Sea Witch

My heart swells with hope. I scramble down the rock and onto the other side of the beach. My feet work overtime to propel my body forward as the wet sand swallows my boots with each step.

Lightning radiates over the mountains, illuminating the sky for a flash—long enough for my brain to register the outline of Nik’s body against the sand.

And the form of a girl hovering over him.

“NIK!” I yell, my voice coming back to me.

In response comes Iker’s baritone from behind, “Evie!”

But I don’t wait for him. I don’t even turn in Iker’s direction, keeping my eyes only on Nik and the girl leaning over him, her body still mostly submerged. Without another stroke of lightning, I can’t make out much more than her long, long hair—so long it drapes over the white of Nik’s shirt.

The girl’s head tilts up in the moonlight as if she’s just now noticed me running toward her at full speed. The lightning returns in a burst, and though my legs keep moving, my heart skids to a stop.

Large blue eyes. Butter-blond curls. Creamy flush of skin.

It’s the girl. The one from the porthole.

Anna?

No, it can’t be.

Recognition seems to fill the girl’s eyes, and her features skip from contented calm to a pure rush of panic. Panic that sends her straight into motion. A gust of wind pushes her hair over the curve of her shoulder as she takes one hasty and last glance at Nik’s face before heaving herself fully into the water.

“Wait!” I yell as best I can, but it’s useless with her ears deep under the waves.

In less than a breath, I get to Nik and crash to the sand next to him, pulling his chest to mine, my ear to his mouth. A rush of air from his lips touches my cheek as Iker yells both our names from behind.

Nik’s lungs work in great rasps, but they work. His eyes are closed, but he seems to be conscious.

“Evie . . .”

“I’m here, Nik. I’m here.”

A ghost of a smile touches his lips. “Evie . . . keep singing, Evie.”

Confused, I begin correcting him. “Nik, I’m not—I don’t . . .”

My mouth goes dry. I scan the waters for any sign of the girl. The girl who looks like Anna all grown up. The girl who must like to sing the way my friend did as a child.

At first, there’s still nothing. Just ever-calming waves and starry night, backlit by the summer solstice moon.

But then, just at the edge of the cove, I see it.

Blond hair gone silver under the clear moon, peeking up for a swift moment before the girl dives back underwater. A trail of sea spray flies up in her wake—and with it comes something more.

The perfect outline of a tail fin.

FOUR YEARS BEFORE

The sun was out, as fierce and as hot as possible inHavnestad. It wasn’t as fierce or hot as it is in other places, but memorable to those in the mild-mannered Øresund Kingdoms, much more accustomed to Mother Nature’s cold shoulder than her steamy smile, though it was the height of summer.

Two girls, one with waves of blond, one with curls of black, pranced along the shoreline. Their voices lifted toward the naked June sun, carried aloft by a deep wind from within the strait.

A boy, already as tall as a man, trailed them, piccolo to his lips, writing a tune for the girls’ merry lyrics.

Despite the sun, the main beach was clear, the majority of Havnestad hauling fish and hunting whales at sea, the bustle of a modern economy weathering a boom. They would flood the shores with catch and tales soon enough, returning that night for the days-long Lithasblot festival and the midsummer full moon. For now, the whole stretch of sand belonged to the two girls and their boy.

The waves, heavy and exuberant, churned in the strong wind, tossing themselves at the girls’ ankles—bare without anyone there to correct them. The boy’s boots were on—his feet were gangly and hairy in a way they hadn’t been last summer, and he didn’t want the girls to see. He stayed on dry sand, justbeyond the waves’ reach, coal-dark eyes pinned on the girls’ delicate toes, which also seemed to have changed in a year, but only maybe in the way he couldn’t look away from the flash of skin beneath their skirts.

They went on like that until the girls suddenly stopped—singing, prancing, everything—so suddenly that the boy bumped into the raven-curled girl’s back. She laughed it off, but both girls’ eyes were locked on the sea. Watching the whitecaps with wonder, adventure flashing in their eyes.

The one with the blond waves and ocean-blue eyes spoke first. “She’s angry—foaming at the mouth.”

“Are you calling the sea a rabid dog?” asked the raven-haired one. “She wouldn’t like that much.”

“I suppose not.”

A black brow pitched above eyes blue like midnight. “Touch the sandbar and return to shore?” She smiled, lips pinned in a slight twist. “Dare you.”

The blond girl considered it, chewing on her lip, reading the waves. Finally, in answer, she began unlacing her dress’s bodice.

The boy sat on the sand behind the girls, playing the piccolo so they’d think he was distracted, not paying an inch of attention to them as they stripped to their petticoats. Even in surreptitious glances, their shoulders and arms were things of beauty, smooth as the marble statues his mother had commissioned for the tulip garden. So beautiful they made his cheeks hot. He knew he should not look—it wasn’t right, not at the age they were getting to be—but still, he watched.

The blond girl watched back, her eyes finding him, cheeks pinking as her clothes fell to the sand. The raven-curled girl thwacked her on the shoulder, dark eyes big and knowing. No secrets between friends, except those in plain sight.

When the girls were ready, they stood, dresses neatly folded, and pointed slim fingers toward the sea.

On the count of three, they were gone.

5 (#ulink_c9d18023-e93a-5f72-af31-0f092f1b4c0d)

I DON’T BELIEVE IN MERMAIDS. I DON’T. THEY ARE JUST an abomination ancients like Tante Hansa dream up to keep children from doing especially dim-witted things. If you touch that hot pot . . . if you eat that whole cake . . . if you take that candy . . . the mermaids will steal you away. We’re superstitious, children of the sea, but we’re not gullible.

Mermaids don’t exist.

But I know what I saw. I know who I saw.

Nik, for his part, doesn’t seem to remember much. He thinks I rescued him. He thinks I sang to him.

It’s been more than a day, and I still haven’t told him that he’s lost his mind if he thinks that’s what happened. Mostly because I don’t have an answer to what really did. None of it makes any sense.

No, I don’t believe in mermaids.

But I do have a strong belief in friendship—more than anything in this world.

I believed it with Anna.

And I believe it with Nik.