Dark Water_A Little Mermaid Reverse Fairytale by J. A. Armitage

Author:J. A. Armitage [Armitage, J. A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-06-18T16:00:00+00:00

The sea witch

My heart sank as I took in the implications of her words. A few minutes ago, I’d thought that the worst thing in the world to happen to me was to be stood up by Ari. But I’d take that over him being kidnapped by a sea witch who liked to kill people any time she felt like it.

“We have to go rescue him,” I said, standing up from the bed.

My mother adopted a look of horror.

“We can’t! You can’t! I told you how powerful she is. Everyone under the water is afraid of her. My own parents refused to have anything to do with her.”

“I thought your parents were dead?”

My mother bowed her head. “They are alive. I haven’t seen them in twenty years. Once I was out of the ocean, I couldn’t ever go back. They don’t know where I am. If I’d told them, they would never have let me come.”

I shook my head. This secrecy had been going on long enough. My poor mother had spun herself such a web of lies, that now, she was the one coming unraveled.

“I can’t leave him out there. He saved my life. If it weren’t for him, we wouldn’t be here having this conversation.”

“I know,” she replied. “But we can’t beat her. Our only way to stay safe is to stay away from her, to stay on land. The second we go into the sea, she will be upon us and I doubt she’d let you get away again.”

I thought of a way around it. “What if we don’t go in the sea? Hayden’s father is an admiral of the Navy. He has a whole fleet of ships. We send them all out to sea and find him that way.”

“I think your father might notice all the naval ships leaving.”

“So, we tell him why. It’s been long enough. Don’t you think he deserves to know the truth?” I cried, feeling exasperated.

My mother’s jaw tightened. “No, I don’t. You don’t understand. The merpeople and the land dwellers don’t mix. Why do you think we hide from them? History has told us that once a merperson is found, the land dwellers capture them and give them to scientists to examine. If that happened to me...or to you or Anthony, what do you think they’ll do? It would be worse than being at the mercy of the sea witch. They’d cut us up to study our anatomy or keep us captive for our entire lives. Do you want that?”

“No, but I’m only talking about telling father and your best friends. I’m not suggesting we broadcast it on the evening news. Father won’t give us away, neither will the Harrington-Smythes.”

“Do you want to bet your life on it?” she looked at me in such a way that I knew she was being serious.

“No, but...”

She cut me off. “Everyone will see the naval ships going out. They’ll wonder what is going on. We already have almost all the journalists in the kingdom camping on our doorsteps because of this wedding fiasco.

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