The Ocean Price

CHAPTER TWO

Adella ran across the shopping centre. She called Lorelei desperately but she didn't pick up. Adella groaned in despair. Why did she have to open her big mouth? Maybe if she had apologised profusely, Lorelei would have accepted the apology and they could've ate cinnamon rolls together and talk about school.

She ran out of the centre and to the seaside. She collapsed in a heap on the sand, watching the waves she'd only seen from the window.

Suddenly, a girl popped next to her. Well, calling her a girl was not really a thing. The lady looked ageless, her face shifting between the oldest granny to the most youthful teenager. Her long shiny silver hair glinted in the light and she kept tossing it on one side. Her eyes with a light grey, giving off an impression of a delicate pearl, round and fragile but beautiful in an intimidating way. But, her pupils were strange, they reflected the waves dancing about when you stared at them intensely but Adella didn't see herself in the pupils like she would with normal people. And the girl wasn't even facing the waves.

"Is that you?" she asked, her voice whispery and echoing like hearing the waves in a seashell. Hearing her voice was like putting on ear in a seashell, the roaring hollowness and then a scratchy whisper dancing along.

She was pointing at Adella's phone, open to the lock screen where her deceased parents had put their arms around the two girls and they were smiling on the beach. This felt so ironic now, she was on the beach but none of her family were there and she certainly wasn't happy.

Adella nodded then whilst the girl was staring into the ocean, she shoved the phone quickly into her pocket. She didn't want it to get stolen.

After a few minutes, the girl spoke again. "I'm Pearl. Who are you?" Adella sighed with relief. Her name was something she knew. "I'm Adella," she replied. Pearl frowned. "Adella what?" "Adella Coralia. My last name is my mother's first name."

Pearl mouthed Coralia. Then, she shoved Adella onto the ground and rolled her over. Adella screamed and tried to bite Pearl's gripping hands. But, Pearl's skin was surprisingly tough and she pushed Adella harder and they fell into a narrow rock pool. Adella grappled for the edge, the top of the never-ending hole but she kept slipping down. She glanced at where Pearl was and she saw a beautiful mermaid swishing about with a long iridescent white tail that flicked nervously and darted around, letting the light play around.

Adella fought for the top, her breath was hitching and running out until her necklace, a sea-green jewel set against opal with a thin gold chain, emitted a bright beam and the water compressed further and further away until Adella was floating in the world's largest bubble, big enough to contain her. 

Pearl looked surprised to see Adella like that. Then, she gasped with understanding. "Sea-glass. You're wearing it, aren't you?" Adella frowned whilst she caught her breath. "Sea-glass?" she coughed out. 

Pearl pointed at her necklace. 'It protects you from the water and stops the mermaid transformation. But, it is deadly too. If I were to wear this, if I hadn't got full protection, I would explode. Use sea-glass the wrong way and the whole population of us would vanish." Adella leant back in her protective bubble, tired from biting and rolling before fully comprehending what she was hearing.

"Mermaid? You-Oh. You're Pearl, aren't you? A mermaid in disguise. You were wearing a bracelet of sea-glass to be a human but you did have protection on. I tried to yank the protection off you whilst you tackled me, the thin membrane which coated your skin like a coat. That's why you pushed us into the water, the sea-glass was about to kill you. But, water repels the sea-glass and water heals you. Sea-glass also repels water so that's why I'm still alive, right?"

Pearl cackled. "Oh, you're smarter than you seem. And, you catch awfully fast. Maybe you're smart enough to figure out the ocean price before we tell it to you."

The ocean price. Adella's mind whirred. Suddenly, she had an answer. "The ocean price. I have to pay to get my sister back right? If I'm a mermaid, I'm assuming that mermaids have infinite wishes. That's why when I wished for Lorelei to get sucked up by the ocean, she did. And I have to pay the price for wishing. Don't I? The price goes both ways, to get her back and to the pay the price of wishing with a cost. Then, she'll come back if I pay the ocean. The ocean will forgive me and my wish will be flipped."

Pearl nodded. "You are really smart I guess. Usually, we use the wishes to kill ourselves or to save them up for the end. We are immortal, us mermaids. Coralia was one of us, I recognise her in you. We monitored her until she wore sea-glass. She couldn't have been killed in a car accident like the news said. She died because she wasted her wish on that dumb man. I'm guessing she killed herself after watching him die. That's why we save it until last. Killing yourself, you can't pay the ocean price. But, it goes onto your descendants. So, you would've had to pay the price even without wishing dumbly. That's why your mother's wish was for you to come to the seaside, to pay her price."

Adella grew angry. "How do you know about our parents' will?" Pearl smiled. "I can track your sister even if I can't track you." Adella's eyes flared and for a moment, the bubble turned red with her emotions. Then, the bubble went back to normal. Pearl gasped. "I've never seen that in action. Your protective bubble should shift colours and shapes and sizes with your emotions." 

Adella slumped backwards on her bubble and the bubble started to sink. Water poured through and she forgot how to breathe. Pearl's guilty face stared back at her whilst holding a hairpin with, unsurprisingly, a pearl on the end. Then, Adella's world went black and she hit the ground with a thump.