an equal amount of bulk below the surface.
I imagined the meteorologists taking readings from this one. I wondered what they would make of it, ridiculously festooned with the debris of human life. In my research, there were tales of mermaids fascinated with people, collecting random objects. Guess they got that one right.
I looked around and could see nothing but ocean. I wondered how far out we went, two, maybe three miles? I doubted I could paddle it.
“Lorelei, ” I said nervously, “You will take me back soon, right? ”
“Look! ” she cried, holding up the bag Shayla had dropped in the water.
“My bag? ” Was that what she brought me here to see? She put it back on the buoy. “What about my mother? ” I asked.
“I have her favorite thing, ” she said, swimming around to the other side. She danced back, bobbing and twirling in the water. She held up the old weathered baby doll. Tears sprang to my eyes again. So she had wanted a baby.
“Lorelei, how many sisters do you have? ”
“Many,” she laughed and it sounded like musical bells, “Too many to count. And now I have you for a sister too. ”
“I’m your niece.”
“Niece? ” She seemed puzzled again, and then twirled and darted back around the buoy. I had the sensation I was dealing with a child, a capricious child. She popped back up, brandishing a bottle of blue window cleaner. This was starting to get surreal.
“Lorelei, How old are you? Lorelei? ” How could she be my aunt when she looked no older than me? She dove under the board and surfaced on the other side. “How did my mother leave...
did she grow legs? ”
“It is not allowed, ” she frowned, knitting her lovely brow together, “But she would not listen. ” She started frolicking around again.
“Lorelei! ” I tried to get her attention but she was back at the buoy. “Lorelei! ” She popped up on the opposite side of the surfboard, grinning, “I saw your human, ” she said.
“Who? ”
“The one you ride waves with. He’s a nice one.”
I thought about Ethan and the shark attack. I knew the answer but I asked it anyway, “Did you see him before that? ”
She laughed, “I like the wave riders. ” She whirled away to grab something else off the buoy.
This was getting ridiculous. I felt like I was trying to reason with a toddler.
“Lorelei!... Lorelei?... Can you take me back to the beach now? ” The hairs on the back of my neck stood up, and I looked behind me into another pair of mermaid eyes. She looked very much like Lorelei, only there was a big difference. This one was angry!
Lorelei surfaced and her surprise quickly turned to fear.
“It is forbidden! ” The new mermaid screeched. She grabbed Lorelei by the arm and dragged her underwater. They were gone for a few long seconds until Lorelei shot out of the water like a leaping dolphin, followed by the angry creature that lunged for her tail, grabbing on.
There was an unearthly shrieking as they fought, their powerful fins churning the water into choppy waves. I was knocked off the board by the violence of their struggle and I tread water, trying to avoid their thrashing tails. I grabbed hold of the buoy, scooting around to the side opposite their horrible high pitched screams.
Then it was quiet. I moved around the buoy, peering down in the water for any sign of them.
I scrambled onto it, looking around for Lorelei.
Off in the distance, my surfboard was floating away on a powerful current. I cursed myself for not attaching the leash. I jumped in, desperate to retrieve it, but from the water level I could no longer see it. I scrambled back onto the buoy and it was gone. I circled the buoy, looking for any sign of the two mermaids, wondering what could possibly be going on under the deep blue waters. The minutes crept by like hours, and I finally had to admit to myself that they were gone.
It slowly dawned on me just how much trouble I was in. I was alone in the middle of the ocean, marooned on a buoy. Nobody knew where I was. I thought of Cruz, waiting frantically on the beach and I felt an awful rush of guilt. I kept praying that Lorelei would pop back up and take me home, but I had much less faith in her reliability than I did before. I