Page 42 of Stranded With the Grumpy Mermaid

Third night of the watch schedule, and the sky has finally decided to cooperate: clear to the waterline, with the moon a shining, shy waning sliver yet.

I’ve got the late watch, from midnight to first light, wrapped in a blanket on the meadow bluff with the flare gun in my lap. Neri finished the evening shift more than an hour ago, but she never went to bed. She’s twenty feet away at the bluff’s edge, knees drawn to her chest, watching the black water.

We’ve been careful with each other since we retrieved the flare gun, and if there’s a thing on this island I hate more than the taste of mussels, it’s this careful neutrality between us.

I can’t say I was surprised when she told me everything would change when we go back. That I’m the Chair of her department and she’s one of my postdocs. That people will talk.

She’s right. People will talk. Gossip will spread far and wide, as the world of academia is incredibly fertile ground for whispers and rumors. People will judge both of us.

I say, let them. It doesn’t seem she shares my sentiment. I’ve tried to start the conversation ever since. Every time I get close, either she changes the subject or I lose my nerve. I know what I want. I want Neri, plain and simple.

But the biggest question isn’t what I want. It’s what Neri wants. And she hasn’t given me her answer yet.

So I watch the water.

Then I see a light, low on the water, west-southwest. Then another appears beside it. They’re moving slowly along the horizon.

“Neri.” My voice comes out strange. “Neri, lights.”

She’s beside me before the blanket hits the grass. We stand shoulder to shoulder in the dark, staring at them.

“Boat,” she whispers. “They’re close enough.”

Her voice shakes. Mine probably would too if I tried to speak, but the lump in my throat wouldn’t allow it. My hands are already clutching the flare gun.

This is it. One shot. If it fails, there isn’t another.

I flip the flare gun from one hand to the other and stare at the seemingly flimsy object. My hand shakes.

“You fire it,” I say. “You found the case.”

“No.” Her hand closes over mine on the grip, cold and steady. “We found it.”

She squeezes my fingers once.

“Aim high.”

So I do. I aim high above my head, and pull the trigger.

The kick is small. The sound is enormous, a flat crack that rolls out over the water. The flare goes up in a hard red line, up and up, then blooms. Red light illuminates everything. The meadow, Neri’s face, the water below, all of it is bathed in slow-falling crimson. Ten seconds pass, then fifteen seconds, the brightest thing this island has seen since the lighthouse died, and we stand in the glow of our one chance with our hands locked together hard enough to hurt, barely breathing as we watch the boat.

The flare dies. Darkness slams back twice as thick.

Nothing. The lights keep moving. Same direction. Same steady pace.

My stomach drops. Then the boat turns. One of the lights disappears. Another swings into view.

A spotlight snaps on. It sweeps across the water, finds the rocks below us, then climbs the bluff and catches us full in the face. A horn sounds across the black Atlantic.

They saw us.

I grab Neri. She grabs me. We’re yelling into each other’s faces, laughing, jumping like idiots, and for one blissful moment, I forget what I could lose once we leave this island.

She’s holding me again. I’m holding her.

We’re getting rescued.

Then the boat works toward us, slow, careful of the water that killed the Belle, and the waiting starts. And in the waiting, everything goes wrong.