Ariel
The stairs were harder to master than Ariel expected. She gave up trying to climb them on the crutches because she feared a devastating fall. They were long, concrete, and curved with sharp edges on each step. One false move could spell disaster. She decided the best course of action would be to get down on her belly and slither up the steps. It was neither pretty nor fast, but it was effective.
At the top, pulling herself upright on the crutches, she surveyed the spacious room. She’d never seen this area before. She’d never been up the steps before. The only place she’d ever been was the medical office, which was off the pool area downstairs.
This was a new world. The house was very nice, and very clean. Something moved and scared her before she realized it was just a fluffy white cat. She didn’t know Father had a cat. But there it was, clearly comfortable, but perhaps confused as to why a stranger was in the house.
Spotting a small brown blanket on the piano bench, Ariel picked it up and managed to weave it around her body, tying it at her waist. The cat regarded her the entire time with curiosity but no real concern.
“Hi there, kitty.” Ariel moved a few steps past the cat. It seemed wary of her clumsy gait.
Looking through the front door filled her with more dread as another short series of stairs awaited her. But she quickly formulated a plan as she twisted the lock on the front door and shimmied her way across the threshold.
At the top of the steps, she sank down to her backside and started to shuffle down the steps on her butt. It was much easier and more comfortable than it was going up, although these concrete steps were very coarse on the edges and dug into her hands with each slide down.
Pulling herself upright again at the bottom, she eyed the large white fence that bordered the entire property. At first, this didn’t seem significant, but after a moment she didn’t see how she was going to get out.
Approaching the gate, she eyed the lock, not sure how to open it. There was a keypad with eight numbers on it along with a red and a green button. Her only hope was that one of those buttons opened the gate at the end of the sidewalk.
With some trepidation, she pushed the green button. The gate opened.
All the excitement she’d considered wasn’t even close to what she was feeling as she edged off the sidewalk and onto the street. She stopped to adjust the brown blanket wrapped around her body like a dress, making sure it was not going to fall off.
A shock of disorientation hit her as a car sped up the street toward her. The motion was hard to understand. It was fast, dizzying, and confusing. Colors of sky and grass soared through her vision. She stumbled and fell backwards, falling hard on her backside, hitting her head on the grassy area near the property.
In a bit of a swirled daze, she heard someone get out of the car and shuffle over to her. A man exclaimed, “Holy shit!”
She started to freak out, thinking he saw her tail. She looked up. “Jake?”
“Ariel?” He hovered over her, but didn’t move right away. He seemed as shocked as she felt. With a shake of his head, he quickly bent over to help her up. “What’re you doing?”
She steadied herself when he handed her the last crutch. “I’m running away.”
He laughed.
“Don’t laugh at me, Jake.”
“I’m sorry. I just can’t believe what I’m seeing.”
“What’re you doing here?”
His face turned more serious. “I came here to beat the hell out of your father and force him to tell me who has Ashley and where.”
“Huh?”
“The man who tried to kill us—he’s got Ashley. He’s going to kill her, and probably me too, eventually.”
Ariel nodded. “I believe you.”
Jake nodded his head up at the house. “When’s he coming home?”
“Not for hours.”
“I’m going in.”
“Why?”
“Why? Because there’re secrets in there, there has to be.”
Ariel hadn’t considered anything like that. She just wanted to get out and get away. “I never considered it.”
“I have.” He started toward the gate, then turned and looked back at her.
He walked over. “Hold those crutches.” He then swooped her off her feet and carried her through the gate, up the sidewalk, and into the house, where he put her back down standing, waiting for her to get the crutches situated.
“Thanks.” It took her a moment to regain the breath he stole from her. There was something electric in his touch and something intoxicating in his smell that the water must have hidden.
He immediately started looking around, searching for something. She didn’t know what to look for, or where to look, but she moved toward the desk and saw the pile of mail. It didn’t look that interesting, so she just moved on to a notepad with some things sketched out in a language she didn’t understand.
Jake had gone downstairs, and she was starting to feel a little weird. No one but Father or his colleagues had ever been down there, and for some reason it bothered her that Jake was down there without her. Not that there was anything down there that no one could see, it was just odd. She’d never felt anything like it before.
She was just about to move on from the desk when something caught her eye. It didn’t look like much at first—it was just a sketch of a mermaid tail on a piece of tan paper. To the untrained eye, it wouldn’t mean much, but to her it was interesting because it wasn’t the same kind of tail she had. It had a different shape. The fin was more robust. For some reason she wished she had that tail. It looked like it might cut through the water with more thrust, more speed. She couldn’t stop staring at it.
* * *
Jake
Jake stepped into a clean room the likes of which he’d never seen outside a hospital. It was what one might expect to see in a typical operating room. But as he approached the rear of the large space, something hanging on a rack caught his eye.
He approached the piece of material and touched it. It was grayish blue, heavy, and thick. It resembled dolphin skin. It looked like Ariel’s tail, only slightly grayer. It felt odd in his hands, like skin but also like rubber. It was just a foot long piece, perhaps six inches wide.
He moved on, looking through a few other hanging samples of similarly constructed materials. He didn’t know what to make of any of this. Perhaps they were patches in case Ariel was hurt. She did say she’d been injured before and needed surgery. Perhaps this was some sort of skin-graft material.
When he swung open a tall steel cabinet in the corner, he saw something even more confusing. Complete mermaid tails of various sizes and conditions. They were all similar but not quite identical. There was always some slight variation in each one. Exactly what this meant, he didn’t know. Maybe they were like cocoons. Maybe as Ariel grew she shed her tail, like a snakeskin.
No matter how much he tried to rationalize what he was seeing in this room, something in his innermost being knew it was all wrong. But as he slid the drawer open on the tall blue filing cabinet, he didn’t expect to see what he did.
* * *
Ariel
Ariel combed through the drawers of the desk and didn’t find anything interesting. It just seemed like everyday stuff, bills, mail, and a flier about a charity dinner at the Starfish Lounge.
She looked up at the clock and didn’t realize so much time had lapsed. But when Jake came running up the steps, she turned to face him. “What is it?”
He didn’t hesitate. “We gotta go now.”
He just scooped her up in his arms and started taking her out of the house. She was barely able to hold onto the crutches as he hurried through the door and down the sidewalk.
He stuffed her into the car so quickly she hit her head on the roof. Jake apologized several times, hurried back around the car, and tore away from the scene.