Page 9 of Female Fantasy
Ryke shakes his head. “The sand is but a false floor to ward away visitors who mean us ill. But there are rifts in the ground. Doors to another world. And if you know how to uncover such passages, you will enter a land of light and sound waves where breathing grows inconsequential. Cities more advanced than those on the shore. Jewels more refined and colors more brilliant. Languages you have never heard and art so revered you would think the world had seen the last of it. A society full of culture and cuisine fresh from the tide. Seahorse-drawn carriages and raucous beach balls. Yes, my people are the muses of your stories. But we are not the monstrous krakens you fear. The objects of beauty you admire.”
My breath catches.
I allow myself to dream of it all.
A secret world beneath the sea, ruled by the mer.
A land free of poverty, where splendor reigns supreme.
I can practically taste the oyster delicacies, smell the fresh caviar.
“It sounds wonderful.” My voice comes out strained—with desire, I realize. Longing. “Why in the devil’s name would you and your people dwell in our world, passing among us as mere mortals, when you could lose yourself in time and space beneath the sea?”
What I dare not say—what I whisper in my mind—is that I would abandon my world entirely if I could.
Escape my own life.
Become one of the mer.
But such things are not possible.
I am nobody.
Nothing but a sack of blood and bones and salt.
Ryke’s eyes grow stormy. With trouble clouding the skies and the long scaled appendage cascading from his torso, I find myself short of breath in his presence. He is a stranger once more.
“Our world has been marked by a predator, one unknown by those who dwell above the watery graves. Its name is rarely uttered but always feared. For generations, we took to the shores, living next to rivers and creeks, bodies of water that kept us sheltered from discovery. The members of the rebellion were in hiding, plotting our return, all the while fearing what would happen if our presence was discovered before we were ready. Until now, that is.”
Thunder crashes in Ryke’s complexion.
I gulp, then force myself to speak with a strength I did not know I possessed.
“Until?”
As lighting flashes in those twin tide pools of gold, a shiver runs down my spine.
And I swear my soul knows his next words before he says them aloud.
“Until you blew the ancient Conch of Hippios,” he says, “and called the mer to war.”
Chapter Three
When I was thirteen, I was in homeroom with a super popular but utterly average white girl named Sam. She had warm brown eyes that crinkled in the corners when she smiled and long blond hair that she wore French braided down her back. And she played lacrosse, one of the most American sports there is—short of football, of course. I used to sacrifice good study time to sit up in the nosebleed bleacher seats of our high school and watch her run around holding a net on a stick. (The rules of the sport never really sank in, but the BO of the rest of the crowd sure did. Literally ew.) Anyway, she sat behind me in biology. Whenever an exam question confused her, she’d absentmindedly play with my hair. One day, she asked if she could give me a braid that matched hers. I said yes, and later, she invited me to hang out at her place after school.
Up until that point, I had been a bit of a loner. No girls wanted my smelly food near their perfectly packed lunches in the cafeteria. So I jumped at the opportunity to make a friend. To know what it felt like to be accepted. To be understood. My test scores suffered after that, of course. Worth it, though. Or so I thought.
After a few weeks, Sam and I started doing everything together. I went to all of her games to hoot and holler. She invited me to sleepovers at her house, but my strict Iranian parents never said yes. In between classes, I walked with her down the hall—always several steps behind her, but still, I was there. We exchanged friendship necklaces from Claire’s; I wore BEST FRIENDS, and she rocked FOREVER. She invited me to my first ever boy-girl party. I went over to her house beforehand, and she straightened my hair and lightened my skin with foundation. And even though I didn’t look like myself, I felt pretty enough. For the first time in my life, I wasn’t on the outside looking in.
Then one day when I arrived late to class, she wouldn’t make eye contact with me. There was an unreadable expression on her face. After the bell rang, she tapped me on the shoulder.
“Hey,” she said. “Can I ask you a question?”
I nodded, praying to whatever God she believed in that she couldn’t hear the pounding inside my chest.
“The war.”
“The war?”
