Pretty in Pearls Read online

  This is my chance. Riatus is alone. I should swim over there and ask my questions. He goes back to work, dancing around the stall as he moves the barrels into position. There is something so boyish, so joyful about his movements. I have to watch for a minute longer.

  I can’t breathe, and this time it has nothing to do with freaking out. It has everything to do with him.

  Holy hammerhead.

  When he’s nudged the last barrel into place next to the others, he starts locking them down. I watch, hypnotized by his quick, precise movements. It only takes him a few seconds to finish them all. Then he’s dragging a thick chain through the rings and locking them to the post.

  As he drifts back a little, swiping a hand across the back of his neck, I know it’s time to act. He’s done for the night. I have to go now, or he’ll head home and I’ll have to languish another day.

  I would never hear the end of it from Lily.

  I flex my tail fin, ready to kick myself over to the stall, when I see him find the piece of kelpaper Coral let float to the ground. He reads whatever’s written on the paper, his scowl deepening as he goes. Crumpling up the paper, he looks like he wants to throw it into the open sea. Instead, he grabs his jacket from the corner and stuffs the paper into a pocket.

  Then he pulls the jacket on. He’s leaving.

  The time for hiding and excuses is over. Time to use up all my courage and ask that boy if he wants to go to the Sea Harvest Dance with me.

  I kick out from behind the counter just in time to see Riatus swimming away in the opposite direction.

  Oh no. He can’t get away that easily. I’m going to talk to him tonight if I have to follow him all the way to the mainland.

  With determination stiffening my spine, I swim off after him.

  Riatus is fast. When I took off after him, I figured I would be able to keep up pretty easily. He wasn’t swimming a merathon, after all.

  But as soon as he clears Old Town he kicks it into high gear, and I’m swimming for my life to keep up. It’s fast becoming a matter of pride to not let him get away.

  We’re swimming over the oldest structures in town, through the eastern suburbs, and out into the open ocean before I realize we’re leaving the city.

  I dive lower, toward the ocean floor. I know my goal is to talk to him—which generally requires him knowing that I’m in the vicinity—but right now the last thing I want is for him to see me chasing after him like a crazy merperson.

  We pass an ancient signpost and I finally figure out where he’s heading. Once we clear the rocky outcropping ahead, we’ll be at the edge of the Black Kelpforest.

  I was fifteen before I even had courage to look at the Black Kelpforest, let alone approach the edge. Parents like to frighten little merchildren by telling them stories about the sharks and sea monsters that live in there.

  The reality is almost worse. Only black-market traders, poachers, and criminals visit the forest. Thalassinia is one of the safest kingdoms in all the oceans, but the Black Kelpforest is the one place where nasty things happen regularly. It’s a rare week that goes by without news of something illegal and usually violent happening here.

  This idea just went from bad to catastrophic.

  I need to turn back. I know this. I tell myself this. Repeatedly.

  A voice in the back of my mind—a voice that sounds remarkably like Lily’s—urges me to keep going just a little farther.

  Riatus disappears over the outcropping, dropping down out of sight. I slow as I approach the edge. Stopping at the top, I peer over and watch him swim for the edge of the forest.

  He’s really going in. What possible reason could he have for racing out of town and venturing into the darkest, scariest forest in Thalassinia at this time of night?

  This is nuts.

  I’ve taken this too far. It’s definitely time to turn around and head back for the safety of town.

  I watch for a few seconds longer—to make sure he’s really, really going into the forest—before turning away to start the swim back.

  Only as I turn, my tail fin knocks into a loose rock and sends it soaring out over the edge. Sinking swiftly and spiraling toward Riatus far below. I dash out, desperate to grab it before it falls to the ocean floor.

  I’m too slow.

  The rock swooshes out of my reach and I watch in horror as the current sends it swirling and twisting. What if it hits him? I should bolt, should get myself out of here before the rock hits the floor. But I can’t.

  Instead, I’m floating like an idiot, staring at Riatus as the rock lands with a spray of sand.

  He doesn’t turn at first, and I think maybe he won’t notice. Maybe he didn’t feel the disturbance in the water. Maybe—maybe—luck is actually on my side.

  Then he turns around.

  Looks up.

  I know the exact moment he sees and recognizes me. His eyes widen for a moment and then narrow into an angry scowl. Even across the distance between us I can feel his fury.

  Jeez, I know it’s a little weird—in a crazy, psycho, stalker-chick way—that I’ve followed him out here to the edge of the forest. But does he really have to—

  “Oh boy.”

  Riatus pushes off from the floor and swims for me. I’m not sure what makes me turn and flee. It could be the look on his face. It could be natural preservation instinct. It could be I’m totally humiliated and horrified to be caught following a merboy I barely know into the most dangerous part of our kingdom.

  Whatever the reason, I turn around and swim for home as fast as I can.

  Riatus is faster.

  If I thought he was hightailing it on the way here, he is a freaking speed demon now. Before I am five fin flicks away, he zooms past me, whips around, and swirls himself to a stop in my path. I react instantly, altering my course to swim off to my right. I don’t know where I’m going, but I’m going there fast.

  “Peri!” He’s not far behind me.

  I spot a little grove of lacelike sea fans ahead of me, and I streamline. Kicking as hard as I can, I make it to the grove ahead of him. Maybe the sea fans will give me some cover. Their thick trunks and intricately branching limbs make it almost impossible to see inside. Maybe he’ll be so focused on chasing after me he won’t realize I’ve diverted.

  With my back up against the tallest, thickest sea fan in the bunch, I try to slow my panting so he can’t hear me. I’m not scared—it wasn’t that kind of chase. It’s not like I think Riatus is going to hurt me. I’m embarrassed. I’m horrifically, hysterically embarrassed.

  Why did I think I should—

  “What in the seven seas are you doing?”

  Riatus appears in front of me. It’s only a small concession that he is panting as hard as I am.

  “What are you doing here?” he demands. “Were you following me?”

  “No!” Stupid answer. “Yes. I mean, I didn’t mean to.”

  “Didn’t mean to?”

  I shake my head. “I just wanted to talk to you.”

  He throws his head back and stares up toward the surface, like he’ll find some kind of answer there.

  “I was waiting for you to finish closing down for the night. I didn’t want to interrupt,” I say, trying to fill the silence and explain my actions. “Then you read some note and took off, and I—”

  His gaze swings back to me. Those pale gray eyes spear me with intensity.

  “You have no idea what you’re getting into,” he says.

  His brows are furrowed so deeply there are twin lines in the center of his forehead. He looks . . . scared.

  For the first time I realize I might have gotten myself into a really bad situation. Okay, not for the first time, because I knew this was a stupid thing to do from the beginning, but now the danger seems real.

  “I—I’m sorry,” I stammer, trying to back away—only to realize I’m pressed up against a huge sea-fan trunk. Brilliant plan. “I shouldn’t have come, shouldn’t have followed you.”

 
“No,” he says, floating closer into my personal space. “You shouldn’t have.”

  “I should go.”

  He kicks closer still, and braces his hands on the sea fan at either side of my shoulders. He’s so close I can make out the specks of sky blue at the centers of his eyes. I can see the faint freckles that dust his cheeks and forehead. I can feel his heat and I can’t suppress a shiver.

  “Forget you ever followed me,” he says. He hesitates, scowls like he’s thinking about saying something more, but doesn’t.

  Instead, he floats back, giving me enough space to get away. That more than anything gives me the courage to ask, “Is it something illegal?”

  I could forgive a lot of things. If it’s something stupid or risky or totally-innocuous-and-I’m-overreacting, then that’s fine. But as emissary to the princess, I can’t condone illegal activities. How hypocritical would that be?

  The muscles in his jaw tighten and his nostrils flare. “Of course not.”

  “Of course not?” I spit back before I can think. “There’s no ‘of course not’ about it. You just raced out of town to the edge of the Black Kelpforest—aka the epicenter of all criminal activity in Thalassinia—under cover of darkness. I think illegal activity is a totally legitimate guess on my part.”

  He watches me finish my rant. I can’t tell if he thinks I’m gutsy or stupid—or both. Then, after an increasingly uncomfortable silence, he barks out a deep laugh.

  “Poseidon help me, Peri, but you are a fearless one.”

  I cross my arms over my chest, not sure if that’s supposed to be a compliment or just an observation. It doesn’t seem like a condemnation, so I choose to take it as a compliment. “Thank you.”

  He shakes his head, his smile fading. “There is nothing illegal about my activities tonight,” he says. “I promise you.”

  His promise shouldn’t mean anything to me. I barely know him. He’s just a cute boy who works in his mother’s market stall. But for some reason, the words reassure me. There’s a heaviness to them. A gravity.

  I believe him, and I believe he takes his promises seriously.

  That faith gives me the courage to ask the question that started this whole adventure. “Did I do something wrong after that first day in the market?”

  He scowls, probably confused by my apparent change of subject. “I’m sorry?”

  “I thought . . . I mean you seemed . . . ” I sound like an idiot. “You said you would message me.”

  His pale eyes study me. “I did.”

  “But you haven’t,” I say. “So I must have done something to make you not want to.”

  “Peri—”

  “It’s okay,” I interrupt. “I don’t blame you. I mean, it’s your prerogative, right? But I’d just like to know. For next time.”

  His eyes darken and his whole demeanor changes. His muscles tighten; his mouth lifts up just a tiny bit at the corners. He swims back closer to me and when he speaks his voice is both gentle and rough.

  “You did nothing wrong.”

  He reaches up and brushes a lock of hair off my forehead. Sparks tingle across my whole body.

  “It’s the oldest excuse in the ocean,” he continues. “But this time it’s true. It’s not you, it’s me.”

  I want to roll my eyes—it is the oldest excuse in the whole world—but he didn’t say it casually. He said it like it hurt.

  “No matter how much I might want to go out with you,” he says, “right now I just can’t.”

  That should make me feel better. At least it’s not something I did or didn’t do. If anything was going to send him swimming for the hills, it would probably be my lovely display of stalkerish behavior tonight, and that’s only a recent development in our nonrelationship.

  But it wasn’t me, and somehow that makes me feel worse. Because no matter how much I wanted it, no matter how much I worried about whether he liked me or even how much he actually did, it made no difference. He just . . . can’t.

  I feel the first tickle of tears and I know I need to get out of there before my brown eyes start sparkling like shiny copper and he sees exactly how much that confession hurt. So I lower my gaze, nod a couple times—either in understanding or saying good-bye—and I swim away.

  The tears start for real when I realize he’s going to let me go.

  I dash out of there—eager to start the long swim home before Riatus follows me out—and am just clearing the edge of the grove when something iridescent drifts into my peripheral vision. No, no, no. My heart starts racing again—this time I’m sure it is a panic attack—as I slowly turn to confirm my fears.

  Floating a few feet away to my right is a jellyfish the size of great white shark.

  Stay calm.

  I turn back the other way, only to find another jellyfish floating even closer. I spin around in a full circle, desperate for a way out. But I’m surrounded. On all sides, including above. I’m caught in a jellyfish bloom.

  And I know I’m going to die.

  4

  I thought you were leaving?” Riatus asks.

  Jellyfish, jellyfish, jellyfish.

  My mind can’t think of anything but the swarm of massive, deadly beasts that have me trapped. In some deep corner of my mind, I know that they are not close enough, dense enough to have me literally trapped. But I can’t move. I retreat, like always, into my panic.

  “Peri,” he says, his voice growing fainter even though he must be swimming closer, “you need to go home.”

  It happened when I was just a guppy, barely six years old. My family had gone to the Sea Star Amusement Park for the day. On the way home, my baby brother started chasing after me with a dead squid. We swam too far, not paying attention to where we were going, and before we knew it we were at the center of a smack even bigger than this one.

  He died almost instantly.

  I clung to life long enough for my parents to get me to the hospital. Physical recovery took a long time. Emotional recovery is still kind of a work in progress.

  “Peri, what’s wrong?”

  Riatus’s face drifts into my hazy vision. I try to focus on him, on his pretty, pale eyes and his dark, slashing brows. He looks worried. I don’t want him to worry. Not about me.

  I go through this every time. I know I do, I know I shouldn’t, and I’m still helpless to stop.

  He looks up and to the left, behind me. “Oh carp.”

  He’s seen them.

  His hands wrap around my upper arms. “I’m going to get you out of here,” he says. “Slow and steady. Okay?”

  I nod, because that’s the only response I can manage.

  He pulls me close, up against his body. One arm moves to wrap around my waist. It’s so strong and secure that I actually feel a little better. Like I can breathe a little more.

  Only when I drag in a deep breath, it pushes my chest into his.

  That causes a whole different kind of reaction.

  In a gentle, fluid movement, Riatus waves his tail fin. The movement sends us floating. Panic rises. What if he calculates wrong? What if he’s sending us right into the deadly tentacles? What if we get caught in them and their stingers spear into our flesh, overloading our nervous systems with their paralyzing toxins?

  My breathing speeds up and my vision starts to close in around me.

  “I’ve got you,” Riatus says, his voice gentle and soothing. “We’re going to be fine.”

  His fingertips brush my cheek. I close my eyes, narrowing my focus to his touch. Putting all of my faith into him, putting my life in his hands. And I trust him.

  I put my cheek against his chest. Every movement ripples through his body, against me, rocking me gently. It’s soothing. Calming.

  “Almost there,” he whispers next to my ear.

  I lose myself in the rhythmic movement. I push everything else out of my mind and focus on him, on the feeling of his body next to mine and the certainty that he will get me out of this alive. He will get us out of this alive.
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br />   I’m not sure how much time passes before he stops.

  “You’re okay.” He releases my waist and I shiver against the chill.

  I feel his palms on my cheeks, cupping my face in such a tender gesture that it breaks down my resolve to not cry. The tears build up behind my eyelids faster than I can stop them.

  “Come back to me, angelfish,” he whispers. “It’s over now.”

  I shake my head against the emotion coursing through me. If I open my eyes now, if I let him see what I’m feeling, there will be no going back.

  Then I feel his lips on my forehead. Firm and warm.

  I melt.

  When I open my eyes, I know they must look like glittering pennies. I don’t care.

  “Hey there.” His smile lights up the whole ocean. “Welcome back.”

  The most amazing thing is that I don’t feel embarrassed. I usually feel horrified after my panic attacks—what kind of freak just totally freezes up like that? As if turning into a statue does anything to help me survive a jellyfish bloom.

  But with Riatus I feel only relief.

  “Thank you,” I say.

  He drops his hands back to his side. “I remember hearing about the attack.”

  Everyone heard about it. My dad was a member of the king’s cabinet. When bad things happen to kingdom officials, word gets around.

  “You must have been, what?” he asks. “Seven?”

  “Six,” I reply. “I was six.” I roll my shoulders, self-conscious of the scars that crisscross my back beneath the veil of my hair. Sometimes I still feel the sting. “My brother—he . . . ”

  My throat tightens and I can’t say the words.

  Riatus nods. “I’m sorry.”

  I bite my lip, keep back the emotion. “Thanks.”

  We fall silent for several long moments. I’m trying to process all the emotion about the past and about what just happened. I have no clue what Riatus is thinking. Hopefully not that I’m the craziest mergirl he’s ever run into.

  “I shouldn’t have followed you,” I say.

  He looks back over his shoulder, back the way we came from. Right. Because not only am I the crazy mergirl who followed him halfway across town and turned into a basket case at the first sign of jellyfish, I’m also the crazy mergirl who ruined whatever plans took him to the Black Kelpforest in the first place.