“Not planning on gardening today, are we, Daia?”

“Who is that? And how does she know which one we looked at?” Penni whispers through her teeth.

 “I think her name is Polyp. And it’s that thing on her desk,” Daia whispers back.

“My name is Plypa,” the old mermaid smirks, “and that’s right.” She waves a tentacle over the giant tablet on her desk. “This ‘thing’ is enchanted to alert me any time anyone pulls a tablet off of one of my shelves. And what exactly are you here for, Penni?”

“How does she know my name?!” Penni whispers in a high-pitched voice.

“I told you, it’s that thing!”

Plypa leans over her desk and scrutinizes Penni. “You look rather interesting, my dear. Where are you from?”

“F- far away,” Penni stutters, terrified of the eccentric old mermaid.

“Nope, not good enough. Where are you really from, dear?”

“Pokoka!” Penni blurts out, unable to withstand the mermaid’s probing voice. “I’m from Pokoka.”

“Pokoka? I’ve never heard of it. Where is that?”

Penni starts fidgeting. Do mermaids like humans? How will they react if she reveals that she’s really a human? Will they start singing horrible songs and drag her away to her death? She decides to lie, just to be safe. “It’s… it’s in the Western Seas.” Her dad has thrown that term around before, lamenting how much bigger the fish are there. “Yeah. That’s where Pokoka is.”

Plypa narrows her eyes and lifts the corners of her mouth slightly. “Fascinating. I’ve never heard of the Western Seas, either.” She leans closer. “Tell me about it.”

Penni panics. “Ummm… there are… fish… and uh… mermaids…”

“That sounds like a lot of places around here.” Her gray eyes pierce through Penni like she’s assessing her soul. “But I don’t think that’s where you’re from. I think you came from above the water. Land. I think you were a human.”

Daia gasps. “A human?! Humans aren’t real!”

Plypa leans even closer to Penni. “Oh, they are. And this one’s special.”

“I don’t taste very good!” Penni yelps.

“You’re a shifter.”

“A what?” Penni and Daia say simultaneously.

“And I’m so glad you’re here!” Plypa smiles and clasps her hands together. “I’ve never seen one of you in the flesh.”

The two young mermaids’ jaws drop.

“Shifter…?” Penni says slowly, her wide eyes never leaving Plypa’s face.

“Yes, dear, don’t you know?”

Penni shakes her head.

  “Unlike any other creature, your kind can use both land and sea magic. You can walk on land and swim through depths of the sea. You can wield the trident!”

“Woah. The trident is real?” Daia asks.

“Yes!” The mermaid exclaims. “It is!” She looks at Penni. “And this wonderful guppy will use it save us from the deep-sea creatures!”

“Hold on, hold on.” Penni puts her hands out. “You said I can walk on land. How do I do that?”

Plypa shrugs. “I don’t know, you’re the shifter. From what I’ve heard, your kind shifts by thinking about closing their gills and separating their tail into two legs. Imagining the feeling of it.” She beams brightly. “Not that it matters now! The trident is somewhere in this vast ocean.”

Penni is too stunned to speak. She can get her legs back. She can get away from the sea monsters and talking turtles and run back into Rea’s arms. Of course, her mother will also be waiting for her, but it’s highly unlikely that whatever punishment she’ll think up will be worse than what Penni’s experienced over the last couple of days. Her thoughts wander to her gills and her tail, imagining them disappearing and letting her walk free. Nothing happens. She thinks so hard about changing back that her head starts to hurt. Still, she doesn’t feel any different. She feels herself getting shaken out of her thoughts.

“Penni!” Daia says, “Are you listening? She’s offering us a place to stay!”

“Can you take me to the surface?” Penni asks.

Daia swims back in shock. “What? No, I can’t take you to the surface. That’s way too dangerous!”

“Oh, come now,” Plypa says as she searches her desk for something. “I know there’s a room somewhere in this place that can fit both of you. You can stay free of charge, as long as you promise me that you’ll search for Kipto’s trident.”

“Penni, please,” Daia begs, “please stay. I’ll even help you look for it! I think we’ll be strong enough to beat the deep-sea monsters if we work together. Even without the trident, what you did to those orcas was insane!”

“You’re exaggerating,” Penni mumbles. “We did that together.” She’s torn. She longs to be back home, but… she might be able to really help these mermaids. “You’ve never seen another shifter before?” she asks. “You’re sure I’m the only one?”

“Correct,” Plypa says.

“Yep,” Daia chimes in, “I always thought they were a myth.”

      After taking some time to think, Penni decides to stay underwater and help until she figures out how to get her shifting to work. That’s a fair compromise, right? she thinks. Like I have any other choice…

“Okay, I’ll stay.”

Daia pumps an arm up in the water. “Yes!”

“Wonderful!” The octopus mermaid swims out from behind the desk and gestures for Penni and Daia to follow her.

As they swim throughout the ornate shelves, a concerning feeling stews in Penni’s stomach. She isn’t nearly as excited about this as Daia and Plypa are. Thoughts blow through her head like leaves in the wind. I’m just one girl… I don’t know what deep-sea monsters are… Where will I even look for the trident? Why is it so special? Am I really a shifter? Who are my real parents? Her thoughts are cut off when Plypa uses her tentacles to move a small shelf and reveal a hole in the wall. It’s big enough for Penni and Daia to swim through comfortably but doesn’t seem big enough to fit Plypa’s massive tentacles. To Penni’s surprise, she’s able to compress her tentacles and squeeze through the hole with no problem. The three mermaids swim down a hallway that is lit with soft blue light until they reach the entrance to a small room. A large, flat rock leans against the wall next to the entryway.

Plypa waves her hand toward the entrance. “Well, it’s not much, but it’s safe, and you’re welcome to rest here until you feel ready to leave.”

Penni and Daia look at each other and then swim into the room together.

“Woah…” the mermaids say in unison. It’s not a wide room, but it is tall, and it has several spots to sleep in carved into the walls. Artwork and words embellish the walls and ceiling, and the multitude of different styles make it clear that the works were done by many different people over a period of many years. Some of the works are faintly lit by bits of light blue bioluminescence placed into the carvings. Penni swims over to a weathered carving of a turtle with plants growing wildly all over its back and delicately traces her finger over it, admiring the primitive art style.

“Yep,” Plypa sighs, “no one’s stayed here in a long, long time. I thought I’d never come across anyone that needed to use this room again.”

“This…” whispers a wide-eyed Penni, “this is definitely the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.”

Daia swims over to a bed and gently sinks into it. “Thank you, Plypa.”

“I’m closing the door, okay?” Plypa says from the hallway. “It’s pretty heavy. Call if you need help opening it. Don’t worry, I’ll hear you.” She uses her tentacles to roll the stone slab over the entrance of the room.

Daia’s face contorts in pain as she unwraps her wound. “Yeah, we’ll definitely need her help opening that. I could barely pull you earlier.” The gash isn’t healed yet, but it has stopped bleeding. “Penni? Could you cut that out and try to sleep? We had a rough day. You need to rest.”

Penni is floating up near the ceiling, examining a glowing carving of a merman holding his arm out and creating a current to move some fish. “In a moment…” She moves to a carving of an angelic fish with eyes that stare right back at hers. “Daia? What are deep-sea monsters?”

Daia curls up in a concave bed. “They come from the deep sea to hurt us. I don’t know why. You can protect yourself from them with bioluminescence… if you can afford enough. I’ve heard horror stories of mer who got dragged away while sleeping in the dark.” There’s a short pause. “My brother was attacked by one as a baby, and it almost killed him. I mean, we didn’t see what attacked him, but the water was dark. It couldn’t have been anything else.”

Penni’s mind flashes back to Daia’s home, where she saw the young merman with scars all over his neck.

Daia curls up even tighter and winces in pain. “I guess that’s really why I wanted to come to the city… I didn’t want to stay in my dark home.”

Penni tears her eyes away from the art and looks at Daia. “Your house is lit, though. I was able to see it in the dark.” Exhaustion starts pulling her toward a bed. “And I’m not sure why I’m needed down here if everyone already has a way to protect themselves from these monsters.”

“Yeah, Euphosian cities will be fine.” Daia’s arms wrap around her torso. “But my house is barely lit well enough. All the pearls my dad earns from selling the mussels go to buying light. All we can afford is the cheap stuff, the stuff that fizzles out after a little while. We live close enough to Euphos, though. I have it better than my relatives living in Dysphos.”

Penni’s vacant eyes blink a couple times. “What’s Dysphos?”

“Capers, have you spent your whole life on land?” Daia snaps in irritation.

“…yeah,” Penni says softly.

Daia’s tone loses its edge. “Oh. I didn’t know. I’m sorry.” After an uncomfortable pause, she sighs. “Euphosian cities are closest to the surface. They get enough light during the day and everyone can always afford to light their homes enough. Dysphosian places are different. Some get almost as much light as Euphosian cities, and some are almost as dark as the deep sea.” She shudders. “It gets really bad in the darker cities. People will do anything for light.”

There’s a bit of silence as Penni absorbs the new information. “So… you’re from Dysphos?”

“Yeah,” Daia answers. There’s another uncomfortable pause. “My parents left our crappy town when I was a baby. They wanted a better life for me, but we couldn’t afford to live in anywhere in Euphos. We got lucky when they found that skillina mussel habitat so close to Okipo City. I don’t think we would have survived without it.” Daia’s eyes hold immense sadness. “My parents carved our house with their bare hands… maybe I shouldn’t have left. Maybe they need me.”

“Daia… I would have died if I hadn’t found you,” Penni says. “I think we met for a reason.” And by the time I get my legs back, I think you’ll be strong enough to beat the deep-sea monsters by yourself.

Daia’s shoulders relax. “Yeah. I would have spent my whole life in that tiny house if I hadn’t met you.” She looks up at Penni. “I think you and me can make a real difference.”

Daia’s hope weighs down on Penni’s chest like a bushel of bananas. She finds comfort in losing herself in the artwork on the walls until she falls asleep.