Chapter 5: Daylight

Everything was still there—the trees, the sand, the feeling of the place itself—but something about it had changed in the daylight, as if the island had softened or withdrawn into itself. It felt quieter now, almost emptied of something she couldn’t quite name, and the magic that had been so present the night before seemed to have slipped just out of reach. The glowing pool was gone, the mermaid nowhere to be seen, and only a few creatures lingered at a distance, hidden and cautious, watching from between the trees as if waiting for something they didn’t yet trust.

“It’s real…” Martín said softly, his voice almost lost in the stillness. “But it’s the same island, right? I mean… the one we know.”

Marisol didn’t answer, because her attention had already shifted somewhere else.

The boats were still there.

Closer now.

Some of them were already leaving, their engines low and steady as they moved away from the island, as if whatever work they had come to do was nearly finished, leaving behind a silence that felt heavier than before.

“Come,” she said, her voice quieter but certain.

They followed the curve of the island toward the place where she had seen the mermaid, moving through the familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, until they reached it—and there, among the rocks, they found what had been left behind: machinery, heavy and out of place, cutting into the natural shape of the land, disrupting everything around it.

And near it— movement.

A small group of creatures had gathered near the water, restless and shifting, their attention fixed on something just beneath the surface, and as Marisol stepped closer, she saw it—a creature trapped beneath a piece of equipment, wedged between rock and metal, partially submerged, its movements weak but desperate.

“We have to help it,” she said, already moving before the others could respond.

They dove in without hesitation, the water colder than expected, its weight pressing against them and slowing every movement as they tried to reach beneath the machine, to lift it, to shift it, but they couldn’t stay down long enough. They surfaced, gasping for air, then dove again, and again, each attempt ending the same way—with not enough time, not enough strength, the urgency building with every failed effort.

Around them, the creatures watched.

Silent.

Waiting.

Marisol felt the panic rising, sharp and immediate, her chest tightening as she looked from the trapped creature to the necklace in her hand, the impossibility of it pressing down on her.

She didn’t know how to do this.

She didn’t know what she was doing.

And still, something in her refused to step back.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment, not searching for words or spells, but for something deeper—for the feeling of the water, for the rhythm of the ocean, for the connection she had always understood without needing to explain it.

“Please…” she whispered.

And then she dove.

The water shifted—not into air, not into something unnatural, but into something that allowed her to move through it more freely, something that held her just enough for her to stay longer, to breathe just enough. She reached the creature, her hands finding the edge of the machine, pushing against its weight, adjusting, pulling, shifting until it gave slightly—just enough.

Just enough.

She pulled the creature free.

And then she turned, pushing herself back toward the surface.

When she broke through the water, she gasped sharply, her lungs burning, her body suddenly heavy again as Martín and Charlotte reached for her, pulling her toward the shore. The creature drifted beside them, weak but alive, and the others gathered around it in silence, watching as if the moment itself mattered more than anything else.

They sat in the sand afterward, catching their breath, the weight of what had just happened settling slowly around them.

“I saw her again,” Marisol said after a while, her voice quieter now. “The mermaid.”

Charlotte turned toward her. “The one you told us about?”

Marisol nodded. “She doesn’t talk.”

Charlotte was silent for a moment, her gaze drifting toward the water before returning to her. “Maybe she doesn’t need to.”

Marisol looked at her, uncertain.

“There are other ways to understand someone,” Charlotte added gently. “Not everything needs words.”

Later, back home, Marisol searched through books, through pages filled with stories and explanations, trying to find something that matched what she had seen, something that would make sense of it—but there were too many words, and none of them seemed to hold the answer she was looking for.

One afternoon, she sat with Charlotte while she worked, watching her paint in quiet concentration, completely absorbed in what she was creating.

“I don’t understand why she can’t speak,” Marisol said.

Charlotte didn’t look up. “Maybe she does,” she replied softly. “Just not the way you expect.”

Marisol frowned slightly, turning the thought over in her mind.

“There are a lot of ways to connect,” Charlotte continued, her brush moving steadily across the paper. “You don’t always need words.”

That stayed with her.

That night, standing in her grandfather’s library, surrounded by shelves filled with knowledge, with explanations, with answers that didn’t feel like answers at all, Marisol felt that same quiet frustration settle in her chest—until her attention shifted, almost without her deciding to move it, toward a corner she hadn’t visited in a long time.

Her grandmother’s things.

Sketchbooks, paint, watercolor.

She stepped closer, more slowly now, and reached for one of the sketchbooks, opening it carefully as if it might disappear if she moved too quickly and inside, she found drawings of creatures. Of the island. Of things no one had ever told her about. And in the last page she found a drawing of the auburn haired mermaid.