Chapter 3
Three
Angie
Angie sat cross-legged on the floor once she entered her apartment three evenings after she met with Kaden and told the Mer-King and Mer-Queen about the unauthorized divers, his words a death blow to her heart.
“My mother is dead. Killed.”
When did it happen? Who killed her? Did this have any connection to the unauthorized divers Stefan saw?
Damn it, why didn’t he text her back?
Her family said they hadn’t seen Stefan since her chat with him. Kaden had no answers and was on his way back home; He said he would update her again once he reached the Northern Queendom’s palace.
Goosebumps arose on the back of her neck, the air from her open window suddenly feeling close to glacial, but she was apathetic to the temperature.
The tragic notion rang in her mind. The proud, resilient Mer-Queen was gone.
Angie had visited with her several times after the war was over and when she returned to Creston during school breaks.
She wasn’t sure Serapha ever fully trusted her, or any other human for that matter, but she had become more receptive to her with each visit.
Two months ago, she’d started sharing stories of her own and the two would sit and talk until Angie had to leave, or Serapha was called away to her duties.
More than that, Kaden lost his mother, only two years after his father was slain.
She would touch base with him in a few days, when he should be home, if he hadn’t updated her by then. After checking her calendar, she could take the upcoming long weekend for Martin Luther King, Jr. Day to fly to Alaska, console him, and pay her respects to the late Mer-Queen.
Angie opened her contact list with one hand, her other rubbing Lulu’s head when the cat sidled up to her.
Her purrs sent vibrations through Angie’s thigh and hip.
A check of her phone revealed it was four o’clock in the afternoon.
Which meant it was three o’clock in Creston, and Bàba would still be at work and have Wi-Fi.
With a heavy heart, she dialed Mia and Bàba and put them on a three-way video call.
Bàba answered after the first ring and Mia answered two rings later.
“Hi, mèimei!” Mia chirped, clad in a wooly sweatshirt and comfortable leggings. She was on the couch in her living room, her fireplace lit and roaring behind her; she must have been off work.
“Beibei? Aren’t you supposed to be in class?” Bàba furrowed his brow and looked down. “And Doudou? What’s going on?”
His phone shook as he walked and stopped briefly to call out an order to someone nearby.
“Kaden told me Serapha was murdered.” The words shook as they left her lips.
“What?” Mia burst out, hand flying to cover her mouth.
Bàba stopped where he was. A frosty silence befell them.
Angie gripped her phone so hard, the tips of her fingers became bloodless. “Bàba? Do you know something about this?”
“Stefan called me. After talking to you, he said. Told me about the suspicious divers.” His voice quavered.
“Have you heard from him since then?”
“No. Ken told me he went out of town for a few days trying to find out more about those divers.”
That explained Stefan’s silence then. Reception around their town was questionable.
“Did you ever find out who the divers were?” Mia cut in. Her seven-year-old daughter, Rosie, popped into the room and waved at the phone, and muting her microphone, mouthed something at her. Rosie bound out of the room.
Angie wanted the answer to that too.
“No. Nobody saw them come back up. We suspected they exited the sea somewhere else.”
Of course. There were multiple entry and exit ways from and around the Creston Docks, and it wasn’t atypical for divers to enter one way and exit another depending on the conditions of the sea, especially if they were drift diving.
“So, that’s it. They’re gone. Nobody knows who they are, or where they went to even ask them.
” Angie released her grip from her phone, her shoulders dropping as the tension left her system.
“For now. They might not even be Crestoners. Those divers could have come from any town, any city nearby.”
“Why didn’t you tell me when you found out? This happened a few days ago.” Angie gritted her teeth. Bàba’s penchant for withholding important information from her ground on her nerves.
“I didn’t know until today either,” Mia muttered.
“We don’t know if they had anything to do with Serapha’s death. It’s suspicious, yes, but not factual. I wasn’t going to come to you on mere suspicions,” Bàba replied, his tone matter of fact.
Angie exchanged a wary glance with Mia. It was why Bàba withheld the reason for Māma’s passing so long ago. Because he wanted to be sure. She took a shaky breath.
“It’s too much of a coincidence though.” Mia spoke Angie’s thoughts into existence.
“Yeah,” Angie echoed, hollow. What betrayals had those divers committed?
Did they know who they had killed? Her station?
Did they assume her to be a mer commoner?
Her gaze flickered briefly to Mia, whose face had become even whiter than her usual snowy skin.
The telltale beep of Bàba unlocking his car blared in Angie’s ears, and he stepped into his Toyota Tundra, slamming the door shut.
Angie’s heart sank and planted itself in her stomach. Their collective silence deafened her.
Bàba rested his head on the steering wheel, closing his eyes and opening them after a moment.
Shit, shit, shit. Angie’s chest grew tight, her breathing shallow.
Mia removed her hand covering her mouth, a tremor in her voice when she spoke. “Wh-what’s going to happen? With the Mer-Queen gone, does the treaty still stand?”
From Bàba’s end, his engine rumbled to life. “I assume not. But I’m not sure. The mer have not been coming around as much in the past few months, save for some groups of young ones. They’ve left the fish alone and haven’t acted hostile since Serapha was killed.”
“Something’s brewing.” Angie’s voice dropped to a whisper.
Immediately images of the devastating tsunami and maelstrom came to mind.
They must be planning something and she shuddered at the possibilities.
“We have to find out who did it before things get worse.” Now she remembered.
“Kaden’s on his way back to Alaska. Hopefully he can negotiate and avoid a war, rally the merfolk.
” Hope, perhaps false, tinged her words.
Her legs grew numb from sitting and she stuck her head out her open window to breathe in the fresh, crisp air.
On her end, Mia shook her head, brow furrowed and lips in a straight line.
Bàba spoke again. “It will only be a matter of time before they strike.” His voice lowered. “Because if I were in their place, I would do the same. But hopefully they will not make any moves without a leader. Is Kaden next in line to the throne?”
A melancholy air settled over Angie’s head. “Cyrus would be. But last I heard, he’s still not healthy enough. So yeah, Kaden would be the successor.”
“Hey, we must get going. I hope Kaden can settle them down, but it won’t be easy.” Mia faced Jack when he toddled into her room and she waved to them, leaving the call.
“He’ll handle it.” Angie dropped her gaze to her feet. Bàba appeared satisfied by her answer and said his goodbye.
Angie stepped back into her apartment, plugging her phone into its charger.
The conversation with Mia and Bàba had taken a toll on her old phone, the battery having gone from one hundred to fifty percent.
She refilled Lulu’s water and kibble and walked back outside, sitting at the stoop at the front entrance of the apartment.
Her own words, ‘he’ll handle it’, rang hollow. She didn’t know what Kaden was planning, but she had to say something to comfort herself and her family for now. And she knew he didn’t want the throne, but surely, he would do the right thing and be the strong leader she knew he could be.
Deep in the far corners of her heart, she worried, and though she loved him, she recalled how things were at the docks two years ago. When the workers were in a frenzy, determined to kill the mer and pounce at a moment’s notice.
When the mer were irate against the humans, brutally spearing and strangling and drowning her colleagues and friends.
The scars on her side and abdomen from when Serapha and her sentinel speared her during their stand down reminded her every day.
One stretched from the bottom of her ribcage down to her hip and curved around in the shape of a hook ending at her spine.
The other, smaller scar was over her abdomen, jutting out in a jagged line from either side of her bellybutton.
A brief bloom of localized achiness sprouted from the area of her scar, as if it heard her thoughts and sought to make its presence known.
As memories of the horror back then threatened to fill her mind, Angie squeezed her eyes shut, tried to push away the memories, and clenched her fists together. It was only a matter of time until the mer fought back.
They could only hope to buy some time and prepare themselves—if it wasn’t too late already.