The Fate of the Muse

chapter FIVE

RIVAL





I woke up late that beautiful Sunday morning, my strange vision from the night before slipping away as if it were simply a bad dream. Pulling the curtains aside, I let the bright sunlight stream cheerfully into the room. School was finally out, and summer stretched out before me like a long, lazy cat.

I thought about my plans for a summer spent on the waves, just me and Ethan, and frowned. It didn’t look like it was going to work out that way. I wished I could go surfing with him every day, but as usual, he was already hard at work, so I decided I’d visit him at the farmer’s market. If I wanted to spend time with him, it was going to have to be while he was working.

I put on a white eyelet sundress that looked like summertime itself, fluffing up my hair in the mirror. The aquamarine on my neck sparkled in the morning light, and I automatically reached up to touch it, thinking about Ethan. When I rounded the corner into the kitchen Abby looked up with a big smile. She had a pen tucked behind her ear and a telephone in her hand.

“You look pretty this morning. Are you off to see Ethan?” she asked.

I returned her smile, nodding yes, “What’s all this stuff?”

She was sitting at the kitchen table with papers and notepads spread out before her. A stack of boxes was piled high in the corner, nearly blocking the back door. I could see cases of local wine, cellophane wrapped gift baskets and framed prints. The place looked like the inside of someone’s storage locker.

“I decided to add a silent auction,” she was excited, “I’ve been collecting donations from neighborhood businesses… Can you believe all the great stuff I’ve gotten so far? We’re on track to raise a lot of money!”

“Wow… that’s a really great idea!”

I was impressed. Abby was a loving mom and a compassionate yoga instructor, but I’d never known her to be so organized and efficient. It seemed as though Ethan and Lue’s misfortune was revealing some hidden talents.

“Should I sign you up to donate a painting?” she smiled slyly.

“Of course!” I replied, “I’ll add one to the pile. Can I pick you up anything from the market?”

“No thanks, Dutch is coming by to make us dinner later–”

Her phone rang, and I waved goodbye to her while she took yet another call. It was really gratifying to see how the community had rallied around the cause. Once people heard about the government’s plans, most of them were outraged. Soon, Lue would have enough money and support to defend himself. I had a very good feeling about the outcome.

I pulled up to the farmers market, heading over to the espresso cart and picking up a couple of mochas. When Ethan looked up to see me heading towards him, his face broke into a wide grin, and he stopped what he was doing to watch me. The way his eyes squinted melted my heart, and when I came around the back of his stand he took the coffees from my hands and set them down, reaching around my back to pull me in close.

“I was just thinking about you,” he bent down to press his forehead into mine.

“I hope it was a good thought,” I said.

He kissed my breath away, “It’s always good.”

We sat down together, sipping our coffees and talking about plans for the rally. It was still a week away but everything was coming together nicely, falling into place like clockwork. Even the weather was shaping up to be in our favor.

“I can’t believe how much everybody’s helping us,” he said, “Megan hooked us up with a sound system from some musican guy she just met, and she agreed to announce the bands and the speakers. Abby’s been calling all over town for donations. This is gonna be great.”

I smiled, happy for him, happy for us… just plain happy. I moved my chair to the back of his stand and watched him work. The market picked up, and Ethan had to hustle to keep up with all the customers. He refused my offers to help, and I was feeling kind of useless, so I pulled a book out of my tote bag and kicked back to read.

“Hey Ethan,” a girl’s voice called out familiarly.

I looked up to recognize his ex-girlfriend with a jolt of shock. She was standing there with a smile, a canvas market bag slung over her shoulder with a bouquet of flowers sticking out of it. She was even prettier than I remembered. I could have sworn I’d gotten over it, but my body betrayed me, and I tensed up, my heart pounding in my throat.

“Hey,” Ethan replied. He looked nervous, and his eyes darted back to meet mine. Why did I have to pick today to forget my sunglasses?

“Aren’t you going to introduce me to your friend?” Her voice sounded sweet, but her eyes were hard and appraising. They told me everything I needed to know. She still wanted him, and she knew I stood in her way.

“I’m Amber,” she said, holding out her hand with a false smile.

I got up and came over to shake it, trying to swallow the lump in my throat. “I’m Marina,” I replied. My voice sounded funny to me.

She gestured to a girl standing alongside her, “This is my friend Brittany.” The two of them exchanged a glance before Brittany looked at me the same way she did, sizing me up.

“How’s business going?” Amber asked Ethan, gesturing to one of my posters hanging from the awning. “Is what I heard true? That’s for the land that you’re buying from that Chinese guy?”

The way she talked about Lue annoyed me, and when she turned to face Ethan I got a better look at her. She was really beautiful; a blonde, tanned golden girl– the perfect counterpart to him. My heart sank, and my stomach tightened with dread.

“Yeah,” he said, coming over to slip his arm around my waist, “It was Marina’s idea.”

“Me and Abby,” I mumbled.

Amber turned to her friend, “We should go to it! I mean, we should support our local farmers.” She smiled at Ethan, flashing perfect white teeth. I cringed a little, and Ethan’s arm tightened on my waist.

She focused on me, “I hear you’re best friends with… Shayla.” Her voice had the faintest undertone of contempt, and I remembered that there was no love lost between the two of them. Then I realized there was only one way she could have known that. I looked up at Ethan incredulously. They had been talking… and they had been talking about me.

This just kept getting better and better.

I pulled away from him abruptly, feeling betrayed. Then came the first flush of the anger I’d been trying so hard to learn how to suppress, “Yes,” I said firmly, “I am.”

She looked triumphant, clearly pleased that she had pressed my buttons, “Maybe we’ll see you and Shayla there.” She and her friend turned to leave, “Bye Ethan.”

I was stunned. A few minutes ago I’d been happy, feeling optimistic about the future. Now I stood there, hollowed out, all the empty spots inside of me filling in with hot boiling anger. An image of the two women crying at the congressman’s office flashed into my mind. I had to stop this… I had to stop this feeling before something bad happened… to her… or to Ethan.

“I’ve gotta go,” I said, rushing to grab my tote.

“Marina,” he grabbed my arm, “Listen–”

“I’ve gotta go,” I repeated, breathing hard.

“She came by last week… just before you did. I– I told her you were friends with Shayla…”

“Why?”

He looked chagrinned, “I dunno, she was asking a lot of questions about you… like what you were like and who you hung out with…”

I imagined them talking about me and felt sick to my stomach.

“What is she doing here?” I fought to steady my voice.

He swallowed, “She moved back home… she’s transferring to the University here next fall.”

Great. She was back for him, they’d been talking, and now I was going to be forced to see her cozy up to him at college too. I hated her, and I was angry at him for putting me through the humiliating exchange.

A surge of jealous rage gripped me; ugly ferocious anger I hadn’t felt since I nearly shot Peter in cold blood. I’d truly wanted him dead, and thanks to my muse powers, the universe found a way to get that done. I thought about the congressman’s car going off the cliff ; I started shaking like a leaf, trying to push it away. Now I knew for sure that my anger was threatening me and everyone around me. I needed to try to calm down, I had to get to the water. Moving slowly, I pulled my arm back from him.

“I’m okay,” I said, trying to sound calm, “I just need to go now.”

“Marina…”

I bolted, running as fast as I could to the parking lot. Ethan chased after me, catching me easily and getting between me and the Rover.

“Marina… Don’t go.”

I couldn’t even look at him. He caught my arm again as I reached for the door handle.

“Please don’t go,’ he said, and I could hear the anguish in his voice.

“I’m fine,” I said, looking down, “But I have to get out of here.”

“Please?”

I looked at his worried face, “Don’t you see?” I said, struggling to maintain my composure, “I can’t feel this way anymore… Something bad will happen…”

“Nothing is going to happen,” he said firmly.

“You don’t know that,” I cried, twisting my arm as his grip tightened.

“Marina–”

I struggled to pull away from him, “Let me go!” I yelled. People around us stopped what they were doing to watch, and Ethan let go, standing back as I jumped into the Rover and sped away.

Get to the water. Get to the water, the little voice in my mind urged me on. It was the only way I could jolt myself out of the spiral of jealousy and anger I was descending into. Slipping in and out of the house stealthily, I grabbed my things and flew down to the beach, throwing myself into the surf, swimming out as hard and fast as I could. When I finally stopped to catch my breath, I lay down with my cheek pressed onto my board, rocking in the soothing cradle of the sea.

“Marina!” Lorelei popped up inches from my face. Puzzled, she turned her head sideways to mirror mine, “Can we go see Nerissa now?”

I sat up, relieved to have something else to think about, “Yeah, I’d really like that.”

Lorelei grabbed hold of my board with enthusiasm, swiftly towing me north, further than we’d ever gone before. I lifted my head to see us sail past Golden Gate Bridge through a blur of white water.

After traversing a windy stretch of open ocean we approached the jagged silhouettes of a knot of small islands. Rocky and barren, they rose abruptly from the sea like an apparition, engulfed in fog, lonely and forbidding. I shivered, goosebumps rising inside of my wetsuit.

Lorelei called out for Nerissa, and I wasn’t surprised at all to realize that she hadn’t made a sound. Her thoughts were as clear to me as if she’d spoken them aloud. Another voice echoed in my ears and I sat up on my surfboard, looking around for Nerissa. When a third, tiny squeaky voice joined in the mix I began to think I was hallucinating. Then a head broke the surface of the dark blue waters.

“Nerissa!” I gasped. She looked happy, beautiful and wild, a far cry from the pale weak creature I’d first seen imprisoned by Peter.

“Marina, have you come to swim with us?” her voice rang out, clear and sweet. She swam up close, reaching out to inspect my surfboard. Her green eyes sparkled with curiosity, and her jet black hair was as shiny as polished onyx. It was a relief to find her as unaffected by her ordeal as Lorelei, for she had been held hostage far longer, and suffered a great deal more at Peter’s hands.

I looked down to her flat abdomen, wondering what had become of the baby she’d been carrying when she returned to the sea. Evie had ventured a guess that the baby might have simply disappeared as a result of her transformation back into a mermaid. It would be for the best, because as far as I knew, pregnancy was a terminal condition for mermaids. Then I heard the little voice again.

“Who else is here?” I asked them, but before they could answer a third head broke the surface.

“Sisters!” she squeaked, and I nearly fell off my surfboard.

She was small, about the size of a human toddler, but she swam around my board gracefully, agile as a sea lion. Her brick red hair fanned out in the water behind her. She dove under the surfboard, and as I scrambled frantically to see her, she surfaced behind me, shyly peeping up from the edge of the board with huge green eyes.

“Nixie!” Lorelei squealed, taking the baby mermaid in her arms and kissing her plump cheeks.

She giggled and ducked underwater, surfacing to peek around Lorelei. Her eyes grew round, and she stared me again. “What is it?” she asked Lorelei, dipping down to hide behind her shoulder.

Lorelei and Nerissa burst into peals of laughter, and the sound they made together was almost unbearably sweet. For a second I thought I might be dreaming the whole thing.

“Do not be afraid, she is a sister too… just like us.” Lorelei explained to the little mermaid.

“Only she lives on land,” added Nerissa.

“But you weren’t… I mean, it can’t possibly…” I sputtered, completely flabbergasted. It had only been a few weeks since Ethan and I had returned a pregnant Nerissa to the sea, and then she was nowhere near ready to deliver. This child looked to be at least a full year old.

“What?” Lorelei looked at me oddly, no doubt confused by the time calculations she could hear me rapidly doing in my mind.

“Where did she come from?” I asked.

Lorelei sighed dreamily, “Nerissa brought her forth… she’s so lucky…”

“Lucky?” I was aghast.

“Of course! None have been blessed with a little one for many, many moons.” I could see images in her mind of mermaid babies she’d seen in the past, realizing with a start that these memories could go back hundreds or even thousands of years.

“Blessed?” I repeated, “How’s that?”

She looked at me like I was hopelessly ignorant, “The moon sent us a new sister… and Nerissa was the chosen one.”

My God, I thought, they had no idea where babies came from. I sure hoped they couldn’t read my thoughts about that. I looked at the little mermaid with her chubby arms wrapped around Lorelei’s neck, “She sure is cute… What did you call her? Nixie?”

“Yes,” said Nerissa, scooping her up and swimming her to me. The little mermaid squirmed in her arms and ducked down in the water so only her seaweed green eyes were visible.

“Why Nixie? What does that mean?”

“The council chooses in the naming ceremony,” Nerissa said, lifting the child out of the water. “It’s alright Nixie, Marina will come to swim with us someday.”

I chose to ignore Nerissa’s prediction, and smiled at Nixie, “Naming ceremony? What’s that?”

“It’s part of a council meeting, Adria was going to have one too… She came to show us that she was blessed like Nerissa... but she never came back from the big place.”

“You saw my mother when she was pregnant?” I was stunned, “Big place?”

“Mother?” Nerissa cocked her head like a dog.

“Pregnant?” Lorelei chimed in.

I groped for the words, trying to come to grips with the last bit of information at the same time, “Adria,” I told Nerissa, turning to Lorelei, “Blessed.”

Nixie wriggled out of Nerissa’s arms and swam closer to inspect my legs.

“Where was the place she never came back from?” I asked, pretty sure I knew what happened after that.

“You saw,” she laughed, “Where that big thing goes over the water.”

“You mean the Golden Gate Bridge?”

“The big thing is not golden,” Nerissa said seriously, “It’s more like starfish color.”

“It’s like Nixie’s hair!” Lorelei cried in delight, making Nerissa laugh. Nixie joined in and started laughing too, looking between the two of them as if to try and find out why.

“She swam with me…” I said slowly, “She transformed when she was pregnant... I mean, blessed.”

They all stared at me blankly.

I pantomimed a belly, “You know, like this…”

“Yes! Adria was so happy she came out to swim all the time!” Nerissa shook her head in disapproval, “But she kept going back to the man she saw.”

I was shocked to realize that I was more like my mother than I knew. Even after she met my father she’d been going back and forth between her two worlds– trying to have it both ways.

What if I’d been born underwater? If I took my first breath of water instead of air, would I have been fully mermaid, like Nixie? She would never know anything about the land, but she could have. She would never see the wonders of human creativity, and remain completely unaware of the divine spark that inspires art, music and all the wonders of the world– the spark contained within herself.

Nixie was born to be immortal; she would never grow old or weak, but she would remain ignorant. She would be young, strong and beautiful for all eternity. I wondered why my mother had made the suicidal choice to have me in a hospital. She must not have known what it would mean for her. My eyes filled with salty tears.

Nixie tentatively patted my knee, “Don’t be sad,” she said, “Swim with us.”

The tiny girl smiled brightly at me. Her hair was shining in the sunlight, a bright burnt-orange red– the exact color of the bridge, and her eyes… I was happy to see she looked nothing like Peter. She swam around my surfboard and lunged out of the water onto it, wiggling onto my lap. I steadied her, looking at her little body in amazement. She was as perfectly formed as all her sisters, just a childish version, with everything in miniature. Her tiny tail flapped, and she reached her arms around my neck. She was adorable.

“Marina,” she said in a reedy high pitched voice, clear as a flute, “You are the one that saved my Nerissa! Come and play with my friends.” She took my hand as she slipped back into the water, trying to pull me off the board.

“Wait! I have to stay on my surfboard…”

“Surfboard,” she repeated, cocking her head like her mother.

I could hear Lorelei explain things to her in my mind, mostly just random images of the times we’d surfed together. Then I saw another, more disturbing image of me from the time I’d been forced to transform; hovering underwater with glowing skin and a tail.

Nixie smiled and climbed onto my board as Lorelei took a hold of it and towed us both through turbulent, choppy waters closer to the rocky shoreline. Seabirds nesting by the thousands in the craggy rocks screeched and flapped as we approached, clearly seeing my human form as a threat. There were several types of gulls and cormorants, along with funny little puffins waddling in their midst. The sound was deafening.

“It’s alright!” Nerissa called out to them, “Go back to your eggs.”

After the birds settled down I could see a myriad of shiny heads bobbing to the surface all around us. It was a pod of fur seals, and their faces were so cute they made me laugh with delight. Big cartoonish eyes were set in round whiskered heads, and sweet little newborn seals were swimming alongside their mothers. Nixie squealed with joy and threw herself in among them, tumbling and rolling in the water, joining in their baby games.

We rounded the island, coming close to a rocky beach where enormous Elephant seals were hauled up onto the shore, gigantic males with their large fleshy noses dwarfing the females and pups they jealously guarded. They all noticed my surfboard, eyes rolling with alarm and suspicion, only relaxing when they spotted the mermaids.

I realized that this little group of rugged islands was essentially a marine nursery. Treacherous currents and a remote location made this an ideal place for marine wildlife to nest and rear their young, far away from human interference. I’d heard about this rocky spot before, remembering that it was famous for its white shark population. I looked nervously out at the deep blue waters surrounding us, imagining the big hungry fish lying in wait there. I could understand why the animals were so happy to see the mermaids.

“Are there any good waves around here?” I asked Lorelei.





We found a wicked point break on the northern edge of the islands, and started surfing and playing the day away. The mermaids laughed so melodiously and infectiously I couldn’t help but join in, and soon my sides ached from the effort. I grew more and more tired, thirsty and cold. The sun dipped low in the sky, a fiery red orb touching the horizon that seemed to flatten as it sank out of sight. I finally told them all that I needed to get back home, hugging Nerissa and Nixie goodbye and flopping down on my board in exhaustion.

“Why do you have to go?” asked Nixie, with a babyish pout.

“I live on land,” I told her, adding, “But I can visit.”

As the scenery sped by, I thought about everything I’d just learned, and tried to assimilate it all. Nerissa would have died if she hadn’t returned to the sea, but she wouldn’t have had the baby anywhere near as soon. I remembered how weak the mermaids were on land, and how strong they became when they were returned to the life-giving waters of the ocean. The water must somehow have accelerated Nixie’s growth.

Wow, I thought, I would have been a full-fledged mermaid if my mother had returned to the sea to have me. Being born in the water must be the key, or being born to a strong mermaid mother. It was strange to consider– could a baby transform if it was forced onto land? Could Nixie? Could my mother have returned to the sea to have me and brought me back to live with my father? Did she know she was going to die by staying?

I was more confused than ever when Lorelei dropped me off at Aptos beach, tired and weak from thirst. I felt like I couldn’t think straight; there was too much new and confusing information whirling around inside my head. I’d forgotten to eat again, and I was dizzy and lightheaded when I paddled the last hundred yards into shore.

Ethan was waiting on the beach, and I could see him pacing nervously as I approached. I felt bad about worrying him, but I had to find a way to make him understand it was what I needed to do. I don’t think he fully grasped exactly how dangerous my anger could be, or how much it frightened me.

“Hey,” I said as I staggered ashore, trying to smile reassuringly. Then I tripped over my rubber booted feet and fell flat on my face.