The Stolen Merman

Chapter 6: Turbulence

"Please buckle your seatbelts and prepare for takeoff" Diana, the pretty flight attendant, said as she concluded the in-flight health and safety speech. Part way through Ariella began mouthing exactly what she was saying word-for-word, man, this girl really did fly often. It was also nice to see that, in the midst of all this craziness, we could still act normal. Sure we had a shapeshifting, colour-changing mermaid sitting next to us on a plane to America, but Ariella's obviously middle-class upbringing making me giggle was what felt normal in that small bubble of peace.

As the flight attendants took their seats, the plane's engines began whirring as they prepared themselves for takeoff. Looking over at Eli I noticed all the colour had drained from his face and he was gripping the arms of the chair so tight his knuckles had turned an even paler shade of white which stood in stark contrast to the navy blue of the chair. Ariella nudged me with her elbow and directed her eyes to Eli's head with a worried glance. Following her gaze I too saw what she was worried about that wasn't just his fear of flight.

Mirroring Ariella's nudge to Eli, I handed him a delicate compact mirror adorned with what was sure to be real sapphire; a gift from her mother, from Ariella's bag and looked towards his head.

His mouth formed a little 'O' and his eyes widened. "I guess my hair reverts to its original colour if I'm not concentrating, the change in pigment isn't permanent so I guess it makes sense" he closed his eyes and concentrated for a bit; the ends of his hair that were beginning to turn white slowly turned grey and then back to the glossy backed that juxtaposed his internally luminescent looking skin, like he had a light glowing from within.

"I do have to warn you, I don't think I will be able to maintain this form for the whole journey to America. I will dry out too if I am without water for too long, to be perfectly honest I have no idea what happens when a mermaid dries out. I only know that it is something my parents always warned us of, never to stay on dry land for prolonged periods of time." He finished with a contemplative look on his face, he didn't look particularly terrified of the thought. He simply looked curious at the prospect, it was clear that it was his curiosity that got him caught but saying that out loud would only make him feel worse.

Thankfully, the distraction of his colour-changing hair was a momentary reprieve from the thought of sitting in a tin can flying through the air for a good few hours. That was until we felt our stomachs drop as we felt the wheels lifting from the ground below us. I pried his hand closest to mine from the armrest and he immediately squeezed hard, as if trying to feel safe through touch. I was struck by how strong his grip was, so far I had only seen Eli as meek in the massive new world to him despite his larger size, or needing protection and teaching but his grip made me realise he was actually strong and wouldn't always need our protection. For some reason though, that thought made me a bit sad. It was the light "ding" from the seatbelt sign that snapped me out of it. Eli released my hand and smiled gratefully and loosed a breath at the same time looking out of the little circular window as his cheeks flushed pink, as I'm sure mine were doing the same.

Ariella was thankfully unaware of what had just transpired as she was looking in the other direction down the plane.

"Heya, what's up?" I whispered to her. Instead of replying, she had her eyes fixed on the guy in the suit who I had almost managed to forget about. Almost.

"Nothing yet, but I really have a bad feeling about this" which was not what I wanted to hear. When she got one of her feelings, she was almost always right. There was this time in secondary school when we were sitting down for English and Ariella told me to call my mum, she was really serious about it so I did and found out that my aunt had died and she hadn't even told my dad at that point. It was almost like she was psychic, useful but sometimes creepy nonetheless.