Chapter 2 Land or sea
Author's note; Summary: Annie and her friends learn to use their new moon rings; Mrs. Wellington and Melora's pod comes to Florence.
After the ceremony, Annie, Parker, Rachel and Irene went up to the island. Celina gave them another transport pearl to send them back to Florence.
"Thank you so much Celina," said Annie happily.
"Safe journey," said Celina.
"Thanks for the rings" said Irene cheerfully.
Annie threw the pearl into the water and opened a portal to transport them back to Florence.
When they were back in the moonpool of the sea lion caves, Annie and the others went home.
Parker walked back to his house. As he walked, he thought about how he was going to tell his parents about his disappearance the night before. As soon as he reached the house, he took a deep breath and walked up to the front porch and went inside.
"Parker?" called his mother's voice as soon as the door closed. "Is that you?"
Parker looked up to see Mrs. Gaxiola running downstairs and hugged her son frantically.
"Where were you?" she cried. "Your father and I were worried sick!"
"Sorry mom," muttered Parker. "I… I got kidnapped by those people who were stalking Annie and the girls. I was able to escape."
Mrs. Gaxiola looked very graved.
…
Annie got back home and saw her parents Chevy parked in the driveway. She was pleased that her parents were home.
She walked inside, Alex was grading homework. He looked up to see Annie closing the door.
"Annie!" he cried in relief to see his daughter. Vivian poked her head out the kitchen door to see Annie and Alex hugging.
"Are you and the others, okay?" asked Vivan.
"We're fine," said Annie smiling. "Parker and the others have gone home."
"What happened to George and Yuria?" demanded Alex glaring.
"They're history," replied Annie. "The king stabbed George with his trident and Parker killed Yuria in self defence."
Alex and Vivian looked relieved.
"We went down to the police station after you left," said Alex. "And made a report their stalking. They're going to be searching for them now."
Vivian looked down at Annie's hand and saw the ring on her finger.
"Where did you get that?" she asked.
"It's a moon ring," explained Annie. "They're used for casting spells. Celina gave it to me as a reward for stopping those hunters from destroying the oceanic realm. she gave one to Rachel and Irene too."
"It's beautiful," said Vivian in amazement.
Annie smiled at her parents and walked upstairs to her room. She took out the diary her mother Theresa gave her and wrote in it.
March 9th, 2017
Dear diary, last night I discovered the people who had been stalking me and my friends the past few months was George and Yuria. They turned out to be supernatural hunters. They wanted to destroy mermaids and the oceanic realm and they kidnapped Parker as a hostage. Rachel, Irene and I went into the oceanic realm to rescue her. George and Yuria are dead now and we got our moon rings.
…
At Irene's house, Irene was showing off her moon ring to Kelsey and Trish.
"It's beautiful," said Kelsey. "Celina really gave it to you?"
"Yes," said Irene proudly. "I knew I could be a hero and be fabulous."
"You three are so lucky," said Trish. She then looked down feeling a little left out.
"I'm sure you'll get you're turn soon Trish" said Irene sympathetically.
Trish gave a small smile, feeling a little better.
…
The next day Annie and the others went back to school. Annie and Rachel wore their moon rings. Their friends Muffy, Jasmine, Toni and Amelia were there to greet them.
"Hey Annie," said Amelia. "Charlotte told me about the stalkers. I'm sorry about all the trouble you've been going through the past couple of days."
"I still can't understand why these two would want to stalk high school girls" added Muffy Brown.
Annie and Rachel exchanged looks, they couldn't tell their friends that they were mermaids and that their stalkers were supernatural hunters.
"Those are nice rings," said Jasmine deciding to change the subject. "Where'd you get them?"
"Uh," said Annie. "Mrs. Wellington gave them to us."
"They're beautiful" said Muffy admiringly.
The day passed without any incident. Though Annie kept wary about what had happened. She knew hunters could be anyone from a teacher to someone she didn't know.
Melora stopped by at Mrs. Wellington's office at the end of the day.
"I'm worried about our pod," said Melora. "I've been away from the pod for so long."
"I'm sure they're fine Melora," said Mrs. Wellington.
"I hope so," said Melora worriedly. "Humans are planning to drill around our territory, that's why I went to the oceanic realm."
"Don't worry Melora," said Mrs. Wellington calmly.
The two sisters were leaving the school when they saw two ladies walking through the parking lot. They were quite familiar faces.
"Molly? Courtney?" said Melora.
Molly and Courtney were Melora's best friends when they were kids in their pod. They had accompanied her when she went to take Mrs. Wellington back to the pod when she went to a school dance with her late husband.
"Molly, Courtney?" said Mrs. Wellington. "What are you doing here?"
"Hello Dawn," said Courtney curtly. "Melora, we're so glad we found you. We got your message on the shell you sent us about reuniting with Dawn in Florence."
"Things have gotten bad since you left," Molly jumped in. "Humans from the oil company have been scouting around our territory in Salem the past few weeks. They're going to start drilling soon to look for oil."
Mrs. Wellington and Melora looked at each other in shock.
"The pod won't be able to stay," muttered Melora.
"Some of the others have gone to search for new territory," said Molly. "But half the pod remained in Salem."
Mrs. Wellington thought for a minute.
"I'll get Annie" she said.
…
Annie and Alex had driven home. Alex noticed Annie was looking away and felt sorry for her.
"Are you going to be, okay?" he asked.
"I'm fine dad," said Annie trying to smile. "It's just we though George and Yuria would be great friends. But they turned out to be hunters, you can never tell who the hunters might be."
"It is a lot to take in," sighed Alex. "We should've seen the signs. It shouldn't be hard to keep your powers hidden, I mean Mrs. Wellington has been living on land for years and she's been fine."
They saw Mrs. Wellington walking up the drive way.
"Dawn," said Alex. "What are you doing here?"
"Alex," said Mrs. Wellington. "Something has happened."
"What happened?" asked Annie.
"Come down to the beach and see" replied Mrs. Wellington.
Annie, Alex and Mrs. Wellington walked down to the beach and saw Melora, Molly and Courtney waiting for them.
Annie was surprised to see them.
"Annie, Alex," said Mrs. Wellington. "This is Molly and Courtney, some old friends from the pod Melora and I grew up in. Guys, this is Annie Yesconis and her dad Alex. Annie's the one who defeated the sea witch."
Annie looked out at the water and saw some other mermaids, there were six mermaids and two mermen.
"Our territory back home is going to be drilled for oil," explained Melora. "It'll harm the territory and us."
"It'll be even worse if the workers catch us" added Molly.
"What can we do?" asked Annie worriedly.
"Well, they're going to need a place to stay while they're away" explained Melora.
Annie thought for a moment.
"They can stay in Ms. Spears old house" she said.
Leesha Spears was the Yesconises neighbor, she had seemed like a kind lady, but she turned out to be the sea witch trying to flood the earth. But Annie and her friends were able to defeat her. Her house had been up for sale since she had been reported missing.
"Her house has been up for sale since we defeated her last year," explained Annie. "You can buy it and your pod can stay there."
"But where are we going to get money?" asked Mrs. Wellington.
…
Courtney had dove underwater and brought up a pearl and gave it to Melora. Melora took it to a pawn shop and pawned it.
Annie went home and called Rachel and the others and told them about the mermaids from Melora's pod. They all went down to the beach to give the mermaids some clothes.
The six other mermaids crawled on to the beach Melora, Mrs. Wellington and Annie used their rings to transform their tails into human legs.
Annie and her friends had gathered up old clothes and gave them to the mermaids.
Later Annie walked back to her house. Her house was an adjoining house, her family's house was on the left side and Ms. Spears was on the right side. She looked and found the for-sale sign now had the word sold on it.
Mrs. Wellington, Melora and Haru were there with the mermaids.
"I bought the house," said Melora said to her friends. "Haru and I will teach you all the ways of land while we're here."
Molly, Courtney and the other mermaids nodded.
That evening Annie walked into the kitchen. Alex was sitting at the table grading homework and Vivian was in the living room. When the phone that hung on the kitchen wall rang.
Annie answered it.
It was Parker.
"Have you heard about George and Yuria?" he asked.
"No" replied Annie.
"It's on the news," said Parker gravely. "Channel 2."
Annie hung up and walked threw the kitchen's saloon door to the living room and sat on the couch next to Vivian. She picked up the remote and turned the tv on to Channel 2.
"This is Thea Goldsberg, reporting live in Florence Oregon," said the news reporter. She had light brown hair. "Search has continued in the disappearance for George Clemons and Yuria Shou reported missing earlier this week. They are suspected for the stalking of high school girls, police search of hotel room where their belongings remained have found pictures of stalked victims on their computer. Their car was found abandoned along the road that runs by the sea, it's likely they have fled on foot. This is Thea Goldsberg live at Florence, back to you Walter."
Vivian saw how speechless Annie was by the report and changed the channel to Food network, Vivian loved cooking and was quite fond of the food network channel.
"Don't worry," she said kindly. "I'm sure it's not so bad."
…
Portland Oregon
At head office the council of twelve were watching the news on tv.
"I can't believe this," snapped Troy one of the council members. "Those mermaids have done something to them!"
"What are we going to do?" asked another man on the council. "We need to have new council members."
"We're going to have to think of something to eliminate those mermaids" said Troy.
Author's note; For all those who are fans of Siren, there are some similarities to the second season in this chapter.