The Girl With The Lavender Locks

Prologue

"Please, you have to keep my secret."

It was a simple plea, but one that went against every fiber of my being. Not that anyone could even begin to fathom the truth behind the words that would spill out of me, should I choose to share what I had discovered. How had this happened? I was no one special, just an average girl adjusting to life after college graduation. My looks were certainly nothing to admire, especially when compared to the girl in front of me. Her lavender locks outshone my brunette braid, and the blue-green eyes that popped against her pale skin were a stark contrast to my deep brown eyes and olive complexion. While she appeared to be in perfect shape, the bathing suit cover-up hiding my body proved that I should be avoiding the beach's ice cream stand.

"Amani?"

The sound of my name drew me back to the situation at hand. All of my life, my parents had instilled in me the belief that because my name meant trust, it was up to me to meet the expectations of being trustworthy in all areas of life. Sometimes having that burden made me resent my parents' choice in name, but most times I took pride in knowing that I always tried to be a good friend in whom others could put their trust. Still, I wanted so badly to run to the closest person I could find and shout my discovery to them.

"To be honest, Kieve," I could hold back my smile no more. "No one would believe me anyway. Of course your secret is safe with me." I extended the hand that held the two pink water shoes. Stepping out of the ocean and back from the shoreline, I felt warmth on my feet as I dug my toes into the hot sand.

I watched in amazement while Kieve swam to the water's edge, scooting herself along on hands and bottom when it became too shallow to swim through. She pulled herself out of the water and onto the sand, and when Kieve spun herself around to face the beach, the brilliant rainbow that reflected off of her scales blinded me for a moment. I blinked in the light, and suddenly a pair of long legs had replaced the shimmery fins that had been in front of me moments ago. Kieve reached out to take the shoes from my extended hand and slipped them effortlessly onto her feet.

Kieve stood up and walked toward the old, worn-out fence that the shoes had been hanging on when I found them. She picked up a towel and wrapped it over the blue-green bikini that matched her eyes. "I've been swimming down here for so long; it's always abandoned and I never thought anyone would see me. It's the only place I can swim without the shoes on and be myself."

It had been a little over an hour ago when I walked down the beach and saw the pink shoes hanging off of the fence. They had intrigued me with the way they swung in the breeze, peaceful and lonely. As Kieve had noted, this area of the beach was usually desolate, but something had propelled me forward in my daily walk that afternoon, and I ended up going further than I ever had before. I could still feel the adrenaline rush that coursed through my body when I heard a voice call out from the water after I had picked up the shoes. Thinking that someone had lost them, I had been planning on bringing the shoes to the beach's 'lost and found' hut, but Kieve had been swimming, lost in her own thoughts, just steps away from the fence.

"My legs don't change if I wear the shoes," the frightened girl had explained. She looked familiar to me, as if maybe we had gone to high school together, but the fact that she had the lower body of a fish had left me unable to recall such memories. Kieve had gone on to explain that her body transformed when her legs were exposed to water, something she had successfully hidden from the rest of our oceanfront town until my discovery.

As it turned out, we had gone to high school together, and though our paths hadn't crossed prior to our encounter that day, I had no doubt that our friendship would continue to grow moving forward. I was now friends with a mermaid.