Still, I kept swimming, refusing to glance back at the shore to see how far away the lights were. It didn’t matter. Kona was under there somewhere, at the mercy of God only knew what, and I had to get him back.
The waves were getting choppier, the water colder, and I knew I was farther out than I had ever been before. I tried not to think of my numerous cuts and scrapes, of how they were bleeding into the water with each stroke and kick. Tried not to think of all the night predators that were out hunting for food. If I did, I’d panic. And that would get me absolutely nowhere.
Instead, I concentrated on the feel of the water against my body. The effort of putting one arm in front of the other. The rhythm of turning my head to breathe.
It was feeling more and more like I was on a suicide mission, one I would have no way of returning from. I was swimming straight out from shore, into utter and complete darkness. Exhausting myself, pushing myself to the limits, and if this didn’t work, I really didn’t think I’d have enough strength to make it back to the beach.
Part of me wanted to stop. More than once, I almost did. But Kona’s pale, drawn face flashed behind my closed eyelids and for a moment, I swore I felt his lips brush against mine as they had twice before.
Resolve tightened my stomach and I plunged onward. I blocked everything from my mind but the next stroke, the next kick, the next breath, until I was utterly mindless—just a machine concentrating on the next movement. And the next. And the next.
Which is why when it finally happened, I almost missed it.
It started as a burning in my chest, a breathlessness that left me weak and gasping for oxygen. I struggled to draw air into my aching lungs, but nothing happened. I wheezed and panted, wondered if I’d finally pushed myself too far.
Was my body too exhausted to continue?
Was I finally going to drown?
My dad’s face—along with Rio’s and Moku’s and Mark’s and Bri’s and Mickey’s and Logan’s—fluttered through my brain as I clutched at my throat. Clawed at it. Tried to get it to work, to deliver air to my now-starving lungs.
They wouldn’t know what had happened to me, would think I had just disappeared. Dad and my brothers would assume I had done what my mother had—turned mermaid and gone under without another thought of them. As for my friends, I couldn’t imagine what horrors they would think had befallen me.
Everything around me was going blacker—although I didn’t know how that was possible. Already I was out in the middle of night. Blind to all but the darkness. Deaf to all but the crashing of the waves. I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe this was what had happened to my mother. Had she suffered like this, died like this? Was that why she’d never come back?
I sank under the water before the thought had a chance to really register, then forced myself to claw my way back up.
Sank again. Again tried to find the surface.
But it didn’t work. I was dying. And Kona, Kona would be lost forever. We both would.
I sank deeper, the water pulling me down, down, down. The fear was gone; in its place was a weariness that told me to just give up, to just give in. I couldn’t fight it anymore. It was over.
I closed my eyes, opened my mouth. Swallowed a mouthful of water and prayed.
Moments passed, long, excruciating seconds while I waited for death to claim me. One minute, then two before it finally occurred to me that my lungs no longer hurt. That the fuzziness—and the exhaustion—were gone.
Was I already dead? Had I missed the whole thing? But how could that be? Did death really feel so much like life?
That’s when I felt it, the flare of something unfamiliar behind my ears. The opening and closing of those little slits that had made me so distressed for the last few days.
My gills were working. I was breathing—in the water.
Holy crap! Did that mean the change had finally kicked in? Was I mermaid?
I opened my eyes cautiously, expecting the burn of the water and more blackness. Instead, the whole underwater world around me was lit up like Horton Plaza at Christmastime. I could see for miles, in phosphorescent shades of blue and green and red and yellow.
Fish were everywhere, darting around me, bumping into me, checking out this strange creature who was suddenly caught, spellbound, in their midst.
Using my hands, I somersaulted, tried to see if I had a tail. But no, my legs were still there. My jeans were ripped and torn, and in between my toes was a strange webbing that hadn’t been there before. But I definitely still had legs.
Weird.
Maybe it wasn’t my gills helping me breathe after all. Maybe I really was dead.
I gave an experimental kick and shot forward a good three or four feet. Gave another one and moved even farther and faster.
My mind scrambled for an explanation. I’d had a tail once before, for those few seconds after I’d fallen off my surfboard. Besides, I knew mermaids had tails. But now I had legs. What did that mean?
What did any of this mean?
A small fish darted up to my face, swam through a few strands of my hair, which was billowing out behind me like a weird, blond curtain. Another fish came up, did the same thing, and I laughed. Then clamped my mouth shut, terrified of swallowing more water.
But this time it didn’t go into my lungs, just slipped harmlessly into my mouth and back out again. I thought, randomly, of all the sea water that had burned down my throat as I surfed over the years and wondered if maybe there was more to this mermaid thing than I had ever imagined.
I swam a little, shocked at how much distance I could cover with a single stroke. My jeans were slowing me down, annoying me, so I dragged them off, let them float away. As I did, the sheer wonder of my surroundings faded away and I remembered Kona.
Kona was down here somewhere, and I now had the means of catching up to him. Maybe. It was a big ocean and those things had gotten a big head start as I’d floundered around up there, above the ocean. Still, I had to try.
A long silver line stretched in front of me, the exact color of Kona’s eyes at midnight. Figuring I had almost no other options, I followed it, hoping that I was heading toward him instead of away. But the truth was I was at a total loss as to what else to do. I was trapped somewhere between human and mermaid—an oddity, now, in both worlds—and there was no going back.
I started to swim in earnest then, following the wavery silver line as if the fate of the world depended on it. And in a strange way, it did. Not the whole world, maybe, but certainly my little corner of it.
I zipped through the water, the feel of it cool and refreshing and oh so welcome against my skin. For the first time that I could remember, my reaction to the ocean wasn’t mixed. Gone was the fear and anger and distrust; in its place was sheer joy at finally being where I belonged—even if it was without a tail.
The line stretched for miles and I followed it, growing more and more anxious as I did. Kona had been in bad shape, close to death, when they’d grabbed him.
Had he survived being stolen by those things?
Had the ocean healed him?
Or had they taken advantage of his weakened state to kill him?
Of course, I didn’t even know if he could breathe under the sea. I suspected that he was something other than human, something more, but I didn’t know for sure. And if he wasn’t, then surely he was already gone.
Something brushed against me as I swam and I turned my head, expecting to see another fish. Instead it was the arm of an octopus, its tentacles brushing against the bare skin of my belly while its opaque eyes stared right through me.