“No,” I say.
Gwen nods, studying the pins on the Command Central maps. “Seems silly, doesn’t it?”
“What does?”
She traces the length of the map. North to south. West to east. One big invisible cross. “We’re all fighting for a bit of home, and even if we get it, we’re not satisfied because it isn’t really home, is it? It’s still just an ocean. A bit of land.” She turns back to me, and I can feel the shift in her body.
“Where is your home, Gwen?”
Startled by the question, she stutters, then laughs. “I suppose court. With Elias gone, I don’t have anywhere to go.”
“I’ll always have a sleeping bag for you,” I say.
“I’m not certain if I should thank you or not.” She reaches out to touch my face. But I go to the fridge and get cold water. Despite the AC, I’m sweating.
“I’d better go,” she says.
“Where do you go off to?”
She takes my water and drinks from it. “I know things didn’t work out with Sarabell, but perhaps I could learn a few things they’d never say with you there.”
“You mean spy on then?” I take my water back. “You’d do that for me?”
Sometimes I think Gwen’s eyes are going to burn a hole right through me. It’s like staring into the stormiest sky and not knowing if you want to run from the rain or stand there and let it fall all over you.
“For you.” She presses her lips on my jaw, just under my mouth. “And for the kingdom.”
One look at our freshly scrubbed guilty mugs, not to mention the glaringly empty fire extinguisher on the kitchen floor, and Dad asks, “What happened?”
Mom has a bag of ice cream in her hand. “We passed Gwenivere in the lobby, and she smelled like smoke.”
Kurt joins us in Command Central. We exchange one look of solidarity as he sits beside me. It’s not like we stole the car and went for a joy ride, which, if this wasn’t all happening now, would be pretty sweet to do in this weather.
So I give my parents the SparkNotes version of visiting Greg, the papers, the landlocked on the boardwalk, and the fire. I leave out the parts with Sarabell and the moment on the roof when I felt awesome blowing stuff up. “I’ve seen CSI and my fingerprints are all over the fire extinguisher.”
Dad cleans his square glasses on his untucked work shirt. “The super is downstairs fighting off an angry mom because their cable isn’t working.”
“Technically,” I point out, “I only burned down the satellites on the roof. Including ours.”
“What were you thinking?” Mom yells. “There are cameras up there!”
“Actually, last year Janie said the landlord was too cheap to install a real system,” I point out. “Only the elevator and lobby ones work.”
“Janie? The super’s daughter?” Dad asks, trying to keep the grin off his face in front of Mom.
“Dad—”
“What matters is that no one is hurt.” Dad points to me, giving off the guilty smells of dirt and the excited burn of fireworks. Underneath all of that is Mom’s melting strawberry ice cream. “Just, no more fires in the house.”
I hold my hand up. “Merman’s honor.”
Dad rubs his hands together, like twiddling an invisible stick to make invisible fire we’re not supposed to have in the house. “We’re actually glad you’re here. We have something to tell you.”
“We do as well.” Kurt clears his throat, the familiar stoicism returning to his posture. “We were waiting for Lady Maia.”
Mom brushes his hair back tenderly. “Kurt, please. I’m not a lady of the court anymore.”
“You’ll always be a lady to me,” he says, softening under the gesture. “My mother would’ve wanted me to address you as such.”
“I’ll just stick with ‘Mom.’ Hey, Mom. Greg says he was your teacher how many years ago?”
She flushes like she’s going to whack me on the head with her spoon. Dad throws his hands in the air and chooses the safer option of the sofa instead. “You’re on your own, kid. I’m not going near that one.”
“Come on, guys,” I say. “Just trying to lighten the mood. Greg gave us all this riddle stuff and we need your help.”
Kurt spreads out Greg’s parchment papers.
“I can’t believe Greg is alive.” Mom wipes her hands on a towel. “The old crab. I could’ve used his knowledge when I was pregnant with you.”
“He wasn’t exactly happy to see us,” I say. “What with ol’ Grandpa firing him and all that.”
Mom shakes her head. “That’s not what Father told us.”
“One of them is lying,” I say. “He wouldn’t leave a cushy gig on Toliss for a house that’s falling apart, would he?”
Side by side, Kurt and my mother are mirror images, each with one hand examining the face of a long-gone sea king and the other tugging on the tip of their chin. They even say, “I suppose,” at the same time.
“He said he taught the king’s daughters.” I wave my hands in the air to get their attention back. “So you’re one of the king’s daughters and Kurt doesn’t know how to read these symbols.”
“It’s not that I don’t know how to read them. It’s that I never learned.”
“Mmm. Hmm. Which means you don’t know how to read them.”
“Enough!” Mom puts her hands up between us. “Kurt, you wouldn’t know how to read this. This is the language of the gods. Only the oracles can translate it. Greg wanted us to learn, but after a few years Father changed his mind and forbade it.”
“The king forbids his kids to get all bilingual and has a disagreement with Gregorious, who ends up fired. Sounds like Grandpa was hiding something.”
“Don’t say that,” Mom whispers.
“Sorry. It sounds shady, that’s all.”
Kurt takes the paper once again, trying hard to see words in the symbols, but it’s like all those times I tried to fake my way through Spanish. “Mom?” She looks unsteady and I reach a hand to hold her.
“I think this word is ‘death.’ Yes, I remember because we were trying to translate the prophecy of the hero Milanos, destined to die at the hands of a sea prince during the age of the Greeks. I wonder—”
“Death never sounds good,” I mutter.
I flip the crumbling paper over and smooth it out. “What’s this bit right here? 1907?”
Mom looks to Kurt. “You were born that year. I remember because I was in the room with the midwife, and my sister Avelia kept saying there was a rainbow over the human island in the distance and it was a good omen for you.”
“That’s all awesome and kind of weird, but how do we find someone who would know about this?” I feel like I’m chasing my own tail again.
Mom places a hand over the face of King Ellanos. She gasps, pain spreading all over her face. Her hands fly to her stomach. She’s going to be sick. I can see it in the green flush of her face. She breathes deep and long.
I get up. “Are you okay?”
“Lady Maia, perhaps you should sit.”
“I haven’t felt this terrible since—” Her big blue eyes scan my face, and before she can finish, she runs to her bathroom. We can hear the puking all the way out here.
Dad stands at the kitchen entrance.
“Should I go to the pharmacy?” I start to run to the bathroom and stop. “Should I bring her water?” I run back to the kitchen and fumble trying to get a glass and the pitcher of purified water from the fridge.
Sure, when it comes to fires and evil merpeople, I can be concentration guy, but put me in front of a girl crying or puking, and I don’t know the difference between my ass and my elbow.
Dad shakes his head. He’s part worried, part nervous, and the combination smells acrid. And that’s coming from a guy who showers three times a day in the summer. “There’s no easy way to say this, so here goes.”
“Dad? Spit it out. You’re freaking me—”
He fist-pumps the air. “Your mom’s pregnant.”<
br />
I get a broom for the broken glass on the floor. When Kurt tries to help me, I shoo him away and he sits next to my dad at the kitchen counter, watching.
“I didn’t mean to tell you this way,” Dad says. “We were going to wait. Maybe ’til after this championship stuff. We didn’t want you to worry.”
“Why? Why would I be worried, I mean.”
The acrid smell of nervousness is replaced by the smoky sweetness of excitement. It’s what I felt when I set fire to the roof. I tie the garbage bag in a knot and pass a mop over the floor. This is the most I’ve ever cleaned. Look at me being a grown-up.
“I believe congratulations are in order?” Captain Awkward says. “And much merriment,” Dad says in a mock-Kurt voice. Dad goes to the fridge and gets three light beers. “I know these go right to your head because of your bodily water ratio, but hell.”
Together, the three of us pop the lids of our beer cans. Dad and Kurt start talking about names and hoping it’s a girl because Maia wants a girl, and I just sit here giving him a thumbsup while still trying to drink this thing.
Not only is it incredibly gross to picture my parents still doing it, but I’m sixteen. Most people who want to have more kids usually pop them out all at once, right? Angelo’s one of seven, and that’s not counting the kids his dad has from his first marriage. Come to think of it, Layla’s one of the few friends I have who’s an only child.
If I’m Sea King, how am I supposed to be someone’s older brother? I’d want to teach him how to swim, how to play ball. Tell him about the first time I shifted. Wait, Mom wants a girl, so I’d have to be around and chase guys away from her. I’d have to make sure she’d always be protected. Wait a minute. What if the baby isn’t half merkin after all? What if they get to have a no-complications, fully human life?
I’m on autopilot, getting more beers from the fridge. Kurt just says yes to being the unborn baby’s godfather. We’re not even Catholic. How come I don’t have godparents?
“When my boy here becomes Sea King, we’ll use his college money as a down payment on a house.”
“Wait, we’re moving?”
I hate that I’ve put such a hurt look on my dad’s face. He says, “Too much too soon? I knew we shouldn’t have said anything. We weren’t planning it, if that’s what you’re wondering.”
“Ew, Dad. You don’t need my permission. I mean, you guys should get the chance to raise a normal kid and a normal family that doesn’t involve a freak son and his new life under the sea.”
My own hurt is twisting into my chest like screws. I can’t believe how selfish I sound. Here is my dad really happy, and I’m taking it away from him. So I put on my best smile and give another thumbs-up, even though this is somehow worse than Archer kicking me in the gut.
Dad slings his arm around my shoulder. “There is nothing more wonderful than having you as a son. We didn’t even think we could have another baby until it happened.”
“No, totally.” My face hurts from smiling. “This is awesome.”
“This isn’t about getting another shot,” he says. “You have to know that.”
“I do. Don’t worry about me.”
At some point, the sun starts setting, and Dad goes and checks on Mom. I clink Kurt’s beer and Thalia walks in. Her hair is damp and she smells strangely of pizza.
“Where have you been?” Kurt’s voice is a boom, but it has to do with the beer and not anger. He scoops her up in a bonecrushing hug.
Thalia is too stunned to even push him away. “I was hungry.”
But her cattish green eyes find mine and I know she’s lying. I shake my head once, wishing I could tell her we saw her on the boardwalk.
“You were with those people,” Kurt says. “I saw you.”
Thalia’s eyes go wide. She takes the drink from her brother and sets it on the table. “Is this a celebration? Did things go well with Sarabell?”
I hold up my hand to show her teeth marks but my heart jumps. The teeth marks are gone except for the pearly shadow of her canines to match the bite on my other arm from fox boy. I didn’t expect that trying to do the right thing would lead to becoming a human chew-toy. What the hell was in that vial I drank at Greg’s?
“Uh—she wanted to be my queen and then bit me when I stopped her from drowning happy beachgoers.”
Thalia cringes. “I’m afraid to ask who’s next.”
“Next?” I choke on my beer. “No way. I’ll find the oracle another way. I have a lead. Only, none of us can translate it because it’s the language of the oracles.”
Kurt giggles to himself. He sounds out the word: “Ohhhhhracles.”
Thalia smacks my arm. “I can’t believe you let him drink this!”
“I’m fine.” Kurt shakes his head and clears his throat. “Oh-racles. Ha-ha! They like to play mind games. It’s all a game of the mind. And here.” He takes my hand and places it over his heart. “Mermen like you and me, we play games of the heart.” He presses his forehead against mine as if we’re in on some new magical secret. I should slap myself for letting Kurt have so many beers. “That’s why she wasn’t there.”
“Who?” Thalia asks. “Who wasn’t there?”
“The Oh-racle, my lovely sister!” Kurt gets up and makes a beeline for the bathroom, mumbling about how this part is so much easier in the sea. I’m not sure if he’s talking about princesses or peeing.
“Tristan, fix him!”
“I can’t.” I take the beer cans and dump them in the sink. “He just has to pee it out.”
Thalia grunts. “Then why are you celebrating?”
I tell her about my parents and their new brat, and she says, “Be happy for them. They’ll be losing you. This may make it easier.”
But I don’t like that idea, either.
Then I hear Kurt flush. “We have to tell your brother.”
“I can’t. Not until I know it can truly happen. That you can truly make me human.” She takes my hand softly. There’s a strange noise in the living room. Someone falling down.
“Uhoh.”
Kurt’s on the floor, sprawled across our fuzzy white rug.
“Is he okay?” Thalia goes to him and tries to lift him up, but he’s dead weight.
Kurt gathers his hands and folds them under his face like a pillow. He makes deep, guttural snoring noises.
“I think he’s—smiling,” I say. “Probably the first good night’s sleep he’s had in a while.”
I dig my hands in my pockets and feel the coolness of the Venus pearl I forgot was there. I bring it out and cup it in my palm. I really wish I could have given it to Layla.
“Tristan!” Thalia hisses, snatching it from me.
“Careful!”
“Don’t you see?” She dangles it in my face.
“Yes, I see a sweet present I can’t give to—” And I realize. “Shelly! Shelly can translate the oracle speak.”
I take Thalia’s head and kiss her forehead loudly. “Only problem is, what can I gift her? I’m thinking we’ve run out of precious gems, and the pearl won’t work twice.”
“Get your backpack.” Her smile is cunning. “I have just the thing.”
•••
“It’s like a great metal makara,” Thalia says, hopping on the train.
We take the F all the way to Manhattan. This late on a Monday night, the subway platform is full of the strangest people only New York breeds. Couples full of PDA, a man with a dress made of balloon animals and plastic bottles. People coming and going, and those with nowhere to go at all.
Thalia clutches the wooden box Felix gave her, and I pull on the straps of my backpack for the security of my weapons. I can’t decide if I want to sit forward or lean back. Uncertainty is the worst feeling in the world. Worse than rejection and worse than failure, because at least then the action has been completed. Uncertainly is emotional limbo.
Deep in my heart, I know I have all the pieces and now I have to make them fit.
“What were
you really doing with Penny?”
“I wanted to see them.” She stares at the speeding blackness out the window, the graffiti rolling by like a flip book of colors and shapes that never stop changing.
“You should call Layla.”
“I know,” I admit. I don’t want to tell her about Sarabell. She’ll hate me. Even if I didn’t do anything wrong, I still hate me for going. “Did you see her today?”
“At Thorne Hill. In the field with the others.”
“The schoolyard?”
“That one. There was a huge commotion because your friend—” She snaps her finger. “The one with the tall hair.”
“Angelo.”
“Yes. He was running with Princess Menana on his shoulders. All the adults were furious. They were naked right down to those little trousers for your foot-fins.”
“Socks?”
“Not that the adults are better. They’re all mad. You remember what it was like when the rest of the princesses arrived. They’re making all the boys happy as seals in mating season. Layla’s been put in the ground by her parents so she had to leave immediately.”
“You mean grounded?”
“That’s what I said.”
I place my face in my hands. “Should I do something?”
“Become king. Restore order.”
The train barrels into the station. I take her hand and lead her up and out through the Manhattan streets. I realize Thalia’s never been in the city. She stares at the checkered lights of the buildings and I explain that’s where people live. She laughs and pets a fire hydrant because she likes the shape. When we’re in Central Park, I try to remember the direction Gwen and I took Friday night. But the winding paths are dark, and the shadowed trees all look the same. Thalia picks up a baby mouse at her feet and cradles it.
“Ugh—cut it out, Snow White. Those things are gross.”
She places it back on the grass and pinches me. “All life is precious, Tristan.”
“Come.” I lead her through the urban woods and up a hill, until the castle comes into view.
“Oh my,” she gasps. “I didn’t know you had royalty here.”
I laugh as we head straight up toward Turtle Pond. “We don’t. It’s for kids to play in.”
The Savage Blue Page 13
