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“I feel like going for a swim.”
Rikki turns at the sound of Emma’s voice. She is standing at the water’s edge with an inscrutable expression, an outcropping of rock from the island silhouetted behind her. “I’ll come with you,” says Rikki. She squeezes Zane’s hand before she drops it.
“No,” Emma says, casting her blue eyes away, “I need to go on my own.”
The sun is just starting to kiss the horizon and turn the sky purple. Zane looks between Emma and Rikki, saying, “Are you sure? Once you’re back before moonrise, I can hold down the fort here.” Rikki quirks a brow at him. “Campsite. Whatever.”
Emma shakes her head, resigned. “I need to be alone.” She spares Rikki one last look before she makes her way towards the surf. “I’ll catch up with you later?”
“Er, sure!” Rikki calls.
With that, Emma wades into the waves that spill ashore, the last of the sun flickering on the water like candlelight. Her copper-coloured fin flashes as it meets the sea. Rikki feels Zane’s hand slip into hers. “What was all that about?”
“I’m sure she’s fine,” says Rikki with a shrug. “Em’s a tough cookie.”
When she turns to face him, she finds Zane is looking at her already. Her heart gives a little pang at the sight of him, the same features she has seen a thousand times before: the hard angle of his jaw; the gentle curve of his mouth; the way his hair swoops above his ears, making her want to reach out and run her fingers through the strands. His thumb rubs smooth circles on the back of her hand, a familiar gesture.
“Yeah, I’m sure,” he says, dark eyes softening. Then, something pulls him away from her, his head whipped around. “Hey, the moon’s already up.” His expression grows grave, his concern palpable. “How do you feel?”
Rikki takes a deep breath to steady herself. This is the reason they decided to come to Mako tonight, after all. While the rest of their year celebrate the end of exams with a party at the Marine Park’s function hall, Rikki and her friends would be close to the solace of the moon pool should lunar madness strike. She lets herself bathe in the moon’s bright rays, looking it straight in the eye.
She feels lighter than air under the pearly, white glow. A rush of pure energy washes over her like a tidal wave. Each one of her senses is heightened. The ocean brine is a sharp, clear scent that cuts through everything else. The sound of the sea kissing the shore and the breeze tangling her hair feels closer, somehow. The weight of Zane’s hand in hers, though, is warm. Steady. Constant. She focuses on this feeling and holds on even tighter.
“I’m okay,” she tells him in earnest. Their brushes with the full moon of late have been different. She knows she can handle this. “Do you want to gather some wood,” she says, “so I can start a fire?”
He gives her a look that’s halfway between worry and irritation. “I have to gather all the wood by myself?”
“I’m doing the hard part, remember?” She wraps her arms around his middle and cranes her neck to look up at him.
“This—” He raises his hand in the air and curls his fingers into a fist— “is the hard part?”
“I’m sorry, are you harbouring secret mermaid powers I don’t know about?” His fingers trail her jaw, and she finds herself leaning into his touch. “Didn’t think so.”
Melodramatic as ever, he rolls his eyes and says, “You’re lucky you’re cute.”
“Yeah, yeah.” Her arms drop to her sides, and she lets her eyes fall so he doesn’t see the blush colouring her cheeks.
Sinking down onto the sand, she folds her legs beneath her and watches as the sea turns violet. The tents are all set up, Zane’s Zodiac and Lewis’s little fishing boat moored nearby. There is nothing left for her to do but ponder over what has led them to this moment, the stolen set of spark plugs, the malevolent marine biologist, the ruby locket that lives on her neck, the grief-stricken girl intent on destroying their little family. The look in Zane’s eyes when she first told him he was brave. The way her heart knocked in her throat when he wrapped her in his suit jacket.
He has been there for all of it. For better or worse, Zane is a part of her story. From the moment she hijacked his Zodiac to the day he crouched down by the moon pool’s edge and promised to protect her secret, it sometimes feels like she can’t imagine anything without him. If she tries to remember what it was like before Zane came marching into her life, driving her insane in more ways than one, it all just unravels.
She lets herself acknowledge the depths of her feelings for him, then. Usually it’s easy for her to run from her emotions. After all, she’s had a lot of practice. This time, though, she can’t hide from the feeling. Under the shimmering light of the full moon she is struck with a realisation that hits her like lightning. All at once she feels it in her bones, knows it in her very soul.
She waits for the depths of this sensation to subside, but it never does. It would be easier to stop breathing than to quash this feeling. She has felt it for a long time, digging its stubborn heels into her heart and making its home there. It is the first time she has really let herself see it. Now, there is only one thing left to do.
All of a sudden, she feels calm, focused and certain. She is surprised, though, when she turns to find Zane has made it back to the beach already. “Well that was quick.”
“I didn’t want to leave you alone for too long, what with the full moon.” He is carrying a small stack of wood with a panicked expression on his face. “Will this be enough?”
“It should be.” Rikki jumps to her feet and shakes the sand off her trousers. She grins and adds, “I am pretty powerful, after all.”
He meets her smile with one of his own and says, “Yeah, for someone so short.” He drops the pile in the centre of the campsite and rearranges some of the pieces.
“We can’t all be freakishly tall like you,” she says, teasing, and crouches down by the firewood. She extends her hand and squeezes her fingers tight. Smoke starts to rise from the centre of the pyre, billowing towards the starry sky. She can feel the heat as flames begin to flicker. Just like that, the whole thing is engulfed in fire, and she pulls away as amber-orange glows in the dark.
Zane helps her up to her feet again. “Do you think Lewis and Cleo are alright?”
“Look at you,” she says, poking him in the chest, once. “When did you become the concerned boyfriend?”
“We are on a desert island in the middle of the night, under a full moon,” he reminds her. His brows climb towards his hairline. She wants to reach out with her thumb and rub the little line on his forehead away. “You’re not worried about what might happen?’’
With a roll of her eyes, she throws her arms around his neck and says, “I’ve got you to protect me, haven’t I?”
“Maybe I should check if—”
“Zane,” she says, “Cleo and Lewis are fine.” His brown eyes dart towards the forest still. “Do you want to tell me what’s really wrong?”
His hands hover at her waist. He takes a shaky breath, and the look he gives her is piercing as it is soft as he holds her gaze. “I love you, Rikki.”
“Oh,” she hears herself say. She tangles her hands in his hair and presses her lips to his. He deepens the kiss, pulling her close, and when she tears herself away to breathe her cheeks ache from the stretch of her smile. “I love you, too,” she tells him, finally. “Obviously.”
“‘Obviously?’” he cries. There is annoyance in his tone, but his grin is even wider than hers. “You really kept me hanging for that long?”
“I wanted to kiss you,” she says, punctuating her point by planting her lips against his jaw. “Or did you not want me to?”
The tips of his ears turn scarlet. She’s got him, now. “Of course I want to—” The rest of his sentence vanishes into thin air. “I can’t believe I’m in love with you.”
Now it’s her turn to be embarrassed. "Say it again?” she says under her breath.
“I’m in love with you. I love you,” he says, his voice low, his eyes falling lower.
Rikki buries her face in his shoulder and says, “You’re an idiot.”
“Yeah, yeah,” he says, holding her tight and laughing all the while. “You love me, too.”
“I do.” She emerges from her hiding place and wipes at the corner of her eye. In her peripheral vision, fractured moonlight is dancing on the sea. “I think I see Emma coming out of the water,” she says.
“In that case, I am going to look for Lewis and Cleo.” Zane squeezes her hand, once, and pulls away. Even with the heat of the fire it feels a little colder without him.
“Don’t fall into any moon pools,” she calls to his retreating form, a hint of worry in her tone.
“No promises!” he says with a chuckle.
She can’t help the way her heart soars when he pumps his fist in the air.
Twenty minutes spent battling with tent poles, and Cleo has to concede, handing the ropes over to Lewis. Her Dad would probably be ashamed. Emma has her own tent up in record time, and Lewis pitches in to help Rikki and Zane, their arms full of ropes and pegs and their faces filled with confusion. They look right together, Cleo thinks. Two puzzle pieces that fit. Absently she wonders if she and Lewis look like that.
Beside her, Lewis flops down onto the sand, his limbs outstretched like a rag doll’s. “Well,” he says, “that’s enough exercise for the year.”
Cleo claps the sand away from her hands. She suddenly feels like she has something to say. “Lewis, you wanna take a walk?”
“Sure!” He springs to his feet, leaving Emma, Rikki, and Zane back at the campsite. He threads his fingers through Cleo’s and says, “Later, guys.”
“Later!” Rikki calls. Zane waves. Emma looks distracted, watching where the sand meets the sea with her lips pressed in a thin line.
Their chatter turns to white noise in Cleo’s mind as she and Lewis make their way inland. Anticipation courses through her at the thought of moonrise. Any minute now, moonstruck madness could strike, wreaking havoc on the relative peace their little group has enjoyed for weeks now. It is darker in the canopy of the jungle. The last of the daylight is peeking through the cracks in the trees, green leaves dappled with yellow. A fern reaches out and grazes her side. Lewis clears the long arm of a branch away from her path. She ducks under it with a smile, grateful.
That same feeling comes again, like she should say something, only she doesn’t know what. In truth she and Lewis have talked less than she’d like since the last full moon. It seems like all she’s done the past month is cram for exams and pull double shifts at the Marine Park, working overtime for the busy season. They have had little time to bask in the glow of their rekindled romance as of late. Thinking about the last time they were all together on Mako makes her think of… well, someone she would rather forget.
Lewis hops from stone to stone over the water. He reaches out to guide her through the forest without risking a splash. “Hey, I hear there’s this pool underneath a volcano not far from here.” Cleo hardly hears him. “Cleo, are you alright?”
She lets out a sigh. She goes to sit on a rock that overlooks the spring, winding serpentine through the jungle. “Look,” she says. All at once she knows what she has to do. “This is really hard for me.”
Just like that, a thin ray of moonlight slices through the trees. For a moment she is entranced; there is nothing but the call of the moon, pulling her towards the pool at the heart of the island, luring her like a siren’s song. The wind in the trees and the chirping of the cicadas all turn to silence. She feels Lewis’s presence at her side, though, and lets him restore her calm. His voice cuts through her consciousness until she turns her head back around to face him.
Behind him, the volcano looms towards the lilac sky. He is looking straight at her, worry in his sharp, blue eyes. Cleo can’t claim familiarity with this part of the island, but she knows that Lewis knows it, having spent hours upon hours searching the jungle for answers to all their secrets. She thinks they might be near where he took Charlotte the day Cleo, Rikki, and Emma crouched behind the rocks to spy on them. Guilt pierces through her heart at the thought.
“I’m sorry,” she blurts out.
“Why are you the one saying ‘sorry?’” he says, taking her hand in his once more. “I should apologise for being all overbearing and…” His face screws up, perplexed. “What are you sorry for?”
“For everything!” Sudden, blinding clarity overcomes her, and she could swear the moon smiles when she says, “For the way I treated you when you were with Charlotte.”
“Oh, come on now,” he says. His concern dissolves before her very eyes.
“I’m serious,” says Cleo, her voice rising in pitch, carrying through the forest. "I was the one who broke up with you, and I acted all jealous and controlling and like— like Kim!”
He lets out a laugh that makes her pulse race with abandon. “Maybe you had your moments,” he says, “but you’re no Kim Sertori.” He chuckles once more as if to punctuate his point.
“No, Lewis…” She shakes her head as the memories come flooding back. “I went through Charlotte’s diary, I tried to sabotage the dinner with my Dad because I was jealous.” A tsunami of shame washes over her while she recounts her regrets. Still, she has to get it all out, saying, “I even followed you out to Mako because I thought something was going on with you two! I’m so sorry.”
Something shifts in his expression, but his lips still quirk at the corners. He clasps her hand in both of his and says, “This is starting to sound like a list of reasons to apologise to Charlotte, not to me.”
Her stomach does somersaults at the thought. “Hey,” Lewis adds with haste, “please don’t beat yourself up over it. The important thing is that we’re together now, and we talk about these things. Truth be told, sometimes I go a little crazy when it comes to you, too.”
At that, Cleo’s cheeks begin to burn. “What can I do?” she hears herself say. “To make it up to you?”
“You already have,” he says. Then, he looks askance, thoughtful under the glow of the moon. “Well, there is one thing…”
Sheer, unbridled panic flares in Cleo’s chest when realisation sets in. “Charlotte's moved away, remember?” she says. “Her Mum got that offer to franchise her restaurant.”
“I believe there are these things called phones?” Mischief plays in his smile. “Or, failing that, you could write her a letter. And I know she’s come back to see Max once or twice since the move.”
“Fine. I do owe her an apology,” she says. “The girls, too, but mostly me.”
Cleo lets her eyes fall to the river as it flows down towards the beach. Pure, white moonlight is reflected on its surface. The sight is nothing short of enchanting. Still, she can’t help but feel that the real magic is the boy sitting beside her, who took her hand at a pool party a lifetime ago and never let go since.
Lewis squeezes her hand. “There is something magical about this island, you know that?” he says, stealing the words right out of her mouth.
“Yeah,” she says with a laugh. “I think you’ve just gotta go with the magic.”
She captures Lewis’s lips with her own, then. Her heart gives a little jolt when she feels his hands in her hair. Through the haze of her relief, it occurs to Cleo that it is hard to kiss someone when you can’t stop smiling.
It is getting dark by the time Emma makes it back to the beach. She had needed some time to think. The sway of the sea life seemed to soothe her, verdant weeds dancing their perpetual dance, starlight twinkling in the deep. A pod of dolphins followed her to the edge of the mangroves. The silence beneath the surface was deafening. It was just what she needed.
Still, she thought she should get back before moonrise, lest the others start to worry. Her mermaid’s tail propels her forward, leaving the sea behind. She elbows her way up the sand until she reaches a dry spot. The beach breeze is warm like bathwater in her wet hair. The light wanes further, the sea turning indigo. A gull dips down and emerges with a fish in her beak.
“Hey,” Rikki says. As usual, she crouches by her side, keeping a little distance and raising a closed fist over her tail. Her scales start to sting from the sizzling heat. Steam rises, and she is treated to the familiar fizzing sensation when her fins turn back to legs. Two normal human girls sit before the fire together, waves melting onto the shore.
“How are you going?” says Emma. Just like that, the clouds part, and the moon is gazing down at them with her entrancing, white face.
“Well, me and Zane just said ‘I love you,’ so I decided I had to go and do… anything else.” She shivers as if admitting to violent criminal activity.
The joy that washes over her is amplified tenfold by the spell of the moon. It is pure, unadulterated ecstasy, happiness incomparable. “Rikki, that’s great!” says Emma, her grin threatening to split her face in half. “I’m so happy for you.”
“You? Happy for me and Zane?” She gives her that incredulous look she wears so well. “Who are you, and what have you done with my friend Emma?”
The moon’s silvery rays catch her eye again. She shimmers, suspended in the sky, filling her with a tranquil calm. Somehow, she can’t stop smiling. “It’s funny you should say that. I’ve actually never felt more like myself.”
“Oh yeah? You having some sort of full moon realisation, too?” Rikki nudges her in the ribs when she doesn’t answer. “Em?”
“I have to break up with Ash.” In truth, she has had to break up with him for a while now. She didn’t even invite him tonight. When the girls asked, she had told them he was pulling the late shift at the juice bar, knowing full well that they know the place closes at six.
“Oh,” says Rikki. “Why’s that?”
Emma steals one last glance at the full moon and says, “I like girls, Rikki. I like girls the way boys are supposed to like girls. I mean, I like girls, and I don’t like boys.” Rikki just looks at her, impassive. “Are you going to say anything?”
Quietly, she says, “I know.”
“You know?” Emma breathes. She sits up on her knees in utter disbelief. “What do you mean, ‘you know?’ I didn’t even know!”
Rikki toys with her ruby locket. “People like us… we tend to stick together. I know how to recognise one of us when I see them.”
The cogs start to turn in Emma’s sharp mind. Still, it takes her a second to put two and two together. “You mean, you like girls?” she says. “But you like Zane.”
“What can I say?” That wide smirk is back again. “I’m an equal opportunity kinda girl.”
She is usually pretty adept at naming her emotions, but there are no words in the English language to describe what Emma is feeling right now. Relief mingled with surprise and something like regret is as close as she can get. Trust Rikki to keep quiet about all of this, she thinks.
“I can’t believe you knew this whole time, and you never told me!” she says, resisting the urge to swat her in the arm. “Why?”
“I wanted you to come to the right conclusion in your own time,” says Rikki, holding her hands up in defeat. “Besides, what would you have done if I came to you six months ago and said, ‘hey Em, I think you’re a lesbian?’”
A moment of deliberation provides Emma with some clarity. Indeed, she can’t imagine she would have responded well. Rikki leans in conspiratorially, saying, “I would have ended up like Miriam after she messed with the settings in the cool room.”
Now it’s Emma’s turn to shudder. “Don’t remind me.” The salt in the firewood turns the flames all different colours. For a second, the fire flashes rainbow, and she can’t help but stare. “Does Cleo know?”
She offers a wry smile and says, “Well, we haven’t exactly gabbed about it, but I’m sure she does.” She starts to draw shapes on the sand with her finger, stars and hearts and little half-moons. “Thanks… for telling me.”
“Falling in love has really made you soft, you know that?” she teases.
“Yeah, yeah,” she says with a laugh. Suddenly she sobers. “When are you gonna tell Ash?”
With a sigh, she feigns fascination with the sand. She is looking forward to breaking up with Ash about as much as she would a root canal. “I have no idea.” Her voice comes out reedy and panicked. “Ash is a good guy. I don’t want to hurt him.”
“Don’t sweat it.” Emma raises a brow at her. “I’m pretty sure I saw him checking out Lewis that time on the beach. Hey, maybe you two aren’t so different after all!”
Dismissing thoughts of throwing a fistful of sand in her face, Emma laughs in spite of herself and says, “Remind me why you’re the first person I told I like girls?”
“Finally!”
She starts at the sound of Cleo’s voice, who goes to sit by her side and squeezes her shoulder, once. Zane appears next to Rikki, Lewis next to him. “You owe me ten dollars,” adds Cleo.
Lewis scratches the back of his neck. “Er, didn’t we say five?” he says, sheepish. Emma is torn between relieved disbelief and half-hearted annoyance at the thought of her friends betting on her. All she can do is smile.
Zane produces a bag of marshmallows and starts shovelling fistfuls into his mouth. “Not the first person,” he says through the mouthful.
“What?” Emma says with a shake of her head.
“You told me you liked girls back when we were kids.” Zane is nonchalant as he gulps down an impossible number of marshmallows.
“I’m sorry,” she says, perplexed, “what?”
“You were five, and I was six,” says Zane by way of explanation. “I told you I had a crush on you, you told me about how you like girls and swore me to secrecy.” The vaguest spark of a memory lights up Emma’s mind. “You don't remember?”
“Hold on.” Rikki’s face is brimming— no, overflowing with amusement. “You had a crush on Emma?”
Inching closer to the semicircle gathered around the fire, Lewis says, “Now this, I have to hear about.”
“It was a—” Zane, chagrined, leaves his sentence suspended midair. “I mean, I wouldn’t call it a crush, per se…”
“But you just said—”
“No, I heard you say—”
“In what possible universe—”
“I never thought I’d see the day—”
Emma sounds out the cacophony of her friends’ ensuing argument. With the moon looking down at them, bright white and jubilant, it doesn’t matter. Everything is glowing.