The Mermaid and the Murders Read online

  We’d eaten on the way in, biting into a school of skinny silver fish, so I didn’t expect to find Mom cooking. But she was heating something in the microwave.

  “Breakfast?”

  “A drink.” The microwave binged and she removed a cup of hot chocolate. Chocolate is a mermaid’s alcohol.

  “Did you know Mara?” It was the only reason I could think of for her to reach for chocolate that early in the morning.

  “This isn’t about Mara.” Her tone told me she was gearing up for a fight. I didn’t want to have one, not naked, with sand on my butt in the middle of the kitchen, so I walked away.

  I showered off, going fast like always so the shower water wouldn’t bring my tail back. For once, I wished I could linger. It’d be nice to avoid Mom without looking like I was avoiding her. I did delay in putting my clothes on, hoping I’d hear a honk of a horn that told me Ashley was in the driveway. When I didn’t, I knew I’d have to face Mom.

  I came out and saw her standing in the kitchen, her face toward the glass doors, maybe watching the ocean. I tried to sneak downstairs, thinking I could wait there and avoid the whole fight but she caught me.

  “You’d leave? Just like that?”

  “I don’t want to fight.”

  “No, you want to go to school.” She made it sound like the most horrible thing in the world.

  “Is that so wrong? It’s what other girls want. It’s what they do.”

  “Other girls? Like Mara? Do you think she wanted to go to school?”

  I swallowed nothing and kept quiet.

  “There were a lot of girls at the funeral. Did any of them mention school?”

  “This isn’t just about school.”

  “No?” She spun away from the window and glared at me, her arms folded tight across her stomach. “Then why don’t you tell me what this is about, because clearly, I’m not getting it.”

  “I want to see my friends. I want someone to talk to.”

  “And all those girls at the funeral, you couldn’t talk to them?” Her voice got louder and I decided to raise mine in response.

  “About what, Mom? Fishing? Singing? Where to find sailors to kill? Why do you think I’d want to talk about any of that?”

  “Because that’s what mermaids your age want to talk about!” She slammed her hands down on the counter and I jumped. “They want to find sailors and have babies. They like singing and fishing. Why can’t you be like them?”

  She screamed the words at me, but I didn’t have the strength to shout back. I could barely whisper in response. “I…can’t, Mom. I’m just not like that.”

  She stopped for a second and looked at me, like I’d said something that wasn’t even in English. “After what happened, I expected you to come to your senses. I expected you to finally realize what a dangerous game you play every day you stay on dry land.”

  “My friends won’t hurt me.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  I wasn’t. I had no idea what Ashley would do but Sarah wouldn’t hesitate to turn me over to whoever asked if it made a good story. Jen might stand by me, but I’d never really given her a good reason to. I thought Sam would keep me safe, maybe. Then again, I wasn’t sure about him either.

  “The girls at the funeral, they could become your friends. Friends you could trust. Why didn’t you even try to spend time with them?”

  “I didn’t really notice they were there,” I admitted.

  “I didn’t think so. There were lots of them, not just girls from our pod, lots of other mermaids. You’re always saying you want to travel; you could’ve gone back with one those pods. Seen the Caribbean or the gulf. You didn’t have to come back here.”

  “I wanted to come back here, Mom. This is my home.”

  “This is a house. On land. It’s no more your home than a hotel room or a cardboard box. I don’t live here and you shouldn’t. Home is where your pod is, with Mother Ocean.”

  A car horn honked from the driveway. Ashley had come to save me. Mom glared at me, practically daring me to leave. I didn’t know what to say to her, to make her understand why it was important to me to have more than she did, why I wanted things she never did.

  “I’m sorry.” I said it as calmly as I could, swallowing hard against the emotions I couldn’t put in to words. Then I grabbed my book bag and walked out to see my friends. I hoped they were worth it.

  Chapter Five

  “Happy birthday, birthday girl!” Sarah squealed as I got into the car. The minute I sat down she pushed a tin crown with fake gemstones toward me. “I got you a birthday tiara!”

  True to her word, the cheap tiara spelled out “Birthday Girl” in rhinestones. I couldn’t believe my bad luck. It was my birthday. Mom had spent my birthday morning screaming at me. Then again, mermaids didn’t celebrate birthdays, so Mom probably didn’t care. I looked over at Ashley, wondering if she was as clueless about my unhappiness as Sarah was.

  “I told her I wouldn’t wear that cheap plastic thing.” Ashley rolled her eyes toward the crown. Of course, she thought I was upset because of a bad gift. “I would’ve gotten you a cupcake, but I know how you are about carbs.”

  From Ashley, this was a big concession. I smiled and told her thanks.

  “What’d your mom do?”

  I opened my mouth to lie, but then I couldn’t. I couldn’t come up with anything. I wished I could burst into tears and tell them what Mom had really done, all the awful words, the way she didn’t want me. They’d comfort me. I’d comforted them when their parents screwed up. But I couldn’t tell them.

  Sarah filled the silence with questions. “Was it a car? Or jewelry? Is there going to be a super huge party?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “How do you not know yet?” Ashley let her eyes drill into me. It was time to think fast.

  “She gave me a…” Mom had never given me a birthday present so I didn’t have anything to go on. “Money. A bunch of money, so I could get a car, or some jewelry, or throw a party. What do you think I should do?”

  And just like that, I didn’t have to talk anymore for the rest of the ride.

  ****

  I was two steps into the school building when I felt a hand grab my arm. A male hand. I felt scared for a second, but then realized it was Sam. He pulled me toward an empty spot while everyone else rushed to class.

  “I don’t want to sound needy, but didn’t we have a date this weekend?”

  I nodded, and the cheap crown bounced on my head. I didn’t want to draw attention to it so I let it sit there, off balance, the way I was off balance and unsure about what I could tell him and what I couldn’t. “I’m sorry.”

  “So we did?”

  “I’m sorry,” I repeated myself, but felt angry about it. I was tired of being sorry. “My cousin was killed. Then my mother fell apart on me. I wanted to go but this weekend, it was the last thing on my mind.”

  Sam dropped my arm like it was hot. We looked at each other and for once, standing next to him didn’t make me feel like my skin was on fire. Instead, I felt angry and tired and mixed up like I felt everything I could feel all at once.

  “Were you two close?” he asked. I didn’t know how to answer. I was close to Mara now, closer to her than I’d been to any other mermaid even though I’d never known her when she was alive. Dry-landers didn’t think you could get close to someone who was dead. Then again, Sam was a salt golem. They could have different rules the way mermaids did.

  I nodded, too confused to spell it out to him.

  “I exchanged our tickets when I couldn’t get you on the phone. If you’d like, we could try it again. Maybe next weekend.”

  “That would be great.” I tried to sound upbeat, but my voice came out flat. “Her name was Mara.”

  “Did she go to school here?”

  “No.” She didn’t go to school anywhere. She didn’t go to the grocery store or the mall, the movies or any place else, and now she never would. “It’s really
complicated.”

  “Death always is.” His eyes focused on some point in the air, looking at a memory maybe, at something I definitely couldn’t see. “I’m sorry you lost someone.”

  “Me too.” Which was not the right answer. “I mean, thanks. It’s been, well, a tough morning.”

  Mercifully, the bell rang ending the most awkward conversation I’d had with a guy ever. I always thought swearing off men was for their good, keeping me from killing them and all that. Now I saw how it could be for my good, keeping me from crazy exchanges like this.

  I was about to write Sam off as not worth the trouble, when he stepped close to me and put his arms around me, the embrace lasted less than a minute, just his arms, the feel of his cheek against mine, the smell of him: soap, light sweat, and something like salt water. As I sank into his touch, I forgave him for being upset. I’d disappeared on him, which was rude. I should’ve called or done something. And then, suddenly, I was on fire for him again. I didn’t care about my mother or anything else in the world.

  I caught him looking at my birthday tiara but there wasn’t time for him to say anything else. He let go of me and told me he’d see me later. I spent the rest of the morning thinking about him, his body, how it might feel against mine. I blamed hormones, but that didn’t stop me from acting distracted all day in class. I felt like nothing could keep my interest, not my favorite subjects, or my favorite teachers. All I wanted was Sam, except that after an hour or two I wanted a male, any male who was a willing, somehow safe partner for all my delicious sins.

  Thinking about that made me late getting to history, and that meant staying after to make excuses to Mrs. Sutton. Those excuses took long enough that I practically walked into Mr. Whosley as he walked out to the range.

  “In a hurry, Ms. DelMar?”

  “No.” Crap, wrong thing to say. He looked about ready to scream at me. “I mean, yes. I didn’t want to be late. Again.”

  “Perhaps you’re spending a little too much time thinking about your birthday and not enough concentrating on your studies.”

  “My birthday?” It hadn’t really crossed my mind since before the hug, and then I remembered the tiara was still in my hair. I reached up to take it off, but his eyes stayed locked on it.

  “Why don’t I give you a little birthday present? You can take your test today.”

  “Um, well, about that…”

  “I’m sure you were practicing all weekend.”

  I wasn’t but I couldn’t tell him about the funeral either. He’d want to know why my Mom hadn’t called the school, or why it wasn’t in the paper or a thousand other whys that could only be answered by the one word I could never say: mermaid.

  I wanted to say something, to stop this charade, but instead I followed him out to the lot and got in the car. I took a deep breath and tried to comfort myself by imagining Sam in that seat. Whoops, wrong image. That did not calm my heartbeat. Second try; focus on the car. I checked all my mirrors, checked the brake, and started the car.

  “Aren’t you going to put on a turn signal to merge into traffic?”

  “Uh, yeah, sure I was.” I hastily put on the blinker. There really wasn’t any traffic; the other cars had barely started up. Still, rules are rules. And what were the rules? I couldn’t seem to remember anything other than a stop sign.

  “Go left, circle the lot, then back up in a straight line for fifty yards,” he instructed.

  Going left was easy. I had to shift from first to second, but I did it like a champ. Another one of the cars was coming from the side, but I was taking the test so I ignored them. I got to the top of the lot, and then started to back up.

  “Um, there’s a tree limb. It must’ve fallen down.”

  “That happens. What do you think you should do about it?”

  I moved the car around the limb, going out into the other lane. Another car came toward me, but I was back on my side before it even got close.

  “The test is over. Go back to the loading area.”

  He hadn’t said I failed, but it was too soon for me to pass. “What did I do wrong? What was it?”

  “It? You failed to cede right of way twice. You swerved into oncoming traffic instead of driving over a limb. You had to be reminded to signal. And those are the big things.”

  “I guess I’ll need to retest.”

  Mr. Whosley looked at me, his eyes dark, the whites tinged yellow. He wasn’t happy, and there wasn’t any forgiveness there. “I know you seem to think this is a joke, Ms. DelMar, but if you don’t get some practice outside of class, you’re going to flunk.”

  He got out of the car and I let my head fall forward on to the steering wheel, hair covering my face, wishing I could cry. Mermaids don’t cry easily, it’s not our thing, but it would feel so good, to sob and scream and let it all out. It wasn’t fair. None of this was fair. I wanted to start the whole day over, this time without the fight before school. Why couldn’t Mom see that I didn’t want what she wanted? Why did she have to push me like this?

  “Happy birthday to me,” I sniffed.

  “What?”

  “Sam?” I hastily lifted my head and pushed my hair back behind my ears. Falling like that in the humid interior of the car might show a hint of where my gills would be. Not to mention it looked like crap.

  “You looked like you could use a minute.”

  “But I didn’t hear you get into the car.”

  “I’m stealthy like that.”

  “Yeah, right, vampire.”

  I could see him starting to correct me, probably to say something about how salt golem was the better word, but then he stopped. “You want me to drive today?”

  “You probably should, but I need the practice.”

  “Besides it’s your birthday.”

  “Yup, my birthday. Wa-hoo.” I didn’t bother to keep the sarcasm out of my voice.

  “I didn’t want to mention it this morning, and you don’t sound too happy about it now.”

  “Yeah, well, I’m not.” I concentrated on merging into the line of cars going around the asphalt track.

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “Tons, but you know, I can’t, it’s stupid and private and just…let it go.”

  “You’re the only person who knows I’m a salt golem. First person I’ve told in like, twenty years.”

  I took my eyes off the track to stare at him. Could I trust him? Was he serious? This could all be a lie. If it wasn’t, there was the girl with her throat ripped out to worry about; and Mara, with all those bites in her tail. Then again, if it was true, if he was different like me, I might’ve finally found someone who could understand me.

  “My mom…” I hesitated, worried. Eighteen years is a long time to keep a secret. “Who was the last person you told?”

  “A priest.”

  I almost laughed, but managed to turn it into a sniff at the last minute.

  “There was a gang. They were killing people. So I thought, I’m stronger than they are, I’ll stop them.” He said it with a studied indifference, like he’d thought this over a lot.

  “You mean kill them.” I swallowed hard, and thought about the girl’s body.

  He nodded. “I don’t do that. I don’t have to; I don’t want to. But this gang, they were killing people and doing horrible things, so I thought it’d be for the greater good.”

  He stopped and I drove in silence until I couldn’t take it anymore. “But…”

  “But some secrets are hard to carry alone. You need to tell someone, even though you know it could have all these crazy consequences. You need to get it out of you, like an infection.”

  I tried not to look at him, scared I would blurt out my own secret. “Did the priest believe you?”

  “Maybe not at first, but he humored me at least. We became friends, good ones.”

  “What happened?”

  “What usually happens to my friends; they grow old and I move someplace else,” he finished, his voice bitter.
r />   “I’m sorry.”

  “Me too.” He looked out the window for a while, not really talking. “So, birthday cake?”

  “Uh, no.”

  “Party?”

  “Only if Ashley throws one. She might. All she needs is an excuse and someone to buy the beer.”

  “And that’s why your birthday sucks?”

  “No, it’s my mom.” I took a deep breath. He was right, some things were hard to carry on your own. You needed help, or at least to say them out loud and hear what someone else thought. “She comes from this culture, it’s pretty female-centric.” He waited while I thought about how to phrase it. “Every birthday she asks me if I’ve finally had enough of this life and if I’m ready to go back where I belong.”

  “With her?”

  I nodded.

  “No one else?”

  “Oh, no. My grandmother, aunts, cousins; just no men. But that’s not the real problem.”

  “No?”

  “I’m sorry. Men are great and all—I mean, you seem great—but there’s lots of other stuff they frown on. Stuff I love, like books, magazines, TV shows.”

  “So your mom is feminist Amish?”

  I laughed, my mood a thousand times lighter. “More like militant feminist Amish. We went back to the, um, compound, this weekend, but I don’t want to stay. Not yet, anyway. There’s too much out there that I haven’t seen or experienced. I’ve never seen a mountain, or snow, or New York City.”

  “A lot of things.”

  “Right.” I stopped, took a second. “I just want to live my life. I feel like I’ve been chugging water, scared someone is going to take my glass away. I’d like to savor things, but every year, on my birthday, there she is, asking me if I’m ready to go yet.”

  “And I’m betting it’s not just on your birthday.”

  “Every day.” I said softly, realizing how exhausting it was to keep having the same fight over and over again.