In the Woods Somewhere

Chapter 3

It took me three days to catch on. Three days to realize there was something peculiar in the town of Peculiar. I don't know what it was that set me off. Whether it was the one girl I saw with antlers sticking out of her head, or when a frat boy pantsed his friend as a joke in the commons, revealing his goat legs and cloven feet for everyone to see. Now that I think about it, it was probably my child psychology professor writing on the board without using her hands. The chalk literally wrote on the board by itself.

You probably think I should be more surprised. Believe me, I was. But after the initial shock wore off I felt...put off. Of all the tiny community colleges I could've chosen, I chose the one with the weird magical people.

On my fourth day at Boundary, I couldn't take it anymore. Jen hadn't noticed anything out of the ordinary, and neither had Navdeep or Imani, all of who I assumed were pretty normal. I went up to one of my Child Psychology classmates, a dark skinned sophomore boy in a wheelchair. He has strange looking himself, in a good way of course, extremely attractive, with toned arms and hair that was bleached white. I don't know why I chose him specifically. There was some sort of otherness about him, and yet, he seemed approachable at the same time.

"Hey, what's up with everyone here?" I asked him.

He looked up at me and grinned, "That's funny, you normies usually don't start asking questions until a few weeks after school starts."

I shrugged, "So, what are you guys?" I felt a little weird asking a question like that, but I really didn't know how else to phrase it.

"We're faeries," The boy said simply.

I furrowed my eyebrows, "Faeries?"

"Yep," He said, popping the p, "I go by Cyrus, and I'm a merrow."

"A merrow?" I gave him an incredulous look.

He sighed, "It's like, a mermaid."

"A mermaid?"

He shook his head, "Would you stop looking at me like that? You asked me what I was!"

I laughed nervously, "Sorry, it's just a little hard to believe."

Cyrus pulled away the blanket that rested on his lap, revealing a gorgeous grey and black speckled tail. I looked back up to his face, and he nodded. His expression was sheer, 'I told you so' that I started to laugh hysterically.

"Oh my god. Oh my god. You're a goddamn mermaid!" I exclaimed, cackling.

"A merrow," He corrected.

"How can you breathe on land?" I asked him.

"With my mouth," Cyrus said.

I must've given him an odd look, because he sighed, "I can breathe without water, or without air. My gills are for breathing underwater, and my mouth is for breathing on the surface. So, no, I don't gain legs like Aquamarine on land, but yes, I can go without water as long as I have oxygen in the air."

"That makes sense," I said.

"Yeah, I know. Any more questions, because I have another class in an hour and I need to hit the cafeteria before I go."

I blushed a little, I had forgotten he was a student like I was, "I have two more, actually."

He groaned, "Fine, be quick though."

"You said you were a faerie at first. How are you a faerie and a mermai- I mean merrow, at the same time?"

"There are lots of subcategories of faeries, and merrows happen to be one of them. Last question?"