then on his face. I leave Layla and her dad and run to him.
“You’re not supposed to be here,” I yell, turning him over and
brushing the sand off his face. His glasses are broken and I toss them
to the side. How can I be surprised? I should’ve known that they’d
never leave, not knowing that I was right here.
When I look up, my mother is standing on the boardwalk. Her red
mane is a beacon. She holds out her arms and the wind picks up around
her, listening to her voice as she calls the men back to dry land.
All of the men that fell to the ground get back up again, the
bewitched glossiness returning to their eyes. Only this time, they
listen to my mother’s voice, powerful and true, as if it’s telling
them their wishes have already been fulfilled, that it’s okay to go
home.
Layla starts to follow her dad, but the first voice, the one full
of anger and longing, picks up again.
“She’s too powerful.” Thalia is at my side again. “I don’t think
Lady Maia can hold them back much longer.”
My mother hasn’t been a mermaid for a long time, and I can see her
struggling to sing, to bring the men back to safety. She’s like the
sun trying to shine when the moon is pushing for darkness, like the
sky right above us.
“Who?” But I don’t even have to ask. Out in the gray sea is a
swirl of water. She holds her arms out and lifts her face to the
eclipse.
Gwenivere sings.
Her voice is mingled into the wind that rushes in and out of the
shore like a riptide, like the hands of the sea desperately grabbing
the men. I felt those hands the first time the wave crashed over Coney
Island and I got carried out to sea.
Too many of the men are waist deep in water. The waves swallow
them, and when they’re washed out far enough, the waiting clawed hands
of Nieve’s merrows snatch them up and take them back home.
I dive into the waves, flicking my tail as fast as I can until I
reach Gwen. She doesn’t see me coming at first. Then she loses
concentration and her song stops. She teeters on the spiral of water
that serves as her tower. I knock her off it and she splashes down. I
grab her around the waist and hold her arms down.
“Stop it!” I say. “I know you don’t want to do this. I know you’re
tired of this.”
She splashes hard, but I hold on tighter. She screams and the
beautiful song she was singing before is a terrible shriek.
“How can you know what I want?”
“Because I saw your face, Gwen. I saw your face when Archer wanted
to hurt Layla. You saved her. I know you did.” I brush her white-blond
hair out of her eyes. She stops struggling against me.
“You can help me stop her,” I say. “If you don’t, all of the lives
she takes will be on your hands.”
She grits her teeth and screams once again. We float out in the
water, and I wait for her to make the right choice.
“If I do, my brother and sisters-their lives will be on my hands
as well.”
“Gwen, please,” I say, holding her by her shoulders.
She looks back to where yellow eyes lie waiting behind us. There
are a few more splashes, and I know if I turn around, I’ll see more
men drowning.
I keep thinking that if I try hard enough, I’ll get her to be the
same girl who sailed alongside me, fought alongside me. I have to
remind myself that girl never existed. That Gwen was playing me, and I
fell right into her stormy gray eyes. I see her make up her mind, a
shark ready to strike. She places her hands on my chest and snarls,
“You smell like her.”
I can feel my heart stop and start as a shock of current hits my
chest. From Gwen. I shake as she leaves me in the water. I gasp for
air. Try to swim back to the shore, but my muscles are as strong as
loose rubber bands.
I push against the weakness and start to swim after her, but
someone catches my attention on the shore. Layla’s on the sand again,
Thalia holding her back from getting into the surf. She’s chasing
after a guy our age.
Oh fuck.
I put my energy into swimming with the waves toward the shore. The
waves take me in, crashing over his head. Angelo, in his stained white
underwear.
I loop my arms around his chest and drag him out. He takes a swing
at me, but the next wave flips us both over. “Hey, man. It’s me. Wake
up, wake up.”
I grab on to him and he makes it difficult by flailing around.
When I get him on land, I smack him across the face. “Remember when we
took the Triborough championship last year? How we competed over girls
but never let it get in our way? How you beat up a kid from our rival
high school for pissing in the pool while I was swimming?”
Something happens to him. Without Gwen, my mom’s song is stronger.
His eyes are bright again, like he’s coming out of a long sleep.
“Tristan?”
“Come on.” I pull him toward shore. “We have to get out of the
water!”
He hangs on to me, trying to take stock of what’s happening around
him. But all he can say is, “Bro, you have a fucking tail!”
I want to laugh, but I can taste blood in the water. When we’re
near the shore, I let my fins dissolve and go back into a half-shift.
“You’re sleepwalking.”
Layla runs to him and grabs him in a tight hug. “Oh, thank God.”
“What’s happening?” Angelo yells.
“Shark attacks,” Layla and I say at the same time.
“Are you on duty? I thought the beach was evacuated. Where are my
clothes?” He goes on with questions we don’t answer until we get to
the boardwalk.
The Alliance and the landlocked are making sure the human men make
their way up onto the boardwalk and head home.
“Tristan,” Angelo says. He grabs my wrist. His brown eyes are
wide, and fat beads of water cling to his eyelashes. “I’m not stupid.
You’re strapped on like fucking Clash of the Titans minus that fly
Pegasus. Don’t lie to me. I know what I saw. I could hear a voice
calling out to me, and all I wanted to do was jump into the water. It
was that girl-that Gwen girl. I know she’s not your cousin. Those
things that got Ryan. Don’t lie to me. What the fuck’s going on?”
“More than I could tell you and not sound crazy,” I tell him.
Because I don’t deny him, he relaxes. I can see him fill in the
blanks for himself. Then he reaches for the dagger on my chest all,
“Cool, can I play with it?”
I smack his hand away. “No!”
“Fine,” he says. “I’ll get my own.”
“Look, something bad is going down tonight. Whatever you do, don’t
go in the water.”
He looks from me to Layla, to the mix of people on the boardwalk.
“I want to help.”
“You can help me by making sure people don’t go into sea. Not
tonight. Tell your brother-he’s a cop. Tell him that you heard about
some crazy-ass party that’s going down in the middle of the hurricane.
Whatever you do, you can’t mention me.”
“Hurricane party. Block off beach access. Don’t tell him about
your sparkly tail. I’m on it.” He holds out his hand and I take it.
Shake, pound, slap, slap-our Thorne Hill Knights handshake.
I turn to Layla. “Where are our dads?”
“Dazed and sleeping. Your mom and I put them in the backseat of
her car.”
I grab her face and kiss her mouth, then her forehead. I remember
that was the last thing I did the last time, when the wave was coming
in and I ran right in. Now I’m doing it again.
“I’m going to help the others,” she says and pulls herself from
me.
“I’ll be right there.” I hold on to her, right down to the tips of