Fathom

by Merrie Destefano

  I made a face at him. This was my big day. The day I would no longer be a little girl. I bolted in front of him, racing toward the stairs.

  “Loser,” I called back at him.

  A heartbeat later, his feet were pounding the sand right behind me and we were both laughing and running again.

  •

  Sean went home. Meanwhile I scrambled through our living room, trying not to track sand on the rug. I stopped in the kitchen to kiss Gram on the cheek. She grinned and patted me on the shoulder, her attention focused on a cookbook, an array of bowls and measuring cups spread out on the table in front of her.

  “Grab me some flour and sugar from the pantry, Kira,” she said.

  An easy request. For most people.

  I held my breath as I crossed the kitchen, forcing myself to pass the cellar door—closer than I ever came to it on a normal day. As quickly as I could, I scurried past the door, then fumbled my way through the pantry, pretending that I didn’t remember what lay on the other side of the wall.

  The stairway. The darkness. The overwhelming smell of dirt.

  I grabbed two bags, hoping that they truly were the flour and the sugar because I wasn’t staying in this room any longer than necessary. I set them next to Gram, then I dashed into the bathroom. Heart beating fast, I stripped out of my wetsuit and bathing suit and hopped in the shower. Hot water pelted me, washed away the sand and the salt, steam filling the room, mixing with the fragrance of lavender shampoo.

  I thought about the beach, how it had felt when the ocean swell lifted me high in the air. Then I remembered the ghostly voices of my mother and sister, how they had called my name. I shivered despite the hot water that ran down my back.

  “Hurry up,” Gram called from the hallway. “Your uncle’s on his way here.”

  “I’m almost done,” I called back.

  I stood in front of the mirror now, combing my wet hair, but I didn’t like what I saw. My knobby knees were gone and my arms were no longer covered with bruises from scampering up the trees in our yard. All this I could accept. I was sixteen now, some changes were natural.

  But I never expected this.

  My mother’s face stared back at me through the steam. Long dark hair and lashes, sea green eyes and lips almost too full. Skin that looked like I never went outdoors, no matter how many hours I spent in the sun.

  My mother’s face.

  The face of a murderer.

  I got dressed, my movements wooden, and when I came back into the living room, I saw that my first guest had arrived—my uncle. He caught his breath I walked around the corner. He blinked and stared at me open-mouthed, until Gram shoved a cold bottle of Budweiser in his hand.

  “What did you expect?” she said to him, a frown on her brow.

  He shook his head and stammered, then tried to change the subject, although there hadn’t even been a subject yet. “Jim watching the Giants game this afternoon?” he asked, avoiding my eyes.

  “That’s a question you should be asking him,” Gram answered.

  My father was still at the store, picking up a cake and some balloons and orange Nehi soda. All the things that had been my favorite when I was seven. I could never tell him that I liked Coke now or that I didn’t really want balloons or that I wasn’t seven anymore—he’d already lost one little girl.

  He walked in the door a few minutes later, his hands filled with noise makers and party hats. He ran a gaze across the room, nodded at his brother and Gram, then he jolted to a stop when he saw me, and the grin on his face faded away.

  I must have changed overnight and missed it.

  Suddenly everyone could see how much I looked like her—the one who had ripped our family apart with her madness. Maybe they were all wondering if that same mental illness was brewing somewhere deep inside me. At any minute I might grab one of the knives from the kitchen drawer and start brandishing it about, snipping anybody who got too close with the bright silver edge.

  The cellar door closed with a slam.

  I beat my fists against the door, fought against the wet moldy darkness.

  Outside, my mother screamed and I could hear her breaking things. My sister’s voice joined in the cry until it reached a bloody crescendo pitch.

  And then everything fell silent.

  My mother began to weep and a long time passed, until finally the door to the cellar swung open. She wrapped her arms about me, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I love you,” she said again and again until those were the only words I knew. Over her shoulder I saw the kitchen, now dressed in twilight shadows. My sister was gone, but something glittered on the linoleum floor, like watery footprints that led out the door. “I’m sorry, Kira, please forgive me,” my mother pleaded.

  Then she let me go and I was surrounded by cold air. She turned and sprinted away, out the door, across the yard. I ran after her, my feet slipping in the water on the floor, but it wasn’t water, it was blood. My arms were covered in it, sticky and thick and I felt cold as I ran, following my mother through the overgrown yard, brambles and cockleburs and trees with branches like long arms that tried to grab me and hold me back.

  But I couldn’t let her run away from me.

  “Mother! Wait!”

  I ran as fast as my five-year-old legs would carry me, until the grass gave way to rock and the great Pacific Ocean yawned before us, a horizon of water.

  She glanced over her shoulder. “You stay right there!” she warned. “Wait for your father, right there!” And then my mother, who had never learned how to swim, raced toward the cliff and the edge of my world; she dove in a sweet, clean arc that I will never forget, and she disappeared forever. Her slender body became an arrow shooting toward the wave-tossed water.

  I scrambled over the fence that my father had put up to protect me and my sister from the dangerous precipice. I ran until I stood at the edge, staring down. Already she was gone, somewhere in the ocean deep.

  Almost as if she never wanted to see the surface again.

  My father stood in front of me now, Barbie cake in one hand, and he could see it in my eyes. He knew about the tormented memories deep down inside me.

  “I love you, Kira,” he said. Simple words. But exactly what I needed to hear. “I’ll always love you.”

  I tried to smile even though I knew that part of me was still down in that cellar, listening to those screams, wishing that my mother would let me out and hold me.

  Even if her arms were stained with my sister’s blood.

  I nodded at him, words stuck in my throat.

  Gram shepherded my uncle into the other room, while I helped Dad carry the party favors in the kitchen. Behind us the screen door opened, then slammed shut and the house began to fill with people: my cousins, a couple of Gram’s friends from Behind The Veil—the local paranormal society—and Sean, his hair still wet from a recent shower, just like mine.

  I gave him a thin smile and I could see in his eyes that he understood. He always did.

  “Wanna go outside?” he asked.

  I nodded.

  But first Gram handed us each a slice of cake. No birthday song, no waiting until after dinner. Around here we got our sugar rush as fast as possible.

  Then, cake in hand, Sean and I headed out the back door.

  Just like we had every year since I was six years old.

  •

  The paper plates almost folded in half beneath the weight of chocolate cake with thick pink frosting. Sean smiled, plastic fork digging in and a bite in his mouth before I even sat beside him on the swing set in the yard. Jasmine grew up around the rusty poles and its spicy perfume surrounded us. Inside the house, the grown-ups were either discussing politics or the latest Giants game. Their voices rose, then lowered, then rose again in laughter.

  As long as it wasn’t quiet, I was okay.

  If it grew quiet, they were talking about me.

  “Barbie, huh?” Sean asked, his plate almost empty.

  I grinned.

 
“What did he get on your cake last year?”

  “My Little Pony.” My fingers fastened around the chains and I started twisting my swing to the left.

  “Classic. Ask him for Transformers next year. I’m getting tired of pink frosting.”

  “You ask him.” I was spinning around in a wild circle, my legs outstretched. My foot banged against his leg and sent his paper plate skittering across the yard.

  “Hey!” The next time around, he grabbed my foot and held me still. I giggled. He gave me one of those I-dare-you-to-try-that-again looks that only a best friend can pull off. Then he stood up and grabbed my swing, twisted it as hard as it would go, and sent it spinning.

  The world flew past, colors blurred, only occasionally did I see his face in the midst of it all. Brown hair, brown eyes, finally taller than me. Cuter than I’d ever admit to him or to myself.

  I pushed my legs against the ground, slid to a stop.

  Finally I asked the question I’d been wondering about for the past week.

  “Did you get your journal back from Mrs. P yet?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” he said. “I got it about two weeks ago.”

  My final project, my final grade, everything depended on that stupid journal. So far everyone in our honors English class had gotten theirs back. I suddenly wished that I hadn’t eaten any cake. Or that I hadn’t been spinning around.

  Sean sat down again, a frown on his face. He watched me with those dark eyes. I liked it better when he was just the geeky kid next door, but all of his geekiness had vanished in the last two years. Sometimes he didn’t seem like the same person anymore.

  “You think she lost it?”

  “I wish.”

  “Kira, I’ve read your stuff. You know you’re not getting less than an A in her class.”

  But he must not have remembered the assignment. For two months we had been told to write everything in that journal, all of our thoughts and fears and feelings. And I had tried to put in only the good stuff. I was wearing my smiley face on almost every page, but every now and then the truth would slip in. I couldn’t help it.

  The truth about my mother and my sister and the ocean that owned all three of us.

  Just last night I had stood on the edge of the cliff, watching how the moon glistened off the waves that never stopped rolling in. My toes had gripped the rocky edge and I longed, with every muscle, to push off, to sail through night sky in an unending arc of flesh against midnight.

  My heart raced even now as I thought about it.

  A smudge of pink frosting ran the length of my index finger. I slid it in my mouth and began to lick it clean. When my finger was still between my lips, I noticed Sean staring at me, like he was nervous or uncomfortable. He stood up and walked over to the plastic slide.

  “What is it?” I asked.

  He shrugged, looked down at his feet. “Nothing.”

  From day one, we had a rule. If one of us said, “nothing,” the other one had to leave him or her alone. That was how we had stayed friends, especially through middle school when he got caught up with the jocks and I temporarily went Goth. So, no way was I going to trespass on his silence. Even though I could see something inside of him—something slightly dangerous and mysterious—that I’d never noticed before.

  “You wanna go for a walk on the beach?” I asked. A distraction might get his mind off whatever was bothering him.

  “Sure.”

  In a moment, we were climbing down the rugged stairway cut in the cliff, wind whipping around us, a hundred-foot drop teasing us on the right, salt spray stinging our skin. And then, when we reached the shoreline, we were running and chasing each other, shouting over the thundering surf.

  And for a time, all was right with my world.

  Chapter 4

  Caleb:

  The time of the Burning came sooner than I expected. Now a dense heat hung on my flesh and I couldn’t think clearly. Already we’d had to stop our journey twice because of vicious fighting within our own group. Dylan and Patrick wore bite marks on their neck and arms, and right now, my sister was prying a handful of Sorcha’s hair from Mare’s fist. On top of that, arguments about who would lead our group down the coast of North America had echoed throughout the night when we stopped to rest on a deserted beach.

  “We’re going the wrong way—”

  “The Burning will be over by the time we get there—”

  “Why can’t we stop at Carrickard or Shankill for supplies—”

  Ethan was easily the right choice to lead us, he was the eldest and the strongest and he’d already made this journey before. But Riley—a girl my own age—challenged him right up to the end. On her arm she wore the blasphemous tattoos of our sworn enemy, the Na Fir Ghorm, and her hair had been mysteriously shorn. Thick short patches of black hair spiked around her face. Everything about her seemed dangerous, especially the delicate bone structure that spoke of royal blood.

  “We need to go faster,” she said, eyes glaring.

  Whenever Riley spoke, my sister clenched her jaw.

  “We’re going as fast as we can,” Ethan said.

  The rest of us crouched around a small fire, sorting through the pile of fish Lynn had caught in her net. With a flash of her knife, she tossed us large chunks of raw perch and mackerel, which we immediately devoured.

  “Can’t you tell we’re being followed?” Riley continued, frowning as Patrick and Dylan chewed, bits of fish dribbling down their chins. “As if that’s not bad enough, you two had to spill your own blood in the water.”

  “They couldn’t help it,” I said, my mouth full.

  “The beast is right behind us,” she said. “I can feel it.”

  Both Mare and Sorcha glanced back toward the water, fear on their faces. We all knew about the Hinquememem—the dreadful creature that hunted my kind whenever we dared to set foot on land.

  “We should leave,” Mare said, standing. “We can rest when we get there.”

  I didn’t want to say anything, but Mare was right. This grueling journey would either make us stronger or kill us—it was an ancient, instinctive process that purified our race. Whether we ended up with a life-long mate like my sister and Ethan or not, this was what we were driven to do.

  Ethan sighed, long and heavy. “Back in the ocean then. We’ll stop at another beach at midday. Remember to stay in formation and,” he paused to glance at Patrick and Dylan, “if you two start fighting again, I’ll send you home.”

  The wind buffeted the shore as all eight of us nodded in reluctant agreement. Together we stood and headed back toward the sea, diving as one beneath the surface of the water, seeking a hidden current that would take us south, past the underwater cities of Baile na Bhur and Dunpatrick. I knew I should have been weary, but I wasn’t. Like Riley, I secretly longed to swim faster and harder—but not because I feared what lurked in the ocean deep.

  I was eager for what waited at the end of our journey.

  I longed to see that cliff and those rock-carved stairs and Kira Callahan walking along that barrier between earth and sea and sky.

  For years I had listened to my mother telling and retelling the legends. I knew that some of the stories—like Kira’s—weren’t finished yet. They had mysterious endings that could only be written in the sand, then washed away by the tide.

  Her story was like mine.

  It was still being written.

  •

  Like an oil slick, pheromones shimmered on the water around us as we swam. In preparation for this journey, we had gorged on fish for two weeks. Mating season was here and with it, a heavy dose of hormones charged through every one of us. All of our parents and grandparents and the Elders had surrounded us on the shores of Thorne Bay when we left, singing songs of farewell, reciting poems of warning and throwing wreaths made of flowers in the water.

  Saying goodbye to them had been the hardest part of the journey, for we knew that some of us might not return.

  Now, at last, the
sun hung just above the horizon, a golden disc that turned the water to blood, and there up ahead of us loomed the shore.

  Our migration was almost over.

  But like Riley, I feared that we weren’t alone.

  For the past several miles, I had sensed movement in the currents beneath us—heavy leaden tremors that kept pace with our every stroke. I tried to ignore it, convinced myself that it was just my imagination. I wondered if the others noticed it, but if they did, none of them mentioned anything. And now we had arrived sooner than expected, hungry and weary. One by one we stumbled and collapsed onto the narrow beach.

  This was the time when a predator could most easily attack.

  While the rest of us were still catching our breath, Ethan stood and shielded his brow against the setting sun with one hand.

  “This is the wrong beach,” he said.

  All four of the girls—Lynn, Riley, Mare and Sorcha—moaned, low and soft. We needed to rest and eat. We needed clothes, but if we’d landed at the wrong location then there would be no supplies nearby.

  “Are you certain?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  “The rest of you stay here. Hide behind the rocks,” he said. “Caleb and I will find our landing spot and meet with our familiar. Then we’ll bring back the supplies—”

  “No,” Riley argued, hands on her hips, her short black hair ruffled by the sea breeze. “I should go with you, it’s my familiar that will be taking care of everything.”

  I stood beside Ethan, watched the tension building between them. He glanced at the Na Fir Ghorm tattoos on her arm, suspicion in his gaze.

  “You’re not the leader on this trip,” he snapped, unusually angry. Lynn rested a hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t stop. “I can’t help wondering why someone affiliated with our enemy would have her own human familiar. Guardians are passed down, from one family member to the next, but no one came to bid you farewell when we left on this journey.”

  Riley’s fists clenched. “You don’t know a thing about me—”