The Coral Crown

Chapter fifteen

I tried to open the bottle and I couldn't, so I threw it against the rocks and it shattered. I went over and picked up the little box that was inside. I opened it and inside was a note. I read it, and all it said was"happy birthday love." I picked up the note and beneath it was a beautiful aquamarine necklace. I took it out of the box and handed it to Ethan. He took it and put it around my neck.

"You look beautiful." He said.

I smiled and took his hand. I had never been more happy in my life. Just then, I saw a group of sharks swim by, looking like they were in some sort of a hurry. I heard a scream that I had heard many times before and took off. When I had gotten to where the scream had come from, all the mermaids were huddled around the sharks, crying.

"What's going on?" I asked with worry in my voice.

Everyone turned and looked at me, and the girls ran into my outstretched arms. I set them down gently and went over to see what they were crying about. There, in a heap on the ocean floor, was my father. I looked at his slit open body and kist stared. I saw something glitter in the light and reached down to pick it up. Th sharks looked like they wanted to stop me, but I knew they wouldn't. My hand found the shiny thing and pulled it up, it was now, looking at Ethan's wedding ring in my hand, that I began to cry. Why had he done this? Ethan swam up, and I turned to face the mad who had murdered my father. He saw me with his ring and looked down at his hand, as if he didn't know it was missing.

"Dylan I-"

"Don't" I said with an unforgiving tone.

He knew how much having actual parents meant to me, and he had the audacity to take one of the, away. I turned back to look down at my father. My father that I would never see again. I asked everybody to go except for Ethan.

"Why?" I asked him.

"Why what?"

"Why would you kill my father?"

"I didn't" he stated. He sounded so sure that I had second thoughts, until I remembered the ring in my hand.

"Get out." I said.

"What?"

"I'll take you back to the beach and turn you human again or you can just go find other mermaids to live with. I'm sure Maria will jump at the chance to have you. Oh and you can have your ring back." Took off the ring and tossed it at his tail. I turned away and swam over to my father. I called the sharks back to help me with something I wanted to do. My father had been brutally murdered by the boy I thought I loved. I wanted to give him a funeral, and I was gonna do that.

He sharks helped me get my father to the beach where I dragged him up the rest of the way. I covered him in leaves and set him on fire. I sat on the beach and watches him burn, while the sharks and other mermaids watched from the water. When everything was ash, I scooped it all up and put it in a hole I had dug. I was going to go to the docks and find a jar to keep the in at out cave.

When I came back with the jar, I put the ashes in and sealed it tight. I took it down to the cave and set it on the shelf we had made. We were all tired, so I ticked the girls in and laid down in the space between their beds. As the girls drifted to sleep, I cried and played with the necklace that as the first, and last present I would ever get from my dad.