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“I’m telling you, they’re real!” Gus said, slamming his webbed hands down on the lunch table and sending a few napkins fluttering away in the current. Willow quickly darted up to grab them, but Gus was undeterred when she missed a couple, one of them nearly hitting Amity Blight in the face as she approached. “They’re called landmaids,” he said, “and they can breathe oxygen straight —”
“That’s impossible,” snapped Amity, pausing as she peeled the napkin off her face, and Willow rolled her eyes.
“They do,” said Gus, “without gills or helmets or anything—and, get this, they have two tails that they use to stand on.”
“No,” said Willow.
“Big deal,” said Amity. She stopped swimming, folding her arms. “Don’t you two have better things to do than discuss dumb conspiracy theories?”
“They aren’t dumb,” said Gus. “Landmaids are real, and I can prove it!”
Amity leaned forward, placing both hands on the table, a strangely intense glint in her eyes. “Then prove it,” she suggested. “If you can.”
“Don’t you have better things to do than go around looking for mythical creatures?” asked Willow, scowling. It was true that Amity had been a lot better lately—the Owl Lady's apprentice, Luz, had been a good influence on her—but that didn't mean that Willow wanted Amity around without Luz there to act as a buffer.
Amity huffed. “Well, Boscha is sick and Scara is busy with her band, so…no, not really. And besides, two tails? I have got to see that for myself.”
Willow scowled at Amity, who just smirked lazily.
“My parents are out of town for the weekend,” said Amity. “Contact me whenever.”
And then she swam away.
Willow and Gus looked at each other.
“We are not taking her with us to go searching for landmaids,” Willow said.
“Definitely not,” agreed Gus.
Exactly eight and a half hours later, Willow, Gus, and Amity were all swimming towards the shallower, more dangerous waters, having consumed far too much caffeine than was strictly healthy and nearly within reach of the sunlight. Willow was sulking, and Amity was smug, but Gus’s excitement over hunting for cryptids was only slightly dampened from Amity’s presence.
To be fair, Amity really hadn’t been anywhere near as awful lately, ever since she’d started spending time with the shallowwater mer, Eda the Owl Lady, and her strange protege, a creature who had enthusiastically introduced herself as Lights but preferred to be called Luz and whom Willow and Gus texted regularly. Luz…probably had spent so much time in the shallowwater that she had permanently lost her mind, but she was a great time, and a good influence on Amity, even if Willow and Gus still didn’t like the possibly-former bully all that much.
But, whatever. Amity was here now—unfortunately—and was keeping just quiet enough that Willow could pretend that she wasn’t there.
They didn’t stop at the Owl Lady’s shop as they made their way to the surface. Willow and Gus privately agreed this was rather strange—Eda, after all, was always supportive of the kids’ more illegal activities—but at least this time, her pet octopus, King, didn’t try and tag along, and beyond that, Amity was strangely insistent that they not let Eda know any of what they were doing, at least for tonight.
They swam on. And on, and on, and on, until the sunlight filtered through the surface, and then they stopped to rest, and then they started swimming again.
“I really, really don’t think we’re going to find anything,” Willow said.
Amity shook her head. “I need to keep going,” she said. “And I need—witnesses.” She scowled, looked away. “Ones that I—can trust.”
Willow folded her arms. “What are you really doing this for?” she asked. “I can tell there’s something else going on here. I’m not an idiot, you know.”
Despite, Willow thought but did not say, how much you used to tell me I am.
“I know!” said Amity, sounding frustrated. “It’s just—I’m going to sound insane if I try to explain it, so really we just need to go to the surface, all the way to the surface—”
“We can’t just breathe oxygen, Amity—”
“I think Luz might be a landmaid!” Amity blurted out.
“What?!” shrieked Gus.
“She calls them humans and knows a lot of crazy stuff about it—and she has two tails, you know, Eda says it was an accident with the bolt cutters but there’s no way an actual accident would turn out tails like that, so I just need to check it out—and we can’t tell Eda or King because they’re probably in on it—and—you guys have to believe me!”
Willow and Gus exchanged glances. Luz hadn’t been around for the past few days—she usually preferred the shallowwater anyway, but they hadn’t even seen her around Eda’s lately.
“I mean, there isn’t any harm in checking it out, right?” Willow suggested.
Amity nodded, looking just slightly relieved, though she’d never admit it. “Right,” she agreed.
They swam on.
Hours later, they reached warm and rough and shallow waters. Amity took the lead with a flick of her tail, heading over to strange wooden pillars rising from the water.
“I think the landmaids built those!” Gus said, excitedly.
They pulled themselves up, and tested how long they could hold their breath, popping their heads above water and blinking in the strange, thin substance above it—oxygen, Gus excitedly said. They could see strange figures, almost mer-shaped but moving around on two spindly-looking tails, up past where the water crashed against a strange brown substance and receded. It was breathtaking, and not just because none of them could breathe above water.
They moved closer, without exchanging a word. The figures out of the water became more distinct, grew features, grew brightly-colored, scant clothing. Some were in the water, and the three mer did their best to avoid them. Instead, they hung around the wooden pillars as the sun went down, and the landmaids left, and then a familiar-looking one started running into the water.
Willow and Amity dove towards her as one, Gus following barely seconds later, and surfacing in front of the landmaid.
Luz stared at all three of them, eyes wide.
“Oh,” she said, voice very high. “Oh, no.”