“Gram, do we have any pictures of my Daddy?”

“Your…what?”

***

Mandy and I traverse the final set of stairs in almost total silence. 

I don’t like silence, and this one is uncomfortable in a thousand ways.

Mandy is definitely irritated with me. I’ve never seen her keep quiet for more than 20 seconds at a time, and those silences were always because she was eating something. Now, she seems set on ignoring me, and I don’t have anything to say that wouldn’t get me suspended.

Maybe I am angry. I have a right to be, don’t I?

People like her can’t understand what it’s like to suffer like us and they never will. They can be as glib as the like.

It only betrays their ignorance.

Mr. Alcott thought mermaids never got married just because ‘our kind’ didn’t care too. But all of his freaky tests and studies couldn’t knock a little sense into his head or show him the obvious.

Our women HAVE to clone themselves, otherwise we’d go extinct. It’s far too dangerous to marry someone who isn’t a phant, and as far as my grandmother can tell the only reason mermaids have lasted this long is because of our unique ability to copy. 

It seems, all our brothers went extinct ages ago.

So yeah, maybe boy talk isn’t exactly fun for me.

I can only imagine what it’s like to have the liberty to live a ‘normal’ teenage life. To make new friends whenever I want to, keep them if I want to, go where I want to, and date who I want to with only the normal amount of danger.

Not the danger that my life will be over if…when…they all find out my freaky little secret.

Not that it matters, since Mr. Alcott’s stats that Judith never meant for me to see say there’s a 1 in 8 chance I’ll reach adulthood.

My safety has been compromised too many times.

So why bother trying to hold onto anything or build anything worth wanting to keep? I’d just make it harder for myself when It’s finally time to let go.

I’m not even allowed to attend sleepovers or lock-ins. I can’t go on a day trip without the company of my harbor parents and a notice sent to my ‘social worker.’ I’m forbidden to compete in official races or state-level competitions because I might be RECOGNIZED FOR MY POTENTIAL, and that’s unacceptable.

Keep your head down. Blend in. Be normal. As normal as you can possibly be cuz you’ll never not be a freak.

Yeah.

Don’t think I don’t hear the janitors talking about it before I round the corners. They’ve all made a lot of fun names for me AND Judith.

And the jerks wonder why she rejects them.

Which came first, the “mer-mommy” or the egg?

Judith tells me that dating is a waste of time, and if anything, I should be focusing on building skills that will help me get a job when I graduate-

A day way too close for comfort these days-

Because she won’t be able to care for me anymore.

No matter how much her presence gives me chills, that thought is still terrifying, and I think it scares her a little bit too.

I excuse myself for manner's sake and turn down the hallway as Mandy makes her way to the front. I hear the noise of cars and motorcycles passing by grow louder and then muted again as the door opens and closes with a glass clack, but I ignore the smell of gasoline and burning rubber that comes with it as I pass the corner I would normally turn down to reach the bathroom and keep on until I reach the “haunted” part of the school.

The instance I step into the hallways, I feel the temperature change. Probably because of the lack of windows and sunlight.

There are smoke stains on the walls, which Mandy told me came from kids sneaking into the abandoned bathroom with cigarettes to avoid teachers. The nasty smudges seem to crawl across the wall in a ghostly trail, leaving long aspish tails behind them that criss cross over each other.

I’m not typically the type to believe that anything could be haunted. In fact, since I was small, I’ve prided myself in saying I was ‘too smart for that silliness.’ 

But if 5-year-old me could see this place, she might think twice.

Dust and abandoned spider webs riggle in the corners of the short hallway that’s almost too well lit and the unnatural glow that seems to bounce back off the dirty white walls makes me think of lonely gas stations at unholy hours.

I can understand why even the teachers avoid this bathroom, though it’s way closer to their lounge than the other more trafficked one.

If they’re paying the janitors to take care of this place they should be fired.

The door is unlocked, so I slip inside, pulling a bobby pin out of my hair as I do, to lock it behind me. As the lock clicks, a spider the size of a plum scuttles across the floor behind me and my heart almost literally stops, but I tell myself to calm down.

Of all the things I’ve had to fear, I’m not about to be freaked out by a slightly less-than-tiny bug.

Heading straight over to the first sink, I scrub it out with the last scrapings of cucumber and mint scented soap from the wall-mounted dispenser and then rinse the porcelain about a million more times, so that the cobwebs actually make it down the drain.

Next time I’ll have to smuggle some cleaning solution from home.

I wonder what I’d say if Therese caught me?

Never mind that now.

Taking a deep breath I plug the sink and fill it to the brim, to repeat that trick Judith taught me.

I guess, in some ways, it pays to have someone study you.

When I was about nine years old, Judith learned that the dermal rivers that allow me to drink water through my skin only appear when I’m submerged in water up to my temples for a minimum of 30 seconds. My whole life in Iris Wood the only way my grandmother and I knew to bring our rivers to the surface was by bathing or swimming, but apparently, we can also trick our bodies, by submerging only our heads.

Plunging my face into the pool of water, I breathe deeply and steadily until I feel my skin begin to open in the muggy, dusty air.

Quickly, I stand up straight again and begin scooping water out of the sink to rub it up and down my bare arms. When my skin has finished swallowing, I pat my arms and face down with my shirt until the rivers dissipate again. Then, I grab my tinted lotion from my backpack and thoroughly cover my spots.

I never feel quite as confident using the lotion as I do using foundation and concealer, but trying to run with all my pores clogged is a nightmare.

After yesterday, I might just switch to lotion for good.

By the time I’ve changed and gotten out to the track, everyone but Hazel is already there. 

Coach Cameron doesn’t comment on my tardiness, but I still see the subtle shake of her head.

Running late for track is irony at its finest.

I have GOT to move faster next time. 

There are only so many lies I can tell. 

It took me about 15 minutes today, but there has to be a way to shave off 5 or 6 minutes at least. Is there a shortcut anywhere near the haunted bathroom, or a back door?

Where does Marilee disappear too when she needs to rehydrate, I wonder?

Assuming that she’s a mermaid I mean. Her hair is always damp, but that could just be because of the Jheri curl, though I’ve never seen her spray it down in the regular bathroom.

Then again, I’ve never seen her before today and it doesn’t matter.

She has absolutely nothing to do with me.

I turn my attention back to Coach Cameron just as Hazel jogs up with the whole front portion of her tee shirt soaking wet.

“Catastrophe with the sink,” she rolls her eyes, looking at Mandy and Me, and we both nod and shake our heads at the same time.

I’m glad I had the sense not to change into my sportswear until after I rehydrated, or Hazel and I could have arrived looking like twins in the worst way possible.

“At least it’ll help you cool off a bit,” Lexi quips, from where she’s already on the ground stretching, and Hazel smiles half-heartedly.

“Good point. It’s sweltering these days.”

“That it is,” Coach Cameron sighs in her cowgirl accent, “And I know a lot of us aren’t as eager as usual about running around this heat. So why don’t we make today's practice a little fun, ey? How do you girls feel about a relay race?”

Several other girls applaud the idea, so I agree along with them, just crossing my fingers that I’ll get to run first in whatever pairing I end up part of. The other girls are all fast enough, no shade to them, but I really need to burn off this frustration and confusion before my nerves get any more frazzled.

I feel jumpy, and being jumpy is always suspicious.

“Mora Glas.”

“Yes ma’am,” I reply a little too quickly, worried I wasn’t listening again, but Couch Cameron just drawls on in her passionless way, scribbling on her clipboard.

“No need to be formal, Sugar. This isn’t the military. You’ll be paired up with Amanda Ling since I knew you two were gonna pick each other anyway.”

Mandy pumps her fists and high-fives me, clearly over whatever frustration she was feeling earlier.

Wish I could say the same. 

“We’re gonna smoke these geeks,” she laugh-whispers as Coach Cameron mumbles on.

“Hazel and Jennifer. Marcy and Leela. Chloe and Lexi. Amanda, Hazel, Leela, and Lexi will run first. 10 laps then pass your partner the baton. Forget the whole countdown. Just go go go.”

All the girls blast off but Mandy pulls in front of them in just a few strides thanks to her huge advantage in height.

I try to close my eyes and just visualize myself running, preparing myself for the moment when Mandy will hand me the baton, and I can tear across the dusty path like I’m running away from every horror I’ve never been able to shake yet.

But as the other girls start cheering on their partners with chants of “Book it Lexi! Come on hurry!” all I can hear is Heloise shouting at us:

“Hustle you three! Run like the snake man is coming for your skin. Do you want to wake up in the freak show with a dozen creepy strangers paying to see you cry? Do you want to be stuck in a tank like some kind of overgrown goldfish? Get a move on!”

Mrs. Rayford used to tell Heloise not to scare us so much, but every time her mother wasn’t around, Heloise would pull us to the side and whisper a horror story in the most chilling tones she could manage.

Her favorite was the one about Vermeil and Carmine.

They went into the woods away from their grandmother’s house, but by the time they got back, there was nobody there.

“Someday,” she would say, in a tone like ice, “None of us are going to be here to take care of you guys. Somebody will find us, and kill us, or drag us away, and you’ll never see us again.”

But I thought I was too smart to believe her.