The Mermaid's Mirror - L. K. Madigan [61]
"Lena! At least wait for your father!"
Lena didn't answer, just rushed through the garden and out to the sidewalk. She could hear Allie screaming her dad's name. Lena broke into a run.
She flew down the street, past darkened homes, their occupants tucked up warmly in their beds. Tomorrow they would wake up, eat breakfast, do the dishes, watch TV ... go on with their cozy, normal lives. Lena felt a fleeting moment of hot jealousy—her life would never be normal again—then she was racing across the gravel parking lot and down the path through the long grasses.
When she reached the sand, she felt a surge of relief. This was her beach. She knew its landscape even with her eyes closed. Her father might chase her all the way to Magic's, but he was slower than she was.
Without stopping to take off her shoes, Lena ran to the edge of the ocean, where it would be easier to run on the packed sand.
But the tide was coming in, and the sand was wet and springy. It sucked at her shoes, slowing her down. She glanced back once but didn't see her father.
She kept running, and before long, Shipwreck Rocks loomed in the distance.
There was no one there.
CHAPTER 32
A small sob came from Lena's throat. She's there, answered her mind calmly. She's on the other side of the rocks, on the Magic side.
Lena stopped to catch her breath, bending over to put her hands on her knees. When she had rested for a minute, she turned to look back down the beach. Far behind her, running across the packed sand, was a figure that could only be her father.
Too slow, she thought in triumph.
She straightened up and raced toward the rocks, where she knew her mother was waiting.
The moonlight lay on the water like a shining path to the edge of the world.
My mother's family is down there, thought Lena. Maybe they're down there right now, looking up at the moonlight on the water, just like I am. Am I sleepwalking? I must be awake ... I feel wind on my face and I hear waves crashing and I taste the salt spray.
She was closer to the rocks now, and she began to sob. Unable to wait any longer, she screamed, "Melusina! Melusina! Mama!"
A voice carried across the sound of the waves. "Selena ... my Selena..."
Heart racing, Lena screamed, "Where are you?"
"I am here. You must come to me."
Panting and weeping, Lena reached the rocks and began to climb. "Mama."
"Dearest maiden," called her mother's voice.
Exhausted now, Lena climbed over the highest rock and looked below.
Melusina waited, slim white arms outstretched, face upturned, tears shining in her green eyes. "My daughter," cried the mermaid.
Lena stumbled down the rocks, scratching her hands and twisting her ankles, but feeling no physical pain. "It's you," she wept. She fell to her knees by her mother's side, where Melusina enfolded her in an embrace.
The mermaid's strong tail clung to the rock beneath her, keeping her balanced as she held her daughter.
Lena felt the cool smoothness of her mother's skin and the wet strands of her long hair. She hadn't remembered how small her mother was; the last time Lena had been wrapped in her arms, she was only four, and her mother had seemed as big as any other adult. But now, hugging the mermaid, Lena felt how little she was.
Lena drew back slightly, filling her gaze with her mother.
The lovely face was exactly as she remembered—her mother appeared not to have aged at all. Her eyes glowed with excitement, and her lips were curved in a tremulous smile. Her upper body was bare, except for long necklaces of white and black pearls trailing nearly to her bellybutton. Lena looked in awe at the lower half of her mother's body, which turned to brilliant silver scales below her belly and curved down the length of her lower half, ending in a long divided fin. At the base of her tail was the faint outline of a dolphin tattoo.
"Are you much frightened, my child?" asked Melusina, her brilliant eyes searching Lena's face.
"No." But Lena shivered as reality set in. She was sitting on a rock in the middle of the night with a creature