competing. Perhaps she wants you on her side. You are the only

champion with a third of the trident, and you’re of her family.”

I scratch the inside of my elbows, suddenly feeling like she’s in

my veins. “Or she’s just after all the champions, and she’s going to

take us out one by one.”

“That too.”

Suddenly my mom walks into the kitchen and pulls us into

bone-crushing hugs. Her red hair gets all over my face, and I breathe

her scents in deeply-powder and roses and somehow always something of

the sea, like she never left.

“Bruises.” I groan. “They hurt.”

“We’ve been so worried.” Her bright turquoise eyes search my face

like I just fell off the monkey bars and make me feel self-conscious

in front of Kurt.

For a long time we don’t say anything else.

She turns on the TV in the kitchen. The morning news is reporting

a dead boy on the beach this morning. The footage is dark and grainy.

They interview a homeless woman who used the pay phone when she saw

the kids screaming on the beach. The reporter comes back on. Despite

her neat lady suit, the reporter has hair that’s messed up like she

got a call and rolled out of bed. She’s standing on the Manhattan side

of a bridge.

It reminds me of something Frederik said. The news lady glances

back at the remnants of a second crime scene. Another boy was found in

the Hudson by the South Street Seaport yesterday. The wounds are

consistent with shark bites, and local fishermen are trying to catch

the rogue shark blamed for the attacks.

“Rogue shark?” My mother sucks her teeth. “It’s muddy Hudson

water, not Cape Cod.”

Then the weather girl comes on and announces bright and sunny

skies for the rest of the week until a storm on Thursday. My stomach

heaves. Another storm?

I hit the mute button.

“There’ve been more of them,” Mom says. “Always boys. Your dad’s

been using red tacks for where bodies have turned up. The blue tacks

are for you.”

I look at the map of the world and the smaller one of just New

York. Clusters of red along the Coney Island coast. Ryan’s house in

Sea Breeze. Even up by the Bronx. I add another red and then a blue to

the Key West part of Florida where I estimate the Vanishing Cove might

be. The news shifts back to the bridge and I think of my dream.

Frederik standing under it.

“Mom, do you know the other landlocked that live in the city?”

“I’m not landlocked, Tristan.” She frowns. “I chose this life.”

“Okay, but you got stripped of your tail. Even if it was your

choice, you still can’t go back to court. Isn’t that what the

landlocked are?”

“Why are you asking me this?”

Kurt says, “What Tristan means is, has there been a time when

you’ve come across the banished?”

That’s not what Tristan means, but Kurt and my mom seem to have a

“court” bond that I’ll never understand.

“It’s just something my friend Frederik said this morning.” I

don’t know why she’s getting so mad. “He said all he knew of our

people were the landlocked and the old man under the bridge. Does that

mean anything to you?”

“I don’t like the idea of you befriending vampires.” She starts

making breakfast. Cracking eggs open and tossing out the shells. She

clucks her tongue when she misses the garbage.

I clean it up for her. “Ma, Frederik’s a cool vampire.”

“Doesn’t change that they like to drink mermaids dry. Either way,

I wonder if he means Gregorious.”

“The historian?” Kurt asks. “I thought he was dead.”

Mom pinches her chin thoughtfully. “If he’s alive, he must be six

hundred by now.”

I raise my hand, regretting the pain that shoots up my arm. “Share

with the class?”

“The last time Toliss came to the shore,” Mom says, grinding tons

of sea salt into the pan, “not the time that I stayed, but around the

’40s, one of our historians stayed on land. He wanted to record our

histories here. I tried to find him when I was pregnant with you. I

wanted to ask him if there were records of other human-merfolk

children, but the house looked deserted.

“I went back a second time and still nothing, so I stopped trying.

I figured he either died or went back to court.” She shakes the salt

ten times into the pan. “Though if he is alive, I’m rather offended he

wouldn’t see me. He was our teacher once. My sisters and me.”

“The vampire must have mentioned it for a reason,” Kurt says,

drawing out “vampire” the way I say “homework.”

“Where is the house?” he asks.

“Under the bridge, obviously.” I smirk.

They ignore my sarcasm.

“It’s a brownstone under the Brooklyn Bridge. Water Street. I

remember because I thought it was ironic. Number 33. There aren’t many

houses on that street. Mostly factories.” She jots something down on a

scrap of paper and gives it to me. “I’ll pack up some food. Landlocked

or no, our people hate it when strangers show up without gifts.”

“What about your…other engagement?” Kurt says.

I down my breakfast like it’s my last meal and ignore my mother’s

prying eyes. “That’s not ’til later. Let’s go see the merman under the

bridge.”

“Thanks for the ride, Dad.”

“Don’t mention it, kiddo.” He adjusts his mirror and pulls the top

down. “Probably the only useful thing I can do for you.”

I know he’s joking, but when I look at him, I notice the dark

circles under his glasses, the slightly green tint to his face. He

turns up the volume when his favorite song comes on, something about a

girl who’s a sweet little thing and his pride and joy. Then pats my

shoulder reassuringly.

On any other day, my dad would start singing at the top of his

lungs while giving me and my friends a ride, and I’d roll my eyes and

groan. But today with the top down, music blaring, and my dad tapping

his finger to the beat of the song on his steering wheel, I just smile

at him and promise to always remember him this way.

Dad drops us off in front of a dilapidated brownstone. He

hesitates as he drives away. The vintage surf-green Mustang is out of

place on a street that’s seen better days.

This isn’t much of a neighborhood. Across the street is a parking

lot with only three cars. One is missing all its tires and a bumper.

Someone’s written “WASH ME” on all of the windshields.

Farther down is the river, murky and still. I shiver in the heat

of the day when I see something sleek and shimmering undulate just

above the surface. My first instinct is to go to it, but Kurt points

at a wreath hanging on the door to #33. The wreath is a wide coil made

of twigs, broken bits of coral, and seaweed.

“ Spirula spirula ,” Kurt says. “The symbol of the king.”

The front yard is dry, packed earth with weedy shoots lying at

slanted angles, like a bad comb-over. Ivy has overrun the sides of the

building. Underneath, the brick is broken where two other brownstones

used to flank this one.

I press on the bell, but the sound is muted. My neighbor does that

so when Halloween rolls around, he has no reason to come to the door.

“Maybe Frederik’s wrong.”

Kurt hops off the front steps. “Perhaps there’s a way in through

the back.”

“That’s trespassing. I’m impressed.” I knock a few times while

Kurt goes around the back. The windows have a thick layer of dust that

nearly hides very yellow blinds. I can’t tell if the shadow I see is a

man or a lot of dirt.

I give up on the front door and follow the path of decaying leaves