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"You're getting married."
Maria Harrington's voice was crisp as the lace curtains in the morning room, her fingers tapping the ivory handle of her fan against the tea table. The announcement landed like a dropped saucer—sharp, sudden, irreparable.
“What?” Stevie repeated, her teacup slipping from her fingers. The porcelain shattered against the parquet floor, scattering shards like fallen stars. Her mother didn’t flinch.
Daniel Harrington cleared his throat, adjusting his cravat as if it choked him. “Jason Carver,” he said, as though that explained everything. It did. The Carver name was etched into every railroad tie from Boston to San Francisco, their fortune built on steel and stolen land. Stevie had seen Jason once at a gala—his grip too tight on her waist, his breath sour with bourbon.
Stevie stared at the broken teacup, the leaves forming a dark constellation on the floorboards. The room tilted—or maybe it was her, swaying like a sapling in a storm. "When?" The word clawed its way out of her throat.
"End of the month," her mother said, plucking a stray tea leaf from her skirt. "The Carvers want the ceremony before Jason leaves for Chicago." Maria's voice softened, but her eyes remained flinty. "You'll want for nothing, Stephanie. Pearls. Silk. A house on Fifth Avenue—"
Stevie’s breath hitched—pearls and silk, as if finery could stitch shut the widening chasm in her chest. She stood abruptly, her chair screeching against the floor. “I need air.”
Her mother’s fan snapped shut. “We’re not finished.”
Stevie didn’t wait for permission. She bolted from the morning room, her petticoats hissing against her ankles like a chorus of disapproval. The front door slammed behind her with a satisfying crack, the sound echoing across the manicured lawns of the Harrington estate. She ran—past the rose bushes her mother pruned with surgical precision, past the gazebo where debutantes had whispered about her "unladylike" fascination with tide pools, straight to the rickety dock that jutted into the lake like a dare.
The wood groaned under her weight, damp with evening dew. Stevie kicked off her ruined silk slippers—one already torn from her frantic run—and let her bare feet dangle over the water’s edge. The lake lapped at the dock’s pilings, a rhythm so familiar it ached. She’d come here every summer since she was six, when Elodie first surfaced with a seashell necklace clutched in her webbed fingers and a grin full of mischief.
But tonight, the laughter caught in Stevie’s throat like a fishhook. Her chest heaved once, twice—then crumpled. The first sob tore through her, raw and jagged. Tears fell faster than she could wipe them away, streaking down her cheeks to drip into the dark water below.
A splash—deliberate, sharp—cut through Stevie’s ragged breathing. The water rippled violently, then stilled. For a heartbeat, nothing. Then, breaking the surface with a sound like shattering glass, Elodie emerged in a spray of silver droplets, her black-and-purple tail flicking lazily beneath the moonlight. The seashells at her collarbones gleamed like polished armor.
"Hello!" Elodie chirped, the old greeting slipping effortlessly from her lips, her grin wide enough to show the faint points of her teeth. But the smile faltered when she caught the glint of Stevie's tears under the lantern light. "Oh no, darling," she murmured, reaching up with webbed fingers to brush a droplet from Stevie's cheek. Her claws—tipped in that same deep purple as her tail—ticked softly against Stevie's skin. "Please don't cry."
Stevie tried to laugh, but it came out strangled. "I think I'm past that." She swiped at her face with the back of her hand, smearing saltwater and mascara. "They're marrying me off." The words tasted like bile. "To Jason Carver. By month's end."
Elodie's grin vanished. The water around her darkened as if the lake itself recoiled. "Carver?" Her voice was a blade drawn slow from its sheath. "The man who dredged the cove last summer? Who trapped my cousins in nets?" Her claws scraped against the dock's rotting wood, leaving deep gouges.
Stevie nodded, swallowing hard. "Father says it's business. Merging railroad money with timber." She picked at a splinter, watching the pale sliver dig beneath her nail. "Mother calls it an honor."
Elodie’s tail flicked once, sending a cold spray across Stevie’s ankles. “An *honor*,” she repeated, the word dripping venom. Her claws dug deeper into the wood, and Stevie watched as the dock’s edge splintered under the pressure. “Do you know what he does to merfolk when he finds them? Strings them up like trophies in his smoking room.” Her voice cracked on the last word, and Stevie recoiled as if struck.
Stevie’s fingers trembled against her skirts. “I’d rather drown than marry him,” she whispered, the admission curling between them like smoke.
Elodie’s eyes darkened to the color of storm-wracked waves. She leaned closer, her breath smelling of salt and something ancient, like shipwrecks buried in deep sand. “Then drown,” she murmured, but her claws, still embedded in the dock, twitched—not with malice, but hesitation.
Stevie’s pulse stuttered. “What do you mean?”
Elodie’s lips curled, revealing teeth sharp enough to part flesh from bone. “Not *drown* drown,” she clarified, rolling her eyes like Stevie was being particularly dense. “You drown *once*—just enough to change.” Her tail flicked again, sending droplets arcing through the air. “Like a caterpillar in a cocoon. You come out different.”
Stevie blinked at the comparison. “You want me to—turn into a mermaid?” Her voice cracked on the last word, half-disbelief, half-wild hope. The idea should have been ludicrous. But then, so was marrying Jason Carver.
Elodie’s grin was all mischief, but her claws tapped a restless rhythm against the dock’s edge. “Yes! We can run away—well, swim away. You’ve seen the reefs I told you about. The caves where the light turns everything gold.” Her tail flicked impatiently, sending ripples across the water’s surface. “Or are you too *attached* to petticoats?”
Stevie’s breath caught. The image unfurled in her mind like a map—coral castles, kelp forests swaying in currents, no corsets or chaperones or Jason Carver’s clammy hands. But doubt nipped at her heels. “What if it doesn’t work? What if I just—die?”
Elodie's laughter bubbled up like champagne, sparkling and bright. "Die? Darling, I've done this seven times." She flipped onto her back, letting her tail breach the surface—the purple ombré of her fin catching moonlight like stained glass. "Admittedly, four of them were accidents—drunken sailors who fell overboard during merfolk festivals—but the point stands." She arched an eyebrow. "Do you trust me?"
Stevie stared at the dock's splintered edge where Elodie's claws had left grooves. Trust had never been the issue. Even now, with her world fracturing, Elodie's presence felt like the only solid thing in the dark. "Yes," she breathed. "But—how?"
Elodie’s grin widened, her sharp teeth catching the moonlight like pearls. “Easy,” she murmured, leaning in until her nose nearly brushed Stevie’s. “You kiss me.”
Stevie’s breath hitched. She’d imagined this moment a hundred times—stolen glances at Elodie’s sun-warmed shoulders, the way her laughter rippled across the lake like skipping stones. But never like this. Not with her parents’ voices still ringing in her ears, not with the dock’s wood creaking under her knees like a gallows. “That’s it?” she whispered.
Elodie’s claws clicked against the dock, impatient. “That’s it,” she echoed, her voice softer now, almost pleading. “Unless you’d prefer pearls and a loveless marriage on Fifth Avenue.” Her tail flicked, sending droplets pattering against Stevie’s cheeks like rain.
Stevie hesitated—just for a heartbeat—before closing the distance. Elodie’s lips were cooler than she’d imagined, salt-bitten and slightly chapped, but the moment their mouths met, heat flared between them like a struck match. The kiss tasted of kelp and longing, of summers spent sneaking glances at Elodie’s sun-dappled shoulders when she thought Stevie wasn’t looking. Then came the pain—sharp, sudden, like a hundred needles plunging into her legs at once. Stevie gasped against Elodie’s mouth, her fingers scrabbling at the dock’s edge as her bones *shifted*.
Stevie’s scream lodged in her throat as the pain splintered up her legs—not like breaking, but like blooming. Her skin prickled, then burned, then *split* as iridescent scales erupted along her thighs in a cascade of pink. She clutched at Elodie’s shoulders, her nails digging into the mermaid’s collarbones as her knees fused together with a sickening *crack*. The dock groaned beneath them, wood splintering under the force of Stevie’s thrashing.
Elodie’s grip tightened, her claws leaving crescent moons on Stevie’s skin. “Breathe,” she urged, her voice a lifeline in the storm of agony. Stevie sucked in air—just as her lungs *changed*. The oxygen hit her throat like shards of glass, searing through her chest until, with a final, wrenching spasm, her ribs expanded. Gills fluttered open along her neck, delicate as moth wings.
Stevie gasped, her hands flying to her throat as water rushed into her newly formed gills—cool, effortless, like breathing for the first time. The pain receded as quickly as it had come, replaced by a sensation like sinking into a warm bath. Her legs—no, her *tail*—twitched beneath the water, sending iridescent scales flashing pink in the moonlight.
Elodie’s laughter rippled through the water, buoyant and bright as she watched Stevie’s tail flick experimentally. “Look at you,” she teased, reaching out to trace the shimmering scales with her claws. “Like a newborn guppy.” Stevie swatted at her, but her movements were clumsy—her body still adjusting to the weightlessness, the way the current tugged at her like a playful child.
A distant shout sliced through the night. Lanterns bobbed along the shoreline, their yellow light staining the trees. Stevie’s breath hitched—her father’s voice, sharp with fury, carried across the water. “Stephanie!” The dock shuddered under heavy footsteps. Elodie’s grip tightened around Stevie’s wrist, her claws pricking skin. “Time to go, guppy,” she murmured, pulling her beneath the surface just as a lantern’s glow reached the dock’s edge.
The water swallowed them whole, cool and silent, muffling the shouts from above like a blanket thrown over a birdcage. Stevie’s first instinct was to panic—her human lungs still remembered air—but Elodie’s fingers laced through hers, squeezing reassurance. *Breathe*, her grip seemed to say. Stevie hesitated, then inhaled. The water flooded her gills, crisp and clean, and her body shuddered with the shock of it—not pain, but *awakening*. She blinked, her vision sharpening in the murk. The lake wasn’t dark at all; it shimmered with bioluminescent plankton, tiny stars suspended in liquid night.
Elodie grinned, her teeth catching the glow like shards of glass. “See?” she mouthed, bubbles escaping her lips. She tugged Stevie deeper, her tail undulating in a fluid motion Stevie clumsily tried to mimic. Her new fins responded sluggishly, but the water carried her forward anyway, buoyant and forgiving. Below them, the lakebed sloped into a canyon, its walls studded with mussel shells that winked like discarded coins. A school of minnows scattered at their approach, their silver bodies flashing in unison.
Stevie's tail—long and streaked with sunset hues—twitched awkwardly as she tried to follow Elodie’s effortless glide. The minnows darted around her, their tiny bodies brushing her skin like whispers. She reached out instinctively, fingers grazing their silvery sides, and laughter bubbled up in her chest. It burst from her lips in a flurry of iridescent bubbles that spiraled toward the surface, where the lanterns still prowled like angry fireflies.
Elodie’s fingers tightened around Stevie’s wrist, her claws pressing just enough to sting. “We have to go *now*,” she hissed, her gills flaring as she glanced toward the surface. The lanterns clustered at the dock’s edge, their light fracturing the water into jagged gold shards. Stevie could hear the muffled shouts—her father’s voice, raw with rage, her mother’s clipped commands.
Stevie hesitated. The water pressed against her gills, cool and alive, but something tugged at her chest—not fear, not regret, but the sudden, desperate need to *remember* this. The way Elodie’s hair floated around her like ink spilled in wine, the press of her claws against Stevie’s pulse. Before she could think, Stevie reached out, catching Elodie’s shoulder. “Wait,” she breathed, the word escaping in a rush of silver bubbles.
Elodie blinked, her brow furrowing. “*What?*”
Stevie didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled Elodie in, her tail coiling to propel them closer until their lips met again—not the desperate, magic-steeped kiss from the dock, but something slower, sweeter. Elodie stiffened for half a heartbeat, then melted into it, her claws sliding into Stevie’s hair as if to anchor them both. The water around them stilled, the minnows frozen mid-dart, the plankton halting their glow as if the lake itself held its breath.
When they parted, Elodie’s grin was softer now, her teeth less sharp in the dim light. “Hello,” she murmured, the word rippling between them like a secret.
Stevie laughed—a sound that felt strange and new in her throat, buoyant as the bubbles spiraling toward the surface. “Hello,” she echoed, her voice tinged with wonder.
She was finally home.