The Mermaid Chronicles, Volume One

Prologue: Something Truly Awful

A U G U S T   1 6,   1 9 8 5:

The Festivities had ended, and all was quiet. 

The people of Harbor Bay had just celebrated the 85th anniversary of their small beach town, founded in the hot, sickly August of 1900. Every year since, it was customary for its inhabitants to participate in a founders day festival - no matter how suffocatingly humid the Floridian air became. 

As for the celebration itself, all had gone surprisingly well this year; a relief for the overworked publicity team at town hall, as it had become an ongoing joke among the townspeople that the day was cursed. No matter how much begging they had done, the chide never died down. Unlike the now non-existent bounty of tourists.

But of course, everyone knew that it was nothing more than a streak of bad luck. Besides, nothing truly awful had ever come about the festival. 

In fact, nothing truly awful or even remotely interesting ever seemed to come about the town itself. It is a sad but true fact that the one word most commonly used to describe Harbor Bay was, well... boring.

Other than the occasional high tide here and there, blocked off by the jagged rocks along the coast line, there was hardly anything noteworthy. The files of historical events surrounding the town's history were a mere few papers thick, and even then the details were terribly dreary. Even the crime rate, which everyone supposed they ought to be thankful for, was nothing significant. Still, the teenagers often mused at the idea of crime here and there, though very few were brave enough to go through with it. 

But it would just so happen that Dorothea Burton was. 

She cursed her achy thighs as she sat crouched in the rather large bush of Miss. Casey's lawn, peering out at the dimly lit street. Across from her was the newly constructed Whitlock house, with its gleaming square windows and pale blue finishing. She glared at it, cursing its inhabitants - newcomers from New Zealand. 

Even at this ungodly hour of night/early morning (she wasn't sure anymore), their lights remained lit and they themselves continued to play scrabble at the dining table facing the road. One of them she knew; Wyatt, from her fourth period math class. 

He sat in the back left corner, close enough to the door to slip out whenever he pleased, which Thea thought was smart of him considering that he was too quiet for his absence to be noted on. But Thea noticed. She always did. 

She wondered if he would pick up on her disappearance, too. 

Suddenly, the streetlights cut out.
With a jolt, Thea scrambled to her feet and pushed the blonde strands of hair back into her dark hood. She spared one last look at Wyatt, savoring the sharpness of his jawline, the blue of his eyes, and the sandy brownish-blonde of his hair. 

In another life, perhaps, they would have been friends. Maybe even more than that. But this was the hand which she had been dealt, and so Thea forced herself to pull away and plunge into the woods next to the Whitlock house.

---

School was cancelled the next day. 

The shops closed down. 

The police were everywhere, asking every question. 

The town was subjected to a curfew.

Every home had their doors and windows locked.

And the people wept.