I watch as she leaves, locking me back in the room again.
I sigh and flop back on the bed. What could possibly be on Death’s agenda? A little torture at eleven a.m.? A funeral at lunch? Spend the afternoon holding a job fair in Hell?
“This has to be a dream,” I say again, as if that will make it true. I’ve felt my share of pain here and my muscles are needing an Aleve something fierce, and yet I’m still holding hope that none of this is real, that I’m back in my bed in LA, in a deep, deep sleep. Hell, since we’re wishing, I’m wishing that I’m about to wake up to a Sunday, where Jenny and I will take the surfboards up to Malibu, catch a few sets, have a boozy brunch somewhere there, maybe find some guys. In the background of all this, my father will still be alive and in Finland, and I’ll have never set foot in this place.
My stomach growls as I get another whiff of the coffee. Despite how tired and hopeless I feel, I’m getting up and padding over to the table, surprised to find the coffee is served in a mini French press. Beside it is a mug that looks carved from some kind of glittering black stone, with a cinnamon bun-type of pastry with a thick honey glaze on a matching stone plate.
I pick up the French press, peering at it.
Ikea. It’s from Ikea.
“The fuck?” I mutter, but I guess it makes sense in a gonzo way. Whoever is doing Death’s errands back in the normal world must have needed a coffee maker to go along with the beans and thought a quick trip to Ikea would suffice.
I pour myself the coffee, wondering how that transaction would have gone, surely Ikea employees would be suspicious of people shopping in black robes and skeleton hands. I take a tepid sip.
Holy shit. It tastes heavenly. Or what do they really call heaven, Amaranthus? This is a beverage fit for the lucky ones in Amaranthus.
I eye the bun, or honeycake as Raila called it, from some kind of hullabaloo bee. It looks good. Really good. I reach for it but stop myself. I’ve barely had any food and I can feel myself slipping into old habits. Bad habits. Back when everything revolved around what I put in my body, first brought on by the insane need to be light and skinny in competitive ballet, then because controlling what I ate was the only time I had control in a world completely driven by my mother.
You deserve to eat, I tell myself. You need to eat. You don’t need to rebel, you need as much strength as possible to fight your way out of here.
I reach for it again, but hesitate.
“It’s not poisonous!” A girl’s voice rings out across the room.
“Shit!” I yelp, nearly spilling the coffee. I whip around, searching for the source. Just how many people are hiding in this room?
“At least, I don’t think it’s poisonous,” the girl adds. “You could give me some and I’ll try it out for you. I haven’t had honeycake in a long time.”
With shaking hands I put the coffee down and walk across the middle of the room, looking around. “Where are you? Who are you?”
“I’m in the tank,” the voice says.
“In the what?” The tank? Does she mean the bathtub? I start towards it.
“The fish tank,” the woman clarifies sullenly. A splash follows.
The fuck? How could anyone be in the fish tank?
I walk over to it behind the velvet chaise lounge chair. Like earlier, it doesn’t look like much since there’s not a lot of light. I can see there’s water in it now, some rocks, some aquatic plants that may or may not be real. It’s quite large, actually, but definitely not big enough for a person.
Then I see a flash of white and suddenly there’s a little mermaid pressed up against the glass, banging her tiny fists on it for a moment before popping her head out of the water.
“Here I am,” she says with big aqua eyes.
I bite back a scream.
Okay. Okay. I know I’ve already seen mermaids, and seen a lot weirder, more fantastical things than that, but this little mermaid in the fish tank might just take the cake.
Again, I have so many questions.
“Why are you in a fish tank?” I ask when I’ve composed myself.
“Death put me here.”
“Why are you…so small?”
“Death put a spell on me.”
“Why are you able to talk?”
“I’m the opposite of the fairy tale.”
It’s hard to think when I’m staring at her. She’s about the size of a Barbie-doll, with a shimmering white tail that flashes different colors when she moves. Her breasts are bare—no seashells here—her hair long and white. Her face is perfect, small nose, huge aqua-blue eyes that seem to sparkle, heart-shaped mouth. I suppose the other mermaids could have looked like her too, I was just in a near drowning incident at the time and hadn’t been paying too much attention to their beauty.