best as I remember from the time I worked at Poseidon’s, a seafood
market in Coney Island to pay for the dent I put on my dad’s Mustang.
Poseidon’s is closed and boarded up, but I still remember the gist. It
makes my stomach turn, and the scales around my wrists and ankles run
for cover.
By the time I chop off the head, I don’t have much meat left. I
find three thin, sturdy branches for skewers. I flash cook the fillet
and sink my teeth into it. I’d kill for some Chulita hot sauce. My
buddy Jerry’s mom always keeps a large bottle on her table. I could
drink it like water.
I don’t know if it’s the comfort of the food or the warmth of the
fire, but my eyelids are heavy. An alarming jolt shoots through my
skin. What if the fish is poisonous? The drowsiness a side effect?
Leave it to me to eat a poisonous fish. My throat feels itchy, my
chest tight. I lean back into the soft grass. I can’t keep my eyes-
A thousand ants are biting at my skin. I try to brush them away,
but when I touch my arm, I find I’m weightless, see-through, and back
in the sea. The edges of my vision are hazy, like looking through
foggy glass.
Though there’s nothing foggy about Kurt-swimming right in front of
me.
Kurt looks behind himself, then forward, and says, “I can’t.”
Can’t? Can’t what? Can’t betray your nephew, your friend?
Ex-friend.
Then he starts going back to Coney Island. I know it is Coney
Island like I know the sky is blue. He’s going back to Lucine. After
all of that, he’s going back to his thousand-year-old oracle
girlfriend.
I guess I can understand. If it were Layla, I’d go back to her.
Only Layla isn’t crazy or on a power trip. She’s just a girl.
She’s just my girl.
I try to swim toward Kurt, but I’m immobilized. I have no voice.
And yet the urge to knock his teeth out is overwhelming.
Kurt swims over a large rock formation and freezes. Something is
stirring nearby. He can smell them. I can tell by the way he lifts his
nose toward the surface and the cloud of bubbles trailing from his
quickly shutting gills.
The surface is a thin beacon of light that barely makes it down
here. Kurt’s shoulder-length hair is tied back, the ends billowing in
the soft current. For a second I think he’s looking right at me with
those bright violet eyes. But my vision pans farther out and I can see
what has his attention-a group of merrows with clawed hands and feet
that are climbing over boulders. Their slick bodies are deceptive.
I’ve been on the other end of their punches, and their skin is like
sandpaper. Nieve’s children, fully grown with hammerheads and strong
bodies. Some even have the tails of sharks, others the hands of humans
or the heads of eels. They smell the blood trickling from the nicks
and cuts on Kurt’s forearms.
They circle him, snapping at the space between them and their prey
with those sharp, yellow teeth. Kurt doesn’t move.
Kurt is a warrior. If that were me, I’d swim up and have them
chase me until I found a diversion and could take them out one by one.
Not him though. I recognize the smirk on his severe face from our own
fights. The kind of smile that tells his opponent he’s going to win
and they’re going to lose. He raises the Trident of the Skies. The
merrows swim back a foot, but they hold their ground.
And then nothing.
Kurt is holding one of the most powerful weapons in the seas. It’s
the head of the trident that gives the Sea King his power. The same
weapon he used to get rid of our enemy hours ago, the same weapon he
used to stop me from saving Layla. It sparks and sizzles like the last
burst of a firework. Then it dies. The three prongs are an oversized
fork in his dumb hands.
It’s the same thing I discovered when fighting Leomaris. The
trident has lost its power. Hey, at least it’s not just me, and I feel
a little better watching him struggle. But why can I see him? Am I
making this up?
I reach for a weapon at my side that isn’t there. He can’t
possibly take on all those merrows at once. And then I panic, water
filling my lungs as my gills shut. I’m sinking, the sea floor opening
beneath me. I shout his name- “Kurt!” -and he snaps his eyes in my
direction. I feel his eyes on my face as the merrows attack him. And
Kurt, with the Trident of the Skies in one hand and a broadsword in
the other, swims headfirst into their jaws.
The water in my lungs is real.
It’s raining.
I roll over on my side and cough.
What was that? The last I saw was Kurt’s sword impaling a merrow.
I could feel myself there, lurking like a shadow. Now I’m here in my
camp, holding the scepter in my hand. The fire has died. I sift
through the wet ashes for the stone and it’s still there, good as new.
I check my watch, but it’s still 11:53 a.m.
A swift movement catches my eye. A bright green leaf full of nuts
and berries and a fuzzy orange worm, not the gummy kind, are carefully
placed on a slab of rock beside my fire pit.
“You can show yourself,” I shout to the woods and the river. The
only sign of life is in the brush of wind on leaves, the constant rush
of stream into the waterfall, and my heart beating at an irregular
pace. Still, I felt something-someone-nearby. Or maybe it was the
effects of dreaming of Kurt. Maybe this place will make me crazy
before I find the River Clan. Before I can find the key to the
Sleeping Giants. Before I can save the day, save the girl. I stare at
the woods and the sky like they’re an optical illusion and I’m the one
who can’t see the hidden image. Then I whisper to no one, “Please.”
I grab a berry and hold it between my fingers. I squeeze too hard,
and a clear, syrupy liquid oozes down my hand. The thought that the
berries are poisoned crosses my mind. Then again, if someone took the
time to gather me some breakfast, they could have killed me in my
sleep. I pop it in my mouth, mostly to get rid of the terrible taste
of morning breath, but also because the scraps of fish I ate before I
crashed were not enough. When I reach out to grab another berry, a
strange bird swoops down and snatches it.
“Hey!”
A head with a long, golden beak and glossy black eyes is attached
to a six-inch neck. Its shimmery feathers remind me of oil slicks
after it rains in Brooklyn. Then its body becomes hard, like lizard
skin in bright yellow and green splatters that change with the light.
The berry goes down its gob and it grabs another, this time giving it
to me.
“Thanks,” I say.
He nods. I swear the dragon-bird nods at me. It pecks at the
boulder a dozen times and then flies into the air, swooping into an
arc and stopping on a branch. The bird makes a deep sound, like the
lowest B flat on a piano, and flaps thin, filmy wings. I strap on my
weapons and gather my strewn possessions back into my backpack. The
dragon-bird returns to the rock, this time swallowing the fuzzy orange
worm in one gulp.
“Gross,” I say. “I’m coming, I’m coming.”
See, this is the kind of sidekick I needed from the beginning.
Animals are much more trustworthy than mermen or people. You have your
singing dragons, your loyal crabs, your helpful mice that can sew. I
mean, I’m a sea prince, for fuck’s sake.
I break into a run on the flat, green path between the forest and
the river. Tiny shimmering insects rise from the stream and swarm
around me, curious but non-threatening, then fall behind. The land
goes on for miles. The sky has its blend of sunsets. The moon and sun
and stars hang like mobiles waiting for a breeze. I keep my breath