H2O: A Mermaid Tail

14

    It's really early in the morning, and I'm at the cafe. I'm on my phone again, writing my story. Will's sister has got a job there, and she brings me a drink.
    "Oh, I--uh, didn't order anything." I say, startled out of my writing lull. She smiles sweetly at me.
    "It's on me. I want to talk." She sits on the chair next to me. "So, you and Will. Are you two a couple?" I shake my head, smiling shyly.
    "No, nothing like that. He helped me out a bit at the marine park and we've been friends ever since. He's actually coming to show me how to use the diving pool in my basement Saturday." Her mouth drops open.
    "You have a diving pool in your basement?" I nod. She thinks to herself and then looks into my eyes. Hers are a beautiful color, but very calculating.
    "Will likes you. A lot. I thought you should know, in case he makes a move. Do you like him? I'm asking as a sister." This time it's my mouth that drops open. Her thoughts are saying the exact same thing, I can hear them loud and clear.
    "Of course I like him, I just don't know if I like him in that way. That's more Bella." At the mention of Bella, Sophie hardens. "Thanks for the juice, but I don't feel right, having you pay. Here." I hand her the money for the drink and she takes it, walking back to the register. It's Sunday today, less than a week until Will comes over. My brother walks through the beads at the entrance, and Sophie eyes him with interest.
    "Hey Lee, thought you'd be here." He says, then plops down in the seat the Sophie had been in.
    "Well, here I am. Order a drink, then we can go work in the basement." I reply, eyes glued to my screen as I write down more words to the story. Sophie comes over and pulls out a notepad.
    "What can I get you, Luke, wasn't it?" He nods and winks.
    "Last time I checked. Chocolate and banana smoothie, if you please." She raises an eyebrow at the drink, but goes and does it anyways. She comes back over with a cup full of frothy brown stuff. Luke hands her the money and takes a sip. I wait till he's finished to leave, then we go out and into the ocean.
    We swim to Mako, and I show him the moon pool. He looks around in awe, loving the way the beautiful room glowed and shone. It's only 8 when we go back to the cafe. I begin to practice the songs with Nate. He's gotten a lot easier to be around, more joking less flirting. I suspect my brother threatened him, but what works works I guess. Cleo walked up to me.
"Lethia, you're free tonight, right?" I looked over at Nate.
"Actually, Lethia and I were going to rehearse tonight." He says. I nod in agreement but Cleo gives me a warning look.
"Well, reschedule. Moon? Remember?" I groan and turn to Nate.
"Another time?" I pout and bat my eyelashes at him. He caves, and I flash him a thankful smile, which for some reason looks quite a bit like my ouch-that-must-hurt smile.
    "Luke? Tell mom I'm going to stay with the girls tonight." He nods and walks out the door, gets in his jeep, and drives home.
"Honestly? Best sibling ever. Will you two do anything for each other?" Cleo asks, walking up behind me.
"Yup. I'd do anything for him." I stage simply. Cleo smiles , probably imagining having a twin. I laugh at her dreamy expression and walk out the back, towards the docks. I see Will at one of the tables, half asleep. I go over and sit down next to him.
"Are you alright?" I ask. He nods.
"Yeah, just a bit tired. I couldn't sleep, kept thinking about Mako." I roll my eyes at him.
    "You need to stop thinking about that place. It's making your life miserable." He looks over and nods, defeated.
"Yeah, I guess. It's just so strange." I nod. Wait, should I look into his thoughts? It might show me what happened there. But all I hear from everyone else is words, never pictures.
    I decide not to. And I should probably tell the girls about my mind reading, and Luke. Bella is the only one that knows about Luke's tail, so I'll have to tell about that too. I look back up at Will, realizing that I was kind of just staring at my foot for an awkward five minutes.
"I have to go, sleepover at Cleo's. Say hello to your sister for me!" I give him a smile and run over to my bike, hop on, and pedal over to Cleo's.
"Hey! Did you bring any homework? I need to pretend that this is a review so dad doesn't make me go on the stupid trip he's dragging Kim on." I nod and show her the books and folders in my book bag.
"I'm always prepared. Besides, I do need to finish up one essay, I can do that in front of your dad." She grins and rushes me inside. Bella and Rikki are already there, with books and papers everywhere.
"Hey guys, is Lewis coming?" I ask. Rikki nods a 'yes' and looks up.
"Will you do the smart talk? I don't know what I'm looking at, so Cleo's dad would never believe I'm studying it." I grin and nod, taking a seat and pulling out my math book.
"Is algebra impressive enough? I need to write a paper on the real world uses of the Pythagorean Theorem." Rikki looks over, shocked.
"How can you say that so happily? I'd be begging for death by then." I giggle at her.
"It's better than the English paper of they're vs there vs their." I say seriously. Bella groans when she hears that.
"Are we really going to have to do that?" She asks. I nod and look down, putting the finishing touches on my essay. Just then, Cleo's dad comes down, arguing with Cleo's sister about her enormous suitcase. He looks in at us and spots me.
"Ah! You must be Lethia! I've met your mum down at the marine park, and Cleo talks about you a lot. What are you working on?" I smile, having anticipated his question.
"Well, at the moment I'm working on my essay on the probability of using the Pythagorean Theorem in a real life situation. So far, the theorem has presented itself in twenty different possible ways." I put on a fake face of remembrance and lean down to write another. "Twenty-one." Cleo's sister stands in the doorway, staring at me with her mouth wide open. Quickly she turns to Cleo and says snarkily,
"Lethia's prettier than you AND smarter than you? No wonder you're stuck dating Lewis." I wink at her and she grins at me. Cleo's dad shoos her out the door. We're finally alone. I toss my papers on the ground and yawn.
"That was so boring I almost fell asleep even lying about it." I look over at the girls and they're staring at me with wide eyes. "What?"
"Where did you learn to be such a good liar?" Cleo asked, impressed.
"Yeah, I can't even lie my way out of family bonding." Bella adds. I smirk.
"Well, when you grow up with people who are trained to detect liars, you learn how to get around it. Speak confidently, and try to act either distracted or really absorbed. Meaningless facts help too." Rikki laughs, and there's a knock on the door.
"I'll get it!" I run up and open the door. Lewis comes in, walking past me to the others. I close the door quietly and go back to happily slouching on the couch, browsing position activated.
"Ten minutes to moonrise." Lewis states, looking at his watch. "Is all this really necessary? Plugging the water spouts and such?" We all nod vigorously, Rikki most of all. He shrugs, and I go to check that the plugs are in. The water mains are off, but we can't afford to take chances. Suddenly there's another knock on the door. Who could that possibly be? Cleo runs over and opens it. Will pushes past her into the house.
"Where's Lethia? She said she'd be here."
"Right here." I say, walking up to him. He looks at the others then back to me.
"Can we talk outside?" I look at Lewis who mouths 'four minutes.'
"Yeah, sure. Let's just make it quick." I reply. Rikki gives me a warning look but I ignore her for Will's sake. I follow him to Cleo's backyard. He turns and takes a deep breath, then looks me straight in the eyes.
"I'm going to Mako. Tonight. My lantern that I had, I lost it in the waterfall on the wall. When I woke up, it was still gone." I stare at him. What is he doing?
"You need to let it go! It wasn't real!" I say sternly. "You just lost it, and I'm not letting you go out to Mako alone."
"That's the thing. I won't be alone." I furrow my brow in confusion. "I want you to come with me." Oh no.
"Will, this is ridiculous! I'm not going to Mako on a whim of yours, and I'm not going at night! You can go when you're rested, after a nights sleep!" He took a step away from me, and looks at me with hurt eyes.
"You think I'm crazy. You think I'm insane, just like them!" He storms off and I watch him go. I turned around to face the water just in time to see the tentacle, then everything went black.

Fighting. I was fighting the thing. Struggling in its tight grip. I could see us getting closer to Mako every second. It squeezed tighter, and I saw blackness once more.

Calm. It was calm. I felt nothing, the thing wasn't squeezing me. I was in a calm place, a nice place, a gentle place. It felt.....safe. I didn't want to leave...

"Lethia? Lethia are you ok? Wake up!" I could hear Bella calling to me. I opened my eyes to see them all hovering over me like nurses. They all let out a sigh of relief when I woke.
"Can I go back?" I manage to say. I finally regained my movement, so I sat up. Rikki rolls her eyes, exasperated.
"Yeah, sure, we just saved you from being turned into water, but go ahead!" I frowned. That didn't seem right to me.
"It didn't hurt. I felt...safe."
"Like a spider with its food. Come on, I can hear Will in the cave!" Cleo says. We all slip into the water silently and steal away into the inky blackness of the ocean.