Free Madly by Amy Alward

normal voyager out to see the clamwhackers.”
    Anita, Arjun, and I reel back. I’ve never heard anything as offensive as the man’s blatant insult to the mercreatures, but it just spurs Kirsty on. She reaches down into the boat and grabs Edgar under the armpit. She pulls him upward and—as if the sea is momentarily on our side—a wave rises up beneath them to push him up even higher. She drags him onto the dock, then drops him like a stone.
    Anita and I dash into the boat before Edgar can regain his footing. “I know for a fact that you don’t own this boat, Ed. You lost your license to sail when you tried to snare that narwhal. So find some other Finder to ­swindle.” While Kirsty talks, she unravels the length of rope attaching the boat to the dock. With a firm shovefrom her boot she pushes the boat away and jumps in before it floats too far.
    â€œGet the oars!” she yells. Anita and I scramble to grab them, and I shove one toward a slack-jawed Arjun. Kirsty takes the other one from Anita and roars out, “Stroke! Stroke!” until she and Arjun fall into a fast rhythm.
    And still those lights look a long, long way out to sea.
    â€œWe’re not going to make it,” Anita mutters beside me.
    â€œWhat do you mean?” I ask.
    â€œListen! Can’t you hear it? The Rising is beginning.”

Chapter Twelve
    Samantha
    AT FIRST I CAN’T HEAR anything but the rise and fall of the oars in the water, but then the first few notes reach me. It’s coming from where the other boats are huddled. There’s a loud snap, and the floodlight from the massive yacht blinks out.
    All the other boats turn their lights off too, and my eyes have trouble adjusting to the midlight. The full moon seems obscenely large without the halo of other lights diminishing its brightness.
    It’s then that the first shell rises. At first it looks like another wave cresting far out at sea, but then I realize it’s the scalloped edge of a mermaid’s clam shell, as wide as our rowing boat is long. All other sounds have quieted down and the sea is as still as glass. This makes it easier for Kirsty and Arjun to propel us through the water, but Anita and I are frozen at the bow of the rowboat, paralyzed by the thought that we might havemade it this close but yet still be too far.
    The moonlight glints off the pearlescent lip of the clam shell, disappearing into its numerous ridges and sparkling again on the swells. Another shell rises a few feet away, this one a more blushing pink than the first. They seem to multiply then, every shade of a dusky rainbow—from deep-bruise purple to silvery gray to almost bronze. The numerous remedies that can be made from the delicate inner lining of the shells rise in my mind:
    Oyster Shell: for rosacea reduction—to soothe reddened skin. Also for bone strengthening—can help with early onset osteoporosis.
    Anita stares through wide-angled binoculars, chewing at her bottom lip.
    â€œHas Aphroditas risen yet?” Kirsty asks over her shoulder, her voice straining with the effort of rowing.
    Anita shakes her head. “I don’t think so . . . wait . . .”
    I squint my eyes to try to get a better look, and then I squeal with excitement as I follow where Anita is looking. A shell is rising; white, a brilliant, pure white that is brighter than any of the others. And it’s larger than the others too: the moon itself lifting up out of the sea. Although the water stays calm, the boats spread out and away from this shell, offering the respect that it deserves.
    And then the shell starts to open.
    Her hand is ghostly white and it shimmers too, as if her skin is radiating the light from the full moon. Herfingers are too long, more like twigs than flesh, and fine, translucent webs join each one to its neighbor. In one swift movement she flings open the lid of her shell and she is revealed in all her glory. Her hair would