The Mermaid House: Part Three

THE GIRL'S EYES SEEMED TO glint a fey silver before she hunched forward, into the last of the light. "I live there. You see that frame carved around the door? I made that."
    "I'm not looking into windows or anything."
    She rose. Trailing smoke and ash, she drifted past him. "Come with me."
    He followed.
    As the sun set, he realized the house wasn't as derelict as it had seemed. What he'd mistaken for boards across the ground-floor windows were actually wooden shutters. The upstairs windows were open, not broken, and gauzy curtains billowed, revealing hints of antique furniture beyond. The door was made of stained-glass, its image that of a mermaid swimming up through the waves.  Around the door was a frame of dark wood into which images of squid, seahorses, and starfish had been carved.
    She looked over her shoulder as she ushered him into a cozy parlor scattered with shells and fossilized sea life. "Come on in. Funny thing -- me inviting you."
   "Is it? I'm Leander."
    She looked at him again. "That's an unusual name."
    "My mom was really into Shakespeare. She wanted to be an actress before she got into real estate."
    "I'm Violet." She turned, holding out a hand. The cigarette had vanished. She didn't smell of nicotine, but of fresh-cut flowers.
    He grasped her hand, which was cold and slender and decorated with several rings engraved with skulls, fish, and Celtic designs.
    Something thumped upstairs. He looked at the ceiling, frowned at the water stain there. A drop fell. "I think something's leak--"
     She was gazing intently at the wet patch. "You need to go. Damn, it's so early--"
    "What..."
    "My family is home. They don't like company." She backed him out the door. Before she closed it, she said, "You should avoid places with the three Ws growing around them."
    "The three--"
    "Witchweed, white clover, and watercress. Look at our garden."
    The door closed.
    He stared at the glowing mermaid in the stained glass. Slightly unsettled, he moved down the stairs, looked back at the house, in velvet darkness now, its lamplight hidden.
    He thought of the wet, dark-haired girl he'd filmed on the porch and shivered. My family is home.

The Mermaid House: Part Two

THIS NEIGHBORHOOD ON THE fringe of San Francisco was otherworldly. Leander, whose favorite films were strange, elegant, and elemental, loved it. He drove his creaking Chevy to a parking lot that had no apparent owner because of its weedy state and got out to walk around. He didn't see many people -- an elderly woman weeding a garden;a kid on a bike. There were a few lights in the houses, most of which had For Sale signs on the lawns or seemed forgotten altogether in cloisters of gnarled greenery.
    He wandered up a road shadowed by more of those twisting trees and found the shipwreck of a house.
    It was far back behind a screen of blackberry bushes. It had once been white, but was now gray with age, its slate roof smeared with lichen and rotting leaves, a giant spiderweb glittering across the veranda. The lower windows had boards across them and the upper ones were broken, with tattered curtains drifting in and out, giving glimpses of darkness. The house seemed to invite attention while whispering Beware.
    Leander shook his hair from his eyes and aimed the video camera at the house.
    A young woman stood on the veranda.
    Her hair was black and dripping, her silvery dress clinging to a slender body that seemed slightly attenuated, as if the camera lense were distorting her. There was a tattoo on her forehead, twining above eyes that were black and malevolent --
    Stumbling back, he lowered the video camera -- there was no one on the veranda. How had she moved so fast...?
    "What are you doing?"
    "Ow." The ringing in his ears made him flinch as he turned and gazed at the girl who sat on a low wall, watching him. "Um...hey..."
    She had a cigarette between full lips. Dressed in a black sweater, jeans, and Doc Martens, she looked pretty in a subversive way. Heavy brown hair tumbled around a pale face, dark eyes smudged with smoky liner. She was his age, about, but regarded him with a cynicism that seemed older. She tilted her head. "I said, what are you doing?"