How to be a Mermaid (The Cotton Candy Quintet #1)(11)

“Namely the part where we can’t breathe underwater.”

“Oh that.” She tinkled with laughter. “Humans are missing gills.” Nereia leaned her head back, showing where, a few centimeters underneath her jawbone, she had two slits on either side. It took me a long moment to realize what they were, yet when they flared, sucking in water, I understood. Mermaids have gills. Who knew? “We have lungs as well, so we can go on dry land for periods of time. Yet it’s our gills that keep us breathing underwater, unlike you humans. And while you can swim, you can’t do it very well, seeing as you’re missing your fins.”

I curled my toes, feeling self-conscious. I knew that I swam better with my mermaid tail than without. Still though, I’d always considered myself a pretty good swimmer. “How do you guys know English?”

“What’s English?”

I looked at her, carefully phrasing my question. “How do we...understand each other? Our language? We call the language we’re speaking English.”

She raised her eyebrows as if the question surprised her. “It was a part of my spell to heal you and make you breathe underwater.” She waggled at finger at me, giving me a sly smile. “You, my dear, aren’t speaking what you call ‘English’ right now.”

“I’m not?” I sat bolt upright, noticing for the first time how my mouth moved differently when I spoke. I’d been speaking a different language, one that I didn’t know existed, yet one I was apparently fluent in. I’d been so distracted by everything else, I hadn’t noticed.

She chuckled, as if thrilled by my revelation. “You’re speaking Mermish without realizing it.”

“So that’s why you’re called a sea witch.”

She nodded. “Indeed, although there are a great many other reasons why I’m called that. Some of them aren’t nice at all.” Her tone grew darker as she spoke. I wondered why, and then the thought came into my head that she might be more like Ursula than I realized.

“How did I understand Kai then, without the potion?”

She gave me a secretive smile. “I have my thoughts. You just confirmed them.”

“Wait, what?”

Either because she didn’t hear me or she was ignoring me, she flicked her tail and swam up to an area above my head, where a ledge obscured her from view. I had half a mind to follow her up there, on the other hand, the strange world I found myself in, and the seemingly endless questions I could ask were all giving me a headache. I may have been good at hiding it, but all I wanted was to lie down and sleep, although the pain would probably keep me up.

As if sensing my distress, Nereia called down, “Does your head still hurt?”

“Yes.”

“Do you want to sleep?”

“I don’t think I’d be able to.” I gingerly touched my head. It throbbed even at the slightest touch. Didn’t I read somewhere that you weren’t supposed to sleep when you’re concussed? Then again, I was under the ministrations of a sea witch.

She appeared, holding a globule of some amber liquid. A straw stuck out of the end of it, waiting for me to suck it down. “Drink this and you’ll be able to sleep.”

The age-old warning of never taking candy from strangers entered my mind, especially when they were sea witches, yet Nereia had done nothing to make me suspect that she would try harming me. In fact, she’d saved my life, so there was no reason for me to resist, especially with my head pounding.

I took it from her, hesitated for a moment more, and drank.

“Now that you’re a merwalker, you should come back and visit. I love hearing what’s happening in the human world. And I’m sure that Finn would love to see you again too.” Her voice sounded far away as the underwater world around me began to fade.

“What?” I muttered. “What’s a merwalker?”

It was too late. I was swallowed up by the darkness once again.





CHAPTER 4


“Hey, what are you doing here?”

My first thought was that the question was in English—I was sure of it—and my second thought was why someone was asking me that. I was in Nereia’s care in the cave, wasn’t I?

I opened my eyes, curious as to why it was so bright outside when I was deep in the ocean.

Wait a sec, that’s sunlight, and I am on dry land.

Right next to Kai’s isolation tank at the Houston Aquarium, from the looks of it. The aquarist who had been trying to feed him from earlier was standing over me, looking down, his mouth agape.

I sprang up with a gasp, trying to get my bearings. I immediately winced as my head pounded.

“Ow,” I whined, touching my head.

“What are you doing here?” the aquarist demanded. He looked around me, as if the answer was in plain sight. “Did you spend all night here?” He stopped and eyed me warily as a thought struck him. “You aren’t supposed to be here. Were you drinking?”

“No,” I said. “I...” I took stock of my situation. I was still in the clothes that I’d worn when I fell from Kai’s tank, and other than a few wrinkles and dirt, they looked pristine. Like I hadn’t been underwater.

I blinked in the sunlight. “What day is it?” I asked. How much time had passed? Between my faintings, I couldn’t tell how long I’d been in the ocean.