermaid. But she refused and threw the dagger into the sea. She valued the prince’s human life above her own immortality, so the magic in the dagger cursed us all with human lifespans as soon as its blade touched the water.

  Merkind blamed her father the king for her mistake and executed him, throwing our entire society into a state of anarchy and war that’s lasted ever since.

  That’s why my parents and a group of other brave Mer who feared for their lives and yearned for a better future for their children finally did the unthinkable—they ventured onto land. Now, nearly twenty years later, they’ve built a life here.

  “There’s no reason for our people to live under the terror of constant warfare any longer,” my mom continues. “No reason for them to fight and die in defense of one false ruler over another, hoping against hope that this will be the one who finally keeps his promises and finds a way to break the curse.”

  “It can’t be broken!” someone shouts from the crowd. I recognize him; he sits on the Community’s advisory board alongside my parents. Others agree, echoing his words.

  My mother nods. “There’s always a new ruler. Always someone claiming to have a better plan, when all they really have is an angrier army. How many of these warlords have overthrown the previous leader—raged battles that bloodied the ocean floor in their quest for power—only to fail once that power was theirs?”

  Mer all around me hiss or shake their heads. “Senseless violence,” a woman next to me mutters.

  My mother holds up a hand, and the room falls silent. “We cannot break the curse. But we can choose to leave the violence behind. Each one of us has chosen a life on land—a life of peace. And tonight, we welcome our brave brethren who are making that same choice.”

  I glance around me. Now people’s faces beam with pride.

  “Some of our newest Community members have been here for several weeks,” my mother continues, her regal, opalescent tail swishing through the water underneath her, “so you may have already met them at the Foundation. A few others have just arrived. We waited to celebrate so we could welcome everyone at once. I have every confidence you will do your utmost to make our kin feel at home here.”

  My mother nods to my father, who swims beyond the doorway and returns with ten new Mer swimming behind him. The group consists mostly of young parents with small children, but a few outliers wade in back. The whole room erupts in welcoming applause.

  But I’m not clapping. I’m frozen in shock. Among the refugees is the last face I ever expected to see.

  Chapter Three

  Mel Havelock is front and center in the group of Mer refugees. A slender, coral-colored tail tapers down from her tiny waist, and a siluess decorated with actual coral barely covers her chest. She looks more like a spoiled princess than a refugee. How is this possible? How can Mel be a Mermaid?

  While my mouth practically hangs open, my parents usher the group to the front and offer a few more words of welcome before allowing our new Community members to disperse into the crowd. Mel and an imposing older man who must be her father stay and talk to them.

  “Lia, what’s wrong? What are you staring at? You look a little freaky.” Caspian shakes my shoulder when I don’t respond. I work to regain the power of speech.

  “That girl,” is all I manage.

  “The really pretty one?”

  “Yes,” I hiss. “She goes to my school. I had no idea she was Mer.”

  “Oh, well that’ll be nice. You’ll finally have another Mer friend at school with you besides the twins.”

  “No. Not nice. Very not nice. She’s horrible.”

  “What has she done to you?”

  “Well,” I picture her possessive hands all over Clay, “it’s hard to describe.”

  Caspian looks confused. “But she’s horrible?”

  “She’s dating a human!” There, I got it out. I wait for Caspian to get appropriately outraged, but he just looks thoughtful.

  “Well, that’s not smart.”

  “Not smart? Not smart! They’re constantly together. She spends hours with him every day after school. All it takes is one moment when she’s not a hundred percent focused—one tiny slip of tail—and she’d put all of us in danger.” By the end of my rant, I’m practically panting. How is Caspian still so calm? “How are you still so calm?”

  “Maybe she doesn’t realize the risk.”

  “Then she’s an idiot as well as a—”

  “Aurelia, can you swim over here please?” my mother calls.

  “Stay next to me,” I murmur to Caspian as we make our way toward my parents and the Havelocks. Mr. Havelock has rigid posture and holds his head an inch too high, which makes him look pretentious.

  “Aurelia, Mr. Havelock has been telling us that you know his daughter Melusine already,” my mother says in her quintessential hostess voice.

  “How fun that you girls are already friends,” my father says, clapping Mr. Havelock on the shoulder.

  “We’re not friends,” I blurt out. My mother’s eyes narrow, and I search for something else to say.

  Melusine beats me to it. “We haven’t really gotten to know each other yet, Mrs. N
autilus.”

  “Well, now that you know you have so much in common,” her father says, “I am certain the two of you will have plenty to speak about.” Mr. Havelock’s voice has the slanting, sibilant quality of a Mermese speaker who’s not used to speaking English. “Who is your young man?” he asks with perfect, studied grammar, his eyes shifting to Caspian.

  “This is my friend,” I emphasize the word, “Caspian Zayle.”

  “Pleased to meet you, sir,” Caspian says as he shakes Mr. Havelock’s hand. “I hope you’re finding everything to your liking here on the surface.”

  “Zayle? As in Adrianna Zayle? Yes, I had heard your family was living here now.”

  “Filius, you must understand … ” my father begins, his tone full of censure. Then, Mel’s father surprises me.

  “No need, Edmar. I fully support what you are doing here. A fresh start for everyone. I respect that. Without it, I would not have come, not with my family’s reputation. I almost didn’t, but after my wife died … ” He’s quiet for a moment, then continues, “I wanted better for my Melusine.”

  “I won’t lie to you,” my father says, shaking his nearly bald head, “there were people who petitioned against your request for refuge. Up here in the human world, we all view humans as equals, and we bring up our children to do the same. Not surprisingly, some members of our Community thought you must share your family’s udell predilections.” My eyes widen. Udell is an ancient word for human hater. Melusine’s an udell? Then why is she with Clay?

  “Never. I have never understood their hatred of mortals, and I have raised Melusine according to my own moral standards, not my family’s.”

  “Well, now that you’re here, you can show everyone through your actions that your family’s udell history does not extend to the two of you,” my mother says. “Of course, we’ll help in any way we can.”