Chapter 3

the madness continues xD

Chapter 3

The sun had just crested over the horizon, the orange and reds bathing the entwined forms of Zoe and Josiah high up on the beach. Zoe woke with a smile as he dozed beside her, his face relaxed, hair flipped over to one side. Zoe traced his face with her eyes; the bridge of his nose, the way it snubbed at the end, his full pink lips that she felt sure he had stolen off a lipstick model, to his round chin which had a scant halo of blonde stubble. She could feel his arms holding her close, holding her tight.

They both had legs again. It seemed that exposed to the air, as soon as her fins dried they changed back to legs. This seemed like a practical idea, she didn’t want to spend all her time underwater. Her hair had enough split ends as it was. She had also learnt last night when she went looking for her clothes not to bother. If mer-folk dives into the water fully clothed, it dematerialises, so as Josiah said with a faint grin, its best to get out of them first if you want to keep them. 

Zoe had spent the whole night lying in the arms of a merman but she realized that from the second her plane crashed into the ocean, her life was never going to be the same. Technically she had started a new life, thanks to Josiah. A new beginning, leaving the old one behind. So somehow spending the night with a merman didn’t seem so weird after all. Her former life seemed so far away, like a distant dream washed out by the crashing waves. Her parents, her job, her transfer to America as an exchange student, her bedroom. It all seemed so distant. Already she found it hard to recall the exact locations of things, they were fuzzy around the edges making her unsure. In good time she would forget all together.

When she looked up, his eyes had sleepily opened. Zoe lifted a hand, brushing the tufts of hair from his eyes. “You should think about a hair cut,” she grinned. Actually she liked his hair like that.

“Most hairdressers don’t make house calls where I live,” he mumbled sleepily, his lips pulled in a faint grin. 

Zoe felt herself slip deeper into those eyes that seemed to suck her in like quicksand, paralysing her. Zoe had never been one to flippantly giver herself up to any guy. In actual fact she had never given herself up to a guy. Sure some had been interested but Zoe hated the notion of one night stands, which seemed to be all that they were interested in. And partially due to her upbringing, plus her large personal space bubble, Zoe had kept all guys she knew well at bay. Sure she fantasised about James Halford but only because she knew they were just that, fantasies. He would never look at her. 

And yet, lying here feeling Josiah’s breath brush across her skin, his long fingers stroking their way down her thighs leaving trails of fire in their wake, his toes brushing the soles of her feet, it didn’t feel wrong. It felt right. Like she had unknowingly knocked back all those guys for this one moment. Like it was-

“Destiny?” Josiah supplied.

Zoe blushed. She forget he could hear her thoughts. “Can you not do that?”

“Listen to your thoughts?” Josiah smirked. “Sorry. They’re so interesting, plus it explains the burning smell around here.”

Zoe gasped, feigning outrage as she tried to hit him. Josiah rolled away and scooted up the beach surprisingly quick for someone who spent most of their time with a tail. For some reason she expected him to be slow, like seals when taken out of the water. Zoe sat up and grinned at him.

“I’m going to find breakfast,” he grinned.

“Ok,” Zoe nodded.

They stared into one another’s eyes for a second before he turned and padded down the beach, leaving Zoe watching his bare bottom wander out of sight. Zoe flopped onto her back with a ecstatic grin. She had never been so deliriously happy in all her life. 

 

After laying in the shade of the palm tree for a few minutes, listening to the whoosh-hiss of the waves crash on the beach, Zoe got bored. Deciding to go in search of Josiah she got up and began to follow the only set of footprints along the beach. They turned abruptly in land where she lost them. The interior was cool and shady, the breeze stirring through the palm fronds that clashed together like distant maracas. Her feet swished through the earthy smelling leaf litter. 

She suddenly spied him, high up in a mango tree which she thought could get painful if he slipped he could knock some bark off and not necessarily off the tree. She couldn’t’t help but smile at the comical and surprisingly nimble way he scrambled about. 

“Hey,” she called out. 

Josiah looked around and nearly over balanced. For half a second Zoe thought she would have to catch him but he caught himself on a branch. “Don’t do that!” he gasped.

“What startle you?” Zoe grinned.

“No. Well yes. You made me look down,” Josiah carefully braced himself against a branch as he began to make his way to the ground.

“Your not afraid of heights?” Zoe stared up at him incredulously. A merman who had a fear of heights, now there’s something you don’t hear everyday. 

“Ever since I was really little. I love climbing trees but it scares the hell out of me,” he grinned sheepishly over his shoulder. “I guess I do it for kicks more than anything. Or breakfast.”

Within a few seconds he was back on the ground with two mangos which he handed to Zoe. After examining it for a few seconds, Zoe sank her teeth into the bitter skin and began to pull the flesh off. The insides were soft and juicy. Josiah made short work of his mango, throwing the pip over one shoulder and wiping the juice from his chin. 

Zoe was about to bite into the flesh again when she realized he was looking at her, his eyes wide and a steady smile creasing across his lips. With a flash of cheekiness he dipped his head and pressed his warm lips against hers, Zoe tossing aside her half eaten mango and throwing her arms around his neck. Zoe kissed him, feeling his sticky hands work their way her back. Her heart throbbed, seemingly in her throat making it difficult to breath. His lips worked their way over hers, as if not to leave one spot untouched. Zoe simply surrendered, she couldn’t fight him and she didn’t want to. 

Josiah pulled away and took her hand. “Come on. I want to show another island.”

The pair ran for the beach and dived into the shallows together. It took a few seconds before Zoe felt her fin form as she flapped it against the surface before swimming after Josiah who zipped ahead, his tail batting rapidly before suddenly soared directly upwards and vanished. Zoe gasped as she swam through the gap in the reef just in time to see Josiah dive back in. 

“You show off,” Zoe couldn’t help but laugh. “That reef must be at least ten feet across.”

“Yeah I auditioned for Free Willy but they said they didn’t take professionals,” he grinned. 

Zoe shook her head as he grabbed her hand any they swam together soon into the deep blue ocean, past all the reefs. The bottom spanned beneath them, sandy, the sun light filtering into the water above them. The water felt lovely and cool, salty but not overbearingly so as Zoe sucked it through her gills. 

Josiah suddenly stopped swimming and silently pointed down. Zoe felt her pulse jump into triple figures as she spotted the White Pointer, easily twenty foot long skimming along the bottom. “Merfolk. Above. Not eat,” Josiah ordered in almost Morse code bursts. 

“No eat Mer-folk. Just ate tuna,” Zoe heard the response.

Josiah took Zoe’s hand as they swam off again. “What the-?” Zoe stared at him. 

“A Great White’s brain is the size of a walnut. There are other bits to his brain that analyse scent, control his movements and give them that crazy urge to spend their lives swimming the entire ocean. But lets just say there is a good reason why sharks mistake surfers for seals,” Josiah explained. 

“Because they are stupid,” Zoe nodded. 

“Pretty much. That’s why we warn sharks that we are mer-folk so they don’t make the same mistake. You do get the odd shark though who deliberately wants to eat us but they usually disappear.”   

Zoe nodded trying to absorb this. Hearing biology from someone who lived among it made a massive difference to the boring classes she endured in high school. Zoe suddenly thought of a common myth that always bothered her. “So are dolphins always as happy as they appear?”

Josiah shrugged. “Depends. After mer-folk, Dolphins and whales are about the smartest creatures in the sea. Having such a large brain means that they can be traumatised or even depressed similar to how we do. As for the happiest creature, on a whole, that goes to the Angler fish.”

Zoe stared at him, not sure wether to believe him or not. “Are you being serious?”

Josiah nodded. “The female is triple the size of the male. When the female is in season, the males latch onto her body, the females body consumes him until all that’s left is the testicles. A female angler can consume as many males as she likes.”

Zoe didn’t know wether to be horrified or repulsed or both. “No. Your kidding right?”

Josiah smirked. “Nope.”

Zoe shook her head conceding that she would never look at Angler fish in the same light again. Ok, she always thought of them as cool but freaky looking fish but not ones that……well did that. 

Soon the water began to become shallow again but instead of coral reef, the bottom remained sandy but as they drew closer to shore Zoe began to spot shiny black boulders. A hundred feet from shore Zoe popped her head above the surface and stared up in awe at the volcano that soared into the sky, its perfect cone shape covered in dense green foliage  almost too good to be real. Josiah popped his head up a few feet in front of her and grinned. 

“That’s Tofoa. Remember mutiny on the Bounty? That happened just over there,” Josiah pointed to the side of the island.

Verdant foliage blanketed the island as clouds skimmed the peak of the volcano. Zoe suddenly paused. “Wait is that smoke or-?”

“Clouds. Its extinct, apparently,” Josiah shrugged before diving under water in a flash of shimmery scales that stood out against the white sand. 

Zoe finned after him as they rolled onto the beach and waited for their fins to dry. Josiah explained that the boulders were volcanic stones that had been spewed out from the last eruption which apparently occurred in the late 1800’s. 

Zoe looked across and spotted Liufa, one of the islands in the Tonga group. In the crazy state that had descended on her mind, instead of wanting to swim over and find a way to get home she felt the opposite. “Do people come here much?”

Josiah stood up and stretched, his long arms reaching high into the dazzling blue sky. “Mmm sometimes. They tend their kava plants which grow insanely in the volcanic soil.”

“Their what plants?” 

Josiah grinned. “Kava is a root vegetable that they pound into a powder and mix with water. My Dad got invited to a kava party after he overturned the wrong boat. Long story, they had captured my sister, I think we should have let them keep her.”

“Wait, wait. You have a family? And they talk to humans?”

Josiah helped her up and began to lead her in land. “Sure. I have two sisters and parents. What did you expect me to say I hatched out of an egg?”

Zoe shrugged sheepishly. “About this Kava.”

“Yeah Dad tipped this poor fisherman out of his boat then realizes he’s got the wrong boat, tips the other one up, drowns the fisherman and saves my sister who got hauled in his net. The first fisherman apologizes, apparently the other fisherman was a jerk anyway and turns out he was the chief of the island so he invites Dad to a kava party. My Dad usually doesn’t like humans, he has a long and not always nice history with them but the Chief insisted he come. Turns out that its ok stuff, it doesn’t dehydrate like alcohol so its pretty ok stuff for mermaids to drink,” Josiah explained as they made their way through the canopy, the humidity sapping at Zoe’s skin despite her lack of clothing.

“I’ve tried it, it tastes like pepper, rain water and earth,” Josiah grinned. 

Zoe pulled a face. “Doesn’t sound that great.” 

“Yeah but every Christmas my Dad gets invited back to the island for their Christmas Kava Party. All the men from the surrounding islands gather, they play their banjos and guitars and they sing, amazingly. I went last year and you get so caught up singing and listening to music that you forget the drink looks like dishwater and tastes just as nice.”

“After one cup, which they serve in polished coconut shells, you convince yourself you wont accept the next. After five you smile for no apparent reason. Ten, your head feels like cotton wool and it takes a lot of concentration to move your limbs. Fifteen and I slept right through to midday…….on a random doorstep three blocks away, in the opposite direction to the ocean.”

Zoe burst out laughing. “We found my Dad in the fresh water lake I am taking you to and no one knows how he got here. Every year it’s the same thing, he says he wont go. He does.”

The canopy suddenly dropped away, revealing a fresh water pool just as Josiah had told her there would be. Clearly the volcano had erupted at some point, the collapsed, the interior filling with rain water which due to the sulphur turned the most amazing shade of aqua. Josiah explained that she probably shouldn’t try to breath the water, it was foul, like stepping into a room where a hundred rotten eggs had exploded. This, Zoe concluded had to be worse than that Kava stuff. 

Zoe dived off a boulder but forced herself not to automatically breath in which had become habit. Josiah followed shortly after, the pair surfacing and staring about themselves. The silence hung all around them, broken only by the wind whistling over the edges of the crater, the small waves they had created lapping against the stones and the cry of the frigate bird. 

“Its beautiful,” Zoe breathed. 

Josiah nodded. “I know.” 

**********

Later that evening, Josiah had caught some fish from the ocean and roasted them over a fire that Zoe built in his absence. Zoe had learnt how to make fire from her mother and even though it took longer that Zoe ever remembered it taking, she had it going by the time Josiah came back with some fish. Very soon they were munching on roasted fish, staring up at the twinkling universe, the Magellan constellation that seemed to span right over the top of the crater, the cluster of stars reminding Zoe of someone haphazardly scattering a handful of diamonds on black velvet. 

Josiah chucked what precious little was left of his fish and scooted beside Zoe. Opening her mouth she nearly popped a chunk of fish in when a sudden rumble broke the silence. It was low and quiet but just enough that for a few seconds it eclipsed the sound of the waves and wind. 

“What was that?” Zoe asked. 

“My stomach,” Josiah responded a little to quickly.

This time it sounded more like a giant mumbling in his sleep. “You said it was dormant!”

Josiah grinned at her, boyishly with the most charming look in his eyes. “Well it is…..mostly.”

“Mostly?” Zoe asked nervously. 

“Well it hasn’t erupted since the late 1800’s as I said but I guess its been a bit active over the last twenty years.”

“You tell me this now!” Zoe yelled about to jump up.

Josiah caught her hand. “I promise its safe.”

Slowly, he pulled her back down until she rested in his arms. Zoe shook her head, she would get no sleep tonight knowing that she slept on a not-so dormant volcano. Josiah nuzzled his nose into her hair as she took a deep breath reasoning with herself to be rational. 

Rational? The plane crash wasn’t rational. The way I had my life returned to me wasn’t rational. Being on a volcano with a merman isn’t rational-

Zoe stopped as she felt Josiah’s voice rush over her. It started low, Zoe vaguely remembering the song from her time on land, humming in her ears until he began to sing. Gently at first, barely off humming, he half sang, half whispered the song in her ear. Zoe felt herself being paralysed by his voice, she couldn’t move, she didn’t want to move. His voice swam down her veins and lulled her brain into a dizzy trance. Shutting her eyes, she let her mind follow the kaleidoscope of colours that burst in her mind. 

“Wow,” she managed when he finished. 

“What? All mer-folk can sing. Havent you heard the term ‘siren‘s voice?” he grinned. Zoe could tell by the way his lips turned up though that he intended to do that. 

Zoe shook her head. “Shut up and kiss me.”

Author's Note

Ok I wrote this chapter alot later than the others because some people complained that it jumped too rapidly. Originally the begining of this chapter led straight into the first one. So more comments please LOL

Reviews

[Kiki Newton]

Hmmm ok I will have a look at that line.
Thats one thing I have tried to keep up in this novel, making it realistic like what theydo for food, where they live etc etc. Later on I even get into the biology a bit (yeah and my teachers thought I werent listening :P) and preganacy and stuff. For awhile I even toyed with making Mermaids monotrimes (like the playtpus and echinda, lays eggs but suckles its young) but it got too complicated so I left them as mammals.
:D

[RM Americano]

I'm glad you addressed how merfolk find food. I was wondering that early on in this chapter, after all they slept overnight on a beach and generally the first thing I think about after a carefree sunrise is breakfast.

Quick constructive crit: "Within a few seconds he was back on the ground with two mangos which he handed to Zoe. After examining it for a few seconds" I don't think you need to say how long it took for him to get out of the tree here, and if you delete the first phrase you don't end up using the same line in back to back sentences.