And ta-da the fourth chapter in this whackfest of strange plot ideas and random au-ishness enjoy.
Once a mermaid:
Regret
The ride back to the mainland had been quiet. Chris had expected the girls to be tired but this was a sombre affair filled with something secret. He tried to start up a conversation or three but they all fell flat.
Even his twin sister who was the very meaning of the words irrepressible and erratic sat still and silent. Had he not known her as well as he did he might have missed the scheming look hidden amongst the seriousness that covered her face.
Becky seemed to have a meditative quality to her silence, just what he would expect. And Charlotte, well Chris didn't know Charlotte very well, in fact he barely knew her at all but it seemed to him that she was disturbed on a deeper more personal level by whatever it was that had brought this gloomy atmosphere down on the girls.
The mystery of the girls' gloominess bugged Chris, he asked Mindy about it but she just locked herself in her room and refused to speak to him, he knew Becky would be sleeping and he had no idea where Charlotte lived. So Chris did what he always did when something bugged him, he grabbed his digital camera and went for a walk.
Chris walked along the beach, after a while he spotted Charlotte, she was up on the sand dunes, as far from the water as she could get without leaving the beach itself, in front of her sat an art easel. Her hair hung loose about her head and she looked up, out to sea, just as an ocean breeze rolled off the water and onto the land.
The sea breeze caught her hair and tossed it about. With the sun beating down it looked to Chris like a halo of dark fire, quickly he brought his camera up and snapped a few shots before the breeze died down. He checked the photos on the display screen and smiled, Charlotte photographed really well.
"Hey," Chris called out to her as he made his way closer, her head turned towards him but he noticed her eyes linger on the ocean for a moment more before they too turned to him.
"Chris hey," Charlotte gave him a slight smile.
"Hey, thought you'd be napping, Mindy is." Charlotte shrugged in reply.
"Couldn't, too much to think about." With a sigh she turned back to her painting. Chris glanced at it then did a double take. It was a half finished ink painting; he stood and watched as Charlotte painted.
"So you're a photographer?" Charlotte's voice startled Chris slightly, he'd spaced out slightly as he watched the painting take shape.
"Not really, I'm actually a comic book artist; I take photos of things that inspire me so whenever I forget the inspiration I can look at the photos and remember. You're a good painter." Charlotte glanced at him and blushed, he though he heard her mumble a 'thanks' but he wasn't sure.
"What happened last night?" Chris watched as Charlotte tensed; stoping in place with her brush half way to the canvas.
"What do you mean, Mindy, Becky and I stayed over night in a cave."
"What happened?" Chris asked again stepping closer to the red haired painter. He hadn't known her long but her reaction confirmed his theory, something that happened last night had shaken the girls, something that Charlotte may have dealt with before.
"We ate, listened to music, swam, ate some more, talked, played cards and swam again." He could hear a slight panic in her voice. He stood right beside her now, he could feel the heat radiate from her body just as she could feel his body heat. Gently he placed a hand on her shoulder.
"What happened last night that had you three so out of it this morning, and what happened to you before you came here?" Charlotte turned her head, and looked Chris in the eye before turning back to her painting. She hoped he would leave, or at least stop asking her questions, but it was too late. Chris had seen the emotions in Charlotte's eyes: fear and regret.
"Charlotte…"
"I did some bad things, people I cared about got hurt; it was out of my control, I was out of control. They forgave me, but it will be a long time before they trust me." Chris let his hand slip from her shoulder, looking back to the painting he wondered at it, trying to figure out why she had painted it.
Etched by the delicate brush strokes a golden tailed mermaid with deep red hair sat on a rock surrounded by water, there was something maniacal about the mermaid, but the mermaid reflected in the water, the same deep red hair, but the tail was a coppery- purple and she looked scared and trapped, was that how Charlotte felt? Trapped by a darker side of her personality.
And yet more cruddyness for you to read huzzah... reveiw or don't, your choice