Chapter 4 Wren
Four
Wren
I watch as Tourist Girl walks past Nerissa, finish helping the little girl and her mom, then turn back to the stoic Captain
McCleave and throw a stuffed starfish at his picture. It bounces harmlessly off the glass but I still wheel forward to retrieve
it, ready to take aim again when hands clamp down on my shoulders from behind, hard enough to force a grunt out of me, as
Tate’s laughter rings in my ear. “Hey, man. I’ve been looking all over for you.”
I side-eye my best friend and his Rhode Island Sucks T-shirt. “Where?”
“I don’t know.” He rakes a hand over his dense, coiled hair that is barely a shade darker than his deep brown skin. “Out front?
Here?”
I huff out a laugh. “I’m stuck in the gift shop until Bethany shows up.”
Tate points a thumb over his shoulder. “I just saw her coming in.”
A moment later a middle-aged red-haired woman blusters in with the usual excuses about hectic mornings and faulty alarm clocks.
“If you could call next time,” I say, or, I don’t know, answer a text, “that would help.”
“You got it, boss.” But we both know she won’t, just like we know I’m not the boss. Yeah, sure, I could complain and maybe
my dad would fire her, but then I’d be stuck in here all the time instead of just when I’m covering for her. It’s not like
we’ve got a lot of people begging to work at McCleave’s.
“We’re running low on Nerissa necklaces. I need to go grab some from the back room.”
Tate falls into step beside me, his long, lanky strides easily keeping up as I push my wheelchair without any real force.
“Are you working today?”
He shakes his head. “Little dudes are driving me nuts.” Tate has eight-year-old twin brothers. “Figured I’d keep you company.
Unless you’ve got a tour group waiting.”
There’s no one gathering around the Tours Start Here sign, so I guess not. “Why, you want to try your hand?”
“Hey, I’m here to mop floors and occasionally work the gift shop,” Tate says. “Not to give in-depth lessons about stuff that
your family made up a hundred years ago.”
He’s not wrong about his role—or the exhibits. For some reason, I scan for Tourist Girl among the guests and catch a glimpse
of her ponytail disappearing around the corner toward the Grotto, a dimly lit room meant to mimic an underwater cave with
a bunch of fiberglass rocks, fake plywood shipwrecks, and a fog machine that gives you a headache if you stay too long. I
quicken my pace. I’d really rather she not come back out here until I’m gone. “Please tell me the FeeJee mermaid is still
being repaired.”
Tate bares his teeth in a grimace. “It’s fine. The lighting over there is bad, so instead of an actual monkey-piranha nightmare come to life, it’s more like a shadowy monkey-piranha nightmare. Bonus: no photo of your great-great-whatever-grandfather claiming he found it.”
“Just the cage he supposedly trapped it in,” I mutter.
“Right. Forgot about that.” But Tate is grinning now. “Speaking of mermaids, Eryn got her new tail. She show it to you yet?”
“She mentioned something.” I wheel toward the door marked Private: Employees Only.
Shaking his head, Tate strides ahead to push it open. “Another fundamental difference between us. If my girlfriend was an
actual mermaid, I’d be front and center for that fashion show.”
“She’s not an actual—”
“Hey, hey, be careful what you say to the now official captain of McCleave’s Famous Mermaid-Sighting Tour,” he says, backing
into the room with a smirk. “On Tuesdays and Saturdays from 9 to 11 a.m., she’s as real as Nerissa out there.”
“That real, huh?”
Then I stop, immediately hit with the smell of dust, stale coffee, and the faintest trace of old wax that never quite faded
from the building’s past life as a candle factory as the door swings shut behind me, sealing out most of the light. The space
feels cooler, the kind of dim that makes you instinctively blink to adjust. “Wait—does that mean you passed your certification
class?”
Tate grins and switches on the overhead lights.
The fixtures buzz to life, throwing a dim yellow glow over the expansive room, once the production floor.
It still holds some of that history—the exposed beams stretching high above, the scuffed wooden planks that creak underfoot—but now it serves as the museum’s multipurpose space.
“Feel free to start saluting me anytime now.”
I don’t salute him, but I do pull him in for a hug, clapping an arm around his back. “And this is how you’re celebrating?
Why aren’t you over at your uncle’s shoving that paper in his face and telling him it’s time to make good on his promise and
finally sell the Siren’s Call to you?”
Tate flops onto the sagging green velvet couch that, along with two mismatched beige side chairs and a scuffed oak coffee
table, forms what passes for an employee lounge. “He’s off-island for the next couple of months, but I’ll be there waiting
the second he gets back.” He stretches his arms behind his head, staring up at the ceiling like he can already see his future
mapped out there. “This was my last hoop, so as long as he doesn’t raise the price again, by the end of summer, I’ll be the
owner of the sweetest twenty-six-foot Classic Crosby Launch to ever grace the seas.”
He dives into his plans for a private charter company—his dream since high school—while I wade deeper into my own reality:
sifting through storage shelves for trinkets to pawn off on tourists. I push the bitterness down, eyes skimming over crates
of old display artifacts—historical pieces that no one else cares about. Instead, I focus on the task at hand, spotting a
box of Nerissa necklaces and hauling it onto my lap, gritting my teeth against a wave of self-loathing as I do.
“Hey, you think I should start signing my name Captain Tatum Raleigh?” From out of nowhere, he produces a bag of sour cream–and-onion potato chips and starts munching. He’s never not eating. The guy should weigh a million pounds; instead he looks like a strong breeze would blow him over.
“As long as you don’t start wearing the hat Eryn gave you everywhere.” I pass when he offers me the bag on my way back out,
only to stop just before I reach the door when my legs start to spasm.
Tate’s seen my legs bounce often enough that he doesn’t comment. My spasms don’t hurt—but they’re annoying as hell. My quads
jump and twitch like I’m riding an invisible bull. Hanging on to the box, I press my free hand against my thigh, trying to
force the muscles still.
A minute passes. I have anti-spasm meds, but I never take them. They only sort of work and I don’t like pills.
So I deal with this crap.
Another minute goes by.
Tate watches me for a beat, then gestures at the box. “Want me to run those over to the gift shop?”
I hesitate, jaw tight, before handing it over.
He salutes me with a chip on his way out.
He’s nearly out the door before I’m able to will my frustration away and say the word thanks.
“Never have to say it, man.” He knows I appreciate the help just like he knows how much I hate needing it.
My legs eventually settle, leaving the constant pins-and-needles feeling sharper than usual as I push out into the lobby—only
to spot my dad in full Poseidon mode.
A groan builds in my throat, but I swallow it down.
He’s standing near the exit, surrounded by a half circle of eager tourists, his white shell crown gleaming under the lights.
A fake beard, trident, and even a ridiculous padded-muscle chest complete the costume.
He looks like a cross between a superhero and Santa Claus as he waxes on about all the mermaids he’s seen along our coastline.
And the worst part? It works. Even Tourist Girl is listening from a few feet away.
“You can see them too,” he proclaims with practiced enthusiasm. “Just sign up for McCleave’s Famous Mermaid-Sighting Tour.
Not only will you learn all sorts of history about Nantucket—pirates, smugglers, shipwrecks—but we guarantee that you’ll see
a real live mermaid.”
I will my legs to spasm again, just for an excuse to leave.
They don’t.
“Our guide is a direct descendant of none other than Captain McCleave himself. He alone knows the secret location where Nerissa’s
kin still swim.”
I feel it coming a second before it happens.
His gaze lifts and settles on mine.
I barely have a second to brace myself before he sweeps an arm toward me with a flourish.
“There he is now!” he announces, his grin unwavering. “Wren, come tell these people about the tour.”
Every head in the room turns.
I clench my jaw so hard it aches.
It doesn’t seem to matter how many times I’ve told him I don’t want to be an act the way he inexplicably does. When I was
a kid, I tolerated it. Barely. I preferred reading, combing through the museum’s original collections—the ones with actual
historical value. But as I got older and my resemblance to my many-times-great-grandfather increased, Dad stopped letting
me stay in the background.
I finally agreed to take over the boat tours, not because I wanted to play into any of this, but because they get me out of the museum.
On the water, nobody complains too much about the actual history I choose to share as long as it all ends with a mermaid sighting, which, thanks to Eryn, it always does.
At least I got him to stop insisting I dress up the way he does.
Dad calls my name again, his voice thick with expectation.
I don’t say a word. Instead, I jerk my chin toward the gift shop, where Tate and Bethany are already handling customers, before
pushing my chair in the opposite direction, ignoring the way Dad’s grin falls as several people, including Tourist Girl, take
flyers.