Chapter 7
“Hehehe!”
The witch figurine jerked forward, green hands outstretched as Grace passed by it.
She jerked and jumped, pulling laughs out of her nearby friends.
Grace almost wanted to flick the witch’s long, winding nose, but held back, only throwing a pointed glare over her shoulder as they left the Riverside Cafe behind.
The darkened town greeted them eerily, with low hanging streetlights casting a shadowy orange glow across the ground.
At that point in the evening, the moon stood high in the sky, and there was hardly a soul out on the town.
Wings flapped over their heads and Grace raised her eyes to the sky, only to see dark silhouettes disappearing into the places she could not see.
Grace released a hefty sigh. “Damned witch got me on edge now.”
“Oh, come on, now!” Caroline spun around as she walked in the center of the road, waggling a finger at Grace. “Don’t be like that! Witches aren’t all that bad, are they?”
“That witch had green skin and that nasty nose.”
Caroline flinched, though Grace wasn’t sure why. “Have you ever considered that maybe that’s not what witches are really like?”
“No,” Grace drawled, smiling, “because witches aren’t real, Caroline.”
An awkward silence sunk through their small party as the trio of women shared another look.
Grace had the sense that there was something other than friendship that bound them together, though whatever that happened to be eluded her throughout the entire evening.
Their secretive connection might’ve offended her at any other point, but she was slightly tipsy from dinner, and was too grateful for the company to do anything to ruin it.
So Grace stuck through their shared silences, the moments that spoke the most words.
Caroline cleared her throat as she hooked her arm around an iron fitted lamppost and spun. “I know you haven’t had the chance to get to know Holiday Hollow yet, but it’s a special town.”
Grace smirked. “Wouldn’t that be biased? You know, coming from someone who was born and raised here.”
“Let’s look beyond that.” Caroline threaded her way back alongside her, watching her soft steps on the sidewalk. “Did you notice the welcome sign when you first came in?”
“Sure.” Grace closed her eyes as she walked, the image of the pale green billboard quickly coming back to her. “‘Welcome to Holiday Hollow, a haven since 1614.’ Right?”
The blonde pinched her cheek and squeezed. “Good girl! You’v got a degree, don’t you? A college degree?”
“What other degree would she have, Care?” Anna asked with an eye roll.
Caroline quickly waved her off. “Anywho,” she murmured, not pulling her attention away from Grace, who was beginning to eye her new companions peculiarly.
“Holiday Hollow attracts a certain kind of people, and they find this place to be a sort of…haven. A place that brings out who they really are. Their specialness.”
“I’m not sure how many times you can say the word ‘special’ before it loses all meaning,” Grace chimed. “But I think you’re starting to get there.”
Laughter sounded across the group as Caroline led them further down main street.
Grace gawked at their surroundings, greedily soaking up as much of the town as she could.
Lakeside Cafe led out into the main street, which followed the water’s curve before opening into the town square.
The road led into a wide roundabout that encircled a tall water fountain, where the silvery water spurted to the top and poured into the wide, stone basin.
Below the starlight, the water shimmered with the countless coins sitting at the bottom.
Small businesses and charming storefronts surrounded the water feature, all dark with their open signs dimmed or turned over.
It was absolutely darling, winning over Grace’s heart instantly.
Caroline grabbed her hand, tugging her back. “I mean people like you, Grace.”
“I think she means to say that you were meant to be in Holiday Hollow,” Olivia added. “After everything, you know. You would’ve come here no matter what.”
Grace shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t think this would’ve been Chuck’s scene,” her voice lowered to a murmur, “or Tiffany’s.”
“Forget Chuck.” Anna pinched her elbow. “Which shouldn’t be that hard.”
Grace laughed, though their insistence was beginning to startle her. She pressed her lips together and shrugged again, tracing her finger along a small patch of children’s drawings done in chalk on the pavement. “The town’s special. I get it. I don’t think that makes me special.”
“Only special people come here,” Caroline replied. “Tourists think it's cute, but they wouldn’t ever want to live here. Maybe they’d joke about it, but who would want to live in a town that’s perpetually trapped in a fairytale?”
Grace huffed. There was no doubt in her mind about that.
“This place changes people, Grace.” Caroline was nearing the water fountain, eventually taking a seat against the stone border.
“Not in the way that starting over changes you. This is deeper than that. This is much deeper than that.” She leaned forward, elbows resting on her knees. “Do you understand?”
Grace straightened as a chill passed by her. “Honestly, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Really, Care,” Anna grumbled with crossed arms. “You sound like you belong in a padded room.”
Caroline jutted her arm out toward her, flashing a single look of sharp annoyance. When she turned back to Grace, she was beaming, her slender brow wiggling. “How does a midnight dip in the water sound?”
“What water?” Grace blurted.
She gestured over her shoulder. “The fountain, silly. Where else?”
Olivia was already running to the fountain, eagerly kicking off her pumps and raising the bottom of her dress. Anna looked to be the one to convince, but that was hardly the case. She swiftly followed at her heels, even though her face might’ve not shown it.
“Y-You’re insane!” Grace shook her head and stepped back, unable to stop her sharp laughter from following. They weren’t waiting as they dipped their toes into the quiet fountain with musical giggles. She inched toward them, her lips pressed together.
“Come on, Gracie.” Caroline teasingly curled her finger. “You know you want to!”
Grace wanted to look over her shoulder, to peer into the darkness and imagine that someone was watching, but it would all be a fake excuse for what she really wanted.
Marrying Chuck was like stepping into a cage that had been made to look pretty.
But as the masks deteriorated over the years, Grace realized that there were chains around her wrists, not bracelets.
And the walls weren’t made of stone – they were of iron.
In front of her were three women around her age who had found the meaning to their lives, and were living it to the fullest. They jumped into water fountains past midnight.
They drank too much at dinner. They talked about things that didn’t make sense and trudged on afterward.
Grace kicked off her shoes and greedily picked up the ends of her purple dress.
That was all she ever wanted.
The next thing Grace knew, she was splashing water across the fountain, letting the sprays drench her nicest dress and drip down her long hair.
All of their makeup was running, their clothes sticking unpleasantly, their hair stuck to the sides of their faces – but none of it mattered.
There was only freedom, and they were grabbing it by the handful.
“This,” Grace breathed as she came up for air, the waves subsiding around her, “may be the greatest day of my life.”
Anna laughed a little too manically. “There’s the liquor!”
“Psst!” Caroline snapped her fingers above the water to get Anna’s attention.
Her eyes darted toward Grace before landing on the other woman in the same breath, the corner of her lip twitching into a frown.
But Anna wasn’t cooperating with her curt shakes and furrowed brow.
Finally, with a bright red angry spot forming at the center of her forehead, Caroline stomped her foot beneath the water, splashing them all. “Show her, Anna.”
Anna’s shoulders fell as she shook her head for another time. “How can you think she’s ready, Care? It’s hardly been a day! I-I just don’t think she’s ready. And too much –”
“Too much is too plenty,” Caroline finished the rhyme with a dismissive wave. She waded through the water to put a reassuring hand over her friend’s shoulder. “You know me, Anna. I wouldn’t do this too soon. She is ready.” Her attention turned to Olivia for a split second. “Right, Ollie?”
The red head twiddled her thumbs for a second as she eyed Grace. “Right,” she murmured. “I-I think.”
Grace held up her hands. “Alright now,” she snapped. “I think someone ought to just explain what’s going on.”
“Here goes nothing,” Anna whispered under her breath. “Tailornia!”
The word brought a rush of wind around them till Anna’s lower half was encircled by a harmless tunnel of air.
Her hair whipped back and forth as she was lifted out the water, a shimmering of colors bouncing off her legs.
The wind turbine gently brought her back down into the fountain, but she was no longer standing.
As the wind drifted away and the color sank into the woman’s porcelain skin, Grace became aware of two very clear things at once.
First, Anna’s legs were, in fact, no longer legs.
Where slender and sleek limbs once extended out from her gentle curves, was suddenly something out of a children’s movie.
Scales that caught the light and scattered it around in so many different colors made up Anna’s long tail.
Fish tail. Fish tail. There was a short curve in it as it reached the end, probably to help her swim faster.
Two smaller fins jutted out at the sharp end, in the same way that Grace remembered seeing mermaids in drawings or on film. Mermaids.
And the second thing was that Anna was currently swimming through the water fountain, just narrowly weaving around their legs.
Grace felt the scaly texture of her tail brush up against her bare legs and jerked, her eyes wide.
It reminded her of a time long ago, when her parents used to take her to the beach on special occasions and unpleasant fish rushed by her limbs as she swam deep into the ocean.
Grace’s chest heaved as she eyed Caroline and Olivia. She was doing a very good job at avoiding meeting Anna in the eye as she poked her head out from beneath the water. “H-How did you do it then?” she whispered.
Caroline squinted. “Do what?”
“The trick.” Grace motioned to the tail. “She looks like a mermaid. Y-You got me! How’d you do it?”
“It’s not a trick, Grace.”
Anna drew closer to her, till the tail was facing her.
Grace leaned forward, her heart racing. She knew it wasn’t real.
She knew it was fake, that it was mechanical, that it came from some shop.
Grace knew with all her heart that they were playing a fun prank on her, one that would stay with her till she was on her deathbed.
She knew that it was a prank – right up until she realized that it wasn’t.
Beneath her palm, the tail fidgeted and settled like a fully functioning muscle.
Grace pressed down and the response was more natural than she expected.
The tail swished and almost pushed back at her.
A slimy residue was left behind on Grace’s skin as she pulled away, but there was something much more that Anna’s tail had given her.
This can’t be.
But…
“I don’t…” Grace slowly straightened back up, her legs trembling. “This can’t…this can’t be happening.”
Caroline extended her arms towards her, using a gentle voice. “Before you freak out, just look at me, okay? Look at me. There isn’t anything unusual about me, is there?”
Grace shook her head.
“And Anna,” she pointed to the swishing mermaid, “this entire night, there wasn’t one unusual thing about her, was there?”
“But –”
“Holiday Hollow is a place for special people to have a haven,” Caroline interjected. She held her chin up pridefully. “Yes, Anna is a mermaid. Olivia is…well,” she placed a hand over her friend’s shoulder, “I’ll tell it how it is. She’s a vampire.”
Olivia sheepishly raised one shoulder and parted her lips, offering a sideways smile.
Her top row of teeth looked normal, till Grace noticed the sharp fangs that were growing out of them.
As fast as they revealed themselves, they shrank back into regular teeth, and Olivia was smiling with her lips firmly pressed together.
“And,” Caroline continued, the hesitation written in the worry lines coursing across her forehead, “I’m a witch, Grace. Not the green skinned, ugly nosed, mole-ridden witch you know. I’m real. We are real. And you – you’re the most real one out of all of us.”
“M-Me?” Grace shook her head till everything was shaking. “You’ve got the wrong girl. I’m not like you!”
Caroline inched forward. “That ‘dream’ you had wasn’t a dream at all, Grace.”
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“There is a word for those in our world capable of seeing glimpses of the future,” Caroline continued relentlessly, wading through the water to get closer to her. The moon positioned itself behind Caroline’s head, ominously casting a silvery frame around her tall figure. “Psyhic.”
“No,” Grace blurted, thwarted by a rising anger. “You’re wrong!”
Caroline pressed her lips together and flourished her hand.
Golden light that resembled falling sand fell from her fingertips and sprinkled down over Grace’s head, like a shower.
The specks started to spark till they were exploding like neon fireworks, lighting up the darkness.
But while it might’ve been a beautiful spectacle, Grace was far from the point of appreciating magic for what it was worth.
There were only alarm bells going off in her head, and they were all saying one simple thing.
Get out of there!
Before they could say another word, Grace leapt out of the water fountain and sprinted toward her car.
Her bare feet slapped against the rugged pavement till she arrived at the convertible, flailing with the keys till she managed to jump inside.
Within the same minute, Grace was speeding off, returning to a home that now frightened her more than she could ever understand.