caves one by one, we break the surface to see the interior aglow with the neon algae and the pink glowworms hiding in the crevices of the rock. The garland Marina and I worked on earlier lines the walls of the cave, giving it a botanical feel. Everyone mingles around the rock outcroppings which hold shellfish and seaweed salads. Glasses of dark wine travel around the room, pilfered from an unlucky ship earlier this week.
I wasn’t surprised when I heard Brea was put to the task, remembering what she said about close observations of the human world. Her ability to sneak in and out of a place undetected is uncanny, like a shadow in the dark. Just the other day she was telling me about these gold bangles she snatched off a Hollow Bones ship in the middle of the night. While the men were three sheets to the wind, she boarded the ship, completely unnoticed and grabbed whatever she fancied. If it weren’t the Hollow Bones she stole from, I might have felt a pang of pity for the poor ship, but the Hollow Bones deserve every foul bit of luck thrown their way.
From the way Brea speaks of the Aqualasians, you would think she walks among them. Lives in the villages with them. She must be incredibly stealthy to get so close to the lives of humans without being spotted, slipping into our waterways and observing us from close quarters.
Music plays from somewhere within the caves, light enough to be heard over the rushing of the waterfalls. I scan the area for the source, and finally find it at the far corner of the caves. A small group of mermaids create music with only their voices and a few instruments created from the sea.
Marina quickly finds me and hands me a glass as we make our way towards Calypso, who is conversing with merfolk from other pods. Whereas our pod typically forgoes finery, these creatures speaking with Calypso are bejeweled in glittering gold chains and bejeweled armor. They look beautiful and fierce, but it must challenge their movements as they travel through the sea.
As we near, Calypso spots our presence and extends her arm out to me as she says, "Thanks to my brave descendant, Cealene, change is upon us all." My cheeks heat at the attention as the strangers take me in. The weight of my fate to break this curse is starting to feel heavier than the weight of the crown. I should be used to this by now, the stares and expectations of strangers, but I’m not. The weight of their stares cracks my shell of confidence, exposing the soft interior within. “By the next violet moon ceremony, may we be free." The others nod and cheer, clinking their glasses to one another before taking in a heavy swig. Marina and I clink our glasses and drink deeply, knowing the end is near.
After Marina and I mingle for a bit, Kai and Okiro direct us to the party. Okiro looks much better than he did at the start of the night, his smile brighter than ever in the glow of the cave.
"Your favorite," Kai offers a fresh scallop still in its shell to Marina. She takes it into her clawed hand, her wicked smirk revealing the small dimple in her cheek.
"You remembered," she sings. "Are you trying to flatter me?” Marina tears the scallop from its shell and pops it into her mouth.
"Maybe," Kai teases. "Is it working?" He looks at her with glittering eyes, like he's just discovered light for the first time. She moans in pleasure as she chews the shellfish.
"Get me another one, and we'll see." With a wide grin, Kai saunters off in the water to the huge display of food Lyla prepared for the night, and I watch as the tattoo on his back bends with his movements. Two massive harpoons crossing one another in an X on his back with a blazing sun behind it. Kai is a male that Angelina would refer to as stupidly handsome. The obvious kind that you could spot in a crowded room. I look to Marina who is outwardly ogling at his muscled backside while he fetches more snacks. She's shameless.
"Oh, you are so love struck," I tease. My face breaks out into the biggest grin at her facial expression. Her eyebrows shoot to her forehead and the whites of her eyes are clearly visible with her mouth agape like a fish, betrayed by my comment.
"Am not!" she protests. But even Okiro can't help but laugh at her denial. Marina eyes him with a look that could kill. "Who needs another drink?"
Okiro raises a webbed finger and I drain my glass in response. With that, she turns to grab more drinks, flicking her tail up to splash us on the way over. Which only makes us burst into more laughter. Splashing a mermaid with water is like tossing sugar on a cake. You can never have too much.
"So, your first violet moon ceremony. What did you think?" Okiro drains his glass. His side reveals the red ink that patterns his back and extends onto his shoulder. From what I can see, it's a tattoo of a trident trapped in a wave, coupled with the different phases of the moon. The dark red ink matches the maroon scales of his tail, as if he had his true colors in mind when getting the art inked into his skin.
“It was incredible,” I answer. “It’s hard to believe I’ve lived my whole life on land, not knowing any of this existed. Every day I learn something new about life in the sea and every day I’m spellbound by it. Not even my wildest dreams could have conjured this up.”
“I’d imagine I would feel the same had our roles been reversed. To me, it seems ignorant for humans to not remember our existence. To not have the faintest of idea that we may still be here.”
His words send a small stab of pain to my chest, but he’s right. How naïve we are to believe we are the only intelligent beings to exist. I nod, thinking of all he must have been through in his many years in the sea. I'm not sure of his age, but it's long enough to have lived through the Sea Wars, and that is plenty more than I've had. What it must be like to have so many years of life behind you. To have so many more ahead. My eyes drift down to the ivory tooth that hangs from around his neck. Always adorning his person, like it is a part of him.
"Who's missing a canine?" I nod to his necklace, a beautiful contrast to his perfectly dark skin. He follows my gaze and looks down to the bone pendant, grabbing it in his palm.
"Believe it or not, it's actually from a crocodile that wandered into our territory looking for food." He leans an elbow on the stone before us, looking out at the crowded cave. "When I was just an adolescent, my brother and I were in the wrong place at the wrong time when we encountered it. Echo, my baby brother, took on the croc all on his own, thrashing in the shallow open waters. He saved my life and kept the fang as a souvenir." My brows raise in disbelief. How rare for a crocodile to wander into open waters to hunt. How unfortunate for Okiro and his brother.
"How lucky you are to have him as your brother."
"I was." He nods, and I catch the implication immediately. Suddenly my insides don't have enough room as my emotions grow. Okiro didn't need to tell me the story of how he got the necklace. He didn't need to share that part of himself with me. But he did. And that means something to me.
"Something tells me he was lucky to call you his brother as well." I smile at him, admiring the ivory tooth hanging from the chain.
"Maybe . . ." he counters. "It should have been me." Silver lines his eyes as they begin to well. "I was the eldest. I should have been protecting him. Not the other way around." Even without his words, his body language speaks volumes about how much this weighs on him. The guilt like a shadow that never leaves.
Before I can tell him how it wasn't his fault, Marina returns with an entire fully corked bottle of rum in each hand just as Kai arrives with a whole tray of scallops.
"Who wants to take this party elsewhere?" Kai asks, brow raised in question.
"You don't even need to ask." Okiro's comment is barely heard as he puts down his glass on the rocky surface and is already diving below, his massive tail rippling a wave around us all. I look to Marina for more context, but she only smirks at me and says, "Oh, come on. That would ruin the surprise," and dives in after Okiro, bottles in hand. Kai dumps the tray of scallops into a netted bag and tells me to follow his lead. We dive below the surface and I follow his dark shadowed figure through the sea.
As we pass through the cave tunnels and out near the mountains of coral and seaweed, I notice the glowing jellies are still lingering around the area, lighting the way through the darkness. Not that we need it. Our night vision allows us to see figures and depth, but the slight glow certainly helps.
When Kai begins to slow, I know exactly where we are. The Grotto. The rock outcropping that arches above the water, creating bridge-like structures that seem to defy gravity. As we break the surface, I see that the violet moon has found space in the sky with the traditional moon, lighting up the night. I watch as Kai pulls himself up the arched rock, perching himself on a ledge high above the water. Others are already there, tails swaying from the rocks, or curling around its structure. Laughter bounces off the water like sprinkles of rain hitting a tile floor.
I hoist myself up and clamber to a small alcove near Brea and Marina. No wonder these sea creatures have toned, built upper bodies. Hoisting myself up with just my arms is nearly impossible. My tail weighs a ton and without the water giving me that weightless feeling, my muscles quiver under the pressure.
Bottles are passed around as we admire the millions of stars above and watch as the violet moon fills the sky for only a few more hours, leaving the traditional moon to take over in its absence. It’s only a few days before the next full moon appears. The one that will change the course of our lives if I get it right.
As the bottles get lighter and lighter with each pass, I listen as everyone swaps stories of past ceremonies and pod gossip. In this moment, I look around and know that there is nowhere else in the world I would rather be. Nowhere else in the world that I feel more like myself. I belong to the sea. Her music of waves lull me. Her sea salt washes me with clarity. My body is most alive when I am here. It pains me to think that I couldn't imagine going back to life as a human right now. Legs would be foreign to me. The lack of fluidity, the etiquette of acting a certain way. The promise of a crown and a kingdom.
Commotion stirs my thoughts as I watch Kai push off the rock with his hands and dive head first into the dark sea. Midway he tucks his tail around his body into a ball and spins midair. Before he hits water, he uncurls his body, straight as an arrow and drops in. Okiro follows after, diving off the top of the rock arch, arms out wide in a T before spearing into the water at rapid speed, disappearing into the black abyss with barely a sound.
"Here we go," Brea says as others begin free falling into the black mass below, giving me the notion that this isn't the first time this lot has done this. Pushing fear aside, I look down at my friends swimming about, as my hair curls around me in the wind, reminding me how high above sea level I am. As my hands grip the rocky edge of the alcove in anticipation, sandy pebbles stick to the fresh wound on my palm. I push off the feeling of gravity taking its hold and dive in. Living life as it should be. Wild and free.