"Keep going like this, you just might end up happy."
—Foggy Nelson, Daredevil
III. The Moon Has a Shadow
Lisa finds herself consulting the grocery store clerks often in her endeavors as a mother.
"Fish eat other fish, don't they?"
"Huh?"
"Fish are omnivorous, no?" she tries again.
"Yes..." Arthur the part-timer backs up, hugging the mop closer to him.
"So hypothetically speaking, mermaids would eat fish too?"
"I don't see why not." He scratches his chin in thought, wracking his brain for the last customer who asked him something this bizarre. "I imagine they use seafood to make up for meat. Protein and all that good jazz."
"Right right, so maybe seaweed equals vegetables?"
"But they're not real, so we can't know for sure."
She gets real close to him then and sizes the scrawny white boy up and down. "Anything's possible, son. One morning you'll find yourself spouseless, and the next you're adopting a siren." She claps him on the back, nodding to herself. "Life's funny like that."
"Lisa, is there something you're not telling me?" He leans in then, eyes wide with interest. "I thought we were onto the next stage in this relationship."
"Some day, young grasshopper, when you're ready."
With that, the woman picks up her bags and walks off, Cho and Sun waiting patiently by the newspaper stand. The former rolls her eyes when they exit the store, tucking the leeks and clams away. Sun has the fruits strapped to her back.
"You almost squealed, didn't you?" Cho asks. "No wait, you did! That's against the law!"
"Arthur's trustworthy. Besides, he won't be here for long." Lisa smiles conspiratorially. "The tea leaves say there are greater things to come."
Sure enough, in the next week, Arthur Curry transfers to a pet store back in his home state of Maine, where he spends a great deal of time asking his "new friends" about the existence of mermaids—and by friends, he means the guppies and angelfish and minnows. It takes him a while to figure out that he's not crazy, and that he can make a superhero career out of understanding fish.
But being Aquaman can wait; he's going to make some banging bucks down at the pier, training dolphins how to steal wallets. Those world domination plans aren't going to start by themselves!
'Why is everything in the house blue and purple?' Sun asks one day.
"Because Quidditch," Cho explains. Her cat-eye glasses make the words seem even more ridiculous, body hunched over a copy of The Quibbler.
'What does that even mean?'
"Because Quidditch," Lisa calls from her office.
'How can she even hear me write?!'
"Because of the senses we train in Quiddit—"
'Stooop.'
It takes a little over a month for the little mermaid to adjust to the Changs, particularly their inane schedule that operates primarily on chance, productivity, and competition. Living underwater halfway across the world effectively destroyed any measurement of time in Sun's system, so having a set wake-up and clean-up time becomes a part of her humanization.
It's awful, to say the least.
8:30 A.M: Lisa and Cho get ready for the day. Omelette-making, omelette-tasting. The enchanted brooms are hard at work sweeping up eggshells and dust. Sun sniffles and rolls over in bed.
9:15 A.M: Cho updates her Quidditch scoreboards and Lisa files a trade report. They see who can collect the most laundry around the house. Sun mumbles in her sleep.
10:00 A.M: Lisa leaves for work and Cho finishes a novel on wandlore. Sun almost wakes up—almost.
11:27 A.M: Cho gets ready for lunch and counts down on an imaginary watch, before hearing her little sister amble down the stairs and squint away the sunshine. They watch as their mother's pre-bake spell works on the dessert.
12:10 P.M: They take the lunch outside and learn about each other; that is to say, about how deep Cho's love for sports runs and how Sun fears no animal, not even the wasp that goes straight for the sandwiches. Her older sister promptly blacks out.
2:00 P.M: Sun hates how Ms. Temple, their private tutor, makes her feel insufficient for being mute. "You can't pronounce a spell," she says, "you can't do the spell." Who came up with rules like that? What about all the other disabled or impaired witches in the world? Surely they were much better teachers, at the very least.
5:00 P.M: Cho breaks or crashes something: could be a vase, shelf, broom that flies into the tapestry wait nOT THE CHINA—
6:13 P.M: Lisa comes home and cringes into the next dimension. She spends a good pound fixing the house.
7:00 P.M: Dinner in town. Nobody wants to do dishes, but they sure love to eat Thai. Like every. Single. Day. Seriously, doesn't pad thai ever get old? Eggrolls don't "spice things up," Cho. Does the world get better when you lie to yourself?
8:45 P.M: Some kind of family activity, usually involving Lisa and Cho competing for top Quidditch fan-holler. Sun takes a nap on the carpet to the sounds of happiness.
9:30 P.M: Since the one shower is busted, the women fight tooth and nail to get to the other bathroom first. Sun's satisfied with washing her hair in the sink.
10:00 P.M: Everyone except the little mermaid is fast asleep. She misses Murong, because no one and nothing will ever replace the siren. More than anything, when Sun thinks about the ocean, she misses their time together and her own voice, how much easier it would be to tell her story if only she could sing. Did the lovers reunite at last, she wonders. Allah, someone up there, please tell me I didn't become this way for nothing.
3:18 A.M: Sun passes out from exhaustion. Cho wakes up to tuck her in again. Years later, they still share the bed; in fact, sometimes Lisa comes in too, because why not.
"Up! Get up! Now!"
"Where's my paper, boy?"
"Give me that!"
If the green-eyed child has to choose what body part to sacrifice, in any given near-death situation, or even a "would you rather" scenario, it would be the ears. Sometimes, his cousin helps when they read bedtime stories together, but those times are few and far between; auntie would never let them stay in that safe bubble for long.
So much noise... endless... drowning in it...
Month three of living with her new family, and Sun dreams of the boy again. She also dreams of a young woman with platinum hair and a curious lilt to her voice, as though always about ready to cast a spell. he visions vary, from a brown room to a pink shore to a golden field.
The night will begin on the backs of her heels, clicking across planks like a winding music box. Pale hands pick out an assortment of jarred goods for the next magical project.
Then they—Sun and the gossamer lady—feel a tingling in their left ear and pass into the next scene running, where someone else is submerged halfway in sparkling waters, eyes alight with mischief. This person has never looked so happy and youthful, hair tucked across her shoulders in braided rivulets of chocolate.
"You're late!" her strong, Mermish accent teases.
"You're early!" the blonde woman replies.
Sharp, webbed hands reach around a slender neck and foreheads sweetly meet. They stay like this for who knows how long, humming and swaying in the dying day. Their routine, Sun thinks; their could-have-been, she cries. The hollow sound of her heart falling into the pit of her stomach can only be described as loss.
Who are they? Why are they so happy?
And it ends like that, salt water and sand washing out the image into the blue moonlight. The mermaid opens her eyes and finds the space next to her dented and empty. She shakes the covers off and searches for the missing person, only to see a slight figure leaning against the balcony railings, humming to some indistinguishable tune.
Sun slips into the fresh air and hugs Cho around the waist, face pressed into the side of a dark head. They are almost the same height, equally comfortable, and she feels the reverberation of laughter through her cheek.
What are you thinking? her hug conveys.
"The moon wanted to talk." Cho works around the embrace and boops her nose. She's gotten into the habit of doing this to Sun, because Lisa doesn't appreciate fingers anywhere near her nostrils.
Sensing another question in their midst, the nine-year-old continues. "I tell the moon everything about my day, because she must be lonely up there. She's big and round and doesn't fit in with the stars. Who does she talk to when the sun sets? She doesn't even have a shadow, because sometimes she becomes one. I wish I could do that."
Silence.
"Do you ever miss your real mum?" Cho asks.
Every day. Sun would say, but she stays still against the cold air. This isn't about the mermaid right now; she wants to hear the rest of Cho's story.
"I miss my dad sometimes. Ever since he left, I lost someone to talk to. My world got smaller. Reading makes me happy, Quidditch makes me happier, but when no one is looking, sometimes they mean nothing to me. I tear up the papers or fold them up for the fire. Mum tries, she does, but I don't think she likes the idea of us on broomsticks, even though I want to play in the big leagues someday. I'm not the only person who'll get hurt out there. I dunno, I guess dad just wouldn't be like that. He supported me playing Quidditch."
Sun rocks Cho through the rambling, their breath fanning out like the wings of sparrows buffed against yew boughs. This is her first time hearing about him, the mysterious medicine man that stole the heart of Madam Chang. Until now, he's been a blot in the family tree, his face missing from pictures and portraits around the house like an unrelenting stain.
"I wish you'd been here earlier," the Chinese girl says suddenly. She sounds close to crying, but she is more Lisa than anything, dark eyes flashing with flickering strength. "I wish you'd met dad. I wish you'd tell me I'm right. That he's not a bad guy. Mummy made a mistake. She must have."
The girls are facing each other now, hugging so closely that there is no space for bad thoughts to interrupt; silent comfort, like a river leading the wayward traveler home.
I'm here now.
Distractions. Many distractions, to keep her from the cosmic pain of loss. Sun feels the smiles grow claws into her skin, voices of doubt swirling in her head.
I thought I was happy here, the Sun side thinks. I thought I was starting to love them.
You are! Everyone has bad days, "Sungjin" echoes. Don't lose faith now.
Yeah, maybe it's the dress, "Suha" muses. Ask for pants next time, they make you feel better.
But I'm a girl! That's what we're supposed to wear!
By whose choice?
Murong never made you feel like you had to wear anything!
Murong still saw me as a girl!
Murong isn't here anymore.
Stop pretending to be your mother.
We don't have a mother!
Sun pulls at her short brown hair angrily, willing the mental battle to end. It's just a blasted garden party, why does she have to make such a big deal about it?
What are you, a bloody eight year-old? Oh, right. You're supposed to be.
In the shade of the greenery, with sunlight filtering through the spruces, Sun hides near the estate pond, an old lazy moor reflecting nothing on its surface. Had she requested for dress pants, she certainly would feel better about crawling around, but in her yellow sundress, worthy of church, she weaves uneasily through the reeds.
The road wanders up the frothy waterbed, past wheat and corn, up to the white veranda, where Lisa entertains two visiting the MacDougals and the Patils. The families come every so often for business matters, and now for the first time, they bring the kids along to break bread. The parents went to school together rather "amorously," as they kindly put it. None of the kids understood the undertones besides Sun, who promptly turned red.
Speaking of children, none of them are in sight—
"Found her, found her! Pam, quick, the arm!"
"Pat, I got the leg! The leggg!"
"Don't break my sister, you goobers!"
Post-struggle, four small bodies go tumbling into the water, hairs splitting and mouths spluttering. The mermaid is winded, obviously disgruntled from having her personal moment shattered. Freshwater is also very itchy.
Padma and Parvati Patil are sinking like the Titanic, arms locked in an attempt to swim. Cho is right behind, kicking like a frog and pushing the Indian girls toward safety. By the time they are all out of the pond, Sun's clothes are partially dry and her displeasure has simmered to a mellow ember. She throws her mostly dry scarf to her sister, whose smile beams sheepishly into the afternoon.
"They helped me track you down," she says. "Mum wouldn't let me use their dog."
"He has a name, y'know." Padma throws a braid around her shoulder smartly.
"P. Diddy," Parvati finishes. "The P is for our family. Diddy's just sweet."
Somehow, somewhere, Sun feels like she's heard the silly label before. She draws her knees up to her chin and raises an entertained eyebrow at the twins.
"You shouldn't make such a sad face at a dinner party, Susie."
The mermaid points at the sun, correcting Padma.
"Sorry," the twin says, wringing her hair out.
"Where is our other playmate today?" Cho asks. "I didn't see Morag at the big people's table."
Shame, really. Sun truly wants to meet the little MacDougal; her mother and father are renowned astronomers, and she wonders if their daughter shows half as much interest in the stars.
"I think she's down with Lumpago?" Parvati suggests.
"No, it's like Ludega…" Padma trails off.
Sun mouths Lumbago? to Cho, who smiles and calls out the answer.
"Nerrrd," the twins simultaneously hoot.
"At least us siblings read," Cho snorts. "Maybe that's just a Chang thing though, good athletically and academically. Can't beat us in those categories, sorry ladies."
"Well, uh." Parvati ponders her response, before impulsively pointing a pudgy finger. "At least we have stronger opinions!"
"Pfft, what is that supposed to mean?"
"We speak our minds, unlike… oh…"
The word "speak" hangs in the air tauntingly, miserably, unable to be taken back like excess toothpaste. It sticks to their mouths, heavy and uncomfortable, but Sun shrugs, as if to say can't argue with that.
Sighing in relief, Padma and Parvati bolt away from the pond. They look back at the mermaid, equally stubborn and apologetic. Cho quietly sits next to her sister, avoiding Sun's curious stares. Her black hair is long, styled traditionally with pins, the pride of China. She lets it loose and parts her fingers through it.
"I don't like them," Cho blurts. "They made fun of you."
You make fun of me too, Sun mouths.
"Of course, I can do that! I hate it when other people make fun of my mermaid."
The possessive pronoun makes Sun smile. She falls right into the girl's lap, peering up at a supreme pout: lips puckered to the left, nostrils extra wide, saltiness oozing out of the pores.
Cute, Sun teases and gets an aggressive nose-boop.
"They don't even know you. They don't even try!"
The mermaid shrugs again. You know me.
Cho's mood eases up after that. They hold hands on their way back to the house. Sun draws small circles into her golden skin, as they discard their dirty dress shoes on the steps. The Patil twins have occupied themselves with cake, thoughtless remarks long forgotten. Their parents look rather sheepish for the overall mess, Lisa zoning in on her daughters with a hawk's eye.
"Sun-sun, I have decided that you're far too nice," Cho announces later. "The next time someone says anything rude about you, they better catch these hands."
Soundlessly, Sun throws her head back and wheezes like a seal, committing the comment thoroughly to memory. The next day, when Cho is asked what she wants for her upcoming tenth birthday, she says a black belt in karate.
Nobody in the house stops laughing until she actually gets one…
… within a week. The instructor is ready to up and quit his twenty-year career, while Sun grins and hugs her sister.
We have another hustler in the family, she thinks.
What a maddening thing attachment is: to want to be there for someone as much as possible, fall asleep with them after some hot cocoa, walk miles for them in beat-up sneakers.
Blip, blip, bloop.
The sudden heat wave sticks to skin and bone, pounding down on the dry earth and scattering its citizens to the indoors; the children, to the arcades. Sun melts for a good hour against the machine, cheek imprinted on the warm plastic coat as sweat dribbles down her violet turtleneck. People have definitely given her the side-eye for her foolish fashion choices, but she is much more concerned with Cho's quest for redemption.
"I have to beat your highscore," the girl breathlessly announces. Pacman moves across the screen, consuming all in his path. "I can't believe you got it in one go, I've never seen anyone do that. Not even with magic!"
Aw, she just pouted again! What a cute sore loser.
...
Weird—Sun's become weird, attached.
She used to think that the strangest part of living in their too blue house, by the too green countryside, was how invested the Changs were in the non-magical world. Lisa only mentions her Ministry work offhandedly and keeps very little enchanted documentation lying around. Instead, their bookshelves are filled with human history books and young adult novels, as well as the occasional pulp fiction and dictionary.
The madam also rarely uses wizard currency, opting to purchase household goods around the neighborhood and local supermarket rather than staples like Diagon Alley. She has her girls take from a "reward" jar of pounds when they complete books and assignments, fostering the incentive to work hard and play hard. The point system often leads to family excursions to cafes and the occasional drive-in theater, where Sun would watch classics like Grease and The Breakfast Club over some popcorn and take-out.
Thankfully, these trips take time away from Quidditch and the London Stock Exchange, two activities that never fail to make Sun cringe into the next dimension. How Cho, an upcoming eleven year-old, even developed a passion for economics in the first place still baffles the mermaid, but to each their own. She and Lisa can argue about the Queen's finances all they want and leave Sun to her bugs and plants.
But back to Pacman Tuesday.
Cho slams her forehead onto the buttons and groans, losing for the seventeenth time in a row. She has spent nearly half of her allowance on vengeance, so Sunny pays for their mint chocolate chip, thin arm hooked through a firm one. The older girl has really taken a shine to athleticism, excelling at both flying and martial arts. Loud and proud to Sunny's still waters, the depths of which no one has yet to breach. If not for her alien body and poor health, maybe Sunny could hug the sky too; handling a broomstick doesn't look that hard.
"One of these days, I'll have you all figured out," Cho says, "and when it happens, you owe me all the ice cream in Scotland."
What a tall order! Sunny smiles into her free sleeve, as though conveying, good luck with that. But Cho doesn't leave anyone alone until she's had her way.
When they traverse across the lawn and arrive home, the door opens without prompting and Lisa emerges with a stamped envelope. They've never seen her so excited before.
"Sweetie, your letter has arrived! We've got to try that new buffet in town immediately!"
Hogwarts. Someone must've had a lot of fun with that name. Sunny wonders absentmindedly if they recruit magical creatures, and then she wonders if there are others like her out there.
She decides that parents—mothers—are quite temporary in life, for they seem to conveniently disappear when daughter needs them most.
After a May shower, the skies are clear and cloudless in the garden. Another moment, a blue jay flies too close to the sun, drops in terror, and paints the world below red.
No one pays much attention to it, though. Certainly not the spring flowers. They push out from the brimming eaves of trees, glorious in their pastel purples, before ultimately falling from their mother tree. Some flutter along the wind and never come back; others take up the ground below, spread like ashes to feed the family roots. Whether anyone remembers the fallen flowers or not, spring will rise again, just as it always does.
Sun buries the blue jay beneath the mossy bird bath, wiping pearls from her lashes. She witnessed the descent and the feathers splayed in a crimson crown, an unwilling coronation. She remembers reading about something like this before, Icarus and the sun, in a classroom far, far away.
When the ceremony is over, she looks up into an iron-colored glass ornament, set like a star atop the bath, and sees her reflection: a wild beige child, willowy and flat and soft in all the awkward parts. Her reddish brown hair sticks out, barely reaching her forehead and ears, and pink sand dusts high cheekbones.
Above all, she sees the dead. The flowers, the bird, her Pakistani past: they are in her face, gaze, the scales lining the column of her throat down to her hips, speckled and growing in brass wonder. She doesn't have to hide them at home, but she's always surprised, like she'll never get used to being part fish.
Sun presses a hand to the bridge of a slim nose, feeling her old life there the most. Different, darker fingers used to run up and down the same length in mild vanity, before poking at a smaller, rounder face.
"Suhaaa, I want your nose!" Little sister huffed and puffed. "Mine is so flat."
"Fatimaaa, I want your heart!" Big sister blew her away and lifted her into strong arms. "It's the perfect size."
The memory adds salt to her wounds. Sun has no luck with muscles now, and this too comes as a shock. She used to be the loudest, strongest person she knew. A film of sadness comes down on her eyes. She no longer knows a life of constant defense and violence, but in her fists, she still remembers how the boys caved and ran. In her stomach, she recalls earning money for a food insecure household. In her feet, she knows all the sandy roads that led "home."
And in her heart, she keeps Murong, humming under her skin and singing in her veins.
The memories always play like the premiere to a tragic movie. Saturday dinner is a wet blanket, as she slips her chopsticks in and out of her yellowtail soup lethargically. Earlier, Cho downed two bowls before rushing off to try her new broom polish. Their mother felt it mandatory to stock up, especially with Hogwarts on the horizon.
"You barely touched your food," Lisa comments. Even with her makeup removed, the woman could pass off as their older sister. "Was it the ginger? I know you're not used to it, but it's good for you."
Sun smiles and shakes her head; looking put-together deflects concern. But Lisa sees right through her, elegant eyebrows raised and mouth set into a firm line.
"Perhaps you haven't adjusted to more than just the ginger," she finally says and sits. "Perhaps it's us you're worried about."
It's a direct blow, like a car hitting the breaks and propelling the driver into the airbag.
"Whenever you have that look on your face," Lisa continues, "it means you're forcing yourself and holding back."
Unraveling, the mermaid tries to deny it, but her adoptive mother continues to pick apart the situation. Sun can take a missing Murong but not an intuitive Lisa.
"I know there are stories you can't explain. Who knows what you'd really like to say, if only you could. I was hoping you would feel safe and comfortable quickly with us, but in contrast, you don't want to impose. I understand that, and I know I can't replace the family you had before, but I'm here to support you. It'll be the two of us once Cho-Cho leaves."
Sun feels a kind hand pat her head, smoothing her hair out like the ocean to a pebble. She is carried along the current, unable to find her footing against such sweet words.
"Sungjin Chang, you are already part of our family, and I know you have a lot to say. We Chang women always do. When you're unhappy, don't keep it all inside. At the very least, write out your concerns."
With that, Lisa lets her swim in those thoughts. A weight lifts; she isn't an outsider looking in.
Chang, Sun thinks. Sungjin Chang.
She thought no one had noticed, for they seemed so absent-minded and happy in a world full of the magical impossible. Even if she came clean about how jumping into adoption made her feel, how underwater rebirth and a half-human life made her question her existence, she's sure that Lisa wouldn't abandon her now. She would listen.
Someday, I'll tell you, Sun thinks. Please wait for me.
Maybe it's because Sunny has known loss, or seen the blue jay plunge to its doom without warning, or the flowers wait for life. Or maybe she wants a mother to mean more than just sacrifice and absence, to give the idea of family another chance. The hand upon her head felt like hope. She may have lost her body twice over, her heart mutilated and displaced, but kindness lasts forever.
And if that's the case, Sunny wants to change herself, so that this kindness will be reciprocated. Take the warm hand and never let go.