The Mermaid Spell

Puppet

Lara watched curiously while I leafed through the crumpled old pages of the book.  We sat at the very edge of the beach so Adrian could swim nearby in order to keep a watchful eye of us.  A few gulls flocked about, thinking he was some large fish floundering around in the shallows worth their morning meal.  He swatted them away irritably every time he resurfaced to check on us before diving back below the surface.

"I never imagined meeting others," Lara sighed dreamily and slunk back, allowing her honey colored hair to fan out in the damp sand.  A larger wave swept up past the tide and drenched our legs.  I tried not to appear envious as I watched her legs flop carelessly about while they formed into a magnificent viridescent tail.  I turned away and continued to flip through the pages, pretending that I didn't even seem to notice her sudden metamorphosis.  

"I'm not even afraid of what I am anymore.  It's like a breath of fresh air!"  She giggled and joyfully slapped her fins against the water.  A showering of droplets sprayed me before I could avoid it.  Lara gasped and raised a hand to her lips. 

"We need to stay serious, Lara.  Every moment is precious.  It's crucial that we remain on task and to the point," I hissed before she could utter an apology.  I did feel a bit guilty for snapping at her though.  

"So why do you need my book so bad?"  Lara inquired after rolling onto her stomach.

"I was like you, Lara.  I had a book once.  It's gone now," I replied solemnly and closed my eyes.  "It put a friend of mine in danger and now the only way I can save him is if I go down there and retrieve him myself."

Lara folded her arms behind her head.  "Is he really a friend?"  She waggled her eyebrows and I rolled my eyes in retaliation.

"Before everything happened I did happen to fancy him a bit.  We knew each other slightly, but if you asked him who I was beforehand, he probably wouldn't remember my name."  I knitted my eyebrows as I continued to ramble on, realization suddenly hitting me.  "He did kind of just show up one day out of the blue.  Actually, it was shortly after I transformed for the first time.  I had gone missing quite a few times, enough to worry my family to death and to have it all publicized.  He and his mom showed up out of the blue, claiming that they had traveled all the way from New York after hearing about my disappearances.  We talked for a few minutes alone and then he attempted to kiss me."

"Sounds like some lame story a twelve year old would write on the internet," Lara interrupted.  I nodded, too deep in thought to acknowledge her rudeness.

"After that, he somehow spilled water on me and I had to escape so no one would see me flopping about like a sardine.  I hid from them out of fear, just like I had been doing ever since I became a mermaid.  He came looking for me and got swept up in such a sudden storm."  I quickly flipped towards the back of the book and pointed to an illustration of a monstrous wave that took up nearly half of the page.  "It was a tempest, just like described here."

Lara squinted to read the small script and leaned in closer until her nose nearly pecked the page. 

"They aren't natural weather.  They're formed by pure energy and power, and almost always occur along the coast and out to sea."  I exclaimed to save her the effort of trying to read the old text.  "They can happen almost instantly without any kind of indication of the oncoming storm.  My friend and I  happened to be swept up in one.  I managed to save him before he lost his life.  I even watched him stumble up the beach and disappear behind the dunes.  Although, when I returned home later, I was left under the impression that he hadn't even returned home at all.  They found his body a day later, washed up and lifeless on the beach.  I knew something wasn't right though, so I enlisted the help of a halfling girl who seemed to know of the ropes of this abandoned undersea city where they apparently had been keeping him along with Adrian and the halfling's father.  Somehow they had staged my friend's death and were intending to execute him by drowning him before the public.  The halfling and I were arrested under false accusation of stealing some important gem and were forced to watch the executions before we met our own."  I took a deep breath and found that I had been digging my fingernails so deeply into my palm that they had broken the skin.  Lara stared at me silently, almost as deeply immersed in the story as I was. 

"So how did you manage to get here?  And what about your tail?"  She asked, her voice so deeply intrigued and serious. 

"Adrian stepped in at the last minute to object and suggest that they torture my friend in order to buy us more time.  They used the same gem that the halfling and I had apparently 'stolen' to switch the balance of power between my friend and I.  I fell unconscious after that and woke up on the beach with no ability to transform.  I had planned on returning home to New York since there was literally nothing I could do.  I knew I would have to cope with the consequences for the rest of my life, knowing that I was the reason  my friend was put through so much.  Then Adrian showed up."  We both turned towards the sea to see if Adrian was listening in, but he didn't seem to be nearby.  A few seagulls hastily waited for his return to the surface by perching anxiously on a nearby rock.

"He said that he had escaped from below and that we needed to save my friend.  We came here looking for answers.  We thought we might find another book like yours in some old beach side bookstore.  That's when we were led to you."  Lara grinned when I mentioned her and twirled a blond curl around her index finger.

"It seems very staged, like everything happened just too precisely," she acknowledge and watched me snap the book shut.  I placed it carefully in her leather satchel and latched the brass button so it wouldn't fall out.

It was like we were all part of a bigger picture where our wrists were bound by threadlike strings and a puppetmaster controlled us from the shadows.  Was I just some marionette on a larger stage than I believed?  Were Ian and Adrian really to be trusted?

Lara suddenly pulled me into a tight embrace, clearly reading the concerned look strewn across my face.  "I'll help you get your friend back, Elly.  You saved me from my stepfather so I owe you my life," she whispered through sniffles and squeaks.  I refused to pull away from her squeeze, simply because her hug was the only comfort I had felt in so long.  It gave me the strength lift myself from my place in the sand and fight against the wires that controlled me.  Lara was onto something, and I knew if we found our puppetmaster, Ian would be close by.

"