“Wow, is that from one of the storms these last few days?” Mrs. Wilson seemed to recognize the damage, which was more than either of the two adolescents with her could say.

“Uhh… Yes. Sort of. I wasn’t here when it happened so you’d have to ask Steve about it.” Tristan scratched his head and began to move back down the stairs.

Mrs. Wilson, still examining the damage grabbed Hazel by the shoulder before she could follow. “You kids wait.” She tipped her head to the side and raised a pensive hand to her chin.

In Hazel’s experience, it was never a good sign when her mother wanted her to wait while she investigated something. Pieces of driftwood, new history books, squirrel drays she somehow mistook for bald eagles’ nests… it was a done-to-death trap. But no museum interpreter could possibly know that.

“Is there anything… you’re interested in up there?” Tristan handled the situation not only patiently, but enthusiastically, returning to the top of the stairs and scanning the room for whatever was worth their attention. The light? No. Some broken glass from a cracked window? Probably not. A hint of motion and a faint scratching sound from behind a pile of temporary repair supplies?

“You have… a cat in there. Ruining the original, eighteenth century floorboards!”

The beach had been clear. The waters not far from it? They were a bit dead and creepy. Rhea had waited as long as she could for the deadly algae to die and the mess it left behind to wash away, but it took awhile for everything on the coast to return to normal even after the toxins dispersed. At the shadowy edge of her usual territory, a rotting shoe rolled in the current. Behind her, a gentle slope led back to the beaches. Ahead of her, a steep drop led to a trench full of twinkling lights. The deep mer lived there.

She didn’t know much about the deep mer. They were similar to adaptable merfolk like her, but they never left the water. When things like frost stones broke, they knew how to repair them. They could travel the world as quickly as humans without being spotted, and many were enamored with collectible figurines. By tradition, most of their culture would be a secret to all their surface-going kin under the age of twenty.

A bright new light began rising from the trench. It flashed blue and green and was much too large to be made by a fish. Rhea turned on a waterproof flashlight she’d brought with her and signaled into the trench. In response, a long, muscular young woman emerged from the darkness carrying the source of the light- a flashing lantern.

Her tail had a sheen like a wet city street reflecting the lights, but the human upper body was covered with a dark top that blended into every shadow. As was common for deep mer messengers, her face was cautious- one could never be sure who or what was coming to visit.

She extended a large crab shell to Rhea, who pressed her finger to a glass screen embedded in it. ID. It didn’t just determine who she was, but what she weighed, if she was sick or injured, if she had any genetic defects and what her percentage of human DNA was. The deep mer could talk, but messengers were often in a hurry and skipped formalities. Their job was to communicate with merfolk like Rhea who might otherwise be cut off from their world. Answering questions, explaining medical treatments and fixing things were the usual routines. Rhea was there to ask questions.

“I’m here to get help with my singing voice.” She stated as the messenger peered into the shell like a kaleidoscope. “I need to know what can snap a person out of it and how to make it stronger.”

The messenger did nothing to show the question had been received. Tipping the crab shell away from her face for a brief moment, she scowled. “It’s like you have a tapeworm or something, but it’s a little wrong for that.”

Rhea scowled back. Knowing there wasn’t even a ghost of a chance she had a tapeworm to be detected, she could guess this was a way to brush her off. “That isn’t my question!”

“Well deal. You can wait a few seconds.” The messenger spoke down to Rhea like an irritated parent reprimanding a child. “I need to send your scan to HQ. A worm is more important than... What were you saying, again?”

Rhea folded her arms and glared. “A person got pulled out of my trance. What makes that happen?”

The messenger continued to fiddle with her shell, still appearing inattentive. “Loud noises? If you crack back to your normal voice at all? And no one seems to listen when I tell them, but you can’t make people do anything too hormonally involved. So no dirty commands.”

These were mostly things Rhea already knew. If she was interrupted by a shocking sound like an emergency siren or a car horn, her hypnosis could be shaken off. If her voice cracked, of course it wouldn’t work- that was usually Tristan’s problem. Anything dirty? That was new, albeit something she’d never considered. There should’ve been nothing hormonal triggered by a cat though.

“What about pets? Can they get in the way?”

There was no response. The messenger was angrily jabbing the glass inside of her shell and bouncing the lantern, which created an effect like rave lighting. “The results of your scan might not be in for a week or so. If you have any trouble, I think there are herbs you can use to kill gut parasites.” Without another word, she dove back into the trench, taking her dizzying light and any answers she may have had with her. In a short moment, the light from the lantern was completely swallowed up by distant shadows.

Frustrated, Rhea sank nearer to the sandy sea floor and screamed. The disgusting old shoe that had been rolling around brushed against her tail. As slimy and worn and full of algae as it was, she put her gag reflex on hold to pick it up and wing it at the trench.

It would’ve been wiser to notice the current first. The shoe stopped in less than two feet and drifted back, hitting her tail again. This time, she felt something hard scratch on her scales. As the shoe slowly rolled down to its original position, a bronze-colored pocket knife with a strange orange glow slid out of its frayed sole.