24 hours later
The next day, the four girls were able to fake their way through their class presentation. They got the samples and Nixie knew a lot about the water and the environment, so she was able to throw together a decent paper with the help of the others. Their teacher Miss. Timpleton was a fairly young girl and mostly seen as the cool, hip teacher, and it was usually easy to get through her class with a good grade.
After the strange events that happened on Mako Island, Nixie felt a closeness to the other three and when they parted at the end of the school day, she could not help but think about them, wondering what they were up to. Here she was at the top of the lighthouse replacing the burned out bulb with a new one.
When she finished her work, she walked down the spiral stairs of the lighthouse. It was a tight squeeze, on some sides of the stairs were very small bedrooms or storage rooms for guests. At the bottom of the lighthouse, there was a large open room that led to the main house that had been built onto the lighthouse back when the it was first built. The main house had 4 bedrooms, a living room, bathroom and a kitchen.
Outside the lighthouse, they were situated on a high rocky cliff that overlooked the waters and the island.
Nixie remembered the night before as they came out of the water and went back to their boat. It had been pure luck that they were found. It had been Nixie's friend Jay who noticed his boat was missing and Nixie was the only person who ever wanted to use it, and to get to Mako, no less. He and one of his fishing friends came out to the island and found the girls.
He scolded Nixie, but couldn't be too angry with her. How was she supposed to know that the boat was in need of new parts?
She shook off the memory and started to do her nightly routine before going to bed. Unbeknown to her, around 10pm that night, it had been 24 hours since they had been trapped by the moonlight. Something inside her was changing, shifting.
The next morning, she woke up around 11am, happy that it was Saturday. She threw off her covers and jumped out of bed. From the sounds of it, the other people in her house were up and going about their days already. She waited for what felt like 10 minutes for her sister to finish in the bathroom, getting annoyed because Lyra always took forever in there.
“About time!” Nixie ran into the bathroom, slammed and locked the door. She dropped her clean clothes on the sink and started to undress. She poured herself a nice, warm bath. Nixie was going to relax this time. She had nowhere to be.
When she got in the water, nothing seemed different. Then ten seconds passed, and with a whoosh and what seemed like water swirling around her body, she found herself looking down at... at... a fish tail. She blinked, rubbed her eyes and looked again. Yes, it was still there.
“Oh my... Oh my God,” Nixie exclaimed.
“Are you okay, sweetie?” Her mother's voice came through the door, making her panic. How would she explain a freaking tail?
“I-I'm fine. Lyra just left a clump of hair in the drain. Ew!”
“Teenagers,” her mother said with a chuckle.
“I'm not fine, I'm not fine. I'm a scientific freak. What the heck is this?” Nixie whispered to herself. She twisted her body around, trying to get a good look at the tail. It was bright blue and scaly. It had little fins on the sides of her hips and tapered off to a point with two flippers like fins a a foot or two from where her feet normally should be.
Not only did she have a tail, she was now wearing some scaly bra like thing on her chest. It matched her tail in color and kind of looked like wings on her breasts, it barely covered them, making it look like she had huge cleavage, and her shoulders were left bare. Nixie blushed and vowed nobody would see her like this.
“Wait a minute...” Nixie tilted her head to the side. What if the other girls also had a tail. She snapped her fingers as if coming to an explanation. “The cavern. The moonlight!” That had to be it, but how was any of this possible and what did it mean?
Nixie pulled herself out of the tub and dragged her body until she got to the towel rack. She had no idea if this would work, but figured drying off would make her legs come back, if getting wet made the tail appear.
And just like magic, she was soon herself again. A bit shaky, she got up to her feet.
“Now what?” she asked the empty room.