Mermaid Dreams: The Mermaid Island Trilogy, #3

Storm on Mermaid Island

I’ll run as fast as I can to the village, close up Wild Violets , then run straight back. There’s time. There must be time! Bonnie thought as she felt goose bumps race over her arms.

She didn’t want to go out in the storm, but she couldn’t let Wild Violets suffer another accident! If the front window got broken and the storm caused a lot of damage, Mrs. Caswell might give up on the store.

And if that happens, it will be my fault.

She called her mother again and left a message on her voicemail, telling her where she was going, then opened the door and ran out into the rising wind.

To my daughter, who didn’t mind wearing the wig, and my mother, who held the cape.

Red sky at morning, sailors take warning;

Red sky at night, sailors’ delight.

-  Proverb

1

When the sunrise turned the sky blood red for the third day in a row, Caro Campbell sighed and put her hiking boots back in the closet.

I’m never going to get this research project done! she groaned. I wanted to get an early start in the woods today, but it looks like we’re going to get another downpour!

Bonnie smiled at her mother sympathetically, and together they stared out at the horizon. Sparks of lightning flickered here and there in the churning thunderheads, and the sky was so dark that Bluewater Island was barely visible in the distance.

It was weird and scary how the deep maroon color of the sunrise seemed to stain even the water a strange scarlet. It always signaled the coming of a storm.

Those clouds are coming in fast, commented Caro Campbell. Oh well, I guess I’ll just work at my computer today. I’ll write about the plant specimens I’ve already found.

I wonder why the water is so quiet just before it storms? Bonnie mused. It’s almost as if it’s waiting for something.

Bonnie’s mother glanced at her and grinned. You have certainly grown to love the beach here on Mermaid Island. The island stole my heart, too, when I was a girl. It’s always been my special place.

Bonnie smiled in return and looked back out at the water, gazing at the reflection of the angry sky in the shifting waves. Her mother squeezed Bonnie’s shoulder, then strode off to the study and her computer.

There’s something different this summer, Bonnie thought. I’ve never seen the water like this. It’s so still. So ... watchful. As if it knows something is about to happen.

What was it like in the water when the trees bent in the wind and the waves rose, white-crested and wild, to crash across the patient sand? Was it quiet deep beneath the surface, or did it surge and stir and tumble even there? How did the thunder sound, and what did the lightning look like?

If I lived under the water, would I be afraid of storms? wondered Bonnie.

A rumble of thunder made her glance up at the sky.

Should I close the storm shutters? she called to her mother.

The Campbells’ little cabin had heavy shutters to protect its windows. All the buildings along the island’s beaches had them, but Bonnie had rarely seen them closed until this summer when she and her mother returned to Mermaid Island.

It had been raining nearly every day for the past week, and several storms had struck with such fury that all along the beach, shutters had been closed to shield windows from pebbles and branches hurled by the wind.

I don’t think we need to close the shutters this time, Caro Campbell answered from her study. The weather service says today’s storm won’t be such a bad one. But I’ve got my computer running on battery in case there’s lightning, and I unplugged the TV.

Good, thought Bonnie. I can watch out the window a little longer if the shutters are open.

Lately, it seemed the water was all she could think about. As the waves’ music sang her to sleep in the evening, she felt them endlessly rocking her. She imagined them closing around her like a cool sheet on a hot summer night, imagined her hair floating as if it were weightless.

How would it feel to be surrounded by water, deep in Mermaid Island’s blue depths where no one could see?

Curling up in her chair, Bonnie pressed her face close to the window and began to search the crests of the waves for the extraordinary colors that were the island’s special magic ... greens and pinks, purples and bronzes. Most said the colors were a trick of Mermaid Island’s dazzling sunshine, but Bonnie knew they hid a wonderful secret. A secret safely dwelling under the waves.

A mermaid lived there, and, most marvelous of all, was that Bonnie had seen her ... talked with her.

Bonnie’s heart gave a little leap. What was the mermaid doing? Was she frightened? Or was she lying somewhere in the water, watching the clouds roll in just as Bonnie was?

The power flickered out, and the wind hit the cabin with a screech, rattling the door and flinging sand and dead leaves against the windowpanes. Caro Campbell emerged from her study, and Bonnie joined her at the kitchen table to wait until the storm passed.

Her mother sipped a cup of orange juice and shook her head.

I’ve never seen so many storms on Mermaid Island! she exclaimed. Even during the summers I spent here as a little girl, I don’t remember a storm season like this! She turned her glass on the table and shook her head. It sure is making my research more difficult!

Bonnie shivered. Although she knew they were inside and protected, the sounds carried on the wind were beginning to make her feel uneasy.

She listened more closely. Was that someone laughing? Or sobbing? Were those voices she heard, or was it simply the wind gusting around their little cabin?

Bonnie fingered her grandmother’s pearl hanging on its chain around her neck and felt tingles crawl up her arms. She rubbed them, trying to make the feeling go away, and glanced at her mother, who was reading quietly in the light of a flashlight. She appeared to notice nothing unusual.  

Bonnie listened for a few more minutes, and then put her head down on her arms, hoping to block out the sounds, but they still seemed to echo in her head.