Page 3 - The Mermaid Call

Ness!’ so the village website likes to boast).
The ‘mermaid’ trade props up the whole village.There’s the annual Mermaid Festival and its celebrated Mermaid Crown.There’s ‘Atlantis Arcades’,‘Neptune’s Inn’,‘Splash Tearooms’.And of course, there’s Mimi’s souvenir shop, ‘Enchanted Tails’, selling all-things mystical, balletic and beautiful (mermaids, nymphs, sirens, selkies). Everything Viviane believes she’s not.
It’s the start of the summer tourist season, and while Viv- iane is frustrated with best friend Eleni for going off with the new girl at school and joining in a protest against the Mermaid Crown (“It’s sexist!”), she’s over-the-moon- excited about the arrival of her mermaid-beautiful mum. She’s determined to win the Festival lake swim this year and finally make her mum proud.
That is until Viviane’s mum – like she’s done countless times before – cancels her visit.Agonising over wheth- er it’s her own fault – for not looking like the perfect daughter – Viviane is keeping shop for Mimi the next morning when Alice DeLacy enters ‘Enchanted Tails’. Dis- traught.The DeLacys own the posh, big house at the top of the lake.Village gossip says their younger daughter (Al- ice’s aunt) died tragically in the Illuminated Caves when she was just a girl, over twenty years ago – although, shush, no one talks about that in case the tourists hear.
Viviane’s never met Alice before, but she’s a welcome distraction. Magical-looking (like she’s stepped out of a painting),she’s soon confiding inViviane.Alice has had a row with her grandmother for reading her dead aunt’s