The Accidental Mermaid (Accidentally Paranormal Series Book 16) Page 3

  Besides, who the frick did you call when you suddenly had a tail and fins? Who? Who exactly was in charge of that department? Disney?

  Not to mention, how did you call when you couldn’t move out of your own way?

  But Marty assuaged her unspoken fear. “Esther? It’s okay to bring us to your house. We won’t rob you, or sell you to the government for scientific research purposes and a new Maserati. Or worse, give your story to Inside Edition. Oh, and we won’t murder you. I know this is all happening very, very fast, but if we can just get you somewhere you feel safe, where we can have some privacy, we’re going to help you. And you’ll understand why and how women like us can help you, but it’s going to take a certain amount of blind faith.”

  The words fell out of her mouth before she could stop them at the thought of seeing her small cottage on the beach, of being around her things, and her dog Mooky and cat Marsha. “I live near South Beach—in a small suburb called Oyster Hollow. In a cottage that used to be my grandparents’ before they died. Ironically, right on the beach.”

  Wanda leaned forward, her slender finger hovering over the navigation system. “Your address?”

  “But wait! I don’t have my key or my purse or—”

  Wanda held up Esther’s purse and smiled. “You mean this? I took the liberty of grabbing it from your locker. I hope you don’t mind.”

  “But I locked that before…” She shook her head. If the woman could lift a car, surely she could pop a locker. Duh.

  As Esther spewed her address and said a silent prayer these people were only superficially bananapants, not deep-seated-crazy psychopaths, Wanda typed in her address and sat back, the streetlights flashing over her classically beautiful features.

  Marty looked into the rearview mirror, her bright eyes sparkling. “What do you do for a living, Esther?”

  “I’m a freelance divorce mediator.”

  “Oooh, fun times, I’ll bet,” Marty murmured, twisting a strand of hair around her finger.

  Or not. Divorce mediation was a sad, sometimes exceptionally ugly job. She often wondered why marriage had ever been invented, for all the torture people put each other through over ridiculous things like leopard-spot ottomans and silverware.

  One couple had fought so long and so hard over a single picture frame before they’d agreed to settle, Esther had come close to threatening to drop the stupid thing at the dump and set it on fire.

  It was disgraceful—which was why she wasn’t a fan of marriage, other than that of her grandparents, who’d been married for fifty years until her grandmother, Consuela, had succumbed to Alzheimer’s. Her grandfather had died of longing for the woman he’d loved for over half a century.

  But their love was rare, and almost inconceivable today, with so many things like the Internet and social media interfering, keeping people apart in worlds they’ve created on a computer rather than inspiring them to spend time together.

  “It’s challenging. That’s probably a better word.”

  Wanda threw her head back and laughed. “I can only imagine. I’ve been divorced. Years and years ago, mind you, but I just can’t understand all the fighting over useless things. I say just kill them and then you get to keep everything.”

  Esther clamped her mouth shut, a shiver of fear running along her arms.

  There was a short pause, where Wanda’s words hung in the air like ticking time bombs, before Marty laughed out loud. “She’s kidding, Esther. Promise. Wanda’s got a case of raging hormones these days. She just says whatever she thinks lately, but we’re all very happily married, I assure you.”

  “Good to know,” she muttered.

  As Marty took a sharp right on what felt like two tires, Esther didn’t budge, the weight of her tail holding her steady. When the surroundings became familiar, and she saw the lights of her tiny white beach cottage, set far apart from her neighbors, she almost cried.

  Home was good. Home would at least make some of this better. Mooky and Marsha were there, and there was some leftover lasagna in the fridge from last night, and if they could make this tail go away, she’d send these people home and cuddle on the couch in front of a fire with her furbabies while she watched The Big Bang Theory reruns.

  As Marty pulled to a stop, the women looked around, scanning her small front yard with potted mums she’d purchased last year and wind chimes hanging from the maple tree.

  “Looks pretty quiet. How far away from your neighbors are we, Esther? Can we get you inside without them seeing?”

  “Mostly everyone’s gone, now that summer’s over. The Reynolds are my closest neighbors, and they packed up and went home after Labor Day. I think we’re okay.”

  And thank God, too. Little Stacy Reynolds would have a field day if she saw Esther had a tail and hair like a mermaid. Stacy loved a Disney princess almost as much as she loved vanilla ice cream with rainbow sprinkles.

  Marty nodded her head and popped the car door open. “Then let’s get you inside. You good, Wanda?”

  Wanda smiled an affable smile, holding up her hand and spreading out her fingers to examine them. “Oh, I’m fine. I thought maybe I’d do my nails while you and Nina do all the work.”

  Nina knocked on Wanda’s window, her eyes blazing hot. “Knock it off, Wanda, and stop being a pissy bitch! We’re not treating you like the good china because we like it. We’re doing it because we want you to have a healthy baby. Now quit feeling sorry for yourself and haul your big ass out here and do what you do. Nurture. Listen to her cry. Pat her on the back, bake her some fucking cookies.”

  Wanda lifted her middle finger at Nina and stuck out her tongue, but she popped the door open and hopped out of the SUV, stalking past Nina to Esther’s front door with her purse tucked under the crook of her elbow.

  Marty, who’d come around the car, looked at Nina and blew out a breath. “She’s a lot these days, huh?”

  Nina snorted her commiseration. “No shit. I swear, some days I wanna wring her dry of all these hormones flooding her brain cells like some kind of mad cow fucking disease. Maybe it’s because she’s half vampire, half werewolf?” Nina shrugged her shoulders. “I dunno what the fuck it is, but Christ in a bikini, I don’t know if I’m gonna make it to the end of this pregnancy.”

  As Esther watched this all unfold, again, the words she was hearing—words like “vampire” and “werewolf”—fought to terrify her, really seep into her brain and make her lose it all over again.

  They thought they were werewolves and vampires. Like, seriously creatures from mythology? No way was she letting these people into her house

  Aw, hell no.

  That was when she opened her mouth to scream.

  Again.

  Chapter 3

  Almost as if Nina sensed Esther’s discourse, her fear, she craned her neck in Esther’s direction and gave her that death-ray stare. Esther clamped her mouth shut as fast as she’d opened it—because that woman was terrifying.

  And then she went about self-soothing.

  If she looked logically at what had happened to her, if she gave realistic credence to her new tail and fins, how could she discount werewolves and vampires?

  Yet, how was she going to live with the idea this was all real? Were there more of them? How could she tell? Were there more of her? Was she really a mermaid? Forever?

  She didn’t have time to think much more on the notion as Nina grabbed hold of her tail and pulled her from the SUV, tucking her back under her arm like she was no heavier than Wanda’s purse.

  The wind howled as the ocean water she so loved to look at from her wood-framed windows rushed to the shore. It was so much cooler here, especially now that fall was on the way. The taste of the salt in the air was different, the tang in her nose sharper somehow.

  In the distance, Mooky, her half wire-haired terrier, half Doberman, barked at the unfamiliar voices and noise from behind the front door.

  “Mook! Knock it off, bud!” she yelled as Wanda jammed her key in the door
and popped it open, running her hand over the wall to find the light switch.

  She heard Mook’s nails on the bleached hardwood floors as he ran for the kitchen, where he’d try to make himself as small as he could under the kitchen’s dark gray quartz peninsula until she reassured him it was safe, but she only caught a glimpse of Marsha, curled up on her favorite chair, fast asleep on a red-checked throw.

  As the room became enveloped in the soft lighting from the recessed bulbs in the ceiling she’d personally chosen when she’d remodeled, Esther almost sighed in relief.

  She loved her little cottage on the beach, with its comfortable seating and bits of red and turquoise accents for color, her reclaimed dark wood coffee table, and a big fireplace done in white brick with a rustic wood mantle.

  It made her happy, swell with pride that she’d picked everything out, and done a lot of the renovations herself.

  But then she shivered. Now she had to find an explanation for these women as to how this had happened, and sound like a complete moron when she revealed she had no idea how she’d gone from limbs to fins.

  “Ohhhh,” Wanda breathed, her eyes scanning the living room, open to the small dining room and kitchen. “It’s beautiful, Esther! How warm and inviting. I love, love, love the fireplace and that bleached-wood clock over it. I’d kill to have that over my mantle. Beautiful!”

  That’s when she stiffened in Nina’s arms and attempted to crane her neck upward. Were they scoping out her house so they could dump her and steal all her worldly possessions?

  Wanda bent down and looked her in the eye with a hint of laughter on her face. “We’re not here to steal your things, Esther. I promise. I’m just commenting on how lovely it is because I’m a decorator at heart, too. There isn’t a Home Goods store I haven’t tapped every corner of. Please relax. Oh, and I love the pops of red and turquoise in the pillows, and the watercolor painting. Beautiful.”

  “Hey! DIY Diva, she’s no lightweight,” Nina complained, hoisting her higher against her waist. “Where do you want her?”

  “Put her on the couch, Nina. It looks like she’ll fit,” Marty ordered, pointing to her beige sectional with fluffy red and turquoise pillows in various textures and sizes.

  As Nina unceremoniously dumped her in the midst of her throw pillows and cushions, she brushed her hands together. “So, what’s next? Do we blow-dry her?”

  “Blow-dry me?” Esther squealed, trying to sit up.

  “Yeah, dude. If we dry you out, you’ll get your legs back. Like Ariel. Didn’t you ever see The Little Mermaid?”

  Oh my God! She hadn’t even thought about that. “My blow-dryer! It’s under the sink in the bathroom. Let’s try!”

  Marty ran a hand through her hair and frowned. “You don’t think that’ll really work, do you? It seems a little farfetched and fairytale-ish.”

  Nina threw up her hands and said, “Well, Splash was the same damn way. Remember Daryl Hannah in a tub? Fuck if I know, but what else you got, Blondie?”

  Wanda crossed the room and went down the short hall to her master bathroom. Esther heard another vague “Ooooh,” probably stemming from her new white-and-gray-marble bathroom, before she reappeared with the blow-dryer and handed it to Nina, who plugged it in and began running it back and forth over her tail.

  Marty sat on the chest of drawers Esther used as a coffee table, moving her candleholders and a pot of succulents out of the way, and said, “So explain how this happened, Esther? Just tell me about the incident—who, if anyone, was present, and we’ll go from there, okay? Why were you at a Mommy and Me class anyway if you don’t have children?”

  Speaking of children. Damn, she’d forgotten about Mooky and Marsha. “Mook? C’mere, buddy. It’s okay. C’mon, pooky!” she called, watching him poke his Doberman-like head with the crazy mix of wiry hair from beneath the peninsula, but he hesitated.

  Nina handed the blow-dryer to Wanda and sat on her haunches to peer under the peninsula, patting her thigh, her tone soft and sweetly pitched for someone so crusty. “Who’s so handsome?” she asked, as Mooky cocked his head. “I’m Nina, Mooky. Cool to meet you. Come say hello, dude.” She patted her thigh once more and waited.

  Mook considered, much in the way he always did when he met someone new, and then he was in Nina’s lap, licking her face like he’d always known her, his excited whimpers drawing Marsha’s interest. Nina scratched the unusually long length of Mooky’s neck and whispered encouraging words that made Marsha curious enough to hop off her favorite chair and saunter toward them with a cautious stride.

  Nina took one look into her green, marble-like eyes, and like magic, Esther’s caramel and white cat jumped into this strange woman’s lap and purred, rubbing her face against her arm.

  As Nina gathered them into her lap, petting and cooing, and Wanda diligently blow-dried her tail, which wasn’t going away at all, Marty asked again, “Esther? We need to know how this happened? I really need you to talk to me. Some things you might not find terribly concerning could actually be of great concern. So, let’s do this, please?”

  That was the million-dollar question. How had this happened? One minute, she’d been in the pool with Maurizio, her sexy Italian Mommy and Me swim instructor. The next, everyone had cleared the pool and she was lingering on the steps, marveling over her bravery for actually attending the class and getting in the water all the way up to her waist—when wham!

  She had a tail with fins. And it was beautiful; so magnificent, she almost couldn’t believe it was attached to her. When she was done accepting the reality that this tail wasn’t budging, she’d panicked, afraid to call out…afraid to move…afraid.

  And she relayed as much to Marty, who’d taken over the blow-dryer while Wanda went off to the kitchen in search of tea bags.

  “I swear, I was just sitting on the steps of the pool in the shallow end, being one with the water and all that jazz Maurizio taught us today, and kaboom! I almost drowned trying to get out of the pool. Between my Rapunzel-like hair and my tail, I gained what feels like fifty pounds. Thank God for upper-arm workouts, because I hauled myself out of the pool and managed to pull myself to the diving board before I realized I had no idea what to do. Who to call. Like, who do you call when you have a tail? Sam and Dean? Mulder and Scully?”

  Marty worried her lower lip as she paused, pinching the bridge of her nose before she asked, “Did anything unusual happen in the pool? Did you feel anything strange? See anything strange?”

  Esther shook her head, pushing her flowing locks away from her face as more of that panic swelled in her gut again. “No! Nothing. Though, I admit, I was terrified to get in the pool—really terrified. I can’t…well, I can’t swim. I know, that sounds ridiculous at my age, but I can’t. I took the class at the urging of my friend, who’s good friends with the instructor. I did it because I want to go on a cruise with some of my girlfriends this winter, and I didn’t want to be odd man out again. It just happened it was the only class they could fit me into. I figured, who better to take swim class with than a bunch of kids, right? At least I could keep up.”

  “You live on the beach and you can’t swim?” Wanda asked, moving around her kitchen and opening cabinet doors.

  Esther cringed at the question, even though she heard no condemnation in Wanda’s tone. But the reasons behind her reaction were still as raw as they’d always been. Twisting a lock of her hair, she began to fiddle with it, wondering how she’d ever get it into a ponytail and still be able to hold her head up. “I know it sounds silly, but I love the water. I grew up around it. I love looking at it, hearing it at night as it rocks me to sleep. I love the smell of salt in the air, and I love a good storm. I even love to build sandcastles. In fact, I won a competition here two years ago during the summer for one of my sand castles. I’m just afraid to get into it.”

  But she’d done it tonight. Okay, she’d only gone to her waist, but she’d done it, and she’d like to think her grandfather, Salvador, would be proud she’d
at least partially conquered her fear—a fear he’d often soothed as he’d rocked her to sleep after a nightmare of that horrible night.

  Wanda rifled through her antique-white kitchen cabinets and found some tea bags, then set about filling her teakettle. “So, you can’t remember anything unusual happening before you suddenly had a tail? You’re sure?”

  Now she felt like the accused. Why would she lie about something like that? Suddenly, it was all too much—too overwhelming. She struggled to sit up straight, pushing the pillows on the couch out of the way. She decided to divert the spotlight off her, something she did often with couples in mediation.

  “Here’s a question for you guys—who are you? And why do you care what happens to me? Why are you here right now, helping me at all?”

  They all stopped what they were doing and looked up before Nina sighed and muttered, “Here we fucking go. Wanda? Find some hooch in those cabinets. She’s gonna need it.”

  * * * *

  A half hour, two shots of tequila and the absolute most terror she’d ever experienced in her life later—barring one incident—and Esther had to admit, Nina was right.

  She did need the hooch. She needed all the hooch.

  As she stared at these three women, two of them now redressed in their “people” clothes, as they plucked each other free of hair, as Mooky and Marsha stared stoically at them, Esther tried desperately to untie her tongue.

  Putting a knuckle in her mouth, she prepared to bite down hard to check and make sure she was really awake. As her teeth hit skin, and she bit, everything remained the same except her finger hurt.

  She still had an effin’ tail, and Nina had fangs, and both Wanda and Marty had patches of hair sprouting from various parts of their bodies.

  She held up a hand and inhaled as Wanda set a steaming cup of tea down next to her on the end table. “Let me get this straight. You, Wanda, are half werewolf, half vampire. Nina, you’re half vampire, half witch…and Marty’s just plain old werewolf. Am I correct? Because when it comes time to identify you, I don’t want to be an insensitive shlub and mislabel. With society the way it is these days, you can never be too careful.”