Mermaid — Chris Howard

If I had known my tears were doors for summoning sea demons, I wouldn't have tried so hard to cry. There are plenty of other things I wouldn't have done either, but the sea has ways of getting into my head, into my dreams -- ways of making me do things, and even worse, making me think I wanted to do them. I grew up about as far from the ocean as anyone can get. Plenty of rivers and lakes nearby, but sadly it's all freshwater and the sea isn't even a dream in their courses. I grew up fearing water, not trusting it, uncomfortable with more than five gallons gathered in one place. I mean real fear, like the sound of running water made my knees shake. That's the work of Matrothy, the Girl's Department Director. I was four years old the first time she tried to drown me... Kass is a bookish teenager trapped in a mid-west American boarding school, under the reign of the oppressive Girl's Department Director and the watchful eyes of river witches. She never knew her parents. She doesn't know where she's from, or even if she's entirely human. When she drowns on her birthday, everything about her life and her place in the world changes -- a mermaid's tail is just the beginning. Kass finds out that her parents didn't abandon her, that there's more to the Director than the brutish, tyrannical façade, and the boarding school is really her prison. Knowledge is a prize, and knowing her enemies is a start, but will it set her free?