The Mermaid's Daughter

Chapter Five: What's two plus two? Four right? Wrong. It's six.

CHAPTER FIVE

"King Johnathan decapitated his parents! What!?" I scream so loud that I can see some of the people in the far-off crowds starting to look at us strangely.

"Shush your face! You'll get me killed! Quite literally!!" Coral hushes me. I can't believe what I've just heard. I'm going to be spending the rest of my life living in the same place as a murderer. Yep, I've definitely got the best life ever (Note the sarcasm).

"Why on earth did he kill his parents?" Coral doesn't reply.

"Hellooo?" I notice that she is staring at something far off. I turn to find that she is looking at some merman in the distance, back towards the main part of the kingdom. I obviously don't have super-powered vision so all I can make out is that he is about our age and has some kind of a weird underwater car thing. He motions for Coral to come over to him. I watch her as she grins at him and swims away and into his car. Within another few seconds they are completely out of sight and I am completely alone.

***

House lights and neon signs brighten up the kingdom as I swim up the few steps to the two great palace doors. It is now evening. After the startling news that Coral informed me of, I didn't quite feel like rushing back to the palace right away. It's hard to believe that just over 24 hours ago I was living a normal, everyday life and now, well... you get the picture.

Mermaid buildings look practically exactly the same as human buildings just... underwater. The only thing that is different is the palace. It is nothing like any human building ever created. The outside is built entirely of white marble, with coral of every colour imaginable creeping up the sides, like grape vines. The two entrance doors are wooden. Around the rim there are engravings of ancient mermaids, fighting ancient sea creatures. I can tell that the mermaids are ancient because they barely look anything like what mermaids do now. Some of the mermaids in the engravings have 2 tails, others have hands that are more like flippers than actual hands. Others have fins shooting out of their backs. I shudder at the sight of them. I much prefer the way mermaids look now.

I softly open the doors and close them even more softly behind me. I creep around the corner, down the short hallway and through the sea-blue door into my room. I hope no one noticed me enter. I'm not very anxious to talk to King John-a-thon any time soon. But sure enough, Massie did notice me.

"Where have you been!?" Massie screams as I flop down on the bed.

"Places," I reply.

"We nearly had to send out a search party for you! Do you realise how much of a panic the Kingdom was in with a human on the loose?"

"No one I saw seemed to be very panicked," I answer flatly, rolling my eyes.

"Just wait until King Johnathan gets here!" she throws her hands above her head as she swims out the door.

***

King Johnathan never came. Just as well. The servant eventually comes around with my dinner. It consists of: weird thing, weird stuff, with a side of thing-a-ma-jig. It's delicious. I sit cross-legged on my bed grinding away when there is an unexpected knock on my door. King Johnathan swoops into the room as the "apparently" majestic king he is.

Now that I'm not in a haze anymore from falling to the bottom of the ocean, his facial features are much easier to define. On his face there is an array of scattered freckles, making it much more obvious that he is younger than he first seems. I also notice a small white scar, on the right side of his face, reaching from the bottom of his earlobe to the middle of his jaw-line. It gives the impression that it's been there for many years and was much worse when it was given to him.