Like the previous one, this chapter didn't get as far away from me in terms of length, but it's still rather long. I hope you enjoy it.

But before it starts, there is something I want to say. Thank you very much to all those who have been reading this story, especially given that it started being written so little before Season 3 comes out and that it expressely contradicts it. I have been loving each of your reviews, alerts, favorites, and hits. I hope you keep enjoying this story even after the real season 3 comes out, although they are already so ostensibly different.

Thank you for reading. And now, onto the second part of 'Mermaid Lure'.


Chapter 7 – Mermaid Lure – Part II

Blended into the crowd of land people strolling into the marine park, Gunnar strolled to the exit door, his dark-blue polo shirt and navy-blue shorts exchanged by a light shirt and beige cotton trousers. With his last guided tour having already come to an end, he didn't particularly look forward to remaining there any longer than strictly necessary.

Granted, the actual work had been enjoyable. Gunnar had always loved the sea - which admiteddly was to be expected for someone like him - and sharing his love for it with others was a surprisingly pleasant experience, even if he had to stick to the least fantastical parts during his guided tours. But knowing he was in close proximity of at least two, occasionally three mermaids drained a lot of joy out of the experience, and keeping in mind that those mermaids were most likely of the dangerous sort had only made it worse.

Still, Gunnar didn't usually back down from challenges, which was why he had come to the Gold Coast to begin with. But now he wondered if he should have waited a bit longer before getting the mermaids into a hostile mindset. He hadn't had a lot of choices since yesterday, after he had stared so much at Mimmi, but maybe he could have tried to come up with an alternate plan instead of heading straight for conflict. Perhaps that way he could have become friends with them before getting what he wanted. Gunnar had never been a good actor, but now he felt that maybe he should have make an effort, especially now that he knew that there were not four mermaids in the area, but at least six; the moon rings on those two girls that had been talking to Mimmi and Ondina confirmed their identities.

Could there be more of them? Could the whole pod already be living by Mako Island? If so, what would he do? Hightail it out of here while he still could? Or stay and fight, as suicidal as it sounded?

Those were good questions. But Gunnar didn't have a good answer.

Maybe he should go for a swim to clear his head. Or play something on his lute. Or listen to some music, like that bouncy little tune that was playing just beyond the marine park's door.

Gunnar started at the realization. Someone standing right outside the marine park, surrounded by a semicircle of people, was actually playing a tune, with some kind of flute if he had to guess. It was 'In The Good Old Summertime', by George Evans and Ren Shields – an ironic tune to be played at this time of the year in Australia. And judging from what Gunnar could hear, whoever was playing it was quite good. Curious about who might be the musician, Gunnar approached the twenty or so people grouped around the performed to get a look at his face.

But the one he saw was nothing like what he expected.

Instead of some scruffy older man, there was a short, pale teenaged girl who looked like she was a few years younger than him. Like he had guessed, she was playing the song on a blue transverse flute that perfectly matched the colour of the stone in the ring around her index finger, moving her body to the rhythm of it. A foldable stool in its unfolded position stood about a meter to her right with a flute case on top, and a guitar bag that clearly had a guitar inside it rested on the wall behind her.

She didn't look malnourished or dirty, unlike other people that played in the street. Her flaming red hair fell down to her waist without a speck of dirt, and her white halter top, goldenrod capris, and pale-grey sneakers were clean, albeit worn in. However, the blue cap at her feet, on which several coins could be seen already, suggested that she did need the money. And the bags under her eyes, joined by the way her shoulders seemed to shake on occasion as if she had to make an effort not to let them sag, conveyed that she was tired. She must not have slept well last night, at least.

But the really interesting thing was her ring.

He knew what it was. He had seen four just like it today.

She is a mermaid. A voice spoke from the back of his mind.

He had no doubt about that. Only mermaids – well, merpeople he supposed – could wear moon rings for extended periods without being affected. For this girl to be wearing her ring here, she had to have been wearing it since this morning – too long for her to escape any side effects of wearing it if she was a human.

But why would a mermaid need to be playing on the street for money? They knew how to feed in the sea, and most of them did not ever go on land. Yet this one knew not only about the habit of playing for money, but seemed to actually need it. Why?

Maybe I can find out. Gunnar thought.

It was a risky idea to be sure. Mermaids were knowledgeable about magic. If she learned what he was, she could just zap him with the moon ring or turn him into a crab or use one other of the many tricks mermaids knew. But he'd already ruined any chances at a friendly approach toward Mimmi or Ondina or any other of the mermaids with them. Perhaps it wouldn't be too late with this one.

So he waited, in the first row of the crowd.

A few moments after he settled in, the mermaid played the song's last note, the sound of it spreading across the vicinity. When she ended, her audience clapped, Gunnar himself amongst them. But unlike the others, he watched the girl closely as she curtsied in thanks, trying to determine what the best approach would be. Not knowing her, it was difficult to say… but something was bound to work.

After a few seconds, she crouched to pick up her 'alms cap' and rose from her curtsy under Gunnar's eye. And already his plans started to dispel, as pity started to prickle at him. The girl wobbled when she stood up, the bags under her eyes looking a tad deeper now that she wasn't moving her body as she played the flute. Needing the money or not, she was exhausted. That suggested a lonely life without the protection of a pod, something highly unusual for a mermaid.

And as she started going around the audience, reaching her cap out to each of them, and thanking every person who deposited a coin inside her cap with a grateful smile, any remnants of Gunnar's plans to approach this mermaid vanished. She wasn't Mimmi or Ondina or Sirena or any of their friends from the pod. If she was, she wouldn't need to be here playing for money. Approaching her would be useless, dangerous, and most of all, it would be mean. She clearly had enough problems without him snooping around.

"Thank you," the girl again said as the middle-aged lady beside Gunnar deposited two dollars in her cap. It seemed to Gunnar that she had an Irish accent.

Then she moved to him.

Gunnar took his wallet out of his trousers' pocket and deposited a twenty dollar bill in it. The girl gasped as she saw it, and then blinked owlishly at him, her eyes wide in a way Gunnar couldn't help but find adorable. To his right, most of the girl's audience gaped at him.

"You'd better shut your mouths or a fly will get in there," Gunnar quipped at them.

All too late, he realized he had spoken normally, with only his usual slight German accent.

Well, curse that. He thought. None of those mermaids are around, and keeping that blasted fake accent for the whole day is ruining my throat.

Probably another poor tactical decision in the end. There was still a chance it might those mermaids think he was a moron and cause them to lower their guard, but he wasn't holding out hope. He was just keeping it because it would be suspicious if he dropped it now. He really ought to either rethink his strategy thoroughly or get far away from the Gold Coast while he still hadn't been maimed.

Having nothing better to do, Gunnar turned around and walked away from the mermaid and her audience.

Maybe he'd go for that swim after all. He'd have to be careful not to run into any mermaids in the water, but it shouldn't be too difficult. There was a lot of ocean out there.

"Wait!"

Gunnar turned around at the sound of that voice; the mermaid was running toward him, her cap perched on her head, the folding stood in her left arm, the guitar bag slung over her back – with the flute's case in a side pouch – and the twenty dollar bill in her right hand; presumably, the rest of the money was in the guitar bag as well.

When she got to him, she reached out with the bill and said, "You gave me too much. This is a twenty dollar bill."

Gunnar glanced from the bill to her. "I know."

The mermaid glanced from him to the note, her eyes again adorably wide.

"But this is too much," she said. "I can't take it from you."

Gunnar pushed her hand and the bill gentle back at her. "You're not taking it. I'm giving it."

"But so much?" she insisted.

Gunnar repressed an amused grin. He'd never met someone who needed to beg for money complaining they had gotten too much of it.

"If you need it, why are you complaining?" He tried to reason.

The mermaid took her time to reply, her eyes flickering from him to the note, apparently unsure of how to counter his logic.

"Now I feel like I owe you…" she eventually mumbled.

Gunnar raised his hands. "You don't owe me anything. I gave you the bill because I wanted to. Keep it and spend it as you see fit."

The girl's arm remained raised, the bill swaying in the breeze.

"Really. If you don't keep it, I'll rip it and throw it away."

Again, the girl's eyes widened, this time in pure alarm. He couldn't blame her; the idea of throwing so much money away was preposterous. Work at the marine park paid well, but not well enough that he could throw so much money away like that. But now that he had said he would do it, he would if it came down to it.

It didn't. After a few seconds, the girl slipped the bill into her right pocket and gave him a thankful smile.

"Thank you, then…"

He reached his hand out. "Gunnar. Gunnar Erxleben."

The girl shook it.

"Alana McAuliffe," she replied.

She had a surname. Another thing that showed she was very much settled into life on land. But she mustn't have settled into life on land at the Gold Coast, given that she had an Irish accent. And if she needed to play music on the streets to earn a livelihood, she probably wasn't that well settled at all. What was her story?

"You can let go of my hand, you know?" Alana pointed out, her eyes twinkling in amusement.

Gunnar pulled his hand free.

"Sorry," he mumbled, feeling all his blood flowing to his face.

Great. He'd managed to look like an idiot. That was even worse than being so deliberately confrontational toward the other mermaids.

"Do you need any help to get that somewhere?" he offered. "I could take the guitar bag if you wanted."

Alana stepped back, her eyes again wide in alarm.

"No, thank you," she replied. "I can manage."

"Are you sure?" Gunnar tried to insist. "I could…"

"I can manage," Alana repeated, her whole body tense as if she was ready to bolt the next time Gunnar tried to insist.

He again raised his hands in appeasement. "Alright, alright. You can manage."

Slowly, her eyes returned to normal, but they remained trained on him as if she was afraid he would pull out a knife and stab her.

He jerked his thumb behind him.

"I'll be going then."

She again said nothing. Her eyes weren't wide, but she was trying not to blink, as if she was scared. He'd better go away soon, it seemed.

But he couldn't help one last comment.

"Good luck, Alana."

For the first time, she gave him a smile. It was small, not even showing her teeth, but Gunnar couldn't help but to smile back. Then he raised a hand as if waving goodbye, turned around, and left before he could mess up again. Now, more than ever, he wanted to go for that swim.

He was a bit sad to be going, truth being told. He hadn't known her for long, but he had liked Alana. She seemed friendly, she could look adorable, and her exhausted look made him feel for her. It was a pity not all mermaids were like her.

But then again, she didn't know the truth about him. If she did, she probably would treat him just as badly as he guessed Mimmi, Ondina, and all their mermaid friends wanted to.

For some reason, Gunnar couldn't hold back a prickle of sadness at that.


A beam of light shone down on them through the hole in the ceiling, which made Hydrurga stiffen. Sedna looked up, and saw an edge of the full moon starting to get into the patch of starry sky above them. The water in the moon pool started to bubble up around her.

"It is time," Hydrurga stated.

Sedna said nothing. She had guessed the same on her own, but mouthing off to Hydrurga would not be wise.

The blond mermaid turned to the ledge where the land boy sat.

"Come here, land boy," Hydrurga commanded.

Without saying a word, the land boy slid off of the ledge and swam over to the two of them. He stopped about a meter and a half of them, treading water as he looked at the two mermaids with empty eyes that didn't actually see anything. If Sedna didn't know he was enchanted, she would have sworn he was a corpse in its death throes.

The bubbling of the water around them kept increasing, the bubbles that burst across the surface now as wide as Sedna's hand. Hydrurga took her hand to the bottle and removed the sea slime sealing its neck's opening. Then, she turned to Sedna with a steely and icy gaze that she must have spent her whole life perfecting.

"Are you ready?" Hydrurga asked.

Sedna nodded and replied, "Yes."

She had spoken in her most serious and at the same time normal tone, trying not to sound so firm that she seemed challenging while also not sounding so meek that she seemed a spineless worm, but Hydrurga's expression didn't soften. If anything, her face had become so harsh and cold that it seemed carved out of ice.

"Do not fail," Hydrurga warned.

"I won't," Sedna assured, this time unable to keep an edge of a quiver out of her voice. Hopefully the bubbling water had masked it.

Hydrurga's face remained as cold and stern as before, the effect becoming even spookier as ever more moonlight poured in through the skylight above them.

"See to it that you don't."

Sedna kept quiet this time around, giving only a nod and trying to keep her eyes from widening. A reply to that remark might be taken as a challenge.

It was difficult to say what Hydrurga thought of her behavior, but whatever her thoughts, she said nothing else, and simply poured the vial's contents toward the water with her left hand as both she and Sedna raised their right hands. The golden-green potion in the bottle gathered into a liquid sphere which floated in front of them, and then flew toward the boy in a swarm of globs that gathered around him and swirled around him like a tornado, making a high-pitched screech.

The bubbles were now almost the size of their heads, and the full moon was almost to the center of the skylight. The noise made by the swirl Sedna and Hydrurga had made with the potion grew ever louder, but the land boy simply kept treading water, unblinking.

Sedna felt shivers rippling across her body from the sight; no one normal would be so indifferent to something so intense. She had always known siren songs were really powerful, and had already seen their effect on the land boy… but still, for him to be so absorbed that not even this got him out of it… it was scary. And Hydrurga said she had experience with using siren songs, and of varieties Sedna hadn't even heard.

That was even scarier than the land boy's current condition.

But Sedna forced herself to keep her hand raised and her mind dedicated to her task. She couldn't let her focus falter.

The full moon at last got exactly at the center of the hole. Hydrurga's eyes narrowed even further.

"Now," she decreed.

The golden-green tornado started to close in around the boy, the noise it made growing to a loud roar, and the light it released so bright that it had lit up the tunnel's walls halfway up to the skylight. Again, the boy didn't react.

Sedna kept her hand raised and her mind focused on their task. It was now or never.

The huge glob shimmered, and then, like water being sucked into a whale shark's mouth, it rushed into the boy. He flinched like a harpooned whale and his upper half jerked above the surface. Then, he fell on his back onto the moon pool. His eyes were closed from loss of consciousness, but Sedna inwardly sighed in relief. At least now, floating on his back in front of them, he looked more normal.

The full moon started to move away from the center of the skylight, but it still cast enough light for Sedna to see Hydrurga smiling. Not a twisted smile that came from sick forms of pleasure, but a smile of relief and triumph at a successful plan.

In spite of her tiredness, Sedna couldn't help a smile of her own.

They had succeeded.

The land boy was theirs.


Her father arrived while she and Zac were setting up the porch's table up for a dinner for three, holding a beige folder in his right hand. He walked a tad slower than usual, but he gave both of them a warm smile as he walked up the steps to the porch.

"Good evening, kids," he greeted.

"Hi, dad," Evie replied as she finished folding a napkin.

"Good evening, Mr. McLaren," Zac added as he set the last fork down beside its respective plate.

Her father walked into the house, but stopped at the doorway as he took a sniff of the air.

"This smells delicious," he complimented. After another sniff, he turned to look at them. "Fish lasagna?"

Evie nodded.

"I hope you don't mind."

Her father smiled good-naturedly. "It wouldn't be the first time I dined fish over the last months." He shifted his eyes to Zac and quipped, "I guess now I know why."

Zac lowered his eyes for a fraction of a second, a sheepish half-smile on his face.

"If it helps, it wasn't deliberate," he offered as he looked back up at her father.

Although he still had the same good-natured smile on his face, Evie thought it might be better to change subjects. Knowing what her father had been doing that afternoon, she asked, "How did the meeting with that couple go?"

"It went well," her father replied. "They liked Rainbow's Point, and I managed to schedule a dive with them for next Thursday."

Evie smiled in relief, but it melted into a frown as she saw the slivers of discomfort and wariness creeping onto her father's expression, as if he was afraid she was going to ask something else. Given the other thing he'd had to take care of after their dive, that could only be one thing.

"And what did Jonas want?" she asked, trying to keep a neutral tone.

Her father went rigid as if he was fighting back a wince. Evie felt her concern making itself known on her face. Zac also frowned at her father's reaction.

"Just let me put this away and I'll talk to you about that," her father replied, raising the hand holding the folder.

Then he turned around and walked into the house. Evie and Zac exchanged a concerned look.

"What was that about?" he asked her in a hushed voice.

"I don't know," Evie replied in a similar tone. "Maybe either Jonas or someone in his family are sick."

Zac gave her a nod to show he'd heard, but judging from his face, he wasn't convinced.

"What do you think it might be?" Evie prompted.

Zac shook his left index finger forward and back, like he sometimes did when he was thinking. After a few seconds, of doing so, he suggested, "Do you think it's possible Jonas talked to your dad to see if he could take in some kid in need?"

Evie's eyebrows curled into one another, but it lasted only for a second before she started to consider the possibility. It could be. It didn't make much sense, but it could be. She had no idea why, though.

"Maybe," she acknowledged.

Their conversation ended there, as they heard her father's footsteps heading toward them. A few seconds later, he was walking out of the house, holding the steaming tray with fish lasagna between his hands and two oven mitts.

"Looks delicious, kids," he said as he set the tray down on a placemat. "You've really outdone yourselves."

Evie expected him to sit at the table after he set the tray down, but instead, he remained standing, his hands on the backrest of the chair in front of him as if he was sinking his fingers into it; his oven mitts made that impossible to tell.

"So, what did Jonas say?" Evie tried again.

Her father sighed deeply as if trying to release some kind of inner burden. Then, he turned to Zac.

"Could you go away for a bit, Zac? Evie and I need to talk about this alone."

Surprise flashed across Zac's eyes, echoing the one Evie felt rising up inside her. But it only lasted a moment before Zac nodded and said, "Sure, Mr. McLaren."

As he turned around, he and Evie exchanged a look both of them understood; they'd talk about whatever this was later. Then Zac walked away until he was by the small dock at the back of their home.

Once he was there, her father motioned toward the chair to the right of the one behind which he stood.

"Sit down, Evie."

Evie did as he requested, trying not to let her concern mount. Her father then took off the oven mitts and sat down as well, rubbing his hands together. Evie tried to remain still; one nervous person at the table was too much.

After several seconds with only the crickets chirping and the steam rising from the lasagna starting to decrease, her father turned to her and asked, "What would you think if I asked you if you would mind having another temporary sibling?"

So Zac had been right after all. Jonas had talked to her father about him taking in another foster child. That was a relief. At least neither Jonas nor anyone else connected to him was sick.

After thinking about the answer for a bit, Evie replied, "I'd ask how that came about. We haven't taken in any foster child since mom got sick."

Her father nodded. "I know, I know. Jonas told me he knew that as well, but he also said that when he started considering a foster family for this particular girl, we were the first ones he thought about."

One of Evie's eyebrows rose. "Why?"

Her father let out another deep sigh, and explained, "She lost her mother to cancer about a week ago."

A familiar unpleasant weight crashed down on Evie's heart. Cancer. Again cancer. That accursed thing was a plague. First Alana's mother, and then the mother of the girl her father had mentioned, and who knows how many others had died of it on the same day just in the Gold Coast. In spite of not knowing who this girl was, Evie felt her sympathy going to her.

"She doesn't have any family or friends in Australia, and they're still trying to get a hold of any family she might have at her country," her father went on. "She's in a group home for now, but apparently she has been doing badly even by the standards of kids that live at those places, so they've been trying to find her a temporary home. Like I told you, Jonas said we were the first ones he thought about."

It sounded weirdly similar to Alana's situation. She also was in a foreign country with no family she knew of. But Evie supposed she wouldn't be the only one. Far too many people died in Australia every day. It would be conceivable that a few were foreigners who left orphaned children that only had family in their home countries. There was one puzzling issue, however,

"And we could take her in just like that?" Evie asked. "Isn't there a lot of paperwork to go through?"

"I've been keeping up with it," her father replied. When he saw how Evie barely managed to restrain her jaw from dropping, he added in a surprised tone, "Didn't you know?"

No. She hadn't. She did remember her father keeping up with that paperwork for years after her mother had died, but as she hadn't had any temporary siblings for years, she thought the paperwork wasn't going through at all. But then again, as close as she and her father were, they weren't glued to one another twenty-four seven.

"I thought it wasn't going through," Evie explained. "Seeing as I haven't gotten any temporary siblings for years…"

"Well, maybe that's just because I'm an old widower with a biological daughter rather than a single beautiful young woman." Her father tried to chuckle, but it came out more as if he was clearing his throat. "Or maybe it's because Jonas and his colleagues never wanted to resort to us until today." This time, his tone was more serious.

It made sense. Most foster parents were married, and most single foster parents were women, for many reasons. One of the most prevalent ones was that society believed single men could not appropriately care for children, but there were other accusations on that front Evie didn't even want to think about, all of which would make her punch the accuser if such an accusation was directed at her father.

"So… what do you think?" her father asked.

Evie fiddled with her moon ring for a few seconds, watching the still-present cloud of steam rising from the tray. As much sympathy as she had felt for whoever this girl was, she felt rather nervous about the idea of sharing her home with a complete stranger for the first time in ten years, especially now that she had the mermaid secret to hide. And she had no idea of what this girl was like either; she could be ten times more detestable than Jodie as far as she knew. And Evie had a mermaid secret to hide now; she had to be even more careful about who she had around her house.

But she had just lost her mother, could have no other family anywhere, group homes were bad places to live in, and according to her father's words, she was doing badly even by the standards of children that lived there. Evie could not in good conscience turn her away, especially when just yesterday she had considered the possibility of her father taking in Alana. And she had managed to keep her tail a secret before. She could do it again.

Evie took a deep breath, and then turned to her father.

"I'd rather you told me what you think," she said.

Just because she might be willing to accept another temporary sibling, she didn't want her father to feel like he had to do it either. She trusted Jonas enough to think he wouldn't have guilt-tripped her father into this, but she didn't want him to do it if it would be too difficult for him either.

"The decision is yours," her father replied.

His tone was gentle, but it did nothing to quieten Evie's concern.

"I promise, sweetheart, if you'd rather not have her here, I won't hold it against you," he added.

"But what about you?" Evie asked him. "Are you sure you're ready for it? Won't it be too difficult for you to do this without mum?"

Her father again sighed, but his posture didn't sag, and he looked straight at Evie when he replied. "I'll confess, I have no idea how it will be until she actually starts living here."

His sentence ended there, but Evie could tell from her father's tone that he had already made up his mind, and what his decision had been. It was time to tell him hers.

"For me it's fine," she replied, looking her father in the eye.

He didn't seem convinced.

"Are you sure?" As if he was afraid he hadn't been clear, he added, "Besides everything else, won't you have problems with your tail?"

Evie gave her father an impressed look. He seemed to be getting into his new mindset even faster than Evie had thought he would. But like he had said, he wasn't an idiot, and Evie had never doubted he loved her. But she did think she had that part covered.

"I managed to hide my tail from you for months," Evie replied, trying to repress her guilt. "I think I can hide it from her as well." Realizing how it might have come across, she tried to explain what she meant. "Don't worry, I'm not saying I won't interact with her at all, much less that I won't try to help her through what she's enduring. I'm just saying she won't get to know that I'm a mermaid. Not from the get-go, at least."

All things considered, she probably would never tell this girl anything about her tail, as placements at foster homes tended to be temporary and relatively brief. But she also hadn't ever thought she would become a mermaid in the first place. Who knew where the future would lead her on that front?

"Really dad," she added. "It's alright."

Her father drummed his fingers against the table for a few moments, weighing all the factors in his head. Evie waited, again fiddling with her moon ring, the crickets still chirping around them.

"Then tomorrow I'll call Jonas and tell him," he at last said.

Evie nodded.

Her father nodded back, a small smile on his lips, and then gestured to Zac, who started walking over to the table. Right on time, apparently, because judging from how little steam now rose from the fish lasagna, it was already far from warm.

A few seconds later, Zac sat down, and her father started serving out their dinner, while Evie tried to get used to the idea of sharing her home with another temporary sibling for the first time in ten years.


The first thing he felt when he woke up was a pounding headache, as if someone was beating his skull with a hammer time and time again. Then he felt a strange salty smell that seemed exactly like sea air, and heard sounds that sounded like the squawking of sea birds, each one seeming to hit his head like another hammer strike. Almost the next instant, those were joined by what he, in the back of his sleepy and pounding brain, swore was a slight breeze running over his arms and legs.

If he didn't know any better, he'd swear he'd fallen asleep on the beach… and now that he thought of it, he didn't remember arriving at the hostel last night. All he remembered was going on a walk through Seaport Village after Karl went away to try his luck with some girl, watching the cars driving across the Coronado Bridge, and then… a strange blur of foggy pictures that made no sense, especially with the continuous hammering at his head.

This must be how someone felt whenever they got hungover, something Chris had never experienced, as he'd vowed to himself at the age of fourteen that he would never get drunk. Apparently he'd somehow broken his vow yesterday.

Or maybe he just hadn't slept enough. He'd just nestle into his pillow and doze off for a while longer.

He tried to do just that, but bolted to his feet on the same second, as he realized he hadn't tried to nestle his face into a pillow, but into wood! Then he almost fell as the wooden surface underneath him swayed. He managed to crouch and hold onto what felt like a bench's seat. The surface beneath him righted itself, and then stabilized.

He was on a boat and had grabbed onto one of his seats.

A boat? Where had he gotten a boat? Had he somehow stolen a boat while he was drunk? What was he going to do? Who was its owner? How much would it cost to pay for it? What kind of trouble would he get in with the law for the theft?

And where was he, for that matter? For him to get into any of those problems, he'd at least need to be able to go back to San Diego.

Well, at least I can try to answer that question. Chris thought.

Slightly calmer, Chris looked around to see if he could find reference points. Most sides showed him nothing but a blue ocean as far as the eye could see, but a small island thrust out of the sea to his right; apparently, he'd somehow been sober enough to anchor the boat close to land even in his drunkenness. It had a jagged appearance as if a giant carver had hammered a chisel into it over and over again before giving up on its task, and a sheer cliff rising from it, lit by the sun that rose behind him. Sea birds landed on and flew from it, squawking constantly as if doing so helped prevent other birds from crashing into them.

It would not make the prettiest picture Chris had ever seen, but he felt himself calming down at the sight. He'd heard about this place. It was Grim Island, a place he'd read about in a guide book, which said it was a nesting site for sea birds, not too far from the coast. If the boat had enough fuel, Chris could get back to the mainland easily enough.

Chris checked his watch. It was half past nine – exactly twelve hours after the last time he remembered checking on his watch. He briefly wondered if his watch had somehow stopped during the night, but then discarded the possibility. The watch was new, waterproof, and its second hand was still moving, so it most likely hadn't stopped. Also, the sun was low enough in the sky to match what his watch showed him, and judging from the way it lit up the cliff Chris saw, he had to on the island's eastern side. If he turned the boat's stern toward this side of the island and drove in a straight line, he'd be heading east, and thus he should be able to get back to land.

Slightly happier at the thought, Chris checked the fuel tank. It was not completely full – presumably thanks to the trip he'd taken here in his period of what could only be very extreme drunkenness – but it had more than enough for the forty kilometres back to the mainland. Driving in an absolutely straight line would be a bit difficult, but it still shouldn't be impossible for him to get back to land.

Given all the things that could have happened thanks to him being so stupid to get into a boat drunk and end up driving it at night into a place so little people came to, Chris knew he should consider himself lucky.

His head again pounded, as if the hammer in question had doubled in size and landed a hit on it at that very moment. Chris groaned from the pain. What exactly had he drunk yesterday? A bar's whole whisky supply?

Well, whatever it was, he had to get himself straightened out before trying to drive the boat. If he faltered along the way, he could get off course, and then he would really be in trouble. So first it was better to make sure his headache faded some, and then he'd try to make the trip.

Perhaps a quick swim would help. It couldn't be the kind of swim that was physically demanding, otherwise his headache would only get worse, but a dive close to the boat should be good for him.

With few options at hand, Chris took off his shirt, shoes, and socks, put the things in his pockets on the boat's seats, swung his legs over the boat's side, and slid off into the sea.

It seemed to be an instant relief. The coolness enveloping him pushed the headache back and the quietude underwater brought the pounding down to a dull thud. Inwardly sighing in relief, Chris pushed himself up to the surface, and then swam away from the boat with a few strokes.

And then he froze, as a strange ripple travelled through him. He seemed to be paralysed for a moment, and when the paralysis ended, his whole body seemed to have changed. Somehow, all of him seemed to be different now. And the most obvious was his lower half, which seemed to have changed completely into something.

Chris rolled over to float on his back and looked at below his waist. A scaly blue tail, quite longer than his legs, was there in place of his old lower limbs, floating horizontally on the water's surface.


Hidden behind a rock on the bottom of the sea, Hydrurga smiled as she watched the land boy's silhouette standing out against the water's surface. At least one part of their plan had worked. From now on, the land boy would grow a tail and have all assorted merman abilities whenever he touched water. He hadn't technically become a merman, as he had still been born a land boy, but for all practical purposes he was one. Even if the other spells she had put on him had somehow failed, he could still undermine the reputation of Nerissa's daughter in the Mako Pod.

But Hydrurga was sure the other spells hadn't failed. She knew her magic, and Sedna, nervous around her though she might be, was decently competent.

They still needed to wait a while before testing him to see if her spells had worked. If they tried them on right now, he might get confused, think something was odd, and take preventive measures. And even if the speills in question worked, Sedna and Hydrurga would still need to wait a while to see if the land boy would be at least tolerated by the Mako Pod.

If he wasn't, it wouldn't be that big an issue, but Hydrurga would rather he was.

Because if he was, then he could do what he wanted them to even more effectively.


For what had to be an eternity, Chris floated at the same spot, watching the blue tail extending in front of him with wide eyes, his brain a jumbled mess as he tried to make some sort of sense of this.

What on Earth is going on here?

He had a tail?

He had a freaking tail?

He was a merman?

How could this be?

Was this some sort of very realistic dream? Was he on drugs rather than alcohol? Or had he somehow ended up drinking some sort of magic potion?

It had to be the first one. Mermen didn't exist – just like mermaids didn't exist for that matter. And magic potions didn't exist either. Somehow whatever alcohol he had drunk last night was still making effect.

It's the only explanation.

Still floating on his back, Chris pinched himself on his left upper arm to see if he would wake up. The pain was very much noticeable, and he probably would be having a bruise soon, but everything else remained the same. He was still floating on his back with a tail in place of his legs. And to add to the idea that it was magic, the ripped remnants of his shorts weren't even floating nearby, as if his clothes had been put away for the transformation.

What transformation? Chris shouted to himself. This is a dream! Just wake up, blast you!

Chris pinched himself again, this time on his right upper arm. Again, things remained the same as before, just as they did on the third, fourth, and fifth time he pinched himself, always on different parts of his body to see if any would be more efficient than the previous one. All he managed with it was to earn a collection of bruises, some of them on his tail, which he also pinched twice on different spots only to get pain sensations where he'd squeezed the scales and the flesh underneath.

Like it or not, somehow, this was real.

But how could it have happened?

I must have drank a magic potion rather than whiskey after all. Chris thought.

Shut it! He replied to himself. Now was not the time for jokes. He had to figure this out if he was to know what to do next.

Mustering all his focus, Chris tried to think back on the previous night, a task made easy enough by the fact that somehow his headache had been healed by the transformation. The real memories still eluded him, but he thought he could remember a few flashes of a boat ride through the water, and others about him being in a frothing pool with the full moon shining directly above him and a strange golden-green tornado trying to consume him.

If he had to guess, that had to be some sort of magic transformation taking place.

Are you listening to yourself? Chris again shouted at himself. Mermen don't exist! Mermaids don't exist! Everyone knows that!

Maybe 'everyone' didn't know as much as they thought then. Or maybe he had just changed things. A few of them at least. Because he had somehow become a merman.

And it wasn't true that everyone knew mermen and mermaids didn't exist. Chris knew someone who claimed to have seen a mermaid. He had even claimed to have photographed her, although he had lost the camera before he could develop the picture. But then again, he had managed nothing with those claims but to come across as a fool, and even now, decades after the event, his sighting of the mermaid was a standing joke, with the most regular way of teasing or even mocking the man being through making references to what he'd spouted about mermaids.

All things considered, maybe the man wasn't such a fool after all. Chris' tail was unmistakable, and if mermen could exist, logic dictated that mermaids also could. Maybe the man Chris was thinking of had been telling the truth after all.

Of course, that also meant he could never know about this. Scratch that – no one could know about this. Chris might not have been a merman for long, but he already had no delusions of what would happen to him if he was caught. And while the man he was thinking of had sighted a mermaid rather than a merman, and reportedly hadn't thought about that for decades, he might very well resume his quest if he heard any more merpeople were around, and if he did, it wasn't farfetched at all that he would settle for the male of the species. And everyone else probably wouldn't mind a merman either.

Chris knew he might have to drop off the map. But where would he go? He might know a lot about the sea, but he still doubted he would be able to survive on it. Even if he managed to find food, there were plenty of predators that certainly wouldn't mind sinking their teeth into him. And besides, he couldn't just let his grandfather think he had died, which was what would happen if Chris just went off into the sea without telling anything to anyone. His grandfather would be heartbroken, and he wasn't young any longer. He might not get through such a thing. Even if Chris never told him about his 'scaly side', he had to, at the utter least, talk to him first.

And who knows, maybe he might even tell his grandfather about having become a merman. Now that he thought of it, going by some of the stories his grandfather told him, it sounded like he might actually be open to the existence of merpeople, or even actually know that they existed.

No. That would be far too much. Regardless of how most of his grandfather's stories had turned out to be true, him having known about mermaids seemed to be going a bit too far.

Or wasn't it? Merpeople weren't the kind of creature that could just crash down from the sky. If they existed, they probably had existed for millennia. Mermaid myths reportedly went back to over three thousand years. So they probably had existed at least since then, and it was conceivable some humans had run into them over such a long period. Perhaps his grandfather was one of those.

Or perhaps those stories Chris was thinking of fell into the few that just had to be fiction after all. Even if merpeople existed, it didn't mean everything told about them was true. For all Chris knew, his grandfather might just have a panic attack if he saw him with a tail.

Well, that was a bridge to be crossed when the time arrived. For now he just had to figure out how to talk to his grandfather, whether he ended up telling him the secret or not.

The problem was that it would be difficult to meet him with a tail… so the first thing to do was to see if he could get his legs back. But how? They had just vanished about ten seconds after he touched water!

Maybe they would return if he was dry then. So if he got onto the boat and dried himself, his legs should reappear. Then he could just get back to the hostel, go home today like it was planned, and talk to his grandfather after he arrived.

Or maybe he'd just die from dehydration like a dolphin washed ashore if he tried to get dry.

Well, if that started to happen, he could always roll back into the sea. After all, it wouldn't be far off, and even cetaceans could stand a few hours out of the water. If Chris felt he was getting too sick, he'd just get back in the water.

Either way, he'd only know what would happen if he tried it.

Praying that it would work, Chris rolled onto his stomach, and started a very clumsy doggy-paddle toward the boat he had somehow ended up sleeping in.


So here it was another chapter. Once more, no fancast, as there are no new important characters being introduced.

This will be the last chapter for a bit, as I don't think I can get the next one out before Friday, and also I will be taking a few days off to watch Season 3 myself. I'm currently keeping my fingers crossed for the things I am apprehensive about not being as bad as I am fearing, but overall still looking forward to it.

On an aside, for those reading this who are also fans of H2O - Just Add Water, you may want to keep an eye out for an incoming story of mine, which should be published within a few days.

Said story is titled Aratoro, and is set in the same universe as Seas Of Change, although it can be read independently. It will be more H2O than Mako Mermaids, although technically both universes are already one and the same, and will become even more so once the third season premieres because of the incoming crossover.

I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Again, I'll try my best not to take too long with the next one.