Elena Pearl, Mermaid Girl: A Heap of Unwanted Attention (BOOK ONE)

BOOK ONE

A Heap of Unwanted Attention

1.

Elena Pearl discovered long ago that she had a different perspective on writer’s block; she believed it was an inability to turn good ideas into words rather than a lack of inspiration. There is no worse feeling than knowing the story you wish to tell but having none of the words to express it on paper. It is as insufferable as forgetting someone’s name while knowing it is right on the tip of your tongue and that it will return to you when its relevancy has long since passed. With a morose sigh she used her index finger to stab the backspace button and watched in misery as another stunted attempt to write was swept away. Perhaps she jabbed that key with too much enthusiasm. Her best friend Dana Syzmanski shot her a look from a neighboring desk that was equal parts question and warning. Too late, however, as their advanced composition teacher, Mrs. Wuornos, picked up on Elena’s disturbance of the peace with her keen sense of hearing and zeroed in for the kill in her scathing way of calling you out when you were most vulnerable.

“Are you trying to be obnoxious?” asked Mrs. Wuornos, peering down her nose at Elena over the edge of her bright red reading glasses, slender fingers tented pretentiously beneath her chin.

Elena wondered what would happen if she answered that question with honesty and Dana must have noticed her thought process playing out in her facial expressions because she stuck out a rubber booted foot and kicked her across the aisle.

“You’ll accomplish more in this class if you spend the time writing instead of prodding the delete button every five minutes, Elena.” She said as much as she walked around the corner of her own desk and came to stand next to Elena’s. Her proximity made Elena feel uncharacteristically defensive.

“You are wasting time in class and you are disrupting the creative process of your classmates. Do you care so little for the writing of others, or is it just that your own talent is so precocious that you do not need the time in class to write your story and so you sabotage everyone else instead?” Her eyes glinted viciously behind her glasses and Elena entertained a brief but satisfying image of holding the teacher’s head underwater.

In truth her talent was prodigious and if her writer’s block had not reared its ugly head with such ferocity she would already have her story finished, but it would do no good to argue with this teacher so she kept her mouth shut. Sensing that Elena was not going to take the bait, Mrs. Wuornos began a haughty retreat to her own desk. Elena’s cheeks burned, and she yearned to stand up to the disrespectful educator. Everyone knew the only writing being disrupted during these class periods was the teacher’s own smutty romance novel she had been trying to publish for ages. As Elena fought to keep her mouth shut, her father’s reminders to pick her battles wisely bounced around in her mind, and she told herself not to stir up trouble so close to the end of her Senior year. She had nearly mastered her anger, and Mrs. Wuornos had almost made it back to her desk, when Elena’s phone pinged to announce an incoming text message. Crap, she thought, I always forget to put that stupid thing on silent.

Mrs. Wuornos’s kitten heels paused at once in their snobbish tap, tap, tap against the tile floor of the classroom not two feet from her desk. Her back was ramrod straight and the position of her whole body was a study of a human being frozen in time. Elena could not see her face, but she imagined that her thin lips had been pulled into a tight line and that the muscles next to her left eye had begun to twitch as she had seen it do before. If the aggressive use of the backspace button was an affront to the fearful silence cultivated during her class period then the chime of an incoming text message when cell phones were meant to be silent was an offense against all mankind. Mrs. Wuornos unfroze with a jolt, spun on the tip of her kitten heel, and marched back to Elena’s desk so fast that the sound of her feet came in double time.

“You cannot help but behave as though not a single rule in the world applies to you, can you Miss Pearl?” If Mrs. Wuornos were the yelling type her voice would have reverberated off the walls of the classroom and everyone in the whole school would have heard her. Instead, her voice hissed through her lips in the form of a snarling whisper and that was far more terrifying.

With one immaculately groomed eyebrow arched high and a sneer curling the corners of her mouth, Mrs. Wuornos stuck out her hand, palm flat, and made a give-it-here gesture with her fingers. “Hand over your cell phone, Miss Pearl.”

Not that she had anything on there she would not want Mrs. Wuornos to see, but Elena Pearl was a private person and the thought of handing her cell phone over to this hag of a teacher made her stomach curl. “I forgot to put it on silent, I am so sorry, I’ll do it right now and it will not happen again Mrs. Wuornos.” Elena heard her own voice accelerating in tempo and climbing in pitch as she pleaded with her least favorite teacher.

“Miss Pearl!” This time the teacher’s voice was nearly a shriek, shrill and piercing above the heads of the students. “Your cell phone! Give it to me this instant!”

Elena’s classmates shifted uncomfortably in their seats and many shot her a glance over their shoulders as if to say that she should get it over with. Everyone knew the cell phone would be returned as soon as the class period was finished, and what was a half hour without a cell phone? Resignedly she slapped the phone into the teacher’s palm. As she did so, the screen lit up and the text message that started the whole mess was illuminated on the screen.

Mrs. Wuornos smiled a villainous smirk of triumph. “A special someone wants to meet you on the docks after sundown. He wants to show you his daddy’s new boat, what a delightful treat.”

Elena’s stomach began to boil with anger in reaction to Mrs. Wuornos’ malicious words. “Miss Pearl, kindly refrain from arranging your romantic evenings during my class hour, and won’t you at least pretend to work as hard as the rest of us on your composition.”

Arlene Wuornos strode back to her desk steeped in victory, and Elena wondered if it was possible to disappear if you wished to do so with enough fervency. This teacher never missed an opportunity to make Elena feel small, but this was low even for her. What’s more, Elena knew Mrs. Wuornos would never implicate the sender of the text message even though his name was displayed just as clearly as his message. There was a rumor going around that Arlene Wuornos was shagging Mick Williams, Ryken Williams’ affluent father, and to publicly humiliate his son would put her out of his bed. It might be tolerable to be made a fool in front of her classmates if she had feelings for this boy, but as it stood his advances amounted to a heap of unwanted attention and she was taking heat for an unsolicited text message from an arrogant guy that she did not even like.

With Mrs. Wuornos settled behind her desk and the class back to work on their compositions, Elena took a fortifying breath and puffed out her cheeks with its exhalation. The only meaningful thing she would be composing for the rest of the period would be a tutorial on drowning your teacher in seven easy steps. Ryken Williams’ face was pink with embarrassment and he tried to catch her attention from his seat at the front of the class. Out of the corner of her eye she could see him mouthing that he was sorry, but she ignored him with stony resolve. Meanwhile, in a desk at the far back of the room, another student’s face was colored with emotion, hot angry tears alight in her eyes. Her name was Missy Pritchett, and last week she became Ryken’s former girlfriend. Elena could feel her livid eyes burning holes in the back of her head, and she tried to ignore her but she could feel the waves of resentment rolling off her from the back of the room. With another sigh, Elena pulled up her calendar on her desktop and began reviewing tasks that needed completing. Ignore Missy’s anger because it does not matter either, she thought to herself, check.

2.

Spring came early to the small town of Seward, Alaska nestled amongst four towering mountain ranges on the edge of Resurrection Bay. They were enjoying uncharacteristically warm temperatures as well, and after the final bell released them from school for the day, Dana and Elena relaxed in the bed of Dana’s old truck before swim practice. Dana was looking at her best friend with a mixture of pity and amusement, and Elena was still trying to bring down her racing heart after the series of unpleasant confrontations in composition class.

“You could not invent a teacher that horrible if you tried.” Dana’s long legs dangled off the edge of the truck bed and her caramel skinned feet already looked sun-kissed in the toasty light of spring.

Elena considered the conflicting emotions she harbored towards her advanced composition teacher. Arlene Wuornos was a genius, or so they were told. She had graduated from an ivy league school, and her essays, short stories, and novellas had been published and showered with prizes during her college years and in the time since her graduation. On one hand, Elena hated Arlene Wuornos for being a smug and menacing tyrant; on the other, she felt ashamed that she could not impress her teacher with her writing.

“It just sucks, Dana.” Elena chucked a rock she had found in the bed of the truck hard into the trees. “There is only one subject in the world I care about, one class in school where I try hard, and the teacher of that subject is the only teacher who hates me.” Her voice trailed off in tones of defeat.

“She does hate you.” Dana blurted the words and then covered her mouth. She looked apologetically at her friend, but Elena could not argue otherwise. Everyone in school knew that Arlene Wuornos hated Elena. In fact, everyone in the whole town probably knew. Seward was that kind of place.

“Did you hear she is on the committee to judge the contest this year?” Dana asked the question with trepidation. She figured Elena had not yet heard, and while she was glad to be the one to tell her, she knew the news was going to crush her friend.

“Of course, she is.” Elena pulled her legs into her chest and dropped her forehead on to her knees. She banged it against her kneecaps a few times for good measure.

“But she is just one member! The committee is, what, six people? A vote in your favor of five to one is still a winning vote!” Dana was as well suited for the spirit squad as she was for the swim team. She was the ultimate pep rally leader even if the crowd she was rousing only ever included Elena.

Elena’s voice was muffled by the proximity of her mouth to the tops of her thighs. “Who else is sitting on that stupid committee, Dana?”

Dana hesitated, and then responded in a voice that was too bright, too high. “Oh, you know, maybe Mick Williams, and a few of his other close friends.”

“That’s. Just. Peachy.” Elena’s voice was still muffled, but she punched the bed of the truck on either side of her just in case there was any confusion about her thinly veiled sarcasm.

“You know, you could always make nice with Ryken, and he could put in a good word about your work with his father.” Dana recommended this with as much enthusiasm as one might use to suggest someone should spend their Friday evening inserting bamboo shoots under their fingernails, and Elena shot her a withering look over the tops of her legs.

“I’m never going to win this competition.” Elena balanced her chin on the top of her knees with her arms wrapped around her legs and spoke as though to lose the competition was the end of the world.

Seward High School’s annual composition contest was coveted by its students. Entrants were tasked with the creation of an original novella, essay, or collection of poetry with an Alaskan theme that told an impactful story about the formative years of the author’s life. High school students of all ages could enter the contest, but it was often a Senior who won; the take included a cash prize as well as the publication and distribution of their work with a portion of the royalties being awarded to the winner if the publication sold well. This year’s theme was Stories from the Sea, and since Elena’s mother disappeared at sea when Elena was only thirteen years old she felt as though this contest was made for her. All she ever wanted to be her whole life was a writer, and to win this contest was the springboard she needed to jumpstart her career. But her composition teacher hated her guts and would be no help and she was systematically snubbing the son of the man who headed the committee that judged the contest submissions. So much for picking my battles, she thought. It was common knowledge that Elena was a promising author with a supernatural ability to tell stories that captivated her audience; it was also common knowledge that she did not possess one iota of diplomacy and her inability to play nice with others came back to bite her more often than she cared to say. To make matters worse, she was suffering from writer’s block, an affliction that never assaulted her, and all she had on paper was a collection of story notes scribbled in the margins of other homework. The contest submission was due in six weeks; she had less than two months to tell an impactful story, and the prospect daunted her to the point of tears. Encumbered by the weight of the problem before her, Elena sighed deeply and stared off at the tree line at the edge of the parking lot while Dana kicked at the gravel beside her.

“What are you going to do about your little Ryken problem?” Dana interrupted her reverie with another of her current struggles, one she would rather ignore until it went away. Dana’s tone was one part annoyed and one part curious. Although they both agreed that Ryken’s personality was repugnant, Elena always suspected that Dana found Ryken attractive enough to forgive what he lacked in character. He was tall and lean with long limbs and toned muscles, chestnut hair and bright green eyes, and while Elena was willing to acknowledge that he was pretty to look at, she was not willing to overlook the fact that he was a jerk to everyone that fell below his radar.

“I’m not going to do anything about him.” Elena’s voice was defiant, as was the tilt of her chin when she looked at Dana. “I’m going to ignore him until he gets bored and moves on. Every girl in this school wants his attention now that he and Missy broke up. He’ll get tired of being turned down sooner than later, and when that happens he will forget about me.”

Dana grinned in a way that suggested she knew more about the story than Elena did. Dana was a sucker for gossip; she always knew more about the whole story than Elena did. “Rumor has it he dumped Missy to pursue unresolved feelings for you. Somehow I don’t think he is going to get bored any time soon.”

The boy with supposed unresolved feelings emerged from the gymnasium doors clad in a running uniform on his way to the stadium for track practice. He was a specialist in all things endurance including running, skiing, and cycling. His body was solid and sculpted and when he deigned to greet you with his dazzling smile it almost made you want to forget how awful he was. Sometimes Elena wondered if she refused him out of principle, or perhaps because he had snubbed her in favor of Missy long ago. Either way, she was not prepared to give him the time of day, so he would just have to get over it.

Dana and Elena watched him walk with his friends towards the stadium. His face brightened when he noticed them, and he raised an arm to wave. Dana waved back with a friendly smile while Elena glowered back at him with zero enthusiasm. Elena’s unwillingness to acknowledge his advances only seemed to amuse him, however, and rather than appearing deflated at her snub, Elena’s recalcitrance elicited a mischievous grin. He picked up his pace from slow walk to trot and headed off to the stadium, an entertained expression still playing his features as he glanced over his shoulder one last time.

“You are an ice queen.” Dana laughed, and Elena could not help but smile along with her.

As Ryken’s head disappeared over the hill, the door to the gymnasium opened again and Missy Pritchett stepped into the sunshine of the afternoon. She was pretty in a two-dimensional way, like a picture of a model in a glossy magazine, with watery blue eyes, chin length blonde hair, and rose petal skin. She was also a skilled runner, on her way to practice, but in the wake of her break up from Ryken she was ostracized from their group either by force or choice. Despite her apparent lateness in hitting the turf, she stopped to glare daggers at Elena across the parking lot.

“Can you imagine how upset she would be if you dated him?” Dana’s voice was full of cruel humor.

“Yes, and as much joy as it would bring me to watch her squirm, it still does not make me want to go out with him.” Elena grabbed her swim bag from the bed of the truck, slid to the edge of the gate, and hopped down. “Come on, let’s go to practice before she gets confrontational.”

Dana sighed and swung her bag over her shoulder. “You are no fun.”

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3.

Elena was a good swimmer, and not just for a big fish in the tiny pond that was competitive swimming in the town of Seward, or by the standards of Alaska swimming in general. There was a joke among Alaskan swimmers that kids in small towns are fast because there is nothing better to do, but the young people on her swim team were different. She and Dana and a few of their teammates had attended Spring Sections in their respective best events in March, they were all training for Futures in August, and each of the graduating Seniors had signed letters of intent with top swimming colleges in the United States. Dana and Elena could have swum anywhere, but both had signed with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. Dana wanted to stay close to her sisters, Elena could not imagine living anywhere but Alaska, and both wanted to be sure they would get to swim together another four years before life pulled them in a million directions. Raised her whole life by the water, Elena felt free as a swimmer in a way that she never found doing anything else. Being in the pool felt as much like flying as it felt like coming home. The rigorous workouts were a bonus, too, as they kept her anxiety at bay.

She raced into the wall, Dana right on her heels, and felt a thrill of accomplishment at having made a challenging interval that had dogged her for days. Chest heaving, eyes burning from the invasion of chlorine water in her goggles, she was a giddy sort of happy nonetheless. Just then, she noticed a stranger on deck talking to the coach. He had the telltale body proportions of a swimmer with broad shoulders, long arms, short legs, and elongated torso. He had a Speedo bag slung over one shoulder, and even though he was trying to listen intently to Coach, his eyes kept wandering to the pool. His skin was tan like he spent most of his time swimming in an outdoor facility, his hair was dark and mercifully untouched by the brassiness of chlorine damage, and his eyes were strange and captivating, one a pale gray and the other a deep blue. After a few moments more he disappeared into the locker room and emerged ready to train. With her arms resting on her kickboard, Elena watched him with interest as he dove in and was pleased to see that he was as fast or faster than her other male teammates. Dana watched her best friend sizing up the new kid during his cursory warm up and tried to remember the last time Elena had looked at a boy with anything more than mild disgust and decided this spark was an interesting development at worst and perhaps even a sign of something promising in the future.

4.

Practice ended and the swimmers showered, dried off, got dressed, and filed out of the pool to go home for the day. All were exhausted after a full week of training, but there was still one practice left, the dreaded Saturday morning practice, and everyone was in a hurry to fuel up on good food and get themselves to bed. The new kid did not talk to anyone, but he offered up a polite smile in response to those who waved goodbye. Elena walked with Dana out to her truck and waited while she got her things loaded in the backseat. She slammed the car door and went to stand with Elena, both leaning with their backs against the driver’s side door of the ancient vehicle.

“Are you sure you don’t want a ride home? You look worn out.” Dana bumped her shoulder against Elena’s and laughed as Elena feigned exhaustion so extreme it almost knocked her over.

“I’m good Dana, I’ve got my bike, I’ll get there.” Elena gestured at her fat bike chained to the bike rack in front of the school, her preferred form of transportation despite the car her father bought her and Dana’s standing offer to catch a ride.

“You’re allowed to be human, you don’t always have to do the perfect thing all the time.” She meant it as a joke, but Dana’s voice carried some weight to it that was decidedly uncomedic.

Elena stilled and looked uncertainly between the truck and the bike. Truth be told, she would much rather catch a ride home, but unlike Dana she did not have a plan B if her swimming scholarship did not work out, so she never missed an opportunity to partake of additional exercise. Dana knew this was true without Elena having said it, and it pained her to know that her friend put herself under constant pressure, but she also knew better than to say anything. The girls stared at one another in silent communication the way that sisters can look at one another and know everything the other is thinking in a single glance. Dana was the first to look away, down at her feet, wishing there was more she could do for this girl who always did everything.

“Come on, you know I love the ride home anyway. It gives me time to prepare for the step monster.” Elena broke the heavy silence with a joke about her new step mother, their favorite person to complain about other than Mrs. Wuornos.

“Alright,” Dana conceded with a smile, “I’ll text you later, and I’ll see you in the morning.”

Elena waved her off and laughed as the decrepit old truck coughed itself to life and made enough noise to wake the dead driving out of the parking lot. She took a deep breath and walked over to the bike rack to make her wheels ready for the ride home, all her stuff carefully balanced in the paniers on either side, failing to notice that she was not alone in the parking lot of the school. Missy Pritchett waited in the shadows near the front door, her teeth clenched tight in anger.

“Hey,” called Missy just as Elena was swinging her leg over her bike, “I need to talk to you.”

Elena looked over her shoulder and groaned internally at the sight of Missy. “I don’t have time to do this right now, Missy, I need to get home.”

Missy ignored her. “You need to stay away from Ryken.”

When had she been seen in Ryken’s company? “Trust me, Missy, I want nothing to do with him. He knows that, and so do you.” Elena mused to herself how both Missy and Ryken could mistake her obvious disinterest for anything else.

Missy became enraged at Elena’s casual dismissal and began to yell at the top of her lungs. “He dumped me for you! Don’t try to tell me you want nothing to do with him. I know you want to be with him, Elena, and you need to stay away!”

Elena laughed before she could stop herself, and she muttered under her breath. “Yes, because you are so charming, why would he want to leave you?”

She had no time or patience for this nonsense; she went about clipping her feet into her pedals and was about to ride away when the angry girl lunged for her out of nowhere. Missy was not a substantial person by any means, but with plenty of room to run she closed the distance between them and crashed into Elena with enough force to knock her off her bike. Elena fell painfully to the ground on her right side, and as much as her body hurt and was demanding her attention, she had the more pressing troubles of the bike and Missy crushing her into the pavement to deal with first. She unclipped her feet in one quick move and shimmied out from under the bike while grabbing Missy by the shoulders. In one swift move she leveraged her body weight to drive Missy into the ground alongside her and used her hands and knees to pin the writhing girl to the floor. Missy snarled and sobbed, thrashing her head back and forth, but try as she might she could not dislodge Elena’s body from above her. Elena waited patiently for Missy’s tantrum to subside, holding still while the other girl’s energy waned beneath her.

“When you are done, I’ll let you get up.” Elena told Missy, her voice calm and even.

At last Missy stopped struggling, and when even her sobs had quieted, Elena got to her feet and backed away from the angry girl. On the defensive now, she would not turn her back until Missy was gone.

Missy climbed to her feet as well, and although she squared off with Elena, it did not look like she would lunge for her again. Elena waited patiently to see what the other girl would do or say, every muscle in her body tensed and ready to act.

Another wave of hot, angry tears began to roll down Missy’s cheeks, and her whole body shook with rage. “You are trash, Elena Pearl, no good, a weirdo, and that is why you need to stay away from him. He’s too good for you, and you need to stay away.” Her voice was strained with the weight of her emotion, and Elena began to feel the tiniest bit sorry for her as she realized that the only person that mattered to Missy in her whole world had tossed her aside like garbage.

“No wonder your mother left you behind when she went away, you freak, how could anyone love you.” All out of semi-practical insults, Missy decided to make it ugly and personal, and that was a huge mistake.

Elena surged forward and grabbed Missy by the lapels of her track jacket, pulling her face in as close as she dared. “Don’t talk about my mother. Do you understand me?” Teeth gritted, voice low and deadly, Missy stood a better chance in a fight against a bear, but she was as stupid as she was emotional, and she never knew when to quit. She pushed Elena hard in the chest and lunged after her as soon as Elena let go of her clothes, and before Elena could get a hand up, Missy slapped her so hard against her left cheek that it snapped her head to the right, and the sound of it reverberated over the tree tops and off the mountains around them.

Both girls stood in stunned silence, all the tension of the previous moment having evaporated in an instant. Both girls knew that Elena could destroy Missy in a fight if she chose, but she was too shocked to do anything but stand and stare. She felt the imprint of Missy’s hand blooming on her cheek, red and raised and angry as the girl who left it there. Once Missy realized Elena would deliver no retaliation, she becamw smug and a snide smile appeared upon her face.

“You’re a freak, and a coward, and you deserve to be alone.” Missy spit the words with venom. “Stay away from him.”

With that, she turned on her heel and sashayed from the sidewalk in front of the school to her car and took off. Shaken up and sore, but otherwise okay, her bike still in good working order, Elena swung her leg over the seat and at last escaped her rotten day.

5.

After her confrontation with Missy, the last thing Elena wanted was to go home. Her step monster was pregnant with her first child and that had made her unbearable. Instead, she rode down from the high school into town and took Ballaine Boulevard along the water past the campgrounds to the gazebo near the Alaska Sea Life Center. There she dismounted her bike and chained it to the rack. She transferred her valuables from the paniers on her bike to the slim bag on her back that contained her swim gear and set off along the paved trail that bordered the shoreline. When she was a little girl she often walked here with her mother and father, and it was still a spot she came to often when she needed to think. It had grown cloudy during swim practice and as she rode down from the school it began to rain. Impervious to bad weather, however, the cold and damp did not bother Elena. A proper seaside storm could descend on the town of Seward and still Elena would have continued along the trail. Walking to clear her head was more important than staying dry.

As she wandered, she observed the tents and RVs that camped in the exposed spaces next to the ocean. The seaside campgrounds in Seward were popular attractions for local Alaskans and visiting tourists alike, but Elena never understood why anyone would want to sleep in the open like that. She enjoyed the scenery and the opportunity for people watching they provided nonetheless, and she intruded on their lives with her quiet eyes as she walked. There was a young couple with touring motorcycles pitching a tent near a tree, both exhausted but laughing as they tried to set up their complicated shelter. A few spaces over there was a family in an old RV with two small children and a tiny puppy playing in the dirt. The father supervised them between glances at his mobile phone, and the mother must have been cooking dinner inside because the smells wafting through the open windows were intoxicating. Elena’s stomach growled, a reminder she had not eaten since lunchtime, but despite her hunger she resolved firmly that it would have to wait.

A few more spots over, something unusual caught her attention. In the land of modern tents and recreational vehicles, an old canvas shelter pitched on wooden poles stuck out like a sore thumb. If the accommodations were unusual, the young woman sitting before it was a perfect match. Her hair was vibrant red with streaks of amber, pulled halfway up with the long ends trailing, all of it sticking out in every conceivable direction and even some that seemed to defy gravity. Her eyes were a piercing blue, her nose and the skin beneath each of her eyes were dusted with dainty freckles, and she had large dimples, one in each of her cheeks, and one in the center of her chin. To see her there in all her strangeness caught Elena off guard, and as she paused in her seaside ramblings, it struck her that this woman was reminiscent of one of the sprites in the fairy tales her mother read to her as a child. Seeing her staring, the fairy lady smiled a huge, toothy smile and beckoned her over to the tent with a tilt of her head. Before Elena could give it a second thought, her feet began carrying her forward over the lumpy terrain of the campground, much too late to consider that it might not be a good idea to talk to such an unusual stranger.

“My name is Cora Lee, pleased to meet you.” She did not offer to shake Elena’s hand, but her greeting was so forward Elena surmised she must be used to seizing the upper hand in order to prevent unnecessary startling or staring due to her unsettling presence.

“Not a very good day for a walk by the water.” Said Cora Lee with practiced nonchalance when Elena maintained her silence as she worked at something wooden and leafy between her fingers.

Something about this woman inspired a feeling of clever defiance within Elena. “Not a very good day for crafting in open air either.”

Cora Lee’s cheeks dimpled in response. “Well played. Have a seat.”

Elena pulled up the empty chair alongside Cora Lee and peered into her lap at her handiwork. She could not identify any of it by name, but she could tell it was intricate, a work of creativity and patience the likes of which Elena knew could never muster.

It was then that Elena noticed the odds and ends spread all about them on the grass. Not odds and ends at all, in fact, but rather beautiful pieces of art crafted by Cora Lee’s own hands made with simple materials produced by nature itself. Elena marveled at Cora Lee’s creations as they sat in companionable silence, the rain picking up all around them. It felt as though they were the only two people in the entire world.

At last, Cora Lee broke the silence again. “I knew your mother.”

Elena started; considering that everyone in town avoided mentioning her mother, it was disconcerting to have her come up in conversation with different people twice in one day. It was even more startling to have her come up in conversation with an odd stranger.

“I’m listening.” Elena kept her voice calm, but her entire body was tense with anticipation, and her fingers were digging into the arms of the old chair.

“Your mother was a special woman, you know, I am not sure you were old enough to remember her when she vanished.” Cora Lee’s voice was also even and calm, but her words were heavy with meaning. Elena was of course quite old enough to remember her mother before her disappearance, old enough to have suffered greatly in the five years since she went away, but she did not say as much. In a strange way, Elena felt that this woman already knew.

“She understood that her disappearance would affect you greatly, but she had to leave.” Cora Lee’s voice trailed off at the end of this statement, and it was more vagary than Elena could take.

“What do you know about my mother’s disappearance?” Her voice was low and quiet, and although she thought she had run out of tears to cry about her mother being gone, she found her voice thick with emotion.

“I know what you know, Elena, and nothing more.” Cora Lee turned her queer, bright eyes on Elena and locked her in place with her gaze. In the fog of her swirling mind, Elena tried to remember if she had told Cora Lee her name.

“Your mother had a special relationship with the ocean, some might even call it an obsession. She was aboard a boat on the water she so loves when she vanished without a trace and her disappearance is still unsolved.” Her words were even as she spoke, telling her what she knew about her mother’s disappearance, and she never once took her eyes off Elena. It was a mesmerizing moment, like she was caught in the middle of a sorceress weaving a spell.

With the rain pouring down in buckets, the magic of the moment was broken as soon as Cora Lee dropped her eyes back to the creation in her lap. Elena became aware once again of the family in the RV a few spaces away who had moved their fun indoors to enjoy their meal and escape the deluge. Life seemed to snap back into place all around her and she wondered how she had failed to notice it while she and Cora Lee were talking. Elena had also failed to notice that the thickness in her throat had progressed to large, hot tears rolling down her cheeks. Not sobbing, just a gentle and heartfelt release of emotion. Elena had not cried for her mother, or anything for that matter, in a long time.

Just then, an object tucked in a rucksack beyond the flap of Cora Lee’s tent caught her eye. It was an oddly shaped rock, both lumpy and smooth, and possessing an odd sparkle about it and seemed to pulse from within.

“What is that?” she asked Cora Lee, before she could stop herself, and when she mentioned it the object sparked with a shock of light at its center that continued to glow even after the initial brightness had dimmed.

Cora Lee took in a sharp breath, set down her work, and sprung from her chair into a crouch facing the object in the bag. It seemed that she might be afraid of the thing, but at the same time she could not help but get closer. Without thinking, Elena followed her over and as she did the light inside the strange, pulsing thing grew brighter. Cora Lee stared up at Elena through the rain, her face full of wonder, and then back at the weird rock, her gaze locked there for an indeterminate number of moments.

“May I have it?” Elena asked, and later she would wonder what possessed her to make such a bold request from such an odd stranger regarding such a peculiar object. But as with many things she had done since she first saw Cora Lee, she could not help herself.

Cora Lee picked it up gingerly, like it might explode, and held it out to Elena for her to take. Elena looked at her questioningly, but Cora Lee’s eyes encouraged her to take the thing in her own hands. Elena took it and marveled at the way it seemed to come alive when it touched her skin. She could not explain why, but she felt as though something inside it shifted and wriggled when it touched her fingers.

“I do not want to let you have this thing, Elena Pearl, but it seems as though I have no choice.” Cora Lee sounded resigned, and perhaps even a little scared.

“Why wouldn’t you want me to have it?” Elena asked the question quickly, a note of panic creeping into her voice.

“What I want is irrelevant, mermaid girl.” Cora Lee replied just as quickly, a note of mischief and even wonder in her voice. “It wants you to have it, and that is something with which no one can argue.”

Elena had no idea what that meant, but with the sparking, pulsing, wriggling thing clutched between her fingers, she was too captivated to give anything else much thought. Suddenly, and without warning, Cora Lee began to break camp.

“Wait! Where are you going?” Elena scrambled to keep up with Cora Lee’s sudden whirlwind of activity, her shoes slipping in the mud and slime of the campground.

“I have some things I must do, and I need to see to them quickly.” Cora Lee glanced at the thing in Elena’s hands, and Elena concluded her sense of urgency must have something to with what she had been given, but Cora Lee made it clear there was no time to explain. Elena stood there dumbfounded with the weird rock in her hand, unsure what to do now that she had it but still sensing that everything in her life was about to change.

Cora Lee had her entire camp broken and stowed in a moments and as though she suddenly remembered Elena was still standing there, she grabbed the girl by the shoulders. “Listen to me, you’re going to need some help with that. Maybe not right away, but I bet at some point you will want some answers. When that time comes, find me at The Mermaid. Ask for me. They will know how to put us in touch.”

With that, Cora Lee was gone. When Elena thought back on the moment later, she could not remember if Cora Lee had driven, walked, or if she had vanished into the rain. With the strange rock clutched in her right hand, its lumps and smooth edges pressed into her palm, she wandered in a daze back to her bike and rode home.

By the time she pulled her bike into the garage, the sky cleared like the rain had never happened, and her clothes steamed in the early evening sun. Her step mother scolded her for tracking water into the house and berated her for swimming in the ocean in her clothes. Her father took note of the red welt across her left cheek as well as the bruises along her right side from the tussle with Missy, but when Elena shrugged him off he said nothing more.

Elena was overwhelmed by all the sudden noise and commotion brought by her father and step mother, and although she had been starving only minutes earlier, she declined to eat dinner with them and instead staggered up the stairs to her room where she fell on her bed with the rock still clutched tight in her fingers. Her head swirled, her thoughts wandered without direction, and before long she was fast asleep. The rock fell from her fingers and landed behind the bed, and her cell phone buzzed in her pocket with concerned text messages from Dana who had received word of both the fight in the parking lot and the bizarre rainstorm that had settled over their town. Elena cared nothing for either of these things, however, and she slept the most blissful sleep she had experienced in five years, since the night before her mother disappeared.