In the deep, cold waters off the Irish coast, the fifteen-year-old mermaid who calls herself Gaia dreams of breaking the surface of the sea and seeing the human world, just like her lost mother, Muireann, did; she knows that her father, the Sea King hates the humans, and would like to drive anyone with the taint of humanity away, but she does not know the secret he is hiding--or what it will cost her and her sisters to find out.