The Lost Mirror

Chapter 9

Jade shot up right. Her breathing was heavy and there was sweat on her forehead. A nightmare. About what she couldn't remember but with everything that had happened to her in just over 24 hours she wasn't sure she would really want to know. She ripped the fleece blanket off her overheating self. She stretched, there was knot in her back were the uneven woodland floor had dug into her and her neck was sore from the hard bundle of blankets she had been using as a pillow. She looked over at Zachariah, he had shoved his staff into the ground. It glowed in the night, re enforcing the protection spell he had conjured to protect them while they slept. She looked around further and was thankful to see Ethan had returned. He had been gone for hours but he must have come back after they had fallen asleep. Something told her he didn't want to come back but he had because he was duty bound. If she had learnt anything about Ethan it's that he was ferociously loyal to his Kingdom and took his orders dead seriously. Jade heard the sound of rippling water. She turned her head to look but it was hard to see anything in the dying light of the fire. Was it the mermaids? She wanted to get closer, she wanted to see what a mermaid looked like but she wasn't sure if she dared. Zachariah had warned her about how dangerous they were and yet she found herself getting up and slowly walking towards the water edge regardless. When she was just a few feet away she could make out the silhouettes of three heads poking out of the water. She stopped. Her heart was beating loudly in her chest, she wanted to get close but at the same time she didn't. They would kill her and she couldn't die. Her death would bring about the end of the universe.

"We're not going to drown you." Said a silky female voice from the water. It almost sounded like she was singing the words in Jade's direction.

"Y-you can talk." She stuttered back.

"Well of course we can talk." Replied another silky voice, much higher in pitch than the last.

"Come closer." The third beckoned. It took everything Jade had to stay put, there was something about their voices that drew her too them. 

"How do I know you won't drown me?" She questioned them.

"Because if we did we would have already done it." The first answered.

"You did give us the perfect opportunity earlier." The third said with a small laugh.

"Then why didn't you? Zachariah said you drowned humans."

"The wizard is very untrustworthy of us but we do not drown all we come across." The second mermaid said.

"Only the ones we don't like." Added the first.

"So...you like me then? Why?"

"Because we heard you." The second said.

"Heard me? What do you mean?"

"Earlier this evening you made contact with the water, we could hear your thoughts we you did. We heard your longing to be somewhere your not so alone." The third told her.

"You do not belong here just as we do not belong." The first said softly. Jade was taken back a little by their words. She didn't believe it, these creatures Zachariah had described to be so vicious weren't as bad as they seemed at all. Jade took one step forward and the three mermaids swam closer to the water's edge. Jade glanced back, convinced that her male companions were still fast asleep she knelt down at the water. She could see the mermaids a little better now. One had dark blonde hair, the other was so dark it looked black in the moonlight and the other had hair so red it looked like the same shade as blood.

"My name is Daryah." The dark haired one of the three said. "And these are my sisters Meribella." She pointed to the blonde mermaid. "And Sereia." The beautiful red headed mermaid gave her a small nod.