Summer 1970

Me and Elizabeth sat on opposite sides of the rock without speaking, except for me to tell her to turn around once in order for me to maintain the spell she was under. All the while, the sound of dripping water persisted all the same, it's musical pings ringing a little too loudly in my ears for my own comfort. Then, by some miracle, Isla's pale head emerged from the water.

"Great, here's the next great love of my life," Elizabeth murmured under her breath.

Without hesitation, I dove head first into the pool and reverted to my original form.  I came up again right beside Isla. I was very eager to put as much distance between me and Elizabeth as possible.

"I'll be back," I said in the language of our people, but before I had a chance to duck under the water, Isla grabbed my arm and held me in place.

"Hold on," Isla commanded, " Delphine is an especially bad mood because father still has not been able to be reached. And none of the land servants have been able to locate the hunter family .  So don't be long, she wants you to do most of the guarding since it's you're fault we have to keep the huntress alive for so long. She told me she will be paying Elizabeth a visit soon and wants you there as well."

"You can tell Delphine that none of this is my fault, but it will be if Elizabeth dies without some kind of human shelter in here. So I will do that,
rest, and hunt, before I return."

"Just please hurry!" Isla pleaded in our language, while she spared a backwards glance at Elizabeth who was still perched on the rocks. "The huntress scares me."

"I can understand you, you know," Elizabeth yelled over her shoulder.

Isla's eyes widened in fear, "See!" she said. "And there's no explanation for how she can understand our language, that's why it's so scary."

"I believe that just because things can't be explained, doesn't mean we should fear them," I replied.

"Those are words for people that get killed by things in the dark. We should always try to understand, before we decided if it should be feared or not,"Isla replied.

"I don't think I've heard that expression before," I replied.

"Fluctus said that to me," she replied. "Every time I say I don't care to learn about something because it frightens me, that's what he repeats back to me."

"The boy that was the healer? The one that examined me?"

"Yeah."

"Well I wouldn't go around repeating things like that. Merepeople may think  you're odd."

"They already think I'm odd because I stopped collecting pearls, even though I'm not married yet. But I never liked the sport of it, not like you, Ray, or Orca did. I have just enough for a husband though, and I'm happy with that."

I shrugged, "It's just something to pass the time, I don't care if

From behind me Elizabeth said a few things so softly, that even my ears didn't pick it up.

"What did you say!?" I asked.

"I said human souls aren't supposed to be trophies to attract whatever prick you are trying to knab. Even if I liked...getting a husband is not worth the trouble."

"If our betrothed is a mermaid, they would also be winning us over with their pearls too to be our wives. We aren't backwards like you humans that only marry the males of our species," Isla replied , but adverted her gaze when Elizabeth shifted her warm brown eyes to her.

"Well that's the only thing about mermaid culture that I could get behind.  You actually get mad if some one automatically assumes you're going after a boy. 

I did my best to ignore her and continued to speak to Isla. "Anyways, I promise to return to relieve you of your duties," I said and before she could say anything else, I ducked beneath the glowing pool and swam downwards towards the hole at its bottom.

The hole was the entrance to winding tunnels of caves that connected it to the ocean. There were many twists and turns, and unless you knew your way around the vast system of caves, it was easy to become lost for days. Before I exited  the cave, I made sure to sing the song of friendship, to quell the sea monster that resided in the waters below the sea cave. If a royal member did not sing the song of friendship, the monster would reach up a tentacle and eat whatever dared to get close to the entrance to the underwater tunnels.

This wasn't the only way in and out of the cave though. I've could stayed in human form and climbed up the steps to the cave above, but I didn't want Elizabeth to know that there was a way for her to get out.

Once in the open ocean, I swam to be entrance of the upper cave. I glided through it's shallow waters to a simple row boat that was attached to the cave's rough black rock walls. It bobbed ever so slightly.

After a couple of failed attempts to hoist myself into the rowboat, I finally succeed. Once inside, the ocean was no longer against the purple scales of my tail, I was able to revert to human form.

In my human form, I quickly bent down and retrieved the human clothes that had been left under the wooden seat of the small boat. I cringed when I saw the piece of clothing I would have to wear. It was an orange plaid jumpsuit, no doubt Isla had selected this particular piece of human clothing.

I slipped the hideous jump suit and began to row the boat out of the cave and along the coast line. The jump suit was too hot for the sun blazing in the sun, and I found myself stopping to wet my forehead with the cool blue-green water. Every time my figures dipped below the waves, I had to resist the urge to shift to my true form.

I rowed till I reached the old pier and collided the boat with the sand.

I made my way past the places where humans bought their  disgusting food, that was prepared in a vat of boiling oil, and all the trading posts that sold hideous human things, until the rickety boards became the sidewalk. I kept walking till human homes surrounded me, and the oceans roar was lost in the sound of human chattering on wooden structures in front of their houses, while they sipped liquids in chairs, and their annoying little beasts barked in their fenced-in gardens.

I kept walking through this human settlement until a reached Mr. Walters' purple home. The stain glass window of the blonde mermaid beckoned towards the sea.

I marched up to the white doors and pounded my fists against them.

"Human!" I barked, and the door swung open and there stood Mr. Walters blinking in the sunlight.  Mr. Walters was not an attractive or clean human by any means. Maybe  that's why he had never found himself a wife and reproduced. His brown hair always looked like it had fish oil combed through it, his tie-dye shirts always had a big brow stains in the middle of it, and he reeked like only a human could that hadn't cleaned in a while . Mr. Walter's small dark eyes squinted at me from the top of his troll like nose, before recognition crossed his face and he bowed low deeply.

"Princess Marina, I was not expecting you today. Luckily the house keeper just stoped by, so the entire house is not a mess. Still I apologize-"

"Move!" I said, shoving past him into the house. Mr. Walters teetered for a second on his feet, before he steadied himself.

The entrance to the house was expansive and contained two wooden spiraling staircases leading up to a level above. The floor here was covered by a dark green carpet . There was an even bigger room to its right where a long table stood, with varies chairs around if. A deep red carpet with intricate designs blanketed the floor in there.

"So what's brings you to me today?" Mr. Walters asked. His big feet caused the floorboards under the carpet to creek loudly. It has been awhile since I heard from your father, the king.  Actually, there's an emergency, so I need to get in contact with him very soon.

"I turned to face him, the king is out doing important business. He will return to command you, but I need something from you..." I looked around me and the wooden house. "How hard is it to build dis?"  I asked and motioned around at the house around me. "I need one built but smaller. Much, much smaller."

"You mean a house. Well it all depends on the type of house you need."

"I need a house that will prevent a human from getting wet."

"Well an umbrella can do that."

Anger rose up inside me like a stormy sea.  "Don't test me mortal, I know what an umbrella is. And dat's not what I want. I want a house that keeps out da water!"

"Okay, okay," Mr. Walter said, his voice masked the fear in his voice better than his eyes did. "You want a little house that keeps out the water. But where do you want me to build it?"

"In da cave. The lower of da two caves. You can't use the human entrance, so I will have to build myself."

Mr. Walters squinted his dark eyes at  me before they widened in surprise. "Human entrance...? You mean that cave!"

"Where else would I mean?" I snapped. "We have a prisoner in dare and we must keep her alive. So get da other land servants together to go and take care of it!"

"I'm afraid that we need the land servants for something else more important at the movement , my lady ," he said and I turn and pinned him with my eyes. Mr. Walters shifted uncomfortably under my gaze. "A boy you and you're sisters attacked survived with his soul intact, and now he is telling the newspapers about it."

"Which attack? Wait, is it da one dat happened at da beach?"

Mr. Walters began to walk towards the double stair case, but stopped before reaching it at a small wooden table. He grabbed a piece of paper off of it , before he crossed the room and handed it to me."

"I've been told you aren't the best at reading the human language, but I'm sure you can gather some information from this."

It took me a little while,but after reading for a couple moments, I realized the newspaper recounted the day I met Elizabeth on the beach.

"Is dis supposed to alarm me? No human will believe dis story of a mysterious woman emerging from the sea. So what if the boy lived? Doesn't mean the other humans will believe."

"No some will and we can't risk that, so the boy needs silenced soon as possible. Only problem is our land witch hasn't been able to get into his room, in order to attempt a memory wipe. It appears that the hospital was built on blessed grounds. She can't get within five feet of the hospital without collapsing."

"So break in. Kidnap the boy, bring him to her."

"Memory wipes, if effective at all, can only wipe memories from around two and half days ago. And time's about to be up. Police are everywhere, and there's rumors that they're going to be moving him to another hospital in werewolf country, so we got to kill him before we can let that happen."

"You can help me build a house after we kill this boy?"

"Well yes," Mr. Walters replied. "But you don't have to dirty your hands by killing this boy. Let me and your other land servants do it for you."

"The other land servants can help kill the boy yes. But I want you to gather the supplies to build this small house first. Take me to the hospital, leave me, get the supplies for the house and then come get me. The boy will be dead by then I command it! And you must obey, the contract your family made with the riches of da say says so!"

"Yes my lady, I am here to serve you always."