Mer Tales 01 - Everblue

Badger loves you. I doubt he’d do anything of the sort if he knew all the facts. He might be able to figure out how to help you and your sister escape beforehand. You have to go get Dad. We can’t allow Tatiana to be with a man she utterly hates.”
    “ I don’t want Badger involved, but that doesn’t solve this problem—” I held up my wrist.
    “ Right,” she said with a pain-stricken face. She grabbed my hands forcefully. “Follow along like they want and I’ll figure out a way to free your sister and stop this promising if it kills me. Maybe Tatiana and I could go together. Or—”
    Mom’s sudden determination horrified me. I suddenly feared how far she would go to accomplish her goal—including leaving on her own.
    “ Please, Mom. I couldn’t face Dad if something happened to you.”
    “ Nothing’s going to happen.” A light of hope flickered from within the darkness that had consumed her eyes. “We’re going to get out of here and find your father.”
    “ Yeah, but—”
    She smiled reassuringly. “Leon will not win, Finley. I promise you. But for now, we need to act like nothing has changed. Tomorrow morning at the festival, pretend you’re happy about your engagement to Lily.”
    “ The festival is tomorrow?”
    “ Yes, but it’ll be okay. Being jilted at the altar is much better than being abandoned after being promised.”
    I rubbed my hand over my forehead, surprised Mom was being so optimistic when I had no idea how we’d get Tatch away from the guards in the palace, let alone get my bracelet off. “If you say so.”
    “ I know so.”
    I couldn’t help but shudder. Tatiana had spoken those same words just hours before and everything had gone horrifically wrong. I didn’t want to jinx anything by agreeing.

42
ASH

    Somehow, I managed to pick up the pieces of my sanity before Mom ordered the guys with the white coats to come and take me away. Of course, that wasn’t before she arranged an appointment with a psychologist. I could only imagine the doctor’s reaction if I explained the truth about what was really making me batty.
    My little bout of hysteria kept me from school another day and Mom later apologized for pushing too soon for me to return. I’d retreated back to my room, away from the whispers of my family and decided to keep a watchful eye on the lake through the window. I had an eerie sense something bad was about to happen and that Fin and Tatchi needed my prayers.
    Questions swirled in my head as I replayed the events of the abduction yet again. Little by little the pieces fell together. Unlike the old eighties movie Splash , water didn’t necessarily make them merpeople. Then what did? Tatchi was never out past sunset, complaining her parents enforced a curfew. Did the sun have something to do with it? Was that why she couldn’t spend the night at my house way back then? I gasped. That had to be it—the big secret her dad busted the cabinet over. Of course. They were merpeople only at night and they couldn’t control it.
    Criminy! How many had I come across and didn’t even know it? Like their cousin Colin. Was the entire family merpeople? Were they born this way? Have they always lived in the lake? How have they kept it a secret for so long?
    Then it hit me.
    This whole time I believed an angel saved me from drowning when that wasn’t what happened at all. I’d heard Fin’s voice and saw his face right before I fell unconscious, but thought it was a dream. Had it really been him after all? My head ached in confusion.
    As a merman he would obviously have been able to endure the frigid temperature of the water. But that was during the daytime. Could he will his tail in and out of existence? Then how did he get me to the Ranger station and why didn’t the Ranger see him?
    “ Oh,” I whispered as my lips suddenly tingled, a memory of Fin’s lips touching mine.
    He did. He carried me. It was his warm body next to mine, his voice that told me to fight, to live. My heart swelled. I no longer cared the facts didn’t make sense. All that mattered was Fin. He was the one I’d been dreaming about this whole time. The one I wished for. The one I’d fallen in love with. The one taken from me.
    Then I remembered all the horrible things I’d said, the way I’d overreacted when he came to my door. Was he about to tell me? Was my refusal to help why he was captured? My gut clenched. I’d turned him away and now he was gone, pulled under the waves by evil