Chapter 2
The figure looked like a woman.
At least, the upper half of her did.
Long black hair hung over her shoulders, dripping with seawater. Her face was pale and almost human, but her eyes reflected the morning sun like polished silver.
The water hid everything below her waist.
She lifted one hand toward me.
The baby answered with a desperate cry.
I took a step forward.
The elderly woman grabbed my arm.
“Claire, don’t.”
I stopped breathing.
I had never seen her before.
“How do you know my name?”
Her grip tightened.
The woman in the ocean opened her mouth.
“Claire.”
My knees nearly gave out.
The voice did not travel through the air like a normal voice. It seemed to rise from the waves, low and broken, as if the ocean itself had learned how to speak.
The baby twisted in my arms.
“Who are you?” I called.
The woman took another step.
The water around her moved strangely. It did not splash against her body. It curved away from her.
Then I saw a flash of silver beneath the surface.
A tail.
It was enormous.
The old woman pulled me backward.
“We have to leave.”
“That could be her mother.”
“If it were only her mother, she wouldn’t have left the child on the beach.”
The woman in the water suddenly turned her head toward the southern end of the shore.
Her expression changed.
Fear.
A second later, I heard engines.
Three dark vehicles appeared on the road above the beach. They stopped beside the dunes, and men in gray uniforms jumped out.
None of them looked like police officers.
Two carried long metal cases.
One raised binoculars.
He saw the baby.
“There!” he shouted. “The infant is alive!”
The woman in the water screamed.
The sound was so sharp that pain shot through my skull. Birds burst from the trees. The men dropped to their knees, covering their ears.
The baby screamed with her.
The silver scales beneath my jacket began to glow.
“Run!” the elderly woman yelled.
She pulled me toward a narrow trail between the dunes.
I didn’t understand what was happening, but the men were already coming down the beach.
I ran.
The baby felt impossibly light against my chest. Her tiny fingers clung to my shirt while her tail moved beneath the jacket.
A sharp sound cracked behind us.
Something struck the sand near my foot.
“They’re shooting at us!”
“Not bullets,” the woman said. “Tranquilizers. They need you alive.”
“Me?”
She didn’t answer.
We reached an old green truck hidden behind a row of sea grape trees. She opened the passenger door.
“Get in.”
“I’m not going anywhere until you tell me who you are.”
Another dart struck the truck.
She looked me straight in the eyes.
“My name is Ruth Bell. My daughter was Evelyn Bell.”
The name hit me like a fist.
Evelyn Bell was my mother.
She had died when I was nine years old.
“You knew my mother?”
Ruth’s face crumpled.
“I was her mother.”
I stared at her.
“My grandmother died before I was born.”
“That’s what Evelyn told you because she was trying to protect you.”
Footsteps pounded along the trail.
Ruth shoved me into the truck and slammed the door. She got behind the wheel, turned the key, and drove through the brush before the men reached us.
Branches scraped against the windows.
I held the baby against me and looked through the rear glass.
The woman from the ocean stood at the edge of the beach.
She had risen farther from the water now.
I could see the top of her long silver tail.
One of the uniformed men aimed a weapon at her.
She slammed her tail against the surf.
A wall of water surged across the beach and knocked the men off their feet.
Then she looked directly at me through the rear window.
Her mouth formed one word.
Daughter.
My blood went cold.
I turned toward Ruth.
“What did she call me?”
Ruth kept both hands on the steering wheel.
“You heard her.”
“That woman is not my mother.”
“Evelyn raised you. She loved you more than her own life. Nothing can change that.”
“That is not what I asked.”
Ruth drove faster.
The road twisted between thick palms and weather-beaten houses. She checked the mirror every few seconds.
“Twenty-seven years ago,” she said, “Evelyn found a baby where you found that one.”
I looked down at the infant in my arms.
“No.”
“You were wrapped in seaweed. You had a silver tail and a mark over your heart.”
My hand moved instinctively to the crescent-shaped birthmark beneath my collarbone.
Ruth saw me touch it.
“By sunset, your tail had divided. By the next morning, you had two perfectly human legs.”
“You’re lying.”
“I wish I were.”
“My mother gave birth to me in Miami.”
“That was the story we created.”
I pulled the jacket farther over the baby.
Her tail was already changing.
The scales near the center had separated into two faint lines.
I stared at them.
Ruth turned off the paved road and drove through a rusty gate. Behind it stood a small yellow house surrounded by mangroves.
She parked under a wooden shelter.
“We don’t have much time.”
“Who were those men?”
“The same people who killed Evelyn.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“My mother drowned.”
“No, Claire.”
Ruth’s voice broke.
“Your mother was murdered because she refused to give you back.”
I clutched the baby tighter.
For eighteen years, I had believed Evelyn slipped from a dock during a storm. I had blamed the weather. I had blamed the broken railing. Sometimes, in my darkest moments, I had even blamed myself because she had gone outside after hearing me cry.
Now a stranger claiming to be my grandmother was telling me it had all been a lie.
“You expect me to believe this?”
“I expect you to remember.”
Ruth got out and hurried around the truck.
The baby began whimpering.
I stayed in the passenger seat.
“Remember what?”
“The night Evelyn died.”
“I was nine.”
“You saw who took her.”
A faint memory surfaced.
Rain against my bedroom window.
My mother shouting downstairs.
A man’s voice.
Then a silver light moving beneath the house.
I shook my head.
“No.”
Ruth opened my door.
“Those men will find us. If they take the baby, she will not survive.”
“Why?”
“Because Dr. Adrian Vale has spent twenty-seven years trying to discover what you are.”
The name was familiar.
Vale Marine Research owned half the laboratories around Key West. Its founder appeared on television whenever a whale washed ashore or a hurricane damaged the reef.
“He’s a scientist.”
“He is a hunter.”
The infant suddenly gasped.
I pulled back the jacket.
Her silver tail was gone.
Two tiny legs kicked weakly against my arm.
I stared at Ruth.
She stared back.
Then the baby opened her eyes.
They were no longer blue.
They were silver.
From somewhere beyond the mangroves came the low growl of an approaching engine.
May you like
Ruth shut the truck door.
“They found us.”
