Page 13 of Mermaid on Heels
“That is the sun?” Sessa found her voice, seemingly forgetting her worries about being caught by a pirate under Faelina’s trance.
“No silly, that is themoon,” Ella corrected her. “My dolphins, I think there is a lot we need to learn about the world above.”
Liriya mentally agreed with her and stopped only meters from breaking through the surface. She felt her sisters, who had been tailing closely behind, stop, and looked down at them with a small, giddy smile.
“Ready, angelfishes?” She offered them her hands.
“This is so exciting!” Sessa let out a sudden squeal and took Liriya’s offered hand. Ella took the other, rolling her eyes at Sessa.
Just as planned, Liriya rose to the surface first and spied the surroundings using her powerful eyesight, making sure the coast was clear before she fully pulled herself above the surface.
Her sisters followed suit and gasped atop their lungs, hands shooting up to clasp over their mouths as soon as the sound escaped. Liriya watched them with a satisfied smile and happy tears in her eyes. That light in their eyes… How long had she been longing and working hard to see it in the past three months? Yet, nothing she had done worked or sparked their interest.
Until today.
She had been watching their alight faces since dropping her plan to them, and nothing she had tried before lasted least as long as this had. Even Sessa, as terrified as she had sounded about the idea all day, was now all aglow, as if she had devoured one of the glowing crystals in their cave.
Liriya averted her eyes from them and absorbed the surroundings, every mysterious thing they caught on, unlike earlier that day. The cool breeze brushed against her bare skin and tousled her long wet hair, the feeling slightly ticklish that she couldn’t stop giggling with her sisters.
“Liriya, I want to feel the land!” Ella said suddenly, tugging at Liriya’s hand. “Can I, oh, can I, please? What about there?” She pointed to the shore Liriya previously pointed out as where Luke and his brother had been.
“I think it is hard to reach there because the water level is too low,” Liriya said and looked around her. To their left, she spotted an area where the sea was calm with the land standing like a curve on either side of the water. “There, let us go there.”
“This issoexciting!” Sessa squealed for the time Liriya had lost count by now—since coming to the surface.
“Oh, really? Where did all the ‘are you sure’go?” Ella teased her.
“Quiet you! I am trying to enjoy.”
Liriya laughed at her sisters’ enthusiasm. She felt so satisfied with herself for being able to make them happy, in the craziest of ways only siblings can do, and watched Ella swim towards the solid shore.
“There is enough water here to reach the land!” Ella called back to her.
Liriya grabbed Sessa’s hand and swam after Ella. They watched her push herself up from the water and onto the solid shore excitedly. However, when Ella lifted her tail from the water, excitement replaced with mystery.
Her tail began glowing; a small glow, like the reflection of the moon in the water.
Liriya stared at Ella’s glowing tail in wide-eyed awe. The glowing stopped almost as soon as it came, and her tail was replaced with a pair of legs.
Human legs.Liriya realized, and her awe turned into pure horror.
An unholy scream escaped her and she realized she wasn’t the only one; Ella jumped back into water, being the loudest to scream. Liriya ducked into the sea and pulled Sessa along with her.
Water muffled their screams, but Liriya felt as though she had hit her head hard on a rock. The sight of Ella’s tail glowing and being replaced with a pair of human legs shocked her beyond anything. She thought this was a nightmare until she saw Ella next to her with her tail back.
Liriya gaped at her. “What…”
“Do not ask me!” Ella shrieked in panic, looking down at her tail. “I thought… I thought…”
“Did I really see your tail—”
“Donotspeak of it!” Ella exclaimed, cutting off Sessa’s words, fright written all across her face. “Do not remind me!”
“Sharks and dolphins!So I wasnotdreaming?” Sessa continued.
Liriya wisely chose silence and recalled the sight: as soon as Ella had lifted her tail out of the sea, it began glowing and she got a pair of human legs. Now that she was back in the water, she regained her tail.
She considered it deeply, watching Ella sway her tail in relief, until a thought struck her.