CHAPTER FOURTEEN
His mind reeled from the curiosity as they drove back toward camp.
"You were really good with the piano," Kylie complimented from the backseat. "Did someone teach you to play?"
"Yes, my mom," he answered. The word 'mom' hung in his mind. It made him curious in a completely different way. Did his real parents have the same gifts? Or perhaps one of them did?
He'd been so focused on finding out what type of supernatural he was and avoiding Diego that he didn't stop to think that finding his real parents might lead to that answer. If he was supernatural, then they should be too, right? At least one of them.
Realizing he hadn't completely answered Kylie's question, he elaborated, "She's a music teacher. When I was a kid, she taught me everything she knew. When I was ten, I started taking classes to learn more. Learned a lot, too." He grinned at the memory. "Clarinet, electric guitars, drums, even the cello."
Mandy stared at Snow with wide eyes. "Seriously?" she asked. "I've learned one instrument or two, but I've never taken that many."
"My dad has friends at the universities he teaches, so he pulled some strings." That, and he learned everything and memorized it all in a matter of weeks, which made it prominent to learn new instruments.
He wondered why he stopped playing altogether. And remembered.
Benny. The boy who thought classic music was grandma music that belonged in the toilet. Snow stopped playing altogether to keep his friend. He missed Benny, but there were drawbacks to having him for a friend. And tomorrow, he would be coming. And you could only guess what could happen with him here.
"Oh, my God!" Kylie shrieked in a panicked tone, and instantly forced Snow's line of thought back to the present.
"What's wrong?" he asked and looked over his shoulder at her.
Her expression read horror as she faced the window.
He followed, and saw what she saw. Several meters from the bridge they were about to cross clung a young boy to the icy gurder on the edge. And below the bridge was a river filled with a strong rushing waters.
Oh, my God! His head repeated Kylie's words in the exact same panic tone.
"Oh, my God!" Mandy screamed, meaning she spotted what they saw, too.
"Michael, get to the bridge, fast," Snow ordered.
He stepped on the clutch and sped the car. "He's gonna fall in before we make it," he said matter-of-factly, but panic existed in his voice, too.
Snow didn't want to think that way. He wanted to save the boy. And that meant they have to make it. They only made it to the side of the bridge and Kylie was about to jump out when the kid lost his hold and fell into the water.
Horror struck Snow and paralyzed his entire body, even the soothing water couldn't chase that away.
Kylie kept running and then jumped in without thinking. Snow snapped out of his shock a half-second later and followed. Whatever the case, he had to try to save the kid. And Kylie didn't seem strong enough to do it alone. Partly yielding to the welcoming water, he jumped in.
The water came from all directions in a force powerful enough to break down a glass window, but he willed himself forward. His body found the proper movements to avoid the stream's force and moved toward where he knew the current was taking him, thinking about nothing but Kylie and the little boy.
The water sent a sense of calm into his chest, allowing him to think clearly. It was like it was telling him that everything was going to be okay. And he wanted to believe it.
It took a second before Snow realized that he was moving faster than he ever had before. Like inhumanly fast. And another second to realize that he was swimming with the current, which smoothed his movements. Not that he had time to enjoy this new piece of knowledge. The kid and Kylie were the priority.
He couldn't see Kylie, but he did see the kid, who now was sinking to the bottom. His eyes were closed and his body didn't move. Snow hoped for the better as he swam toward the boy with all the speed he could exert.
He grabbed the kid and held him closely to his chest. Something tapped his shoulder right then, but he ignored it and swam toward one side of the river. This time the current fought against him, endlessly pushing him off course. He tried to fight it, but the current overwhelmed his own strength.
A sudden flicker of light caught his eye, and a stronger curiosity pulled his glance to it. Right there, in the water, he saw it. The brown-haired silhouette with a lime green fishtail that appeared in the glass of water days before. He saw her face. She was more beautiful than he could imagine. The current did nothing to her hair or her body. She just floated in front of him, like a hologram. The mermaid held out her hand and moved it while wiggling its fingers.
He couldn't understand her at first, but then he finally did and held out his hand. His mind focused on controlling the water, on changing the course to the riverside. He felt energy exerting from his palm and then all the pressure lifted. Or at least moved around him. A stream in the water opened around him and the boy like a protective tunnel. Snow turned around but found the mermaid gone again. Knowing the boy needed oxygen and that Kylie probably was still in trouble, he swam until he reached the surface.
When he tried to stand, he lost his footing and his torso stayed on the waterfloor. Putting the boy's head over the water, Snow looked over his shoulder and...
Oh my God! Snow's mind screamed. A gasp escaped his lips. Gasped because of what he was seeing on his lower body.
His clothes and legs were gone. Instead, what attached to his lower body was a long, smooth-skinned white fishtail.
Oh, my God!
Snow hadn't finished staring at the beluga-like tail attached to his lower body when Michael reached the riverside and gaped at the same thing. If it wasn't for the soothing water and the fact that they still had an emergency at hand, he would've freaked out over this new issue.
But not now, Snow mentally told himself, and then spoke loudly, "Grab the kid. I have to find Kylie. She hasn't gotten out of the water."
Mandy reached them at the edge and eyed at Snow's tail, too.
"I'm right here," a feminine voice said behind Snow.
He looked over his shoulder, but all he saw was a sea lion the size of a mini-boat standing two inches behind his tail. Fear would've taken over if it wasn't for the magical water that smoothed his emotions. He looked around the creature for Kylie, but saw no one. He was about to dive back in when the seal's began to mutate.
They are a blend of multiple species and share all of their powers.
"Kylie?" Snow muttered to the transmuting sea lion. Five seconds later, a drenched and shivering Kylie appeared where the animal was.
They are a blend of multiple species and share all of their powers.
Snow moved his eyes before realizing what he was doing and saw the shape-shifter pattern on the girl's forehead. For the first time, he could look into her pattern. H remembered to the first time when he tried to study her pattern and hit a wall, and the time when she told him about the chameleon brain pattern. When she wasn't being anything in particular, her pattern was unreadable. But now, she was. She had turned herself into a shape-shifter and then used the power to turn into a sea lion.
"Get out of the water, hurry," Mandy demanded and gazed at Snow's tail again.
Snow looked in the same direction. He ran his hand over the tail and felt the smooth white skin on his palm. As he continued running his hand over his tail, something else caught his eye: around his abs, right below his ribcage were a set of gills. Three little linen holes on either side.
Amazement and shock flooded his chest; a third emotion was frustration. But there wasn't time for any of that right now. The kid was the priority; and after that, they needed to figure out how to make his tail disappear. He hoped that drying it up would make his legs grow back like in the movies.
Did it work like in the movies?
Snow watched Kylie walk out of the water in shivers. Michael placed the boy on the ground and rested his head on his chest as if trying to listen to his heartbeat. Then he moved up to the boy's head.
"He's alive, but he's not breathing," Michael said.
"Get back, I'll heal him," Kylie said and approached the kid.
Heal him? Did she have healing powers?
She knelt down beside Michael and the boy, and placed one hand on the boy's chest and then the other on his stomach.
"Wait," Mandy said abruptly, "We need to get Snow outta here before someone sees him."
Worries spread on their looks as they refocused on him. Even Snow felt the worries flood his chest, but the water somehow kept them at bay.
"Snow, get into the water and find somewhere to hide for the time being," Michael told him. "We'll tell Burnett and have him send someone to find you."
He nodded and gazed briefly at Kylie as she focused entirely on the boy. Was she healing him? Deciding to ask the question later, he swam back into the river.
The waves kept his worries at bay, but didn't completely chase them away. What does this mean?
Holiday had told him that merpeople couldn't live on land for too long without water. And he knew he had survived the lack of water before when he went camping with his dad. Or was there something she did not tell him? Why did he get a tail only now?
And most of all, what did all of this mean?
The answer loomed in the darkest depths of the water.
"Tell me how it happened again," Holiday asked with Burnett sitting on her desk.
Snow, now back to his regular human self - with legs and all - sighed and told the story like he told Burnett when his team found him. He was the last of the four to be questioned by the camp leaders in their office. "The boy fell into the river, so Kylie and I jumped in to save him. By the time I pulled him out, I had a huge beluga tail on my body and gills on my ribs. Oh, and all my clothes were gone."
Kylie, Mandy and Michael had already gone over the details from their points of view. Since he was the one who saved the boy, his interrogation took longer than the others. Not that he minded. Thankfully, the kid was fine. The ambulance took him to a hospital after Kylie healed him, and hadn't witnessed anything unnatural. Like a beluga tail on a human body.
While Snow was impressed with Kylie's gift of healing, he was more amazed at how his clothes magically disappeared when his tail replaced his legs and reappeared when he dried up. Snow swam approximately five miles down the river and hid behind some leaf-less thornbushes while waiting for Burnett's crew to find him. By the time they did, he had almost completely dried up and transformed in front of Burnett's eyes. Like Mandy, Kylie and Michael, the vamp was shocked to see his tail.
"So, does this mean I'm a merman?" he asked Holiday and Burnett.
They both shared a look.
"I guess it does," Holiday said hesitantly and then made a burping sound.
A sense of accomplishment filled his heart; he knew what he was now. Knew for sure. The sense of victory lasted for a second before more questions started flooding his mind.
"Has my pattern changed?" Show asked and pointed at his forehead.
Burnett twitched his eyebrows and shook his head. "It's still the same. I assume this means that your pattern really points out that you're a merman." Dimples and wrinkles appeared on his forehead as he looked thoughtfully.
"What is it, Burnett?"
Burnett turned to his burping wife with a hesitant look.
"What do you know?"
He hesitated telling for a long second. Lucky for Snow, he didn't keep his mouth shut for long, "I remember reading something at the FRU -" FRU - that is the Fallen Research Unit, a governmental organization specialized in supernatural cases, of which Burnett was a member. "- about extinct supernaturals. Mermaids and mermen haven't been spotted for over a century. Even with claims of their sightings, no one's ever been able to track them down. Since you're merman -" he waved his hand at Snow. "- I wonder if they're actually hiding on land. Did your parents ever show something different?"
Snow looked down on the table and deliberated. He didn't want to get into it, but somehow it felt right to say it. If he showed his tail now, it would only be a matter of time before the principals figured it out.
"No, they haven't... because I'm adopted."
Holiday and Burnett's eyes widened.
"I found my birth certificate and a newspaper clipping the same day I found out that I was supernatural. That's why they couldn't tell me anything about being different."
Tears filled Holiday's eyes. Snow could feel his own filling. "Oh, I'm so sorry," the fae said with emotion. A hiccup escaped her throat.
The admission hurt like the devil. It was like opening a can of worms that he had fought to close, and now it had opened again and the worms were crawling out. Burnett reached out and patted his shoulder with a concerned look.
Snow wiped away his tears. "I'm afraid they can't tell us anything useful. I found out that I was abandoned in the woods of Maine when they were camping, but..." He bit his lip. "Just please, don't tell anyone about this yet."
Burnett and Holiday nodded.
"Of course."
"Then I suppose we'll have to find out everything about merpeople by ourselves," Burnett suggested.
Snow suspected it was his attempt to change the subject, and he appreciated it. "Hasn't anyone ever encountered a merperson before? I mean, there are documentaries about their existence all over the world."
"Indeed, but no one could be sure if they really existed. Stories about them had roamed the world for centuries. Some of the documents are confirmed by the FRU to be false information for publicity. From what I've learned of them, though, they couldn't abstain from water for an extended period of time. If they did, they would die." He became thoughtful. "If they really were around us, we probably would've recognized their patterns, too. It's not like they could trust witches to hide them. But you've managed to live in the human world without detection... hm, I wonder... maybe they've learned to avoid detection." Whether Burnett was speaking to them or just thinking outloud, Snow wasn't sure.
Frustration started building inside his chest, crowding out his sadness. Apparently, knowing what he was didn't solve all of his problems. He still didn't know how or why his birth parents abandoned him. He had powers growing inside of him, powers he did not understand. And while he was getting used to being at Shadow Falls, the school hadn't provided much information about his supernatural heritage. And then he had to deal with his adopted parents and Benny coming to visit tomorrow. And he still hadn't dealt with his confusing feelings for Diego.
A strong fiery emotion flooded his chest: anger. Anger at everything he could not understand or control. Couldn't he get a reprieve? The anger intensified to the point that he could almost scream.
Holiday landed her hand on top of Snow's. Something about her touch soothed the dangerous feelings inside him. The suspicions of Holiday messing with his emotions stirred, but he didn't want to question it. It was too good to resist.
Holiday turned to her husband.
"Do you think you can find some information on merpeople, Honey?" she asked. The way she said 'honey' rang sweetness and devotion.
Burnett stood sternly, but his eyes reacted to the word, too. "I'm sure there's something there. I have to be at the agency tomorrow, so I can take the time to find some historical files while I'm there."
"You're so smart." She hiccuped, and then she winced and touched her belly.
Burnett immediately knelt beside her in a worried mode. "Are you okay? Is the baby all right?"
She smiled. "We're fine. I think we'll need an appointment with the doctor soon, though."
The couple looked and talked to each other like he was air.
Snow almost rolled his eyes. Frustration stirred. But even he couldn't deny how much he enjoyed seeing the devotion they had for one another. It was like they only had eyes on each other and no one else. Perhaps that'll change when the baby was born, but he doubted it.
"I'll make an appointment tomorrow after my meeting. And I'll go to the pharmacy for some more hiccup remedies and vitamins."
Holiday smiled widely. Burnett leaned in and kissed her. Snow rolled his eyes and looked away to avoid disturbing the couple. And that was all it took to push his frustrations aside... for now. He knew he had to confront them. He wanted to confront them, especially now that he knew what he was. But that never answered his other questions, like where he came from. Where his birth parents are. Or why they had abandoned him.
"Should I leave you two alone?" he asked.
"Yes," Burnett said while kissing Holiday.
Okay.
Burnett pulled away reluctantly. "I will let you know when I find something."
They started kissing again, and Snow left the office with a smile so real that his problems vanished. There was nothing better than two people who shared the same level of devotion and love.
He thought back to all the times his parents held on to each other. Sure, they had their share of problems and disagreements, but those problems never drove them apart. If anything, they got closer because of them. And even if he might never know who his real parents were, at least he knew how lucky he was to have been adopted by such good-hearted people.
His mind took a U-turn all the way back to Diego. The last words he said to him replayed like a radio.
... I'm betting that your way of dealing has nothing to do with you wanting to leave behind the life at foster homes, where you never had the chance to even find out who your parents were.
"Oh, my God," Snow muttered. The guilt he felt earlier returned tenfold. "What have I done?"
He recalled Diego's expression after he said those words. Fury. But there was also something else. Hurt. He had been so busy with his own issues that he didn't consider Diego's feelings.
Yes, he was attracted to him, but even if he wasn't ready to act on the attraction, Diego deserved better than his shit.
He got off the porch and started running toward the cabin, hoping to find Diego there.
He hadn't gotten one mile when the sensation of being followed came so strong that he made an abrupt halt. His shoes deep dug in the muddy ground and almost tripped him over. Sweat from the run oozed down his forehead and tickled his skin.
"Are you okay?" a deep male voice spoke so closely behind him that he jumped. And landed hard on the ground. Fear built and choked in his chest until he saw the person standing behind him. It wasn't until he recognized Diego that relief began to wash over him.
"You scared me," he admitted.
"Sorry, saw you running while I was flying about and decided to follow." The stern voice told him that he was still mad.
He got up and dusted off the dirt and snow. "Actually, I was going to look for you. I want to apologize for last night." When Diego didn't speak, he went on. "I'm sorry about what I said. I overstepped, and I was wrong to say those things."
"Which part?" Diego asked sternly.
"The last one. About you leaving the foster program because of your parents. I realized that I was being a jerk, and I apologize for that. I'm so sorry."
Diego grinned. That smile suited him. For a second, Snow yearned to lean closer. And closer still.
"All right, apology accepted," he said. "Now, let's talk about you. Michael told us what happened when you were on your way back to camp." His eyes furrowed but his smile didn't falter. "You really grew a... tail?" His tone rang curiosity... and befuddlement. His eyes squinted to study Snow's pattern.
"Yeah. Looks like I finally know what I am," he muttered.
The questions he'd neglected to ask started rushing back into his mind. Though he knew what he was, he still didn't know where his lineage originated from or how his powers worked. Where were his birth parents now? And most of all, why did his birth parents abandon him?
"But there's something else bothering you," Diego said, his eyes now held concern. "Is it because you didn't know you could grow a tail?"
He shook his head.
"It's something else." He almost told him the truth. "There's still so much I don't know or understand yet. I'm still adapting to the supernatural world, for God's sakes, and now I finally know what I am, but I have absolutely no idea where it all comes from."
The moment he said those last words, he wished that he could take it back. Diego didn't have to get involved in his problems when he got his own.
In that moment, he realized how similar their problems were. They were both orphans who got pulled into the world of supernatural where things didn't exactly make sense. Like the fact that a guy could fly or grow a fishtail while underwater. But at least Snow had a family. Diego was raised in foster homes.
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean to rub that in your face," Snow apologized.
Diego didn't look upset. If anything, he was grinning. "Relax, I know what you mean." There was a pause. "So, can you show me? Your tail?"
Snow gaped at him. But as much as the awkwardness and frustration ate away at him, he was glad that Diego was talking to him again. He wanted it to continue.
"Okay, but not here. I really don't want anyone else to see. It's not like I know how it works anyway."
Diego's smile grew. "Then let's get back to the cabin. Freddie's chomping up his eagerness. Besides, everyone at dinner is talking all about you. If you get in there, they'll probably gawk at you like you've grown a 'tail'."
Snow groaned.
Then, Diego wrapped his arm around Snow's waist and held it there. They were so close he could feel his breath. Their eyes met. For one minute, Snow wondered how it would feel like to...
"Hold on tight," Diego said tenderly, and then lifted them off the ground.