Water: The Mermaid Legacy Book One

“Stranger things have happened, Luke,” Josh replied defensively.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Like Mokele-mbembe.”

Luke burst out laughing, shaking his head and muttering about stupid superstitions.

“The what?” I asked Josh.

“Mokele-mbembe is supposedly Africa’s version of Nessie, the Loch Ness monster,” Luke butted in still giggling.

“There are dozens of cave paintings proving its existence, Luke,” Josh replied angrily.

Luke laughed again. “Well, at least you have that with Mokele-mbembe, what do you have on the fish-people? Nothing.”

“So what you’re saying is that you won’t believe it unless you see it?” I asked him, not liking the way he was treating Josh at all.

“Yeah something like that,” Luke replied.

“So then, the wind doesn’t exist?” I shot back, my voice laden with sarcasm.

He laughed, some of the tension easing. “What does the wind have to do with anything?”

“Well, you can’t see the wind,” I replied, smiling to take the bite out of my words.

“Of course you can,” he replied, still smugly assured of his argument.

“No she’s right,” Josh interrupted him, “you can only see the effects of the wind, not the wind itself, so by your argument the wind doesn’t exist.”

Luke harrumphed, looking fed up. I didn’t want to upset him, the tentative thread of friendship still a lifeline I was holding on to.

“What if we go and look for evidence,” I suggested, trying to placate both of them.

“Where?” Luke asked, sounding incredulous.

“Well, for one we could try the internet,” I suggested. “Surely if the fish-people have actually been around for hundreds of years there would be some reports or sightings of them. If there’s nothing on the net, they probably don’t exist.”

“Not a bad idea,” he replied thoughtfully, “but I’m going for a swim first.”

“Me too,” said Josh, leaping up and packing his fishing gear away.

I trailed behind the boys, my mind spinning with the intriguing legend Josh had related.

I didn’t doubt that the possibility existed for such creatures to inhabit the planet with us. The few times my family had gone to the beach, I’d been utterly fascinated with the sea, spending ages staring at the ever-changing blue and wondering what secrets it held. From a tiny child I’d had dozens of books on ocean life, and as many documentaries, each new piece of information sparking more and more questions about the creatures that inhabited the alien world that covered most of the planet.

It was, in my mind at least, entirely possible that humans weren’t the only sentient life on earth, and that there were creatures equally as intelligent as humans that lived in the ocean. After all, we know so little about that world, only able to spend, at most, an hour or so under the water.

The question I couldn’t answer was what on earth they were doing four hundred kilometres from the sea?

Luke and Josh were already cannonballing into the pool when I got back to the house. I changed quickly into my pale yellow bikini, shuffling to the pool wrapped in a towel before stepping cautiously into the water.

I blushed as Josh whistled at me.

‘Looking good there, Ally Cat.”

I didn’t jump into water any more, mainly because that’s how I’d got into trouble that day with Brent but, more recently, because I preferred my bikini to stay on the newly developed curves of my body.

Before Brent’s accident, swimming had been a sort of refuge for me. I’d competed nationally in swimming competitions and, when I wasn’t training or doing homework, I was in the pool, floating on my back, or diving underwater, the thick silence a relaxing haven from the world above.

I remembered games I’d played as a kid, pretending to be a dolphin, or a ray, or some other oceanic creature, longing to be able to stay submerged for longer than the short time I could hold my breath.

As a child I’d had vivid dreams of swimming in the ocean, completely submerged, twirling and spiralling in the currents, drifting in the great kelp forests that looked, to me at least, as comforting as a lullaby as they swayed in the tide.

Now, though, I was wary of water. It held a dark fascination for me, one I was too afraid to entertain.

Josh and Luke had pulled lilos into the pool, Luke pushing a spare one towards me. We climbed, laughing, onto them, slipping and splashing each other as we did so.

The boys had been sidetracked from the legend of the fish-people by a local rugby game that was on that afternoon. They spent a good ten minutes discussing tactics and team strategy before the conversation lapsed enough for me to change the subject back to the legend.

“Josh,” I started, swishing my hand in the water so that my lilo faced him better, “what are the fish-people supposed to look like?”

Luke laughed. “You really believe there might be some half-fish half-human thing in the mountains?” he asked incredulously.

“It’s not impossible,” I replied with as much dignity as I could muster. “Anyway, while you guys watch rugby, I’m going to do some internet research, and it would help if I had an idea of what they’re supposed to look like.”

He laughed again, before tipping out of his lilo and swimming to the edge of the pool. “I’m going to make lunch while you two dreamers make up stories.” He pulled himself out of the pool.

I turned back to Josh.

“Sorry about that.” He waved his hand in Luke’s direction. “He’s been a bit grumpy the last few days hasn’t he?”

I grinned and nodded.

“Yeah, it’s just ‘cause he can’t go on this youth camp because…”

“I’m here?” I guessed.

Josh blushed, looking sheepish. “Yeah, there’s this girl he’s interested in… anyway, he shouldn’t take it out on you.”

“So the fish-people?” I asked, wanting desperately to change the subject.

“Well, I’ve never actually seen one myself,” he admitted, “but they’re apparently very humanlike, except that they can breathe underwater.”

I hadn’t expected that. My mental picture of them had been a typical mermaid picture – a human torso and head, and fishlike tail.

“You mean they have legs?”

He nodded, grinning. “Yup, apparently you wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from normal humans, except that they’re supposedly really beautiful, unless of course you find yourself underwater with one of them.”