Lights at Midnight : A Mermaid Story (Lights at Midnight Series Book 1) Read online

  Lights at Midnight

  Copyright © 2020 by Orchid Leigh

  All rights reserved

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  www.OrchidLeigh.com

  Table of Contents

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Epilogue

  Thanks for Reading!

  About the Author

  For my little mermaid Leila

  1

  You never expect it—and I guess that’s for the best. It’s not like you can ever prepare for it, because when your life changes from ordinary to extraordinary, it doesn’t give you any warnings. It grabs hold like a riptide, fierce and strong, sweeping you up against your will and tossing you with the current. Sometimes you can do nothing but hold your breath and wait. It’s scary. But with time, you find your strength again, and you can take that chance and swim.

  It’s hard to pinpoint the exact day my unexpected life began. I sometimes think it was the day we received the notice of inheritance from my grandmother. Or maybe it was the day we packed up and actually set off for Ocean Lake. Or perhaps it was the day I met . . .

  No, I’ll start my story with the move.

  ~

  “Do you think we can fit it?”

  “Seriously?” I wriggled my nose. “I really don’t think we can fit any more, Dad.”

  “The other one’s in there somewhere,” he said, tilting a sorry head at me. “I need my shoe.”

  “I guess.” I lifted my feet so Dad could throw his shoe in with the others already down there playing footsie with me.

  “There we go,” he said. “Oh, and Millie’s blow-dryer.” He pulled the plastic dryer from under his arm and reached across to wedge it somewhere near my elbow. “Okay, that should do it.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “You gonna be okay in there?”

  I squirmed in my seat, trying to get comfortable in the messy nest I’d made among all our stuff. We were only taking what we could cram into this small car, but it sure seemed like a lot. And it was a lot—it was everything. It was our whole lives, condensed and sorted, and shoved in the back of this old beater car with me.

  I stared back at Dad, who was looking at me with concern. “Yeah,” I said with my well-practiced smile. “I’m good.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks, Dad.”

  “Okay, Ellie,” he said. “I guess it’s time.” He slammed the car door, but it caught and jammed on something. He pulled it back open and kicked at the boot that had gotten in the way.

  He tried again. This time it stuck.

  Dad moved to the driver’s seat next to Millie and started the car.

  I stared out my window and sighed. “Bye,” I said to the only world I’d ever known. I drew a farewell heart on the steamy glass and watched the city fade from view as we rolled away.

  We were heading to a new life, a new home tucked way up there in middle-of-nowhere Maine. It was so small and so hidden that when I searched for it online, I almost missed it, even with the bright red map marker hovering right over it. I had to zoom in for forever before seeing anything, and when I did spot the small dot of a town, I sat frowning at the computer screen for a good ten minutes, dismayed by what I saw or, more accurately, what I didn’t see.

  I had been sitting in the living room with my laptop, and I kept turning my head from the screen to the window that looked out over our busy street in Brooklyn, then back to the screen again in shock.

  Oh boy. Life was about to get a whole . . . lot . . . simpler.

  This move was on me, though. Yep. My fault. So I couldn’t complain. I was the one who had inherited the house, after all. How could I blame Dad for wanting to take it? I couldn’t.

  I always knew Dad wasn’t made for the city. He was from Texas and was a true country boy at heart if I ever saw one. When he came home from his stressful corporate job that day and picked up the letter from the counter, I watched with a heavy heart as his good news hit and brightened his weary face. It wasn’t something I could just ignore.

  My poor dad had been raising me alone since I was a baby. He and my mom moved to the city on a whim after they married, but it had been a dream of hers, and I always assumed he just went along with it to make her happy. She was a dancer who was working full time as a waitress when she got pregnant with me. She died from complications related to childbirth, and after that, I think Dad, secure in his job and with a new baby to raise, just stayed in the city, feeling stuck and alone.

  Millie came along about a year ago. She and Dad met at an open mic night at his favorite honky-tonk bar in the East Village. She got up to sing a Dolly Parton song, and his big country heart fell pretty hard after that; they’d been inseparable since.

  I liked Millie. She was a pretty, bubbly blonde woman who laughed and talked a lot. Her friendly Southern accent was easy to listen to, though, and she had a way of making Dad laugh. I liked her for that.

  Millie dressed like she was always ready for a party or an evening out with flowery dresses and a face of pretty makeup that was perfectly applied any and every time I saw her. And she always smelled good: a sweet combination of perfume and hairspray and fragrant lotions that mixed well with her equally sweet personality.

  She was ten years younger than Dad, who had just turned the ripe old age of fifty last year, and her bright, cheerful demeanor was a stark contrast to his more solemn mood. He seemed to like her, though, and I was always happy to see Dad smile more. And with Millie, we both did.

  It was a cold day in the middle of February, just a few days after my fifteenth birthday, when we finally made the move. The time had come. School was on winter break, and Dad had just scored a “great deal” on this old clunker we now rattled down the road in.

  I watched out the window as a messy mix of snow and rain fell from the gray sky above. Dad turned on the wipers and smeared the mess around the window, clearing as much as the tattered blades would allow. I did an equally sloppy job of pushing down my doubts.

  I was keeping them to myself—at least I was trying to. I didn’t really know what my problem was, and it wouldn’t be fair to take this opportunity away from Dad without a good reason, right? Right. So I pushed them down and swallowed them. Gulp.

  My arbitrary doubts didn’t make much sense, anyway. No, I didn’t want to leave my home and my friends, but there was more to it. Leaving New York made me sad, not nervous. And these doubts I was s
truggling with left me feeling apprehensive and a little scared, to be honest.

  I couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was, but my gut, the thing that was usually pretty reliable and trustworthy, was telling me this move was bigger than just a move—like it mattered more somehow. It was stupid, I knew, but the feeling was strange and unsettling, and I couldn’t shake it.

  The letter of inheritance came addressed to me, Cordelia Amora Heart. Yes, that’s my full name. And yes, I know it’s a bit of a gooey mouthful. Don’t worry, most people just call me Ellie. Cordelia was my mother’s name, though, so I hold a place for it. It just seems a little too regal for a normal girl like me.

  When somebody uses my full name—in all its gooeyness—I know it’s serious. And that letter came jam-packed with a lot of serious stuff.

  The letter explained I had inherited a house in Maine from my great-grandmother on my mom’s side. It was very much a surprise because my mom had been adopted as a baby, and Dad said not even she would have known of her biological grandmother from Maine. But somehow, this grandmother knew of me, and in her will, she had given her house and property of 15 Ivy Lane, Ocean Lake, Maine, to me.

  ~

  “This is it,” said Dad.

  I perked up. I glanced out my window just to see the same dense forest I’d been looking at for the past two hours. But apparently this stretch of forest rolling by was a more specific stretch of forest, and I saw a small sign welcoming us to Ocean Lake just as we rolled past it.

  “There are other people in this town, right, Dad?” I asked, trying my best to joke about it, but man, was this depressing.

  Dad’s sympathetic eyes found mine in the rearview mirror. He turned down another road, but it proved to be just as disheartening as the one before it. “This must be town,” he announced.

  Yep. I recognized it from the photos I’d seen online, but without the zoom feature, it seemed so much smaller. It was cute. I guess I could give it that. And it had everything. Yes, it sure did, and I had to keep my eyes popped and wide so I wouldn’t miss it. We rolled down Main Street, scrolling past the regular gas station and post office, a few mom-and-pop shops, an old diner, and a shabby-looking gazebo right in the center of it all. That was it—the tour was over.

  Dad turned off the strip and onto a gravel road. We followed along the edge of a large frozen lake, and my disappointment in the lacking town was instantly made up for.

  “Now how did I not see this?” I gasped, feeling short of breath because it had been taken by the view in front of me.

  I thought back to my adventures on the online map and tried to remember. No. It hadn’t been there, not in any of the photos and not in the aerial view from above; I would have seen it. It was too big to miss.

  I was mesmerized. It was still early, but the winter sun was readying to set, and a cotton candy sky created a breathtaking backdrop set against the icy waters. I stared transfixed as the light shimmered and bounced off the ice crystals in a dreamy display.

  The lake was mostly deserted, except for in the distance, someone was running along the rocky shore, a black dog trailing behind. We drove closer. It was a boy . . . about my age. He had a stick in his hand, getting ready to toss it . . .

  “Okay, it should be coming up here on the left,” mumbled Dad.

  He turned the wheel.

  We slowly rolled onto another gravel road and continued into a thicket of trees. Around another bend was a rustic wooden fence outlining the front perimeter of the property.

  It appeared as we climbed a steep hill. A large farmhouse with a long dirt driveway leading to a massive old barn. Everything was white, blending beautifully into the rolling, snowy hills behind it. The land behind the house stretched and sloped for some time before dissolving into a dense forest.

  We pulled into the pebbled driveway and stopped. Dad turned around in his seat to face me.

  “You ready for this?” he asked.

  I shrugged, unsure.

  2

  We entered through a side porch and stepped into a spacious and, to my confusion, completely stocked and furnished kitchen.

  “Oh my god, Dad. Is this right?” I turned to Dad and Millie to confirm we had entered the right house. I was afraid we were accidental intruders into somebody’s well-loved and lived-in home. They both shared the same expression of shock I knew had surfaced on my own face.

  Dad, with the house keys still in hand, glanced down to double-check the address on the printout he was holding. “Yep,” he said, looking no more convinced.

  “Wow,” Millie and I uttered in unison. We were all still standing in shock at the door.

  The kitchen was a busy mess of stuff and then more stuff. I examined the chaos with fascination. Colorful porcelain dish sets were stacked on open shelves.

  A chandelier of copper and iron pots hung in the center above a hefty stone-topped island. Under a cabinet, mismatched mugs dangled from hooks. There were decorative knickknacks everywhere, and in a corner, a sizeable collection of worn and torn cookbooks accumulated on a cluttered baker’s rack.

  Tucked away to the side, in a little window nook, was a small table with a slender vase that held a single yellow rose. The vase was resting on top of a piece of notepaper. I walked over to it.

  “Oh, my heavens, Jim,” said a breathless Millie as she scanned the space. “Did you know it would be furnished?” She turned to Dad.

  “Nope. They said the house and the lot were to go to Ellie, but no one mentioned a full-on country flea market,” he said.

  “It’s fully stocked!” gasped Millie as she opened a pantry door. A plethora of boxes and cans filled and spilled from the shelves.

  I looked closer at the paper on the table. It was a handwritten note. I picked it up and read it.

  Welcome home, Cordelia.

  All you’ll find here is yours, and my hope is that you will love and cherish it as I did. This house was filled with love and was loved. May it bring to you the same joy it brought to me.

  Please know it is not a gift, for it has always been yours. It belongs to you, just as it did to me. My soul could not bear to give it to another for fear it would fall into the wrong hands, so it remains yours to do with it what you will. And I worry not, for I know I am leaving it in the palms of someone very special and capable indeed.

  Remember to follow your heart and let love guide you in all that you do, for it is where your strength and happiness lie.

  Your loving,

  Granny Leira

  I picked up the letter and handed it to Dad.

  “Isn’t that something,” he said, scanning it and passing it to Millie, who read it with a smile.

  “It sounds like she was a lovely woman,” said Millie. “It sure is a shame we never met her.” Millie handed the letter back to me. “I think this will be the first thing that you’ll want to cherish.”

  I took the letter and tucked it into my pocket.

  “Now, come on,” said Millie. She reached for my hand. “Let’s go find our rooms!”

  We entered a cozy living room, just as busy and stuffed as the kitchen before it. We turned the corner and climbed a staircase and found ourselves in a dark hallway with several closed doors. We opened one.

  It was a large room with an oversized oak poster bed in the center. There was a picturesque bay window on one wall. On the opposite side, an opened door showcased a large bathroom glistening in white marble and chrome.

  Just inside the bathroom, Millie turned a knob to reveal a large walk-in closet. She entered, mouth agape.

  “Oh my!” she gasped. “Look at this!”

  A euphoric smile spread across her face as she stared at the walls of empty racks and cubbies. She turned to me.

  “This is a really nice room. What do you think?”

  I scrunched up my nose. “Eh . . . It’s okay,” I said, unimpressed. The dark polished wood and the swirl motifs that decorated the bedposts and matching dresser were way too fancy.

  “Do you
mind if your dad and I take this one?” she asked.

  “Oh yeah, definitely,” I said, laughing at her. She was always too nice to me and this was obviously the master bedroom. “I’m gonna keep looking.”

  Millie let out a high-pitched squeal. She bounced over to me and squeezed me in a tight hug.

  “Oh, thank you, thank you!” she said. “This room! Oh my goodness! I love it! Look at this closet! I have dreamt of a closet like this my whole life!” She pressed her hands to her cheeks joyously and twirled to admire her new room.

  I laughed at her again and slowly made my way back out the door. “I’m gonna go look around.”

  “Okay, hon,” she said, waving a happy hand at me.

  There were a few more doors along the hallway. I found a bathroom, a couple of closets, and another small room, messy and piled high with more junk. It could work, but I didn’t want to clean it, and I wanted to see what else the house might have to offer.

  At the end of the hall, I reached the last door and opened it to a flight of stairs. The attic.

  ~

  The room was quaint and lovely.

  The white paneled walls and ceiling slanted low to create a small, cozy den-like space, where a string of fairy lights sparkled and swooped in a scalloped pattern along the top edge.

  At the far end of the room, a single window looked out to the back of the property, and on the ceiling above, a large skylight opened up to a gray winter sky.

  The bed was an overstuffed mattress that lay unframed on the wooden floor. It had a colorful patchwork quilt with a multitude of pillows tossed casually on top.

  I placed my backpack among the pillows and smiled. This felt right. I wasn’t sure why. I scanned the quiet room, breathing a sigh of relief. I took my grandmother’s note from my pocket and read it again. I reflected on the first line—the first thing she had ever said to me.

  Welcome home, Cordelia.

  3

  I unpacked and sorted my things while Dad and Millie prepared dinner downstairs.

  I pulled my journal from my backpack. I would need a place to hide it. It wasn’t like Dad or Millie to go snooping in my stuff, but I always felt a little freer to write my secrets when I knew they would be hidden away.