Tallulah must have sensed me hit the water, because she was streaming toward me. Her golden hair waved in the current, barely brushing her shoulders. Her thoughts carried to me underwater.
“I didn’t think you’d be coming out to the island.”
“Listen, Lu. I don’t know what the others are saying, but everything is just fine with me. We’re on course. You don’t have to worry.” The mental gymnastics it took to lie like that were exhausting.
When she got to me, she put her hands up, palms forward, and I pressed my own against hers in greeting. We surfaced together.
Tallulah smiled. Since our mother’s death, Tallulah was one of the few comforts in my life. It was the one thing I missed when I was away. She embraced me and kissed my cheek.
My mind flashed to Lily. Wondering what this would feel like if it were her arms around my shoulders, her lips at my cheek, my lips …
“Raceyoutotheisland,” I said, the words rushing out of me; I pushed every thought of Lily out of my head.
Tallulah’s face lit up, and she dove out of sight. I made it look good, but I didn’t really want to race. I just needed to be alone. Tallulah would think nothing of the fact that she’d beat me once again.
If Maris was going to let me continue with the original plan, I couldn’t let my conflicted thoughts betray me. I let images of our mother trapped in a fisherman’s net fill my brain. I filled my ears with her strangled calls for help. I filled my heart with our collective grief. I filled my gut with the hatred that only killing Jason Hancock would satisfy, until my inconvenient feelings for Lily were safeguarded in my heart.
When we surfaced at Basswood Island, Tallulah skipped away from me, taking a seat on the sand next to Maris and Pavati, who both sat grinning up at me in a happy stupor. Groaning, I looked around for the cause. Three corpses lay on the shore at the end of shallow drag marks.
“God, Maris, I thought we were pacing ourselves.” I knelt down by one of the wasted UW college kids and turned his face out of the water. His vacant expression stared up at the sky.
“We are,” Maris said, the words bursting from her lips with a revolting giggle. “This is only our first kill of the summer.” Her improved disposition gave me the creeps, and I glanced at Pavati, who raised one eyebrow at me, daring me to rat her out.
“You’ve gorged yourselves,” I said. “What happened to saving ourselves for Hancock?”
“Boys that age,” Maris said wistfully, looking at the corpses, “they think they’re immortal. In thirty years they would have realized their mistake, and that can make them so gloomy.” She sighed with mock compassion. “We were doing them a favor, stripping the life from them now. While they were still young and so deliciously happy.”
The corner of my mouth twisted, and I sniffed for any lingering life left in them, but they were just empty husks. Maris misread my expression as judgment rather than pity.
“Listen, little brother, I don’t know how you do it. What is this? Six months now? But don’t try to push your sick self-denial on us. Although, I have to say, I’m glad to hear how focused you are on Hancock. Pavati seemed to think you were getting distracted.”
“Pavati should worry about herself.” I closed one of the boys’ eyes, dragging my fingers over his lids, and wished Hancock could count on such a quick and easy death.
Tallulah offered me the seat in the sand by her, and there we sat, side by side on the beach—Maris, Pav, Lulah, and me—our bodies so close that I, sitting on the far right, could feel the post-kill heat radiating off Maris.
And the funny thing was, it held no temptation for me. Even the swim from Bayfield to Basswood hadn’t chilled the feel of Lily’s hand in mine. The more perplexing problem was Hancock. Despite my feelings for Lily, there was still the matter of my mother’s revenge and Maris’s promise of my freedom.
25
CAUGHT
When I woke the next morning, I sat up like a shot, my heart bashing against my sternum, my head heavy with dreams of pale arms and bubbles rising from a beautiful but dangerous sea creature I couldn’t identify. The girls were still asleep, spooned together under a makeshift canopy of vines and bracken, their faces tense even in sleep, their bodies twitching in fits and starts.
I waded into the water, letting it rise to my ankles and then to my knees and waist. My muscles tightened in acclimation to the cold. I took a deep breath and headed out. If someone had asked me where I was going, I might have said “Nowhere.” But my subconscious could have answered before the question was out. I was going to the Hancock house—or the waters outside the Hancock house. I needed to hear if Lily was talking about me. If maybe she was confessing her assumptions to her father.
When their dock came into sight, however, I realized it was too early for anyone to be up. Way too early. Only a few lights were twinkling out of the buildings in Bayfield, and the Hancock house, two miles north of town, was dark except for the window over the front porch. Light shone through the panes, throwing four distorted blocks of yellow onto the lawn, but there was no movement behind the glass. Lily must have fallen asleep with the light on. Maybe she was dreaming of a merman. Maybe she was having a nightmare.
The dock was barely visible against the dark water. Someone had turned the floodlights off. I let myself drift closer to shore.
“I can see you, y’know.”
Lily’s voice pierced the silence—a shot of adrenaline to my heart. I rocketed off to the familiar willow branch and only let my eyes come above the waterline. She was still talking, but she wasn’t looking in my direction. Sitting on the end of the dock, she stared at the spot where I’d been.
“Listen, I’m not a big fan of dolphins anyway, so don’t think I’m disappointed.”
So she was making a joke. She thought this was funny? Was she insane?
“Calder, I don’t care that you’re creeping around in the water, following me around town. I don’t even care that Jack Pettit will never go swimming again. Would you please just come out and tell me what’s really going on?”
“I don’t think that’s a good idea.” The words came out of me without consulting my brain. The sound of my voice surprised me. Lily jumped too when she realized I wasn’t where she thought I was. She got to her feet and put her hands on her hips. She turned in my general direction, but she was off by twenty degrees.
“Can’t you come over and talk to me?”
“Again, probably a bad idea.”
Lily adjusted her sight line, and our eyes met, although I still wasn’t sure her eyesight was strong enough to see me in the dark.
“I was just out for a morning swim,” I explained, “and … skinny-dipping, you know, and … I’m modest.”
She rolled her eyes and slapped a mosquito that had landed on her knee. “Get off it, Calder. It’s me. Lily Hancock. I’m not completely clueless about what goes on in this lake.”
“If I come closer, will you stay on the dock?”
“Do you want me to stay on the dock?”
I enjoyed the disappointment in her voice. “Very much so.”
“Okay then.” She sat down.
“Keep your feet out of the water, too.”
“Got it.” She crossed her legs under her.
I submerged and cursed my bad luck. For now, though, I had nothing to lose. The prospect of being found out excited me. The danger was strangely exhilarating.
I came to a spot twenty feet from the farthest end of the dock and let the water break past my shoulders. Lily’s eyes grew large. A red ribbon hung from her hair, across her shoulder.
“It’s really deep out there,” she said.
I nodded. I could see her gaze drop to my neck. I couldn’t tell if she could see the silver ring. There wasn’t much moonlight left, and the overhanging trees shadowed the water.
“So, are you going to tell me what you’re doing?”
“Checking on you.”
“I didn’t realize I was in danger.” She squinted at me wi
th playful suspicion, and it was obvious her preconceived notions of merpeople were the romantic, fairy-tale variety. That misapprehension was one of our greatest tools, but it sickened me to play on that with her.
“Will you come closer?” she asked.
I propelled myself forward, judging the opaqueness of the water and keeping my torso upright like a buoy, my arms by my sides. Lily nodded, any lingering doubts she might have had apparently resolved by the way I moved. I remembered the last time I’d been next to a girl when I was transformed. It hadn’t gone well for the girl. The newspapers reported it as a shark attack. I wouldn’t have that excuse here.
“I think this is close enough,” I said. Electricity rolled off of me, and a three-foot circle of dead insects floated on the water with me at its center.
She cleared her throat and spoke slowly. “Are you my grandfather’s monster?”
I shook my head quickly, happy to be able to deny her question.
This was happening too fast for my mind to keep up. The air dulled my thoughts. All but one, anyway: the image of Lily discovering our secret was going to be too strong for me to hide from Maris. No amount of scrambling could hide this gaffe. When she found out, she’d be furious. She’d expect Lily to warn her father. Maris would need to preempt that. She wouldn’t hesitate to kill Lily if that was what it took to salvage her revenge on Hancock.
My breath caught in my throat. Worse yet, Maris’s methods were all too familiar to me. I bristled at the idea of her even touching Lily, much less dragging her under. Making her suffer. Enjoying her frantic clawing for the surface. Reveling in the torture.
Bile rose up in my throat when I realized what I had to do. I would have to kill Lily myself. It was the least I could do for her. I could save her the suffering. I could do it quickly. She didn’t have to know death was coming. She didn’t have to be scared. She didn’t have to feel pain. A mercy killing? That would be a first.
“You’re not the monster,” she said. Relieved.
I closed my eyes. I couldn’t do this and look at her at the same time. “Listen, Lily. I’d really rather not talk about this right now. Your family’s going to wake up soon, so I’ve got to get out of here. After breakfast, take one of your kayaks north. You won’t have to go too far. There’s a cave just north of Red Cliff.”
“I didn’t think there were any caves until you got to Cornucopia.”
I opened my eyes and swam closer to where she sat. “There’s one, hidden behind a curtain of vines. I’ll be in it.” I reached up and pulled the ribbon from her hair. “I’ll mark it with this.”
“You’ll really be there?”
“Yes.” I sighed. As if I had any choice now. My recklessness had gotten me into this mess; I was going to have to be the one to fix it. “I’ll really be there.”
26
THE CAVE
The land rose high above the water, and brambles grew on the rocky embankment. I pulled back the veil of ivy, exposing the small cave, and tied Lily’s ribbon to the vines. A millennium of black and red sediment lined the rock walls. Over time, water and ice had carved out the small recess. I pulled myself up to sit on a rocky shelf at water’s edge and hung my tail down into the surf. This was where I lay in wait.
My innards were tied in so many knots I should have earned a Boy Scout badge. I tried to distract myself from my own misery by thinking of something other than what I was about to do. But no matter how I tried, my mind kept going back to the inevitable. The sun was just breaking over the horizon. Lily would be having breakfast with her family. I imagined her excitement at coming to find me. I wished she were feeling more dread. Maybe her parents would want her to do chores. Maybe she’d figure out on her own that this was dangerous. Would she tell her dad about me? No. I didn’t think she would. She wouldn’t want him to think she was going crazy like his father had. But if she did tell him, would he pack up his family and tear out of town? Would history repeat itself?
I hoped so. I was losing my taste for this whole thing. If the Hancocks left, I’d be off the hook. For now. But if Jason Hancock took Lily away … I didn’t like the thought of that, either. It was a ridiculous concern given what I was planning to do.
Two small brown birds chased and squabbled in the air. Their wings beat against each other as they tried to decide if they were well matched. I’d never paid much attention to these springtime rituals before. Lily was putting everything in a different light.
I watched the birds. The female finally gave in to the male’s persuasions, and they hid away in a deep crack in the sandstone. Pushing these thoughts of springtime romance from my head, I tried to figure out what would cause Lily to draw nearer to me. Would it be better to remain in the water or to dry off?
My clothes were still in the car, so I’d have to hide in the bushes. What was worse? It was a tough call, but regardless of how sick I was of shadows, I opted for the water and pulled deeper into the dark recesses of the cave. The sun broke through the gaps and holes in the ivy veil, throwing golf ball–sized circles of light on the water; I swam back and forth between the light and dark, moving from cold patches of water to pockets that were merely cool.
It was another hour before the small shape of a kayak came around the bend. The water was a flat mirror, except for the rippled wake of Lily’s boat. She looked like she was paddling as fast as she could, but she was still slow.
She’d changed into a white linen dress with a low neckline. The sleeves flowed out behind her as she paddled. Her red hair hung loose down her back. She paddled through the overhanging willow branches, ducking as she went. The breeze blew through the aspens, each newly opened leaf quaking with my heart. I shook my head in disbelief. Always the flair for the dramatic; she’d planned the scene right out of one of her Tennyson poems.
“The Lady of Shalott,” I whispered. Then I choked on the dark irony of it: I was no Lancelot, but she would still wind up dead.
I sighed and swam out to meet her, coming up under the kayak and carrying it on my shoulders. At first I wasn’t sure she knew it was me who was speeding her up. It could have easily been the wind at her back. But then I heard her gasp, so I knew she saw me.
I carried her to the edge of the cave, then resumed my spot in the shadows. She threw the line of her kayak around a moss-covered birch at the shoreline and turned to stare. Her eyes were intense, and they burned into mine.
“So, you’re a mermaid?” She said it like a question because she refused to look below the water and confirm what she already knew.
My gaze drifted upward. “Merman,” I corrected, although I’d always hated the term. It was so Hans Christian Andersen.
We both sat in silence, wondering who would speak next. Lily beat me to it. She fingered the charms on a silver bracelet around her wrist, sliding them back and forth. “Obviously, I’ve got a lot of questions.”
I took a moment to sink under and clear my head. I came up and shook out my hair. “I would be amazed if you didn’t.”
She smiled broadly as if she’d just won a major award. “So that’s okay with you? Will you answer them?”
“I guess that depends on what they are, but I’m feeling generous right now.” Not that any of it matters. You’ll be dead in a matter of minutes, I thought miserably. A lump rose in my throat as I struggled to speak. “Go ahead.”
“All right.” She turned away, blushing as she spoke. “If you don’t mind me asking … how is it you’ve got two legs most days?”
“Evolution,” I responded simply. “Survival of the fittest. I can go on land when I need to.”
“You’re an evolved merman?”
“Very.” I wiggled my opposable thumbs at her. “But the most primitive traits remain.”
“Like?”
Seduction. Murder. Mayhem. “Well, I could give you a pretty nasty electrical shock if I wanted to.” I paused to consider that. I’d planned on simply drowning Lily, but a strong enough shock would be quicker, more merciful.… “And I’m
telepathic with animals and with my sisters, when we’re underwater.”
“You can hear them from here?”
“I could, but they’re not in the lake today.”
“Where are they?”
“At the movies.”
She snorted and choked back a laugh. “Sure, why not?” She giggled, then composed herself.
“I’ve met your sisters. What’s your mother’s name?”
That brought me up short. “Nadia,” I whispered. Lily didn’t seem to notice any change in me.
“And your dad?”
I cleared my throat and tried to conjure up the necessary memories. “I don’t know my dad’s name. Pavati’s father was a musician. His name was Deepak something. Maris’s and Tallulah’s father was John Bishop. He was a biologist.”
Her eyebrows pulled up in the middle. “Bishop sounds kind of ordinary for a … a … merman.”
“No, not a merman. Mermen aren’t allowed to be fathers.”
“Not allowed?”
“It’s not like there are a lot merfolk in the lake. It would get pretty incestuous, don’t you think? My sisters’ fathers were human. That’s how we diversify the gene pool. Mermaids mate with human men, and that’s how you make new merpeople. Well, at least, that’s one way to do it.”
“Did your sisters know their dads?”
“Not really. Newborns live with their human fathers for the first year of life, or I should say until they can walk. They have to learn that little skill on land and while they’re still young. I mean, can you imagine an adult tottering around? Then, after that first year, they’re brought back to their mothers. So I guess my sisters knew their fathers at one point, but they don’t remember them now.”
This was going on long enough. I should simply pull Lily out of the kayak and stop her heart. Why was I prolonging this? It was agony. Her face, so trusting, made me hate myself more than usual. But I wanted her to keep talking. I wanted her to know me. I wanted someone to know me. Even if I had to kill that someone as soon as I laid it all out there.
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