Marcus hurt all over. He hurt in places that he was not aware could hurt. After being thrown into the air by the girls he had blacked out. He awoke on the beach of Mako, sand and seaweed covering his body. He cracked his eyes open and immediately regretted it when light flooded his vision. He groaned and covered his eyes with his hand as he sat up and popped the vertebrate in his neck. "What happened?" He asked of no one in particular.
"Oh, I imagine that they gave you quite the thrashing." An older woman said from behind Marcus, causing his head to spin around so fast it popped once again. He was on his feet in another instant, wary of the old woman immediately. She was standing on the sand, her hands clasped in front of her and a kindly expression on her face. "Oh, don't worry. They aren't around anymore. In fact, I would guess that they are waking up in the Moon Pool right now."
"How do you know about the Moon Pool?" Marcus demanded, not bothering to play dumb. He had the strangest feeling that it would not work on this woman anyways. "Who are you? What are you doing here? Are you-?"
"A mermaid?" The old woman asked softly, chuckling. "No, not frequently."
"Not frequently?" Marcus asked, confused. "What the hell does that mean?"
"Don't worry about it, for now." She smiled. "For now, I thought I might give you some advice."
"Advice?" Marcus repeated skeptically. "Lady, you don't even know me."
"Oh, you would be surprised what I know." She laughed. "For instance, I know that you were once a merman."
"H-how?" Marcus asked, fighting the urge to let his jaw drop in amazement. His apprehension and wariness of the woman had skyrocketed and now he was not sure if he should attack her and force her to reveal the source of her information or attempt to escape. Neither option seemed like it would have been possible for some reason. "How do you know that? And what did you do to the girls?!"
"I just know." The woman shrugged. "And I did nothing to the girls. What happened last night that was because of you."
"Because of me?" Marcus asked, frowning. "How?"
"Because of what you were." The woman said simply. "The Moon Pool was created from Old Magic, magic from the time of the mermaid and merman war. Now that the pod has left, it has called three more to watch over it in their absence. But, because of your past as a merman, it sensed you here last night and instructed those girls to defend it. You can see and feel the results."
"So, what, should I just stay away from Mako?" Marcus asked, throwing his hands up into the air and turning to face the ocean. For someone who claimed to be helpful, this woman was infuriating. He turned back to her, opening his mouth to ask another question, and stopped when he saw that she was gone. "Oh that is just typical." He snarled, kicking viciously at the sand.
He rubbed his hands across his face, dislodging the last remnants of sand from his skin, and turned to face the cliffs in the center of the island. The words of the old woman echoed in his mind and he gnawed his lip as he thought. If they truly were there, if they were waking up in the Moon Pool now, they would be scared. Most likely they would freak out, and he was not aware of how much of last night they remembered. He checked his watch and then gave another groan of despair. The watch face had shattered and was now filled with sand and water, almost assuredly broken. He was by no means able to accurately tell the time from the sun's position but he assumed that it was still early in the morning. He turned back towards the sea and wondered abstractly where his boat had gone before coming to a decision. He began his trek towards the cliffs he had not climbed in many a month, picking his way through the jungle with ease. The path had been ingrained into his mind after so many trips through and, to his pleasure and relief, he came across the familiar rock face. At the top of the cliffs, where the entrance to the Moon Pool was, he knew that his coil of climbing rope was still there.
Though it had been a while since he had climbed them, the journey up the cliffs was still familiar enough to be easy. He was at the top in no time, crawling across the rock and peering down into the Moon Pool. True to the old woman's words, he saw the form of three mermaids lying in the water at the bottom of the cave. "If you attack me again, I swear, you are fired." Marcus muttered, tossing the climbing rope into the cave and beginning his descent. His skin grew uncomfortably hot the closer he got the Moon Pool, but it was by no means unmanageable. He swung over to the side of the Pool and landed lightly on the stone. None of the girls was within arm's reach and as such he had to settle with shouting, "Hey!" In an effort to wake them up.
Suffice to say, it worked. The three shot up, drawing up deep, rasping breaths in unison. They blinked several times, clearly confused, and turned to look at one another for an explanation. "Glad to see that you three are finally awake." Marcus said, taking a seat at the edge of the pool and crossing his legs. "First full moon is always the hardest, trust me."
"M-Marcus?!" Amber asked in horror, glancing down to her tail. "What-how-?!"
"Easy, easy, easy." Marcus said, patting the air soothingly. "You three are safe, you have to trust me. I'm not going to turn you in, or anything like that."
"How are you here?!" Jess demanded, her voice just as fear-filled as Amber's. "How?!"
"It's not the first time I've been to the Moon Pool." Marcus said with a slight smile and shrug. "I found it about a year or so ago, probably in the same way you three did. By accident."
"But... If you found the Moon Pool like us…" Maggie said, her eyes narrowing and glancing down to the water.
Marcus had no problem following her train of thought. "No, not quite." He said gently. "Not anymore. It… it's a long story. Look, this is not the place for this conversation. You three had quite a night."
Marcus stood up and grabbed the rope, making to climb, when Jess spoke up again. "Wait, last night, did we… did we attack you?"
"So you remember that?" Marcus laughed, ignoring the pain in his limbs caused by the mermaids. "Yeah, don't worry about it though. Ondina put me through a lot worse than that."
"Ondina?" Maggie asked uncertainly, clearly recognizing the name. "Wait, wasn't she your girlfriend?"
"Girlfriend, and mermaid." Marcus nodded. He grinned at the baffled and shocked looks on their faces and rolled his eyes. "You three are so lucky that she isn't here right now. Locking the door with magic like that? You really have to start being discreet. Land people might not be very observant magic, but they aren't completely stupid."
"How long have you known?" Amber wondered, "About us?"
"About an hour after you got into the shop on that first day." Marcus admitted. "That's why I hired you like I did. I had to keep an eye on you."
"Why didn't you tell us?" Maggie demanded, clearly affronted at being manipulated like they had been. "Why bother to let us freak out like this? If your girlfriend was a mermaid, you could have helped us! We have been freaking out! We never asked for this, and you knew?!"
Marcus waited for her to finish her rant, looking to the other two and seeing agreement on their faces. He released the rope and retook his seat by the side of the Moon Pool. "When I fell into the Moon Pool, I was just as terrified as you were." He told them. "The difference was that, well, after a misunderstanding I sort of thought that the other mermaids were trying to kill me. Or at least poison me. But, anyway, they somehow knew about my secret the whole time. They let me think that they didn't, that I was being sneaky, for a while. At least until they decided they could trust me. I didn't tell you three I knew because, well, I thought that you might not trust me. I mean, it would have freaked you if I had called you out on it the day that you entered the café, right? So I kept quiet, helping you behind the scenes when you needed it, keeping you away from water."
"Is there any way to reverse this?" Amber asked hesitantly. "For us to lose our powers? How did you lose yours?"
"I'm… not really sure." Marcus admitted quietly. He thought back to the fateful night and the storm he had caused, and shivered at the memory. "I don't think so. There might be a spell or something in the library at my house, but if there is I haven't read it. And I have read almost everything there."
"What about not transforming when we get water on us?" Maggie asked hopefully. "Any way to stop that?"
Marcus laughed, the first genuine note of happiness he had made in a long time. "Sorry," He said, chuckling and feeling slightly bad about the looks of anger on their faces. "I don't mean to laugh. But I went through the same thing. I hated getting showers, it was terrible."
"There really is no way?" Jess asked, despair in her voice. "I'm on the swim team, I have to be there the trials!"
"Sorry, again, but you aren't on the swim team anymore." Marcus told her. A gentle buzzing in his pocket caused him to start and he, amazedly, pulled his phone from his pocket and cancelled the notification. When he looked up the girls were against the opposite end of the Moon Pool, clearly ready to flee at a moment's notice. "Whoa, easy, just had a text. The delivery driver is at the café and wanted to know where to put the deliveries since I am not there."
"Put the phone away." Jess commanded, raising an arm threateningly. "Or else."
"If you are going to threaten me, at least try harder." Marcus rolled his eyes and stored his phone back into his pocket, "You probably have the magical equivalent of a young one. Maybe less, they are used to magic. You aren't."
"What do we do?" Jess asked, clearly yearning for some sort of guidance.
Marcus took a moment to consider this. "Meet me at the café." He said finally. "We still have work to do. We will close early and I will show you the grotto. After that, I'll try to teach you what I can. That should be enough, at least until the pod gets back and they can take you in."
"The pod?" Amber asked, uncertain.
"The mermaids who live around Mako." Marcus said, rising once more and grasping the climbing rope firmly in his hands. "Don't worry, they are kind. Mostly. Veridia can be sort of mean."
