Hidden Realms Read online

  Though from what Zeke had said, that might be even harder for me to do now than it had been before.

  Feeling nauseated, I drew a steadying breath and focused on tying my hair back in a ponytail. “Whatever you want is fine,” I told her.

  She was silent for a moment. “Were the dreams about… you know?”

  My heart jumped. I looked back at her. “Huh?”

  “Jesse.”

  My panic cleared. Of course she wasn’t asking about the ocean. I hadn’t told her anything about that and I wasn’t going to.

  I desperately wanted a car out of here.

  “No,” I said. “It was… other stuff. Nothing. It’s fine.”

  I tried for a smile.

  She didn’t look convinced. “You want to talk about it?”

  An incredulous laugh bubbled up inside me, though nothing was funny at all. Swallowing it back down, I shook my head. “I’m fine. Really.”

  I stuffed my pajamas back into the bag and then headed for the door. A moment passed before she followed.

  In the kitchen, Diane already had breakfast prepared. Fresh-baked muffins were piled high in a basket next to a glass carafe of orange juice. Bacon slices and eggs took up other plates nearby, all on top of a brightly patterned tablecloth.

  I picked up a muffin and a small plate, and then hesitated, my gaze twitching toward the view beyond the dining room table and just as quickly darting away. The sea air drifting through the open windows made shivers run over my skin, and tears wanted to rise at the feeling.

  I couldn’t be in here.

  Turning abruptly, I walked past Baylie, hurrying to the sitting room near the front door.

  I could feel her watching me the whole way.

  In the front room, I dropped into one of the stiff armchairs that flanked a tiny lamp table. Through the window, I could see the driveway and the gate that led to the road. Bushes lined the perimeter of the property, blocking most of the view of the neighborhood.

  Working to calm down, I drew a breath and then took a bite of the muffin.

  I needed to get out of here.

  Squeezing my eyes shut, I tried to push the thought away. I didn’t have a car, and I couldn’t exactly take Baylie’s. She sort of needed it to get home. But our ‘vacation’, or whatever it could be called now, wasn’t due to be over for another three days.

  And I wasn’t sure I could keep from having a breakdown for that long.

  My eyes stung. This was so stupid. My whole life, I’d wanted to visit the ocean. But that was normal, not because my skin turned to scales and some boy claimed I was part fish. Part fish. It was madness.

  I mean, sure, I’d been drawn to the water. But really, besides my parents, who wasn’t? Baylie loved it here, and Noah had as much as said he felt the same way as me. Plenty of people out there probably did too. Sailors, and oceanographers, and all sorts of people. There wasn’t anything weird about that.

  It didn’t mean everyone was a fish thing.

  Though I doubted many of them took a bus halfway across the country on some strange compulsion they couldn’t shake. A compulsion that made them nearly go out of their minds at the idea of being too far from the water.

  I swallowed. When I was a kid, I’d wished I was a mermaid. But I’d wished for a lot of things – among them, to be a bird, a princess, or if nothing else, just to be adopted. But that didn’t mean much. Lots of kids daydreamed about those sorts of things.

  And fantasizing about swimming through the ocean was a far cry from watching your body change into something else right before your eyes.

  Shivering, I looked back to the window. Past the gate, a gray-haired man strolled by, his hands clasped idly behind his back and his gaze drifting over the house as he walked along.

  The urge to hide struck me, as though from a hundred feet off, he could see the thing I was inside.

  I turned away, tears burning my eyes. It was ridiculous. I was jumpy and I needed distance from this place. From the ocean, and kidnappers, and boys who could talk underwater. But there wasn’t anywhere to go.

  Except home.

  My gaze dropped to the half-eaten muffin on the plate. It was an option. As weird as home could be, it was a strangeness to which I’d long since become accustomed.

  And right now, that’d practically be comforting.

  Drawing a shaky breath, I rose to take the plate to the kitchen. Mom and Dad probably weren’t too far away. And once we were back in Kansas, they could ground me till Armageddon if they wanted. I didn’t care.

  I just needed to get out of here.

  Baylie and Diane watched me as I came into the kitchen. Avoiding their eyes, I made a beeline for the counter and put the plate in the sink. Neither of them spoke as I left again, though it seemed like I’d interrupted them talking.

  And vain as it felt to think it, something in the way they looked made it seem like the conversation had been about me.

  Up in the guest room, I shut the door behind me and crossed to the nightstand. Grabbing my cell, I dialed Dad’s number and then waited as the line rang.

  No answer.

  My brow furrowed as the voicemail clicked on. I considered leaving a message, but hung up and then dialed Mom instead.

  Seconds slid past. The phone kept ringing. I glanced to the door, wondering if anyone else had heard from them since their message a few days ago.

  “Hello?”

  My attention snapped back. “Mom?”

  “Chloe?”

  “Yeah. Look, I was wondering–”

  “How are you?”

  I paused. It sounded like an accusation, not a question.

  “I-I’m okay,” I lied. “I just–”

  “Are you sure?”

  My brow drew down. “Mom, what is it? Why are you–”

  “Have you gone back in the water, Chloe?”

  I tensed at her harsh tone, feeling suddenly like I was five years old again. “No.”

  Which was technically true. Sort of, anyway.

  She let out a breath on the other end of the line. “Good. Don’t. Just… we’re on our way. We’ll be there as soon as we can.”

  “Where are you?”

  She hesitated. “Your father had a minor health issue. But he’s fine. The doctors–”

  “Doctors? What happened?”

  “It’s fine.”

  “Mom!”

  The pause came again, like out of a million responses, she was cherry picking only certain ones.

  “Your father had a very minor problem that required a doctor’s attention. But we’ll be on the road again as soon as he’s cleared to leave the hospital, which should be this afternoon.”

  I was speechless. Swallowing hard, I tried to regroup. “Wh-what was wrong?”

  “It’s not your concern.”

  I looked down, the phone still clutched to my ear. He’d really looked bad when I left.

  “Is he going to be okay?”

  She was silent for a moment. “We just need to get home and everything will be fine.”

  Guilt chewed at me. I’d run off, and then this happened. But if I hadn’t, maybe…

  “Mom, why are you guys so crazy about the ocean? I mean, is there something–”

  “We are not crazy, Chloe.”

  I grimaced. They were, but whatever. I didn’t want to argue. And I had no idea how to ask what I needed to know. Was it because I was a fish creature? A de-whatever or mermaid? And for that matter, were they?

  How was I supposed to say that?

  “Is there a reason, Mom?”

  A heartbeat passed. “It’s dangerous. There are… sharks. Diseases.”

  I let out a groan. She didn’t even sound like she believed the words.

  “Mom, what the hell is it?”

  “Don’t you swear at me, young lady.”

  “I’m serious! I… something happened, okay? I met this guy and he–”

  “What guy?”

  I hesitated. “Just a guy. But h
e said some stuff. About me. About the, uh…”

  “Chloe, you listen to me. You stay away from him. We’ll be there soon.”

  “Mom, please! Why are you so scared about the ocean? And don’t say it’s because of diseases. I… I know that’s not it.”

  I waited, barely breathing, and for the longest time, she was silent.

  “Mom?”

  “We’ll talk about this once we get there,” she said quietly.

  “Mom! Please, I need to know if–”

  “I said we’ll talk about it once we’re there! You stay out of the water, stay away from that boy, and wait for us, do you understand?”

  “But I–”

  “I mean it, Chloe.”

  She hung up. My hand shook as I lowered the phone and stared at the screen.

  I felt like crying. She never listened. Never. I had no idea when they were going to be here, and if they weren’t leaving whatever hospital Dad was staying at until this afternoon…

  A breath pressed from my chest as my heart began to pound. I had to get out of here. I didn’t want to be this thing. I wanted to be normal. To have normal parents and normal vacations and normal everything and I just–

  My arms hurt. I looked down.

  A shriek escaped me.

  Things were emerging from the backs of my forearms. In a single row from my wrists to my elbows and pointing away from my hands, spikes like translucent, iridescent knives pushed bloodlessly through my skin. With every second, they grew longer, gradually beginning to fan outward.

  “No, no,” I begged, choking on a sob. Shaking hard, my fingers tried to push them down, but they were so sharp, they pricked my fingertips. I could feel the pressure of the contact beneath my skin, though, as if the spikes were attached to the muscle and bone there. “Stop. Oh God, please stop.”

  A knock at the door made me jump. Frantic, I looked around, trying to find some way to hide my arms.

  “Chloe?”

  Baylie opened the door. Desperately, I dropped the phone and tucked my arms behind my back.

  “Yeah?” I said.

  She paused. “You okay?”

  “Fine.”

  Her brow drew down. “Well, um… we were thinking of doing a movie day. Maybe just hanging out here, taking it easy for a while. That sound good to you?”

  I couldn’t think of anything worse, short of going to the beach. Not right now.

  But I couldn’t say that. And I really needed her to leave. “Sure.”

  Her concerned expression didn’t fade. “You sure you’re okay?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Alright, well, we’ll be downstairs whenever you want to join us.”

  I nodded.

  She hesitated a moment more, and then left the room, pulling the door closed behind her.

  I let out a breath. Trembling, I brought my arms back into view.

  The spikes were gone. Nothing but my own skin remained, without a single trace that anything had been pushing through it only moments ago.

  Tears stung my eyes. I had to get out of here. I had to find some way to stop this, before something else impossible and horrible came along.

  And before anyone found out what was happening to me.

  ~~~~~

  We watched movies till after dark.

  And I barely remembered a single one.

  It hadn’t taken me long to ask the others if they wouldn’t mind closing the windows of the living room. The sea air made me tremble. My hands twitched to rub my legs or arms every few seconds, and by the time the movies were over, I was a cramped ball of muscle from trying to hold still.

  But thankfully, nothing else weird had happened to my body, and when I stood to help the others bring the popcorn bowls back to the kitchen, my relief at that simple fact left me shaking. Diane set to washing the bowls in the sink and Baylie grabbed a towel. Fighting to keep my gaze from being pulled toward the ocean, I took the dried dishes and returned them to the cupboards.

  While hoping every second to hear the sound of my parents’ car pulling into the driveway.

  Finally, the last dish was put away. Baylie hung the towels up to dry as Maddox and Noah called goodnight and headed to their rooms. Peter had gone upstairs a few minutes before, and without anything else to do, I returned to the living room to collect the blanket I’d been curled under for the past few films.

  I jumped as Diane touched my arm.

  “You doing okay, honey?” she asked quietly.

  “Y-yeah. I’m fine.”

  Her mouth tightened. “Chloe, you’ve been on edge since this morning. More than I’ve seen you since that horrible man attacked. Now, I know this isn’t quite the same as the hospital, but… has something happened? Is there some other reason you’re so tense?”

  She looked up at me, her brown eyes so earnest, I didn’t know what to say. I couldn’t hope to tell anyone here what was happening, and as much as I’d tried to hide it, the others obviously had picked up on how anxious I’d been. But the only option I could see for fixing this – and for staying human – was to get out of here as quickly as possible. How did I explain that?

  Struggling to find words, I turned away, my gaze landing on the view beyond the living room windows.

  A man stood by the bushes at the edge of the lawn.

  I gasped.

  “What is it?” Diane asked.

  The man stepped back through the bushes and disappeared.

  “Chloe?”

  “A man.” I pointed. “There. He was right there, watching the house. He–”

  “Peter!” Diane called.

  I stared at the place where the man had been standing while footsteps pounded on the stairs.

  “What?” Peter said, coming into the kitchen.

  “Chloe saw someone outside.”

  “Where?”

  I pointed again. “The bushes. Watching the house.”

  Peter nodded. He opened a drawer and drew out a flashlight. “You all just stay put.”

  He headed out the door. Baylie retreated across the kitchen toward us while, at my side, I could see Diane wringing her hands. Silent, we watched him approach the edge of the yard.

  The beam of the flashlight swept the bushes. A minute ticked past, and then he turned, coming back to the house.

  “He’s gone, whoever he was,” Peter said. He tucked the flashlight back into the drawer. “I’ll call the police though. Ask them to do a patrol of the area, just in case.”

  Diane nodded. Taking my arm, she steered me toward the hall. “You girls go on upstairs, okay? The police will take care of this.”

  She gave Baylie a pointed look.

  Baylie nodded. “Yeah. Okay.” She motioned for me to go ahead of her.

  Feeling shepherded, I fought the urge to look back at the window as I left the room.

  Noah opened the door to his bedroom as we came up the stairs.

  “Everything okay?” he asked.

  “Chloe saw someone outside,” Baylie said. “He got away, but Peter’s calling the police.”

  Noah looked to me and from the way his concerned gaze checked me over, I suddenly felt like he could see straight through me to the spikes and scales and God knew what else.

  “You guys alright?” he asked.

  I didn’t answer.

  Baylie nodded. “Just going to try to go to bed.”

  “Okay…”

  He was still watching me. I turned away, heading for the guest room.

  “Let me know if you need anything,” he finished, sounding confused.

  “Yeah, okay.” Baylie replied. “Thanks.”

  I kept walking, and pushed the door closed behind me as I reached the bedroom. Taking my cell from my pocket, I thumbed on the phone and checked for messages for the thousandth time. I’d had it in my pocket all day, just in case. But still, there was nothing.

  Behind me, I heard Baylie come into the room and shut the door.

  “Chloe,” she said flatly.

  I d
idn’t turn around.

  Making a furious noise, she strode across the room and grabbed my arm, pulling me around.“What’s going on? Seriously, I’m sick of this. Talk to me.”

  I tugged my arm from her grip and tucked it behind my back for fear of it growing spikes in her hand. Shaking my head, I looked away. “Everything’s fine.”

  She scoffed. “Yeah, right. You look like you’re about ready to climb out of your skin.”

  An incredulous laugh threatened to emerge. I choked it back down.

  “What’s wrong?”

  I shivered, my gaze rising to the view through the bedroom window. I couldn’t explain to anyone here. What was I supposed to say? I’m a de-thing mermaid creature with knife-like spikes on my arms?

  They’d think I was nuts.

  “Chloe, please. What is it?”

  I looked down, trying not to wince at her imploring tone. I wanted to tell her, though. Dear God, I wanted to tell her. I’d known Baylie since we were four. She was as close to me as a sister and we’d told each other everything for years. But this…

  A pained expression twisted my face. If anybody would understand, and not think I was a monster or a lunatic…

  Biting my lip, I turned back toward her. “Okay, look. I–”

  Glass shattered downstairs. Someone gave a shout, and then there was a crashing sound.

  For a moment, we were both paralyzed, and then Baylie spun and yanked open the door. I raced after her down the hall.

  Noah rushed from his bedroom.

  “What the hell?” Maddox cried, throwing open his own door.

  Not answering, we ran down the stairs.

  The front door stood open and the window of the sitting room was shattered. Somebody was making a dash for the end of the driveway, while Peter stood in the middle of the room with Diane in the hall behind him. On the floor, a man lay below the wreckage of a china cabinet.

  I gaped.

  Maddox started out the door to catch the figure fleeing toward the street.

  “Stay put!” Peter ordered, barely taking his eyes from the unconscious man. “Noah, call the police.”

  Noah raced toward the kitchen phone.