Mercadia forever, p.24
Mercadia Forever, page 24
“Jonah,” I say. “Where are you going?”
“We’re going to see what Sherry’s made of.”
I peer toward the heavens to find our passion portal has vanished. Jonah and I have been disconnected for too long.
Meanwhile, Colossus is in full form, once again alive, thriving, and retreating into the sea.
The water towers rebuild themselves, and time is moving backwards much faster. I don’t know if it will right itself again.
“I don’t s-see—” Sherry stutters. Flying at their side, my super merlien hearing captures every word in the storm. “I don’t know. I don’t understand how it works. It’s not me!”
“It is you, Princess,” I tell her. “It has to be.” I believe in her as I believe in Jonah as I believe in the power of everlasting Mercadia.
Maya unfurls herself momentarily from Time’s mischief, just to give her sweet sister one proud wink of encouragement. Those eyes of hers are as blue as the sky used to be. Free of Viviane’s curse, she returns to her never-beginning battle with Clyburn, the undead void traveler. As queen, mother, and protector, Maya knows her role.
We soar our unicorns on the space-time jet stream. Up and into a lonely cloud, we fly. Jonah hands over control of Jasper, and Sherry takes it so he can leap, one last time, from his unicorn to mine.
“When we open the portal, Princess, use your Emrys-given-power to force Earth’s void through. That’s Mercadia on the other side. We have to believe it’s there. What’s left of it anyway—which is nothing. With any luck, the two voids will consume each other, returning both our worlds to their former glory.”
“Or they’ll merge and eat us alive for all of eternity.”
“Not helpful, Mezz.”
Princess Sherry’s face changes as the morning’s first light fades. We are on the brink of the previous night again. We are on the cusp of Never.
“Here goes nothing,” Sherry says. “Literally.”
She clicks her heels, and Jasper beats his wings. Together, they ride toward a rude, reawakened dawn.
“Jonah,” I speak his name. It’s all I have left.
We ride together toward certain uncertainty. With my legs wrapped around Josephine’s torso, I pray to any god who might listen that we’ll somehow survive, so I can once again experience the joy of having Jonah’s legs wrapped around me.
“Mezzy,” he whispers my name in my ear. The breath of him fills me with rampant delight. I turn my face to his and kiss him, soft and true. The light of our unique, temporal portal opens for one last hurrah. Princess Sherry, alight with a silver glow, grabs hold of the edge of the void with her bare hands. She shoves that bleak zilch existence destroyer through our magic love door.
“Mezz—”
“I’ll see you on the other—”
This world, my former home, and every realm known and unknown ends and begins with a whimpering undulation.
And we roll with it.
EPILOGUE - TWO LIFEGUARDS
“AHA! WHERE ARE you going, Jamie?”
The playful laughter comes from a mother directly in front of my chair. She stands close by as her toddler wades in the shallowest of waters. She’s on him like a guardian angel, ready to catch him when his adorable totter turns to a fall.
And he does fall. And she does catch him. And she holds him to her chest and spins him around and around, laughing again.
And the waves tumble on.
Behind my copper-rimmed shades, I turn my attention elsewhere. Some fresh young kid is throwing rocks at a gander.
“Hey!” The bullhorn amplifies my best authoritative voice. Everyone in my vicinity looks up. “Don’t throw rocks at the geese!”
The kid stomps away, embarrassed, but then quickly finds his way back to the water where his friends laugh at his expense, and splash him.
“Chair five to chair four.” Cat’s voice cracks over the radio.
“Go ahead.”
“Is that the same kid you yelled at two hours ago?”
“No. Different one.”
“You sure? He looks like the same kid.”
“Pretty sure. That other kid—”
Had a mullet.
I have to smile. Because this is where (and when) it all began. I was caught in the reality of the golden afternoon for a moment, thinking my life wasn’t mine. But it very much is. I’m living it for the first time. As me.
I am not, nor ever will be, who Jonah once was… or might still be. All roads are open. I am officially diverged.
“Hey you,” Jennie’s silky voice comes lilting my way from her nearby blanket. “Gonna save any lives today, hero?”
Just my own, I think. Can she still hear my thoughts. Every day. Being with you.
The ocean is as calm as I’ve ever seen it. Or maybe it’s just an illusion, a dream, a fantasy. Just minutes or eons ago, Jennie and I were drowning in the raging sea. It was an incomprehensible thing, given that we’d both transformed and could breathe underwater just fine.
Does she remember? Does it matter?
Angel climbs up and sits next to me on the chair. “Gorgeous day, eh bro?”
“Bro?” I repeat. I kinda like it. I look him square in the eyes, searching for any spark of recollection. “Angel?”
“Take a dip, man. You won’t regret it. The water’s fine.” He slaps my shoulder and leans back with his hands laced behind his head.
Am I the only one with the memory of the apocalyptic future? Because we saved two worlds and then some.
I jump down. My toes spread in the warm sand. A cool breeze flirts with my eyelashes. I take it all in, inhaling a life affirming breath.
I exhale. I absorb. I am.
Jennie stands from her blanket and brushes off her long, silky legs. She’s wearing a flimsy blue shawl that she lets fall behind her. “Come swim with me, Jonah,” she says. All traces of who I really am seem to have vanished from her mind.
Or maybe she’s just messing with me.
We run full speed into the ocean and dive into an approaching wave. Jennie comes up for air in deeper waters, whooping with delight.
“You’re the rotten egg, Jonah!”
“Not anymore,” I say, and kick as fast as my legs will carry me to be by her side.
* * *
“Mezz?”
It’s dark. But not bleak.
“I’m here,” she answers. And the day is bright and new. The water is warm, tranquil, steady.
“Where?” I ask. My eyes adjust to the strange light, and I spot an exquisite waterfall at the edge of this lagoon. I am standing in a shallow pool beneath a high cliff. A cluster of familiar faces beam down.
The cascade parts, and my merl from another world appears in all her glory.
I wade through the forgiving water to reach her, and we embrace each other as if letting go would destroy us for good.
“Is this Mercadia?” I ask. “Are we—”
“Shh.” She traces her finger across my lips. Her eyes shine. “The queen’s invited us for plomberry wine.”
Hand in hand, we climb the long trek up the cliff slope to where our friends greet us with vigorous applause.
Princess Sherry curtsies, making me blush. Maya offers Mezzy a white rose, making her glow. About a half a mikon away, Mercadia Castle stands tall with renewed splendor.
“We’ve made a few changes,” Maya says, radiating pure goodness. She claps her hands, and the sky turns a pretty shade of pink. She claps again and a lazy river appears, meandering its smooth, undisturbed way toward the castle.
“What magic would you like to perform today, Sir Jonah?” the mermaid queen asks.
Without hesitation, Mezzy and I wade in.
Together, we swim.
AFTERWORD
DEAR READER,
Thank you so much for completing the Mermaids and Merliens series. If you could take a moment out of your day to rate or review this final novel, I’d forever be grateful. Ratings and reviews make an author’s world go round. Your opinion matters!
Even though Jonah and Mezzy’s journey has ended, I’ve always got some strange, off-kilter stories a-brewin’. I’d love for you to join my newsletter so I can keep you updated on what’s coming down the pike. I also send out lots of freebies, behind the scenes stories, and the occasional kiddie and kitty pics.
To get all this fabulous literary swag and more, swim on over to shakabry.com! There, you’ll have front row seats to all the goodies. Act now (or later, or next Tuesday, or whenever) and you can get Mercadia Stalling, a FREE novella prologue that tells the story of how Maya and Hermann met and fell in love, back before the void came to Mercadia.
Thanks again for reading my first young adult series! There is so much more to come!
Until we meet again…
Fiction is stranger than truth,
Shaka Bry
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
SHAKA BRY (A.K.A. Bryon Cahill) is a conventional fantasy’s worst nightmare. In the not-so-distant past, he was an award-winning writer and editor of literary publications for teens. His stories, influenced by phantasmagorical classics such as Lewis Carroll’s Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, do often steer off-course, alighting on the wings of the fantastical. In other words, his books don’t always fit the norm.
When not writing by proverbial candlelight in the wee strange hours of morning, he is a devoted father of three and loving husband of one. He summers, winters, springs, and falls with his family along the sunny beaches of the Jersey Shore.
In doing research for the Mermaids and Merliens series, Shaka Bry spent six months ensconced in merlien culture at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. Though it was difficult to write down there in the deep, the merliens of Atlantis showered him with extraordinary efforts of cordial indifference, thereby proving his theory: Fiction is stranger than truth.
Shaka Bry, Mercadia Forever
