Mermaids & Vampires

Prologue

The tail arrived a couple days ago.
It was an ordinary day, no different than any other for Jaclyn Waters. She was cleaning up her house before school started. This was a lot of Jaclyn's life. A classic Cinderella story really, except these were her real parents and siblings who treated her like a maid. Her cousin Sirena came into the kitchen. Jaclyn was washing the dishes and Sirena came over to help her out.

Sirena had been staying with her family ever since her parents were killed in a car crash a couple years back. Jaclyn was a bit grateful when Sirena came to live with them. She of course felt horrible about Sirena's parents dying, but things had been better ever since Sirena had showed up. Sirena was one of the light's in Jaclyn's life.

"Thanks," Jaclyn smiled.

"No problem....." Sirena said trailing off as she looked out at the beach in front of her. "So, I was thinking that later we could go out on the boat?" She asked.

"Oh um yeah. I guess so," Jaclyn said. Sirena hadn't asked about going out on the boat since she got here. Probably because summer had just shown up. Sirena was Jaclyn's only friend beside the ocean. The rest of her family hated her.

Sirena smiled. "Yay!" she said energetically.

"No problem," Jaclyn mumbled quietly. Sirena continued helping her with the dishes until they were done.Soon she hears another voice walk into the room.

"Honey, when will breakfast be ready?" Her mom asked.

"In just a moment," Jaclyn said trying to keep her calm. She felt like she was the real life Cinderella sometimes without the prince to sweep her off her feet. She always had to do everything around the house. Cooking, cleaning, laundry, you name it. She had even been nicknamed Cinderlyn.

Jaclyn quickly dried off her hands and walked over to the stove. She continued making the eggs and bacon for her family.

"Jaclyn, what's taking so long?" Her older sister Violet asked as she slowly stumbled into the room while texting on her phone, not even looking up at Jaclyn.

"I'll be done in just a minute. I promise!" She says.

"You better be," Violet said sharply.

Soon, her Dad marched into the room. "Jaclyn, you need to hurry up with breakfast. I have a meeting that starts in twenty minutes and I can't be late," he said.

"I know. I'm almost ready," she said as she plates up the food.

She hands the food the her hungry family members and they don't even mutter a thank you. Jaclyn didn't say anything because she was used to it.She also didn't completely know how to speak up for herself. Nor did she want to start drama with her family. She knew she was the disappointing weird one.

Sirena walked back in. "Where's the food?" She asked.

"On the counter," Jaclyn said as she walked over and started on the dishes she had just used to cook. Soon her younger teenage brother Mike walked in and grabbed the plate without even a good morning. He sat down with his earbuds in. Jaclyn finished cleaning up and walked to the fridge to get a protein drink. She never had time to eat as much as everyone else because she was so busy doing chores all morning.

She had the fridge open when her Mom started speaking, "Have you wiped the counters off?" her mom asked.

Jaclyn closed the fridge and shook her head. She grabbed a wash cloth and started cleaning. While she was cleaning her mom pulled out a letter. "To the Waters household."

Jaclyn didn't look up and continued cleaning. She didn't really care what the letter said but she still listened in since it was a bit odd that they had received a letter now a days. It was also weird that her mom was reading it out loud. Usually all they got in the mail were bills.