"Forks?"

"You're sending us to a town named after a piece of silverware?" My twin sister, Amanda, asked our mother.

"Yes, honey. My boss is insisting that I go on this business trip, and he can only get one extra plane ticket," Mom answered, "And rather than split you two up, I decided to take your father." She was right. My sister and I were inseparable.

I reached up and took hold of the beautiful aquamarine crystal hanging about my neck, and thought, I guess we're visiting Uncle Charlie. Amanda glanced in my direction, her hand clasped around a pendent identical to mine, but emerald green.

We better learn how to cook. You remember last time, I almost exploded from all of that fast food and take out, Amanda's voice rang out in my head. That was one of the things that happened after the incident. We got the power to read each others minds, and occasionally someone else's.

At least it's near the beach. Very convenient ."How long do we have?" I asked Mom.

"You're leaving a month before school starts, so you can get settled in and make some friends beforehand." she replied.

One month to learn how to cook. We're screwed. Amanda sighed.

My name is Kassie Bishop, I am 5'11", blond with eyes that change from deep green to baby blue, depending on my outfit and my mood. Amanda is the same height as me, with the same eyes, but her hair has almost every natural hair color, from blond to brown, from red to black.

We lived with both of our parents in a decent size house in a small town in Tennessee. We were pretty popular in school, not cheerleader popular or anything, but we were friends with pretty much everybody. With a few exceptions.

We had just turned 16 at the end of May, and that school year, we were to be juniors.

Now, for the freaky part. The second week of that same summer, My sister and I had gone camping at one of the creeks close by our house. This particular one was called Flat Rock, for it had these huge rocks so flat and perfect, they looked like poured concrete. But, of course, it wasn't concrete. Between two of the giant rocks was a natural waterfall created by smaller stones drifting downstream and getting caught. The waterfall was so big that, at places, the water was at least 12 feet deep. This creek stayed deep all the way to the Tennessee river.

We set up our tent on one of the rocks that was nearest the deepest part of the creek, the pool made by the high waterfall. The trees high up above sheltered the entire place, except for a round opening directly above the pool.

We were taking one last swim before we turned in for the night, when the full moon moved into the center of the single opening in the trees. The water turned an even brighter blue, and started to bubble like it was boiling, though it wasn't hot. Small golden bubbles slowly drifted up toward the moon, and disappeared above the trees. Then, everything stopped as suddenly as it started when the moon continued along its journey.

Slightly terrified, Amanda and I clambered out of the natural pool, and went straight to bed without speaking of the phenomenon.

The next morning, both of us thinking what happened the night before was a strange dream, we took an early morning swim. Ten seconds after we touched the water, I got the strangest tingling sensation all through my legs. Then, for the briefest second, I was water. When i was solid again, I looked down and noticed my legs were gone, and in their place was a long, powerful, deep purple tail. Instead of my pink, white, and brown bikini top, a lighter purple scaly halter top was covering my chest.

I chanced a glance at my sister, and saw an expression that mirrored mine, and that she also had a purple tail. "What the hell?" she said, looking from my face, to her tail, to my tail, and back again.

"We look like..." I whispered dumbly.

Her eyes widened, and she shook her head slowly. "Don't you dare say 'mermaids'," she said, her voice shaking.

"We're mermaids," I stated. "This ain't good."

And that's how we became mermaids. We had planned on staying at the creek for a week, so for the next week, we experimented, finding out new things about our mermaidness.

We discovered that we could hold our breath for sixteen and a half minutes, and that I could boil and evaporate water and I could start fires, and summon lightning. Amanda could freeze water, and even things with no water in it, and she could create storms. We both could manipulate and expand water. And obviously read each others minds.

And there was the one unchanging fact. Ten seconds after we touch water, we grow a tail. And now, Mom and Dad were leaving on a year-long business trip to Germany, and we were getting sent to live with our Uncle Charlie in the rainiest place on Earth, Forks, Washington. For 2 years. 2 hours from the closest mall, and one hour from the closest Walmart. God help us.