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“You know, if you need a girlfriend that bad, you could’ve just asked.”
Nolan was only half-listening; it wasn’t until his hand was on the door that he fully registered what Trent had actually said.
He looked back. “What?”
“I’m just saying.” Trent was lounging on the couch in nothing but boxers. The bathroom door was closed, with the running shower slightly muffling the high-pitched, melodious humming within. “If you’re that desperate, I know some single girls who’re into shut-in nerds.”
“I’m… good?” Nolan said.
Trent shrugged. “You do you. But some of the guys say they’re always fatter than you think they’ll be.” He paused. “Unless you’re into that.”
“I’m going hiking,” Nolan said slowly. “Where do you think I’m going?”
Trent raised an unimpressed eyebrow. “Uh, yeah, you’re going hiking at Point Lobos,” he said. “Everybody knows there’s been selkie sightings. Jace won’t shut up about it, because he is into chubby girls.”
“Wait, seriously?” Nolan gaped at him. “There are selkies at Point Lobos? Where?”
“I think he said they were near some island with birds on it? Hey, when you make your move, make sure you keep track of whose coat is whose. Jace said he grabbed the wrong one and ended up with this buck-toothed chick with a huge mole on her nose, and all the others ran off before he could grab another one.”
Nolan bristled. “I’m not stealing a selkie coat, that’s vile. Do your friends seriously do crap like that?”
Trent rolled his eyes. “Yeah, Nole, it’s just how you do it. They’re not people, it’s just how they work. You have that deal with the magic rat that cleans the kitchen, Jace hooks up with seal women, it’s not a big deal.”
“You are not comparing leaving food out for a brownie to trapping someone into—”
“Hey, I don’t do it,” Trent shot back. “I don’t need to play games with fairies to get girls.”
At some point the shower had stopped, though the humming had not. A pale, damp brunette stepped out wrapped in a towel. Droplets glistened on her skin, and the wetness enhanced the gentle curl of her hair. She’d used Trent’s three-in-one—Nolan would know that smell anywhere—but somehow, on her, the smell of Sports Boost Citrus & Musk transformed into something sweet and elegant. She exchanged a flirty smile with Trent, gave a tinkling laugh when he winked at her, and slipped into Trent’s bedroom with an inviting tilt of her head. Once the door was closed, the humming turned to muffled singing.
Nolan wasn’t sure how Trent’s personality didn’t put all these girls off. He wasn’t the best judge, but even he could tell they were objectively beautiful. They had options.
“That’s not Rosalie,” he remarked.
Trent rolled to his feet with a satisfied sigh. “Traded up. Frat rats are fun, but I could actually bring this one home.”
“That’s messed up,” Nolan told him.
“Want her number?” Trent offered. “Rosie’s, I mean. She’s gonna need a rebound, and you never get dates on your own, so it works out.”
Nolan slammed the door behind him, and spent several seconds standing outside, waving his middle finger at it, before leaving.
The drive from Monterey to Point Lobos calmed him back down, in that way that only twenty minutes of silence and solitude could. He tried not to talk to Trent if he didn’t have to. They had nothing in common—Trent was two years older, loved the smell of his own farts, and was convinced everyone else loved them, too. The only reason Nolan lived with him was that he couldn’t afford the dorms, and Trent had been the cheapest option on Craigslist. Nolan’s eighteenth birthday present from his parents had been to start charging him rent, so they weren’t about to help.
As he turned off the highway and into the park, Nolan tapped the wheel thoughtfully. He hadn’t planned on visiting Bird Island until later in spring when the eggs started hatching, but… selkies.
He’d never heard of selkie sightings at Point Lobos. With how reclusive they were, there was so little research on how their human sides affected their ecological niche, if they competed for resources with non-magical pinnipeds, migratory patterns—
Most selkie-related research came from interviews with the ones who joined human society full-time—willingly or otherwise. But wild selkies? That was dissertation material. He was only a freshman, sure, but it was never too early to start thinking about it.
It wouldn’t hurt to ask, if he saw them. The worst they could say was no.
Actually, the worst they could say was “I’m going to drown you now,” but selkies were way more docile than your average mermaid, and far less likely to want to eat you.
Mind made up, Nolan kept driving past Sea Lion Point, and within ten minutes was pulling into the lot near Bird Island. The air was brisk with early spring—this time of year, Bird Island would be covered in nests. Nolan planned on being back in a week or so to see baby cormorants and night herons. For now, there were three beaches nearby to check, and the trails were quiet enough that, hopefully, no one would see him running like a lunatic from one to the next.
He checked Hidden Beach, then China Cove. By the time he arrived panting to find Gibson Beach utterly serene and empty of selkies, it struck him how stupid this whole thing probably was.
This wasn’t some secluded coast where fey folk could frolic in peace. It was a popular nature reserve that saw loads of foot traffic every year. Hidden Beach wasn’t very hidden when the trail gave you a perfect view of it.
“Idiot,” he murmured once he’d caught his breath. “Trent was messing with you. Obviously. What else is new?” He paused, considering. That was probably a good thing. If Trent was lying about the selkies, then that hopefully meant Trent was also lying about selkies getting harassed by his jackass friends.
Shaking his head, he turned around and made his way back toward Bird Island. With a little luck, he’d spot some early hatchlings and this whole thing wouldn’t be a total loss.
Bird Island was a massive rock jutting up out of the sea, with enough surface on top and crevasses on the sides for countless cormorants to gather and make their nests. The hiking trail ran along the coastline, a stone’s throw away from a steep drop into the water below.
Nolan walked along the trail, scanning the nests for any sign of movement beneath the brooding parents. The gulls were already making themselves nuisances, circling the nests in search of inattentive parents, while the nesting birds screamed them away. Between the island and the coast lined, waves crashed and lapped against the sides of the narrow crevice.
No hatchlings, but the smell and sound of the water and the calls of the birds calmed him. Eventually an empty bench tempted him to sit, and he tilted his head back, shut his eyes, and let himself stop thinking about school assignments, upcoming finals, and Trent..
Looking back on it later, it would feel like a brief, unexpected nap. Somewhere in those minutes was when the singing started, and Nolan’s mind went foggy and strange as if submerged. The melody was odd, discordant but eerily beautiful, and the words sounded less like the lyrics to a song, and more like a gentle voice whispering in his ear.
Look out at the island, it told him. There are night-herons, and their eggs have hatched. Come closer and look.
Nolan awoke underwater, wrapped in something heavy and wet. Cold saltwater rushed into his mouth, nose, and eyes. Something gripped him and pulled him along, and he thrashed and struggled uselessly. In his sudden panic, he took a breath to scream, and began to drown.
In an instant he was hauled unceremoniously out of the water, coughing and spluttering. His face came free of the thing wrapped around him, and the first thing he felt was sand against his cheek. He flailed again and managed to sit up and heave miserably.
Something thudded into his back, nearly knocking the wind out of him. Another thud, and the rest of the seawater spilled out of him with one last cough. Nolan dragged in a few grateful breaths, still spitting out the taste of salt.
There was a tug at the heavy blanket draped around him. “Can I have this back now?”
“Gimme a second,” Nolan gasped out, still dizzy.
“You’re not drowning anymore and that’s my coat,” the voice said dryly. “So unless the next thing out of your mouth is a marriage proposal—”
Nolan shrieked and flung it off with enough force to fling himself into the wet sand. The weight vanished, and he gingerly turned over onto his back to find a hulking figure standing over him, blocking out the sun.
“Never understood how you people keep falling for those things,” his rescuer went on. Their voice was rough and husky, with an accent that Nolan couldn’t place.
“W-what?” Nolan rasped out. He rubbed his eyes, clearing sand and saltwater from his vision. A woman stood over him, big in every sense of the word: tall, broad, and fat, with legs like tree trunks and arms that could bench him easily. Salt crusted over her light brown skin and dark, damp hair.
If there was any uncertainty left about what she was, the spotted gray pelt wrapped loosely around her like a robe did away with it.
“You know, mermaids. Just saying, the second those floppy bastards start singing, you’re throwing yourselves off cliffs. Are you really that desperate for fish ass?” The selkie wrinkled her nose.
“I didn’t… they weren’t…” The fog was lifting from Nolan’s brain, leaving memories sharper and clearer than the original experience had been. He winced when he realized that yes, he had just walked straight off the edge. “It said there were night herons… chicks in the nest.”
“That makes even less sense.” The selkie cocked her head to the side. “Those things are barely a mouthful.”
“I-I didn’t want to eat thehhhholy crap is that blood?!” At first glance it looked like a trick of the light, or seaweed drifting beneath the waves. But no—a blood trail stained the sand, until a wave rolled in and scattered it into a faded pinkish cloud before carrying it out to sea.
“It’s not yours,” the selkie told him. Her lips curled back as she ran her tongue over her teeth, swiping a few red flecks from the corner of her mouth. “You’re welcome.”
“Th-thank you,” Nolan said shakily. “Um. Why did you wrap me in your skin?”
“Well it was supposed to let you hold your breath longer so you didn’t drown,” the selkie said. “And it would’ve worked if you’d actually tried to hold your breath instead of thrashing and panicking like a wounded pup.”
“Oh,” Nolan said sheepishly.
“Well, you’re not dead and that’s the important part. Seeya.” With that, she turned her back on him and began trudging back out into the water, pelt unfurling from her hands.
“W-wait!” Nolan tried to get to his feet, but his legs buckled beneath him. “Um! Thank you! But—before you go, could I ask you some questions?”
“No,” the selkie replied, and slid underwater without another word.
“Okay,” Nolan murmured, mostly to himself. He sat back down in the sand, harder than he meant—sand was never quite as soft as it looked. “I… just met a selkie.”
Laughter bubbled up from his chest, slightly on the side of hysterical. He’d just met a selkie. The second he stopped looking for them, some mermaid—siren, maybe?—had tried to lure him to a watery grave, only for a freaking selkie to haul him half-drowned out of the water.
As he caught his breath, the fog returned to his brain. The eerie melody from before rang out again—Go after her. There’s still time. Swim out and find her—
Without warning, the singing broke into a bubbling shriek that lanced through his skull. Somewhere beyond the shore, the waves began to churn and bubble as if boiling. Amid the red haze of pain that stole over his eyes, Nolan could swear he saw the glint of a fin flailing up from the thrashing water, followed by a flash of wet gray fur.
Just as suddenly, the ear-splitting wail stopped. The water returned to its gentle rippling.
Nolan was already scrambling to his feet and racing back up the beach toward the trail.
A knock at his bedroom door dragged Nolan away from his class notes on estuarine wetlands, with great reluctance. He looked over his shoulder with a bleary-eyed glower to find Trent cracking the door open, poking in his head and one bare shoulder.
Nolan was beginning to wonder if his roommate actually owned any shirts.
“Hey, there’s a thing at the door, can you deal with it?” Trent asked. “I’m with Mel right now.”
“I’m busy,” Nolan replied. Trent was already gone, but the damage was done. Now that he wasn’t up to his eyeballs in marine ecology notes, he could register the muffled thuds. Someone was at the apartment door, knocking with increasing urgency. Grimacing, Nolan heaved himself away from his desk and went to answer it.
There wasn’t enough time to form expectations, but the pretty young woman fretting on his doorstep wasn’t exactly low on the list. Nolan swallowed a sigh. “Hi, Rosalie.”
“Is Trent here?” Rosalie Martin fidgeted, tucking blonde curls behind her ear, looking like she wanted to be there even less than Nolan wanted to see her. Her friend Grace Li stood at her shoulder, glaring at him over the rims of her glasses.
“It’s not a good time,” Nolan told her, trying not to cringe.
“Well tell him to make time,” she snapped. “Skipping three dates in a row and ignoring my texts is a dick move even for him.”
Nolan paused, letting her words sink in, turning them over until he was sure there really was just one conclusion to reach. “Please tell me he broke up with you.”
Rosalie jerked back, flipping from fretting to scowling in an instant. “Excuse me?”
Grace shut her eyes with a sigh. “Hate to say I told you so…”
“I’m really, really sorry,” Nolan said. “He’s been seeing someone new for at least a week—I thought he broke up with you first, or I’d have told you, I swear.”
High-pitched, tinkling laughter broke out behind him, followed by Trent’s frantic shushing. Rosalie’s face froze. Nolan longed to sink into the floor. He looked over his shoulder to find Trent’s new girlfriend (Mel?) standing in full view of the door, not even trying to hide, one hand barely covering her smile. She’d been in Trent’s room for hours by now, but she was dressed for the club, every part of her outfit shiny enough to catch the light from all angles. One flash from her sequined skirt had Nolan looking away, irritated.
“Who the hell is that, Trent?” Rosalie demanded, and Mel laughed again.
Trent stepped out, actually wearing a shirt for once, and shot a quick glare at Nolan before turning to Rosalie with a strained smile. “Hey, Rosiegirl, this isn’t a great time.”
“Oh, this isn’t a great time?” Rosalie shouldered past Nolan and stormed right up to him, furious. “When would be a good time, hm? Should I come back when you’re done fucking another girl? Because I can wait two minutes.”
As Grace slipped by Nolan to follow her, her eyes flickered to him and, for a split second, softened with sympathy. She jerked her head at him, and Nolan recognized the cue for what it was. He excused himself, slipping past Rosalie and Trent to make his escape. Mel barely looked at him, focused on the unfolding scene with a sparkle of amusement in her eyes.
“Hi!” she sang out. “You must be Rosalie. I’ve been so curious about you—Trent never talks about you.”
“Nobody’s talking to you,” Rosalie snapped.
“What the hell do you want to talk about?” Trent asked, irritated. “There’s nothing to talk about. We had fun, now we’re over. Move on. I have.”
“Don’t tell me to fucking ‘move on’ like you didn’t ghost me instead of breaking up, you spineless asshole!”
Mel leaned over to press her lips to Trent’s ear as if to whisper, but everyone in the room heard her murmur, “I can see why you got tired of her.”
“Don’t talk like he won’t get tired of you too,” Grace shot back.
“What do you even want from me?” Trent demanded. “Why are you here? What did you think was gonna happen?”
Rosalie’s rage had shifted, and now she looked close to tears. Nolan took a step forward to—do something. Anything. Break up the argument, get the girls out of the apartment, apologize again. But before he could, Mel’s melodious voice rang out again.
“Come back to bed, Trent,” she called out. “Let the little girl finish her tantrum outside.”
Rosalie went white with rage, but it was Grace who moved first, lashing out to slap Mel across the face. In the split second of stunned silence, Grace delivered a second slap to Trent’s face, then took Rosalie’s hand and pulled her out of the apartment.
He shouldn’t have said anything. When he saw the way the smile had frozen into rage on Mel’s face, he wanted to back away and hide in his room. But as Trent followed Rosalie and Grace out, cursing them out and slamming the door behind them, his anger and frustration boiled over. “I know you don’t care about my opinion. But you’re gonna lose him the same way you got him. You know that, right?”
The moment he spoke, the rage left Mel’s face. Like the flip of a switch, her expression returned to rosy-cheeked amusement. As her attention shifted to Nolan, he couldn’t decide whether to shudder and look away, or keep staring. Even contempt looked pretty on her.
“Oh, honey,” she said. “You think I’m like her?” Her eyes flickered toward the door, where Trent was doing up the locks. “Oh, no. When I take a man, I keep him.”
Nolan gave up and went to his room. When the sound of Trent and Melusine having violent sex leaked past his door, he popped his ear buds in and drowned them out.
The fallout was worse than expected, but probably not as bad as it could have been. Nolan cleaned the apartment door the first two times it was graffitied; when he came home to find it vandalized a third time, he gave up and left it as it was. A day later, when he fell for the burning paper bag trick and wasted an hour cleaning something horrible off his shoe, he decided to start looking for alternate housing. At some point Trent would do to Mel the same thing he’d done to Rosalie, and this would either happen all over again, or whatever revenge Mel came up with would be much worse.
Probably the second. The few times he actually looked Mel in the eye, he always saw something genuinely unsettling in them. Trent probably hadn’t noticed because he very rarely focused on any woman’s eyes.
Exam week provided a welcome reprieve. Nolan spent most of his time on campus, either taking his exams or going over notes in a quiet library study room. When he couldn’t avoid going home, he spent his time there either asleep or with earbuds in. Whatever mess was left, it was Trent’s problem, not his.
It was a good strategy, until he walked out of his last exam to find Rosalie standing outside, waiting for him, looking ready for a fight.
“What the hell did he say to Grace?” she demanded. Around them, Nolan’s now former classmates parted like a river around a rock. A few lingered to see if it was worth watching.
“What’s going on with Grace?”
“She went to your apartment to get some of my stuff,” Rosalie shot back. “Now she won’t talk to me. We were supposed to have lunch and she didn’t show. She won’t even read my texts!”
“I don’t… know?”
“The last time I saw her was right when she got back, and she was acting like she was on drugs!” Rosalie went on, and yeah, people were definitely watching. “Did he slip her something?”
“I’m sorry, I—I d—” Nolan’s tongue tripped over his teeth, and he paused to collect himself before continuing. “I have no idea what Trent is doing. I didn’t even know Grace came over. I’m trying to find somewhere else to live, and I’ve only gone back there to sleep.”
Rosalie’s shoulders slumped a little.
“I’m really sorry—”
“Yeah, I know,” Rosalie snapped, rubbing at her forehead with her palm. “Look, I know whatever it is, you’re not involved, you’re just the only one I can ask, okay?”
“I could ask him?” Nolan offered awkwardly. “He probably won’t tell me, but… I dunno, if Mel’s not there and I catch him drunk or high or something, he might let something slip.”
“Okay,” Rosalie said. “Let’s go.”
“I don’t know if—” Nolan glanced around at all the people pretending not to listen in, and the few openly staring, and landed upon the answer that would finish the conversation and get them out of there the fastest. “—okay, yeah, let’s go.”
Nolan led the way back to his car, where Rosalie took a picture of his license plate and sent it to someone before getting in with him. Keychains and other decorations rattled on her purse as she set it between them. One of them, Nolan noted, was a bottle of pepper spray.
“Is there anyone else you could call, about Grace?” he asked as he drove back to the apartment. “Like her other friends, or family?”
“Our other friends know even less than I do,” Rosalie said shortly. “Her aunt lives two hours away and hasn’t heard from her since yesterday.”
“Her parents?”
“Haven’t talked to her since her eighteenth birthday.”
Nolan hissed through his teeth.
Trent’s car wasn’t parked in its usual spot when Nolan pulled into the apartment complex. “I don’t think he’s here,” he said.
“I want to make sure,” Rosalie insisted, opening her door before Nolan had even pulled the key out of the ignition. “His car could be in the shop or something.”
The apartment was dark and silent when they entered; it was late enough in the evening that at least some lights would have been on, but not early enough for Trent to have gone to bed. Nolan took a quick look into Trent’s room to confirm, while Rosalie made a beeline for the bathroom.
“He’s not here,” Nolan said, ducking in to find Rosalie rummaging through the medicine cabinet. “What are you doing?”
“I want to know if he slipped Grace something, remember?”
“He wouldn’t keep his drugs in there,” Nolan told her. “They’re under the mattress—I’ll go check.”
The mattress turned up a bottle of Everclear and two plastic bags whose contents reconfirmed Nolan’s desire to find a new roommate, but no suspicious-looking pills or liquids. He gave a cursory look at the plastic storage organizer next to Trent’s bed, opening the drawers without reaching in.
A strange smell reached him as he turned to leave the room. He spent enough time near the bay to recognize it easily—but why would something in Trent’s room smell so much like the tide?
He followed it to the bed, then the skirt tangled with the rumpled bedsheets. Nolan picked it up gingerly between two fingers, and the smell of saltwater hit him full force. The fabric shimmered, almost iridescent in the dim light. He’d never paid close attention to what Mel wore, so he’d always assumed the shine came from sequins. Up close, they looked more like scales.
The sound of Rosalie’s voice brought him back to the present, and he hurried out to the living room. Rosalie paced between the hallway and the kitchen, phone to her ear. “Grace, you’re not making any sense, where are you?”
“Put it on speaker,” Nolan whispered.
Rosalie complied. “Grace, where are you? I can come get you.”
There was no answer, except for a faint rushing sound in the background, either wind or water. Then a voice, not Grace’s, began to sing. It told them that Grace was there, and safe, and happy, and they could be safe and happy too if they followed—
Nolan slapped the phone out of Rosalie’s hand, except that didn’t make the singing stop, so he had to lunge through the growing fog in his head to grab the phone and end the call himself.
“Hey—!” Rosalie broke off, blinking rapidly. She swayed on her feet, shook her head furiously, and stood steady. “What the hell was that?”
Nolan stood staring at the phone in his hand, Mel’s skirt still dangling in the other. The smell of the sea lingered, and the song was just beginning to fade from his mind. He swallowed, throat thick with dread.
“I think I know where Grace is.”
They found Trent’s car at the Bird Island parking lot.
“You don’t have to come with me,” Nolan said. “Actually you probably shouldn’t.”
Rosalie was already unbuckling her seatbelt. “Go to hell,” she said without much venom. “Do you have ear plugs?”
“Uh.”
Rosalie reached into her purse, pulled out one pair, and made to toss a second in his direction before hesitating. “Wait, you don’t—like you’re not into girls, right? Or guys? Or… people? Will they even—”
“They almost got me once,” Nolan admitted. “The song told me there were night heron hatchlings on Bird Island.”
“God, you are such a nerd.” She flung the earplugs at him, then herself out of the car.
It was getting dark; there were hardly any people along the trails this close to the park’s closing time, and when they reached the length of trail that ran closest to the island, he could hardly make out the nests on the rock. Peering over the cliff to the water below gave no clue about where to go next.
Rosalie was looking at him for some kind of hint. Nolan took several large steps further from the edge, motioned Rosalie to follow, and removed one of his ear plugs.
“What are you—are you seriously pulling an Odysseus now, you idiot?” Rosalie snapped, nearly drowning out the distant, familiar, eerie singing.
Nolan forced his hand back against his head, jamming the ear plug back in. “This way,” he said, and took off down the trail toward Hidden Beach.
A flight of sandy stairs led from the trail down to the shore; Nolan ran down most of them before vaulting over the railing from as high as he dared. The sand cushioned his fall, but the landing still jarred his ankles.
Grace stood silhouetted against the setting sun, waves lapping around her knees. She swayed slowly, as if in time with the music that Nolan could no longer hear. Further out, shimmering shapes frolicked in the waves, scales and fins flashing in the dying light. Rosalie raced past Nolan, sand flying with every step, then water when she was forced to wade. It slowed her enough that, by the time she reached Grace’s side and grabbed her arm, both of them were already waist-deep.
A shimmering figure rose up from the water, seized Grace and dragged her under, wrenching her out of Rosalie’s grasp. Rosalie screamed so loudly that it reached Nolan’s blocked ears. The mermaid resurfaced to pull her down as well, and in the ensuing struggle, pulled out one of Rosalie’s ear plugs. She was immediately maced for her trouble. But the damage was done, Rosalie’s protection lost in the water.
Nolan ran forward, sloshed through the shallows, and dove underwater as soon as it was deep enough.
The water was murky and the salt stung his eyes, but he forced them to remain open. Rosalie was entranced again and was paddling away from shore under her own power; further out, Grace drifted limply underwater. The mermaid twisted and thrashed nearby, eyes swollen and red from the capsaicin.
Nolan reached Grace first, heaving her to the surface. At first she remained motionless, head lolling against his shoulder. Nolan wrapped his arms around her middle and squeezed, trying to remember what he’d learned about the Heimlich and hoping the same concept would work on water in the lungs. After a few desperate heaves, she began to cough and sputter. As soon as she was remotely conscious, she began to fight.
“Don’t!” he yelled uselessly, ears still plugged with foam and seawater. “I’m here to help—Rosalie’s here!”
Rosalie had reached him, at the point where the water was deeper than they were tall, and immediately stopped swimming. Nolan swore and grabbed her, trying to keep both women as well as himself above water. Then, thinking quickly, he let go, pulled out one of his earplugs, and managed to fit it into her empty ear before slapping his hand over his own. Rosalie went from going limp to thrashing in panic to treading water, wide-eyed but clear-headed. Nolan kicked frantically to stay above water while Grace continued to fight him, before Rosalie noticed and swam closer to help.
A flash of shimmering scales caught his eye, then another, then another. The mermaids were circling now, like sharks around a sinking boat. They were surrounded.
A familiar head of dark, wavy hair broke the surface. Against his will, Nolan knew what Mel looked like coming out of the shower; emerging from the sea wasn’t all that different.
Admittedly she was different, in more than a few ways. Iridescent scales sparkled on her neck, her jawline, and around her eyes in decorative patterns. Her eyes were black and shiny like a shark’s, and when she smiled at him, there was blood and shreds of meat caught in her teeth. A dark green tongue flicked against them, and her mouth moved as she spoke.
“Uh, I can’t hear you,” Nolan informed her, pressing his palm harder against his ear. “Sorry.” His voice sounded calm in his head, but everything else was panic. For a few terrifying moments, Grace’s thrashing pulled Rosalie’s head underwater. She resurfaced spitting out water.
More scaled, grinning heads appeared around them. The beach seemed so far away.
One of the mermaids made the first move for them. It was the one Rosalie had pepper-sprayed; her eyes were swollen shut and weeping, but Nolan had read somewhere that mers had electroreceptors like hammerhead sharks. They didn’t need to see to kill.
She had almost reached them when something heavy clipped Nolan in the side, sending him crashing into Rosalie. Without warning the blinded mermaid vanished underwater. For a moment the rest of the pod froze, confused, before a thread of dark red drifted to the surface.
The next blow wasn’t a gentle glancing tap; something slammed into Nolan’s side, pulling him underwater. He opened his eyes and focused on what had hit him, just in time to see a broad silver torpedo charge straight into another mermaid. The water churned and turned red.
Nolan thrashed his way to the surface, where Rosalie was already towing Grace to shore. The mermaids must have stopped singing to deal with the new threat, because Grace wasn’t fighting her anymore.
They had only just swum clear of the fighting when an icy hand grabbed his leg and yanked, nails digging cruelly into the meat of his calf. Nolan kicked out and caught something, but the water slowed all his movements, and he couldn’t kick hard enough to dislodge her. The mermaid bared her sharp teeth to the gums, red hair swirling around her like seaweed. Nolan kicked out at her again, and she dodged it with a mocking smile, every bit as nimble underwater as he wasn’t.
And yet, she wasn’t quite as quick as the seal that appeared behind her, opening its jaws to a wider angle than the hinge of its jaws should have physically allowed. They snapped shut around her tail and wrenched downward, shaking like a dog with a toy. Bubbles poured out of her mouth, then blood, before Nolan turned and thrashed his way back to shore.
It was only when he spotted Rosalie and Grace that he realized he’d lost his earplugs in the water at some point. (It didn’t matter, because the only thing the mermaid voices were doing at the moment was screaming bloody murder.) The two women clung to each other as Grace miserably vomited up seawater. Rosalie opened her mouth to say something, saw the look on Nolan’s face, and closed it.
Along his way, he stepped on cold, hard, plastic, which he bent down and retrieved. Rosalie’s pepper spray—it must have washed ashore.
“You!”
Nolan whipped around. Mel stood on the shore, the wet sand behind her sifted into odd tracks from her transformation from tail to legs. She was bloody and limping, and her lovely face was twisted with rage.
“I will devour you whole,” she said, her voice beautiful and captivating even in its fury. “I will sing you to the ocean floor for the bottom-feeders to pick at, and have you begging me for it with drowning lungs.”
Nolan felt light-headed just listening to her. Drowning at the bottom of the ocean sounded so pleasant when she was the one promising it. Maybe the sea would feel like a weighted blanket—
He raised the canister and sprayed it directly in her face. Mel collapsed to the sand, her sing-song threats turned to shrieks of rage and pain.
Barking laughter drew his attention to the shallows, where the massive seal had beached itself. It rolled over, showing its scarred belly, its full size and shape, and its markings. Its jaws opened to that impossible angle again, showing off the bits of mermaid still caught between its fangs.
Nolan stared at it, nonplussed. “You are not a species native to this area,” he told it.
The leopard seal shook itself. Its skin loosened, and its fierce gray face transformed into a spotted hood. A broad human hand reached up to pull it back, revealing the woman he’d met at this very shore.
“Gets boring, all the way down south—people are more fun than penguins,” she said, rolling to her feet and stretching. This time, Nolan had the presence of mind to politely avert his eyes. She trudged up the beach, carelessly stepping on Mel instead of over or around her. “Could do without these things. Too much human in ‘em to be tasty.”
She stopped at a rock near where Rosalie and Grace had collapsed, reached behind it, and produced a large t-shirt and a pair of sweats, which she put on. Both women stared at her, wide-eyed with awe.
“Um, thanks,” Nolan said, sidling carefully away from Mel. “Again. How did you know to come? Do you live around here?”
“Found a fresh half-eaten human on the seafloor, further out. That and the singing.” The selkie grinned. “Saved you twice now. I think that means you owe me dinner. Know any good sushi places? I love sushi.”
“I will buy you sushi,” Nolan said faintly. His stomach rolled.
Grace coughed. “I could go for some sushi too,” she rasped out.
“Same,” Rosalie added.
“I don’t have enough money to buy everyone sushi,” Nolan admitted. His mind clung to the phrase fresh half-eaten human, and Trent’s car in the parking lot. “I don’t know if I can make rent this month. I think the mermaids ate my roommate.”
“Get a better one next time,” Rosalie said flatly. “Seriously, have some standards.”
“At least I didn’t date him.”
“Oh, fuck off.”
Grace, still wobbly-legged, leaned against her friend and laughed helplessly.
The walk back to the parking lot was awkward and strange. Rosalie was focused on Grace, and Nolan was focused on not ralphing in front of everyone. The selkie walked barefoot, heedless of roots and rocks in the trail. She nudged Nolan, nearly knocking him over.
“Kidding about the sushi,” she said. “I can grab a duck somewhere, nobody ever misses those.”
“It’s fine. Like you said, I owe you.”
“Ehh. Sorry about your roommate.”
“It’s fine. We didn’t get along.”
“Oh! Then congrats.” The selkie shot a sidelong glance at him. “And if you’ve got the room… I could always use a place to crash.”
Nolan turned to stare. “What?”
“Look, where I’m from, there’s not much to see on land. It’s ice and more ice. But up here?” She grinned. “It’s interesting. Somebody down south even named me! I never had a name before. It’s Marina,” she added.
“Oh! Uh, nice to meet you. I’m Nolan.” Nolan hesitated for a moment, then—screw it. “I could… help? If you want? We’re close to a university—anything you want to know about the world, it’s all there, and I could show you.” The selkie’s eyebrows shot upward and Nolan pushed forward before he could lose his nerve. “And in return, you could tell me about yourself. About selkies. It’s just, there’s not a lot of research, and obviously you can say no if you don’t want to, but…” His voice trailed off. But the dissertation writes itself!
Marina’s teeth were still sharp when she grinned. “Throw in a sushi dinner every now and then, don’t fucking touch my coat, and you got yourself a deal.”