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My footsteps crunched against the ground. Otherwise, I silently fumed during the walk home from the creek.
“Hazel, calm down,” Mom said. “There has to be a logical explanation for what happened.”
“When Kai looked at you it was like he knew you! He admired you!” I shook my head with disgust. “And then he basically agreed to return the necklace, like you had some kind of power over him. What are you to him? Why were you able to make the pearls glow—like him? That was the third time—I saw it!”
My voice cracked. I was on the verge of tears. Mom was supposed to help me learn more about Grandma’s jewelry. Instead of helping, she was complicating things—she was making matters worse.
The first and second time I’d seen Mom activate the pearls was at home, when the yellow jackets were after Marshmallow. Now she’d done it in the presence of Kai.
Here I was trying to solve the mystery of why Kai thinks the pearl jewelry belongs to his kingdom and investigating proof that Grandma’s jewelry belonged to her. And now Mom was making the pearls light up like holiday bulbs!
I felt so in the dark. Betrayed by someone, but I wasn’t sure who. The Perlnauts? My own family? Both of them?
“I’d never met Kai or anyone like him before,” she said, finally.
I sniffled. At least that was a small consolation.
Mom kept quiet throughout the remainder of our walk, but once we were home she muttered her thoughts out loud as she filled a kettle with water and set it on the stove top to boil.
“My mother’s jewelry... Sea creatures who harness energy from freshwater pearls, and a young ruler who thinks our family stole treasures from his kingdom... But I don’t understand how—it couldn’t be.”
She turned and handed me my favorite mug that was shaped like a stack of three teacups. “Tell me again how you first met Kai. I want to know every detail.”
“I’m not going through all that again. Not right now.” I squeezed my head with my hands. “I’m still trying to process what I just saw at the creek.”
She frowned. “I haven’t asked anything unreasonable. You’ve seemed a bit off since you returned from the weekend at the lake. There’s something different about you...something I can’t quite figure out. I feel like we’re missing something—like there’s more you’re being mysterious about.”
“I’m being mysterious?” I squinted at her. “Does Dad know you can make pearl jewelry glow, and that you can command ethereal sea creatures? I’m interested in what you haven’t been telling me.”
Mom stared at her mug and inhaled deeply.
“Hazel, I think you should go to bed.”
***
MY FINGERS FLEW ACROSS my phone screen, seeking answers. The receipts told a story—not about Mom and the L’even pearls, but of Grandma. The jewelry belonged to Grandma. What did Mom have to do with any of this?
I closed my picture gallery app and flipped to my contact list. I scrolled through my contacts, looking for someone I could talk to. I hesitated to get my friends involved, especially Benton. Science Club members would laugh me out of the club rather than help me find a rational explanation. I couldn’t blame them. I mean, mer guys called Perlnauts? Freshwater pearls that glowed blue—but only for certain creatures...and now people? I wouldn’t have believed such a story if I hadn’t experienced it myself.
I scrolled to Pap’s number. He’d gifted me the jewelry, and had even baked me a mermaid cake.
I tapped his number, then the call button, and then drew in a breath. I dug the fingers of my free hand through Marshmallow’s fur.
“Hello?”
“Pap? Hi.”
“Is that you, Hazelnut?”
“Yes.” I swallowed. “I need to talk to you about something.”
“Are you all right?”
“I don’t know.” I couldn’t believe I was about to tell Pap about this.
“What’s going on?” he said, his voice firm.
“Something strange happened with the necklace you gave me.” I closed my eyes. “And with the bracelet, too.”
The details poured out of me—what had really happened when I’d lost the necklace. Meeting Kai who insisted the pearls belonged to his kingdom. The receipts I’d found. Where the bracelet and Kai were now. Kai and the pearls’ reactions to Mom, and even our recent argument.
“Everything’s a mess,” I blurted, “and I don’t know what to do.”
Pap was silent for an awkwardly long period of time. Finally, he let out a long, shuddering breath.
“You and your parents should return to the lake.”
I stared at the phone in disbelief. Pap didn’t sound surprised at all. If anything, he sounded deflated. Maybe even defeated.
“You know something about this?” I squeaked.
“Only suspicions—theories. More than I thought anyone would believe.”