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care. He holds his head high, even though I can’t keep from laughing

as we file into the elevator. “We still have a lot to discuss,” Kurt

says.

“You know, I can tell you’re going to be the life of the party.”

What an interesting contraption,” Thalia goes.

Before I can stop her, she runs her fingers all the way up and

down the elevator numbers. B to 17.

“Thalia,” Mom says in her best mom voice, “you must only push one

button.”

“Which one?”

“The level you wish to go to.”

“Which level do we wish to go to?” Her eyes are less intense than

yesterday, her lashes so long they look like they’re reaching out for

you.

My mother presses her finger to her mouth to suppress a giggle.

Like I said, she’s always wanted a daughter. “Level L to go out to the

street. To go back home, Level 14.”

I figure Kurt, in his own way, must be amazed by the elevator.

That is, until he says, “We don’t need metal boxes in Toliss. We can

swim wherever we like. You remember, Lady Sea?”

Mom doesn’t answer, but I can smell her longing-a petal being

crushed between fingertips. Then I see Layla’s face in the back of my

mind. She loves me not .

“It’s nice to rest your fins once in a while,” Thalia says.

“Well, there’s one reason merfolk are not as fat as humans,” he

says simply.

“The delicious kelp and algae diet?”

“Tristan, be nice.”

“He called me fat! He called us fat!”

“I said, humans. Not ex-mermaids and their offspring.”

I stuff my hands in my pockets and watch the numbers go down. My

palms are sweating, and I don’t think I’ve finished shedding my scales

around some very sensitive areas. How the hell are the three of them

so composed? I’ve turned into a merman, and now we’re going to the

mall. I feel like I’m about to erupt, as if the fish half of myself is

trying to break through. Wasn’t this tattoo supposed to help with

that?

“I think your tattoo didn’t work,” I say.

Kurt observes me a moment. The doors open and we walk past the

neighbors, who stare at Kurt and Thalia so long that the door starts

to shut with them in the middle. The tall lovely boy whose clothes are

too small for him and the young girl who makes you want to sigh when

you glance at her.

“I believe it takes a bit to settle in. Magic is gradual, not

instantaneous, contrary to whatever you’ve been exposed to.”

“What’s the point of that?”

“The point is that at least you’re no longer in a bathtub too

small to fit your fins.”

“You mean you don’t feel antsy at all?”

He thinks on it as we cross the street to the car. He looks like

he’s going to say something smart-ass-ish. Thalia suddenly stops. Her

high-pitched voice comes out shapeless, just a mumble of hysterical

sounds.

She stands in the middle of the street, reaching down to grab a

Chihuahua the size of a football from the road, its puke-pink leash

dangling as it wiggles in Thalia’s grasp. She doesn’t know not to stop

in the middle of the street. Two cars honk and drive around her but

don’t slow down. I run and grab her around the waist. An SUV holds his

horn down and hits the brakes, stopping right where she was standing

two heartbeats ago. The driver rolls down his window to curse at us

before running the red light.

“Oh my,” Thalia says.

People on the street stop and stare. Others stand on their stoops

and crane their necks to get a better look at us. I set Thalia on the

ground. The puppy barks, and she holds him up so that he licks my

face.

“Thank Lord Sea for saving us,” she tells him. The ugly little

thing barks at me with sharp teeth. She holds him like a baby doll

while a girl runs across the street, struggling to hold on to five

other leashes.

“Thank you! So much!” Her face is almost green with sickness.

There’s something that looks like gum stuck in her braces. “That’s a

five-thousand-dollar dog. Mrs. Hirschwitz would’ve killed me.”

Thalia hands over the dog with a pout on her pretty lips. The dog

walker waves at us as she gets pulled in six different directions by

her borrowed hounds.

“What a horrific line of duty,” Kurt says, opening the passenger

door for Thalia and then letting himself into the back.

Mom reaches over and holds Thalia’s chin gently. “I know this is a

new world. It is different. It is dangerous. I can’t have anything

hurt you, okay? Please, stay close to us.”

“Also, don’t stand in front of moving metal,” I say, slightly

shaking from the rush of adrenaline.

Thalia nods. “I just missed my Atticus.”

“Your catfish?”

“Her sea horse.”

She lets my mom buckle her seat belt and slumps down, not unlike a

girl her age who’s been told she can’t have a puppy. I picture her

room as a giant cave with seaweed and tiny stolen trinkets.

Mom turns on the radio. The Beach Boys sing something about

sunshine and girls in rainbow colors and surfing. We drive through the

grayest day of the summer, passing girls in rain boots and short

dresses and men with umbrellas tucked under their arms. I let all the

images outside the car window drift through my mind so that I don’t

think of one concrete image. One I’ve dreamt every time I shut my

eyes. The silver mermaid. Her beautiful, ghostly face. The sharp

teeth. The nails long and dirty at the tips like they’d been dipped in

blood.

And then the Beach Boys get completely drowned out by static.

Kurt turns to me and says, “I am indebted to you.”

“I thought I’m already your duty,” I say, in air quotes.

“I am here because the king wished it. But you have saved my

sister. Now I also wish to be here.”

He turns back to the window. I wonder if all merdudes are this

stiff even when they’re trying to be friendly. “To answer your

question from before, I am antsy,” he says. “I’ve just had more years

to practice hiding it. Besides, at the end of it I always go back to

the sea.”

“So if you don’t like being in human form, why even come on land?”

“Because I go where my family goes. Besides, it gets boring after

a few years with the same people at court.”

“When you guys get bored, you go island-hopping. When I get bored

I watch a movie.”

“We don’t have those.”

Thalia sits up in her seat. “The moving pictures! Oh, Lady Sea,

may we please go see one? Though the last time we saw one on the

Florida coast the automobile smelled like dead cow.”

“The last movie you went to see was a drive-in, and you still look

about fourteen?”

“We age slowly,” Kurt says, “like the sea itself. I’m 103.”

“God damn,” I go. “How old are you, Mom?”

“Didn’t your father tell you you’re not supposed to ask a lady her

age?”

We get on the expressway. I can’t smell the sea anymore, but the

smell of metal and burning rubber and oil makes me queasy.

“Is this normal?” I ask Kurt.

“It would depend on what is normal to you. What are you referring

to?”

“The smells. I smell things a lot more than before I changed. When

the storm was coming, I could smell it. Only I didn’t know that I

could. When people get too close to me, I can smell what they’re

feeling .”

“It helps when you’re swimming along to detect if there are any

nasty things in the water with you. Or if you’re looking for food.”

In the rearview mirror I catch my mom looking at us and smirking.