Chapter Six Mercer
Madelyn.
Madelyn is beautiful.
Madelyn is a wonderful mother.
Madelyn does so much—alone. With no help!
Thoughts of her rattle around my brain during my entire, uneventful shift. I tune out Samantha’s chatter about the new guy she met online, stuffing away my dismay and confusion at how quickly humans switch from partner to partner.
I just keep thinking about how it must be for Madelyn, caring for a clever, curious chatter-ball of energy like Zack, what it must take to keep him fed, entertained, bathed, safe, educated.
.. How hard it must be to be the only parent, the only breadwinner, to have to be a full-time mom and work at such tedious tasks to keep the bills paid.
Something in my heart rebels at the fact that Zack has to know little phrases like “pay the bills.”
He should only know simple childhood joys. He should have an otter. No, a puppy,” I mutter to myself.
But Madelyn would have to walk, feed, and pay for the care of a dog. Alone.
Where is the boy’s father? Where is a mate for that beautiful, loving woman?
It’s all I can do to stop myself from yelling, “Here!”
When Madelyn shook my hand today, I could see us together. With Zack. Hand-in-hand as he walks across the stage at graduation. I’ve never been to one, but I could see everything so clearly.
I know that’s a kraken thing. It’s the same as when she kissed me, and I saw so many flashes of a future with her.
She’s mine... But she’s so strong. She’s alone. She didn’t lose her mate and jump from one to another like Samantha did.
What if she’s like my mother? My father left, a slave to the “old ways” of hedonism and worshipping his own pleasure.
Other krakens offered to fill the void he left over the years, and she always told them no.
Strong, independent... In love with only one man, one who didn’t deserve her.
Protective of her only son, when other kraken families have a dozen children over their long lives.
I suddenly think about Madelyn accepting me, and the brothers and sisters we might create for Zack. Little girls with Madelyn’s blonde curls and turned-up nose, and maybe her coloring, but with long, graceful tentacles. Beauties on land or in water.
No one better lay an unworthy hand on my little girl, or mess her about the way Madelyn’s mate did.
“Why are you growling?” Samantha suddenly asks.
“I am not growling,” I snap.
“You totally were.”
“I hate unworthy human men.”
“Ohh. Oh, dude, I didn’t even know you liked the guys like that.”
“What? No! I am not contemplating how poorly I have been treated, but how poorly my mother was treated, and how poorly another single mother I recently met has been treated, and how if someone ever dares to mistreat my daughter in such a fashion, I will, by Poseidon, take him out to the depths and—”
“You have a daughter?” Samantha interrupts my threat—which is probably a good thing.
“No, I don’t. A hypothetical daughter,” I mutter.
“I never asked. Do you have any kids? A wife somewhere in the ocean?”
“No. Not married. No kids.” Not yet.
When my shift is done, I dry off and change out of my lifeguard shirt into a simple black tank top (I don’t like wearing shirts at all, but it seems to be the human custom, and when in Rome.
..). I’m going to brave the grocery store.
Why? Because I can’t just serve fish and kelp for dinner.
Not for a dinner that I want to make to help and impress Madelyn.
A salad. Should I go tomorrow? No, I need to go now.
I can keep things in my locker, provided they’re not perishable.
There’s the little fridge in the lifeguard locker area.
I can keep anything cold in there. The fish I’ll catch tomorrow.
Flowers. I should bring flowers. I don’t have a vase to keep them in.
I’ll buy a vase. Bread. What do humans eat with fish?
What do three-year-olds eat with pot pie?
I sit down on the bench in the locker room and open my phone.
“Calder? Call me back. Make sure Janet is there. I need to know what to fix a human for dinner.”
My cousin calls back almost immediately.
“That was fast,” I say.
“I could say the same thing about you. Weren’t you the guy complaining about women and fickle human-ness a few days ago?” Calder quips. “What happened? Who is she?”
“They,” I say.
Calder takes a moment to process. “More than one woman? Mercer...”
“One woman and her little boy. Madelyn and Zack.” The way their names sound to my ears, the way saying the words makes my chest suddenly feel a lightness I’ve never known, tells me that they’re special. That they’re the ones. My family. Mate and child.
“Aww. That’s cute. But dude, you know what to make a human for dinner. Krakens and humans can eat the same food; we just tend to be way more pescatarian. Does she like fish?”
“She seemed fine with the idea of a fish dinner, but not so much for the little boy. He doesn’t like fish sticks.”
“He’s probably never had a truly fine, fresh catch,” Calder huffs. “My boys love when we puree a little fish for them.”
“They’re half kraken, but yes, you’re probably right.
” I swallow around a sudden painful lump in my throat, one that’s not supposed to be there, that’s never been there before, not just from thinking and talking about someone still alive, anyway.
“I don’t think they get to experience fine dining that often.
The mother is single, and she has to work hard to pay the bills, takes care of Zack all alone, and then they just moved into town, so I cannot imagine what that must be like when one has to keep up a house and yard. ..”
All the things I will sign on for if I woo Madelyn successfully. No more sleeping under the sea, or traveling from current to current with only what I can carry in one severely sturdy, waterproofed case.
“I don’t think you’re Mr. Gourmet, either, Mercer. Janet says try to make things balanced and cohesive.”
All I can picture is a waiter not dropping his tray. “I have good balance. I can certainly carry enough things at once.”
“No, no. Like, not all meat, or not all vegetables. Vegetables, starch, protein. Something for dessert. How are you going to cook all of this?”
“At her house.”
“How are you going to refrigerate it?”
“There’s a small fridge in the lifeguard hut. No one else uses it. I think I’m the only one who even uses a locker. Everyone else just carries a backpack.”
“No one else lives under the water, huh?”
“No.” I live under the water. Always have. Planned to live that way forever. Suddenly, I’m wondering about in-ground pools and expanding the bathroom to put in a giant tub. “When you met Janet, did you know the second you touched her?”
“No. But almost that soon. She was mine from the first day—at least in my head.”
“I saved her son. He is a bright little guy, almost three, and he went out in the water with a babysitter of sorts. Got caught up in the excitement and tried to stand on her bodyboard like a surfer and—” I shudder. “It all happened so fast, but I got to him in seconds.”
“No one swims like a kraken,” Calder murmurs, voice hushed with sympathetic panic.
“When I pulled him out and handed him back to his mother, she kissed me. She... It was just gratitude, I know. Now that I’ve spent a morning with Zack, I think I’d kiss his rescuer, too. He’s truly a special child. So curious! Such a fast learner. God, he must be a handful alone...” I muse.
Janet’s voice is the one coming from my phone now. “Boy, you’ve got it bad.”
I want to argue, but she’s right. “It felt like I could see my life spreading out, in just those few seconds. Not like seeing the future, or anything, but it just felt right. The little boy against my shoulder, and her kissing me—and he kissed me on the chin, and oh, by Poseidon... I felt like everything inside of me turned to hot chocolate.”
“You’ve had hot chocolate?” Janet sounds surprised (and I can’t blame her, it’s not usually on the aquatic menu).
“Once, and it’s amazing. Not more amazing than this, though. It was like something ancient and magical was speaking to me. Sons and mates. Wife and children. They’re the true treasures.”
“Well, I can’t argue with that,” Calder says, voice ringing with pride. I know he’s holding Janet close, probably thinking about their children.
“I’m giving Zack swimming lessons. We touched today, Madelyn and I, just in passing, nothing romantic—and suddenly I had visions of us in the future.
Just one, but it was... oh, such a proud, happy moment.
” I don’t share the details. They’re too precious.
I want to hold onto them, keep that feeling of holding my wife’s hand and watching our oldest son walk across that stage, our boy, so grown up. ..
I shake myself. The other reason I don’t want to tell them about it is because I know it may never come to pass.
I’m not used to living among humans, and certainly not used to wooing them.
My knowledge about human society isn’t exactly lacking; it’s just that it’s always been more a matter of theory than of practice, and for all the ways humans and krakens are similar, sometimes I worry that the way we live and love is too different.
“Is there more?” Calder prompts gently. “You kinda stopped talking.”
“Sorry. Lost in thought. I feel as though Madelyn and Zack are meant to be mine. I know some ancient tales say that we will know our mate at once—and yet we’ve also slept with everything with sentience!”
Janet lets out a panicked-sounding squawk.
“Not Calder and me personally! Krakens of old. Old-old-old. I mean, look at Zeus. No, don’t look at Zeus, that guy is messed up. The point is, krakens were a lusty bunch.” I wince and hope Calder isn’t too mad at me for alarming his wife.