I can’t stay still and keep on pacing an old, dreary room inside the lighthouse. Floorboards are creaking plaintively. Time flies, but my company doesn’t rush to come. They should've been back ages ago! Where are they? It was stupid to lose my nerve and leave Doris with two problematic humans. I do hope he doesn’t cause a scene again and embarrass the mermaid.
I peer out the stained window: the road that runs down is lonely. The rhythmic sound of waves only irritates me.
What am I doing here? I must be at home. Of course, Ash will cover me, but elders’ favorite won't miss a chance to read me a lecture on how we should follow the rules or try to get all information from me. I’m not a little fawn anymore, but Ash can’t understand that he has not become my patriarchal patron and protector after Willow’s death. I desperately don't want to owe him anything. And not only Ash: everybody in my clan looks at me as if I will never be able to be happy, will never be able to heal my heart. Just even to think about it makes me powerless and dependent.
I cautiously perch on a three legged stool looking at dancing specks of a dusty room. Been ages since we'd visited the place. Ages... He's grown up so fast! It seems that only several summers have passed. And now he’s a big man who’s taller than I. Just one more moment and Sylvester will lie in his deathbed weak and wrinkled. I lower my head out of sadness. Poor Doris! I wouldn't wish this on my worst enemy. The images of old, feckless Marina and Sylvester make me close my eyes tightly and shake my head to dash away their ashy, pigmented faces that are haunting my thoughts.
We really need to get in touch with siblings. Having known that I saved him, ginger starts asking too many questions about me and my kins. It might jeopardize the lives of my people, and it’s definitely not a moment to repeat the mistakes of the past! None of the dryads deserve my sister’s fate.
Vera must know at least one oblivion spell to make Sylvester forget about me and the dryads' society. There’s no point in asking a witcher, no doubt. Pfff, I won’t even talk to him: all that Alex wants is to get me into bed. And Doris... let Doris deal with her human girl as she wants. I angrily shake finger at empty space. No, no, no. Humans are not my problems.
***
My patience has run out, and, getting a rough estimate of where they could be now, I jump out of the palm tree and stand tall on the sandy beach. It’s so white that gives an impression of a dead snowy ground. I squirm looking at the ocean that is monotonously licking the shore.
After every jumping I’m always confused a little: my real creature senses are refusing me. One second I’m a part of a tree, next moment I’m Juni again. That’s why it seems that I’m absolutely alone on the shore, but it takes me maybe two winks of my eyes to feel that the mermaid is twenty elbows away from me.
She’s sitting on a flat bolder that is being disgustingly tongued by the waves. Again, and again, and again. Some bad feelings make me giddy. I can’t see her expression and what she’s looking at, for her black human coils are covering the most part of her face. Doris doesn’t even bother to brush them away.
I come silently closer. I know that she feels my aura too. I hesitate. I part my lips just the moment Doris liberates her countenance.
“Your eyes!” I gasp in fear. “What have you done to her?!” In dismay and despair I stare at the ruthless ocean surface. “You promise not to do it again! I know he deserved it then, but your girl... a coin... Doris!” I almost scream, rocking her shoulders.
“She’s alive,” the mermaid answers listlessly.
“Bbut your eyes?! Bblack again...” I stammer treacherously.
“I know,” she doesn’t move; her hands are taking a tight grip on her knees. “That was an accident. I never expected it from myself again. It’s the first time from before.”
I let myself relax and take a deep breath. I feel Sylvester’s aura and smell remnants on the sand that go away from this place. But where is the girl? I try to concentrate; her smell is lingering here and on Doris mostly, but it doesn't make sense, the trail just stops here. I look with disbelief at my friend.
“In answer to your silent question, Juni, she’s in the forest. She won’t come out.”
“Don’t leave me hanging, mermaid, and don’t soft sell it,” I hate this spiritless in her voice.
“I didn’t want her to get heatstroke or sunstroke and brought her under the trees.”
“And that’s it. Sure, sure!” I say, narrowing my eyes.
“We were sitting here, and she looked so fragile and easy to catch. My predator instincts just kicked in, all right?” she looks at the waves under her feet. “I told her the truth about myself.”
“And?”
“She did not even react! I’m just a fairytale for her. An adorable little mermaid that speaks to funny fish and crabs. I don’t chat with them: I devour them! I can tear a shark or a whale if I feel famished or bored!” I can barely look at her, for mermaid’s eyes seem bigger and darker, her incisors and canine teeth sharpened slightly.
“Of course you are a fairytale! Wake up your undead brain: she’s a human. What did you expect her to do?” I sniff. Then add with interest this time, “If you didn’t scare the girl with a “dreadful” confession, then what?”
“I had an impulse to grab her and drag into the Ocean. Old reflexes,” a muscle on her jaw cramps. “So I took her there,” Doris points at the rich vegetation. “I was sure I could calm down away from the water, but she was like a treat on a silver platter... I wanted to show her that I’m not her human goddess, but a predator undead.”
“You forced yourself upon the girl,” I find it rather expected: a typical method of some creatures. Humans are ruthless, but they are easy prays too, for they know nothing about us. None in the creature society will bother to protect them: rape, kill or eat humans just don’t leave any evidence.
“Are you insane? Certainly not! It was she who begged me!” she turns away from me, “Besides, she might be under the charms’ effect. Without it, she would never have compared me with the goddess or pleaded me...”
“What charms? I don’t feel any external magic on her or any magic in general. Just a normal human aura.”
“Not the direct spells. I mean the potion effect,” Doris seems to speak more than she wants.
“What have you done again?” I cross my hands on the chest.
“I didn’t know then that her ginger is just a friend. I was terribly afraid to lose her, and siblings gave me a love potion. I used just a tiny drop. They assured me the potion was harmless and light. Anyway, it did not work on her at all. I reckon it could be a delayed reaction to it; the individual characteristics of an organism...”
“Did you really believe them? There are no light love potions; and there are no delayed reactions. Trust me, you would immediately know that it worked, for she would not be herself anymore,” I say, thinking that the mermaid must be really crazy in love with the girl. Being in her right mind, she wouldn’t have thought of doing it. “All love potions unexceptionally strong; they simply torture and refract normal psychic. Do you have any idea what you might have done to her if she wasn’t already in love with you?” the mermaid is gazing at me as if in amazement. I can’t believe this idea hasn’t come across her mind before. “You would drive her crazy in the end,” that is a somber note on which I stop lecturing her. We both avoid calling the girl’s name as if it, as an eerie witchcraft, might invite disaster.
Doris’s body doesn’t look like a stature on the grave anymore: her eyes are changing and turning into pleasant brown ones with funny golden specks. She has now become herself again. Slowly my friend covers her dark, glowing face with curled fingers, “I’m just a disgusting undead. He was right having decided to call for a village priest!”
A wind got up; it’s unpleasantly tearing her hair and by bangs.
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