Lightning Strikes
An Ocean Girl fanfiction
Mera – or Jane, as they called her before – isn't sure why she expected a house. Those children who came with her sister's pendant and urged her to run away with them never promised a house.
Still, when they said they would take her to her sister, and when the Bates boys' mother said the island was beautiful, she envisioned at least a hut.
Instead, she's sleeping in a tree without a pillow and using a great green leaf in place of a blanket.
She feels like Thumbelina, like she's been shrunk down to fit a magic world that was once small enough to palm in her hand like her pendant – exactly like her pendant.
Rain pours in sheets.
Mera never thought she minded being wet. She took so many baths and ran the shower so long every foster family she ever lived with complained. The affinity to water coupled with her psychic abilities terrified them all. She never minded water before. But then, before there was always a roof.
Lightning strikes, ripping across the sky.
Thunder crackles, then it booms.
Her face drips as steadily as if she's been crying though she hasn't shed a tear.
Jackknifing up in momentarily panic, she glances over at Neri. This mysterious long-lost big sister sleeping beside her doesn't even stir – doesn't flinch in her sleep, either.
It's all too real, too loud, too vivid, to be a dream, Mera decides.
Lightning strikes again, flares purple and blue across the sky, and she tries not to think about roofs – about televisions and cups of hot chocolate and plumbing that turns water on and off – as she pulls the leaf back over herself and lies down once more.