The mermaid of Coral Cove

Chapter 3 Coral Cove

I followed Amber as she led me down a path with thick foliage on either side, I could hear the ocean getting louder with every step down the steep path. "Amber how much farther till we get to the beach?" I tapped Amber on the shoulder.

"Not much farther, Arina." She looked at me over her shoulder.

We continued on around a pile of rocks and I could see the beach, it was a very sunny day and the ocean sparkled like a thousand little lights. We reached the end of the path and stood on the sand.

"This is Coral Cove, I found the path leading down to the ocean a year ago and I have been coming here every day since." Amber smiled.

"It's beautiful!" I exclaimed happily.

' I'll have to be careful not to go near the water, I can't let my secret be exposed. ' I thought.

"Hey um, do you want to race?" I challenged Amber as I began to kick off my shoes.

"You're on." Amber took off her shoes and crouched down, ready to take off running, I crouched down beside her, "You're gonna lose!!!" I said teasingly.

"In your dreams cupcake." Amber made a funny face at me, "READY, SET, GO!" We both pelted down the beach at full throttle. Suddenly Amber tripped and crashed into me, we both went out of control and sidestepped towards the ocean, a wave came up fast and we both tumbled in.

Feelings of horror mixed with panic flooded over me as I lifted my face out of the water.

I sat up and looked at Amber in terror, she was about to discover my most dangerous and biggest secret.

I felt the familiar tingling sensation in my legs as they started to glow, they flashed a bright deep yellow color, I narrowed my eyes and as the light faded, in place of my legs was a red tail, it was a light red with dark red spots on either side, finally ending in a mix of dark and light red tail fin.

I looked over at Amber in horror, and felt like panicking. "I-I can explain!" I started to say. But then I stopped.

She looked as surprised as I did, except not in the way I expected, I expected her to be freaking out because her new friend has a fish tail, but no, and I guess that's because she had one too.

I gaped at Amber's tail incredulously, it was a beautiful shade of gold, her fins were a slightly different shape than mine, while my tail ended with longer pointy fins, her tail fins were a bit shorter and rounder.

"Wait, what!?" I gasped.

"Um, this is really weird." Amber said, kind of leaning away from me.

"Yea totally." Was my reply.

"Soooo." Amber heaved a sigh of relief.
"You won't tell will you?" She asked.

"Of course not!" I replied.

"I honestly didn't expect, to ever in my life meet another mermaid by chance." I admitted.

Suddenly I heard something, a few rocks rolling down from the beach path, Amber and I looked over, a girl who looked my age was crouched on the path, 'how long has she been watching us?' I thought. Amber grabbed my wrist and pulled me towards the water, "Swim away Arina!" She whispered, "COME ON HURRY!"

I turned around and dragged my tail into the water after Amber. The girl stood up and watched us escape, we scrambled for a few feet until we reached deeper water and dove under the surface.

We swam out and around to the right. Before climbing out onto the beach behind a pile of rocks. I peeked around a rock and saw the girl standing at the edge of the water, trying to see where we had gone. "We're safe!" I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Yea just until she tells someone what she saw." Amber said worriedly.

"Hurry, get dry." I said, Amber laid down in a patch of sunlight, I joined her. "If only we had a towel." I said.
Amber giggled.

She reached out her hand towards her glistening tail and made a slow motion, steam began to rise and within seconds her legs appeared.
Her clothes were completely dry and so was her hair.

I did the same to my tail and soon we were crouched behind the rocks, waiting for the girl to leave, as soon as she was gone we ran up the beach path and back onto the docks.