CHAPTER 2
Zac knew something was really wrong when he made it to the bathroom, and found the door open and the room empty. He quickly walked into the living room and found Evie sitting on the couch alone. She knew something was wrong by the look on his face, and asked him what was wrong.
"David's not in the bathroom." Evie jumped up with a shocked look on her face and asks. "What but where else could he be? Why would he take off without telling us?" Both of their eyes widen in alarm as they both think the same thing. Evie was the first one to find her voice asking.
"You don't think he's gone to confront Erik for nearly killing Sirena and the others do you?" Zac shakes his head and says. "I wouldn't put it past him. He's done stupid stuff in the past when confronting someone who's hurt someone he cares about. If he has this is the stupidest thing he's ever done."
Zac, Evie, Cam, and Carly had all known David since they were five years old. David while protective of all his friends, was extremely protective of the girls. He'd taken on bullies much bigger than him for hurting one of them, and gotten pretty beat up for it too. But after each time he'd always tell them he'd gladly do it again.
Evie looking really worried asks him. "Are you sure he isn't anywhere else in the house? Maybe he got curious and decided to look around?" Zac shook his head and tells her. "David isn't the kind of guy to do that and you know it." Evie bites her bottom lip before saying.
"We've got to get to him before he gets really hurt or worse. Erik has been unstable the past day or so, there is no telling what he might do to David." Zac nods before saying. "Knowing him there isn't any point in trying to call him and talk him out of it. Give Carly a call and see if she knows where Erik's address might still be written down somewhere." Evie nods her head and grabs her phone out of her purse which was on the couch.
She called the café number as it would be the phone she'd pick up if they were busy. After a few rings it was actually Cam who picked up the phone. Evie quickly filled him in on what was going on, and he cussed before quickly handing the phone over to Carly. Evie filled her in and her heart sank with Carly told her.
"The computer in David's office is password protected and his desk is locked up with a key only he has." Evie told Zac what Carly told her and tells Evie. "We have no choice we have to go to the pod and let Rita and the council and the others know what is going on.
Going to the café and trying to use our powers on the desk will take up too much time." Evie nods before telling Carly that they were heading for Mako, that they'd call as they found out anything on David. She then ends the call and throws her phone into her purse, before she and Zac run for the grotto.
David couldn't help but feel guilty as he walked up to the front door of a small house. By now he was sure Evie and Zac had figured out not only where he was going. But that they had gone to the pod and gotten Sirena freaked out and worried. He took no pleasure in worrying Sirena and his friends but he needed answers.
He'd seen the way Erik started at Ondina when they were together. He knew that Erik loved Ondina and was the most important person to him. Just like he loved Sirena and she was the most important person to him. There had to be a reason for Erik's desperation to learn about and activate the chamber, there had to be he just knew it.
But he also knew he wasn't going to get the answers he needed with the others around. So he'd snuck out of Rita's while Evie and Zac were distracted. Luckily from writing his check every week for a good amount of time, David had Erik's address memorized.
When he reached the front door he rang the doorbell and waited. He could hear Erik arguing with someone telling them not to open the door, but the other person for some reason wasn't saying anything. The door suddenly swings open and he sees a girl about his age with Erik's hair and eye color.
She also appeared to be around Nixie's height. Right behind her was Erik and another guy looking to be around the same age as them behind him. "You know don't you" Erik asks him. David nods his head before saying. "Yes but I'd like to hear your side of the story." Erik looks uncomfortable and the girl looks at Erik and asks in sign language.
Is he a friend? Erik looks at David before looking back at the girl and saying. "I sure hope so." David looks at him and asks. "She knows?" Erik nods before saying. "Yes this is my sister Cristal, she is mute that is why she is using sign language. Do you understand it?" David nods before saying.
"Yes a good friend of mine, Evie, Zac, Carly, and Cam's who moved away a month before you came to town was deaf. We grew up with him and know sign language very well." David then looks at Cristal who signs. It is nice to meet you David. David signs back. It is nice to meet you too Cristal.
He then looks at Erik who points his thumb at the guy standing behind him. "This is Mark her boyfriend. He is a land boy like you but knows our secret." Mark extends his hand and David shakes it and they exchange nice to meet you's. Erik then asks David.
"Is there some place we can go to talk? If you've found us it is only a matter of time before the others do. I don't want our talk interrupted and I doubt they'd let us finish if they come in the middle of it." David nods and tell him they can go to his house.
No one was home and he doubted the others would think to look for them there. Erik thanked him and Cristal signed for her boyfriend to get her purse. He gets it before joining them outside and handing Cristal her purse. She then takes his hand as David lead them down the street.
The swim to Mako didn't seem to take long at all normally when swimming at full speed. But with worrying about David, it made the swim seem to take forever to Zac and Evie. Relying on the bond between them Zac led Evie towards where Mimmi was. When they reached where she was they quickly surfaced. Mermaids all around them screamed and backed away from them.
Mimmi rolls her eyes before looking around them and saying. "Relax it's just my brother and our friend Evie." That seemed to relax them for the most part, but he could still feel a lot of eyes on him. Examining him like he was specimen. A lot of them were also whispering to one another making him really uncomfortable.
Luckily Ondina, Sirena, and Aquata were right there with her, and Rita, Nixie, Veridia, and the rest of the council were close by and quickly swam over. That saved them time having to try to find any of them. Noticing the looks on Evie and Zac's faces Rita asks. "What's happened?"
Evie and Zac look at each other unsure of how to answer. They'd left so quick that they'd hadn't had time to discuss what to tell them especially Sirena. Mimmi growing concerned placed a hand on her brother's shoulder. When he looks at her she asks. "Zac has something happened to one of the others?"
Zac runs a hand through his hand before saying. "I'm not sure." Sirena swims closer and asks. "What do you mean you aren't sure?" Zac looks at her before telling her. "David's disappeared on us after you left. We think that he's gone to confront Erik."
Sirena gets a look of shock and distress on her face while Veridia asks. "What makes you think that? Couldn't he have just left?" Zac shakes his head before saying. "You guys had been gone maybe two minutes and Evie and I had been talking. We turned to ask if he was ready to head back to the café, but he was gone and we couldn't find him anywhere.
He wouldn't have just left without telling us if he was going back to the café. David isn't the type of person to just disappear on you." Rita looks at Veridia and tells her. "He's right that is very unlike David." Mimmi, Ondina, Lyla, and Nixie all nod their heads in agreement.
Before Veridia can say anything Sirena says. "I have to go I have to find him." Before she can sink under the surface however Aquata quickly grabs her arm. Sirena starts to struggle against her sister as she tells her. "Let me go I have to find him I have to save him." But Aquata refuses telling her.
"Not without a plan you're not, you don't even know where to begin looking." Sirena stops struggling but looks at her sister and says. "Aquata I have to try to find him I can't lose him." Before Aquata can respond Rita says. "I put down the address he gave me for his school application on a file in my computer at home. Something told me I might need that address some day."
Sirena yanks her arm free from her sister's grasp before saying. "What are we waiting for let's go." She then sinks under the water and rushes for Rita's. Everyone but Rita and Veridia quickly follow suit. Veridia looks at her fellow council members and tells them. "I've got to see this through even if it is an overreaction on Evie and Zac's part. We'll be back as soon as we can." They then sink under the surface and give chase to the others.
When they make it back to Rita's they find Sirena already dried standing by the pool. She is looking at the others all drying off with an annoyed look on her face. As well as impatiently tapping her foot with her arms crossed over her chest. "Can you guys not hurry it up?"
"Sirena you've got to calm down, stressing yourself isn't going to help David." Rita tells her after dragging herself out of the pool. "I can't help it Rita. All I can think about is what if we're too late, what if I lose him? I don't know how you survived the loss of Harry Rita. Just the thought of losing David I can't I can't." She trails off and swallows hard, clearly unable to even stand to finish that sentence.
Her sister having finished drying off, stands up quickly and pulls her into a hug. "He's going to be ok, we're going to get there in time you've got to have faith." Aquata tells her gently while rubbing her back. "You don't know that." Sirena argues back but is starting to calm down.
Rita who had dried off walks over and tells her. "You're sister is right Sirena you've got to have faith." She then tells the group to wait for her in her living room, while she goes to her home office to get the address. They do as they are told but don't sit down, as Rita comes back with the address written down on a sticky note less than two minutes later.
She shows the address to Zac who puts it into his phone. Google maps pops up directions to the house. It looked like it would take close to seven minutes to get there. "Got it let's go." They then all quickly walk out of the house, all of them hoping and praying that they'd get there in time.
"Wow." Is the only thing that David could think to say, as he sat in his living room with the others. Erik, Mark, and Cristal were all siting on the couch. David's 3 year old male white German Shepperd Max was curled up on the floor by Cristal's feet, enjoying whenever she bent down to give him a rub or scratch. Max was a pretty friendly dog, but was protective of David's friends and family. While David sat on the recliner by them.
Erik and Cristal had taken turns telling their story. They'd been found and adopted by a couple living in Melbourne. They figure they'd been abandoned as babies by their mother because of him being a merman and her a mute mermaid.
But that was ok because they'd gotten great parents were a lot better than their mother could have ever been. The best part was they never had to worry about their secret with them. As the woman who would become their mother was actually a mermaid who'd left the Mako pod.
A couple years before they'd been found and adopted, their mother came across their father drowning. He'd been scuba diving and his equipment started to malfunction. He tried getting to the surface but he'd been too deep, and she'd seen his movements start to slow. Unable to just watch him die, their mother had rushed towards him and rushed him to the surface.
Once they'd surfaced and he'd seen what she was she'd begged him not to tell anyone about her. He'd promised he wouldn't but asked if he could see her again. Their mother told them she found herself saying yes without thinking about it. That there had just been something about him that drew her to him.
They told David that over the course of a year they feel in love, and their mother left the pod to get married and live with their father on land. They told him they'd just started talking about trying to have kids when they'd found them, and adopted them as soon as they could.
"Wait I thought you grew up in a foster home? Where are your parents now and did they have any kids that biologically theirs?" Both Erik and Cristal look down at their feet for a few seconds, before Erik looks back at him and tells him.
"Yes our parents did have a little boy. His name was Jackob and we all loved him very much." Cristal lets out a wet sniffle and leans heavily on her boyfriend, who pulls her closer and kisses the top of her head. David feeling bad asks.
"What happened to him?" Erik took a shaky breath and blinked back some tears before telling him. "He and our parents were killed in a car crash about six months before we came here. Cristal and I weren't in the car because I was on a date at the time, and Cristal was at a friend's house for a birthday party.
The police called me and I went and picked Cristal up from the party. The bodies were badly burned in the fire. So badly burned that we couldn't see them in the morgue, nor have an open casket funeral. Jacob was only 4 years old" he tells David sadly.
"The reason I made up the group home story is because our family is really rich. When you come from that kind of money, you don't always know who you can trust. Even when you don't have access to that money until you turn 21." Seeing David's confused look Erik tells him.
"Our parents wrote their will thinking one of them would be alive to take care of us until we turned 21. Because of the way the will is written, Cristal and I can't have access to our inheritance until the day we turn 21. That is why we're living in that small house and why we both work.
Or at least try to work, I've had a hard time finding a job since the café. Cristal works for a local nursing homes as a translator. She was home schooled and finished early, that is why she doesn't go to Sun Coast High with us. She works with doctors helping patients who are deaf communicate. Mark is the son of the nursing home's owner, and works as an office administrator. I'll let them tell you their story."
David looks at Mark and Cristal who look at each other. "Do you want to tell him or do you want to?" I'll do it she tells him. She then looks at David and tells him. I met Mark on my first day on the job.
He actually showed me around the place and I was attracted to him from the start. I saw that he actually really cares for the people staying there, and makes time to talk to them and take care of anything they need if he can. We grew closer as the weeks went by.
One day a kid visiting a relative with his family thought it would be funny to splash me with his drink. Luckily I was right at Mark's office and ducked in. Mark had been with me in the hallway when it happened, and rushed in before I could shut the door.
When I changed I begged him not to tell anyone. At that time we'd already been on a few dates, and told him I understood if he never wanted to go out with me again. He told me I was crazy if I thought it'd change the way he felt about me. He then told me he loved me and kissed me. Mark and Cristal smile lovingly at each other before sharing a quick kiss. Erik then took over the story saying.
"The reason that we moved here was because of our mother. She always feared that mermaids would discover me swimming one day, and try to kill me or me and Cristal for Cristal having anything to do with me. She told us about the merman chamber on Mako.
She told us that she didn't know where it was on Mako. But if we could find it and harness it's power, we could make sure that no one would ever harm us." David looks confused and asks. "Why didn't you come and try to find it before?"
"Have you been told about Zac and Mimi's mother Nerissa? She is said to be the strongest mermaid ever. While she was the strongest my mother said that she was the second strongest. She told us that as long as she was around, there wasn't any justification to going to Mako and risk being seen by the pod.
After she and our mother and little brother died, I knew I had to find the chamber and get its power. Cristal was never with me because I refused to risk her being seen. Plus her being a mermaid she couldn't have accessed it anyway. After coming here you know that I met Ondina and fell in love with her.
I became so obsessed with getting the power to protect them both, that I lost control and almost got them and every other mermaid killed." He looks down at his feet before saying.
"That is a guilt I will carry for the rest of my life. I will never forgive myself for nearly causing their deaths." Cristal reaches out and gives his left knee a squeeze. He pats her hand before he looks at her and tells her. "I love you sis." I love you too she tells him.
David looks at Erik and tells him. "I believe you but I don't think the others will without proof." Erik nods before saying. "You can pull up news stories about our parents and brother's death if you google our parents. Our father was the head of the second largest investment firm in the world. He was also the richest man in Australia with a net worth of 45 billion."
David's eyes widen as he asks. "Your father was Richard Walterson?" Both Erik and Cristal nod their heads and Cristal adds. Our mother's name was Pearl. Now that David thought about it, he remembered reading a news story on their deaths. He'd remembered reading his wife's name was Pearl and thinking it was an unusual name. He'd also remembered the story saying that two of the couple's three children hadn't been in the car with them.
Cristal then starts digging through her purse and pulls out a small photo album. After taking it from her David looks at her and she tells him. Mom told us that if we ever needed to, try to find her friend Rita. Rita left the pod before she did and said if we showed her these pictures, she'd recognize her and would believe us. David asks Erik why he never told any of this to Rita, and Erik sighed before telling him. "Zac and the others never truly trusted me. I got scared Rita wouldn't either so I never tried showing her pictures of our mother and telling her the truth."
David nods before he starts flipping through the pictures, and sees Cristal and Erik grow up in them. One picture that caught his attention was one that looked like they'd been about 8 or 9 years old. Both were wearing Mickie ears hugging Pearl, who had an arm around each of them holding them close. Richard was standing behind Pearl with his arms wrapped around her. He wasn't facing the camera as he was kissing her right cheek.
One picture that caught him by surprise, was of one of Pearl in a hospital bed. She was smiling and holding a newborn Jacob. David looks at the siblings and asks. "How is this possible, how could your mother have Jacob in a hospital and neither one not get a tail?" Cristal looks at him and tells him.
Mum found out she was pregnant because she and dad went for a swim one day. They were on our boat in the middle of the ocean and she jumped in. She started to panic when she didn't transform and dad quickly jumped in after her. Of course her being a natural mermaid, she'd never learned to swim as a land girl.
He got her back onto the boat and she used her powers to dry off. They tried to think of why she wouldn't turn into a mermaid, and dad was the one that thought she might be pregnant.
They went back to land and stopped by a drug store on the way home and got some home pregnancy tests. Dad wasn't sure if they would work or not. But sure enough mum took three of them and they all came back she was pregnant. She figured she couldn't change because of our brother being inside of her.
She was hesitant to have Jacob in the hospital. But dad insisted in case something happened during the delivery. Her OBGYN was an old friend of dad's and was sure she wouldn't say anything to anyone. Dad was also sure he could buy the silence of anyone else that he needed to if it came down to it. But nothing happened and when they laid Jacob on her chest, she realized she had a special connection with him.
She told us later that night when it was just the five of us in her hospital room, that she'd been willing herself and Jacob not to get a tail the entire time. Mum then took a cup of water that was on a tray by her and stuck her finger in it. She turned into a mermaid but back into a land girl when she willed it. Even though her finger was still in the water.
She dabbed a little water on Jacob's cheek, and he turned into a baby merman before turning back into a land baby. Mum figured that the pregnancy had given her the ability to choose when to change, and had given her the connection to Jacob to control it as well. She hated that she couldn't have the same connection with me and Erik. But we told her it was fine.
The last picture had been a birthday one. A birthday cake is sitting in front of Erik and a 17 candle in it is lit. Cristal is sitting next to him with their little brother on her lap, and their father is standing behind her. Their mother is behind Erik bending down and hugging him, her left cheek pressed against his right, while looking at the camera and smiling.
"That was taken about a week before they died." Erik tells him when he looks at him. David nods before looking at Cristal and asking. "Do you mind if I borrow this for a little bit?" Why? Cristal asks looking a little uncomfortable with letting the album out of her sight.
"I promise to take care of it and not let anything happen to it. If I go meet up with Sirena, Rita, and the others and talk to them and show them this. I know they will be more open to talk with the two of you once they know the truth. I'm sure we can get the council to forgive Erik and let the two of you in." When the two of them look uncomfortable he asked what was wrong. Erik looks at him and says.
"Back in Melbourne Cristal had a couple of mermaids when she would go on swims by herself. They would say all kinds of awful things to her because she can't speak. I eventually caught them picking on her while I was on a swim myself. I raced up to them and they took off scared.
Fear of having the same thing happen to her here is why I've never told any of the others about her. Even if the pod can forgive me for what I did, I don't know if they will except her. I don't want to put my sister through that kind of teasing again. Besides that even if the pod accepts both of us, I don't think Ondina will ever forgive me."
David looks at both of them and tells them. "This pod is different than that. Sure they weren't going to accept Zac, Evie, myself, Carly, and Cam into the pod at first. But Veridia the head of the council and Sirena's sister convinced them to change their minds. Sirena and the others refused to return until they did and I know they will do the same for you two, as well as Mark.
I also know Ondina loves you Erik and will forgive you. So will you let me try my plan?" The siblings look at each other before looking at Mark, they all nod before looking at David and Erik tells him. "Ok give it a try." David nods and before telling Erik. "On you having trouble finding another job.
I'm willing to give you another chance if you want to come in tomorrow morning, but you have to start coming in on time ok?" Erik looks at him shocked and says. "Really thank you so much that really means a lot to me. But I thought said you were standing behind Carly's decision."
"I know but things have changed, Carly is moving in two and a half weeks. I asked her when she told me she was leaving if she minded if I hired you back if I bumped into you. She told me she didn't mind so I have her blessing." Erik asked why she was moving and David told her.
"Her father got a transfer to Sydney and so she has to move." Erik asked how long he knew and he told him just a couple of days, but that Carly had made him promise not to tell anyone but him. That she wanted to tell the others. Erik nods his head in understanding.
"Can you come in tomorrow morning" David asks. Erik nods his head and David tells him. "When I make it back to the café I'll let Carly know she needs to go ahead and try to tell the others she was moving." David then stands up and pulls his phone out before saying.
"Speaking of the café I really should get back there before too long, so I'd better get things going." He then pulls up Zac's name in his contact list and pushes the call button. After a couple of rings he answers and David says. "Yes Zac it's me. I'm at my house where are you at? Is Sirena and the others with you? Good wait for me there I'll be there in about five minutes. I'll explain when I get there ok bye."
He then ends the call and Erik, Cristal, and Mark all stand up. "Where are they at" Erik asks him. "They are back at Rita's house. Rita had your address written down, when they didn't find us there they went back to Rita's to try to figure out what to do." Erik nods before telling him.
"We'll go back home and wait for you to call." David nods his head before looking at Cristal and holding the photo album up. "Nothing will happen to this album or the pictures." He reassures her and she nods in response. They then all walk out of the house and David shuts the door behind them.
