But that’s the disaster of premonitions: You actually have to think, and analyze, to determine when, and how, you’re going to help someone . . . or not.

Try figuring that one out when you’re a kid. No wonder I’m screwed up.

Chapter 16

Chapter 16

“What did Serafina have to give King Koradome in order to get out of the cage and help her brothers get out, too?”

“Serafina would have to give up her colorful mermaid tail to King Koradome, scale by scale.”

“Oh no!”

“Yes. King Koradome wanted to punish Serafina for having something so beautiful. He had always wanted her shiny, luminescent scales, so he cast a spell on her. She had to agree to the spell in order to get her brothers out of the cage.

“Every single time Serafina did something kind for someone else, a scale would fall off, swim through the sea, around the coral reefs and the sunken ships and the mountain ridges, and King Koradome would catch it in his greedy hand. He wanted to collect the scales one by one. He also wanted her family and her friends to watch her losing her special tail, then they would remember who was the most powerful merman of all.”

“He’s mean.”

“Yes, and he knew that Serafina would not be able to stop doing nice things for people, helping them, no matter what it cost her.”

“Was he right? Did Serafina stop helping people so she could keep her tail?”

Chapter 17

Chapter 17

Chief Allroy was hiking and fell. He broke both legs. No one could find him at first. We all went out searching for him. Finally, right before the sun hid beneath the horizon, twenty-five-year-old Devonna Shepherd, who everyone says has the sight of an eagle, spotted him. He was way down a ravine, hardly moving. He did, however, raise a hand in hello, then passed back out.

He was helicoptered to Seattle. He was in bad shape but would make a full recovery eventually.

“Such a shame,” my mother said that night at my house, where we were eating chocolate croissants that I’d bought from the bakery that makes all my delicious bookstore cakes.

“We’ll have to bring him—”

“Shhh!” Aunt Camellia said, trying to be discreet as she nodded her head vigorously in my direction.

I rolled my eyes and put my purple rose teacup back down on my butcher block table. Sundance barked at Aunt Camellia as if he were in on the joke. Butch and Cassidy laid on my mother’s and Aunt Iris’s feet. Those dogs shifted their loyalties with my mother and aunts around. It was a tad annoying.

“What?” my mother said. “The pot will help with the pain.”