Chapter 4 #2
And now, she was giving me the chance to take my life into my own hands. I wouldn’t be confined to the deepest part of the sea.
The potion was warm in my hand, the liquid swirling with an otherworldly blue glow. It was everything I had hoped for. This would allow me to leave the ocean, to walk on land as a human, to experience the world I had only seen from the surface of the water.
Finally!
My aunt’s words echoed in my mind, ones she’d spoken before: You don’t have to run away to belong. I quickly dismissed it.
“Thank you, thank you!” I said, and Aunt Lorelei held me tight before letting go.
“Hurry, child,” she said.
As I reached the mouth of the lair, I froze.
Someone was there. Waiting for me.
“Mo?”
Humu swam faithfully beside me, a nervous look on his face.
Mohala paled when she saw me, her eyes darting from me to the potion in my hand.
Mo had always been the one who understood me best, the one who never called me strange or freakish, the one who had always smiled when I expressed my yearn for something more. Yes, she scolded me too, even when she understood.
But now I wasn’t so sure.
Fear clouded her eyes, like murky water after a storm.
“Aulani.” Her voice trembled. “What is that?” She pointed at the blue, glowing vial.
“It’s my choice, Mo,” I said. “I can’t marry the man of the brine.”
My heart sank, sensing the shift in my sister’s gaze.
“No,” Mohala interrupted, her voice sharp, almost panicked. “You don’t understand what you’re doing. Once you drink that, you’ll be…” Her voice cracked. “You’ll be lost to us. Gone.”
“I won’t be gone. I’ll still be me. The world out there is waiting for me. Besides, I don’t fit here, Mo. I’ve never fit in, and you know that. But in the human world… maybe I could belong.”
My sister’s face twisted in anguish, and she swam forward. “You don’t belong there, Aulani! You don’t know what that world is like. They’ll hurt you. They’ll see you as a thing, a monster! Don’t throw everything away! Stay with us!”
The words hit me like a wave crashing against the rocky cliffs. I wasn’t na?ve.
I wasn’t just throwing my life away. The human world called to me, and there I would learn. Grow. Explore. But Mo’s fear twisted in my chest like a cruel knot, tightening the more she spoke.
“I understand you better than anyone,” Mo said, and straightened out, steely resolve in her eyes. “That’s why I can’t let you make this mistake, Au.”
Before I could reply, Mo’s eyes flickered to something behind me, a shadow lurking on the edge of the rocks that made up Aunty Lorelei’s lair.
I turned just in time to see our mother, her face edged with stone coldness, and my father, now appearing tall and imposing, his triton in hand.
His eyes narrowed at me as if he already knew what had happened.
My heart stopped.
Mo betrayed me. The moment I had waited for all my life… and Mo betrayed me. My parents hadn’t just found out–they had been waiting for me to slip up. They knew I’d leave. They knew I’d go to the surface, and they knew Mo would tell them.
“It wasn’t just you who was going to get into big trouble,” Mo said through tears.
She’d been waiting outside the doors to the throne room that day… because my parents spoke to her first.
She betrayed me. It was all I could think of, my breaths short, my mind working itself into a frenzied panic.
“Aulani.” Father’s voice was like thunder, the weight of his authority falling on me now. “You will not disgrace our family like this. You will stay, and you will accept your place next to the king of the brine.”
Couldn’t breathe. I knew what was coming, especially as his golden triton lit up.
“You will stay,” he said, his voice filled with finality.
I glanced at Mo. Guilt and fear filled her face; I had never seen that kind of fear in her before. The world shifted around me, the ocean’s gentle sway turning into something darker, heavier.
Magic….
There was no time to explain. There was no time to convince them that I had set my heart or that my calling–this destiny–was beyond the sea.
I had to go. I had to flee.
Without a word, I swam as fast as I could towards the surface. “Don’t hurt her!” I could hear Humu behind me, risking his life to distract my father.
“Stop her!” The king’s voice boomed throughout the water. It felt as if the water turned against me.
Just like swimming against a current, I told myself, pushing through. But my father’s magic was stronger.
“No!” another voice screamed.
Aunt Lorelei!
And suddenly the current’s pull lessened. Magic bubbled around me, golden from my father and emerald from… Aunt Lorelei? Water whizzed past me as I pushed to the surface, potion in hand. Once I reached the shore and turned human, father could not touch me.
I’m so close.
The surface neared, moonlight breaking through the clouds above.
And that was when the surrounding water shimmered… then shifted, like it was moving, getting displaced by some other water…
I gasped.
The ocean turned icy. Heavy. Salt vanished from my senses, and I felt a tug unraveling in my chest.
This isn’t the ocean.
And then light. Blinding. Piercing.
Cold air. Fresh air.
I burst from the water… and everything was wrong.
Gray skies. Thick, lush trees. Misty mountains and waterfalls like cliffs around me. The warm salty winds were gone, as were the waves.
And there was nobody following me. I was not in the sea anymore. I clutched my shoulders and looked around, the sound of something croaking in the distance.
Tears fell from my already fear-stricken face. “Where am I?”