CHAPTER ONE
Blossom didn’t often have time for me when Autumn was around. Though
the cat was no spring chicken, she still had a youthful spring in her step, and
only an eight-year-old with mountains of extra energy was up to the task of
satiating the calico’s thirst for prey. Usually in the form of a shoestring or
curled-up ball of paper.
But Blossom poked her head up beside my bed and mewed, tapping her paw
against my shoulder until I couldn’t help but let out a small chuckle. As I
lifted the comforter higher, Blossom snuggled right in against my side.
“At least someone won’t ask what’s wrong with me,” I whispered. “She
just knows something is.” My fingers traced circles around one of her soft
ears.
Why couldn’t I just tell everyone the truth? Hashtag ImAMermaid. Jokes
aside, I was seventeen—albeit almost eighteen—and I didn’t know how to handle this on my own.
I had three parents. Why couldn’t I kick and scream and have a tantrum
and wind up coddled in my mom’s or dad’s arms?
My phone buzzed on the nightstand. Shifting so as not to bother
Blossom, I grabbed it and saw the message from Calder:
Feeling better? I know last night was… A lot. I’ve got you, though. I promise. I need you more than I’ve ever needed anyone. I’ll try to be a
worthy prince, my champion.
A tear slipped down one cheek as I felt my face warming. I put down the
phone and wiped the moisture away. Why was I crying? It wasn’t like I was madly
in love with the guy.
But apparently, the champion of water was kind of the prince’s fiancée.
So I had a boyfriend now. I’d never had one who’d lasted more than a few dates.
Now I was tied to one—cute, kind of shy though he might be—possibly for the
rest of my life. We could one day lay our merbaby eggs in the blood of my
fallen step-sister.
No and no. I still wasn’t planning on either happening.
My phone buzzed again and I swiped away another notification from
Paisley. The bits of messages I’d read from her and Lyric asked everything I
expected them to, like what in the world had happened last night, was it true
that Calder had lost his pants in the Homecoming fire, was I feeling all right
and how was Ember, and also, back to the second point, was it true Calder had
walked around brazenly with his elephant trunk swinging freely?
I tried not to think about that part. My face was flushing at the
memory. I bet the vampires didn’t have cause to go pantsless around their
champion. At least not a supernatural one. I wasn’t sure if that was a pro or a
con, honestly. Dirty Ivy.
Blossom’s purrs grew louder and louder as she snuggled up beside my
cheek, nudging the top of her head against my chin.
“I love you too, Furbaby,” I said, rubbing the back of her neck and
being reminded how different the cat at my new place was—Ember’s cat was a scaredy-cat if ever there was one.
The thought of going back there now with how things stood between Ember
and me… I couldn’t. But I couldn’t very well explain why I couldn’t to Mom and Dad.
Even if Mom apparently had been hypnotized into accepting Orin as a
family friend.
That traitorous faery.
“There she is!” screeched a voice from my partially-open door. Autumn
came trotting in—the girl had yet to learn boundaries.
Thankfully for her, I was an amazing big sister. If I do say so myself.
“Leave us alone,” I said, just a touch of my grumpy side evident in my
voice. Okay, not always an amazing sister.
Autumn flicked on the light switch and padded over to the side of my
bed. “Are you cramping?” she asked, twirling a strand of her long, brown hair
around her finger. She had on a tie-dyed T-shirt and bright purple zebra pants.
The girl could clearly not dress herself, but she was too old for my parents to
be picking out outfits for her regardless.
I pushed at her gently, my arm jostling and upsetting the cat. “I’m not
on my period every time I’m feeling tired,” I said, grunting. “Geez, you’d have
me bleeding twenty-nine days out of thirty.”
“Gross.” She scooped the cat out from beside me, carrying her in her
arms like a big, fragile bag of groceries. My sister bounced her up and down
and Blossom dug her claws into her human captor’s shoulders, her yellow irises
like saucers, but Autumn didn’t even flinch. “Are you still sick from last
night?”
“Yes,” I muttered, pulling the cover over my head entirely. “Now go
away. And don’t forget to shut off the light.”
“How did you create steam?” she asked. “When you touched that warm
blanket they gave you, your hand glowed blue and steam rose out—”
“You were seeing things,” I mumbled. “Now go away.”
“Fine,” she snapped. The pounding of her bare feet against the floor
was loud even muffled by the threadbare carpet that ran most of the length of
Mom’s townhouse. “Keep your secrets.”
“And stay away from Orin!” I snapped.
“Who?”
“Orin! My boss. My date to Homecoming.” I poked my head out from under
the blanket. Mom was hovering behind Autumn in the doorway. Great.
Autumn grinned and Blossom saw her chance to jump down, scattering off
into the hallway, my little sister hot on her literal tail.
“How are you feeling?” asked Mom, her fist hovering over the open
bedroom door as if it weren’t too late to knock and not be invited in at this
point.
“Fine,” I lied, burying my head underneath the blanket once more.
She took that as an invitation because I felt her sit down on the edge
of the bed. Her hand touched my shoulder through my barrier of cotton and
synthetic fibers keeping me from facing reality and the fact that said reality
included faeries, vampires, and merpeople. “Do you want to talk about it?” she
asked.
Yes. “No.”
She kept stroking my shoulder in silence.
“Don’t you have work today?” I asked. She always had work and it was
supposed to be a Dad day anyway. She’d been a homemaker when she and Dad had
been together and though she got some “maintenance,” as they called alimony for
some reason, she’d had to take on a minimum-wage job at a superstore to make
ends meet. Luckily, she and Dad got along well enough that he pretty much paid
any and everything related to Autumn’s or my expenses.
I just didn’t get why they couldn’t have gotten along while they’d been
married, then.
Sighing, I buried myself deeper in the blankets, barely hearing Mom’s
response. Something about swapping shifts.
She tugged the blanket off my head and I groaned. “Hey, listen to me,”
she said.
“I am.” Not true.
She stared hard at me until I was forced to look away.
“Did anyone hurt you last night?”
“No,” I lied again. Not like she was thinking. Not who she was
thinking.
“Or Ember?”
“No,” I said again, my nails digging into my palm beneath the blanket.
Well, I had hurt her.
“Things just got hectic in the chaos.”
“So hectic that boy lost his pants?” Her eyebrow arched.
“They were wet,” I said. “And on fire,” I added. I supposed the latter
would excuse it where the former wouldn’t. Even if that was just a little white
lie to add to the mountain of them.
“Wet… and on fire?” Mom asked, her
neck bending forward even more.
Don’t test me, woman, I thought. You have no idea… “Wet after being on fire.”
Mom took in a deep, audible breath. “Who was that boy, Ivy?”
“Calder Poole,” I said, the name coming out like a petulant toddler
forced to reveal the fact that she’d dug her hand into the cookie jar. “He’s on
the swim team. Or he was… He just transferred.”
“Okay…” Mom said. “And is he… Do you know him well? I don’t remember you ever hanging out with him before.”
“That’s because I hang with the baseball team, owing to Paisley’s
boyfriend being captain of it. Doesn’t mean I don’t know him.” An itch took
over the tip of my nose and I rubbed it into my pillow.
Mom kept patting my shoulder. “He was there with someone else and he
just happened to help you and Ember—after his pants
caught on fire?”
“He was there with me,” I said, not wanting to get into the debate
about why someone from a different school was there without a date from Union
High. It wasn’t like he’d transferred that long ago anyway.
“But I thought you and Orin…?” Normally, Mom would be having a fit that I’d dated an “older” guy. Ha, try
older than dirt, not a couple of years older. But Orin had made her think he
was a dear friend of ours somehow. For some reason.
“He’s just a friend,” I said. “Was a friend. And I’m not working for
him anymore.”
Not the right thing to say. “Ivy, I know you might need time off, but I
told you it’s important to start working as soon as possible. Look at what
happened to me. When your father left—” Her phone rang, playing the Jurassic Park theme song, which I knew
meant Dad. They’d gone on their first date to see
that movie as freshmen in high school. I didn’t know why Mom would want to be
reminded of that.
“Take some time off,” she said, letting the phone continue to ring a
moment. “Just keep… what happened to me… in mind. A
part-time job would be good for you even throughout college.” Her lips pinched
as she stared straight at me, and I flinched. She turned away and answered the
call. “Yes?”
I ran a finger over the edge of my nightstand, ignoring the buzz that
came from my own phone as I picked up half a conversation between my parents.
“That’s great!” said Mom, a smile on her face. She lowered the phone to
whisper to me, “Ember got the all-clear. She’s home and feels fine.”
I flinched. Not that I wanted her to be ill, of course, but… But… She was the enemy
now. She’d sealed the deal before I had.
I’d missed some of Mom’s side of the conversation. “He wants you and
Autumn to still come over tonight,” she told me, Dad clearly on hold. “They’re
going to order in.”
“No!” I shouted, sitting up and practically whapping my poor mother
across the face with my blankets.
I could hear the muffled sound of Dad’s voice—he’d probably heard that.
Mom shrank back. “Sunday is usually spent with your dad—”
“Right. Oh, right.” Covering my face with my hands, I winced. My throat
was dry. “It’s just… Mom, I barely feel like moving. Maybe
Autumn can go and I…” I didn’t say anything more.
Mom turned back to her conversation and spoke in a hushed voice. Then
she held the phone out to me. “Your father wants to speak to you.”
“Tell him I’m sick or something,” I said.
“I heard that, young lady,” came Dad’s voice from the speaker.
“Ugh,” I said, bringing my knees up and resting my forehead atop them.
Mom spoke to him again and then hung up a few moments later. “We agreed
both you and Autumn can stay here an extra night,” she said. “Ember’s dad is in
town anyway. I get the feeling things are… tense between him
and Noelle. They thought maybe having a crowd would make things less awkward.”
“They’re inviting him to dinner with them?” I asked. All the more
reason not to bother going. Like I needed another awkward thing happening
inside my own home when all I wanted to do was sleep for the rest of my life.
“He’s staying at a motel, but yes, he’s coming over for dinner.” Mom
sighed as a crash echoed from downstairs—the townhouse was
cramped, but there was a kitchen, living room, and half-bath on the first
floor. “Autumn?” she called out.
Autumn’s giggling rang out even from a floor and several rooms away.
“We’ll talk more later,” said Mom, patting my shoulder again. She
stopped when she reached the hallway, looking back at me over her shoulder.
“And you’re at least eating dinner with your sister and me,” she said sternly.
“I’m not letting you sleep the whole day away.” She flicked the lights off.
Groaning, I rolled onto my side, nestling myself beneath the covers
again. My phone buzzed on the stand beside my head and I reached over, holding
the power button and confirming I wanted it turned off so the thing would
finally go quiet.
