Kira's Secret (4 page)

Chapter Six—
Suspicions

When the phone rang during supper that evening, Kira jumped. Her parents didn't seem to notice how jittery she was. Her father continued to eat his fried haddock and mashed potatoes, while her mother answered the phone.

“Really?” she said. “Judy's boy, Thomas? And he's okay?” She paused to listen. “Oh, I see. And they don't know who she was? Uh huh. Mmm hmm. Okay, Cyndi. Yes, we're just having dinner now. See you tomorrow.” She hung up the phone and returned to the table.

“So?” said Kira's dad, looking at his wife with questioning eyes.

“So,” she said, glancing at Kira before she continued. “Thomas Mahoney was the boy who fell in this afternoon. His friends said a girl with curly brown hair and glasses jumped in after him. Then she disappeared after Thomas washed up. They never saw her again.” She gave Kira another look, her eyebrows raised.

“The boys told the police about the girl. They searched all over but there was no sign of her. Or the jacket and boots she took off before she dove in.”

Her father, alarmed, paused with his fork lifted. “Was she swept away? Is anyone missing?”

“No, no one reported missing. Not from around here, not so far. Police thought the boys might have overreacted in their panic. Hallucinated maybe. You know, smoking something they shouldn't have.”

Kira stared at her carrots, pushing them around with her fork.

“But all three saw the same thing? Hmm,” her father mused and resumed his meal.

“And where were you this afternoon, Kira?” her mother asked.

Kira looked up with a surprised expression on her face. “I was here, at the house,” she answered, trying to sound calm. “I heard the sirens.”

“So why are your jeans hanging up on the line? And your T-shirt?”

“I, uh, decided to wash them. They were dirty,” she lied again, but she met her mother's eyes this time.

“You couldn't wait until washing day?” her mother challenged her.

“It's my favourite pair of jeans. They're the only ones that fit me anymore, so I didn't want to wait. And, anyway,” she continued, on a roll now, “I need a new pair before school starts. These old ones are so worn, they're about to rip. You don't want me to show up at school in torn clothes, do you?”

Kira's father had a pained look on his face. Once again she felt guilty.

“Don't worry, Kira, you'll have new clothes for school,” he assured her.

Kira's mother made a funny hrrumphing noise, and resumed eating. Kira had an enormous lump in her stomach and she could barely swallow. All she wanted at that moment was to disappear into her room, but she didn't dare ask to be excused. She needed to act as normal as possible so her parents would not suspect that she was the mystery girl.

That night, huddled under her bed covers, Kira lay awake, more worried and confused than ever. Besides deceiving her parents, she had a much more serious problem. Who, or what, was she? Why did her body change under water? Under seawater to be exact, because this never happened in her bath or in the swimming pool. Mermaids were mythical creatures in fairy tales she couldn't possibly be a mermaid. She had legs, she breathed air, she looked like all the other people in town.

Except for her eyes. They were larger than normal, and an unusual bright hue of blue-green that changed with the weather. Some called it azure, or teal, or sea-foam green. And, of course, her vision was terrible, except for her ability to notice the slightest movement at great distances and from the corners of her eyes.

Then there was the story of her own rescue from the sea. Who were her real parents? Were they mermaids or merpeople? What had really happened when they fished her out of the sea? What if her true parents were still alive and living somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean?

Kira began to cry, large salty tears trickling down her cheeks. She pulled the covers over her head and sobbed as quietly as she could. What a mess. She had to figure out what to do next. Should she confront her parents and confess to what she knew? Should she demand to know the truth about her origins? And if they admitted the truth, would that change anything? Would they no longer want her to be their daughter? Would they send her back to the sea? Or would they prevent her from ever going back to it? The only thing she knew for sure was that everything had changed for her, and she was afraid.

Chapter Seven—
Sea Folk

Things were definitely different the next morning. The wind had calmed, the seas still, the sky a bright blue with faint, wispy clouds. It was going to be a hot day, unusual on the northeastern seacoast. Kira's mother had called in to the diner that she would be late for work that day. She dawdled in the kitchen and ate breakfast with Kira, as if this was her normal routine. She chatted about the start of school and going shopping for clothes. Kira answered her questions, but mostly she listened, nervous about what her mother might ask next. The oatmeal she had just eaten felt like a softball rolling around in her stomach.

“So, Kira, what are your plans for the day?” she asked brightly.

Kira looked at her mother, stunned. “Uh, the rugs need to be beaten and hung out to air. What I usually do on Thursdays.”

“And after that?”

“Well, I finished the books I borrowed, so I thought I might go to the library and get more,” Kira answered.

“Oh? What are you reading these days?” Her mother wasn't much of a reader herself, though she enjoyed browsing cookbooks and studying knitting and crocheting books for new patterns.

“Mrs. Doyle said the last
Harry Potter
book should be back in today and she promised to hold it for me.”

“Ah, yes, Yvette Doyle. I went to school with her, you know. She always was a bookworm. She never remarried after her husband Harvey died. He was a fisherman, lost in a bad storm over ten years ago. We lost five men from our village alone. Two of them just boys a few years older than you, Kira.”

Kira had heard the story before. There were many such stories from their coastal communities. Fishing was a risky occupation, and a tough living. They depended on the ocean for food, they were drawn to the water, yet they feared it. Everyone but Kira.

Her mother glanced at her watch and rose from the table. “I'm off now,” she announced. “I thought we'd have a nice salad with our sausages tonight.”

Kira nodded. “I'll have the salad ready,” she said.

“That would be nice. Thank you, Kira.” Her mother smiled and patted Kira's head on her way to the door.

Through the window, Kira watched her walk up the path toward town. Her mother had been unusually pleasant and chatty. Did she suspect that Kira had been at the beach yesterday? She probably suspected something.

Maybe her parents had seen her transformation before, when they had taken her out of the water as a baby. Or perhaps another time when they took her to a calm, sandy swimming beach. It would have been a frightening sight, a baby with chubby little legs suddenly flapping about like a fat eel in shallow water. Or maybe they just saw her webbed hands slapping the shallow saltwater of a tidal pool.

Kira gathered up her library books and left the house. She didn't want to think about herself anymore, it was driving her crazy. She needed to immerse herself in Harry Potter's world of wizards and forget about everything else. Kira was walking so fast, her head down, that she nearly slammed into Cody coming the other way, his arms also loaded with books.

“Hey, Kira! What a coincidence! I was just thinking about you,” he said. He flashed a smile at her, his braces gleaming.

“Uh, hi, Cody. I'm just going to the library,” she replied.

“Yeah,” he laughed, “I can see that. And guess where I've been!” He hoisted his books up in the air.

Kira saw the words
Sea Monsters
, part of a longer title on the spine of one book. She shivered.

He continued, “Listen, I've been wanting to talk to you. You heard about what happened at the beach yesterday?”

Kira nodded her head. “Uh-huh.”

“Well, I have a theory about that rescue. I've been doing some research and I thought you might like to hear what I found.”

Kira gave him a suspicious look. She was more interested than she wanted to admit, but still not keen on talking to Cody. Before she could reply, he said, “You seemed so interested in sea life, I figured you might be the only person I know who wouldn't laugh at me. I mean, you're not like the other kids.”

Kira's eyes went wide with concern. Did Cody also suspect who she might be?

“Uh, I mean that in a good way,” he added and smiled shyly.

“Okay,” Kira said slowly.

“So,” he continued, “you want to meet at the park across the street?” He pointed with his free hand. “That bench under the willow? Lots of shade anyway.” He wiped his sweaty brow.

“Okay. I'll just return these and meet you over there.”

A few minutes later Kira joined Cody under the tree, the thick copy of
Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
clutched to her chest. She sat on the other side of the pile of books Cody had set in the middle of the bench. Kira felt her heart racing in anticipation.

Cody launched right in. “So, they said some ghostly girl just appeared out of nowhere and dived into the sea, and next thing they knew, their friend washed up on the other side of the rocks. And the girl was gone, no sign she'd ever been there,” he finished, out of breath.

“Yeah,” Kira agreed. “That's what I heard, too.”

“There were three of them, and they all said the same thing.”

Kira grinned at Cody. She had never seen him so worked up, and wondered about his theory. “Do you think they were making it up? Just as a joke?”

Cody shook his head and frowned at Kira. “I was there. I talked to them, each one. Kind of like interviews, I guess. And they were serious, and scared, and pretty excited that their buddy didn't drown. I'm hoping to interview Thomas when he's out of the hospital. Maybe he saw something underwater.”

Kira looked down at the sneakers on her feet. Her two normal-looking feet attached to two normal-looking legs. Well, maybe a bit more muscular than most girls her age, but still, just legs. “But if he didn't see anything,” she said, “if he was passed out, you still won't know what happened. Maybe he just washed up with the waves.”

“No way, I know something happened. Something unusual. The current off that point never spits anything back up. Look,” he said, opening the book from the top of his pile and flipping through pages. “Remember Babbling Bill telling us about selkies?” He pointed to a drawing in the book.

Kira leaned over to see, but she already knew what was on the page. She blushed anyway at the drawing of a nearly naked woman stepping out of a sealskin on a beach.

“Why do they take off their skins?” Kira asked, pretending she had no clue.

“Sometimes they come out of the water at night to dance on the beach,” Cody said, studying the pages. “They're attracted to humans. And sometimes, a human might see them and he falls in love with one and steals her skin. Then she can't go back into the water. So she goes home with him and they get married and have kids. And their children have webbed toes and fingers.”

“Oh,” Kira said, and clenched her fists as if to hide her fingers.

“And then there are the finfolk and merrows,” he said and turned to a new page.

“Huh?”

“Everybody's heard about mermaids and mermen—some call them merrows. But the finfolk are really cool. They're not as friendly as the selkies and merrows. Here, let me read this bit to you.

“‘Finfolk are notable for their attraction to humans, not for romantic purposes, but to obtain spouses or slaves who will spend their lives as labourers. They will sneak up on unsuspecting fishermen, disguised as sea animals or even plants, then grab them when they are close enough. Female finfolk may disguise themselves as beautiful mermaids with long golden hair and pale skin to lure the men closer. Their human captives are taken to a hidden island, shrouded in fog, where they are kept for the rest of their lives. They are forced into labour, working to make silver, which the finfolk treasure above all else. If they do not produce enough silver, they are punished. The captive humans never return home.'”

“Ooh, that's nasty,” Kira said, making a face.

“Yeah, but their underwater home is something else. It's called Finfolkaheen. It's this huge palace made of crystal, and all around are these amazing seaweed gardens. Look, here's a picture.”

Kira leaned over again to see the colourful drawings. Seaweeds of all imaginable shapes and incredible hues surrounded a majestic, glittering palace.

“And the place is lit up all the time, even deep down where the sun can't reach and it's pitch black. They don't need electric lights because they have sea glow, billions of tiny phosphorescent sea creatures that never stop glowing. Have you ever seen them?” Cody asked, his own eyes lit up and his smile sparkled with metal.

“Only in that film in science class last fall,” she admitted. She would love to see it for herself sometime.

“It's very cool. You have to come down to the wharf at night. You just take a paddle or long stick and wave it through the water, and the wake behind it lights up like miniature pale green diamonds. Thousands, millions of microscopic diatoms. It's awesome.”

Kira sighed. “I'm sure it is. But I don't believe there are crystal palaces underwater, or some island for finfolk slaves. Those are just stories.”

Cody shrugged. “Maybe. But there has to be some explanation for what happened yesterday.”

“Sure. A selkie jumped into the water, but she turned into a seal and couldn't come back out again as a human,” Kira offered, holding back a smile.

“Aha! That wouldn't explain why her clothes disappeared, though.”

“Okay,” Kira agreed. “And if it was finfolk, they would have taken the boy to their hidden slave island, so that doesn't fit, either.”

“Correct. Which is why I believe it was a mermaid. She jumped in as a human, then swam off after she rescued him.”

“And what about her clothes? They were gone.”

“That's the problem exactly. I asked the guys where she jumped in, and where they found their friend. Two different places, on either side of a large rock. She would have had time to swim back around, climb out, and run away while they were helping their friend get breathing again. That's my theory.” Cody had a smug look on his face.

Kira could not tell from his expression if he had any suspicions about her. She had to be careful. “Fascinating theory,” she finally said, “if you believe in mermaids and such.”

Cody's face fell.

“I mean,” she added, “anything is possible, right? Just because we don't see something, doesn't mean it didn't happen, or can't happen.”

Cody nodded his head, but he wouldn't look at her as he continued to flip through more pages. She could see she had disappointed him.

“Anyway, I've gotta go,” she said standing up. “See you later.”

“Yeah, see you around.” Cody didn't bother looking up.

Kira hurried home, her head spinning. It was weird enough that she might not be completely human, but the possibility that other more sinister creatures existed under the sea made her head hurt. All she wanted was to get home, shut off her brain and enter Harry Potter's world. And stay there forever.