OUT OF PLACE
by Susha Golomb
Copyright 2016 Susha Golomb
THE FAIRY GIFTS
BOOK 2
OUT OF PLACE
Table of Contents
PROLOGUE
PART I
KIDNAPPED
Chapter 1 – Wing Pockets
Chapter 2 – Girl with Gills
Chapter 3 – Boats
Chapter 4 – Captured
Chapter 5 – Fish Dinner
Chapter 6 – Abandoned
Chapter 7 – Miriam, Phone Home
Chapter 8 – Out of Gas
Chapter 9 – Undertow
Chapter 10 – Not Dead Yet
Chapter 11 – Free at Last
Chapter 12 – Not a Mermaid Anymore
Chapter 13 – And Now for Something Completely Different
Chapter 14 – Out of Range
PART II
CASALOT
Chapter 15 – Bobbing Breasts
Chapter 16 – Casalot
Chapter 17 – Insea, Outsea, Onsea
Chapter 18 – Verona Corona
Chapter 19 – Salt Sisters
Chapter 20 – Power Pebbles
Chapter 21 – The Phone Call
Chapter 22 – Little Voices
Chapter 23 – Dinner is Served
Chapter 24 – Inadequate and Conspicuous
Chapter 25 – Out of the Frying Pan
Chapter 26 – Skynapped!
Chapter 27 – Just Bubbling Along
Chapter 28 – Heartspeak
Chapter 29 – Flying Fish
PART III
CHOICES
Chapter 30 – Mermaid’s Tears
Chapter 31 – Forgive and Forget
Chapter 32 – The Big Meeting
Chapter 33 – The Little Meeting
Chapter 34 – The Choosing
THE FAIRY GIFTS – BOOK II
ZAZKAL
Chapter 1 – A Less Than Willing Sorcerer’s Apprentice
Chapter 2 – Power Pebbles
LETTER TO THE READER
It is a little known fact that fairies have pockets in their wings for the occasional small but important things they must carry with them. Miriam Mermelstein was not a fairy. However, her cat Tefnut was half magic and able to claim a certain advantage in this area. Tefnut was also an expert at plotting, conniving and long-term planning As a result, Miriam was currently in possession of a regulation pair of wings, complete with pockets.
PROLOGUE
I found Rose sitting cross-legged on the garden swing reading a book, leaning back and forth just enough to keep the swing going. Using my best stalking technique, I crept over so quietly, that even the grass didn’t know I was there. Then, with the perfect timing of which I am undoubtedly the master, I jumped and landed next to Rose, without the slightest interference in the rhythm of the swing.
It’s what I do.
It’s not my way to start a conversation, so I tucked in my paws, curled up my tail, and made myself comfortable, enjoying my moment of total invisibility. While the early spring sun warmed my fur, slowly, lovingly, penetrating all the way down to my bones, I waited.
Eventually, Rose got the subliminal message, put down her book and looked to see whose eyes had been boring into the back of her head.
“Oh, Tefnut, it’s you. Don’t watch me like that, it makes me nervous.”
“We have to talk.”
“Okay, now I’m really nervous. This had better not be about Miriam.”
“It is.”
“Oy! Wait, I’m getting Ben.”
“Now we’re both here,” she said after Rose and Ben were both settled. “Talk.”
“…Its not the being there that worries me, Tefnut,” Rose was saying. “Its the getting there.”
“She has her gifts,” I answered. “There won’t be any problems.”
“Miriam lacks the experience to make good decisions,” Ben said. “Her little bag of tricks and a pair of grafted-on wings will only get her into trouble. She won’t be able to manage them properly. She can’t go alone.”
“Oh yes she can,” I said.
PART 1
KIDNAPPED
CHAPTER 1
WING POCKETS
The minute I unfolded my left wing, the ocean wind, obviously confusing me with a kite, grabbed it and pushed. I was reduced to hopping all over the road just to keep my balance while Mom and Dad zigzagged along behind trying to catch up.
“She’s headed your way, Ben,” Mom, called. “Quick, grab her.”
“Hang on, Miriam,” he hollered. He grabbed. The wind changed. Dad missed and landed on his tush, while I was blown, spinning and bouncing, like a badly launched kite, in the opposite direction.
“Open your other wing, honey,” Mom, already huffing and puffing, wheezed out, “so we can catch you.”
True, two wings would be better. At least I would be pushed in a straight line. But, this wing thing was still new to me. For sure, with both wings open, I would be blown up and away like a lost umbrella.
“Miriam. Sit.” Dad’s insight came from the fact that his recent effort had left him in a similar position.
I sat. Mom grabbed me and helped me tuck my wing back in. Then we all walked over to the car, propped me against it facing into the wind and started over.
This time I spread the wing out against the side of the car and let the wind blow all it wanted while I took Mom’s necklace out of the left wing pocket. Wing pockets don’t have zippers. They keep things in by being very tight. It’s never good to be in a hurry to get something out of a wing pocket.
I had two fingers in and could just feel the chain with the tip of one finger. A little further in and I had it hooked. Using my free hand I stretched the pocket a little wider —not too much, or it hurt —so that the delicate charm wouldn’t be damaged as I pulled it out.
“You know,” I said when I finally got it out all in one piece. “There’s a reason that whoever invented wing pockets isn’t famous.”
Hanging from a silver chain was my ticket to the Twilight Zone, disguised as an ordinary fish scale. Out of the water, it looked thick and dull. It was a part of the ocean. A place where I didn’t belong. But I was going there anyway.
My first big trip away from home. Am I going to Grandma’s on a plane? Off to summer camp on the other side of the country? Nooo, nothing so ordinary for me. I’m going to go and play with the fishies. All by myself.
“Let me, dear,” Mom said. I handed over the necklace and pulled my wing back under my shoulder blade where it stayed nicely hidden. Mom got behind me and straightened the back of my t-shirt while I pulled my hair out of the way. She put the necklace around my neck and closed the catch, finishing with a reverse hug, wrapping her arms around my shoulders and nuzzling my hair. I could feel wet tears soaking through to my scalp.
“Now, you remember how to use the necklace?” she sniffed. “Do you need me to show you again?” I wiggled free of her damp embrace.
“Mo-om! I remember.”
Dad went right into high-speed lecture-mode. A sure sign of parental distress.
“Don’t forget,” he said. “You’ll be perfectly safe as long as you stay under the water. Fairies, including mermaids, are not on the food chain and that’s exactly what everyone will think you are. Oh, and don’t say ‘mermaid’ when you get there. It’s not considered polite. The preferred term for double breathers is `Sky’. Don’t forget. And don’t forget to give your grandparents the photos we gave you. And call,” he added. “Whatever happens…Don’t…Forget…To Call.”
“Okay. Okay. Why are you so worried? You’re the ones who spent the last four days convincing me how safe I’ll be underwater.”
I was not
about to admit to them that my heart was pounding so hard I could feel the ka-thumps bouncing off my eardrums. They would both jump at any excuse to cancel this trip.
My parents are normally pretty intense anyway, but we just spent three days cooped up together in the car. We were now as far south as you can get without a passport and Mom and Dad are a wreck.
I spent three days sitting by myself, in the back seat, listening to music and rereading my old Harry Potter books. Boring, but not crazy-making. Mom and Dad spent the same three days together in the front seat, getting on each others nerves and worrying themselves into a frenzy.
“Come on, let’s do it,” Dad said with his cute crooked smile. “I want to see the Great Transformation.” He turned to lock up the car. Mom wiped her eyes on her sleeve and took my arm. Dad put the keys in his pocket and took my other arm. With me squeezed tight in the middle, we stepped off the pavement onto the deserted beach and started walking across the sand to the sea.
It was only the middle of June. But even with the umbrella-grabbing wind off the water, the weather was a lot warmer than anyone expected. Only the wind kept it from being sweaty-hot. I opened the drawstring pouch that hung like a mutant fanny pack at my waist.
“I’m starving,” I lied. I wasn’t hungry, I was nervous. “How about a snack from the sampo.” One at a time, I pulled three ice cream cones out of the bag: Rocky Road in a sugar cone for Mom, the family chocoholic; pistachio in a fancy waffle cone for Dad, the gourmet chef; and vanilla with rainbow sprinkles in a plain cone for me. It’s what I always get. Dad held his ice cream at arm’s length and looked at it like he was pondering a great work of art.
“Rum raisin, right?” I said, already taking out a new cone. Rum raisin is Dad’s other favorite flavor.
“Mmmmm. I think so,” he said thoughtfully. I handed him the replacement and shoved the unacceptable pistachio cone, ice cream first, back into my bag.
“Ahh. Instant gratification,” Dad said, slurping happily.
“Ewww, Miriam,” Mom squealed. “How are you going to clean that out.”
“No problemo. Here. Hold this.” I handed her my vanilla cone so I could use both hands to turn the bag inside out. It was empty…and clean. “See. My sampo is self-cleaning.”
“What happened to the photos for your grandparents?” Dad asked severely.
“Easy. Magic, presto, change-o.” I turned the bag right side in and pulled out a small plastic photo album.
“I’ll never get used to you having that thing,” said Dad.
“It’s okay, Ben,” Mom said, happily licking away at her Rocky Road. “After all, all the best dragonfly fairies have one. Mmmmm,” she added, totally focused on her ice cream.
“Our daughter is not a fairy,” Dad said testily. He had never completely forgiven the dragonfly fairies for grafting wings onto his precious daughter, a.k.a., me, without asking him first.
“She may be human,” Mom replied, “but she has all the right equipment.”
“That’s an understatement if I ever heard one,” he said tartly. Look at her. She has legs, so she’s human but she’s about to acquire a tail, so she’s a fish, wings…that makes her a bird and a couple of built-in pockets which I believe--correct me if I’m wrong--means our only child is a marsupial.”
“Hey, come-oon,” I said. “Why are you so touchy? I’m on my way to visit Grandma and Grandpa Mermaid. Everyone’s happy, happy, happy. Remember?”
At least we were supposed to be happy, happy, happy. But Dad was right, I was like some mythical creature. The kind that’s made up of lots of different animals. What would my adopted Grandparents think of me when they met me for the first time? What if I was too weird even for them?
“It will be all right, Ben,” Mom said, getting right to the heart of what was really bugging Dad. She put her arm around his shoulder. “Relax. You know as well as I do that Miriam will be perfectly safe as long as she’s under the water,” she reminded him. “Even in bad weather, as long as she stays in deep water, she’ll be fine. The worst thing that could happen is that someone might be rude to her. But no one will hurt her. Not while she’s in fairy form.”
“Mmph.” Dad had succumbed to the lure of Rum Raisin, grunting his agreement between licks.
We reached the water’s edge and the beginning of an old fishing pier. The wind was even stronger now that we were over the water. I had to hold my hair back with one hand to keep it from whipping around into my ice cream. The stiff breeze kept pushing me back the way I had come. It was like the ocean didn’t want me to be there.
The clacking of our shoes as we walked on the weathered planks echoed back from the empty sky, attracting out of nowhere a flock of scruffy-looking seagulls looking for the avian equivalent of spare change.
Ignoring the gulls and each other, we concentrated on our ice cream cones until we got to the end of the deserted pier. I stared down at the deep water under the pier, then out to the whitecaps on the horizon. This was the moment I had been waiting for.
CHAPTER 2
GIRL WITH GILLS
With a shake of my long fluffy hair, I would dive gracefully into the sea, giving an artful flip with my tail fin as I disappeared into the depths. My parents would gasp with admiration at my power and beauty.
That was the vision…
…then there was the reality.
My parents gasped all right. It was either that or laugh out loud and risk one of their hormonally challenged daughter’s tantrums.
Sucking in my breath for courage, I gave the necklace a quick twist. Almost before I finished, my pale skinny legs disappeared, replaced by a large muscular fishtail, the kind worn by mermaids in all the best storybooks.
I was left standing on my tail. But not for long. No knees. No feet either. Without feet to support me and with a lower half that felt more like Tefnut’s tail than stuck-together legs, I slithered gracelessly to the ground, then flopped myself into the water.
“Sheesh. For someone whose mother spent a big chunk of her childhood as a mermaid, you should be better at it than this,” Dad choked out, in between belly laughs.
“Next time, Miriam,” Mom said through quivering lips, “twist the scale after you jump.”
“Thanks a lot, Mom. You could have told me before I bruised my butt…or whatever it is.”
“Sorry, Doll,” she sniggered.
“Oh, look.” Mom pointed to a place just behind me. “Miriam, you still have your wings.” I wiggled my shoulder blades and could feel the pull of the current tugging on the wings poking out from under my t-shirt.
“My daughter,” she sighed with mock pride, “the flying mermaid. Speaking of which, is Poppy’s cape all right?”
Flying mermaid? I pressed my lips together and didn’t say the words that wanted to come out. It’s all right for them to make fun of me, but look out if I try to defend myself with a funny comeback.
So, I kept my mouth shut and checked the right wing pocket. I could feel the little lump that was the shadow-coat that Poppy, had given me, the day I received my wing buds and sampo from the rest of the dragonfly fairies. The wing pocket was still nice and tight.
“Snug as a bug,” I answered.
“What about the sampo? Is it still there?” Dad said anxiously and perfectly reasonably, since my pants were not. I checked.
“Yes. It’s here.”
I was still wearing my T-shirt, but except for the drawstring bag around my waist, the rest of my clothes seemed to have disappeared. My new blue-green tail was covered with shiny scales almost, but not quite identical to the charm around my neck which had taken on a translucent glow. Giving the necklace another twist I felt the weight of wet sneakers and jeans on my skinny legs and quickly twisted myself right back to tail again.
“I wondered about that,” I said. “But this T-shirt, ugh. I must look awful, and it feels worse. Wait a minute,” I said to my parents. “And don’t look.”
Swimming under the pier for privacy, I switched to l
egs and climbed onto a sheared-off, out of use pylon. First I took off my squishy sneakers.
“Here. Catch.” I called up to Mom and Dad.” Reaching out and leaning as far as I could towards the edge of the decking above me, I tossed them up one at a time onto the dock, sneaker, sock, sneaker, sock. Thump, plop, thump, plop. Four perfect landings.
Next, I opened my bag. Out came a tiny bra top made of seashells.
“I hope you’re not looking,” I hollered out.
I held the thing at arm’s length to examine it. Two big shells, mother-of-pearl smooth on the inside, each one decorated with a border of tiny golden-yellow conch shells. Dozens of small, oval shells were strung together to make the straps.
I put the whole thing gingerly across my chest over the wet T-shirt. Six years old, I thought. When I was six, I would have eaten mashed peas to have one of these. I think I blushed.
“I can not do this,” I muttered to myself. Making a face, I quickly shoved the Little Mermaid Bra Top back into my bag.
Impulsively, I pulled off my T-shirt and stuffed it in on top of the seashells. Now this is what a real mermaid would wear, I thought, opening my arms wide to get the full effect.
This worked for about two seconds. Then I crossed my arms over my bare chest, looking around and up through the cracks in the wooden pier to make sure that Mom and Dad weren’t peeking and that the deserted stretch of beach was still deserted.
Finally, out of my bag, came a bikini, my size, my style. Since I’m not a real mermaid, I guess this will be okay, I thought. My jeans and underpants were the next thing to hit the deck.
“Keep not looking,” I shouted. Crouching naked on the pylon, I put on the bathing suit and lowered myself back into the water. Another twist on the necklace and the bathing suit bottom was gone. I was back in my new fishy form. There is no way I’m going to wear a bunch of seashells on my chest, I thought, swimming out from under the pier.
“Like my new outfit?” I said to Mom and Dad as soon as I got to where they could see me. The bikini top felt a little silly with my tail, but it was comfortable.
“Looks great,” Mom said. “Have you tested the gills yet?”
“No.”
“So, do it. You’ll love it.”
The truth was, that I wasn’t in a hurry to figure out the breathing part. You think everybody wants to be able to breathe underwater, right? But faced with actually doing it is scary. Just the thought of sucking in water made me feel panicky.