The Golden Mermaid

𝒆𝒊𝒈𝒉𝒕

I drop my bag beside our mountainous shoe pile in the corner. "I went to dinner with Ollie and his cousin, Ruby."

"Ollie? You mean that Oliver kid you used to hang out with when you were little? Didn't he bring you home one night? I didn't know you two were hanging out." The questions come barreling, he barely pauses to catch a breath.

"Three. Three of us were hanging out: me, Ollie, and Rue." For some reason this irritates me. Why can't Ollie and I ever hang out with Ruby right on our tails?

"Okay, well you didn't do anything stupid, did you?" He doesn't look up from the TV.

I huff. "Do you really think that I'm going to let them see me flailing around with a slimy fish tail? I'm not stupid, Dad."

"I trust you, Sydney."

"Then act like it." I spit out before retreating to my room. The hallway is dark, signaling that Dad had gotten home and gone straight to the couch. I ready to pull my door handle, but something at my feet catches my eye. "Dad, Dad..." I say it too quietly for him to hear, mainly because watching the blue glow under my door beating like a heart beat is too much for me to handle. I take a deep breath and close my eyes. "Dad, bring me my left overs."

"Huh? Come get them yourself." He calls.

My eyes are still closed, but the drawn out blinking continues behind my eyelids. "The necklace." I try too say it loudly, but everything just seems so far away.

I remember my dream—the one were my mother was dead. Could this be it? Could this be my dream happening in real life?

The beating is slower than I remember. Thinking back to my last visit, watching her withering away close to death I realize why. "Dad, please. She's dying,"

He's at my side in seconds. "What? Sydney, what are you talking about?" I'm sure he knows what's going on, it's just better to ask.

"Where's the fish?"

"Here," He shakes the box to prove it. "Sydney, is that—"

"Mom," Its barely even a whisper. I open the door carefully, engulfed in the blue glow of my necklace. "She's in there." I take the stereo-foam box from his hands and walk closer to the source of the glow. Just like every other time, it blinks faster as I near it, but definitely not as fast as it had before. The first time it was panicky, like being in a haunted house with a strobe light making everything distorted and cartoonish. Now, it's more like the slow flapping of butterfly wings. "Something's wrong. We need to get to her." I grab his hand, tugging him to my night stand. I look back just to make sure he's got the little white box of food and before I can tell myself better I pull the glowing charm into my palm.

I'm immediately freezing, surrounded by darkness for only a second before the charm clicks back on. "Mom?" I call.

I hear a whimper and then a soft voice. "Sydney? Oh..." Her sunken eyes meet Dad's and then suddenly both of them are crying.

He pulls out of my grasp and is wadding in the water—which is lower than before, so my feet are luckily dry—to reach my mother's small, sickly figure. "René, oh, René! I love you." He pulls her into a tight hug. She grunts in pain and he loosens it. "Are you okay? Oh God, Sirené!"

"I'm okay, I'm okay. Oh, I've missed you. I've missed you so much. I'm so sorry, I didn't know it would happen like this." She buries her head in his shoulder, sobbing.

I feel awkward in this moment, like this isn't something I should be witnessing. I look down at my feet, which have gotten slightly wet. Little webs of translucent rubbery-skin form between my toes. I step closer to the wall and pray that I dry quickly.

"What's that in your hand?" Mom sniffles from over Dad's shoulder.

Dad looks down at the box dangling limply from his hand. "Sydney's leftovers. She brought them for you." His voice is cracking and tears are rolling from his eyes.

"Let me see." She says, blinking primitively as she stares at the box. I think I see her drooling. Dad hands her the box, and she opens it, a small purr coming from her throat. I've never heard the sound from a human, so it must be a mermaid thing. "Fish... I missed cooked fish. It's so much less messy than raw." She takes a tender bite before engulfing it whole.

Dad squeezes her shoulder. "Have you been here all this time? How could you—"

"Time is different here." She says plainly. It makes sense, though, because of how every time I leave home I always find myself hours ahead of when I'd left.

Suddenly we're engulfed in darkness. I shake my necklace frantically. "No, no." I mumble. It lights back on, my mother and father still right beside each other.

"Sydney, I have to—" It blinks again, my moms voice fizzes out like a phone losing signal. "—she planning something. I can feel it in the water... something's off. I think she's going to try and hurt you, Sydney. You're the only one that can stop her. You're the Golden Mer—you're special. She is going to—"

But I'm back in my room, and my mother is gone. And so is Dad. "No, no!" I beat on the necklace, willing it to take me back. "No, please! Take me back! Take me back!" I cry and cry until I can't anymore. Light escapes through my window, meaning it's already morning. My phone is buzzing on the nightstand. Claire's face lights the screen.

Breathe, Sydney, breathe. I think to myself, grabbing at the nightstand. My stomach churns and before I can even move I'm vomiting all over the floor. I lean against the base of my bed crying and sputtering and trying to breath properly. My head feels like it's going to fall off. Everything happens in slow motion, but is somehow so fast. I know I'm having a panic attack, but I have no clue how to stop it. "Breathe," I say out loud, grab my knee and pinching until it hurts.

Knock, knock, knock.

My immediate thought is Dad, that somehow he's made his way back and is just waiting behind the front door—that I'm not alone in all this. I get up, running through the throw up and losing my balance slightly before grabbing hold of the door frame. "Dad!" I call, bolting through the hallway of pictures. The one of my mom and Dad smiling happily at the beach with me sitting in her belly is the first—and only—one I see. Will they ever see me again? Are they gone forever? I yank at the door handle, picturing my dad waiting for me on the other side, with my mom in his arms.

But when I open the door and the light pours into my eyes it's not Dad there.

"Um, hi. I forgot to give this to back to you yesterday. I just thought..." he holds my scrunchie in his hand. "Are you... okay?"

And then I'm crying in his arms and the scrunchie is on the floor and there's throw up all over my feet.

His hand slowly reaches up to his nose, and the look on his face reminds me of when we were younger and I dared him to drink spoiled milk. "Is that... puke?" He says, staring at my feet.

"Y-yes," I sputter, suddenly laughing and crying at the same time and feeling like I'm going to pass out but still standing somehow. "I puked all over myself."

He nods slightly, his lips perching. "Okay, um, are you sick?"

"No," I say, "I'm confused." And then I'm laughing again because yesterday—for the most part—was fun and normal, and suddenly everything has gone to complete shambles.