Mermaids Never Drown: Tales to Dive For E-Book

Zoraida Cordova

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

14 Young Adult short stories from bestselling and award-winning authors make a splash in Mermaids Never Drown - the second collection in the Untold Legends series edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker - exploring mermaids like we've never seen them before! A Vietnamese mermaid caught between two worlds. A siren who falls for Poseidon's son. A boy secretly pining for the merboy who saved him years ago. A storm that brings humans and mermaids together. Generations of family secrets and pain. Find all these stories and more in this gripping new collection that will reel you in from the very first page! Welcome to an ocean of hurt, fear, confusion, rage, hope, humor, discovery, and love in its many forms. Edited by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker, Mermaids Never Drown features beloved authors like Darcie Little Badger, Kalynn Bayron, Preeti Chhibber, Rebecca Coffindaffer, Julie C. Dao, Maggie Tokuda-Hall, Adriana Herrera, June Hur, Katherine Locke, Kerri Maniscalco, Julie Murphy, Gretchen Schreiber, and Julian Winters.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Leave us a Review

Copyright

Dedication

INTRODUCTION

STORM SONGRebecca Coffindaffer

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE JUNEJulian Winters

THE STORY OF A KNIFEGretchen Schreiber

THE DARK CALLSPreeti Chhibber

RETURN TO THE SEAKalynn Bayron

THE DEEPWATER VANDALDarcie Little Badger

THE NIGHTINGALE’S LAMENTKerri Maniscalco

SEA WOLF IN PRINCE’S CLOTHINGAdriana Herrera

NOR’EASTERKatherine Locke

THE FIRST AND LAST KISSJulie Murphy

THE MERROWZoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker

SHARK WEEKMaggie Tokuda-Hall

JINJU’S PEARLSJune Hur

SIX THOUSAND MILESJulie C. Dao

Acknowledgments

About the Authors

ALSO AVAILABLE FROM TITAN BOOKS

A Universe of Wishes: A We Need Diverse Books Anthology

Cursed: An Anthology

Dark Cities: All-New Masterpieces of Urban Terror

Dead Letters: An Anthology of the Undelivered, the Missing, the Returned…

Dead Man’s Hand: An Anthology of the Weird West

Exit Wounds: Nineteen Tales of Mystery from the Modern Masters of Crime

Hex Life: Wicked New Tales of Witchery

Infinite Stars: The Definitive Anthology of Space Opera and Military SF

Infinite Stars: Dark Frontiers: The Definitive Anthology of Space Opera

Invisible Blood: Seventeen New Stories of Murder and Mystery

Daggers Drawn: Nineteen Award-Winning Stories

New Fears: New Horror Stories by Masters of the Genre

New Fears 2: Brand New Horror Stories by Masters of the Macabre

Out of the Ruins: The Apocalyptic Anthology

Phantoms: Haunting Tales from the Masters of the Genre

Reports from the Deep End: Stories Inspired by J. G. Ballard Rogues

Vampires Never Get Old: Tales With Fresh Bite

Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse

Wastelands 2: More Stories of the Apocalypse

Wastelands: The New Apocalypse

When Things Get Dark: Stories Inspired by Shirley Jackson

Wonderland: An Anthology

Escape Pod: The Science Fiction Anthology

Dark Detectives: An Anthology of Supernatural Mysteries

LEAVE US A REVIEW

We hope you enjoy this book – if you did we would really appreciate it if you can write a short review. Your ratings really make a difference for the authors, helping the books you love reach more people.

You can rate this book, or leave a short review here:

Amazon.co.uk,

Goodreads,

Waterstones,

or your preferred retailer.

Mermaids Never Drown: Tales to Dive For

Print edition ISBN: 9781803368122

E-book edition ISBN: 9781803368139

Published by Titan Books

A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd

144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

www.titanbooks.com

First edition: September 2023

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead (except for satirical purposes), is entirely coincidental.

Mermaids Never Drown: Tales to Dive For © Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker 2023

“Storm Song” © 2023 Rebecca Coffindaffer

“We’ll Always Have June” © 2023 Julian Winters

“The Story of a Knife” © 2023 Gretchen Schreiber

“The Dark Calls” © 2023 Preeti Chhibber

“Return to the Sea” © 2023 Kalynn Bayron

“The Deepwater Vandal” © 2023 Darcie Little Badger

“The Nightingale’s Lament” © 2023 Kerri Maniscalco

“Sea Wolf in Prince’s Clothing” © 2023 Adriana Herrera

“Nor’easter” © 2023 Katherine Locke

“The First and Last Kiss” © 2023 Julie Murphy

“The Merrow” © 2023 by Zoraida Córdova and Natalie C. Parker

“Shark Week” © 2023 by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

“Jinju’s Pearls” copyright © 2023 June Hur

“Six Thousand Miles” © 2023 Julie C. Dao

The authors assert the moral right to be identified as the authors of this work.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To ourreaders—fromvampires of the nightto mermaids in the sea.We thank you for joining us on this magical enterprise.

INTRODUCTION

Let’s just start with the obvious: Who hasn’t spent hours sitting on the bottom of a pool pretending they were a mermaid with a gorgeous tail and the ability to breathe underwater? Or, in Zoraida’s case (because, spoiler alert, Zoraida can’t swim), staring at the glorious expanse of blue and dreaming of what lay beneath? Just us? We don’t think so.

Natalie was so enamored of all things aquatic that she started begging her parents for scuba lessons at eleven years old (though they held out, citing something about “being too far from the ocean” as if that would stop her); and Zoraida received a VHS of Disney’s The Little Mermaid when she was three and watched it on repeat so many times she taught herself English, and came away with a lifelong love of mermaids.

When we started thinking that maybe, just maybe, we could turn our first cryptid collection into a series, we knew that mermaids would be our second installment. Mermaids, like many folktales and legends, have taken on a life of their own. These beings change from culture to culture—sometimes there are fins and sometimes tentacles, sometimes they sing you to the bottom of a cold sea, and sometimes they fall in love with lonely sailors who most definitely weren’t hallucinating. No matter what, stories about merpeople are an invitation to dream about the mysteries of our own world.

With each story, our authors invite you to imagine mermaids in a wide variety of ways. There are mermaids who dream of being on land and mermaids who dwell in the deepest waters. There are stories of transformation and magic and of yearning to belong. As you read, we hope you will explore these endless, magical possibilities, because, let’s face it, the ocean is big enough for all of us.

Cheers,

Zoraida & Natalie

STORM SONG

Rebecca Coffindaffer

To feed the magic, you must first yourself know hunger.

It is your turn to call down the storms tonight.

The waves are wild already, white fingered and clawing at the rocks that line the coast. Above you, the star-scattered sky is clear and waiting.

No moon, though. That part is important. The magic is at its most powerful when she is hidden, and you’ve watched carefully every night, tracking her as she slipped farther and farther into shadow.

She is at her darkest now—right now. And the current brings the ship you chose closer every moment.

You’ve timed everything perfectly. You had to.

You need every advantage you can get because your song . . .

Your song. It isn’t ready. It may not be strong enough.

You’d wanted more time to find your melody, to hone that power that sits deep in your stomach. But the season already grows late. The elders—those sirens who’ve been around the longest, who know the seas best but no longer travel so far to join the singing—told you it cannot wait any longer. If you don’t call down the storms tonight, the cycle will break. Everything will suffer.

Abalone slips up beside you, curling gracefully around the rocks. Even in these waters—darker and colder than the warm, tropical currents where the elders hold the heart of your people’s power—she stands out, vibrant as a flower. An ombré of rich blue and gold, touched with streaks of pink, from the bright yellow tips of her billowing hair all the way down to the deep navy ends of her fin. Everything about Abalone is provocative, shimmering.

You, on the other hand, blend in up here along the jagged coasts of the northern seas. Your scales and skin and hair are mottled dark gray and brown and rust orange. The ends of your fin are bristly and sharp, and long, thin, venomous barbs line your spine.

Abalone twists her arms, her hands, her delicately webbed fingers in a smooth series of movements, signing to you, “Everyone is ready. We wait on you.”

“Don’t worry,” you sign back to her. “They’re coming. Can’t you feel their wake?”

Even if you could easily speak down here, deep underneath the waves, signing is the only safe way for your people to communicate. The voice of a siren is too dangerous for casual use, capable of turning tides, shifting currents, altering the ocean waters in a million tiny ways that could upset the delicate balances of life. Every siren grows up knowing the weight of this power, how vital their voices and songs are in governing the seas.

But to call down the storms? That is another kind of magic. A magic of sacrifice and bargaining.

The waves are hungry, the elders always say. Feed them and the skies will listen.

“There! I see them now,” Abalone signs, pointing ahead at the sharp keel and curving underbelly of a ship as it cuts through the waves toward you. A glow gathers around the edges of her scales. Anticipation stretches her mouth into a grin, baring viciously sharp teeth.

She looks almost as excited as she was when it was her turn to call the storms last season. Her first time leading the song, just as it is yours tonight. She had chosen a shoreline instead of a ship, closer to your home waters. A sprawling town stretched along a coast of white sand. Every unique note of her song had risen flawlessly from her throat, and humans had thronged to the water toward her, wading in up to their necks.

The other sirens had slipped easily into her cadence and harmony, the ocean had taken its bloody sacrifice with vicious waves and greedy foam, and the storms that had been born out of that night had been the most powerful in generations. Churning up vital nutrients from the seafloor and pouring rains across the dry lands of the surface.

Vibrant, violent blooms of new life, above and below the water.

Abalone curls her fin around yours, brushing her hand down your barbed back without fear, and you lean into her touch for a moment. Then you kick upward, spiraling along a twisted stack of volcanic rock and breaking through the surface. Just barely. Enough that you can see the full ship rocking up and down over the waves. Brought here on a current you created and cultured yourself, singing soft tones to the waters so that they would wrap around its keel and pull it here:

Where the sirens are gathered.

Where it will be dragged down to its grave.

It’s quite the prize. Triple masted with stacks of white sails that are rounded with the breeze. Not a fisherman’s ship or that of rough sailors scraping for trade or coin. You chose this one because it’s richly outfitted, newly painted, crowded with humans who always have gold and gems glinting on their fingers and earlobes or along their belts and decorative sword sheaths.

One of them—a woman with bright yellow hair piled atop her head—has a necklace that encases her whole throat in sapphires and gold. She can’t even comfortably drop her chin when she’s wearing it, but you don’t think she minds that part. She seems used to viewing the world down the length of her nose.

Every time you see that necklace, you think of how much better it would look on Abalone. You imagine the gems dripping between your fingers as you fasten it around her neck.

Tonight is not supposed to be about riches or the spoils of the kill. It is supposed to be about continuing the cycle, blessing the lands and seas with storms for another season.

Still, you think. Maybe if I am good enough, if my song is strong enough, there might be room for both.

You look up at the dark-faced moon, at the alignments of the stars. You see the roll and flash of sirens’ fins—bright orange, vivid pink, metallic black—as they twist through the waves and rocks and wait. On you.

Now is the time.

But there is a tightness in your chest so fierce it squeezes your voice into silence.

You have sung before—to the currents and the tides, to the pods of whales that pull you along in their enormous wakes as they croon back. But those are different songs.

The storm song is about lust, about wanting. It is about drawing all the humans on that ship to your call, filling them with such desire for you that they throw themselves into the arms of the sirens and let their blood spill across the seas in red ribbons.

You must sing to them about allure and longing until it builds a fire in their groins that burns away all logic and reason, until all they can think of is getting to you, pressing themselves against you, even as you rip them apart. It is about the hunger.

But you don’t know how to sing this song.

You’ve never really known how to sing it—because you’ve never felt it.

You will, Abalone told you at the last new moon, as the two of you swam along the coral at home. When it is your turn to lead, I’m sure you will. It is a powerful feeling.

You have joined the songs of other sirens before. You remember what it was like to sing with Abalone’s song, to see the hunger alight in the humans’ eyes and how the sirens had thrummed with the power of it.

But it hadn’t felt powerful for you. It had felt . . . uncomfortable. Wrong. Their blood had tasted sour—it always tasted sour.

Maybe Abalone is right, though, you think. Maybe it’s only because I haven’t led the song myself. Maybe it will be different tonight.

Your people have been singing the songs of storm season for generations without fail—surely, you can’t be the first who has felt like this. Who has come to this ritual without feeling fully connected to the hungry magic you’re calling upon. They managed it anyway, so why can’t you?

The water twists around your body, and Abalone rises up next to you. Starlight shimmers in her hair and along her high, curving cheekbones. Her hands move above the surface.

“It will be all right. The skies will listen.”

The tightness in your chest loosens. Just a little. She believes in you. And maybe that will be enough. Just for tonight.

You dive deep, pulling the waters around you, letting them push you up until you rise well above the surface. Water pours from your hair, curving down your body, and the air up here is cold against the bare skin of your chest.

This—the display of yourself, your body—is part of it. You know that. You know so many sirens who find strength and pleasure in this part of it, and you try to be like them.

But it doesn’t feel any less uncomfortable to expose yourself like this. To have to present yourself in such a specific way. Not even as you open your mouth and start to sing.

The first notes come out wavering and weak, but they are still enough to draw the eyes of one human on the ship. And then another notices. And another.

You try to build the melody, stringing the next note and the next. Like trying to find your way in the deepest, darkest waters. You have no instincts for this song, no sense of how to shape it, so you try to sing it like you’ve heard the other sirens before you do. You mix deep, low notes with sweeping highs, like Abalone did. You push and pull at the volume like Thessa’s song, three seasons ago.

None of it sounds right in your throat.

But it seems to be working, which is what matters.

The humans have all clustered against the railing on the ship, pressing against it, their eyes fixed on you. Far above, dark clouds start to spool from the horizon, obscuring the stars.

The sharp waves die suddenly, going eerily still as the other sirens break through the surface, glowing with bioluminescence as their voices join yours. It shines in their eyes and the strands of their hair, around the scales of their fins and in delicate patterns across the skin of their chests.

Abalone was right. There is something powerful here. In hearing them match their songs to yours. In tasting the bargaining magic, like ozone on your tongue, as it starts to unfurl.

But the song . . .

It won’t flow from you as it should. You can’t find its natural rhythm, and the melody scrapes against your throat.

The next note comes out in a stuttering rasp, but you catch yourself quickly. Throw yourself back into the song before the other sirens hear.

On the ship, you spot the woman with the sapphire necklace. She blinks, and the lust starts to fade from her eyes.

No.

You yank the melody up from your chest, singing it louder. You can’t lose them. No siren has failed in calling the storms before. You can’t be the first one. Without them, there will not be a renewal of life in the oceans. Drought will strike the lands, and wildfires will paint the air with ash and smoke.

The woman in sapphires blinks again—and then she looks away. She turns toward a man on her right—a soldier in uniform—and leans into his ear to whisper something.

He looks away, too. No longer transfixed by you. Or by Abalone. Or any of the other sirens.

A shudder ripples through the ocean currents. Above you, the dark clouds begin to stretch and thin.

No. No no no.

You choke on the next note and can’t find your way back into the song. Beside you, Abalone’s voice wavers—and then drops to nothing. One by one, each siren goes silent. They turn their eyes to you, expressions tight with worry, with fear.

Abalone slides in front of you, brushing her webbed fingers down the sides of your face. Her hands move, trying to speak to you, but you can’t look at her—your eyes are fixed on the ship and the quickly clearing sky.

Panic grips you by the throat. So tight that you have to drag every breath into your lungs.

The stars wink down at you, bright and sharp against the dark night.

Then the people on the ship begin to move. They scatter and shouts ring out from bow to stern as the most richly dressed of them pull back from the railing. Soldiers surge to the side of the ship, all in uniforms of black coats and gold buttons, some with gold epaulettes on their shoulders. They line up with muskets held in front of them, silver bayonets glinting as they point the muzzles down at the water.

At you. At your sirens.

Another shout from the ship, and then there’s an explosion of noise.

Crack. Crack. Crack. Crack.

Smoke curls from the muskets as bullets hit the water, sending up sprays. Over by the rocks, Thessa cries out with pain and slips beneath the surface.

Horror swells in your chest, choking you. You open your mouth, but nothing comes out. Not a wail or a shout. Definitely not a song.

The ship towers above you, all noise and movement. The people on board are cheering. Excited. You see the woman in the sapphire necklace applauding, laughter dancing across her face.

Crack. Crack. Crack.

They are shooting at will now, over and over. Another siren gets hit, red blood splashing against the ship’s hull. You hear the cry of another far off, back by the stern.

Abalone screams.

Your heart stops as you turn and see her, clutching at her shoulder. You dive for her before the soldiers can fire again, dragging her below the surface.

The waves close over your head as you sink down and cradle Abalone against you, her cheek resting against your bare shoulder, her hair and yours mingling together in the current. Thin ribbons of blood twist upward from the wound in her shoulder, and she shudders with pain.

You bury your face in the billowing forest of her hair and sing to the waters, so quiet, so soft. It’s the song one of the elders sang to you when you lost control of a riptide and crashed against the coral, gouging scrapes all along your side. It’s a blood song, a healing song, and Abalone starts to relax as it eases her pain and knits at her wound.

The soldiers are still shooting. You can see the sharp, straight trails the round lead balls make as they cut through the water. In the shadows of the waves, sirens are scattering, diving deep.

“I’m so sorry,” you tell Abalone. “I failed all of us. I couldn’t feed the magic. I couldn’t make it listen.”

She presses a hand against you, right at the base of your throat. “You tried to sing my song. You tried to sing Thessa’s. You didn’t try to sing yours.”

Her heartbeat is strong under your fingers, pounding in her chest, reassuring you that she, at least, will be all right. The relief that fills you at feeling the rhythm of her pulse is cool and calming.

And clarifying.

You have been thinking, all this time, that there was a way to do this wrong, but that is impossible. Songs, after all, are like sirens. Unique and the same all at once. Abalone’s had been full of allure, brightly colored and impossible to ignore. Thessa’s had been sweet and warm, a melody that lapped gently at your skin and drew you in with slow fingers.

Every song you’ve heard and joined since your very first storm season had been perfect because that siren had simply sung who they were to the stars. Without hesitation or regret.

You look up, watching the faint ribbon of Abalone’s blood drift above you, the dark shapes of your sirens, fleeing, in pain, scared. The bottom of the ship looms on the surface, blotting out the sky above.

There is hunger inside you after all. You know the taste of it now.

You help Abalone to that twisted stack of volcanic rock, leading her to a tucked-away spot where she has shelter from the bullets still raining down. And from what you are about to do.

“Stay here,” you tell her, and then you kick up to the surface.

The ship is right where you left it, its sails now bound against the masts as the people on board mill about. The finely dressed passengers—in their tightly fitted coats, their hose and heeled shoes, their gowns with layers and layers of skirts—laugh and cheer and call out to each other as the soldiers pace from railing to railing, searching the waters as they reload their long guns, shoving black powder and lead balls deep into the barrels. Every now and then they take a shot, the harsh crack and acrid scent of smoke raising the barbs along your back.

In the corner of your eye, you spot Thessa, huddled and shivering in the shadow of a rock where the humans can’t see her, the water around her colored red with her blood. She sees you and shakes her head, motioning for you to leave, to disappear.

But you just smile at her, the points of your teeth dripping venom. You’re not afraid anymore.

This time, when you part your lips, the first notes come out strong. Deep, low notes that vibrate in the bones and send ripples down into the seafloor.

Come back, you think, hoping the other sirens hear you, sense you. The ocean is calling. Come back. I know what I’m doing now.

You build the new melody piece by piece, calling up a song from all the secret corners inside you. The notes spill from your mouth, growing in resonance and force. They ring off the rocky cliffs and rattle the deck of the ship. They whip at the water until it froths and boils.

And from out of it, you rise higher, borne up on a towering column of sea-foam. Light radiates from your scales and your skin and your eyes and your hair, and aboard the ship, all the humans pile against each other on the railing to witness you.

They stare, transfixed, their faces stretched not with lust or desire, but with amazement and fear. It is the look of someone witnessing the earth splitting at their feet. The look of someone standing on the beach as the hurricane bears down on them. The look you get when you’re in the path of something magnificent and terrible.

You are that magnificent and terrible thing. You are beautiful and monstrous. Sharp as the barbs that bristle across your body. Dark as the clouds starting to knit together in the sky.

The woman in the sapphire necklace shoulders her way to the front, disdain written across her face. She’s the last person to lay eyes on you, and as soon as you see her, you twist the song like a snare, rounding out each note with the rich clarity of the sea shimmering under a bright sun, the ferocity of the orca on the hunt. You watch as it floods her ears, molding her disdain into awe.

The water breaks to your left, and a siren sister appears, joining her voice seamlessly with yours. From her spot behind the rock, Thessa starts to sing as well, and the blend of even just two harmonies with this song—your true song—fills your chest with fire. The melody spills from you faster now, fiercer. You taste the bargaining magic on your tongue.

More sirens return, layering on deep bass notes and rich altos and high tones that ring bright against the air. Dark clouds boil outward across the sky. Lightning flickers in their bellies and then—thatquick—lances down in a jagged arc and strikes the tallest mast of the ship. The wood bursts into flames, quickly catching on the canvas sails, the network of ropes.

Your voices, as one, climb higher, rising to a fever pitch. There is no sweetness in it, no niceness. It is filled with chords that drive shivers up your spine, and you know it will not inspire any of the people on board to leap over the side, into your deadly embrace.

But that’s all right. It doesn’t need to. Because you are not singing to drive the humans mad with want.

You are singing to the storms.

You are singing to the ocean, telling it to take what it is due.

The waves claw against the hull, tossing the ship in their grasp. Wind rips across the cliff face, driving the fire down the masts. Screams fill the deck.

Still, you sing.

You sing until a loud crunching sound cuts through the air and the whole ship shudders as it smashes against a rock, splitting the hull right in two. Wood splinters and cracks, and the ocean rushes in to fill the gaps, scooping out crates and chests, barrels and bodies. Fire still burns on the masts as the hungry waves pull the belly of the ship apart, greedily sucking everything down.

Thunder rumbles in your ears, and the clouds burst open, sheets of rain pouring down on your head.

Only then do you let your song die. You float at the surface, content to let the rain and wind batter you as you watch the other sirens dive into the wreckage of the ship, their fins flashing bright amid foam that gradually gets redder and redder.

Lightning flashes, and your eyes catch the sparkle of sapphires. The woman with the necklace clings to a flat of splintered wood. Surprising that she wasn’t dragged down by her own gown and the weight of all her jewels. You watch as another human swims toward her, their hand outstretched for help, but she smacks at them, pushing herself away from their reach.

Your lips pull back from your teeth, and you run your tongue across their jagged points. Tasting venom.

*   *   *

Abalone still sits where you left her, perched on the ledge of dark volcanic rock, tufts of red algae and green seagrass waving around her. Even wounded, she looks like a benevolent queen.

You reach around her neck, draping the necklace of gold and sapphires on it. You were right—it suits her perfectly. Even with the bloodstains smeared across parts of the metal. Or, maybe, especially because of them.

Abalone runs her fingers along it, smiling at you. Her teeth are like knives.

“I told you the skies would listen.”

WE’LL ALWAYS HAVE JUNE

Julian Winters

I’m ten years old the first time the ocean whispers her name to me:

Death.

One moment, I’m on the edge of the boat, singing along to the music coming from someone’s phone. My moms are laughing with their friends on the other end of the deck. Then we hit a wave. I lose balance and the ocean takes me.

She doesn’t embrace me like a concerned parent. No, she swallows me like a starved shark.

The descent is quick. I’d secretly slipped out of my life jacket ten minutes ago because we were headed back to shore, and it felt so constricting while I sang. Now, the ocean’s strong fingers tug on me. I fight to hold my breath. I thrash and kick, but I’m not a great swimmer, so I sink.

Down, down, down.

Everything slows like the space between the end of a dream and waking up. I almost don’t believe someone is swimming toward me.

A boy, who looks my age, but different.

His eyes are amber like Mom’s favorite pair of teardrop earrings. Short locs dance in the current. Rich brown skin all the way to his navel. After that, it’s a burst of fire and gold. He has a tail. The scales shimmer like a slice of the sun.

But shock and fear seize my limbs. It’s just the two of us in the pounding silence of the sea.

His small hands catch my limp arms. He studies me with sad, bright eyes. Carefully, he pinches my nose and leans in. His mouth covers mine. It’s not a kiss. He exhales small pockets of breath into me. The coil around my lungs loosens.

I’m . . . alive.

He propels us up. I don’t struggle. I let this boy with a tail rip me from Death’s determined hands.

In the distance, I hear the ocean again. This time it shrieks my name:

Kai!

Or maybe that’s my moms. They find me spluttering on the shore. Soaked clothing pinning me to the soft, grainy sand. Salty water burning my eyes, scratching my throat.

Echoes of “Are you okay?” surround me.

Am I?

My only response is, “A boy . . . saved my life.” I know what he is, but I don’t want to say it out loud. Not yet.

No one listens. And the boy with a tail and careful touch is gone.

*   *   *

Six Junes Later

“What’s the worst that could happen?”

Nothing good has ever come of those words, especially when said from the wolfish mouth of Vicente Pérez.

We’re at our favorite spot—the railing leading down to the beach. The sky’s an explosion of crimson and tangerine. Sunset looks nice on his tawny complexion.

Vic knots his hair into a messy bun. “Just ask him out already.”

Me and Vic are complete opposites. He’s loud and reckless. I’m chill, cautious. Even down to our bodies—where he’s short and defined, I’m long and lean, a level above scrawny.

We’ve lived on Talisa Island, a coastal town deep in the belly of Georgia, all our lives. Nine months out of the year, nothing really changes around here. But summers are different. Every June, tourists pour into our town for the beach and ocean.

One of those visitors is Marc O’Brien, the boy who’s stolen my attention for the last two summers.

Even from here, I can see him kicking a soccer ball along the shore with kids from my school. Floppy ginger hair like a crown of flames. I can picture the spill of freckles across his face contrasting with his very green eyes.

“Your pining is embarrassing.” Vic hops off the railing, checking his phone. “And my break’s over.”

He works part-time at the surf shop. I pick up shifts at my moms’ restaurant. Being a busser isn’t glamorous but I’m already saving up for college. I’m looking at universities closer to the city. Far from the ocean.

“So,” Vic begins, a smile teasing his lips, “band rehearsal tomorrow?”

I roll my eyes. We’ve had this conversation a hundred times. Vic plays bass guitar in an amateurish cover band. He’s tried persuading me to sing lead for years. Everyone said I had a beautiful voice when I was younger, but I haven’t sung in front of people since almost drowning, only to myself or when goofing off with Vic in my bedroom.

I worry the moment I sing in public again, something awful will be waiting to swallow me whole.

“We need you, Kai,” Vic continues. “We landed a gig at my dad’s karaoke bar.”

“I’ll think about it,” I lie.

It’s the same answer every time.

Halfway back to the main road, Vic pauses. He looks out toward the beach, where Marc is still dribbling a soccer ball between his feet, then to me. “Kai,” Vic shouts, eyebrows waggling, “you’re a six-foot god! Stop being scared. Any boy would be bananas not to want you.”

I wave him off, nose wrinkled. If my best friend only knew about the boy I really dream about.

*   *   *