But Aquamarine knew better. She unhooked one of the shells from her beautiful blue dress and gave it to Raymond. She promised that if he said her name into the shell, she would hear him, no matter where she might be.

“I don’t think that’s possible.” Raymond shook his head. He’d read so many books that he thought he knew how every story ended.

“Anything is possible,” Aquamarine told him, and when the girls looked at her face, they knew that this was true.

Aquamarine didn’t say a word when the girls brought her back to the pool. If she was crying, she didn’t let them see. Tomorrow at noon, high tide would race in. Aquamarine was sure of this because a mermaid can always tell the tide, just as easily as a person can distinguish night from day. It was then she’d have to leave.

The girls stored the wheelchair in an abandoned cabana and promised they’d be back in the morning, first thing. Aquamarine had become so weak from her stay on land she hadn’t any strength left. She was too exhausted to swim and was forced to stay in the shallow end of the pool. All the same, she refused to take off the blue dress, even though it weighed her down. By now, Aquamarine was as pale as those fish you find beached on the shore, and she’d begun to labor for breath.

“This is the most beautiful night there has ever been,” the mermaid whispered.

The girls ran to the parking lot where Maury was dozing behind the wheel of his car.

“So,” he asked when they got in the car. “Was your mermaid happy with tonight’s results?”

“She said it was the most beautiful night there had ever been,” Claire said.

When the girls looked around them, they saw that this was true. Hailey and Claire peered back through the Capri gates, to the beach where the white crests of the waves broke on the shore. They could see the stars sparkling above. To have a night like this could make almost anyone believe in the future.

The furniture in Claire’s grandparents’ house was gone now, and because of this they were all supposed to sleep at Hailey’s. But the girls begged and pleaded and at last the grown-ups gave in and allowed them to take their sleeping bags and camp out in the empty living room at Claire’s house. It felt funny to be there without the sofa and the table and the pillows and the books and everything else that had made this Claire’s home. Their voices echoed off the bare walls.

“Do you think she’ll really go tomorrow?” Hailey asked.

“She has to,” Claire said. “She doesn’t have a choice.”