Water

By Shauna Granger

Shayna's first surfing session of the summer is interrupted by the screams of a mother who has lost her little boy in the water. Without regard to her own safety, Shayna swims out, rescues the boy, but must escape the clutches of something far worse than she could have ever imagined – mermaids.

Compelled to answer the sirens' call, the boys of Shayna's town are drawn to the sea, but when they return are afflicted by an unknown illness, a sickness which is draining them of their life force. Unable to tell anyone about the mermaids, Shayna and her friends are forced to solve the mystery before it's too late, and in doing so, Shayna will finally have to face the full force of her powers. Whether she’s ready or not, she will have to face her true nature.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shauna Granger
• Release date: Jun 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476225012

Shauna Granger

Shauna Granger lives in a sleepy little beach town in Southern California with her husband, John, and their goofy dog, Brody. Always fascinated by Magic, Shauna spent most of her teen years buried in books about fairies, elves, gnomes, spells, witchcraft, wizards and sorcery. When she's not busy working on the next installment of the Elemental Series she enjoys cooking, entertaining, MMA fight nights, watching way too much TV and coffee. Lots of coffee.

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Water

Book Three in the Elemental Series

Copyright 2012 By Shauna Granger

Smashwords Edition

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission from the author.

Published by Shauna Granger

Copyright © 2012 by Shauna Granger

Cover art designed by Stephanie Mooney – www.stephaniemooney.blogspot.com

There are so many people I could dedicate this book to.

Table of Contents

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Acknowledgements

About the Author

Chapter One

I have found magic exists in nearly everything, but there is something entirely special about the ocean. A deep magic pulses with the unknowable depths and power of the waves. It carves the Earth and answers to the call of the moon. Just standing on the sandy, rocky shores, I feel a renewed energy speed the pulse of my heart and the flow of my blood; I come fully alive at just the thought of the cool, salty water rushing over my skin, tangling my hair, and crashing around me.

I have lived in my sleepy surfer town all my life and the vast, ever-changing Pacific Ocean is probably one of the most important things in my life. Whenever I feel drained, I can jump in my car and in less than ten minutes be barefoot in the sand, standing in the rippling edge of earth and sea; the two elements that call the strongest to the magic inside me.

This morning was one such morning; I woke feeling as though I hadn’t truly slept and thirsting for something stronger than my usual cup of coffee. I snagged my dad’s truck keys and threw my 8-foot surfboard in the bed of the truck, and just as the sun’s rays were cresting over the mountains behind me, I was setting foot into the water. Although it was mid-July, in our part of California the average summer temperatures are in the mid-seventies, and therefore our bit of the ocean is rarely warmer than mid-sixties, which is why, once again, I was in a full wetsuit, bound from neck to ankle.

Amazingly, no matter how early you get to the beach, it is impossible to be the first one in the water; the lifers always seemed to beat everyone else there, having surfed these breaks for over fifty years. I waded out into the water; the waves barely reached my hips as I guided my board on the water with one hand flat on the deck. Taking a skip-like-jump, I pulled myself up on the board, belly down to paddle out. Immediately I forgot my wetsuit and my board, feeling my body coursing over the water, my hands delving into the cold. I was suddenly liquid; part of the water, dipping up and over the waves as if part of the foam. Finally past the point of the waves, the sea was once again a calm, glassy surface surrounding me.

It is an interesting feeling sitting so far out in the water on nothing but a surfboard, like so much flotsam lost in the open. With surfing, it’s all about where you are positioned in relation to where the waves roll in until they rear up just before they begin to crest. If you hope to catch the wave that is at the perfect spot, of course that is also where all the heads of all the other surfers are gathered and it becomes a competition of who can catch the wave. Etiquette says he who is farthest left has the right of way, or right of wave if you will, but there are those barneys out there who don’t care where they’re positioned, they’re going to paddle for every wave that they can and steal the joy of surfing from the rest of us. That is why I was positioned in the exact wrong spot.

I sat back on my board, resting my hands on the tops of my thighs, watching the crowded spot a good thirty yards away as a handful of guys jockeyed for position. As a wave reared up, the line of surfers spun their boards around like old western outlaws reining in their horses, and they all began the desperate paddle.

On your left! On your left, damnit! the inevitable yell carried back to me, barely audible, but so often heard I would know it was yelled even if I couldn’t hear it. I laughed and shook my head, swirling my feet underwater slowly, keeping my board pointing straight. I took a deep breath in, letting the tangy scent of salt and sand fill me, and reached inside me for that hidden magic that calls to the Earth and directed it down, down into the hidden ground beneath the water, and pushed.

I heard the tremble that no one else could and felt the shift in the ocean floor as the Earth below answered my call, causing a set of waves to build behind me. I could feel the confusion resonating off of so many men despite the distance between us and could not help but smile. I grabbed the edge of my board and spun it around to face the beach. Lying on my stomach again, I lifted my feet out of the water and began that same desperate paddle as the wave rose behind me.

My board pitched up and I was looking into the ocean rather than the beach. Lifting my hands out of the water, I braced myself on the board and leapt to my feet. Racing down the face of the wave that was too tall for our break, I felt the laugh bubble up and out of me, twisting my hips and carving the fins of my board through the water, up to the crest so the foam ran over my bare feet and down the face again as the wave slowly died away under me.

I dropped back down on my board and spun around to paddle back out to a new spot. The annoyed mob already started to paddle to where the new sets of waves were suddenly pushing. They’d chase me and my waves all morning; once in a while one of the less pushy surfers would get lucky and catch the second set of waves. But for those barneys that couldn’t understand, On your left! they’d stalk off to the parking lot, dripping wet and exhausted, not one wave caught for their troubles.

It was two hours later before I came trudging out of the water, hoisting my board up and over my head, balancing it there to climb up the short cliff of rocks until I was up on the crumbling sidewalk. I maneuvered through the pressing throng of early morning joggers until I could step onto the asphalt of the parking lot and lay my board down so I could rip off the Velcro strap of my leash from my ankle.

Howzit? a boy about my age asked out his driver side window as he crawled through the parking lot looking for a space, trying to check the surf at the same time.

Not bad, bit of a competition though, too many heads out there, I said, gathering the wet, tangled mass of my hair and tying it into a half ponytail.

Ain't it always the way, though? he asked good-humoredly with a smile on his face.

Right, I said, nodding, and began the difficult task of peeling the shoulders of my wetsuit down from my body to free my arms.

Right on, he said, lifting his chin in the air to say good-bye as he drove further into the parking lot. I had managed to get my wetsuit halfway down my body, leaving the top half hanging as I picked up my board, stowed it away in the board bag, and slid it back into the bed of the truck, strapping it down with bungee cords.

I was toweling off my hair, shaking out the excess water and salt, when I heard a woman scream. I snapped up and ran with the crowd to the edge of the sidewalk to look out at the beach. A woman was running, frantically calling out the name of a boy. The waves of anguish and fear coming off of her were so strong they stung my skin from so far away.

You’d think people would learn to pay attention to their goddamn kids, I heard one older man say to another as they both shook their heads and went back to their van and quiver of surfboards.

What’s up? a girl asked me across the hood of her car that was parked next to me.

Probably lost her kid, I said casually, still watching the woman run down the beach calling out for her Toby.

Shouldn’t someone do something? the girl asked me again.

Yeah, probly. I turned and looked at her. You got a cell?

Yeah, don’t think anyone’s called 911 yet?

Doubtful, the mom would’ve been the one to do it, right? And look at her, I inclined my head in the crying woman’s direction. Totally panicked.

Well, we are really close to Rivermouth. You know they say all those homeless men live in the riverbed, the girl said with a grimace. I knew the tale too; it was a local legend made to scare kids and keep them from the dry, overgrown riverbed at night, claiming homeless drug addicts camped out in there, and they supposedly left used needles all over the ground hoping to infect or hurt people. However, even though some homeless people did live down there, I’ve never heard the news report such a terrible story in all the years I’ve lived here. Rivermouth was also a local surf spot, so-called because it was where the river drained to the ocean.

I’ll go help her look, you call the cops. I peeled my wetsuit down my legs, pulling my feet free with a snap, and tucked it in the shade created by the angle of my board and the bed of the truck. I reached in the cab of the truck and found my shorts to pull over the bottoms of my bathing suit. Not bothering to lose any more time with a shirt, I slammed my door and locked it, hiding my keys with the gas cap, before taking off at a run after the woman.

I found her yards out to sea, the water chest high, and she was struggling, failing as the waves washed around her. Clearly she didn’t know how to swim.

TOBY! she screamed, and I had to brace myself against the shrill, not only in her voice, but also in the emotions that consumed her. I pulled some of the stored energy that had built inside of me during my surf session and used it to reinforce my shields to block out her emotions. I pulled off my shorts and tossed them up on the rocks before going out to her.

Hey! I called out, but she didn’t stop, not hearing me or just ignoring me at this point. You’re going to get yourself killed, hold on! I was past the point of walking and started swimming towards her. She was now neck deep and in serious risk of drowning herself.

No, I saw him! I saw him go this way! she screamed frantically at me, just out of my reach.

Okay, but you need to calm down, you’re freaking out!

Is it your son out there? She turned on me, her eyes wild, making her just a little frightening. The water pitched around her, coming up over her head. When she came back up, sputtering pitifully, I answered her.

I understand, I said, invoking my empathetic powers, letting the sound of my words carry the magic to her. I understand, Mary. I suddenly knew her name; she was so raw with emotion she was an open book to anyone with even a little bit of power, so I was able to pluck out her name from her mind.

She stopped flailing then, bouncing on her toes, and finally floated over to me.

Okay, you say you saw him, I said in slow, easy tones. Where did you see him?

Just over there, she turned away from me and pointed with one dripping hand in the distance.

Can he swim? I asked.

No! she cried again before she spun and tried to swim away again, but her arms were clumsy and mostly she just splashed. Swimming easily to her, I wrapped an arm around her waist, causing me to sink deeper into the water. You can’t swim, can you? I asked, careful not to take any water into my mouth. But Mary didn’t answer me; she was crying uncontrollably again, hanging on to me for dear life, but at the same time fighting to get away from me and to her son.

I laid back in the water, keeping a death grip on her waist, and started the one arm paddle back to the rocks, keeping most of her body above the water. Luckily it was only a few yards, and I was able to get her back on her feet and out of danger of drowning.

Stop. I said the word and felt the power of the command resonate in my voice and strike her as if I had slapped her across the face. Mary stopped fighting me and gripped my hands, staring wide-eyed at me. I am going to try to find him. Help is coming, someone called 911, watch for help. I waited until she nodded her understanding and then took off into the water, swimming full out in the direction she had pointed.

After a few yards, the water was suddenly colder than anywhere else I had been all morning and I was missing my wetsuit something fierce. The current was changing, pulling me in the direction I was already swimming, which was strange because your normal riptide will pull you deeper into the sea, not parallel along the shore as I was going now. Instinct told me to fight it, that this couldn’t be a good sign, but I went with it, knowing this was probably how the child had gotten so far so fast, and simply prayed that it would lead me to him in time.

As I swam, I felt a tangle of seaweed touch my ankle and told myself not to panic; it was one of the few things in the water that truly just creeped me out. I kicked it away from my foot and continued on. My fingers were becoming numb and I was developing an ache in my stomach. Again the seaweed brushed thickly against my leg. I bit back the yelp that threatened to come out and kicked away again, but this time I couldn’t swim free of it.

Oh shit, a kelp bed! I swore, trying to alter my route by turning towards the shore, but as I swam away, I felt the tendrils of the slimy leaves wrap around my calves. I stopped swimming, pulling my legs under me and treading water to see what had happened, but just as I started to lift my caught leg out of the water, I felt a sharp cut and cried out as the salt water seared the injury.

It took me a moment not to succumb to the panic, knowing I was out here alone and didn’t have that luxury. When my pulse was under control, I gave my leg an experimental tug only to have it pulled back, pulling me under the water. I had a split second’s warning to take in a lungful of air before I was completely submerged. When I opened my eyes, I was staring into two very large, very black eyes that were set into a pale greenish white face that seemed to glow under the water.

The face was terrible to look at, both hideous and somehow beautiful. I felt the scream building inside me, but knew I would lose what little time I had if I let out that breath. The creature was still holding on to my leg, and I saw on its free hand the long nightmarish nails that were as black as the eyes. A tongue flicked out between its parted lips, reminding me of a snake testing the air, before it tilted its head to the side, and then suddenly it was swimming away, pulling me along with it.

Again, instinct told me to fight it, but intuition told me this was the way to Toby, and if I fought it, I knew I would lose, if the strength in its one hand was anything to go by. I felt the trajectory of our path change suddenly and we broke the surface of the water, arcing into the air like a dolphin. I took the chance to breathe before we went under again. As the creature came up and out of the water, from the odd angle I was trailing at, I caught a glimpse of it and, though my mind tried to refuse to register what my eyes were seeing, there was no doubt I caught the flick of a fish tale glinting in the sunlight.

Sooner than I could have hoped, we were slowing down, but to my horror, the creature was pulling me deeper into the water. I became aware of other creatures swimming alongside us, and I saw clutched in one of the creatures’ hands the form of a small boy. My lungs were burning with the need to expel my held breath, and I knew Toby must surely be unconscious now.

I prayed for time and concentrated on the power inside me that called to the Earth and pushed harder than I ever had down into the ground passing under me. I felt the backlash almost instantaneously, a sharp pain erupting behind my eyes, but in that backlash, power burst through the ocean, striking the creatures like a blow. They stopped suddenly, and I realized my captor had released my leg. I reached out quickly for Toby’s hand as he began to sink and kicked desperately for the surface. The creatures were scratching at their chests and faces as if they were suffocating. I said a prayer of thanks as Toby and I broke the surface of the water. Toby couldn’t have been more than five years old and I felt my breath hitch in my chest as I looked at his tiny body.

I held one hand under his back to float him on the water while I checked his pulse. To my ultimate surprise, I felt it, strong and steady. I looked at his face, put my hand under his nose to test his breathing, and realized he was asleep. Confused beyond all measure, I shook my head and focused on that line of power that I was still feeding into the Earth below me and pushed again; I called up the rolling force of the ocean floor as we were just a little too far out for the waves to crest and carry us back quickly. Just as I felt that slimy touch on my calf again, a wave picked us up and out of reach of the recovering creatures and carried me, clutching Toby to my chest, towards the shore.

We washed ashore some distance away from Mary and the gathering crowd around her. I laid Toby on the ground and bent over his head; anyone approaching would think I was performing CPR. I placed one hand on his chest and the other on his forehead and bent close to his ear and whispered, By the power of the sea and power of the Earth, give me strength for this to be done. By the power of the sea and power of the Earth, Toby, wake to the glory of the sun.

I felt his skin warm under my hands as a natural flush colored his cheeks just as his eyes fluttered open. Bodies were soon surrounding us and there was no mistaking the wailing cries of his mother as she pushed her way through the crowd, gathering her son up, crushing him to her chest. I sat back on my heels and was suddenly aware of the stinging cuts on my calf and quickly stood up to take the weight off of it. Now that I was out of the water, it was finally bleeding steadily down my leg and staining the sand.

I can look at that for you. I turned to see a paramedic standing just behind me, inclining his head towards my leg.

What about the kid? I asked.

They’ve got it under control, he said, and I looked back at Toby and his mother and saw three other EMTs escorting the pair back up to the parking lot to the waiting ambulance.

That’d be great, the salt is really a bitch, I said with a shaky laugh, limping my way back to the sidewalk. The paramedic took my upper arm in one of his hands, gently guiding me should I stumble.

I sat on the curb of the parking lot while the paramedic cleaned the scratches on my leg, gritting my teeth against the sting of the antiseptic. I looked down at the wounds now that the sand had been cleaned away and noticed that there were four running scratches, all about three inches long, one not quite as wide as the other three. I held my hand out in front of me and looked at the width of my fingernails and knew that whatever that thing was, it had hands and fingers just like a human.

You know, if I didn’t know better, I’d say these were claw marks, the paramedic said, turning my leg a little awkwardly to get a closer look. How’d you do this?

Sea urchin, I said quickly, trying to keep my voice light.

What?

When I was running after the mom, I slipped in the shallows and scratched it on an urchin; this stretch of beach is spotted with them, I told the lie easily because it was half true. Tourists often came to the mercy of the rocks and urchins hidden in the shallows all along this part of the beach. Many local surfers wore surf booties to help navigate their way into the water because of them as well. I never needed to wear booties; with my elemental earth magic, I was able to walk over the rocks, sand, and urchins as if I was part of it, my feet just slipping into them and through with liquid ease.

Huh, doesn’t look like a scratch though, he said, looking up at me, still holding onto my leg. I mean, I know we get the stray seal every now and then, that could be it, but I think you’d’ve noticed that.

Well, there’re rocks down there too. I shrugged. And then I was in the water pretty shortly after, so it probably got worse in there.

Actually, the water can sometimes help injuries; hurts like a bitch, but sometimes it can help. I knew that, but was trying to play dumb so he’d just let it go. I noticed then he was studying my face more intently than the situation called for, so I met his eyes and held them with my stare and pushed against his aura. Finding no spark of psychic ability, I was satisfied that he couldn’t see the truth hidden in my mind.

Well then, maybe it wasn’t an urchin; maybe it was a broken piece of glass or something, I said, shrugging again.

After a moment he said, Yeah, that could explain it. Well, doesn’t look like you’ll need stitches, so there’s the bright side. He stood, holding out a hand to help me up. I followed him over to the ambulance, feeling compelled to check on Toby and his mother before I took off to find my discarded shorts that I was hoping were still where I tossed them.

Toby, honey, I understand that was scary for you, but that’s enough, I heard Mary saying to her son as we got closer.

But mommy! I’m not lying! Toby argued in that tone all kids get when they’re frustrated that, for once, when they really were telling the truth, they weren’t being heard.

Toby, Mary warned in a perfect mom voice.

It was mermaids! Like in the movie! They wanted me to play with them, so I followed them into the water—

That is enough, Mary said, cutting off the end of Toby’s sentence. Do you think he hit his head? Or maybe the lack of oxygen for so long has something to do with this? she asked the paramedics around her.

"Sometimes,