"You have got to be kidding me."
That was the deadpanned response Ariel and Eric received the next morning over breakfast from their dark-haired daughter. Both parents sighed, realizing that their story had not gone over well. The oncoming storm was one they were not prepared for after a late night.
"Melody, I know it's a lot to take in, but we were hoping that you'd be able to take this in stride," Ariel said, taking a bite at some of the fruit on her plate. "After all, it is good news. Great news, in fact. Actually, it's downright amazing."
"You met her once, and your convinced she's my sister? She's probably just an actress!" Melody argued, her face twisted into an unhappy scowl.
"She had no idea where she was, or that we'd been searching for her for fourteen years," Eric explained, raising a brow at the idea that the girl could be faking it.
Melody wasn't so convinced. "She's a really good actress," she said begrudgingly, "that doesn't mean she's anywhere near related to us."
"She has that gold charm, minus the bracelet, but it's the same one I put aside as a keepsake when you decided it would make for a good snack." Ariel answered this time, drumming her fingers against the table's surface with pursed lips, deep in thought. "The exact same charm. The village jeweler confirmed this morning that it was his work—and he'd only made two."
"And, her hand and fingerprints are the same as the ones we have from when she was an infant." Eric responded, but his words seemed to have little affect on his dark-haired daughter.
"Okay, the bracelet thing is weird, I'll give you that, but how sure is the village jeweler that it's not a well done forgery? And the fingerprints," she started, bouncing from one idea to the next, "are you positive they're not just really similar? Maybe you were so happy thinking this is her, that you overlooked it!"
Ariel sighed, wincing slightly at the pain it caused in her still-bruised ribs. She'd known this wouldn't be easy on Melody, and she'd known there'd be a thousand and one questions that needed to be answered. But it was getting to the point where she wondered if her daughter was even happy to have a long-lost sister in her life.
From the unhappy curve of Melody's mouth, it seemed unlikely.
"She's had that charm, by her own admission, for as long as she can remember," the redhead started, slowly, gathering her thoughts to form a good argument. "We also had Doctor Berg, plus two village doctors, look over the prints. And we've summoned experts to confirm it all. Her birthday is the same, and there's shell-shaped birthmark on the side of her face that Doctor Berg has recorded as the same. We haven't overlooked anything, Melody, she's part of our family."
"Plus," Eric added, waving his fork around absently, "She's got your Mother's hair. Thick, uncontrollable, and very, very red."
Ariel rolled her eyes, supplementing her husband's statement with one of her own. "And she's got your father's unruly eyebrows."
"These eyebrows?" He questioned with a dimpled grin, waggling them around. "Admit it, you're jealous that you can't wiggle them like this."
"What happened to being an adult this morning, Eric?" His wife sighed, taking another bite of her breakfast. "And for the record, I'm not jealous at all. I think it's barely a talent and—"
She cut herself off at her husband's continued eyebrow movements, his eyes imploring her, and grin getting even wider. "Stop that," she said, trying to smother out a giggle, and reaching out to shove him.
He caught her hand before she was able to, kissing her knuckles chastely. Her heart skipped a beat. "I think we got off the subject and forgot that we were supposed to make a point, dear."
"That was all your fault," she said in response, retracting her hand, and he while usually he would have responded with some more teasing, he caught sight of their daughter and nodded his head in her direction.
Melody was using her fork to push around food, her plate barely touched. Ariel sighed again. "Sweetheart, I know you've spent your whole life as an only child, and this is…it's a new adjustment. But it's a good one, it's a happy one, for all of us."
"I don't know how to be a sister, much less someone's twin sister," the girl shook her head, her mouth set in a frown. "And the way she acted? I don't think she likes me very much."
"You barely spoke to her yesterday, Mel, and she wasn't exactly having the best day of her life," Eric answered this time, trying to use a bout of persuasive logic. "Imagine if you were in a new place, surrounded by strangers who claimed to be your long-lost-family, wouldn't you feel a bit out of sorts too?"
Ariel nodded in agreement, casting a sideways glance to her daughter. "You weren't exactly warm and welcoming either, you know."
Melody twisted her lips, glancing up at her Mother. "I'd been grounded all week; I couldn't even go for a swim!"
"That's why it's called a punishment," Ariel reminded. "Your father and I don't mind if you want to have fun with your friends—Tip and Dash are always more than welcome to join you on your explorations, but not when you don't manage your time to study, and you don't do well on your test. "
"But we found this huge cave with thousands of glowing shells in every color that even Grandfather said he didn't know existed!" The teenager exclaimed as way of defending herself.
"And I'm happy that you're happy," Ariel smiled slightly, memories of her own adventures still clear in her mind. Her smile slipped, however, when she remembered that she wasn't a teenager anymore, she was now the mother of one. "But that still doesn't make not studying right, especially when you know it's your worst subject."
"Who needs history?" Melody mumbled, knowing full well her mother was right, but not willing to admit defeat in this battle quite yet. "It's all in the past anyway."
"You know," Eric remarked thoughtfully, "I never really liked that class either."
Melody looked up at her father with shining, mischievous eyes. "Pass a law to ban it forever, Dad. Why don't we get started right now? I can do all the writing, you just have to sign it!"
Eric sat back, nodding at the notion. "I like that idea, but what subject would we replace history with?"
"Exploring, of course!" Melody declared, her grin infectious.
Her father snapped his fingers, as though the concept was a novel one. "Perfect! See, Ariel, I knew there was a reason why we had a child."
Under long eyelashes, his wife shot him a very slow, very dangerous look that said for him to stop encouraging this madness. "You know, some people like history."
"I didn't know you liked it that much, Mom."
"Oh, I didn't, I despised memorizing names and dates," Ariel answered, her face turning into one of pain when she recalled her school days. "But that was your Aunt Attina's favorite subject. Actually it still is; Andrina told me she nearly cried when she saw how badly Coral did on her history project."
"I bet Coral wasn't grounded for days, though." Melody replied, still a bit sour over the whole ordeal, seeing as how it was her mother who knew her love for the sea, and her mother was also the one who had doled out her penalty.
Ariel's brows rose slightly. "Would you rather one of your Aunt Attina's punishments then?"
Melody pulled a face, shaking her head quickly at the idea. "No thanks, Coral told me once that her mom was almost militant."
"Coral wasn't exaggerating; before her, guess who was the lucky one on the receiving end of Attina's punishments?" A smile turned up on the redhead's face, nostalgic for those days. "But after practically raising six sisters, and now her own children, I do give her a lot of credit for making everyone stay in line."
"You mean, everyone stayed in line, and you decided that it was much more fun to swerve in and out of them." Eric came in, and Ariel pouted at him.
"I was an angel-fish ninety-nine percent of the time!" She declared, and a single eyebrow from his part rose.
"And the other one percent was all the mishaps on your adventures, followed by turning into, and marrying, a human." He added dryly, and when he saw the look directed at him, he flashed the smile he knew she adored. "Love you, darling."
She rolled her eyes at him for the second time that morning, turning away, and muttering under her breath.
"What was that?"
"I said," she answered, louder than before, "it would be nice if you were nice to the girl. You don't have to be her sister, but being a friend would be a good start. I understand your misgivings, but remember that you're still—"
"I'm still a princess and above all else, a princess is kind, caring, and compassionate," Melody intoned with some boredom, having heard all this before.
"Glad to see all those parroting lessons are really paying off," Eric said with faint amusement, and was rewarded when his daughter giggled.
"Speaking of lessons, I think you'd better head over to yours, Melody." Ariel said, having looked at the grandfather clock tucked into the far corner of the large dining room. "It's getting late."
"Alright," Melody sighed, slipping out of her chair, and ducking away from her mother's hands, which would have smoothed away her stray hairs. "And if I see whatever-her-name-is, I'll be polite, even though I still doubt she's not just some performer."
"Have fun in school!" Ariel called, biting her bottom lip to stop her laughter at the scowl she received in return. As soon as the teen was out of earshot, she turned to her husband, thoughtful. "How long do you think it'll take before she goes searching for the poor girl?"
Eric shrugged. "She'll speed through her schoolwork, and beg to be let out early. I'd give it until a little after lunch."
"You think she'll last that long?" She wondered, given the generous assessment of her husband's theory.
"Once she sets her mind to something, who knows?" He paused, frowning slightly, before looking back up at her. "Do you really think wiggling my eyebrows is barely a talent?"
Ariel smiled enigmatically at him, asking in response, "You want to check to see if she's still here, don't you?"
"More than anything," he nodded quickly, getting up from the table, with Ariel in tow. "That doesn't answer my question, though."
"No, but it answers mine," she said cheekily, her smile ever widening as she grabbed his hand, yanking him through the doors and down the halls of the palace.
Marcie felt like she had slept for an eternity. It was one of the dreamless, long nights that pulled her in with waves of drowsiness. When her mind started to finally clear, and her eyes cracked open, she found herself staring at a patch of sunlight coming from the window on the far wall.
As the fogginess started to disappear from her mind, she started to think about what she needed to get done. Had she vacuumed the broken glass yesterday? No…she was sure she hadn't, so that was one more thing to do. And then Mr. Toley had said to expect a pop quiz by Friday, so she had to start studying for…
"Damn it!" She cursed, throwing the bed sheets off of her when she realized it was only Wednesday. "I'm so late! Why didn't Adam wake me up?"
Panicking, she jumped out, reaching across the bed to the nightstand to grab her glasses, pulling them on, and then grabbing her cellphone. She'd overestimated the force at which she'd gotten out of bed though, and slid across the floor. She bumped her hip into the end of the bed with enough force that she hissed in pain.
"Son of a—" She broke off suddenly, confusion settling into her when she realized the awful truth.
This wasn't her room.
This wasn't even her house.
The memories of the previous night slammed into her when she noticed, above the fireplace, a design she'd worn on her wrist for as long as she could remember.
"You don't get it, this kinda stuff doesn't happen to people like me." Marcie sighed, having since calmed down from the last hour of shock, terror, and ultimately a lot of disbelief. It hadn't been easy coming to the conclusion that she was their missing daughter.
"It's not like we ever planned for you to go through something like this," Eric answered, pushing back his dark hair for what felt like the millionth time that night. He leaned against his desk, watching the girl with steady eyes. Ariel had taken his position on the couch, near the girl, who had never left the floor. "You were barely two months and you just…vanished."
"What if…what if I'm not your kid, though? What if my handprints were wrong? There's blood tests for this stuff, right? They do it all the time on those daytime talk shows, like the 'you are not the father' sorta thing, we should do one, just to make sure, 'cause maybe we're all just not thinking straight?" Marcie bit her lip, anxiety creeping back into her tone at the idea.
"It's a lot to take in, I know, trust me, I know," Eric said, trying to be calm. "No one woke up this morning believing this would happen. But the more you try to find little nuances, the worse this will be. You did disappear years ago, you are our…daughter."
Ariel nodded in agreement, having since taken a proper seat on the couch, with her husband next to her. "And there was no evidence that someone had broken in, or that you'd been taken, in general. I went to the nursery, and you had vanished."
"That's so crazy though, how would that happen?" Marcie wondered, shaking her head and grimacing. "This thing doesn't make any sense."
"Do you…do you know what happened, after you disappeared? You mentioned you were adopted, correct?" Ariel asked, her heart rising to her throat at the idea of finally getting some answers.
The redheaded teen pushed her glasses back up her nose, mumbling, "I've picked up on bits and pieces. People say Adam's mom, Emily, got married too quick to the old man, that it's like he just showed up and from one day to the next they were together. But that's 'bout it; like I said, I've even looked for my charm's design, but nothing has ever come up."
"And the old man," Ariel asked, following up on the piece that had stuck out to her most, "Is that your father?"
"No, he's told me plenty that he's not," Marcie answered, sighing. Explaining always brought up more questions than it answered. "He says he found me and took me in. Won't tell me anymore than that. It was Emily who technically adopted me before I was a year old—before she died."
"She died?" Ariel's eyes went colossal.
"Yeah, not long after too. I've heard it was sad," Marcie answered, shrugging. "Adam's not sure why we got to stay with the old man, some type of married mumbo-jumbo he thinks."
"I'm sorry," Ariel replied, though it didn't seem like the girl was that much affected by the loss of the other woman. "You've always known, then, that you weren't his child?"
Marcie snorted. "Obviously. I mean, it's not a big secret, me and my brother don't even look a little alike. But Adam knows like, where he was born and who his mom was, at least. Me, I don't have anything like that."
"Well…" Ariel bit one of her nails, a nervous habit. "What do you want to know?"
Marcie turned to stare at her, blinking. Ariel held her gaze, blue eyes serious. The room went silent, the teenager processing her question. Finally, she sighed again, dropping her head.
"This is still so weird," she mumbled, pressing a hand to her forehead. She looked back up, anxiously determined. "If…If your kid…me, I guess, just like, disappeared, why didn't you ever, you know, look for her…me. 'Cause I've checked, and I've never found anything."
"We did look, we never stopped looking," Eric responded, clearly affronted at the idea. Marcie raised an eyebrow; he was struck by how much she resembled him. "If you don't believe me, you can ask Captain Raleigh for all the reports; the search parties, the sightings, all the people that said—"
Abruptly, he cut himself off, looking away with a pained expression. Ariel reached out for his hand, closing hers around it tightly. Her own features were concerned, and she bit her lip. Marcie scuffed her shoe on the carpet, frowning down at it.
"But if it really happened, you never, like, made a big deal out of it. I searched all over, and there's no news of you guys, at all. If I was really missin'…I mean, I dunno, it's kinda like you didn't actually want me."
Marcie fidgeted, feeling weighed down by heavy stares. She didn't have to look up to know the air in the room had just turned tense, and she hunched her shoulders slightly. More than anything she hated conflict.
Struggling with the silence, she spoke up again. "It's fine, you know, if you didn't want me. I mean, I'm not lookin' for parents or birthday presents or anything. If you just drop me off back home, and we forget this happened, I'm okay with that."
The quiet stretched on. Marcie heard something open their mouth, only for their breath to hitch. She looked up, puzzled, and her gaze met that of Crazy Lady…Ariel, whose eyes were watery, her bottom lip quivering.
Ah, jeez, Marcie thought, mentally rolling her eyes. She'd thought the woman was fresh out of tears. Besides, what was there to cry over now? What else could they possibly say to make today any more messed up?
"You think we didn't want you, that we just made all this up? You think we would do that?" Eric questioned, his voice cracking slightly. Marcie nodded, affirming the theory. He took in a deep breath. "You were gone. We looked for you, for years. We've never forgotten."
"Look, I'm not some little kid, you don't have to lie to me," Marcie answered, shrugging it off, although she fidgeted with her fingers uncomfortably. "Really, you don't have to feel bad. I get it."
"Why do you think we would lie about this?" Ariel asked softly, fingering a lock of her own red locks, wondering how they had gotten to this subject.
Marcie looked at Ariel seriously, holding her gaze steady. "Because people lie all the time. Especially when they're afraid they'll disappoint you."
The two adults stared at her. Marcie blinked, becoming puzzled. "What?"
Ariel groaned softly, falling back against the couch and pinching her nose, mumbling, "I think I'm going to be sick."
The teenager's eyes grew wide and she leaned away from the woman, scooting back a few paces on the floor. "Please don't throw up on me. It's really hard to get the smell out of shoes, and I just got these yesterday."
Eric frowned at the girl's statement, looking away from his wife for a brief moment to study the footwear of the teen. It confirmed what he remembered, that the shoes looked worn down, old even. It didn't look like they'd been recently obtained.
"If you just bought those yesterday," he started, always careful of how he phrased things, "why do they already look very…broken in?"
"I never said I bought 'em," Marcie answered, shrugging slightly. "They're Caity's hand-me-downs."
"Caity?" Eric questioned, the name unfamiliar.
"Yeah, Caity, she's my best friend Matt's older sister. My brother's sorta dating her." The girl returned, before pursing her lips in thought. "They're supposed to mentor us 'cause they're seniors, but one time I asked Caity for help with math homework and she said we should figure it out on our own."
Eric let a single eyebrow raise. "'We'?"
A sour look appeared on the girl's face. "Yeah, me, Matt, and Em. Caity said between the three of us we should be able to figure out algebra."
Suddenly, the girl gasped, her head snapping downwards to the device she removed from her pocket. "Shoot, I forgot! Me and Matt gotta do that essay!"
She remembered that she had no service, shoved her phone back in her pocket, and looked up quickly, moving her glasses back up her nose, ice blue eyes searching the couple for some type of answer. "Look, you guys don't need to keep trying to sell me some story, I just need you to take me back home Before Matt thinks I ditched him and does that dumb paper without me."
A stillness, crisp in its frozen state, stretched across the room. Marcie's guard went back up and she shifted, aware of the sudden change, but unconfident as to why it appeared. So she squinted at the couple, trying to comprehend what was going on.
At length, she finally received an answer.
"We can't do that."
It was Crazy Lady Ariel who said it, her voice sounding regretful. It was the first she'd spoken in awhile, as she'd been busy silently observing the teen, trying to let the girl talk of a life she could not return to. She wondered, briefly, if the fire behind the girl's eyes burned out of frustration, or real anger once again.
"You swore that you would get me back home," Marcie reminded, calm for now, but a storm brewing in her eyes.
Ariel winced, the tone cutting like a knife. "I know, but right now, we can't do that. If—"
"But you swore! You crossed your heart and hoped to die!"
Eric took quick stock of the situation, seeing his wife's helpless expression, and the girl's fury, and tried to be the mediator. "Getting upset isn't going to make this situation any better, if you would just listen—"
"I'm through freaking listening! I want to go home!" She started to yell, her voice continuing to rise with each word. "I don't wanna be apart of your stupid life! So you can take your 'can't' and shove it right up your—!"
"Stop! That's enough!" Eric snapped, cutting the girl off, frankly more harsh than he had intended. Marcie shrank back, the flush in her face disappearing as quickly as it had risen.
Ariel reached out, grasping his hand and squeezing it hard. He let out a long breath of air, trying to calm himself, though his words were still sharp. "Disrespecting us will not solve anything, so instead of doing so, let's discuss like rational people. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir," Marcie answered, her voice unaccustomedly small. Her head was slumped, prepared to take more of the tongue-lashing, because she knew that arguing only made things worse. She took in a deep breath, asking slowly, "Why won't you take me home when you swore you would?"
Ariel frowned, realizing that this wasn't going to go well, and sat back at the couch, noticing the girl visibly relax when she did. That was the point; she wanted to put the girl at ease when she said this. "I was trying to explain that it's not that we don't want you to go home, it's that the fact is…it's impossible to go through the In-Between."
She expected many things from the teen. Questions she wasn't sure she was qualified to answer were one of those things. What Ariel didn't expect was for the girl to thoughtfully pose, "I don't understand. Go in between where?"
The redheaded woman bit her lip, unsure. "I'm not really sure how to explain it…
Eric looked behind him at the desk, grabbing the leather-bound, green book. It still lay open, next to the girl's textbook. Her school badge and bracelet charm were there as well, an odd pairing, as both belonged to the teen, but identified her differently.
He walked over the Marcie, extending the book towards her. "Here, read the title, skim through if you must, and if you have questions…"
The teen accepted the novel, brows furrowing in outright confusion as she read the title aloud. "Corresponding Realms?"
The book was unfamiliar. Marcie opened it, flipping through the first few pages to read the introduction silently. Yet, the words were too big, the speech pattern odd…she scrunched up her nose. She went through a few more pages, before settling back on the page that had the weird looking world map.
Unlike last time, however, she noticed there was a caption beneath the printed atlas. She squinted to make out the tiny letters, struggling to read as she went along, "The only other realm that is still currently in existence and has been proven to be a counterpart to our own, Earth, is pictured above, using scholarly notes from historians long passed and modern theory of how it is supposed to appear."
Her eyebrows scrunched together hard, and she looked up once again, clearly not capable of interpreting what that was supposed to mean. "I still don't get it?"
"Alright, uh…think of it as…as an apple!" Eric declared, trying to find a way to explain what wasn't really ever given an exact definition.
"An apple?" Ariel questioned, her own eyebrows shooting up at the phrasing..
Marcie pulled restlessly at her sleeves. "What kind of apple?"
Eric shook his head. "A plain apple. There's red apples and there's green apples, correct?"
"Yeah, sure," Marcie answerednot sure where this was supposed to be going.
The man continued on as though he was oblivious to the weird looks his wife, and the girl were giving him. "They coexist together, side by side, and they look similar, but there's differences in their taste and color. That's a bit like a corresponding realm, it's almost parallel to our own, but there's marked differences."
"Wait…" Marcie gathered, one of his words making her brain pull out a phrase she'd vanished into the void of science fiction. "Kinda like a parallel universe?"
The adults exchanged a glance, with Ariel finally shrugging. "I suppose that's another way to say it."
"But it's not real." The teenager said, unsure now. "It's like, I dunno, comic book stuff."
"…what if it's not, though?" Eric answered, breathless.
"But it's impossible…I mean, it's just a bunch of stories?" Marcie replied, her eyes flickering between the two people.
"That's the issue," Ariel argued, concern now setting into her tone, "What if it did, in fact, exist, and people who live in the realm of…Earth, don't know because the passages were sealed?"
"Okay…but then how come you guys know about it here and people on Earth wouldn't?" Marcie wondered, shaking her head.
"Perhaps the knowledge simply got lost in the shuffle of history in Earth, while the other was kept alive?" Ariel pressed, simply thinking out loud ways that it could have occurred.
Marcie snapped her fingers, nodding in agreement. "Like, wars? We went over that stuff in history class last year, some wars were so close together things got damaged then like, lost forever. And if it there was no more evidence, everyone who never saw it would think everyone who says they did were lying."
"That could be a reason why the information was lost," Eric conceded, watching as the girl rolled her shoulders back, resting on her arms. "There would still be questions though, like how…some, were able to cross through the In-Between, when the passages have been sealed for such a long time."
"Who would've sealed up this stuff in the first place, that's what I wanna know," Marcie wondered aloud, drumming her fingers against her thigh. "And why would someone wanna seal it up?"
"Maybe it was a powerful sorcerer that did it, or an evil king, or an accident by a clumsy apprentice?" Ariel wondered, going through the different scenarios she and her schoolmates had once considered. "All that's known for sure was that one day, the In-Between stopped working, and people were trapped on both sides, for good."
"Well, that would be sucky for them." The teen shrugged, brushing off the ideas. "It's a cool theory, I guess, but I'm not a scientist, and you guys still haven't explained why you can't take me home."
Ariel and Eric exchanged a look. The girl still thought they were speaking in a hypothetical sense, her mind unable to grip the real concept behind what they were saying. The redheaded woman turned to the teenager, sighing with grim features.
"You can't go back to…Nebraska, because the In-Between is sealed."
Marcie frowned. "I thought we stopped talking about parallel universe stuff already?"
"No, you're not understanding," Ariel said, frustrated and tugging at a lock of her red hair. "I don't know how…but somehow you managed to go through the In-Between, twice."
"But you said that the In-Between was sealed, that it's been like that for like, ever, how would I even go through once?" A single eyebrow rose, and the teen's frown deepened.
"Maybe it was a spell, maybe you were stolen, maybe you hit your head and it's all been a dream—I don't know," Eric answered this time, irritated in himself for not understanding everything about this situation. "I'm not even sure I believe in any of this, but if you're so sure that you're telling us everything that happened—"
"It's the whole truth, sir, I promise," Marcie said, her face and voice sincere.
"—then this is the only explanation that makes sense. The schoolbook, your school identification, the fact that you weren't even aware you've been missing… whatever happened, you must have gone through the In-Between to Earth, and then fourteen years later, returned."
Anxiety crept along inside Marcie's skin, making her hair stand on end, and forcing her to swallow hard. She hugged her knees to her chest, eyes searching for some type of explanation. "I thought...it's not real, it's just science-fiction, that's what we've been talkin' about. Right? Right?"
Ariel exhaled slowly, watching the girl with pity. "Even if we knew how to get there, it's impossible to go through the In-Between. There is no passage between realms anymore."
"Wait, wait, but I did it before, right, didn't I? I can, I could do it again, if I focus really hard…" She squeezed her eyes as tightly as they could go, scrunching up her entire face to focus on home.
The way freshly mowed grass smelled in the summer. Bumpy hay-rides that almost made her fall out in the back of someone's pickup in the fall. Hot chocolate made the old fashion way in the winter. Sucking on the stem of the first wildflower on the prairie in spring.
She thought hard. She held onto those memories, trying to recreate them, live through them once more. But the wind never came, and the feeling of falling onto something hard never occurred. Shaking, she reopened her eyes, horrified, but not surprised, to see the compassionate, apprehensive faces of the couple who were supposed to be her birth parents.
"I'm stuck here?" she said aloud, her voice small and terrified. She looked up for someone to say, or for even their faces to show some sort of disagreement.
There was none.
The memory faded suddenly, leaving the teenager alone in the big room. When had she sat down, head resting against the bed? She wasn't sure.
She hugged her arms around her, swallowing hard. "They said they'll find a way, though," she reminded herself. "They said they'd look it up and get back to me, there's still time, there's lots of time."
Marcie bit her lip, blinking back the tears from her eyes. She'd already cried once in front of them, she wouldn't do it again. She sucked in a breath, and prepared to stand up, wash her face, maybe go find them and figure out where were they in the search.
"…quiet! You'll wake her up!"
Fast footsteps and a voice attempting, and failing, to be quiet suddenly reached the girl's ears. She froze where she was on the floor, something cold clutching at her heart. More steps followed, with another voice, deeper this time, responding to the first one.
"Look who's talking!" The deeper voice exclaimed. "It's past breakfast anyhow, she should be up by now!"
The second voice laughed lightly. "You sound like a child who wants to play, hush!"
Marcie's eyes grew colossal. Fear suddenly gripped at the girl, tunneling her vision. The footsteps were approaching closer now, they'd be at her door at any second.
The sound of the doorknob moving made the girl jolt duck under the large bed, squirming to get underneath. She had just gotten her right foot out of sight when she heard the door swing open, its hinges squealing at the abuse.
"She's not here," Marcie could hear the frown in the deeper voice, and she stilled her breathing, hoping they couldn't hear her heart pounding. "Ariel, she's not here. What if—"
Footsteps came closer to the bed; the teenager brought her thumbnail to her mouth, chewing on it in worry. "She was here this morning, before we had a meeting with the servants. I know she was."
More footsteps closer to the bed now; Marcie altogether stopped breathing, shutting her eyes tight, trying to make herself disappear. "It did happen, didn't it? We're not going crazy, are we?"
"No, she was here, the bed looks slept on." It was Crazy Lady Ariel's voice; Marcie recognized it now from the firm tone. "No one else is in the guest wing. She is home, Eric, she's just…wandering around. Probably."
"A restless spirit?" Eric's voice sounded musing, "Sounds like she got more than your hair, love."
The footsteps faded from next to Marcie, like if the woman was walking away. "I wasn't the only one."
"Don't look at me," Eric sounded affronted, but he was laughing too. "I was the prodigal prince, wasn't I?"
The footsteps kept on going, the voice attached to them echoing back. "I'm going to go find where's she's strayed off to."
The second pair of footsteps, Eric's, hurried to catch up. "You forgot to answer—wait, Ariel!"
Their steps kept going, voices fading until Marcie could not hear anything. Cautiously, she poked her head out, looking around the room to see if there was anything else she'd missed. No one else but her remained in the room.
She sighed, shaking her head. "I'm too paranoid."
Getting off of the floor, she brushed herself off, adjusting her clothes. She remembered her eyes growing heavy the night before, and closing them for just a second, only to wake up this morning. How she got to the room was beyond her, but right now, she really didn't care.
"Okay, new plan," Marcie announced to herself, "I need to figure this place out, and," here she winced, her stomach rumbling angrily, "maybe get somethin' to eat, too."
Nodding at the idea, the teen shoved her phone into her pocket, feeling the charm that had broken off her bracelet the day before. She made a mental note to get some tape and fix it, at least for now. Once she got home, she could beg a favor off of Adam to the craft store for new string.
Running her fingers through her short hair, Marcie looked around the room for a moment, taking it all in. It looked like it could fit the entire upstairs of her house. There was a large window covered with curtains, so the room was still dark; still, like the other room she had spent yesterday afternoon in, there was an air of expense.
She pulled on her shoes, which were conveniently laid out next to the bed. Tying the laces, and then double knotting them just in case, she stood up, and out of habit, made the bed. Her eye caught what looked to be part of the wall in the corner, but with a door handle, and she hesitantly walked to it.
Slowly, she opened what she could only assume was a type of door, and peeked in. A claw-footed bathtub and a sink confirmed that this was in fact a bathroom, all for her. At the very least, in comparison to the bedroom, this room was much smaller in size.
She quietly closed the door, and looked around once more. Then, she stretched out her back, took in a deep breath, and walked out the door.
Disclaimer: Ariel, Eric, Melody, and the setting for this story are from The Little Mermaid, which is property of Disney. I own nothing; everything represented from the film(s), tv series, etc. is/are the property of Disney. Other characters are from my own imagination and are not associated with Disney.