Maise sensed something was wrong long before she actually got to see the ocean for herself. It started as a tingle at the base of her spine an hour or so before lunch, slowly creeping up her back until it was a burning itch, like she had rolled in a patch of poison oak. Her teacher snapped at her multiple times to stop squirming and pay attention, even threatening to send her to the office if she couldn’t stay still. Maise tried to do just that as hard as could, fighting back the urge to cry as the other kids not-so-subtly pointed and whispered at how weird she was being, again. She tried to distract herself by watching the low dark storm clouds roll in through the classroom window, even as the skin on her back continued to feel as though it was ready to crawl off her bones.

After several agonizing hours, school was finally dismissed for the day. By then, the only thing on Maise’s mind was getting home as fast as she could in the hopes her grandmother could tell her what was wrong. Hopefully, the old woman already had a poultice or an ointment on hand to make the horrible burning itch go away. As she fumbled with the lock of her bike chain at the bike rack by the school parking lot, though, she was momentarily distracted from her discomfort by a snippet of conversation she overheard from a group of parents huddled beneath an overhang as they waited to pick their kids up.

“It’s bad. It was supposed to be calm and sunny today, so this literally came out of nowhere,” one woman was saying. “My father—you met my father before, Bernice, you know what he’s like—even he had to admit that he’s never seen weather like this before, and he’s been a fisherman for over fifty years.”

“Have any of the boats come back?” a man asked.

“A couple have, but this storm blew in too fast to give the rest of them a chance. I’ve been praying to God to watch over them. Everyone should be doing the same.” The eyes of the woman speaking flickered in Maise’s direction. Maise immediately dropped her head, pretending to mess with the lock’s combination so the adults couldn’t see her blush. She told herself it was only a coincidence that the woman looked at her when she did—after all, she was the one eavesdropping on them, so they had the right to be annoyed—but the tone of her voice suggested otherwise.

After all, not too many people were keen on being listened in on by a witch’s granddaughter.

Maise, at last, fumbled the lock open and wheeled her bike out to the school’s front lawn, where she was immediately slapped in the face by a giant gust of wind that almost toppled her sideways. The adults had been right; this was a bad storm, of the likes Maise had never seen. Trees bowed over at nearly ninety degrees, stoplights bobbed and weaved on their poles: kids and grown-ups alike staggered towards cars and busses, leaning into the gale while others gave up and fled back to the shelter of the school. It wasn’t raining, but the force of the wind brought the ocean spray with it in drenching curtains. Within moments Maise’s windbreaker was completely soaked through, her shoulder-length hair stiff with salt. Her tongue darted out to lick her lips, and as soon as it tasted the salt on her skin, Maise was hit with a feeling of unadulterated wrongness so hard she almost doubled over from it. She needed to get home and ask her grandmother what was going on, and fast.

Traveling fast in a storm of this magnitude was only a relative concept; the high winds and slick roads forced Maise to walk her bike, fighting every step of the way. She did her best to shelter against the sides of the buildings she passed, but try as she might, she could not escape the driving wind. She emerged from between two buildings, bringing her within view of the coastline for the first time, and froze, all discomfort caused by the storm immediately forgotten.

~*~

 

It took the better part of three weeks for Maise to drive the entirety of the US coastline. Sometimes she was on the road for up to fourteen hours a day, stopping only to eat or for bathroom breaks. Other times she was stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic for hours on end. Most nights she slept in motels. Other nights she had to make do in the back seat of her car, parked at an RV campsite or in the parking lot of a truck stop.

Maise loved every minute of it.

She loved watching the way the land transformed as she headed south, the urban areas giving way to large swaths of marshes and wetlands. She whittled away the hours spent behind the wheel by alternating between listening to music, podcasts, and her favorite audiobooks. She sampled all the local food favorites in each state she visited: lobster rolls in Connecticut, crab cakes in Maryland, shrimp and grits in South Carolina. Every so often she would take a break from the road, content to let the world pass her by for a change. One day was spent entirely on the Virginia Beach Boardwalk, immersed in the smell of fried foods and axle grease and the energy of young families and students enjoying their brief stint of freedom from school. In Florida, she discovered a small, quiet grove where a gathering of manatees grazed and basked in the warm, shallow water. She watched them for hours, delighted when a young calf poked its head above the surface to gaze at her with curious innocence. Every step of the way she listened to her shell. The song changed slightly at each new location, and although it was still beautiful, it was never her song, so she drove on.

~*~

 

The sea was roiling.

Living on the ocean’s edge her entire life, Maise assumed she’d been witness to all its many changing moods, from a rippling sheet of black glass beneath the glaring sun, to a landscape of high-peaked waves and deep troughs and churning white foam during the onset of a storm. But this… Maise had never seen the sea like this; like it was writhing, a wounded animal caught in the throes of agony. Maise’s first impression was that it looked angry, but the longer she watched, she realized it was more than that: it was positively enraged. She always found comfort in the sea, ever-changing yet at the same time consistent, eternal. Now, it scared her as nothing had before, and yet, at the same time, she was unable to look away. Seeing the sea like this mesmerized her, but in the same way a small animal was rendered immobile when caught in the gaze of a predator, rooting her to the spot in the face of imminent danger.

A gust of wind brought another wave of sea spray to hit Maise in her face, and with it came an essence of pain, rage, and fear. She crossed the last street bordering the cliff that overlooked the sea as if in a trance, her bike clattering unnoticed to the ground. The guard rail was cold beneath her hands as Maise leaned over as far as she dared, peering through the heavy mist and wind just as she watched her grandmother do countless times before. The old woman always claimed that Maise possessed the same gifts she did when it came to reading and understanding the sea. Her mother scoffed whenever she heard her say it and told her not to fill Maise’s head with fairy tales, but Maise suspected her mother didn’t want her to become an outcast the same way her grandmother was. Not that it made any difference: the other kids at school and most of her teachers already thought she was a freak. But now, standing on the cliff in the middle of the storm, Maise found herself thinking, ‘what if she’s right?’

Maise let her eyes drift shut, forgetting about the cold and her own discomfort and opening her mind and senses, allowing herself to just feel. At first, it seemed impossible to feel anything other than the tempest howling around her, but she forced herself to reach out further, to dig deeper, embracing what her grandmother said was always there inside her. She was shivering so hard her teeth rattled in her skull, and her fingers turned white and bloodless, but at last, the brunt of the storm peeled back to reveal what she was searching for: a moan of pain, low on the wind—the metallic tang of blood in the salt spray. Someone—or something—had been grievously injured, and the sea was sharing its agony.

Opening her eyes, Maise’s gaze immediately began to trace the coastline northward, as if being guided by an invisible force. Most of it was hidden behind a wall of gray fog thanks to the low clouds and thick spray being blown off the ocean, creating the illusion that the world ended just beyond a rocky outcropping jutting out into the water. Maise knew, however, thanks to a lifetime of stories from her grandmother and past summer explorations, that the outcropping marked the border of a deep, narrow cove. More importantly, the entrance to a cave lay hidden within the cove’s deepest recesses, and Masie knew in her gut that whatever was suffering bad enough to create the worst storm in living memory was sheltering in that cave, writhing in the throes of pain and all alone.

Before she could second-guess herself, Maise was back on her bike, battling against the wind and the rain that finally started to fall as she peddled uphill. A few cars passed her going the opposite direction, further soaking her with curtains of water as they sped by. She hoped none of the occupants recognized her and informed her grandmother; the old woman had the uncanny ability of knowing exactly where Maise was and what she was doing at any given time. It did not matter that only the vaguest intuition was guiding her or that she did not have any idea of what she was actually going to find once she arrived at her destination, or even that what she was planning was not only utterly foolish but dangerous as well: all she knew was that it had to be done. Moreso, she knew she had to do it alone.

The hill leveled off at an overlook extending out from the side of the road. Maise abandoned her bike for a second time and looked over the railing, sweeping her sopping wet hair from her face. The cove was directly below her, a narrow wedge of beach and water between two arms of rock stretching out into the sea. A natural rockfall created a steep yet climbable ramp that connected the overlook to the beach below. Maise had made this climb a dozen times before, ever since she was old enough to explore the beaches and marshes surrounding the town on her own, and already in her mind’s eye she was mapping the best paths to take to reach the bottom. It was what she was going to do once she got to the bottom that worried her. The storm surge had flooded the cove worse than high tide, the full fury of the waves broken only by the sheltering arms of the rocks that enclosed it. Determination overrode caution as Maise swung her legs over the guard rail, taking one last look around her to make sure no one was around before making the perilous descent.

The climb down to the cove was like something out of a nightmare. The storm warped the once familiar terrain into a maze wrought with black razor edges and sodden vegetation that broke the traction beneath her sneakers. Maise clung to the rocks as the gale howled at her from all directions, doing all it could to rip her away and throw her to the ravenous waves. Her wet hair was plastered over her eyes, and her fingers were white with cold and felt as brittle as old sticks, but she put all her focus in finding the next foothold as she inched her way around the cove’s perimeter toward the mouth of the cave on the far side. Twice the water surged in fast enough to scale the cove’s walls, engulfing Maise’s legs to her knees and trying to drag her back with it to the open sea, but each time she was able to wedge herself between the rocks tight enough that she couldn’t be moved. Finally, her long battle with the elements paid off, and the narrow entrance of the cave bisected the salt-stained cove wall just a few feet to her left, a strip of black only a few shades darker than the rain-washed landscape surrounding it.

Crab-walking along the rocks to cover the remaining distance, Maise watched the sea heave and recede below her over and over, trying to discern any kind of pattern in its chaotic rhythm. She knew she only had one chance to get this right, and she sent a prayer to whatever higher power that might be listening to watch over her mother if she did not come home.

The waves pulled away from the cave entrance, and Maise jumped.

~*~

 

On the day she rounded the tip of the Florida peninsula, she got to see the sun rise out of the Atlantic in the east and set in the Gulf of Mexico in the west.

Maise felt like she had stepped into an entirely different world as she drove across the gulf coast. The land somehow felt older here. Darker and wilder. Spanish moss drifted like ghostly entities between the cypress trees, and the eyes of unseen animals winked like jewels from the dark water as she passed through the swamps and bayous. It was all beautiful.

In Louisiana, Maise was invited to join an annual crayfish bake. She had never eaten crayfish before, and the locals were only too eager to show her the proper technique; she was even bold enough to suck the fat and brain matter from the heads. When she went to the beach to listen to her shell, she discovered the song had changed again. Now it was deeper, more somber, as if shouldering the burden of sadness from generations past, and Maise wept as she listened.

Maise traversed into Texas a few days later. French Creole architecture gradually evolved into Spanish mansions and ranch-style homes, the wetlands giving way to the deserts of the American southwest. Finally, she arrived at the junctions where the Rio Grande river flowed into the Gulf, at the border between Mexico and the United States. Here she lingered for some time, apprehensive about the next leg of her journey. According to the roadside map she picked up at a gas station (thank God they still existed in this age of the digital GPS) 1,600 miles separated her from San Diego, which roughly translated to a two-day drive. Not a long stretch of time by any means, especially when considering how long she’d been on the road already; it was the thought of being away from the ocean for that long that made her nervous. It took longer than she cared to admit to stop thinking about all the worst-case scenarios (her car overheating and breaking down, getting lost in the backroads of the desert). Still, after one last morning watching the sun rise out of the azure waters of the Gulf of Mexico, she turned west and headed inland.

The first day driving through the southwestern stretch of the Texas desert felt like purgatory. It was horribly dry; the harsh sunlight leeching all color from the land and sky. There was nothing to look at except for scrub brush and distant rocky hills. Had it not been for the odometer on her dash ticking away the passing miles, it was easy to think she wasn’t moving at all. She crossed the state line to New Mexico just before dusk and pulled into a small motel not long after, not wanting to risk sleeping in her car in the middle of nowhere. The monotony of the day was made up for while dining at the tiny adjacent Mexican restaurant, where she had several bottles of Corona and the best tamales in her life. She watched bats swoop through the air by the neon light of the motel sign and was later lulled to sleep by the coyote songs resonating from the distant hills.

 

~*~

 

The water was so cold it struck her like a physical blow, wringing the breath from her lungs and wiping her mind clear of all other thoughts. She scrabbled to hold on to those last threads of coherency, knowing she had only seconds to get to safety before certain death rushed in to claim her. She could hear it roaring toward her with all the unstoppable power of a freight engine, all-consuming and unforgiving. Maise attempted to run into the cave only to realize to her absolute horror that she was stuck: the impact of her fall caused her to sink into the wet sand past her ankles, as unrelenting as wet cement. Panic overtook her as she struggled to free herself, the sand only giving up centimeters and feeling far more likely to pull her joints out of their sockets than release her.

The wave hit her like an explosion, wrenching out of the sand and turning her whole world asunder. Maise tried to scream, but the cold stole her voice, and salt shriveled her tongue, and she wished she had one more chance to apologize to her to mother for attempting to do something so stupid when the chaotic vortex she was caught in came to an abrupt stop. Maise thrashed her arms and legs wildly in an effort to reach the surface, but the current moved as if it had a mind of its own, lifting and bearing her in another direction entirely. Suddenly she was on dry land again, purging the stinging water from her lungs with hacking coughs and replacing it with great gasps of air. Her body was wracked with bone-deep shivers from cold and fear, but she was somehow, miraculously, alive.

Maise opened her eyes and saw that against all odds, she had made it inside the cave. It was mostly dark, the walls of its narrow, shaft-like entrance visible only from the wan light reflecting off the damp rocks, but she was warmer now that she was out of the wind, the roar of the waves reduced to a distant rumble. It was as if the ocean understood what she was there for and sought to help her by putting her exactly where she needed to be. Maise took another minute to gather her bearings before continuing forward, peeling off her soaked windbreaker and squeezing as much water from her clothing as possible to keep from getting too cold, just like her grandmother taught her. Then she set off deeper in the cave to continue her mission.

Keeping one hand on the wall, Maise made her way deeper into the cave, stepping carefully until her eyes became better adjusted to the wan light. The group sloped upwards at a gradual incline, formed by centuries of sand buildup and erosion, taking her above the waterline. At times the tunnel became so narrow she had to ease even her skinny frame through sideways. Although she was now navigating in complete darkness, she never felt afraid nor questioned why that was. She rounded another bend and saw it at last: a glimmer of silver in the distance; the literal light at the end of the tunnel. With a renewed burst of energy, Maise rushed towards it, heedless of the way her shoulders and hip banged against the rocks as she hurtled past.

The first thing Maise noticed when she, at last, emerged from the tunnel was the smell of blood. It mingled with the other scents she associated with this place: salt and seaweed, bird droppings and dead fish, and the lingering wet dog smell from the occasional visiting families of sea lions, now overpowered by a metallic tang so thick it coated her whole mouth, making her gag. She could not immediately see its source, so Maise pressed her soaked windbreaker to her face and continued onward.

The cave extended deep into the heart of the cliff, partially flooded with the ocean that rushed through another opening at the far end. From where Maise stood, it looked like a half-moon hovering above the horizon, casting silver-gray light on the obsidian-black water, gilding the incoming waves and the high rocky walls. Maise didn’t know how many hours she spent here over the years, searching for bones and secret pirate treasure in its countless hidden alcoves. She prided herself in thinking that she knew the cave better than anyone else in the area, but today it was as if she was entering it for the first time. The sounds of wind and waves, naturally amplified by the vast empty space, were strangely muted, as though they were coming from much further away. It unsettled her more than the smell of blood. Maise felt like something was watching her from the shadows wedged tight against the rocks and from between the waves rolling in from outside; like entering the cave was only the first part to a much larger test. She realized she was shivering again, and this time it wasn’t from the cold.

Maise kept to the outside perimeter of the cave, still unsure of what she was looking for but not doubting she would know when she found it. The scent of blood grew even thicker until, at last, she did gag, coughing hard enough to bring bile to the back of her throat. Maise stumbled, slipping on the slick rock underfoot and falling, hard, before she had the chance to stop herself. For the second time that day, Maise felt all the air knocked out of her, only now she had the luxury to lay there and question her life choices. At twelve years old, she certainly didn’t have a good track record.

There was a sudden shift of movement out of the corner of her eye, a reflective glimmer in the low light. Something large and heavy was sliding against the rocks. She was not alone.

Maise froze, pressing herself even flatter against the ground and holding her breath. Once it became clear that nothing was going to leap out and pounce on her, Maise slowly got back to her feet, wincing against the burning pain that throbbed through her right side. She rounded a corner, and the world as she knew it was suddenly changed forever.

 

~*~

 

The night’s reprieve helped rejuvenate Maise for the remainder of her drive through the Sonoran Desert. At long last, the cacti were replaced with palm trees, the empty expanse of the desert by a vast urban sprawl of San Diego. The sun was just beginning to dip past the horizon by the time Maise got her first glimpse of the Pacific Ocean, the sapphire blue water gilded with molten gold and the sky a riot of pink, orange, and purple. The first touch of salt-laced wind on Maise’s face in two days brought tears to her eyes.

Summer in Southern California was exactly as Maise always pictured it; surfers bobbing in the water hoping to catch one last wave of the day, bronzed skin and bleached blonde hair, clouds of marijuana smoke and lowriders and street racers gleaming in the neon beachfront club signs. The air was hot but devoid of the humidity of the east coast, and the ocean so warm that Maise was tempted to strip down and go swimming right then and there. She restrained herself just long enough to find a motel and treat herself to some authentic street tacos for dinner. By the time she returned to the beach, night had completely fallen, and the stretch of sand now dotted with bonfires. Maise listened to her conch for the first time since she left the Gulf, which already felt like an eternity ago. The song had changed once again, and although it still wasn’t her song, it was more similar than any that came before. She was getting closer.

Maise may have lived on the Pacific coast for the first part of her life, but it was still fascinating to compare it to the east and south now that she got to experience them for herself, plus how the landscape continued to transform even further as she headed north. Mountain ranges rose and fell the entire length of California, the scenic beaches hemmed in by the sheer faces of rocky cliffs. Soon the sun-drenched beaches and rocky hills of Southern California were behind her, replaced by towering eucalyptus trees and banks of dense grey fog that was ubiquitous to the San Francisco Bay Area. She stopped in the city for an afternoon for some clam chowder in a sourdough bread bowl, then proceeded to cross the Golden Gate Bridge and continue up Highway 1 for the home stretch of her journey.

In two days’ time, she was finally back in Washington.

 

~*~

 

Two eyes peered at her from a deep recess in the cave wall, as bright and cold and sharp as stars on a winter night. Maise didn’t scream, but it was only because she didn’t feel the compulsion to. The nose, mouth, and high cheekbones of the face she found herself staring at was human enough, as were the shoulders, arms, and torso it was attached to. But it was not the face or the body Maise was focused on, but rather the long, muscular tail extending into the water where the legs should have been, covered in overlapping blue and violet scales that shimmered with an iridescent sheen.

Grandmother always said humanity lost its way when it stopped existing with nature and started opposing it instead. She was labeled an outcast and an eccentric by the rest of the town for her chosen lifestyle, a stigma her daughter, Maise’s mother, spent a lifetime trying to escape. Maise, on the other hand, cherished her grandmother’s lessons, learning how to observe the way the world changed with the seasons, how to respect and honor all forms of life, and how to make healing oils and ointments from the plants that grew in the garden and the nearby forests. Most of all, she loved the stories about the fair folk that lived beyond the mortal realm, even as she grew older and knew such tales were only fantasy. In her opinion, there was nothing wrong with wishing things like fairies and mermaids truly existed, especially when her mother watched the news, and Maise had to hear about all the terrible things going on around the world.

As it turned out, wishing for something to be real and actually encountering it in the flesh was something no one could be entirely prepared for. It was, at once, the most beautiful and the most terrible thing Maise had ever seen.

Even though Maise knew she made more than enough noise since entering the cave, the mermaid made no move to flee from her sudden appearance, nor did it attempt to attack her. A good thing, too: it was only when her mind moved past how breathtakingly beautiful it was did she notice the three lines of inch-long barbs running down the length of its arms like the spines of a lionfish, and the curved claws at the end of the webbed hands surely would have made quick work of her. Instead, it only watched her as she moved tentatively closer with eyes the same color as the storm-ravaged sea outside, shining bright in the gloom with intelligence and pain. The scent of blood was at its strongest yet, and Maise finally discovered its source: a metal shaft, as thick as her wrist, protruded from just below the hip joint at the top of the muscular tail, the head of the harpoon embedded deep in the flesh. Blood seeped from the wound, black and viscous in the low light, oozing between the scales and into the water.

“Oh… Oh, no,” Maise gasped, her heart breaking at the sight of such a beautiful creature injured and in pain at the hands of her own kind. She started forward again, one arm rising to reach for the shaft of the harpoon before she realized what she was doing. The mermaid, no doubt startled by her sudden movement, drew away from her with all the graceful speed of a threatened snake, hissing a warning through a mouthful of shark-sharp teeth. She instantly froze, holding up her empty hands in what she hoped was a universal gesture showing she meant no harm.

“Please don’t be afraid. I want to help.” Maise kept her voice low and even, hoping that her tone and gestures could communicate what language could not. She didn’t have a way of knowing if it—he, she corrected herself—understood her, but he neither shrunk away nor lashed out at her when she resumed her slow shuffle toward him. As she drew closer, she began to notice more details about him that made him even more beautiful and unworldly than she first perceived. Small scales were scattered like beauty marks across his face, shoulders, and arms, glittering like amethyst rhinestones against pale lilac-hued skin. He did have hair, long and silky, and nearly the same color as his tail, though it looked less like human hair and more like the wispy tentacles of a jellyfish. She could also see that he did indeed have gills on his neck just beneath the strong curve of his jaw, but they were still now, and he breathed as if he had lungs, his chest rising and falling with deep, measured breaths. It took a significant amount of effort to look away from his face to inspect the wound on his tail.

Maise knew next to nothing about this kind of injury, so she had no way to determine how severe it was. The only thing she could see was that the spearhead was embedded deep in the tail’s muscles and was not going to be easy to remove. Moving slowly so the mermaid could watch everything she did, Maise reached out to gingerly touch his tail, just below where the shaft protruded from the flesh. The mermaid hissed again, but this time not as a threat or a warning.

“It’s okay,” Maise said in as soothing a voice as possible. “I need to see how deep it is.”

The scales were smooth and rigid beneath her hand, like overlapping coins, but unexpectedly warm to the touch. To her immense luck, she could feel the spearhead just below the surface, but it was still going to be difficult to remove, especially not knowing what its shape was or what kind of barbs or hooks it had. The mermaid shifted in obvious discomfort to her ministrations. Outside, the waves beat against the cliff face with renewed fury, the wind moaning like a funeral dirge through the cave fissures.

“It’s you making the storm, isn’t it? Because you’re hurt.” Maise said, looking into the mermaid’s face. Though his expression was pinched with pain, his eyes were clear and focused wholly on her. Maise no longer doubted that he could understand her, though she had no reason for thinking that way. She wasn’t used to someone looking at her without distrust or open judgment, no matter that he wasn’t human. A flush burned her chilled skin and, she quickly averted her eyes. “I’m sorry this happened to you and that people are so awful. They probably mistook you for a tuna or a swordfish. Please, let me try to make it right.”

The mermaid tensed, bracing itself further against the rocks and convincing her all the more that it understood her intent. Praying to whatever higher power that helped her get this far had not yet abandoned her, Maise took hold of the harpoon’s shaft. The mermaid’s keening wail was so loud that at first, Maise thought the sound ruptured her eardrums. His bared teeth looked sharp enough to bite her hand clean off, but the look on his face was apologetic by contrast.

“I’m sorry,” Maise said again. “I’m doing the best I can, but it will still hurt.”

Removing the harpoon was a long, laborious process. The mermaid made a noise like nails on a chalkboard, sending chills crawling down Maise’s spine every time she shifted and rotated the shaft. Each fresh gush of blood and new rend in the flesh sent her stomach roiling as inch by inch she worked it free. Her luck continued to hold; the head of the harpoon was simple, with only a single barb protruding from the end.

Suddenly the harpoon pulled free, catching Maise off guard and causing her to lose her balance. She began to pitch forward, the harpoon flying from her hands even as she made an effort to twist out of the way to avoid landing on the mermaid and injuring him further. But then the mermaid was moving too, not to dive back into the water as one would expect but as if it meant to catch her.

It took only the space of a heartbeat for the dream to transform into a nightmare.

Searing pain lashed across Maise’s left hand as one of the spines on the mermaid’s arm slashed her across the palm all the way to her inner elbow. In an instant, every nerve in her arm felt like it was on fire, racing up to her shoulder and neck to consume her mind. Through her rapidly tunneling vision, Maise could see the skin surrounding the bleeding gash on her hand turn a sickly shade of purple as it started to swell like a water balloon. The scream that tore from Maise’s throat filled the whole cave, a sound of raw, primordial agony, but it was reduced to nothing more than a guttural croak as the swelling reached her neck. The entire cave canted, turning over on itself as her legs gave out from under her, but before Maise could hit the ground, she felt herself being caught by two strong arms that gently lowered her the rest of the way.

The mermaid hovered over her with a mixed expression of panic, apology, and remorse. The strange wispy hair cascaded over his shoulders like a curtain, the tiny scales on his face twinkling like violet stars as he gathered her in his arms, cradling her against him even as she convulsed violently. How cruelly ironic: she had saved his life only to die in his place.

The mermaid picked up Maise’s injured hand, now black and distended from the venom coursing through it and pressed a kiss to the wound. Maise suddenly felt herself enveloped in a cocoon of warmth, removed from the pain that continued to ravage her body. She sighed and curled into the mermaid’s embrace, wrapped in his very essence: the unexpected heat of his skin, the strength of his tail beneath her legs, the scent of deep ocean and sunlight and freedom. At least she would die knowing she helped save this beautiful creature, and that she was not alone.

Maise closed her eyes, and fell into darkness.

 

~*~

 

Memories of the weeks she spent in the hospital came in flashes and bursts, usually when she was on the verge of falling asleep years later. IV bags suspended over her head. An endless string of blood transfusions. Piles of bandages soaked in rank purulent fluid. Wound debridement and skin grafts. Fevers so hot Maise was sure she’d burst into flame followed by chills so intense her shivering made the machines she was hooked up to rattle. Mostly she remembered her mother yelling at the doctor outside her room for all the answers he failed to give her about her daughter’s condition. She tried to sleep as often as she could, dreaming of storm-grey eyes that looked human but were anything but, and purple scales that glittered like jewels. Gradually the dreams began to fade, burned away by fever and the medications the doctors administered to combat the infection that took root inside her.

By the time Maise was strong enough to leave the hospital eight weeks later, she couldn’t recall anything about the storm, the cave, or the impossibly beautiful creature she nearly traded her life to save, neither could she remember much of anything else that came before. Holidays, birthdays, the names and faces of classmates, all the good times as well as the bad—all gone.

A month later, she and her mother moved away from Washington, getting as far away from the ocean as they were able.

And now, nearly twenty years later, she was at last on her way home.

~*~

 

Her old hometown was exactly as Maise remembered it; or, at least, in so much as her limited memories allowed. It was a modest-sized town that still maintained many of its qualities from when it had been founded as a small fishing village, with a marina just large enough to dock maybe fifty fishing boats and stout buildings weathered by enduring years of storms and changing seasons. A few fast food-chain restaurants clung to the outskirts in a feeble attempt to bring the town into the modern fold, but it remained primarily dominated by mom-and-pop shops. But beyond that, no single one thing stood out as being particularly familiar: none of the street names, nor the town monuments, nor the Presbyterian church with its gleaming white steeple that stood across the street from the courthouse. Her earlier excitement upon arrival was gradually tempered until it bordered on the edge of frustration, but she didn’t allow herself to give in to it: not now, not when she’d come this far. Instead, she did what she always did when she found herself stuck; get something to eat, and take a rest before moving forward.

Maise stopped at the first place that caught her eye: a charming-looking cafe that boasted of having the best brunch in the area. She pulled into the parking lot behind the building and stepped out of her car. The sky hung low with clouds; the scent of rain was heavy on the breeze. Maise drew a deep lungful of the ocean air, mixed with the essence of the town—wet asphalt and damp wood, conifer trees and the vague fishy rot coming off the docks—and waited to be overtaken by a wave of nostalgia, but nothing happened.

Her annoyance must have shown on her face because the hostess immediately whisked her away to a booth at the far end of the dining area, well away from the counter where locals chatted with the cook and waitresses. Maise couldn’t help but smirk, remembering having to do the same thing countless times at her old diner. Apparently, no matter where you went, some things were universal.

The hostess set down a menu and a glass of water on the table and left Maise alone with her thoughts. The cafe offered all the most popular Pacific Northwest fair: lox on everything bagels, gourmet avocado toast, half a dozen varieties of eggs benedict. Despite having not eaten anything since she left her last motel, she wasn’t feeling very hungry. She ordered a plain bagel with cream cheese and honey and a mug of tea that, according to the description, was a one-of-a-kind blend to help ease anxiety and clear the mind, which was exactly what she needed.

The tea was a beautiful burnt orange color, and just the act of holding the mug in her hands and breathing in the floral-scented steam immediately helped her feel more relaxed. Maise took a sip…

…and found herself in the middle of an expansive garden, hands and forearms caked with black soil as she helped extract a tangle of thin, pale roots from the earth. It was late autumn and bitterly cold, the damp mist coming off the ocean effortlessly piercing through all her layers of clothing to sink into the very core of her bones. Her grandmother, per usual, didn’t seem to notice at all. In fact, she always seemed strengthened by the cold weather, the worse the better. Not for the first time, Maise found herself wishing she could be that strong when she got old.

Maise sighed as they stepped into the kitchen through the back door, the heat coming off the wood-burning stove wrapping around her like a down comforter. She went to her little bedroom located in the cottage’s loft and changed out of her damp clothing and into her favorite pair of fleece pajamas. By the time she returned to the kitchen her grandmother had a mug of hot drinking chocolate waiting for her on the weathered table. There Maise would contently sit for hours, watching her grandmother prepare the plants they had gathered in the garden and foraged in the forest for drying. The air was permeated with the fragrances of the bundles of chamomile and lavender already hanging from the cottage’s low ceiling beams, and everything in the world was warm and cozy and perfect.

“Miss? Miss, are you alright?”

The server’s question startled Maise so badly that she upset her mug of tea and sloshed it over the table.

“Oh no! I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you!” the young woman exclaimed. Maise’s instincts born from years of waitressing instantaneously kicked in, and both she and the other woman dove for the napkin holder at the same time. As a result, they managed to upend the condiments basket, sending bottles rolling every which way across the tabletop. Maise couldn’t help but laugh at the ridiculous situation she helped create.

“No, that was entirely my fault. I was lost in thought,” Maise said as she helped mop up the spilled tea.

“You looked like you were on a whole other world,” the server said with a nervous laugh.

“I was remembering. The tea… My grandmother used to make a blend just like it. She grew and prepared all the ingredients herself.” She hesitated, then decided to test the next uncertain waters to see where they’d take her. “I used to live here when I was a kid. In the cottage, on the cliffs just to the north of here.”

The waitress squinted and tilted her head, as if searching Maise’s face for something familiar. Maise didn’t recognize her at all, even if they had once known each other from when she still lived here. You didn’t make many friends when you’re the granddaughter of a witch, even one that was grudgingly respected in the community.

The waitress’s scrutiny went on just long enough to start to become uncomfortable when suddenly her eyes lit up. “Oh, my god! Maise! Maise Thompson, right?”

Maise blinked, bewildered by the woman’s rush of excitement. “I… Yes, I am.”

“Oh. My. God,” she exclaimed again, promptly sitting down in the booth opposite of Maise, all other duties forgotten. “How are you? Do you remember me at all? Carol Dunning! Well, soon to be Carol Tremmble. We were in Mrs. Basque’s second grade class together!”

“Oh. Umm—” Maise started, feeling increasingly guilty when she saw the expectant expression on Carol’s face. “I’m sorry. I don’t remember much from when we were kids. I had that accident when we were twelve and lost a lot of my memories.”

Carol’s features instantly transformed, not to being offended or confused, but to one, shockingly, of realization and understanding. “That’s right! You were in the hospital before you moved away! It was the only thing people talked about for weeks, but no one seemed to know the whole story, only that you were found on the beach after that huge storm. The other kids came up with the wildest stories about you. Some said you had to have your arm amputated.” Here Maise shifted, attempting to discreetly hide the scar on her left hand. Carol didn’t seem to notice, but rather looked embarrassed again. “You may have died once, or three or four times. I can’t remember, but it was a lot. I think they just wanted to see who would get it right first. I… eventually told them to stop because it was morbid. By the time you were ready to leave the hospital, your mom was packed and ready to move away, and your grandma didn’t like talking to anyone about it. Not that anyone tried talking to her much, anyway. Do you remember anything that happened?”

Of course, Maise wasn’t ready to reveal that her memories of that day had been gradually trickling back to her during the nights she spent sleeping in her car, or on the long stretches of open road. She definitely was not going to mention that said memories revolved around helping a mythical sea creature whom she found on a hunch during an extremely dangerous situation. While Maise had been hoping that maybe she would meet someone in the town who remembered something of that day, she hadn’t expected it to happen so soon, if it happened at all, so she didn’t have a prepared story to give Carol. Maybe that was for the best: fabricating lies had never been her forte. But that also meant she was under no obligation to tell the whole story.

“Only bits and pieces. I remember the storm and riding home on my bike, but I stopped because I thought I saw someone below the cliffs who needed help.” She paused, but only for a half a second. “Down by the cave in the cove.”

“You mean the Sea Serpent Grotto?” Carol asked, and Maise blinked. Evidently, the fact the cave had a name was not part of her memories that had yet returned. Carol must have read it on her face, because she was only too eager to launch into an explanation. “The native tribes who originally lived here said it’s this great big cave system that runs through the cliffs, and that it was the home of sea monsters, kind of like mermaids but with great big snake-like tails with poison spines who hunted seals and whales with spears and other weapons. The adults used to hate that we were always trying to go down there to explore because it was so dangerous. I totally understand why now, but we were stupid kids at the time. I went down a few times but only to impress the boys. Jason Barton said he found a sea serpent scale there once, but of course, he conveniently lost it before he could show anyone.”

“Of course,” Maise agreed, her thoughts drifting elsewhere.

“So,” Carol declared, slapping her hands down on the tabletop and breaking Maise’s train of thought. “It sounds like what happened was you thought you saw someone who needed help, and when you went down to the beach to check, you got caught by a wave or something. It’s a miracle you didn’t get swept out to sea. Mystery solved, right? So, what are your plans for the rest of your time here?”

Maise was beginning to feel uncomfortable; not because Carol was doing anything wrong, but simply because she wasn’t used to people being so open and forward with her. Her neighbors and coworkers had all been civil to her in the different towns she’d lived in after moving, but because she didn’t have the same midwestern values, she was always seen as an outsider. “I don’t have much of a plan at all. Truth be told, I came here on a complete whim. Like, ‘if I don’t do this now, it will never happen’ kind of thing.”

Carol nodded sagely, as though she knew exactly what Maise was talking about.

“But since I’m here, I want to be able to visit my grandmother. If she’s still here, that is.”

At this, Carol’s face fell, and Maise knew what she was going to say next before she uttered a single word. “Oh… Maise, I’m so sorry to be the one to tell you this since we don’t know each other, but… Your grandmother passed. About five years ago now.”

Maise averted her eyes, studying the speckled pattern on the Formica tabletop. A hollow sensation yawned open inside her, but it was not grief as one would expect. Instead, it was a lack of any kind of emotion or feeling at the news at all, which made it indefinitely worse. She knew she could not blame herself for it; she didn’t even remember the old woman until just shy of two months ago, but it was a loss all the same. She had started her journey with only a small hope that her grandmother was still here to help piece her fragmented childhood back together, but evidently, she had been clinging to that hope tighter than she realized.

She expected Carol to get up at that point to leave her alone as people usually did to avoid being shackled to another person’s emotional baggage, but the other woman continued to surprise her, and not by just offering empty condolences.

“After high school, I was not in a good place. I moved up to Seattle and got involved with a guy there. It was one of those situations where everything was fine until it wasn’t, but it took me a long time to figure that out and an even longer time to get away. I came home but developed terrible anxiety and sleeping disorders because I was so afraid of him finding me. Then one day, your grandmother came up to me in the store and told me to come over for tea. I suppose my mom might have told her what I was going through, but I think it was more something she just knew, you know? She made me this tea,” she gestured to the half-empty mug, now cold and forgotten, at Maise’s elbow, “and taught me how to brew my own. It didn’t solve my problems, obviously, but it helped me sleep better and made me feel like everything was going to be okay. It also made me wish that I hadn’t been such a dumb kid and listened to all the nasty things the other adult said about her. After she passed, I asked my boss if we could add her tea to the menu because I wanted it to help other people like it helped me.” She blushed, looking suddenly guilty. “But now that you’re back, I’ll have her take it off. It technically belongs to you, after all.”

Maise shook her head, touched by Carol’s story and the purity of her personality. “No, I don’t want you to do that. If my grandmother gave it to you, I’m sure she’d be happy to know you wanted to help others with it. I know it helped me.”

Carol beamed, but their conversation was cut off by the lunch crowd that swarmed the cafe in a collective rush. Carol refused to give Maise her bill, so Maise made up for it by leaving a tip the same amount as her small meal and then some. Just as she was about to leave Carol managed to catch her one more time, handing her a folded piece of paper.

“Text me if you’re free later and want to grab a drink or something. There’s not a lot of options around here, but it beats being alone.” She gave Maise a small smile. “She’s buried near her cottage. No one’s lived there since she passed. Of course, people say it’s because it’s haunted, but I think it’s more out of respect for her.”

Maise took the scrap of paper, not having the heart to tell the other woman she no longer had a phone. Instead, she hugged Carol as though they really had been friends since childhood, thanked her for the information about her grandmother, and left.

A fine rain began to fall while Maise was in the cafe, draping the town in a veil of grey mist. It brought an eerie hush with it, muting all sound except for the distant crash of the surf against the cliffs and the ghostly call of seabirds high overhead. Maise welcomed the stillness after the noise and close confines of the cafe. Leaving her car in the parking lot, she began to walk toward the ocean, her feet following a path laid down by her fragmented memory, like pieces of a puzzle falling into place. She moved like a specter, carefully avoiding anyone else out walking so she didn’t chance running into someone else from her past who might recognize her.

A wall of fog obstructed much of the ocean’s expanse; from her vantage at the guard rail running around the lip of the cliff, Maise could see the ridges of foam where the water pushed inland and a scattering of flotsam on the pale grey sand. If she looked to the north and squinted very hard, she could just make out an arm of rock extending off the cliff and out to sea; the outer border to the sea serpent’s grotto. Excitement and anticipation surged inside her as if fully hit her: she had finally made it home.

Hands trembling, Maise reached into the purse and withdrew the shell. She held it to her ear, and a sob escaped her throat before she even knew it was there. The song that blossomed from the shell’s depths set her heart aching.

It was her song, at long last. There was only one last place for her to go.

She put the shell away and started to head north on foot: toward the grotto.