Deep Betrayal

eyelids. “I don’t understand!” I cried.
    “You shouldn’t have butted in,” Sophie said.
    “Not now, Sophie,” Dad said. “Why is it taking so long for her to change back?”
    “I don’t know,” Calder said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
    “Should I call the doctor?” Mom asked. “Maybe Father Hoole?”
    “No!” sounded four voices in unison.
    “No, of course, not,” Mom said. “What was I thinking? I don’t know what to do. Give me something to do.”
    “Take me to the lake!” I howled. “Get me back. I can’t stand it!”
    “How long has it been?” Calder asked.
    “I don’t know,” Dad said. “Ten minutes? Fifteen?”
    When I opened my eyes, Calder was my mirror. When I flinched, he did as well. Every movement I made, every grimace played out for me on his face. To both feel and see the pain doubled its intensity, and I gripped his arm with such force, he sucked air through his teeth.
    “Please,” I begged, digging my fingernails into his flesh. “Get me back to the lake.”
    Dad apologized. He didn’t want to backtrack the process. Perhaps I’d made some progress that they just couldn’t see; perhaps just another minute longer and I’d be back to normal, whatever that was.
    I shrieked again as a tremor ran the length of my spine. If I didn’t know better, my vertebrae were trading places. Calder scooped me up and slung me over his shoulder like a bag of laundry. Dad protested, but Calder wasn’t listening. He ran for the lake.
    I lifted my head off Calder’s back just enough to see Mom and Dad through the kitchen window, Dad’s arm around her back, supporting her as she stood, watching, her hand covering her mouth. She turned into him and buried her face. Through the window, I could hear her say, “Don’t leave,” and Dad’s shaky voice say, “I never left.” My face fell limply between Calder’s shoulder blades. At least Dad was home. He and Mom would be all right. If I was dying, at least I could die happily, knowing they had each other.
    I clenched my teeth to hold in another scream as my body stiffened. Calder adjusted me in his arms and slid me, ever so gently, out of the blanket and into the lake. I slipped in smoothly and all my muscles relaxed, my shoulders dropped. The pain dissolved like sugar into the waves, the water finding no resistance against my body.
    Calder knelt at the edge of the dock with his face inches from mine. “If I leave you, you’re not going to go anywhere, are you?”
    “What do you mean, ‘if I leave you’?” I asked.
    “Just for a second. I’ll bring the blanket back to the house, check in on your parents. I worked too hard with your dad to make this reunion happen. We hadn’t counted on your little … accident. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere.”
    His hand brushed across my back, raking his fingers through what was left of my tattered shorts. “I’ve never seen a mermaid in a Hendrix T-shirt before. Or with a tattoo. I wondered if that would stay.”
    “You’ve been wondering if this would happen?”
    “Worrying is probably closer to the truth. Now stay here.”
    I watched him run back to the house, his arms pumping and his muscles flexing, his skin smooth and glistening in the sun. The front door slammed, and I was alone.
    It was peaceful. Right now, the trials of the landlocked world were as foreign to me as life on the moon. I ran my fingers over my tail. It was dark raspberry with iridescent pink, possibly the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, next to Calder’s.
    I swam away from the dock. Just a little. While I waited for Calder, I turned in circles, flipping over and around, trying out new muscles, wondering, wondering. I swam out deeper and dove down to skim along the bottom. I held my breath—too afraid to see how imperfect the transformation had been. How embarrassing would it be to try to breathe underwater only to come up choking and sputtering?
    Out of the corner of my eye, I sensed a movement. The floodlights were off, and a cloud blocked out the moon. The water was a black, matte canvas. Still, there was something there. In the distance. A dark shape. At first I thought it was a submerged log, but it was moving fast. And then Iknew. My thoughts must have been too loud for Maris not to notice me.
    “Well, well, well, Lily Hancock. Aren’t you just full of surprises.” My instincts were to retreat, but she did not hold the same threat she once had. Maris was visibly