A/N: I still don't own The Thirteenth Year, but it is one of my favorite movies.
Thunder continued to clap outside, large streaks of lightning flashing outside the dark windows. Whit and Sharon paid it no attention, instead staring at the young man who sat across from them at the kitchen table. Sean's eyes were huge and his mouth slightly agape. He didn't move, soaking in all that the Griffin's had just told him.
"Sean, honey, are you okay?" Sharon asked, squeezing her husband's hand under the table.
His knee bouncing, Whit didn't think he could take the boy's silence for much longer. They had just finished telling him about their son. Not once had Sean interjected.
"You're telling me…" Sean blinked and licked his lips, "that your freak of a son is a merman? That he's not even human?" He shook his head.
"Now look here!" Whit yelled and made a move to stand, but Sharon squeezed his hand again, stopping him.
"Sean, it's a lot to take in, we know. But, you do know you need to keep this a secret right? He's tried so hard to fit back in."
Thunder and lightning raged outside as Sean stared the other two down. They were dead serious. All of this was real. He'd just thought Cody was on some weird sort of steroid, or some sort of drug. But he was a fish. An actual creature from fairy tales. He even had a tail! He gave a scoff and shook his head, wanting to laugh out loud at the absurdity.
"Who would believe me?" Sean crossed his arms over his chest and slouched slightly in his seat.
"Excuse me?" Whit had one hand on the table top, clenched in a fist.
Honestly, Sean was surprised he hadn't been kicked out already. He could see where Cody got his temper from though. Or was that from someone else?
"How long have you all known?" Sean accused as he narrowed his eyes at them.
"I don't understand. Known what?" Sharon glanced at her husband and then back.
"That your son wasn't even human? Did you adopt him knowing he was a fish?" he questioned. He gave a smirk as Whit went to stand again but Sharon pulled him back down, barely, into his seat.
'No, they didn't know.' Cody appeared in the kitchen doorway, leaning slightly on Sam for support.
Sean jerked in his seat, standing at the voice that spoke in his mind. He glared at Cody accusingly. "Don't do that!" he nearly spat. He made a move to approach the freak, but Sam blocked him by moving in his way.
"Sit down, Sean." Whit said as he finally stood up from the table, helping Cody over to sit next to him.
The young merman smiled at his dad, grateful. His knees were wobbly from his transformation and he didn't quite trust himself just yet to move on his own.
Sam stood against the kitchen counter, positioned slightly behind her boyfriend. Briefly she thought of how she'd been in that very spot the day before, washing dishes and laughing with Cody. It was amazing how much could change overnight.
'How much does he know?' Cody stared at his dad, noting how upset he looked.
"Why can't you just talk to us?" said Sean, now slouched in his seat again.
Grimacing, Cody stared at Sean. 'I'm guessing just the basics.'
Sean was glaring at him now.
'I can't, Sean,' said Cody, glancing down as he fought to keep the burning of embarrassment off his face. 'I don't have a physical voice anymore. Merpeople don't speak the same way as humans.'
"You can't talk?" asked Sean, sitting forward now. "Prove it."
'What?' asked Cody, taken slightly off guard.
"This is hard enough for him already, Sean. Lay off." said Sam. She stood directly behind Cody's chair now.
"No," said Sean, his voice icy. "You want me to believe this. I know I saw a tail last night, and I know Cody did something to shock me then dragged me into the water. But, it's just so bizarre! How do I know this wasn't some elaborate prank to get back at me for stealing his tablet? I need some proof before I can believe he's actually a fish-boy."
'Sean, I'm speaking to you with my mind…' Cody said, glaring at him. 'How's that not enough proof?'
That stopped Sean in his tracks. He didn't have an answer for that. But a merman?
"I still want proof." He crossed his arms in defiance. "Prove to me that you don't have a voice and that the tail wasn't fake."
Whit stood and started pacing. This was his son's call, and he was having a hard enough time not kicking the kid out of his house. They needed to make sure he wasn't going to tell anyone. They had to find a way to make him compliant.
Cody nodded. He hadn't tried speaking since he'd come back a few months ago, resigning himself to the fact. Now, actually opening his mouth to talk… it felt strange. His brain was pretty rewired at this point to not even associate his own mouth with speaking. He had to think about how he would form the words his lips.
The sounds that came from his mouth were strangled moans of air. His lips were moving just fine, and Sean could see he was trying to say something, but it just wasn't working. Cody tried a few more sentences, but couldn't produce any sounds close to actual speech.
Sean kept staring at him, eyes wide. "You really are mute…" he said, not knowing how he actually felt about that. Cody messing up his voice with alleged drugs was one thing. Just losing the ability to speak was weird. "And what about the tail?"
'I can't show that to you." Cody looked Sean straight in the eyes. "What happened last night was a huge mistake. The only way I can be human is to give up my tail. I have webbed toes now, and some scales on my spine, if that's proof enough.' Cody looked at his mom, wondering how much Sean had been told about what really happened at the cove.
"Webbed toes, huh?" Sean scooted back and stared at Cody's feat.
Cody grimaced but reached down and spread his toes apart so Sean could see the webbing. Next he lifted his shirt and turned around so he could see the scales. Cold fingers brushed against his spine and he jerked back in surprise.
Sean sat back in his chair, a look of confusion on his face. "That's gross."
Cody gave a bemused, short laugh. 'I thought the same thing when I first started changing.' He glanced at Sam. 'It was around my birthday last year, when I turned thirteen.' He met Sean's gaze again. 'Jess helped me through it. In fact, he first figured out what I was.'
"So, you told that nerd, and Sam, but you kept it a secret from me?" accused Sean, a touch of hurt hitching in his throat.
'How could I tell you?' asked Cody. 'Sam found out by accident. Jess was the only person I could tell because he kind of knew about this stuff.' He looked down at his hands, playing with a stray scale on the outside of his wrist. 'I didn't know what was happening to me. What was I supposed to do?'
"You really had no idea, your whole life, that you were part fish?" questioned Sean, rolling his eyes in disbelief.
'No.' said Cody, getting upset now. 'Sean, we were friends, but we were rivals too. Do you really think I could've come up to you after one of our meets and just tell you? Say what? That I'd found out I was actually a merman? Or tell you how freaked out I was because I kept shocking things? Or weirded out because I kept growing scales every time I went swimming? I didn't choose this!' Cody stood up and slammed his hands on the table. 'My whole life changed! I didn't…'
Everyone was staring at him now.
It occurred to Whit that the only person his son had ever expressed these feelings to was Jess. He and Sharon had only known their son was a merman for a short time, then he was whisked away by his birth mom. Sam had been in a similar situation. Since Cody had been back, he'd been reluctant to talk for long about his life before the change. Whit had assumed his son was completely adjusted to being a merman.
Cody had thought so too. But being asked about it so openly by Sean made him come face to face with the fact that he partly resented what he was. His life had been really great before suddenly turning into a merman. Jess accepting what he was so easily had been a boon for his mental health. And then living with his birth mom had been amazing. He'd felt so right under the water with a tail and learning about his culture. Really he hadn't thought much about how hard leaving home had been. It was probably because he'd assumed he'd be able to go back home, be human, and pick up where he left off.
Now he had changed from a merman back to human twice. It was becoming pretty obvious his physical voice was long gone. Not only that, but he kept shocking things and it was getting harder to control.
Most importantly, for the first time in his life he was afraid of swimming because of the secrets it could reveal. Because of what he once again stood to lose.
Cody looked up, meeting Sean's eyes. 'I lost everything in a matter of months and was thrust into a world I never knew I was a part of. My mother lost me when I was a baby. I was never meant to be part of the human world.' He looked back at this parents. 'I had a great life, but I can't change what I am.' Cody said. He turned and stared at Sean again. 'Do you get it? I didn't have a choice when I changed or when I left. Now I have a second chance to come back and try to be human.'
Sean didn't know what to say. He was still so angry with Cody, but now he was wondering what it was really over. Was it simply because he'd cheated at the state finals and lost Sean his trophy? Or was it because his friend had discarded him so easily and just disappeared?
Shaking his head, Sean slowly stood and pushed his chair back under the table. "I'll see myself out."
"You can't leave." said Whit, a tone of warning in his voice. "Not until you swear you'll keep Cody's secret."
Sean scoffed. "And what? You're just going to trust me?"
'Yes.' Cody was watching him. 'We are.'
"Are you sure?" asked Sam, grabbing her boyfriend's hand.
Cody nodded at her, then looked Sean dead square in the eyes. 'What happened last night could have really hurt you. I lost control. Keeping my secret is the most important thing to me. When I feel threatened, I can't always control what happens.'
Sean stared at the burn marks on his wrists, the ones shaped like hand prints. The threat was clear.
'Just promise you'll keep my secre. Once you've had a chance to think, we can talk some more,' said Cody.
After a tense moment, Sean nodded. "Fine, I promise. I'll be back Griffin. You have my word on that, too."
Then he left. No one made a move to stop him.
Sighing heavily, Cody sank back down into his chair, his head resting slumped in his hands. He was exhausted and couldn't tell if they had just caused more problems.
"Honey?" Sharon placed a gentle hand on his arm. "Are you doing okay?"
Whit was still pacing and Sam was watching Sean out the window. It was pouring rain and he didn't have a coat. The boy didn't seem to mind, walking with his head down into the storm. He never stopped to glance back.
'I'm okay, just tired,' Cody thought to them. 'Sam, can you help me back up the stairs?' He pushed himself back up and then leaned against her as she reached his side.
'Come on.' Sam smiled at him through her private thoughts.
"Get some rest, son. Sam, when you come back down I'll take you home," said Whit, gripping the back of his wife's chair, knuckles white.
"Sounds good." Sam gave the Griffin's her winning smile and then helped her boyfriend back up to his room.
-TSLOF-
Cody lay on top of his bed, Sam sitting on the covers next to him. He held her hand and was playing his thumb along her palm. They were content, listening to the storm as it continued to pound outside.
'Are you really okay?' asked Sam. She pulled back her hand and crossed her arms over her chest.
Was he? 'I don't know,' he said. He turned onto his side and stared up at Sam. 'I thought I was, but those things I said to Sean... I guess I'm still upset about some stuff.'
'You know that's okay, right?' Sam smiled at him. 'It's a pretty incredible thing that happened to you. Heck, it's still happening.' She ran a light finger over the scales on his wrist. A couple dropped off onto the covers.
'I thought I'd gotten used to what I was.' He grabbed her hand again. 'Sam, do you miss hearing my voice?'
'Oh, Cody.' Sam sighed and squeezed his fingers. 'I miss talking to you at school. I also miss watching you swim at practice.'
He frowned.
'But I missed you more than any of that. Are you different now? Definitely. But you're here. When your mom told me you'd come back, I could hardly believe it. I was convinced you were gone forever.' A tear slid down her cheek.
'I'm sorry, Sam. I'm sorry you had to go through that.' Cody turned onto his back and stared at the ceiling. 'Time moves differently underwater. No one's concerned about really keeping track of days, just the seasons and migrations. You follow the flow of the currents and don't really pay much attention to other things. I had no idea I was gone so long.' He thought back to the conversation he had with his mother right after he'd changed.
'My mother had gotten the idea of school from my mom's thoughts. She had sensed it was important, so she'd tried to tell her I might be able to go back.' Cody sighed. 'Really, she would have said almost anything to get my mom to be okay with letting me go.'
Sam was intrigued. 'How do you keep track of birthdays?'
Cody smiled. 'You don't. You keep track of years by migration spots. The spot you were born in determines your birth marker. When you make it back to that same migration spot, then you've reached a year. My pod was just leaving one spot and heading to another when I was born. I came early and my mother had to stay behind for a few days.'
'So when Mr. Wheatley saw her…' Sam thought about it. 'It really was just her being in the wrong place at the wrong time.'
Nodding, Cody looked at her face, a realization dawning on his own. 'Sam, my birthday is coming up.'
She laughed. 'In just a couple days. Yeah.'
So much had happened in the last few days, Cody had nearly forgotten. That meant his pod was about to move on, if they hadn't left already. He'd been able to get here so quickly because he'd been relatively close by. The next spot, however, was thousands of miles away. He'd never swum that far on his own. His mother had been brave enough, but she had been much older and well experienced with the journey. Cody was nowhere near as confident. Should he tell everyone? Did they even need to know? And should he go? He wanted to stay on land, but with the way things were going... A tug pulled at his gut as he thought about his life in the ocean.
The tug was stronger than it had been before. The water was reaching for him, trying to call him home. His hands ached as did his legs. He wanted his tail back and the thought shocked him. He may look human, but this last change wasn't feeling nearly as permanent as the first one.
Sam squeezed his hand again. 'I should get going home. My mom will be home from her shift soon, and I need to be in bed pretending to be sick when she does.'
'I'll see you tomorrow?' Cody yawned, realizing how tired he was.
'Of course.' Sam leaned down and gave him a quick kiss on the lips, laughing at the spark that flashed between them.
'Get some sleep.' Sam shut the door quietly behind her.
Cody smiled and shut his eyes, still marveling at the softness of his bed. His body sunk into the mattress and he sighed. Hopefully Jess would come by after school. There was a lot he needed to get caught up on.
Within minutes he was fast asleep, the sounds of the continuing storm easing his jumbled thoughts.
-TSLOF-
Breakfast was a lot more crowded than Jess would have expected. Nearly fifty people moved around the cafeteria, grabbing food, moving trays and talking to each other. Some people had lab coats on and others wore what looked like dive suits. He couldn't figure out what kind of place this was just by looking at everyone.
Bryce was quick to shuffle him in line, not giving him a chance to speak to anyone. No one made a move to talk to him, but he was certainly getting a lot of stares.
One other thing that struck him as odd was the age differences he could see. There were some people with gray hair and lined faces, yet others who looked like they could be in college. Oddly, there were a few other kids around his age. Jess met some of their gazes, but they quickly looked away.
With a tray full of eggs and bacon with toast, he sat down at a semi-deserted table across from Bryce. The man didn't say anything, just scarfed down his food and browsed his phone. Jess ate slowly, wanting to observe as many people as he could and try to figure it all out. There was an anxious energy in the room, like they were waiting for something.
"Jess?"
He turned and saw his mom standing by an access door. He looked to Bryce who waived his hand, not bothering to glance up from his phone. Standing, Jess left his tray where it was and followed his mom down another hallway. She had put a lab coat on over her clothes and still had her notebook clutched in her hand.
"Did you enjoy your breakfast?" Abigail asked, looking over her shoulder.
"It was fine. Dad and I don't eat breakfast much," said Jess.
Abigail paused briefly and then shrugged her shoulders. "That's unfortunate."
They walked down the hall in silence, the occasional person dressed in a lab coat or dive suit passing them. There were a few doors on either side but Jess could only guess at what was behind them. At the end of the hall his mom stopped them in front of a wide set of double doors.
"Before we go in," Abigail said, turning to face him, "you need to know that there are reasons a mother needs to leave her family."
Jess was incredulous. "By faking her own death?"
"Not in the way you're thinking. I didn't want to leave you both," she said. Her voice held little emotion. "But I couldn't go back to you. What we are doing here is more important. Many of us have given up everything for what you are about to see."
"Then I don't think I want to see it." Jess took a step back, ready to make a run for it. Was he as curious as he'd ever been? Definitely. Did he want to know what it was his mother gave him and his dad up for? More than anything. But the implication in her tone was that he was going to have to give up everything as well. He simply couldn't do that.
"Jess, you don't have that choice anymore. I'm afraid your friend Cody took that away from you." Abigail swiped her card key on the reader next to the door, grabbed Jess's arm, and shuffled them inside.
The room was stark white and brightly lit, causing Jess to momentarily shield his eyes and blink. After a minute he looked around the room and gasped.
The wide wall directly in front of him was glass. Behind it was a tank full of people swimming. Some had dive suits on, others were just in swim suits. But there was something distinctly familiar about the way they all swam so gracefully and quickly. Or how some of them sat towards the bottom, staring at each other and gesturing like they were having a friendly conversation. He moved closer, almost without realizing what he was doing. He could make out the fins on some of their wrists and the webbed feet.
"What is this place?" Jess was confused. How did all of these merpeople get here?
"It's the Safe Haven and Research Center for the Merfolk Affected," Abigail said. She watched her son as he stared at her colleagues in the water.
Jess turned back to her. "Who are these people?"
"They're human, for starters." She walked to a few tables with laptops to their left. "Everyone who works and lives here has been affected in some way by a merperson." She opened a laptop and logged in, motioning for Jess to sit down by her.
"Everyone here knows about merpeople? How?" Jess kept having more and more questions. He was going to burst without some answers.
"All you need and want to know is on here." She slid the laptop in front of him. "People will be in and out all day, but sit here as long as it takes. We need you to understand the truth." Abigail stood and walked back towards the door.
Jess looked at the folders on the desktop. Many of them had labels with words like 'scales' or 'webbing' in their titles. He barely noticed the people that came and went as he poured over the hundreds of files. There was info on how merpeople could breathe underwater, and how their physiology changed with they turned thirteen. There was info about the growth of scale patterns and life expectancy. He could tell that they had been at this for years. Decades even. Some of the files were dated to fifty years prior. Many of the recent ones contained his mom's signature.
As he read, a clear picture painted itself. Abigail had been correct in saying this place was a safe haven. Every single person who was here had met a merperson and been affected by it. It had changed all of them to the point where they were no longer quite human.
It had to do with a merperson's electric charge. When they were adolescents, merpeople were still learning to control it and the effects that came with it. Being with their own kind, it was simply a charge that they used to stun their food or learn how to defend themselves. Unfortunately, it had a much different effect on humans.
Part of it was because of their physiology. Merpeople appeared human until their thirteenth year, then the electric charge that built in their system began to change them at a genetic level into their merperson form. Jess learned that because Cody had been on land for so long, his charge wasn't strong enough for him to be able to change on his own. That's why he had needed his mom. Her charge was like a jumpstart battery that kept his system from collapsing.
There were those at the safe haven that hadn't been so lucky. A few of them had written down stories of how they had been stranded on land and put into foster care or been adopted and moved far from the ocean. By the time they turned thirteen, it was too late for a lot of them. Without the ocean nearby, their charge vanished and they lost the ability to change completely. Once they returned to the ocean, they could maybe grow some scales and hold their breath for a long time, but we're human.
The humans who had become partly merperson were a completely different story. People like his mom. Her story was in the files as well.
Abigail had gone out with John on their boat for a weekend excursion. Jess had been babysat by his neighbor. A late summer storm had blown in, catching the two off guard. John had been turning them back toward shore when a monstrous wave knocked into the boat. John was able to hold on, but Abigail was tossed into the water.
The ocean had been dark with the storm and Abigail had felt herself sinking, unable to get her bearings. She'd been about to explode with the need for air when she'd felt a hand on her wrist.
She had been saved by a mermaid, and a young one at that. She was a young adult who had seen her go under. In her surprise, Abigail had screamed and taken in water, quickly beginning to drown. The young mermaid had acted quickly, giving her mouth to mouth and swimming her to shore. But Abigail had been weak, and the mermaid had shocked her with her current to strengthen her heart beat.
In a daze, she'd been left on the beach, miles from home. She had tried to leave the water, but it was like she couldn't move. Her legs had become rubbery and she couldn't stand. Thinking she was somehow paralyzed, she'd laid there in the pounding storm, waiting for help.
She was nearly hypothermic when she was found, but not by paramedics. It was by the people at the safe haven. They kept an eye out on the beaches for people washed ashore. A few of them could sense when one of their own was hurt. They sent out a rescue party and brought her in.
It was then she learned that what the mermaid had done to save her had irreversible consequences. It most often happened in life and death situations, when the human or merfolk was in danger. How much the person was affected depended on how much charge was used, and a whole slew of other circumstances they were trying to figure out.
Abigail, with the help of the others, was able to strengthen her legs, but she permanently had webbed feet and could hold her breathe for up to ten minutes.
With her changes and the new world of merpeople she'd discovered, Abigail decided she couldn't go home. Being a biologist she knew she needed to help others like her. She made it a goal to find a way to fix what was happening to all of them. She vowed once she had her answers, she would go home.
The months turned into years until one day Abigail Wheatley felt another person like themselves be affected by a merperson. It was her first time having such a feeling and she'd actedon it immediately. She'd grabbed a couple colleagues and had gone out and seen Cody saving Jess's life.
Jess was shocked to read his mother's account of the situation. At first she didn't recognize him, and then she had seen John. He'd gained some weight and lost some hair, but it was her husband. Jess was just sputtering back to life when they'd arrived. They saw the merman, mid-change, swim off to join his mom, but they didn't see what he had done to Jess.
So they agreed they would observe him and watch. He had seemed fine, and Abigail assumed her son had been saved by the humans who had been gathered around. He seemed completely normal.
Then Cody had come back. It had surprised all of them. None of the other people at the safe haven who had been born merfolk had ever been able to change. They all assumed it was a onetime process. But here the merman was, walking on land and appearing mostly human.
So they watched Jess closer.
Jess read records about the last couple months that Cody had been home. They knew all of it. The moment they had decided to take Jess had been when Cody shocked Sean and the other swim boys. To Abigail and her colleagues, he was out of control. That's where Jess came in.
Rubbing his eyes and stretching his neck, Jess looked up from the laptop. The room was dim and the tank was mostly empty. He must have been sitting there all day, taking it all in.
"Do you understand now?" Abigail was sitting at another table, writing in her notebook and sipping from a steaming cup.
What did Jess understand? He now knew that he didn't know a lot about merpeople, like he had thought. He also knew that merpeople had no idea how them being on land affected humans. Maybe the Elders did, but Cody sure didn't.
Jess placed a hand on his chest, rubbing his fingers over the few fingerprint like scars that were hidden under his shirt.
"You asked me those questions because you wanted to know if it was Cody who had saved my life last year," he said, looking at his mom.
"And he did." Abigail shut her notebook and looked at him, pensive. "It affected you internally, we just don't know how much. You probably can hold your breath a lot longer than you think. The fact that you don't have any physical symptoms is good."
Staring at his mother, he couldn't help but look down at her feet, covered by a conservative pair of dress heels.
"Yes, Jess. My feet are webbed. I also have braces I sometimes have to wear around my knees if I go too long without swimming." Abigail took another sip of her coffee.
He was having a hard time accepting a lot of this. "You're telling me that I'm not completely human anymore?"
His mom nodded. "Yes. We had to bring you in and we couldn't risk you telling Cody. We need to know who else he may have affected. We saw him shock those few boys, but it was in defense and out of the water. They'll be fine."
"There's no one else. Cody has only ever saved me," said Jess. He was reeling from the overload of information.
"We need your help, Jess." Abigail couldn't help the clinical tone in her voice.
"With what?"
"He's the first merperson who's been able to control his change that we've ever recorded," said Abigail. "He trusts you. We need him to help us."
"You want to study him?" Jess was appalled. "You want to run experiments on my best friend?"
"Your so called friend is dangerous. He can hurt others just by being around them. He can't control his current," said Abigail.
Jess stood, shaking his head. "I won't help you. You don't just get to come back in my life and then ask me to help you kidnap my best friend after kidnapping me."
There was a moment of heavy silence.
"I'm sorry to hear that." Abigail finished her cup and stood, still taller than her son. "I'll show you back to your room. Tomorrow Bryce will show you what's really at stake if you don't help us. For now, it's late."
She lead him out of the lab and down the hallway, past the cafeteria, and to the room he'd woken up in. His stomach growled with hunger, but he figured he'd have to wait for breakfast.
"Get some sleep." Abigail placed her hand on his shoulder briefly, then opened the door for him with her key card.
He was basically a prisoner, he realized. He wasn't going to be able to let himself out. Frowning, and with no other option, he entered the room and let the door shut behind him.
I'm on a roll now! Next chapter coming soon. Thanks again for all the reviews and follows, they are the encouraging and wonderful. Happy reading!
