Page 74 of Tangled Sails

“Yes, you.” The mermaid glided closer to Lyri and put a hand out to support her, making it easier for me to stay afloat. “When you first came through the portal, we would have helped you, but you were fortunate enough to be dropped practically on top of a ship.” Her eyes sparkled as she said it.

“I don’t understand,” Lyri breathed.

Saskia appeared beside Neeah, startling Lyri again. “We all came from Branfrie,” Saskia told her.

“All?” Lyri gaped.

“Yes, all. There are many of us who were made for these waters.”

I looked at Lyri. “You didn’t tell me there were mermaids in Branfrie,” I said.

“There aren’t,” Lyri responded.

Saskia smiled. “She’s right. There aren’t. We’re made here.”

What was she talking about? “Made here?”

Saskia nodded. “When we are dropped in these waters, we cannot survive as humans.”

I nodded. Of course they couldn’t.

“But if you surrender to the ocean,” Neeah continued, “your magic will save you. The portal doesn’t want us to die. It put us here so that we could thrive in our own world.”

“So if I hadn’t been found…I would have turned into a mermaid?” Lyri asked.

“That’s right.”

My head was spinning, and Lyri looked even more off-balance than I did with the onslaught of information.

“We try to give everyone a choice though,” Saskia assured us.

“What kind of choice?” Lyri asked.

“If ever we find someone like you—someone like us—we tell them this: If you want to stay with us, all you have to do is breathe in the water and your magic will do the rest. I’ll pull you under, and we’ll be your family. But if you don’t want to stay with us, I’ll take you to land.” She tilted her head at me. “But I’m guessing you don’t need the choice.”

Lyri smiled, allowing Neeah to support one arm while the other was wound tightly around my shoulders. Despite her fatigue, she was trying awkwardly to help us stay afloat by kicking her legs. I wasn’t sure if it was helping or hindering, but I loved that she was trying. I needed to teach her to swim, and soon.

“I’m staying on land,” she said.

Neeah sighed, looking at us as if we were the most remarkable thing. “You found love. Isn’t it divine?”

Saskia rolled her eyes but smiled. “We can take you to your boat, if you’d like.”

I let out a breath of relief, glad that the mermaids wouldn’t have to swim us all the way back to shore. “Thank you, yes.”

Neeah offered both hands to Lyri, who reluctantly let go of me.

“Please stay close by,” I said to Neeah, unable to bear the idea of being too far from Lyri, and she nodded like she understood.

“And you take my hands,” Saskia said as she faced me and held out her hands.

I wondered why she wished to pull me this way instead of having me hold her shoulders like last time, but I decided to trust that a creature of the ocean would know better than I would in this scenario, so I grabbed onto her wrists and she held onto mine.

The moment her grip was firm, she started propelling herself backwards. I half expected my head to be dragged through the water, but something about the way she moved kept our shoulders out of the water as we cut across the surface, Neeah and Lyri moving alongside us in like manner.

It was…exhilarating, much more pleasant than my first trip through the water, since this moment wasn’t plagued with worry over Lyri. At least, not much worry. I did wonder how she was faring.

That question was answered when a light chuckle reached my ears, and I relaxed. Lyrielle was doing just fine.