Ivy looks up, eyes so heavy they could easily just retreat to the back of her skull. Her lip is on the verge of quivering as she says, “I don’t think I can.”
I honestly don’t know if I can either. It’s not a place I’d want to be anyway, since after spending an hour being the world’s most inexperienced secret agents, we’re exhausted, sore, and all out of adrenaline to keep us moving. But we’ve gone this far, and Iris could be in serious danger.
“I’ll just go, get the deets,” I say, standing to brush some dirty snow off my pants. “You guys stay here till I come back.”
“No way,” Marcus says, getting to his feet. “You can’t go in there alone.”
“Well, Ivy can’t sit out here alone, and I don’t think it’d be good for her general well-being to see her sister put through a potential second round of magical torture.”
Ivy doesn’t even flinch at my suggestion of suffering. She’s definitely hit a wall of her own. We are not exactly in the best part of the city, and having her sit here like a tasty treat for unscrupulous souls is the worst idea yet.
“Fine,” Marcus says, following my wavelength. “But be safe. Stay out of sight. Please.” He squeezes my shoulder as his face pinches in synchronized concern.
“I will be careful. Extra careful. All the careful.”
And with that, I head into the unknown, resuming the tiptoe walk of the night. As soon as I step inside the tunnel, the city backdrop disappears, and I can only assume this passage is enchanted with portal-like qualities. Great. In an effort to remain unseen, I press myself against the walls, which feel like they’re covered in slime. The crisp night air has been replaced by a foul eau de death. I can barely see my hand in front of my face, so I rely on the goo walls to guide me, inching ever inward.
There’s a light at the end of the tunnel—literally—and my eyes start to adjust. I hold my breath as I get closer, partially because of the smell but mostly because I don’t want the raven to detect my arrival. I hear a murmur of voices and strain to pick out the words. Finally, I’m close enough to see two figures—Iris and an old man—so I pick a spot in the shadows to crouch down in a ball, making myself as small as possible as I eavesdrop on the conversation already under way.
“I was told you could help me,” Iris is saying, in a voice that echoes her own, yet is completely detached and emotionless. After spending forever staring at her back, I finally have a view of her face, not that there’s much to see: her eyes are glassed over, her jaw slack, no life in her body or voice. Without her free will, this is definitely not the passionate speaker I’ve come to know. She may as well be a reanimated corpse.
“Perhaps,” says the man, a toothless grin peeking through a long, unruly, navel-length beard. It’s the most magnificent yet bizarre tangle of facial hair I’ve ever seen; it may be the dim lighting, but it almost appears like there are streaks of moldy green woven throughout the gray. I squint to make out more of his details. He’s sitting in a massive pile of trash, wrinkled skin grabbing on to his makeshift garbage throne. His feet are submerged in a puddle of very murky water, and the whole scene has me craving a scalding hot shower.
“We are one and the same, after all,” robot Iris says. The old man strokes his mildewed beard in approval. One and the same? What does that mean? How could Iris be the same as this trash dweller?
“Tell me more about this witch you want to punish,” says the man, with a weird amount of excitement.
“She’s your typical two-faced, goody-goody Wicca,” Iris starts, her words biting but her face neutral. “She puts on this Mother Earth facade, but it’s all for show. I’m tired of her thinking she’s better than everyone else.” I wish she were talking about the actual witch who has caused her harm, but it’s clear she’s describing my mom, like a recording of Victoria that’s been run through a distortion filter.
The man sends a creepy chuckle echoing down the tunnel. “Yes, witches are a terrible breed. Completely worthless. They have to use silly words and potions to get the job done. They don’t have any real magic inside them, not like us.”
I’m racking my brain, trying to understand how this jerk pile has the balls to associate himself with Iris, when it hits me: he’s a nix. Of course! Hello, Amber! Basically the male equivalent of sirens, nixes are water sprites that also have the ability to mind-warp unsuspecting creatures to bend to their will. Only problem is, a nix loses his powers way faster than a siren, usually burning through his allotted magic before he’s barely figured out what to do with it. This leads to an almost universal hatred of any supernatural who can sustain her ability for more than half a second, with witches being enemy number one. You don’t come across many a nix, since most of them become so intolerable post–magic burnout that they find it hard to trick someone into reproducing. They sure do love sirens, though, since they share the whole from-the-sea, limited-time specialness.
“Agreed,” Iris monotones. “So you will help me?”
He plunges a hand into his garbage heap, rummaging around. I can’t imagine what he will pull out of there, but it can’t be good. He digs down deeper, at one point tossing his lengthy beard out of the way; I realize now the green strands are traces of seaweed. From out of the wreckage he eventually pulls some sort of black orb, about the size of Windy City’s average-size crystal balls. With a dirty sleeve, he attempts to polish it up, only adding to its smudge.
“This pearl…in the hands of a witch, this could do real damage,” he says, eyeing his treasure, “which is why I’d only ever share it with someone like me and not one of them.” With two hands he gives it to Iris, like the passing of a precious family heirloom.
So this is the real reason Victoria took Iris’s free will. She needed a body to get here and do what she could not. Nixy here is clearly some prejudiced buttwipe that would never give a witch this magical item, and Victoria needed a siren—someone a nix would trust—to run her errand. That murderous raven must have sent some wacko decoded message to Iris to get her here. I don’t know what that black pearl does, but it can’t be good.
My legs start to fall asleep in my balled-up pose, and I tumble back, bottom landing in more of the tunnel’s putrid water. The raven, which has been chilling on one of the nix’s trash piles, darts its attention toward the darkness, feathers ruffled, and I hold my breath in panic. After a few seconds of silence, the bird relaxes, but my heartbeat continues at a furious pace. I need to get out of here. If this water sprite was going to hurt Iris, he would have done so already, and it looks like she got what she came for.
Or, I should say, what Victoria came for.
“MOM, have you ever had use for a black pearl?” We’re in our kitchen the next morning, getting ready. It’s a big day, for sure, because I have my Culinary Institute interview in a few hours. Too bad my head is now filled with nightmares of the nix’s seaweed beard strangling the life out of me while Zombie Iris and her pet raven watch. Mom’s sipping coffee while I stir waffle batter in an attempt to calm myself. I know I need to tell Mom about what happened, but I’m scared she will strangle me after learning about my involvement in last night’s events.
“Black pearl? No,” she says, not looking up from her grimoire.
“Are they, like, scary or something?”
“They are incredibly rare. I wouldn’t say the object itself is scary, but I’ve heard the spells one can unlock with them are rather dangerous.” With this, her suspicion grows, and she sets down her mug. “Why?”
I take a beat, ladling brown sugar blueberry mix into the waffle maker. “Um, because I have it on good authority that a certain witch may have acquired a certain rare item.”
Mom’s face grows stern. “How good of an authority?”
The sizzling batter behind me matches my crackling nerves. “Uh, a personal account?” I tell her everything, every super-weird detail, but though I expect her to eviscerate me on the spot, she remains still, her face changing from initial anger to fear. Real, tangible fear fills th
e room, and I know she’s lost hold of her usual Wicca serenity. When I’m done, silence sits between us, with only the timer from the waffle maker beeping.
“This…is much worse than I expected,” Mom finally says, gripping the table for stability. “Victoria is using this poor girl as a weapon, to get back at me.”
“Get back at you for what, though? Kicking her out of your coven? She had no right to be there in the first place. You were staying cool to keep everyone safe.”
Mom shakes her head. “It’s not about just that.”
“Then what?”
She stands abruptly and walks out of the room.
“Mom!” I call after her. She doesn’t stop, so I grab her arm. “Why won’t you just tell me?”
“Because!” she yells, the sudden volume change startling. “Because there are some things you don’t want your teenage daughter to know, all right?!” She shakes her arm free and storms off to her room, slamming the door. The waffle iron beeps again, and I walk over to pull the plug, my appetite lost.
So much is happening, and I have no one to talk to. My best friend thinks I’m horrible; my own mom won’t even have a real conversation with me. And Charlie…He’s practically disappeared off the face of the earth. I miss sharing my experiences with him, the way he’d always listen even though my world is so much different from his. He never judged or made me feel crazy; he took the supernatural struggles in stride. I’m thinking of him when the words I need to see you ignite my phone.
Charlie.
He misses me. He wants me. He has not given up on me.
Elation. Pure elation. How five little words can set off fireworks in my veins is a mystery I don’t need explained. I start flitting around the room like I imagine fairies do when they can finally unfurl their wings after a long day of assimilating in human society. Maybe I was wrong all along. Maybe Charlie and I have a connection that defies the basic patterns of love and courtship. Somehow, someway, our pairing is stronger than signals pointing us elsewhere. Screw destiny, screw the Fates. I told Charlie his match yet he still wants ME. That has to be saying something.
I’m flying so high, I’m about to mix myself one of Mom’s sedative elixirs to calm myself down, until I realize the text didn’t come from Charlie after all: it’s from Ivy. I got so caught up in the message, I didn’t bother to check the sender. My manic twirling stops, mood slashed and gutted.
What’s wrong? I text back, my fingers groaning with every letter.
Just meet me at Diversey Harbor in 30 minutes.
I kind of have an important appointment today, I text back.
AMBER.
Fine!
It will take me that long to get over to that part of the city, but at least I’ll have something to do other than wallow.
As I step off the bus, icy wind lashes my face, and I think, I could have been with Charlie right now. Reunited, wrapped up warm in his arms, instead of braving frigid lake effects. Except that I couldn’t, since he doesn’t need to see me and everything is just as it was.
Diversey Harbor is a bend in the lakefront where the members of Chicago’s upper crust park their booze-cruise boats during the warmer months. The docks are empty now, their tenants holed up somewhere much cozier for winter, mass vacancy casting an eerie feel. Ice-cold water gently laps at the shore, and I pull my coat tighter as I look for Ivy.
I spot her sitting in silence, sunlight illuminating her blond curls. She rocks herself gently, blowing hot breath into her mittened hands. She’s practically blue: not at all at home with the ice I tend to associate her with.
“What’s wrong?” I call out as I approach, scaring her to the point of nearly knocking her off the bench. Clearly, the aftermath of last night is sticking with her too. “Did something else happen with Iris?”
This would be the part where Ivy delivers her requisite glare, but she doesn’t, looking at me instead with tired eyes. “C’mon,” she croaks, and starts plodding off farther down the dock, forcing me to follow.
“For reals, what is going on?” I repeat, once I catch her side.
She blinks furiously, eyelashes crusted with snow crystals. I myself have blurred vision from the freezing wind.
“Iris’s phone has been buzzing like crazy,” she begins. “I wasn’t going to do anything about it, but the sound she has set for text messages is like a chirpy bird that won’t stop squawking. Since she doesn’t have the free will to check it”—she gives me a piercing side-eye—“I needed to make it stop. I thought about smashing the damn thing, but decided setting it to silent would be nicer. Once I picked it up, I saw all the texts were from Brooke.”
I stop walking. “I’m sorry, but how does a mermaid have a cell phone? If my phone touches water for a millisecond, I have to submerge it in rice before it short-circuits.”
“Amber, keep up!” Ivy turns back to me. “I don’t want to be out here all day; it’s freezing!” I hear her cursing under her breath, even from several feet away. “And it’s not like Brooke’s carrying an iPhone in her seashells. Iris got her a burner she keeps on the shore so they could stay in communication during this transition phase.”
This is blowing my mind. “But how does she even text? Aren’t her fingers all pruney? Can she even work the screen?”
“STOP IT. You are focusing on the wrong crap, okay? She has a phone; they text each other. The end!”
“Okay, okay, sheesh.” But I still have more questions. “Brooke is living in Lake Michigan, though? That sounds really murky. Not to mention cold as hell. Aren’t mermaids supposed to be best friends with dolphins?”
Ivy rolls her eyes. “You know, for someone who takes such offense at witch stereotypes, you sure do like to pull out ridiculous tropes for others.” Zing. “And besides, she’s not living there permanently. She’s just waiting for my sister, and then they’ll swim off toward the Gulf, where it’s warm and tropical and fitting of your perceived visual.”
We’ve stopped now, pausing on the edge of slip number nineteen. It’s just an empty rectangle of water, but Ivy is peering down like there’s treasure at the bottom.
“When I picked up her phone, Brooke’s messages were getting progressively more panicked. Where are you?…I’m worried…I love you, please respond…Blah, blah. She’s been freaking out, so I texted back that I’d come meet her.”
“Aww, that’s so sweet of you,” I say, more condescending than I mean. “But I thought you don’t want them together? Why even bother? Why not just let Brooke drift aimlessly out to sea?”
“I don’t want them together,” she says. “But that doesn’t matter now, does it? And besides, I’ve spent a lot of time feeling completely clueless over how to reach my sister, so I know it’s not a good place to be.”
I’m about to congratulate Ivy on her growth as a human being, when something pokes out of the water. Tentative at first, like a submarine scope surveying the shore, Brooke’s aqua eyes hover on the water’s surface, ensuring she is safe. She’s so still, barely causing a ripple, as if she is actually part of the water itself. If I hadn’t come here specifically to meet a mermaid, I wouldn’t even notice her careful emergence.
She recognizes Ivy, eyebrows knitting in confusion. After glancing around for Iris, her head fully pops out of the lake, revealing long strawberry-blond strands that curl around her shoulders like a shawl. I can’t even imagine how cold the water must be. She surely must need any type of cover she can get.
“Ivy, what are you doing here?” Brooke asks, grabbing on to the side of the dock. “Where is Iris?”
“She…can’t come,” Ivy says, genuine regret lacing her words.
“Why not? Is she okay?”
Ivy bites her lip, a shiver running through her. She’s so timid, reserved. I don’t know if I’ll ever get used to her being something other than a commanding Ice Queen. She seems paralyzed by the events of last night, so whether I’m supposed to or not, I step in. “There’s been a development. With Iris’s spell.”
Brooke splashes over to me, suddenly aware of my existence. “What do you mean? What happened?” I can’t tell if her lip is quivering from the cold or fear of what I’ll say next.
I give a high-level recap of Iris’s free-will extraction, leaving out the frightening visuals that will haunt me for a lifetime. Ivy, for one, doesn’t seem like she could handle it right now, and I’m not familiar with Brooke’s constitution.
The mermaid sinks back into the water once I’m done, like the Titanic surrendering to the sea. For a moment only the sound of our frozen breath fills the air.
“Do you think she’s okay?” I ask Ivy.
“How could she be? I’m not okay.”
I nod, searching for scales beneath the surface. There’s a faint green glimmer hovering below, and we wait to let her process.
Brooke peeks back up, eyes cloudy, and I wonder what it feels like to cry underwater. “I didn’t mean for this to happen,” she says. “I didn’t realize it would be so hard.”
This hits Ivy the wrong way. “You mean, you didn’t think it would be so hard to switch species? Hello! She’s getting a tail for you. All of this is because of you!” She looks like she’s about to stomp on Brooke’s fingers clinging to the dock, so I gently pull Ivy back to a safer distance.
“It wasn’t my idea! Iris wanted to do this,” Brooke says. “When we met, I didn’t even allow myself the thought of us being together, because how would it even work? But Iris reassured me it could. She said it wasn’t a big deal for a siren to return to the sea.”
“Not a big deal?!” Ivy yelps.
“In that sirens had done it before, I guess,” Brooke clarifies. “She made it seem like it was almost expected. If I had known this would happen…”
“What? You would’ve told her not to?”
The Sweetest Kind of Fate Page 16
