Chapter One

Hamelin Apple

Ghost Apple: 10 Million Beli

Ghost Apple. Really? Of all the names they could have given me, why that one? Ugh, I would be stuck with it for the rest of my life.

Well, I suppose maybe they had a point. I was small, pale, and easily bruised just like the fruit they'd named me for.

Perhaps I should back up a little. My name is Hamelin Apple, but it wasn't always. I wasn't born to this world, I just kind of...ended up here. Fate may have had a hand in it, the fickle bastard. It threw me into a new body, a new world, a new life.

A new family.

When I came here years ago, the pain was so excruciating I couldn't see through the tears. The only thing to break through the agony was a warm, gravelly voice.

"Kiddo, are you okay?" A large hand cupped the back of my head. I tried to talk, but all the sound I could make was a tiny, pained whine. "Aw, kid. What the hell happened? Who leaves a little kid out here like this?"

Strong arms lifted me up, then everything went dark.

o

I woke up in a dark room, tucked into an over-sized bed. Voices murmured from beyond the door. As I weighed the pros and cons of getting out of the bed versus going back to sleep, the door swung open slightly and the voices grew clearer.

"Shit, what the hell?" said one voice, in a harsh whisper. "That's just a little kid."

"See why I couldn't just leave 'em out there?" said the voice I'd heard just before falling unconscious earlier.

A little strangled, the first voice said, "The kid's probably even younger than Bethel."

"And smaller than Cath was at that age," my savior said, pointed like a barb.

There was a heavy sigh. "Alright, Marron, you've made your point."

"I don't know why you keep getting angry at me for bringing home strays, when all you do in the end is tell me I was right."

"I told you when we got married, you're always right but that doesn't mean I won't complain about it." Another sigh, chased by a quiet laugh. "Alright. If-if-the kid wants to stay, I'm fine with it. But you get to explain it to Bethel."

"Knew you'd come around," was the last thing I heard before the darkness swallowed me up again.

o

When I woke up, daylight streamed through the window and the sound of pancakes on a griddle and the chatter of multiple voices came through the open door. Someone had set a pair of shorts and a T-shirt on the bedside table.

I nudged the door closed long enough to get changed-god, these clothes were huge on me. I stretched out my arms in front of the mirror and the sleeves gaped open, showing my ribs. And now that I wasn't delirious with pain I noticed something else. I'm pretty sure last I knew I was a normal, if small, nineteen-year-old human. My skin was still pale and my short hair still brown, but apparently I lost a decade somewhere and...

I had three eyes.

Aw, hell.

Something weird was going on, but I was starving and exhausted and not interested in dealing with it. Squaring my shoulders and girding my loins, or whatever, I stepped out into the kitchen.

Three pairs of eyes locked on me immediately, the chatter around the kitchen table halting as the three kids, ranging in age from eleven to eighteen, turned their attention to me. The youngest was green, but I'd already decided not to try and make sense of anything right now.

"Kids, come on," said a low, raspy voice, one I'd heard somewhere before. There, at the griddle with a spatula and a frilly apron was a dark-skinned man, his eyes bright blue and hair shining in silver curls around his lightly-lined face. "Don't be rude. Grab a seat, kiddo, it's good to see you up and about."

The kids at the table scrambled to make room for me, the green one patting the chair next to him in invitation.

"I'm Bethel!" he said, face split into a wide smile that showed off a lot of sharp teeth. His eyes were black from lid to lid, and webbing stretched delicately between his fingers as he reached out to shake my hand. "Haha, I guess I'm not the youngest Hamelin anymore!"

"Bethel, let the kid have a meal at least before you start springing that shit," the man said as he placed a plate of pancakes in front of me.

"Sorry, Dad."

The man ruffled Bethel's gold hair on his way back to the griddle. "No harm, no foul. Your mom'll be back soon, we can talk about it then."

I took a hesitant bite of pancake, then fell on the rest like a starving animal. The eldest of the kids-dark red hair, same blue eyes and snub nose as the man-smiled indulgently and passed one of their pancakes over to my plate.

"I'm Mango," they said.

"I'm Gooseberry," shouted the preteen girl next to them. She leaned across the table toward me with a grin, lifting herself up with her hands flat against the wood. The pink polish on her nails was bright against the dove gray of her skin, the midnight black of her box braids. There were scales on her hips, glittering silver, and when I looked further I saw she had a fish's tail instead of legs. Okay. Great. That was happening. "What's your name?"

"I'm-" I stopped. What was my name? I couldn't remember. I could remember so much else, but not my name. The more I thought, the worse it got: My name wasn't the only memory missing. I couldn't remember my family, my home, what I'd been doing before ending up here. How did I get here? It was all blank, static noise, empty spaces where there should've been knowledge.

My face must've showed my sudden panic, because Mango slid out of their seat and onto their knees beside me, arms around my shoulders.

"I can't remember anything, I can't, I can't, I-"

"It's okay, kid, it's going to be fine. You're going to be fine."

With my face tucked into Mango's shoulder, I heard Gooseberry cry, "I'm sorry, I'm so sorry, I didn't know!" It shook me from my panic, turning my mind from my pain to hers, and I got a grip on my emotions enough to slow my breathing and my pounding heart.

"It's not your fault," I said, extricating myself from Mango's hold. "It's nobody's fault."

"Nobody's," said a new voice-no, not new, the voice of the person who'd found me, "except whoever left you unconscious in our orchard."

I lifted my head off Mango's shoulder and saw her for the first time. She was so tall, build like a brick shithouse, her bronze-skinned arms musclebound and her stance taut. But, beneath unruly red curls, her brown eyes were soft like fresh-tilled earth.

She knelt down beside me and Mango and took one of my small hands between her very large ones. "My name is Hamelin Marron. That's my husband, Hamelin Church, and these are three of our kids, though I suppose you've already been introduced."

The man-Church-sat down in Mango's vacated chair. "Now that everyone here, we can have that talk. Now, kiddo, don't look so wide-eyed, it's no big deal."

"What he's trying to say," said Marron, "is since it's pretty clear there's no one around taking care of you, would you like to join our family? We'd all be happy to have you, if you're willing."

I was suddenly nine years old instead of nineteen, with three eyes instead of two, in a place I didn't recognize, where merpeople weren't a myth. I couldn't remember who I was or how I got here, except that it apparently involved enough pain to knock me out. It took thirty seconds for all that information to coalesce into an answer:

"I. Um. I-I guess? But, um, I need a name."

Marron took my face between her big, bronze hands and looked into my eyes. She glanced at Church, who gave a huffed laugh and a shrug, and then she looked back at me.

"How about Hamelin Apple?"


this website keeps dicking around with my em-dashes so I guess I'll leave them be for now. Welcome to the story pals~