Hey guys! Alright, I know most of you have waited FOREVER for this chapter (I know I was the one writing it) and let me just say, this is not going to go the way Charlotte's first day should and if you read on, you'll know why.

ENJOY!

7:00 pm, on the way to Cove/Mermaidian residence…

Charlotte's POV

Thomas and I rode with Brendan, Laguna, and Karen in their SUV to their place. Or, in a clarified way, Laguna was driving with Karen in the passenger seat, Brendan and I were sitting in the back seats, and Thomas, with his idiotic grinning self, was in the trunk.

Jonathan decided to stay back at the café and hitch a ride back later, which was completely fine with me. I wasn't feeling too good at being in the same car as him. And, to my personal surprise, I didn't see Riley.

I was beat-tired during the ride, but overall, had a great day. After the 'incident', the rest of the day went smooth…if you could call being flirted at by dozens of boys normal. Luckily, this time Laguna was the one to always managed to ward them off.

And Karen was right about the gloves: They worked like a charm! For every time I touched the soapy dish towel to wipe the tables, the gloves absorbed the water, but it wouldn't change me, much to my relief.

The drive was silent until Karen started talking.

"So, Charlotte...how was your first day of work?" she asked.

I sighed and gave her a smile. "Well, aside from boys trying to flirt with me and your oh-so-lovingly husband being stoic, I had a pretty good day. And it didn't help that your son refused to give me back my dog."

Brendan laughed and Karen smiled at my sarcasm. Laguna just nodded and continued to look out her window.

"Well, you just...I think you had a normal day, or as normal as it can get for your case. Speaking of that, who were those boys that I saw harassing you earlier?" Karen asked.

I stiffened. I saw Laguna look at me and took notice. I had a feeling that she would want to talk to me about this later.

"Not good friends of your, are they?" Laguna asked.

I nodded. "Yeah, they're not the best people to...know. I just hope that I never see them again."

I must've said it stiffly, because, judging by the look Laguna was giving me, she probably decided to talk to me about this when I was ready.

After that, the ride went silent. The only thing that was making a sound was the radio. Who knew that Laguna was Kelly Clarkson fan?

Then, there was a turn and suddenly I noticed the van starting to enter a dark tunnel. I leaned forward from her seat and asked Laguna "Is that tunnel supposed to be there?"

She turned her head and grinned at me and gave me a mischievous smile. "You'll see."

The van drove into the tunnel, everything turned black. And I will admit, I started to panic.

"What's going on? Where are we? Where are we going? It should be impossible to see!? Where are we?" I exclaimed. I was starting to breathe heavily and started to blink my eyes really fast.

No one, not even my mom knows this, but I had developed a...well it's not a fear of the dark, but I start to feel the inability to do anything in the dark as my worst nightmare. So, even the smallest lights, like the lights coming off my alarm clock and the light posts from the outside of my windows at night, gives me the best comfort.

"Don't worry, where we're going, you're going to love it!" Brendan said enthusiastically.

The van increased speed and before I knew it, we were out of the tunnel. And judging from the view of my window, we were driving up some large hill that gave me a breathtaking sight of the entire beach and... wait a minute!?

Was that Coney Island Ferris Wheel that I was seeing on the far right?

I leaned forward in my seat again and asked Karen "Where are we?"

She smiled and said "Look ahead. We're home!"

I looked up and gasp. At the top of the hill was a beautiful circular house that was two-stories and made up with see-through glass. There was an outside deck and by the house, I noticed that there was a big ditch in the ground.

As we pulled in front of the house, Brendan jumped out of the car, with Thomas not so far behind him, and yelled: "WELCOME TO OUR CRIB!"

3rd POV

As everyone got out, Charlotte turned around and took in the scene in front of her. Oh, what she would give to have out her sketchbook and start drawing.

Not too far down the hill, there were trees surrounding the perimeter in a perfect 360 degrees. This just made the scenery look more beautiful and gave her the peacefulness that she was going to need.

"Come on Charlotte! The faster you get the tour of our place, thE faster you get to see our...'special' place," Brendan said, earning a smack upside the head by Laguna, who muttered:

"Don't say that! You'll make it sound like we're crazy people!"

Charlotte turned around and headed into the house, and once again, she was amazed.

The interior was simple yet elegant. The ceilings were white as well as the carpet, the chairs in the living room, along with the everything else was grand. There was a small area by the windows with wooden flooring and there was a stereo. So she assumed that it was a little dance area. Then, she got a tour of the kitchen, which had granite counters and small china dishes. The chairs in the dinning room were made of oak along with the short table. And in the heart of the house was a cylinder-like fireplace with a glass container over it.

Charlotte asked about the design and it turns out that the house used to be a water tower, which Brendan found pretty hilarious. After the tower stopped working, a young man decided to turn the old tower into a house. Then, after the reconstruction, he met Laguna and became friends. But he died later from cancer. But on his Will and Testament, it stated that the house belonged to Laguna. So, after years of remodeling, the house ended up the way it was today.

Gorgeous.

"Alright, so now you've seen the house. Are you ready to see our "special" place?" Karen asked, raising her eyebrow. Her mother groaned at the term.

Charlotte nodded. What else could this household?

Laguna went to the fireplace and held out her hand and immediately, Charlotte recognized what she was doing. She was starting to set the wood on the fire.

Laguna slowly curled her hand up into a fist and the wood quickly set ablaze. Then, she turned to Karen.

"Would you like to do the honors?"

Karen smiled and nodded. "Indeed."

She repeated the same thing as her mother and the fire continued to grow until it was at the top of the glass-cylinder. Then, Charlotte let out a gasp when the fiery red flames turned blue and then... it went down as if it nothing happened.

"What was that?" she whispered to Brendan. He smiled at her.

"Wait for it."

Charlotte watched the fireplace and let out another gasp. The fireplace started to sink into the floor while the cylinder started to rise into the ceiling. Then, the entire thing was gone and the granite wall moved apart, leaving where was once a beautiful fireplace wan now a dark entrance.

"Haha, and Grandma wanted to put a bookshelf there instead," Charlotte heard Brendan whisper to his mom and her.

Laguna turned her head to them, gestured her hand to the entrance and said, "Well, who's first?"

After descending down the stairs, Charlotte followed the family trio through what seemed to be a cave with light purple and blue colors. At first, she could have sworn that under the hill was a bunch of dirt. But she remembered that Laguna had this place for a while. It probably took years to build for it to be the way it was.

Then, they stopped at another entrance. Karen looked at Charlotte and asked, "Are you ready to meet our version of a moon pool?"

Charlotte didn't have time to answer as they all went in and once again, her jaw hung from her mouth.

THE CAVE WAS HUGE! No, in fact, it might have been bigger than the moon pool on Mako Island.

The cave looked to be made of limestone and the ceiling had to be at least 100 ft high and the lights were from cool colors to neon lights. The pool, which looked probably deeper than 5 ft., was the same color as the one in Mako and there were small lanterns surrounding the pool. And in the back was a waterfall!

She looked to the side and saw a little family sitting area with a big coffee table 3 couches and a big TV, and how Laguna managed to do that she didn't know, and there were at least 5 shelves of books on the wall.

"Wow," Charlotte said.

Laguna nodded. "Indeed. Just to point out: This place is more of a cave-like indoor swimming pool than a moon pool. Though only my family knows of this place, even we still get awestruck as well sometimes."

And Charlotte agreed. Then she turned to her. " Um...may I..." then she looked towards the pool. She couldn't help it. The pool was practically screaming for her to jump in. Laguna knew what she was asking for and laughed.

"Of course, but we need to..." Laguna didn't get to finish her sentence.

Charlotte made a mad dash towards the pool and, like an Olympic diver, jumped headfirst into the pool.

SPLASH!

It took a few minutes before she surfaced in all her pride and glory. Her top was shimmering and her wet hair was curved to the side of her neck. For the moment, Charlotte felt more relaxed as she's ever been in weeks. But Laguna saw something in her eyes. Something that was all too familiar to any mermaid.

Freedom.

"Well, now that you've made yourself at home, Mother and I need to find out what your powers are," Karen said as she sat down in an armchair by the pool. She wasn't even phased when the first thing that the girl did was jump into the pool. Her mother made sure it had that effect when the cave was built and the pool was installed.

Charlotte gave her a surprised look. "Oh, I already know what my powers are," she said, "watch."

She turned her head towards the middle of the pool and raised her hand up in a claw-like gesture. Instantly, a stream of water started to rise up and, due to Charlotte's active imagination, the water formed into an octopus.

"I can manipulate water."

Then, she held up her hand in a 'stop' gesture, and the octopus froze solid into place.

"I can freeze it."

Then she slowly balled up her hand and the octopus melted back into the pool. She turned her head back to the two women.

"And I can also heat it, but the strange thing is that I have another power, or powers if you think about it. Watch," Charlotte said.

This power was a bit difficult since these particular powers required nearly the same hand gesture as manipulating water. But she was able to find the difference. She turned back to the pool and raised her hand again and did a similar hand gesture to he first-hand gesture, only her fingers were more open than the clawed gesture, and twisted her wrist. (1)

Instantly, the entire pool ended up turning into deep-blue jelly. Then, a few seconds later, the jelly turned back into the water.

Charlotte heard a gasp from behind. She turned around and saw Laguna looking at her with a saddened look on her face. Karen also noticed the look and covered for her.

"Excuse my mother, it's just that she hadn't seen that power for centuries," she said to Charlotte. She nodded hesitantly, concerned about Laguna, and said,

"This power allows me to turn water into jelly and the next one is sort of my favorite."

She raised her left hand out at the water, causing it to rise again and formed a bubble. Then, she turned her hand sideways, turning the bubble into a medium-sized turtle. Next, using her right hand, she opened it and twisted her wrist, giving the turtle a jelly type form. Lastly, using her right hand again, she turned her hand into a fist and made a punching gesture in the air. (2)

The turtle solidified and fell into the water. Charlotte dove into the pool to retrieve it. A few minutes later, she resurfaced and gave the turtle figurine to Laguna, who now looked like she was going to cry.

Laguna put on a pair of gloves, similar to the ones Charlotte used at work, and took the figurine out of her hand to look at it.

Without choking on her sobs, she said "I know those powers. It comes from the sea caves in Ireland. But, for you to have gotten this power, you had to have been in that particular moon pool. So either you managed to travel to Ireland over night, or the moon pool that changed you was truly unique."

Laguna started to look at the turtle as if it had significant value and hugged it in her chest. Charlotte turned to Karen and gave her a 'you-need-to-tell-me-what's-going-on' look.

Then, something occurred to Karen.

"Mother," she said, " is it possible that... well, I don't know how to word this."

Laguna sniffed one last time and wiped the tears before they came from her eyes. "Karen, what are you trying to say, dear?" she asked.

"Well, is it possible that the reason that Charlotte even has those powers is that...is because she was in an artificial moon pool?" Karen suggested.

Call it common sense or call it something else, but Charlotte quickly ducked under the water and closed her eyes.

...

CRASH!

Charlotte resurfaced and saw that the turtle she created was shattered into bits all over the floor and Laguna's hands were slightly bleeding. Her face went from the saddened expression she wore a few minutes ago to pure anger.

"Mother!" Karen exclaimed.

Laguna turned her head and commanded "Karen! At the moment, I am unable to teach Charlotte the basics at the moment and I'm leaving you the responsibility to teach her! And if she has any questions, you are going to answer them! Now, if you excuse me, I have to make a VERY important call!"

Laguna angrily exited the pool room and entered the cave. After a few minutes, there was a loud vibration, signaling that Laguna was inside the house.

"Oh, mother..." Karen sighed.

Charlotte looked at her. "What was she so upset about?"

Karen leaned forward out of her chair and looked at her. "Sweetie, let me ask you this: Do you believe that people should know about the moon pools?"

"No. Well, in my case, I guess it depends if that person is able to handle the responsibility of such a huge secret. But in general, no one can know without making it turn into some money-making scheme," Charlotte explained.

Karen smiled at her answer. No doubt that her personal experience would have her thinking like that, but any person that came across a moon pool knew that it held a value that had yet to be understood.

"Good answer, but it's more than that. You should know, once you're a mermaid, your one for life. Truly, once your swimming 600m/ph and diving at impossible depths, there's a sense of freedom that anyone can fall in love with. And your right, the moon pools are not on this world for profit. I'm sure my mother gave you a briefing on that merpeople are a separate species, but you must know, moon pools are the birthplace for merpeople."

Charlotte was not amused. "Yeah, I know. On a full moon, any human who jumps into the moon pool turns into a mermaid and gets powers."

"No, that's technically the process for land-transformed mermaids. I meant natural-born mermaids, as in mermaids that were actually born in moon pools," Karen said, "though I know you've been in plenty of...sex-ed classes since mermen have gone extinct, mermaids have adapted to new ways of reproducing. For example, mermaids lay eggs in the pool, and in some cases, the moon pool gives tails to the eggs that hatch or tropical fish that live by lay their eggs there as well. You're going to have to ask my mother about this later."

Charlotte noticed that she looked a little...flustered about the topic. It didn't sound embarrassing to her.

I guess mermaid health class is as embarrassing as a human health class, she thought. But something occurred to her.

Why did Laguna rush out like that anyway?

"Hey Karen, what's an artificial moon pool?" she asked.

She watched as Karen froze up at the question. Was it that bad?

"Uh, Karen? Yoo-hoo? Are you there?" Charlotte asked, waving her hand in front of her face, trying to snape the woman out of her trance.

After a few minutes, Karen snapped out of it and gave the teen mermaid an apologetic look.

"Sorry, I... didn't expect you to remember that," she said sheepishly, "and to answer your question: You can think of it as a synthetic moon pool. It's not impossible, just extremely rare."

"What? To build or to make it work as a regular moon pool?"

"Both. It's extremely rare to make one because the site has to be precise, must be near the ocean or a river, must have a close and full view of the moon, and you'd need a lot of moon stones. But the big problem is that the site should be old, like an old volcano, and you pretty much can't find moon stones anywhere else except the moon pools itself. And taking them is a messy business since it requires drilling into the stone to get them and the results would be that the moon pool all together ends up deactivated. It would be there for show, but it would never again work as it did before.

Or, as Brendan would say, in kid-speak: The moon pool is broken beyond prepare.

So, creating one is out of the question. And for it to work is another story. I guess you can say that even if you successfully managed to build a moon pool, the next step would be for it to work. The whole piece of the puzzle depends on the full moon. If it works, you can say that the picture of the puzzle would be finding out what powers you gained. And that is the rarest of it all," Karen concluded.

Suddenly, Charlotte had a good idea why Laguna left.

"So, what you're saying is that the moon pool that changed me was an artificial one? As in Marana," Karen flinched at the name slightly, "spent her free time over the years creating a moon pool to change me and gathered moonstones from different moon pools so that I'd have more powers than before?"

It surprised Karen that she caught on so quick. She rose out of her chair and carefully sat on the edge of the pull, next to Charlotte, in criss-cross position.

"Sweetie, you have to understand this. My mother vowed on her entire life to make sure Marana didn't find you. And if you haven't noticed, our little friend under the sea managed to outsmart her and found you anyways. She watched you since the day you were born to the day you received your tail and your powers, how you abused them, and all till the day you lost them all. My mother can't keep up with her because she can't see her next move.

Mentally, she sees a girl who can easily be played like a puppet and a human weapon. But in her heart, she can see the mermaid who was like a sister to her. Believe me, she does care about you, but she has a lot on her plate."

She watched as Charlotte laid her head on the ground. She doubts what she wanted in life. Maybe at one point, she thought she could handle this but now was a different story.

"You know what?" Charlotte asked.

"Hmm?"

"I never wanted to be a said, "I mean, before I left Australia, I promised someone that I would never go near a moon pool for the rest of my life. I never meant to break that promise, but what can I do now? All I ever wanted out of life was to live a normal life. I want to have friends to hang out with, go out and date guys I like, and I can't even do that now.

Karen, your husband was right about me. I'm selfish, arrogant, and stupid to think I can handle something that only a few people can cherish. I should have never come to Paradise that day."

She felt a tear fall down her cheek.

This just couldn't be happening to her. It seemed that just when the supernatural was done with her, it pulls her back in and places her in a situation worse than the last. Suddenly, she felt Karen's smooth hand place her head on her lap.

"Karen, you can't touch me! I'm still wet-" she was cut off by Karen.

"I know what you're about to say," Karen said calmly, "and don't worry. When I'm this far along in this pregnancy, my tail goes away. Think of it like my maternity leave from being a mermaid."

Then, she looked at Charlotte's tail and started to comb her fingers through Charlotte's hair. "Listen to me. Don't listen to my husband or to anything that he says about you. He won't understand the struggles that my family goes through, no matter how long he's been with us. He doesn't understand that as merpeople, we don't have the luxuries that normal people do, which is why I married him.

He grew up at a young age to provide for his family. But as Fate would have it, he was soon all alone. He came from a background where he was supposed to be cold and strict. And because of that, and because I love him, that's why I married him and let him in on the secret. Plus, you think my unborn child wasn't made out of love? (3)

Charlotte, as much as you don't think it, you have no idea how lucky you are. You know, natural-born mermaids aren't too fond of land transformed mermaids. And if they knew, you are the poster child for why they're so against them. But you beat the odds. Out of all land-transformed mermaids in this world, how many went as far as you did and got a second chance? Easy, none. You beat that odd and to me, that's an amazing feat. But like I told my mother, your still young and have a lot to live for and who knows? Maybe you'll find someone to share your gift with after all.

Now, how about you show me how you made that figurine and make more of them?"

Charlotte looked up at Karen's smiling face. "I should have known that you'd be the one to give ma advice like that. However, I-"

Her vision blurs and all fades to black...

Darkness...that's all Charlotte could see. There wasn't any source of light anywhere around her.

Suddenly, it feels as if she's spinning around and the darkness turns into light and the next thing she knew, she was underwater.

She looked down and saw that she was in her mermaid form.

She started to swim around and found herself near a coral reef. It wasn't as beautiful as the one in Australia, but it was pretty close.

As she swam along, she acknowledged how beautiful the corals and sea anemones were. They ranged from blue to yellow, o orange to green and...wait! What was that?

At the edge of the reef was an unusually, big oyster. It was grey, but it was about the size of her hand.

As soon as she went in and grabbed it, she felt something move behind her.

She spun around to see what it was, but nothing was there.

So, instead, she turned her attention back to the oyster. She tried to pry it open, but it seemed as if it was glued shut.

Suddenly, it felt like the temperature dropped and Charlotte heard something big moving behind her.

She spun around again, trying to see what it was. But there was nothing.

"Who's there?" she asked. Then, she covered her mouth. How could she be talking underwater?

Then, she remembered her talk with Laguna on the pier. Could she be having one of the visions she was telling her about?

She looked around and saw a murky shadow moving towards her...and it was HUGE!

Soon, she saw silver scales on the objects back and spikes all over its body.

But little did Charlotte know...

That voice? Marana's! Why was she hearing her?

Suddenly, the shadow started to swim towards her at full speed, moving its body side to side like a snake. Finally, she got a good look at what it was.

And it was horrifying.

She shouldn't have touched the water...

The creature's head was the same as a cottonmouth snake, only more monstrous and it's fangs widely exposed at her. Its body was of a serpent, but you could see the claws on its webbed feet wiggling at her. Its tail was covered in thorns. Then, its eyes opened and two beady-red eyes stared down at her hungrily.

Charlotte screamed in terror as the creäture opened its mouth and swam at her.

She curled herself into a ball and held the oyster close to her chest.

She heard a shrill before everything fades to black...

"AAAAAAAAHHH!"

Alright guys, what did you all think of this chapter? (STILL AIMING FOR OVER 100 REVIEWS!) Did you like what you learned? And what's up with the SUPER SCARY vision Charlotte had and what did it mean?

For 1. & 2.) Alright, after searching the web, I couldn't find the precise way to describe Bella's hand gestures, so I came up with them as closely as I could. Tell me what you think.

3.) Now we know something about Jonathan. Is there more to him then we've been told?

MOST OF ALL...

READ & REVIEW!