Mermaid 8

"The very best chance. The tide was high and I was as reckless as your brother."
Cordelia chuckled. Dallas was always getting in trouble that Father had to save him from.
"I was pushing the edge, swimming to the new flooded beach, watching the people on land."
Cordelia nodded. The surface people were fascinating if you could get past their tendency to use the ocean as a waste bin. Cordelia hadn't gotten past that yet, not really.
"Were they dumping?" she asked, voice hard.
Father laughed. "No. They were fishing though." That made Cordelia mad too, but less so. Big fish ate little fish and big shore people needed to eat too, she supposed.
"Did any catch you?" she asked, teasing.
"No, but someone else did."

Mermaid 7

"Can I go there?"
"You look like her," Father said, reaching out and touching her blue-green hair. Most of the other mermaids had green hair that resembled seaweed, but Cordelia's had always been a bit different, a sheen that made it sometimes green and sometimes blue. The scales of her tail were the same green as her father's, the same as Dallas and Meri and all the other merfolk she knew.
"How did you meet her?" Cordelia held the dead fish a little more tightly, something of her mother's.
"Chance. The very best chance."

Mermaid 6

"What is it?" Cordelia asked, looking even more closely at the fish her father now held. It looked a bit like a Bonito, but no one would confuse the two.
"It comes from another sea, a very small one. There the water is blue."
"Have I ever been there?"
He gave the fish back to Cordelia. "A long time ago, when you hatched. This fish comes from your mother's lake."
Cordelia stared at her father in confused wonder. She didn't know anything about her mother, except that she had gone where Cordelia and her father couldn't follow. Cordelia also knew she didn't have the same mother as Dallas. Nym was her aunt, a woman she could turn to, but not a mother.
"Mother," Cordelia murmured, staring at the strange fish. "Can I go there?"

Mermaid 5

Cordelia toyed with the fish. She knew she should ask her father, but something made her hesitate.
"Anything wrong, Cordy?"
"No," she answered, stroking the mysterious fish. It didn't take her father long to notice it.
"What do you have there?" he asked, flipping his green tail and moving closer.
"Something Meri found. I've never seen one like it, but it's familiar. How can that be?"
Her father held out his hand and Cordelia gave him the fish. His eyebrows shot up and he gasped. "Where did Meri find this?"
"She said it fell from the people on the surface, off one of their boats. You do know it."
He frowned, looking angry, but his voice wasn't loud. "I don't know it," he said softly, "but I do recognize it."

Mermaid 4

Taking the fish with her, Cordelia left Meri behind as she swam to the wreck and her family. Dallas was leading his pack of friends toward the same destination.
"Hey, little sis," he said, moving toward her. His friends followed and soon she was surrounded by bodies and tails. More than one brushed her as they passed.
"Hi, Dallas," she said without enthusiasm. "What are all of you doing here?"
"Hunting!" One shouted and then all the boys started yelling and chasing one another. Cordelia used the commotion to escape into the wreck.
"Dallas?" Father called. "Are you coming to further ruin our home?"
Cordelia laughed, imaging the boys doing just that. "Not yet," she answered, "but they are circling outside, waiting to strike."
Father emerged from his hidden corner of the wreck, his strong broad shoulders nearly brushing the collapsed opening. "Are they now? Well, I shall have to barricade you in here so they can't find you." His smile made light of the threat, teasing her.

Mermaid 3

Meri grabbed for the fish, but Cordelia held it tight.
"It's mine," Meri whined.
Cordelia blinked, chasing away thoughts and memories. Looking at the scales, the dead eye, she passed it back to her friend.
"I'm sorry. Of course it's yours."
Meri held the dead fish to her chest for a moment, hugging it. Then she looked at it again and wrinkled her nose. "If you want it..." She held it out to her friend.
Cordelia took it slowly, turning it over and over. Fish, rolling, blue.
"Are you okay?" Meri asked, touching Cordelia's shoulder. "I didn't think you would be this interested in it."
Cordelia shook her head and apologized again. "I'm sorry. There something familiar about it, even though I'm sure I've never seen one like it. How can that be?
Meri shrugged. "Think your dad would know?"
"It doesn't hurt to ask."

Mermaid 2

Meri poked her green head out of the coral, right where Cordelia expected. "Don't be a spoil sport," Meri teased. "Come in!" The head popped out of sight again and Cordelia swam to follow. Turning onto her back, she looked up at the brilliant sun overhead. It nearly blinded the mermaid that was so used to the dark. Light reached her home at the bottom of the sea, but only a little and filtered. This pierced the water, like a knife cutting through to Cordelia's eyes.
Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut. When she opened them next, she was in the coral next to Meri.
"Look at this," her friend said, knocking out a piece of coral to reveal her treasure. "It's very different, very human."
Human garbage was constantly sinking, polluting the ocean. Even the wreck Cordelia lived in was something deposited by the people on land. Most of it, the merfolk simply ignored, but this was different.
"What is it?" Cordelia asked. The fish was dead but looked as though it might start swimming again any moment. That freshness made it clear to both mermaids that this wasn't any species they had seen. "Where did it come from?"
Meri shook head head. "I don't know. It fell from one of their boats."
Cordelia continued to turn the fish over in her hands. She was sure she had never seen one like it, but at the same time, it was familiar, like something she couldn't quite remember.