The Mermaid House: Part Six

LEANDER COULD NOT rationalize that encounter on the ocean road, so he drove to Thyme's Auto Shop, where he spoke with a silvery-haired man in overalls. As the man checked out his car, Leander casually interrogated him.
    His name was Ben Thyme. He'd had a son that used to play soccer. There had been an accident...fifteen years ago.

It took Leander an hour of frustrated driving before he found the neighborhood again. When he found the shipwreck house, it didn't look the same in the failing light of day. He approached it carefully, picking his way through weeds that seemed to have grown overnight.
    A feverish ache in his bones made him shiver. The house's windows were boarded up. The roof had sunk on one side. The porch was slimed with old leaves and lichen. In the neglected garden, he saw a giant, stone head surrounded by snaky hair, its face set in an expression of horror, its open mouth vomiting the roots of a small, twisty tree that was strangling a nearby oak. There were toadstools everywhere, and a rippling fungus around the Medusa head.
    He stepped back. He stared at the boarded-up house with a sick feeling. The attic window hadn't been covered. The glass was dark. He stared up at it as every instinct told him to run.
    Something drifted across the glass, inside. He backed away. He looked around at the tangled lawn. This couldn't be the right place.
    He glanced at the front door and saw the carvings of sea creatures, the stained-glass mermaid. He moved up the stairs. Peering inside, he could see a deserted room, trash on the floor, a spray of graffiti across the moldering wall. Only part of a poetic creed was visible -- ware La Mer's dark daughters.
    He turned and strode quickly back to his car. When he got into it, he hit the locks and stared accusingly at the house and thought It's tricking me.
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The Mermaid House: Part Five

BEWARE THE DARK DAUGHTERS of La Mer.
    The black water rippled with foam that glowed beneath the moon. A blood-red starfish clung to a rock looming over the silhouette of a woman who stood, waist-deep, in the ocean. Reflections of moonlight glittered across skin like diamonds, illuminated one half of a face that was white, cold. Something predatory seemed to swim in the dark pool of one eye. The inky tattooo swirling across her forehead was a tentacled sea flower with thorns. She raised one hand and in it was--
    Leander woke, that image of a dripping human heart making him choke, as if he had taken a bite out of it.
    It was morning. It was blindingly sunny. But he shivered when he remembered the pale crab crawling in the woman's black hair.
    He bypassed breakfast in the cream-carpeted living room furnished with white wicker and hurried out. His mom was at the hostpital and she'd left a note. He didn't bother looking at it.
    He rushed through the day, thinking of Violet and the shipwreck of a house. He couldn't seem to get warm, even in the pool of sunlight that bathed his desk in the last class.
    He was weaving through the student crowds in the hall when he passed the glass cases that held trophies and photos of past school victories. And he remembered where he'd seen Owen Thyme.
    He stood, isolated, staring at the photo of the 1970s soccer team and the grinning boy with the longish brown hair and chipped tooth. He read the names in the caption beneath.
    He turned and walked away.
    It's his dad. That's all. That was fifteen years ago, so it's not him.
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(Illustration: Warwick Goble)

The Mermaid House: Part Four

LEANDER WAS THINKING about the girl named after a flower when his Chevy broke down on an ocean boulevard he wasn't familiar with. As night drenched his windows, he pulled to the side just as his headlights faded. He got out, looked hopelessly around at trees and grass silvered by mist. He slumped against the car, feeling sick. He didn't know how far it was to a place with a phone--
    He saw a bright light coming towards him -- headlights -- and, disregarding any horror stories he'd heard of psychos on the road, he waved his arms. He saw the lights fade as the car pulled to the side. He waited, but didn't hear the sound of an engine.
    A boy walked from the mist. He seemed harmless, dressed in a gray T-shirt and jeans. He smiled, thumbs in his pockets. "Battery?"
    "I think so." Leander relaxed.
    The other boy nodded, walked around the car. The wind stirred his long, brown hair. "That happens sometimes, here. I'd give you a jump, but--" He shrugged, looked up. "Leander, right? I'm Owen. You moved into my old house, the one with the well in the back."
    Leander thought he recognized the other boy from school and nodded warily.
    "You like San Francisco so far?"
    "I do like it." Leander hesitated. "My dad's sick. So we came here, for the hospital."
    Owen's eyes darkened. "Be careful then."
    "Yeah. Okay, so can you give me a ride?"
    "I probably won't need to. Try starting the engine again."
    Leander doubtfully slid back into the car and turned the key in the ignition. The car roared to life. "Hell."
    "Yeah. It's weird here." Owen leaned down. "Bring it down to Thyme's Auto Shop. My dad'll check it out. He's a great mechanic, and a blacksmith on the side."
    "Thanks." Leander gripped the steeering wheel. He'd never heard of anyone being a blacksmith outside of Amish communities and Renaissance fairs.
    "Could you hold on a sec? Let me make sure my car starts?"
    Leander listed to him crunch away over the gravel. He waited. When he didn't hear anything after five minutes, he scowled and steered his Chevy around, back towards where he thought Owen Thyme had parked his car.
    He didn't see it. He drove around, twice, before returning to the road.
    He ignored the prickling at the nape of his neck that told him something out of the ordinary had just happened.
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