Deva's Call: Lost Children of The Merrow, #4

By Chera Carmichael

Deva's had enough of feeling alone in a crowd. After three years at the World's End B&B, she ventures out on her own in the dead of night. Stumbling into a sleepy little town with friendly faces and familiar haunts from her old days, Deva tries to find a new normal.

 

But when Aida shows up and things start skewing sideways, she can't shake the feeling that something sinister is happening just out of sight. Can she figure it out without putting her life on the line? Or will she give up on the truth—and her heart's true desire?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Chera Carmichael
• Release date: Jun 27, 2022
• ISBN: 9798201885076

Chera Carmichael

Chera Carmichael (aka Scioneeris) to her TBDH fans is a Writer by night and a 9-to-5 worker by day. Her dragel stories feature slow-burn Poly romances featuring dragons, soulmates, elemental powers and otherwordly adventures.

Book preview

1

Not Quite Her Home - Deva

Laughter rose from the trio at the end of the damp boardwalk alongside the World's End Bed & Breakfast. Deva watched their interaction from her semi-secret hiding place at the opposite end of the pier, where she propped up her chin with her hands, the lower half of her body floating freely in the water.

Her orange-and-gold speckled tail waved lazily in the nearly nonexistent current, frilly fins swishing gracefully in the water. She was, by far, the smallest and fluffiest among them, as far as fins and scales went, but that wasn't the reason she was currently not-spying from her current vantage point.

No, that had everything to do with the fact that Taki was still going on about some fish or the other that he'd caught—the one that Mira had promised Keely she'd grill for dinner on the beach later on—and Aida who was currently getting her hair cut by Kyrose.

Aida, who had accidentally gotten caught up in a spell and a trap that had turned her lovely long hair into too-big, too-thick vines oozing slime that had nearly broken her neck with the sheer size and unexpected weight.

They were still growing, but Taki had quite nearly finished his distraction, while Mira's spellwork—a beautiful spiral of blue-purple-pink energy—undid the growing charm to allow Kyrose to finally cut the things off.

Deva wriggled a bit, her tail curling self-consciously under her as she watched the water sickle slice through every single bit of thick greenery around Aida's head hanging low, chin touching her chest.

It was such a strange sight compared to what she normally saw that it'd caught her attention straightaway.

Aida, who always swam with her hair fanning out behind her like some water goddess, chin held high on land. Aida, the strangely awkward, but kind sweetheart that had effectively befriended her in the past three years since Deva had stumbled across the little family pod.

If it wasn't for Taki, she might not have followed them home.

But if it wasn't for Aida's friendship, well, Deva was sure she would've left. It wasn’t that she didn’t believe in what they were doing.

She did.

There just didn't seem to be a point to staying. She couldn’t make herself belong somewhere just because she wanted to.

Even though they’d helped more Merrow and Merfolk than she’d ever seen in her short life. It was just so—routine. Every day so close to the same, not bad, not great, but just a nice sort of—goodness.

A steady, dependable sort of thing and Deva had never considered herself to be the steady and dependable kind. She’d lived too much of her life at that point, scraping and pilfering to get by.

It was a scratch and scar world, after all, no matter what kind of fins and frills she had.

Not like Aida, who was quite clearly loved and cared for by her parents, including Taki, despite everything she’d learned about him in the time they’d shared in the laboratory.

And then there was Keely, a strange water-creature thing that assumed a shape and personality of its own, yet adored Aida. Treated her like a sister and proudly claimed to be the younger sister in the family pod.

It was strange.

Odd, even, but they made it work in a way she’d never expected to see Merrow grouped together. She was plain old seafolk, after all.

Nothing unique or special about her. Just the usual fins and a tail that most Merkind had. Splotches of color instead of a nice, seamless blend of one hue to the next. She wasn’t even big enough to do any kind of damage at all in a fight, much less to use the strange magics that Merrow were always comfortably wielding.

Goldfish weren’t magical, after all.

It was enough to make her want to leave, and yet, somehow, she always found herself wanting to stay a little longer in hopes of finding that elusive feeling of home.

Every time she thought about it, something would come up and then she'd find herself in another situation like the present moment.

Watching the rest of the family from a distance, seeing the way that Taki wore his heart on his sleeve, the way Mira effectively mothered all of them at the same time and how Kyrose kept a steady, calming presence, Keely offered hyper excitement and then—Aida.

It always came back to Aida.

The sort of strange middle ground between all of them. A less manic version of Keely’s strange hyper-self and a less rough and intimidating version of the power couple she called parents.

Deva flicked her tail again, watching as Taki waved his arms around in exaggerated movements. The silly man was desperately in love with both of those incredibly dangerous Merrow and they weren’t even trying to reciprocate.

She didn't even think they knew about his hopeful crushes.

Despite his assurances that he was perfectly fine being their friend and the weird uncle of sorts that he’d become in the past few years, Deva knew better.

She’d seen him in his raw, vulnerable moments before, when he’d rescued her from the laboratory and when he’d risked his life to get her out. She’d seen the way he looked at them and wondered, briefly, what he saw in something so unattainable.

It seemed like a stupid way to torture himself, but for all of his smarts, she had a feeling the intelligence had to balance itself out in one way or another.

Clearly, he was brain-smart and heart-stupid.

Deva slipped away from the pier and let herself drift, falling downward into the water. The pressure wouldn’t bother her too much in the shallow parts. She could actually venture all the way down to the sandy beds and nap there, if she liked.

But that would likely make someone worry and then her quiet moping would be interrupted.

No. Wait. She was not moping. Not at all.

Just thinking.

Thinking really, really, hard about things that were just—alright. Fine. She was moping.

It wasn’t fair.

She was just watching Taki pine away and was doing the same in the background herself.

They both had terrible taste.

The stuck-up Merrows would never look at him twice and they certainly wouldn’t care to look at her.

Even if Aida was the nicest one out of the bunch, she could squash her like a—well, Deva didn’t really want to think about that, but it was hard to think about much else some days.

Something about Aida just made her—different. A good kind of different that just clicked with a needy, hopeful piece of her tattered heart that she'd thought was too worn out to care anymore.

After the last raid, she'd gone with Keely to make sure that her stabilizers were working fine and then to take over when Mira had sent her to check on the lower labs.

Somewhere in between of that, Aida had surfaced, the growing-plant-curse active and the entire evening had gone to pieces.

When she’d grown tired of feeling in the way, she’d slipped off the pier and swam away in the confusion of the giant, thrashing vines and Taki’s panicked yelps. Getting caught in any of those vines, even if it was entirely unintentional, would definitely hurt.

She'd had enough pain dished out for the day.

Of course, it hadn’t taken long for Mira and Kyrose to work out a suitable plan of action and with Taki and Keely pitching in, things were soon back to normal.

And Deva was still on the sidelines where she’d always been.

Grimacing, she focused on swimming in a steady, consistent spiral. It was a trick she remembered from her family pod days, a repetitive motion that made it easier to slow her thoughts and refocus on something else.

It wasn’t just escaping from the slightly disjointed feeling, it was missing old haunts, old friends and familiar places. It was the little crunchy rocks—bones, actually—and coral that she used to snack on. Favorite greens and sweet, shallow waters where she could always clean her fins underneath the privacy of a tree-branch canopy.

So much of that was gone now. Almost as if it'd never existed.

Even though they ‘ported back and forth to Taki’s Realm—as Mira called it—five days a week, there was still a very distinct barrier in place.

The health clinic now running out of the former laboratory was a giant legal headache that she didn’t even want to think about. It was now purchased and in their name, with Mira and Kyrose slowly filling the rooms with rescued creatures looking for better lives and opportunities.

Most were Merrow, but once in a while, they'd even include the odd Seafolk, Merfolk or magical individual after extensive questioning and some sort of magical binding. She'd never asked what it was or what it did.

Her imagination filled in the blanks just fine.

The health clinic was a good expansion to their whole bed-and-breakfast thing, except for the whole ‘porting back and forth bit.

Kyrose had explained it off as compartmentalization in regards to making it easier to keep a single attack from seizing both locations.

At the time, she’d wondered who would be stupid enough to attack them again.

And then of course, they’d gone to answer a distress signal and Aida had come away with cursed vine hair.

De-va? Keely’s face appeared inches away from here. What’s wrong? Why you under here?

Deva swallowed a yelp and frantically struggled to right herself from the unexpected flip. Some days, she startled far easier than she wanted to think about.

Keely! She hissed. Don’t sneak up on people like that!

But Keely only smirked, flipping upside down to grin at her with a mouth too full of sharp teeth and a body that was swiftly losing transparency. She'd gotten more comfortable doing that lately—doing that around her.

When they'd first met, it was impossible to catch glimpses of her as anything other than perfectly corporeal.

…is Aida okay?

Yep, yep! Aida’s good. Keely swam a lap around her. Ai-da is happy. Do you want grilled fish for dinner?

…it’s fine.

Keely! Aida’s voice carried through the water, her halfling form appearing within view a minute later.

Finned arms and legs, short hair fluffed up by her ears. Aida slowed to a stop, her hands twined behind her back, face a soft, flushed pink-purple, barely visible under the water.

Noticeable, because Deva was looking for it.

Traitorous heart!

Ai-da! Keely cheered. She tackled her sister with a hug—or tried to. Her body fluxed fully-transparent, then back to semi-translucent in the space of a few seconds.

Aida merely spun with it, her expression fond and indulgent as she allowed Keely to pull and tug her around their little spot for a few minutes, until her hyper energy drained.

Nice haircut, Deva said, quietly.

Aida flashed her a grin, a flicker of relief shining in her deep eyes. Thanks. I know it can be spell-grown back, but—I worked really hard to grow it on my own, Y’know?

Really?

Yep! That was all me. I didn’t have it that long on my—well, it wasn’t long really, when I—when we first came here. Aida twisted around, catching Keely from behind and physically wrestling her into an awkward headlock.

Nooo! Keely whined. Her body fluxed transparent and semi-present all over again, before she hung limply in Aida’s arms, finned feet kicking out in a near tantrum. No fair!

Says the person that would’ve tackled me to the ground if we were on land, Aida said, dryly. I don’t buy it. Scram. She released her with a little push. If you want Mom to grill fish, then you gotta make sure that she knows you want-

Yes!

And she blurred off in a flurry of crackling white-blue energy, leaving a stream of bubbles in her wake.

Aida winced. I swear, she has two modes. Like, one thousand and one, plus and then zero. Just plain ol’ zero.

A smile tugged at the corners of Deva’s lips. She gave into it, easy enough, unable to help but stare at Aida’s expressive face with her little smile and those sparkling dark eyes.

Even under the water without the sunlight to hit them at the right angle.

No, in the water, there was something else. Something better and something—darker. It was as if all the shadows had decided to showcase Aida as well, highlighting her long limbs and determined gaze.

Something like that, right? Deva drifted closer, her tail curling self-consciously around her, the frills brushing against her left arm. So—the hair? You're not gonna spell-grow it back?

Not for now. You really like it?

Yeah! It’s different. I mean, I haven’t even seen you with short hair before but it’s—really cute. Suits you.

Aida fairly beamed. You’re a doll, she said, a half-webbed hand rising up to hide her muffled giggles. Thanks.

Deva shrugged, even as her own face warmed from the nickname. So—plant person. Did you-?

Taki got him. I think Mom’s going to make him like a whole roast of some sort to celebrate. She was so pleased. They've been causing a lot of trouble for a lot of people for a long time. They kinda had it coming.

Deva bit her lip, nodding along. Aida always talked with her hands, making large gestures, but only when she was comfortable.

Just like Taki did.

It would’ve been cute, if she didn’t know how much that praise meant to him.

It wasn’t fair for them to string him along.

But he was the one letting it happen.

She sighed.

Deva?

"Nothing. I think, it’s