Page 10 of The Merman's Kiss
He handed over the weapon without argument—finally—and followed me to the outcropping with Elias trailing behind him, which caused the grouper to shy away. The big fish and I had become something like friends over the past year as it grew used to my coming and going through the jetty mouth when I brought my many trinkets for Sadira’s box in the hopes that she would return, but his familiarity with me didn’t extend to my companions.
I didn’t need to look under the rock ledge to feel the electrical impulses that the urchin it wanted was giving off, and the sensory receptors on my lips could taste it in the water anyway, but I peeked under the rock ledge he had indicated and spotted the urchin it wanted. Stabbing it through with a quick thrust of the spear, I then dragged it free from its hiding place beforesliding it carefully from the end of the spear and tossing it to the grouper. Many fish near our homes had learned over time that we would share our catches with them, and it wasn’t uncommon for them to show us where food was hiding in the hopes that they could score a bite. Groupers were particularly quick to grow comfortable with us.
“That fish isrotund,” Elias muttered as I returned the spear to Leo. “What have you been feeding it?”
“He is quite thick, isn’t he?” I admitted with a laugh. “Maybe, if I feed him enough, he will grow very fast and I can ride him into battle.”
“You should name him Chunk,” Elias suggested dryly. He’d been the one to name the giant snail sisters, Teeny and Tiny.
“Chunk is not a dignified name. Sir Chunk is much better,” I stated playfully, earning a full-bellied laugh and a shoulder shove from Elias.
“Are you guys done?” Leo cut in with a frown before we could start a full-blown wrestling match. “I swam all the way out here for a reason. Your dad said you’d help, Lorn.Come on,” he said. His frustration clearly showed as he began to swim away, expecting us to follow him.
“I did ask you what you needed when I swam up, Leo,” I reminded him with an admittedly exasperated tone as I swam to catch up, Elias trailing behind.
“I can’t get the algae bundles to float right!” he complained angrily as he swam.
“What do you mean, ‘You can’t get them to float right’?” I stopped in frustrated confusion for a beat and then had to hurry to catch up again. “You put an air bladder in the bundle and either it floats or it doesn’t. If it doesn't, you add more air bladders.” I turned back to Elias. “Why couldn’t you help him with this?” If they were making this up as an excuse to get me away from Sadira I was going to be irate.
“He didn’t tell me what he needed!” Elias practically shouted, which was uncharacteristic for him. “He just said he was looking for you!”
“I’m going to hold both your gills shut,” I grumbled. This wasn’t a difficult task.I’dspent all morning reinforcing the spiked fencing we used to keep the giant snails inside their quarry home after Bubbles—who I’d now nicknamed Bubbles the Destroyer—had managed to push down several lengths of fencing, all while fending off curious snail tentacles because they wanted to touch everything I did with their feelers.Thatwas a difficult job, which was why they made me do it, since I was the oldest of our shoal’s children. Gathering algae was so easy it had always been assigned to the merlings until the kelpie hurt Marlen last year. It hadn’t been reassigned to Leo because it washard.
“See? Look!” Leo said with sharp frustration, interrupting my thoughts. “It floats too much!” His spines bristled angrily as he gestured wildly at a bundle of algae that bobbed at the surface, its tether dangling below it uselessly.
“So put less air bladders in it,” I said, the ‘you goober’ at the end being unspoken, but my clipped notes made it clear it belonged there.
“There’s only one air bladder in it!” he shouted, throwing his hands up in the water, spear and all.
“Then you put a weight in it,” Elias responded with a sigh. “How has he not been tasked with this before?” he asked me.
“What weight!?” Leo shouted in response.
“Ocean’s depths,” Elias muttered, throwing his head back in annoyance. “I’ll show him where they are, Lorn. Sorry about coming to get you.”
I sighed and let Elias deal with Leo’s frustrated shouting. Sometimes I suspected he pretended like he didn’t know howto do things just so he could get out of doing them. This was probably his way of protesting being assigned merling work.
A roundish bit of sea glass on the ocean floor caught my attention, and I reached to pick it up before I swam away. It was just the clear kind, not the purple that Sadira loved so much, but I would still take it to her just in case. It had taken all winter for me to find the bits of purple sea glass that she said were her favorite ones, and now it was simply a habit to watch for them wherever I went. I took it and headed straight for her heavy box, my frustration with my companions already dismissed and my heart feeling lighter than it had in months. She washome.
Chapter 8
Sadira
OnthemorningsthatI didn’t leave the cottage soon enough to escape my parent’s notice, my mother would arrange for a tutor to come and give me private lessons. This meant I made sure to be outsideearly. Every morning, I slipped through the kitchen and Cook would tut at me before quietly handing me a packed breakfast wrapped in cloth and tied in a careful knot—after making sure no one else was around to see. With one finger pressed to her lips in a shush, she shooed me out the kitchen door to go play. If I were ever caught with my contraband picnic-breakfast I would have to lie and say it was stolen. I still missed Nan. She’d always eaten her breakfasts with me in my rooms, but even alone I was still freer outside the house than in.
Since it wasn’t time to meet Lorn yet, I usually spent the early mornings exploring the little deer trails I found through the trees and nibbling on my breakfast biscuits and apples while seeing where they went. One trail quickly became my favorite. It led to an area along the shoreline that I’d never been to before and ended on a tiny sandy beach that was flanked by large rock formations on each side. They gave the little inlet a closed-in, cozy feeling. One rock formation had a smooth ledge at the bottom that I could sit on with my drawing pad and I’d sketch pictures of the little family of sea otters that sometimes played in the water nearby, and the other rock had a large overhang that waves had washed the sand out from underneath that made a small cave with a soft sand bottom. The waves were quieter here and the air felt damp and cool without the wind, set back into the rocks as it was.
I liked the little spot so much that when I found Lorn again, I drew a map of the shoreline for him with a stick in the sand so that he could find it, and we met up there later with a picnic lunch. I stepped out onto the rocky ledge with another meal graciously provided by Cook and spread the cloth neatly on the flat rock to set out my sandwich of thinly sliced meat and cheese on dense bread, with a dish of deep purple grapes.
Lorn was very happy with how shaded the little hidden beach was when he arrived, because the tall rocks on the sides blocked out the sun, and I noticed he didn’t have to squint as much here when he was above the water. He swam right up to the ledge and set down a large, empty oyster half-shell, before dropping a handful of black shells—clams, I thought—into the oyster ‘bowl’, and then, with a straight face, slapped down a long cylindrical piece of olive-brown kelp that tapered at the end. It looked just like the long whips people would use to drive the drakes and the wyverns that pulled their carts in the city.
I blinked at the items he’d brought, which was often my reaction when he hauled up his random bits and bobs, until I realized… “Is that your lunch?”
The way his wide grin popped across his face told me he’d been holding it back, and he laughed hard enough to show his dagger teeth as he picked up the kelp and flopped it back and forth. He finally nodded at me while fighting to regain his composure, using a claw to slice through the kelp. It popped open with aquiet ‘donk’ sound that made us both laugh. The inside was hollow, and he gave it a perfunctory inspection before slicing it into thin rings and placing each one into his mouth as he sliced it off. They sounded crunchy. He gave me a cheeky grin while he chewed, and I realized I was staring at him as he ate.
“Sorry,” I said with another laugh, picking up my sandwich. I’d never really considered what a merman might eat day-to-day.
He sliced off another ring of seaweed and held it out to me, letting it dangle from the tip of his claw, so I passed my sandwich to my other hand and gently took it from him.
