“What is it, Magpie?”
She paused at the shore, where the water was beginning to nip at her feet. “They seemed to know you more than friends would know each other.”
Peter watched from a few feet away. His stare was intentful but not aggressive, not angered for her prying, not uncomfortable at the position she put him in. He only gazed at her, unflinching, unyielding, entirely.
“A lot of men on the island vie for the mermaid’s hearts,” Peter finally said. “I’ve never really been one of those men.”
The breath hitched in her throat. “Why not?”
“They aren’t what I’m looking for.” Peter took long strides to close the gap between them, though Maggie was too far into the color of his eyes to even notice. “I am not afraid of a woman witha body. In fact, it is whatIvie for. A woman who knows what she wants, a woman with a fine head on her shoulders. A creative woman, a fierce woman, even if she can’t see that’s who she is just yet.”
Maggie stared up at him with wide eyes. She never considered herself to be vain, but something about his words struck a chord within her. Were those not her own attributes, things she carried on her sleeve? Was she not far more curvy than the other mermaids, than the fairies, than the humans she once knew? Did she not already know what she wanted, even if she was one to easily shy away from it?
But Peter was already turning back toward the sea, toward their mission, toward the inevitable future where Maggie would return to the human lands. She gathered the courage she believed herself to have and smiled at him when he gestured for her to follow.
4
Warm water touched by the sun above entirely embraced Maggie as she waded through the lazy waves. The sea was not rowdy against the cove’s shore, much to Maggie’s relief. The coral lay far beneath the surface, though some of its tallest branches managed to just slightly poke through the surface. She squinted as she tried to follow the long stem’s trail, but the murky color made it impossible for her to see past a certain point. Fear grasped at her chest.
When was the last time Maggie swam deep in the ocean? Perhaps she once visited the beaches in the human lands, but the dark depths of the sea was enough to keep her from venturing too deep within it. The moon coral, however, was nowhere near the water’s surface. To get even a glimpse of it, Maggie would need to be almost near the ocean floor, it seemed. The idea of it sent a chill down her spine, despite the water’s enveloping warmth.
“How far deep do you think it is?” Maggie asked in a small voice.
Peter’s clothes ballooned around him as he looked down at the water. “I couldn’t tell you,” he murmured, his thick brow furrowed tightly together. “We’d need to get down there.”
Maggie gulped, almost seconds away from revealing how afraid she was.
The water rippled to their left and a rosy colored head poked through the surface. Selina’s hands stretched toward the sun as she swam through the water, stopping directly beside the both of them. She smiled sweetly, but Maggie couldn’t tell if she meant her smile.
“Silly me,” Selina cooed. “I forgot to mention how far below the surface the coral is. It’s how it lights up the cove, you see!” Lifting her hands from out of the water, Selina revealed a pair of translucent pink bubbles. A delicate blush passed over the mermaid’s cheeks. “I made them myself.”
Maggie blinked. “W-What are they?”
“They’re Breathables!” Selina explained, obviously displeased that her bubbles weren't well-known. But her smile was quick to return. “Who am I to be offended? Why should a human know about them?”
“Breathables,” Maggie repeated, ignoring the other comment.
“You put them over your head,” she explained. “And when you go under the waves, you’ll breathe just as normal as above them!”
Maggie pressed her lips together hesitantly as Selina placed the bubble in her hands. It was slimy to the touch, though there wasn’t any residue sticking on Maggie’s skin. The pink mermaid was already swimming away, clearly satisfied with her contribution. Beside her, Peter eyed the Breathable nonchalantly, already lifting it to push it down over his head. As if he could sense her indignation, Peter lowered the bubble.
“What’s the matter, Magpie?”
“I’m…” she breathed in deep, quieting the unsteady rhythm of her heart. “I’ll be honest with you, Peter.”
His expression softened, a genuine smile tugging at his lip. “Maggie,” he murmured, the emotion in his voice taking her by surprise, “That’s all I want.”
Stunned by him for a moment, Maggie only stared, her mouth opening and closing rapidly like the fish that swam around her feet. Her fingers pressed into the bubble and she remembered where she was, what she had been saying in the first place.
“I am afraid,” she said. “T-This all seems a bit…a bit…you know.”
Peter chuckled lightly. “That’s the thing about magic, Maggie. Sometimes, the real key to it is simply believing. Taking a chance. A leap of faith. No one’s saying it isn’t scary, because the unknown always is, but why should you wallow in it? Why can’t the unknown be just as exciting?”
Maggie looked down at the water. She couldn’t even imagine what lay beneath the surface. There were so many creatures just out of her reach, knowledge she’d never even think about unlocking, experiences that were never meant to be her own. Fear could hold her back, but only if she let it.
She raised her head to meet his eyes once more. “Let’s go.”
Peter grinned wildly before lowering the bubble over his head. Maggie followed suit, feeling the Breathable squish around her hair and mold its shape around her face before it flexed, and it felt as though there was nothing there at all. Peter reached for her and intertwined their fingers, tugging her gently further away from the cove’s shores.
