Mer Madness

Chapter 5

         I had nightmares that night. I dreamt that Mom died, and she came back from the dead to tell me that I was a horrible daughter, and I deserved to die. And if that wasn't bad enough, I also dreamt that Dad had appeared, but he was married to someone else and had no room for me in his life. I woke up whimpering and tasted salty tears on my cheeks.

        As you can imagine, I could not go back to sleep. It was only 5:15 in the morning! Damn my bad sleeping habits. I sighed and pulled on a cami. Contrary to popular belief, mermaids do not go around topless. Some of us (read: the Not-So-Dynamic-Duo) go around in skimpy coconut tops, but they have no self-respect.

         I drifted up and down hallways, thinking, until I stopped and realized that I had led myself to my old playroom. I swam in and saw all my old toys, and pictures of Ophelia holding me when I was just a baby.

        Maybe this was stupid, but I grabbed everything I could find and swam to the infirmary. I grabbed an oyster bowl and fashioned a sort of shrine next to my mom's bed. I assembled all of the pictures, toys and blankets in the bowl. I don't know why I had never realized it, but I could tell now that it killed my mom to let us live on our own. She wanted to cuddle us, and play with us, and talk to us about boy problems and friend problems. I felt awful. I sat on the edge of her embroidered blanket and cried. I sat there for almost an hour, I think. Mom was alseep, but I told her everything that was bugging me, and I mean everything. It felt amazing to let it out, even though I knew she couldn't actually hear me.

         I swam back to my room, feeling loads better and exhausted after my mini-breakdown. I lay back down on my seaweed bed and fell back asleep.

            "MARCIA! Get! Up!" Ophelia screamed in my ear. What the what? Couldn't I ever get more than 5 hours of sleep at a time? I slowly got up, taking in my surroundings as I did so. I took several deep breaths to keep my temper under wraps. "Yes? And why on this flipping earth would you be waking me up so early?!?!" 

              Ophelia recoiled and pasted a look of hurt on her face. "God, Marcia. I was just trying to wake you up so we could all have breakfast with Mom. Calm yourself."

            I've had a sucky morning already without Ophelia trying to make me feel bad. "Yeah, yeah. Whatever. Let's just go." I muttered.

             Ophelia and I dresses in simple, yet elegant gowns (once you're in the palace, you've got to act like it, too.) and went to Gabbs and Lil's room to get them. Ophelia wanted to use the same tactics as before to wake them up. But, I adamatly insisted on not doing it her way.

            We all glided down to the dining hall. It's a beautiful room, really. The table is long and made of solid oak. (imported from Spain.)  The walls are pearl white and decorated with portraits of the previous kings and queens. The crown molding is solid gold and studded with diamonds. Not to brag or anything, but our kingdom is definitely one of the wealthiest. We've been fortunate because our kingdom is nestled in the exact right place, except for the occaisonal earthquake, of course.

         We all find our places at the table, and I realize with a jolt that these are the exact same places that we sat in when we lived in the palace. Our mom welcomes us from the depths of her wheel chair. She can't actually eat anything, doctor's orders. She has to get her nutrients from an IV that's attached to her wheel chair. She tries to be strong, but I can see what a great deal of pain she's in.

         "Welcome, girls. Did you sleep well?" Mom looks at each of us expectantly.

        "Umm, yeah, Mom. How did you sleep?" Ophelia inquires. I could tell it was making her uncomfortable having to use formal speech with our own mother.

        Mom laughs, though very, very weakly. "Just fine. Girls, I don't want you to worry about me. I'll be fine in time. But, that reminds me. As each of you know, I am sick and hurt. It might be a while before I can go back to my duties as a queen, and I'm not comfortable with you all living alone while I am disabled," She glances at each of us in turn.

    "And I've decided that you will all go live on land with your aunt."