Marcie dug her bare feet into the cool sand, curling her toes in its grainy feel, mesmerized as the water made the extremities disappear for a moment.
It was the oddest sensation, each time she felt the water wash over her feet. It didn't feel as cold as she'd expected too, or as plain-old-simple water, as Em had once described it as. No, it felt…comfortable.
Not different, not weird, just…comfortable.
It had been Melanie's suggestion to take off her newly beloved, slightly battered Converse, shoving her socks into the shoes and abandoning them higher up on the stairs. Of course, she'd done so in a neat manner, putting them side-by-side, whereas in contrast, the other girl had abandoned one shoe on a step, and other halfway down the beach.
With how much money these people got, Marcie thought, she's probably got a different pair of shoes for each day of the year.
The bottom of her jeans was soaked now, although the teen really didn't care. She leaned on her knees, sitting on the last step, staring out at the early evening sky, just able to make out the first few stars of the night.
She reveled in the quiet, in the salt-water, and relaxed.
Then, the dark-haired girl laughed, ruining the moment.
Marcie sighed, looking out towards where the other girl was playing in the surf. Although, her gaze was looking upwards, expectantly. The redheaded teen craned her neck to the side, trying to see what she was looking at.
Her eyes first fell onto Crazy Lady Ariel, who was shielding her own orbs with her hand. She caught sight of her daughter along the beach it seemed, and her face brightened. She nudged Eric next to her, who followed her line of sight and grinned. He gave a short wave, just as his wife's eyes roamed, searching for something.
Or someone.
She locked gazes with the redheaded teen, a smile widening on her face. Marcie dropped her eyes, looking down at the cold marble steps instead. She twisted her head back to the ocean, as she heard footsteps come down to where she was sitting.
"I thought you'd be out in the water by now, I was getting worried when I didn't see you!" Ariel said, keeping her voice light, and coming to sit by Marcie's right. She didn't want the girl thinking how much dinner had shaken her.
The teen gave a careful shrug, looking out at the almost-set-sun as she replied, "Wasn't in the mood to get wet."
"But the bottom of your…er, pants, are." Eric responded casually, coming to sit by the girl's left. Now she was being flanked on two sides, close enough she could feel their body heat, and though she stiffened audibly, the adults didn't seem to notice. "How's the water anyway?"
"Fine, I guess," Marcie said, not in the mood to describe how odd the sensation was. "I mean, it's just water, it's not like it does anything."
Ariel frowned slightly, and pushed for a better answer, one that made more sense given the girl's half-mermaid roots. "It doesn't make you feel…I don't know, content, maybe?"
"Like I said, it's water, it doesn't do much," the teen said in a dry sort of tone, obviously wanting to get off this conversation topic. "I did take a few pics though, 'cause Matt'll never believe me."
Ariel looked over the girl's head at her husband, silently asking what 'pics' were. He shook his head slightly; he had no idea what she was referring too. So instead, Ariel went with the safer conversation topic.
"You've mentioned your friend Matt before. I take it you two are close?"
"Oh, yeah," Marcie drawled, fighting to keep the smirk from rising up on her lips. "Me and Matt, we go way back, all the way to the diaper days. My big brother and his sister have been, like, together since they were really little, so me and Matt got sorta forced into being friends."
Finally, Eric thought with relief, a conversation topic she was fine with discussing, something she had on her 'like' list, as Carlotta had suggested they find. "You're both the same age?"
"Well, Matt's four months and twelve days older than me, but we're in the same grade at school, so it doesn't really matter." She explained, pushing her glasses up her nose in thought. "Least, I don't think it matters; he's a moron so he tries to hold it over me. Between Adam and him, it's like having two brothers, and there isn't a brain between either of them."
"It's safe to say that then that you, Emma, and Matt are all best friends?" Ariel asked, an edge of excitement in her voice, as she'd finally figured something about this girl out.
Marcie nodded. "Well, yeah. Matt and me are always close to killin' each other, but Em is like the one who keeps us balanced out, you know? Like, without her, we'd forget to do homework and stuff."
Another pang of jealousy arose in Ariel, but she pushed it down. They were finally making strides with the teen; this wasn't the time to let her feelings get in the way. "You all help one another with homework?"
"We got most of the same teachers, so it makes it easier. Plus, Em always finishes the hard stuff early, and I do the easy stuff first, so we just trade." Marcie said by way of answer, her brows starting to furrow as she continued to speak. "Actually, me and Matt got this huge essay on like, history, that's due…well, it was kinda due…today."
Tears suddenly pressed against the girl's eyes. Two days she'd been gone now. Were her friends worried, were they looking for her? Did Matt wait for her to come over, furiously texting, only to realize that she'd never show up? Did Em try to deliver their homework after school, only to realize that the house was empty? Was the town thinking about her, were the police involved? Was Adam pushing his beaten-up car through the back roads, calling her name?
Her contemplations took on a sudden note of anxiety when she wondered if her old man knew she wasn't there. He's gonna be so pissed, she thought, biting her lip.
As these ideas ran amuck in the teen's mind, both Ariel and Eric shared a look, as though not sure what to make of the girl's silence. Just as Eric cleared his throat—clearly intending to ask what was wrong, Marcie stood up.
It might have been easier to step into the sea, but instead the girl turned and took two steps at a time, until she reached her shoes. She pulled them out, quickly trying to shove them back on.
"Where are you going?" A clearly confused, masculine voice wondered, just the barest hint of panic to it.
Marcie looked down, back towards the two adults, pausing as though she hadn't considered them in this equation. Gone were her tears; in its place was determination. "I'm gonna find a way back home, by tonight."
"B-But you don't even know where to start looking! There's dozens—hundreds of avenues to explore, it's too difficult to point at one without research!" Ariel cried out, standing abruptly, as her husband had jumped up already.
"Well," Marcie said, trying to wiggle on her now damp left sock, "With the stuff you guys have already figured out, it can't be too hard to knock a few more off the list, 'til I get to the one way that works."
Another brief, but obviously flustered look was shared between the two. She could not find out that they hadn't even started looking for ways she could return to Earth, to leave them, again. "It's going to take hours to even make the barest amount of progress, maybe even longer, and you don't even know where to begin!"
Marcie looked up at Eric, ice-blue eyes narrowed at his attempts to deter her. "It won't matter. I've gotta get back, I gotta go home."
Melody, upon hearing the commotion, had made her way back to the stairs, skirts gathered in her arms as the water reached her knees. Max came as well, half swimming next to the princess. "What's going on? Are we leaving?"
Eric was quick to answer, "No," just as Marcie said, "Yes." Both stared at one another, one set of eyes pleading, the other unmovable.
"I'm leaving. I'm going back to my home." The teenager finally said, shoving her foot into a sneaker.
"You are?" There was a clear level of relief, and excitement in the way Melody phrased the question, her eyes wide with hope.
"No, she's not," Eric responded quickly, much to his daughter's dismay.
Melody's features fell. "Oh."
"Yeah, I am," Marcie said, double knotting her shoe-laces, as always, just in case. "I'll be gone by tonight."
Melody's face perked back up, her eyes shifting between her father and the redheaded teenager, unsure of whose answer to take. "Um…you guys know you're saying complete opposite things, right?"
Eric shook his head. "She's not going anywhere Mel, and that's that."
Marcie stood up, eyes harder than a diamond. "The only boss of me is me, and I'm going back to where I should be."
"No, you're not."
"Dad, we can't force her to stay here," Melody reasoned.
"I'm not forcing her, I'm asking her to reconsider," Eric tried, hoping that a different tactic would work.
It did not.
"I'm with Melanie over there, you guys can't make me stay," Marcie retorted, wishing she knew this house well enough to find the office she'd been in last night, to just go start researching now. She was losing valuable time.
"You're staying!"
"I'm going!"
"Did you just call me Melanie?"
"Stop, stop it!"
Ariel's cry sent everyone into silence. The woman winced, pressing her good hand to her aching ribs, and let go of a defeated sigh.
"Fighting isn't going to make anything better. We need to just talk," she said, turning slightly to Marcie, who looked the most skeptical out of all three of them. "What are you trying to really say?"
The teen blinked. "What?"
"What's this sudden need to go back to…your home, right now, right this second?"
The rephrasing of the question helped, but the girl was still wary. The concept of 'just talking' seemed foreign to her. "Matt and Em, my neighbors, my brother, even Caity, have gotta be scared. They're probably out right now, looking for me. It's not…I need to go back, for them."
It was worse than Ariel had imagined. The girl was whole-heartedly dedicated to going back.
"This is scary, I get it," the former mermaid started, collecting her thoughts as she went. "Not to mention, you have people who are probably missing you."
Marcie eyed the woman, suddenly caught off guard by how close her assessment was. "Yeah…?"
Ariel felt some confidence return to her. She knew where to go with this now. "You have to trust us, though. We swore that we would work this out, somehow, but you have to be patient. If you start…looking things up, you'll just be getting in the way because you won't know what you're looking for."
"I won't get in the way," Marcie mumbled, but her resolve was wavering now, seeing the logic. They did say there was a ton of stuff to go through, and she wasn't really even sure how she'd gotten here, let alone how to get back.
"Even if you did find a way back, out of the blue," Ariel continued, her eyes steady upon the girl, "it may not even work. You don't want to be gone, forever, and your friends would never have the chance to know if you were still alive, do you?"
From the corner of her eye, Ariel felt her husband stare at her. She knew what he was thinking: she was lying through her teeth, and she was doing it without batting an eye. Even worse, she was bringing the girl's friends into this, playing upon her emotions to get her to do what she wanted.
And, because she was so desperate, so unwilling to lose her daughter again, she reasoned that it was alright, even if she felt despicable doing so.
"That's right," Eric spoke up, agreeing with his wife, who turned slightly in surprise. "There's many factors that weigh into this, and we know how much you want to return, but you can't begin to comprehend the magnitude of everything. It would take even more time to educate you on it all then doing the actual research."
He held her gaze as he said it, unwavering, and Marcie's eyes went wide. People don't lie when they look in your eyes, she knew. Her shoulders slumped, the fight torn out of her. "Okay. I'll stay, and I'll be out of your way with all this stuff. But…you're gonna try real hard to get me back, soon, right? Like, maybe by tomorrow?"
The hope was there again, back in her voice, back in her eyes. It was all she had now, in a foreign land, completely dependent on the mercy of these strangers.
Neither adult wanted to lie once more. Thankfully, Melody decided to interject.
"It's Melody, just so you know, not Melanie," she corrected. Then, she turned slightly to her parents, a mystified look upon her face. "What are you talking about anyway? Why is it so hard for her to go back to her home?"
"Melody," Ariel answered, shoulders slumping. She was disappointed in herself. "Not now, please."
Neither she nor Eric had mentioned to anyone that the girl had come through the In-Between. It was so shocking that it bordered on terrifying, and people did not react well to fear. For the foreseeable future, that information was private, even from Melody.
Marcie looked at the dark-haired girl, frowning. "I didn't say it wrong, I said Melanie."
"My name is Melody! It's two different names!" The dark-haired teen exclaimed, even as Marcie cocked her head to the side. "One is M-E-L-O-D-Y and the other is M-E-L-A-N-I-E."
"That's like naming your kid Grape, Melody ain't a real name." Marcie retorted, holding fast to her beliefs.
"It is too a real name!" The girl declared, obviously unhappy as she made her way up the steps. "Besides, Marcie isn't even your real name, so I wouldn't be so quick to judge."
The moving truck blocked the driveway, and her view of what was being taken out. A couch passed through one of the front windows, and the group surrounding her jostled, everybody leaning in for a closer look. An elbow pressed into her side, hitting a bruise; she hissed in pain, turning slightly to give a dirty look to the offender.
"Sorry," Matt mumbled, his eyes still trained straight ahead at the house. "I can't see nothin'."
"Nothin' is happening," another voice beside her whined in response. "Why can't someone go closer?"
"'Cause what if they're weird?" A voice answered, in a hushed tone.
"Wow, check out that TV!" Someone else exclaimed, the group of them gasping at the sight of the clearly expensive electronic. "They're probably rich!"
"No way," another child answered flippantly, "If they were rich, why'd they wanna live here, and not somewhere with rich people?"
"My family's rich, and we live here," a clearly female voice, Sydney, replied stubbornly. Marcie rolled her eyes; it was common knowledge that her and Syd hadn't gotten along since preschool.
"Maybe if we go up in your house, we could see it better?" Matt asked, directing his question to the redhead beside him. There were murmurs of agreement from the group, but the girl shook her head.
She was about to respond that the best view would be from Adam's room, and she was banned from entering (not that it'd ever stopped her before), when a figure appeared in the open doorway of the home. Everyone leaned forward for a closer look, a quiet moment falling on all of them.
The figure from the doorway stomped past the porch, the front yard, and didn't even look both ways as she crossed the street, only stopping when she was directly in front of the group of children. She placed both hands on her hips, eyeing them all with an intimidating stare. A pink headband kept her long blonde curls at bay; it matched the light pink shirt she wore, with lace detailing at the top, and pristine white shorts.
Everybody stood quietly, unable to voice the opinions that they had earlier been able to say. Marcie shifted slightly, feeling suddenly very underdressed in her faded, hand-me-down tank top and overalls. The movement caught the other girl's attention, and she stared at the redhead, who looked down at her bare feet, toes curling in the warm grass.
"How old are you?" The blonde asked suddenly, and Marcie looked up, confusion settling on her face as she realized the girl was speaking to her.
"Seven," she answered, trying to take what little confidence she had and put it into the next statement, "But I'll be eight next week, right after the first day of third grade."
The blonde scrutinized her some more, before saying, "I'll be nine in exactly three months and three days. I'm gonna be in third grade too."
"Oh." Marcie responded. This girl would be in their class then.
"My mom made us move here because she got a divorce from my dad, we used to live in Lincoln," she paused, but only long enough to catch her breath before continuing. "I told my best friend that I didn't like writing so I wasn't gonna send her any letters, and she said we couldn't be friends anymore. I need a new best friend, and you're gonna be it."
"I already got a best friend," the redhead said in response, her eyes looking over to the boy next to her for just a second. "Me and Matt have been best friends since we were really little."
The blonde eyed the boy, who stood tall, trying to insert some self-assurance into his posture. They were about the same height, and they stared one another down for just a few seconds, before the girl pursed her lips, crossed her arms over her chest, and nodded decisively.
"Fine, then all three of us can be best friends. My name's Emmerson-Jo Brittany Meehan, you can call me Emma." She stuck out her hand towards the redhead, who took it cautiously, shaking it.
"He's Matthew Aaron Hahnfeld," Marcie explained, dropping her hand. "And I'm Marcella Nicole Johnson."
"No one calls her Marcella though," Matt interjected, seriously. "'Round here, everybody calls her Marcie."
"It's a nickname, though," the other girl answered, completely missing the point. "I don't go by my full name, never have, never will."
Melody, at the spot in the staircase where the other girl was now, stared at her, as though not believing that she hadn't gotten her insinuation. With a disgruntled look, she turned back to her parents, as though saying 'you picked the name, go defend it'.
"Why don't we get some hot chocolate, hm?" Ariel was quick to chime in, clearly wanting to diffuse the situation, although she was still unnerved at just how easy it had been to lie to the girl this time. "It's getting colder out here."
Marcie looked out at the early night, the stars bright. She wanted to stay out longer, she wanted to look at these stars all night, like she'd done for years. She wanted to say that back home, the weather was already a lot colder, and this was nothing.
She wanted to.
But instead, what tumbled out was, "You know, I'm kinda tired. Can I just, like, go to bed, or something?"
"Bed? It's still early," Eric answered, raising his own eyebrows in skepticism.
"Yeah, but I got a lot of homework to still do, and I'm just…I just wanna relax, you know?" She answered, nodding to herself because it seemed like an excellent excuse.
Ariel wrapped her hand around her husband's, squeezing it slightly because she knew he wanted to argue the girl's point. They'd gotten her to be more accepting of her stay here, that was enough for today. "If that's how you feel, then Melody can show you where your room is."
"I can?" Melody intoned, a look of innocence crossing her face. A look of 'I'm-not-buying-it-I-know-you-went-searching-for-her-today' was all she needed to sigh, turning to the redheaded teen. "I can show you where you room is. I'll just get another pair of shoes on the way back, then."
"What about this one?" Marcie asked, nudging the girl's one shoe that was close to her foot. Melody simply waved it off.
"Someone will find the other one by tomorrow, but I can't walk around with just one shoe."
The logic didn't make sense to Marcie, a girl who was used to no one picking up after her, but she was tired of arguing. She followed Melanie silently, despite the other girl's constant chatter about how she should have seen the water earlier, it was so wonderful.
Watching the girls disappear behind the doors, Ariel pressed a hand to her forehead. She could feel a migraine coming on.
"Well," Eric finally said, "At least we're getting hot chocolate out of this mess."
Ariel only sighed.
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.