20774 reads reads and 1990 votes!
Published 8/22/20

Sorry supper short chapter, but the payoff is good I promise!
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Summer Present

Both men fixed their gaze onto me. It was at that moment that I felt a warm liquid slide down my face to my lips. I reached up and touched my finger tips to it, and when I pulled it away they were red. I frowned, something like this had never happened to my body before. Should I be worried? No, we had bigger things to worry about like the mysterious person following us. What's it one of my father's land servants? 

"Marina, are you okay?" Tim asked " You look really pale," he took a step towards me.

Arthur shook his head. "Clearly she isn't fine, she looks like she's about to throw up or pass out. Maybe even both. We should head back."

I shook my head at them. "My nose bleeds every once and a while, I'll be fine..." I said at the exact moment my knees folded under me and I was plunged into darkness.

I was lying  on something soft and there was something breathing softy in my ear. I jolted awaken, my eyes opening to find  I was in a small wooden room cast in yellow and orange light. The room was bare besides the mattress I was lying on and table packed full with various vials of this and that.

I turned to see the both Tim and Arthur were laying beside me fast asleep. I reached over to Tim and attempted to shake his shoulder.

"Tim, wake up," I whispered.

"He isn't going to wake up, at least not until I tell him to. "

My head jerked up and my eyes found a familiar face. In the door way of the room stood a dark haired woman, wearing a long white dress, that hung loosely off her slender frame.  She held a cigarette in her hand which she lifted to her lips and took a long pull from. She looked like she had barely aged since I last saw her although it had been 50 years since I had .

"Hello Natasha..." I said weakly.

A long stream of smoke escaped her lips. "Hello Marina, been awhile. If I had to recall, the last time we spoke it was to make a bargain. Seems that you have also made another," she closed her eyes for a moment ," a sea witches? What kind of bargain did you make with a sea witch?" she opened her intense blue eyes once more to gaze at me.

"You know I can't tell you."

"The consequence that bad that you can't  tell me?"

I dug my nails into the soft material of that mattress and felt it give ever so slightly under my touch . "Let's just say it's a different kind of bad."

"Why are you here?" I glanced behind me at the two boys on the bed. And back at her, "Why are they here?" I was afraid of the answer. "Don't hurt them, let me talk to my father first."

"Relax, none of this has anything to do with your father. They're here because I compelled this one. She gestured over to the bed  where Tim and Arthur were laying down. "That boy wearing that ridiculous hat."

"Why do you want Tim?" I asked .

"In all honesty, I wasn't expecting you and the  other two  boys," Natasha said while she ignored my question and took another pull at her cigarette. "I didn't even realize it was you until I saw your face. Abasi is certainly talented with her potions, I'll give her that. Even now I can barely feel the ocean on you almost like you are human. Maybe it is making you human."

I was taken aback. Abasi had made it? She was the mother of Ray and Urchin's mother? I thought she hated father, so why would she help him?  But most importantly...

"Is there such a potion that exists that can make a mermaid a human?"

"Well since Abasi is a sea witch and her magic is tied to the cycles of the moon, we will be finding out very soon."

I felt a chill run through my body and I gripped at the blue and green fabric of my skirt. "Why would she do that? Father wants to punish me not make me human."

"I don't think he would want you human, not with the unity of the seas at risk. So I'm guessing that was this was for," Natasha held up a little vile with a bubbling green liquid inside."

I was already off the mattress and half-way across the room before I even realized what I was doing.

Natasha closer her hand around it. "Use one of my service request. Your family has three of them, you used two of them 50 years, and now you have one left. You will have to use it!"

"Why would you want me to do that? You know the consequences of trying to force me to use a service request. I can have you end yourself right here and now."

"I know but I should have to do it, as do all of the decedents from that one ancestor. Do you want the potion or not?"

I let out a groan of defeat. "Alright Natasha..as per your contract to my family, I am using my last service request from you to get back the potion they will make me human. Is this within your power?

"Yes," Natasha replied.

"Then  place it into my hands now!"

Natasha froze, her eyes drifted close. A smile began to curl at her lips. She began to giggle, and the giggling bloom into full out laughter.

"Natasha?"

Natasha's laugher grew louder and louder and I found myself beginning to get nervous.

Natasha stopped laughing an her blue eyes snapped up abruptly. She fixed her intense blue eyes onto me and look of manic joy erupted across her face.

"I don't feel the contract compelling me to fulfill your request ....this house, your magic really doesn't work here!"

"What do you mean?"

"The Luce's didn't come to hunt you all those years ago. They came for this land, and the magic it holds. Mariana, if this magic can be harnessed, no human will every die at your sisters' hands ever again!"