Fathom

by Merrie Destefano

  Do monsters knock?

  I moved closer to the door.

  “Who is it?” I asked, although I had no idea if the Hinquememem could pretend to be human whenever it wanted. And maybe it had many disguises. Maybe it could look like my best friend.

  “Riley,” a small voice answered.

  I took the doorknob in my hand, pulled the door open, ax still firm in the other hand. Curls and wisps of fog had transformed my porch into a nightmarish world, but the creature that stood there didn’t look like a monster. Riley wasn’t wearing any makeup and her eyes were red and puffy from crying, her shoulders slumped and for the first time I realized that I stood a full two inches taller than she did.

  She glanced at my ax and she flinched, then steadied herself.

  “Can I come in?”

  I stared at her, wondering if Selkies were like vampires. Did they need to be invited in? My mother didn’t. She had just crept in a window. None of this folklore was making sense to me.

  “Kira, I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “I just—we need to talk. That’s all.”

  “Okay, but if you turn into anything, you’re toast,” I said.

  “Yeah, whatever.”

  So I stepped aside and let my sister into the kitchen. The very same room where I had last seen her, eleven years ago. Just before the Hinquememem had stolen her away.

  Chapter 49

  Caleb:

  The fog billowed around me. It muffled sounds and smells, hid everything from view, almost like an evil supernatural presence. I sat crouched in a tangle of oleander, my legs and arms stiff from the cold. I had seen the Hinquememem as it ran away earlier in the evening, and I had continued guarding Kira’s house throughout the night—even though I knew this wasn’t the night that the beast would strike.

  This was the one night in the year that it got to be human. It got to remember who it used to be—Kira’s mother.

  Heavy emotions ran through me as I pondered the legends of this family and I realized that they had all been true.

  I understood now. But it didn’t stop me from wanting to protect her.

  Kira, the child-woman who walked the cliffs mourning the family that the Hinquememem had stolen. Not knowing that the Hinquememem was now her mother or that it would hunt her, just as fiercely as it had hunted Riley.

  Chapter 50

  Kira:

  What do you do when the dead come to visit? Do you make them tea? Do you bake them cookies? I had no idea how to play hostess and still keep the ax in one hand. But I wasn’t about to turn my back on Riley in the long narrow room.

  “Do you want a Coke?” I asked, opening the fridge with one hand and grabbing a can.

  She shrugged. “Sure.”

  For a split second, I realized that her response sounded exactly like what I would have said. I erased that thought and held my ax tighter. I handed her the can with my left hand, then I pulled out another soda for myself. No such thing as too much adrenaline in your system when your monster relatives come to call.

  “You want to sit down?” I gestured to the kitchen chairs.

  She sat in one, her gaze roaming over the books and the pages I had marked.

  “You shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, one hand pulling off a sticky note.

  I grabbed the note away from her and put it back where it had been.

  “I hope you didn’t come here to tell me what to do,” I snapped, “because I already have a pack of adults who tell me what to do on a daily basis.”

  “You hate me, don’t you?” she asked, her gaze icy.

  “Yeah, I kinda do.”

  “It’s mutual,” she said, then she started chewing on her bottom lip. Again, one of my mannerisms.

  “Why are you here?”

  Riley was silent for a long moment, then finally, with a brazen look in her eyes, she said, “Haven’t you ever wondered why she put you in the cellar and not me?”

  I nodded.

  “You got to stay here and have a normal life with Dad,” she confessed, leaning forward, both arms resting on the table. “But I got—” Her voice cracked, just a bit. If you hadn’t been listening for it, you probably would have missed it. “I got dragged to the bottom of the ocean and locked in a cave, with a bunch of other Selkies. I couldn’t breathe, because I hadn’t turned yet, and for days I kept passing out, then waking up. Every time I woke up, another Selkie was gone and all the others were crying and moaning.”

  She closed her eyes, as if trying to block out the memories.

  “That monster was eating us, one by one, until there were only two of us left,” she said, her voice wavering. “Then Mom came. Somehow she found that monster’s cave and she found a way to set us both free. She told us to hurry and swim away, but I didn’t want to leave her. The other Selkie was older than me. He kept pulling my arm, then finally he put one arm around my waist and he swam off with me. But just as we were leaving, I saw the—the creature return—”

  I realized then that she had never once called the beast by its name.

  “Mom had a knife and I saw her swing, but she didn’t hit it in the head.”

  Riley buried her face in her hands.

  I put one hand on her shoulder, but she brushed it away.

  “She didn’t hit it in the head,” she repeated, looking at me now. “Do any of these books say what happens when you strike it in the gut?”

  “I think it says that it breaks the curse?”

  “But you don’t know what that means do you?”

  I shook my head.

  “We were still swimming away, but I saw what happened. And I couldn’t do anything about it. Mom swung her knife and struck that monster in the midsection—I know she was trying to give me time to escape. But when her knife went in, it didn’t kill the beast. A loud thwack sounded, even underwater, and the trunk of the monster cracked open. Another Selkie had been trapped inside, a male, and he acted like he had just woken up. Then he swam away as fast as he could, a terrified expression on his face—”

  Riley stood up and began to pace back and forth, her arms held crossed over her chest. Her breathing grew shallow and it looked like she wanted to run away.

  “Riley, it’s okay. You’re safe now—”

  “Safe? I haven’t been safe since that thing drug me off when I was six years old. Do you have any idea what happened after it cracked open?”

  “Maybe you should sit down, take a deep breath—”

  “It grabbed our mother and swallowed her whole! Now she’s inside its belly. She’s the monster now. And she’s been hunting me my entire life!”

  A chill surfaced, one that had been waiting for just the right moment. It sank deep into my bones and my gut and then worked its way up to my brain.

  The questions I’d been wanting to know had finally been answered.

  And now I found myself right in the middle of a nightmare.

  •

  Fog masked our little house; it cloaked us and swept us off the face of the real world. At the same time, silence guarded every room. No sound, no movement. Not after my sister’s last words. Then finally, I heard the ticking of the kitchen clock.

  Seconds disappearing.

  My mother was out there somewhere, wearing a monster suit and playing hide and seek. And she wanted to catch us, both of us, take us down into her private little prison beneath the sea. Until she got hungry and needed a snack.

  I opened my mouth to speak once, but no words came out.

  Instead, I took a sip of Coke, but it went down wrong and I started coughing. When I finally caught my breath, I asked, “Why didn’t you come home? When you got away?”

  She had withdrawn into herself and she didn’t hear me. I had to repeat the question. Riley shrugged. “I didn’t know how to get home. The other Selkie had taken me to one of their underwater cities. He warned me that if I went back on land, my own mother would come hunting for me. And he was right. She’s almost caught me twice since then. I didn’t figure
out how to get home until the Burning struck, that was when instinct kicked in.”

  Then her eyes centered on the necklace that hung around my neck. With a swift movement, she grabbed it, broke the chain and held the cross in her fist.

  “But if I would have had one of these, I would have been safe.” She kept it, tight in her hand. Then she stood and began to move stealthily away from me. “I came to warn you. Caleb told me that he tried to warn you the other day, in the shop. But Dad came in. I don’t want your blood on my hands. You need to know that the humans, like Gram and Dad, they’ll never understand our world. They’re not like us. Humans make good familiars, but beyond that, they’re pretty useless.”

  “You don’t mean that,” I argued. “You don’t really feel that way about Dad or Gram.”

  “Don’t I?” She had retreated across the room until she stood beside the back door. She glanced at the cellar door, maybe temporarily trapped in a memory.

  “No, you don’t,” I said.

  She laughed. “Still Miss Goody Goody, aren’t you? Do you still do everything Dad tells you to do? Do you still freak out if your clothes get dirty?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “Makes sense you would side with them.” Then she spun around, opened the door and ran outside. As if I would chase her down. Or maybe, as if something else was after her. I went to the door and watched her run away, toward the driveway, her body turning first into a shadow, then disappearing completely in the fog.

  Except for my missing necklace, it was almost as if she had never been here.

  Chapter 51

  Caleb:

  I met her at the bottom of the driveway. Somehow I knew she would come tumbling down through white shifting cloud, right into my arms. I caught her and held her still. She struggled, but I was stronger than she was.

  “What have you done?” I asked, trying not to be overwhelmed by her pheromones. Riley had learned how to control the Burning quicker than the rest of us and already she was using it to her advantage.

  “What you should have done,” she said. “I warned her.”

  “You told her the legend? You didn’t name the beast, did you?”

  “Of course, not. I’m no idiot.”

  I started to release her, then I noticed one of her hands was clenched in a fist and a silver chain snaked out between her fingers.

  “What’s in your hand?” I asked.

  “Why are you so nosy all of a sudden? Yesterday, you acted like you cared, now you’re on her side again.”

  “I’ve never been on anyone’s side,” I said as I pried her fingers open.

  Kira’s Celtic cross necklace sprawled across Riley’s palm. I sucked a long breath of damp air between my teeth.

  “You’ve left her defenseless against that beast,” I whispered.

  “I turned her. She’s not defenseless.”

  I took the necklace away from her. Then she twisted out of my grasp, spun around and raked long fingernails through the air. I pushed her away, just as she tried to grab the necklace back.

  “Why did you steal her necklace?” I held it out of reach, the wood burning my fingers.

  “Because she stole everything from me,” she huffed. Her fists thudded against my chest as she talked.

  “None of this is her fault.”

  She laughed. “That’s where you’re wrong. It’s all her fault. That beast should have taken her—she was always Dad’s favorite. My mom would have just let her go. Then it would have been the three of us, safe, forever, in that little house. And right now, Kira would be nothing but a memory.”

  She backed away from me, a dark expression on her face.

  Then, before I could say another word, she ran past me, down the driveway to the main road, disappearing like a vengeful wraith in the swirling fog.

  •

  Night faded. An ominous twilight shrouded the cliffs and the beach. Somewhere, behind all this fog, the sun was shining. I could feel it, even though I couldn’t see it.

  I was finally beginning to understand.

  The legends only gave us a taste of the truth. We had to figure out the rest for ourselves. And this legend was unraveling fast, day by day. Soon the ending that I had been dreading would be upon us all.

  Unless the ending could be changed.

  I waded in the water, comforted by the touch of my mother, the sea. She wrapped cold arms about me, pulled me deeper, until I left the shore. Sometimes I imagine that the ocean has a heart, just like I do, and that each wave is a beat, each tide a sigh. I swam away from Kira’s house, back toward my temporary home. One fist tightly closed around the talisman that could save the young woman I had grown to care for more than I anticipated.

  Arm over arm, I swam past the breaking waves, head down, alternating between breathing oxygen like a human and breathing the sweet air that could only be found underwater. I swam until I grew weary and then had my strength renewed. The ocean did that for us. She gave us more than we had on our own.

  I rested for a moment, floating on my back, watched the sun burning off layers of fog, as if it was searching for me.

  Then I rolled over and swam again, until I finally reached the shoreline beneath Brianna’s house—the same spot where I had carried Kira, when she had worn Selkie skin. I wondered if I would ever see her like that again, covered in sea green scales, eyes glowing pale blue.

  Lips the color of coral.

  Was there a kiss there that waited for me?

  I doubted it, but anything was possible.

  Chapter 52

  Kira:

  I’m not sure, but I might have been slightly hysterical by the time Sean arrived. I remember answering the door and him staring at me, maybe because I still hadn’t put that blasted ax down. I felt like the girl who gets killed during the first half hour in a cheap horror flick. I told him everything. At high speed. Although, that might have been the multiple-Coke-caffeine high at work. Or it could have been the after-effects of being around my Dear Sweet Sister.

  After I told him everything that had happened with Riley, I then dragged him over to the kitchen table, showed him all the books and all the yellow stickies. At some point I even made him read all the stuff I had typed into my computer. I’m a little bit surprised that I didn’t try to show him my mother’s watery—and long gone—footprints in the hallway.

  Like the nice guy that he is, Sean just nodded his head, then said stuff like, uh huh and no, really and are you sure.

  I think I heard, “Are you sure?” the most often.

  And my best piece of evidence? My missing necklace.

  “She took it?” he asked, a puzzled look on his adorable face.

  I nodded, emphatically, in between gulps of Coke.

  He put one hand on the soda can. Moved it out of reach.

  “Step away from the caffeine, Kira,” he said with a slight grin. “Are you sure you didn’t take your necklace off when you went to bed?”

  I cocked my head, stared at him like he was a complete stranger. Had he been listening to me? “Riley took it,” I reminded him.

  “And your mom is a monster.”

  “Yeah. Come on, don’t let this be another one of those times when you don’t believe me until later. This is all really important, Sean. All of it. From the dream I had to my mom trying to kidnap me to Gram finally telling me the truth. And then, in the middle of it all, Riley waltzed in here and spilled her guts like we were in therapy or something—”

  “I believe you.”

  I stopped. Stared at him. Right in the middle of my kitchen, with my left hand still clutching a wad of sticky notes and my right hand still trying to sneak my can of Coke away from him. He was being sincere. I knew that look. It’s the one that makes my heart skip a beat, the one that made me want him for my best friend from Day One.

  I wanted to melt in his arms.

  And he seemed to read my mind.

  His arms went around me and I laid my head on his shoulder. All I could hear w
as his heartbeat and the steady flow of oxygen into his chest. Maybe the world wasn’t turning upside down after all. If he was here, then, maybe everything was going to work out.

  He ran his hand over my hair and gently kissed my forehead.

  “Did you get any sleep last night?” he asked.

  “Not much.”

  “Come on,” he said, tugging me by the hand. He led me to the living room sofa. “Lay down.” He was using his best don’t-argue-with-me voice.

  I sat on the edge of the middle cushion.

  He shook his head. “Down.”

  I giggled and laid down. He grabbed one of Gram’s knitted afghans and spread it over me. Then he sat in the chair. Watching me. Until I finally fell asleep.

  •

  I startled awake to a strange banging sound and I immediately sat up, grabbed the ax that I had left on the floor beside the sofa. Then I smelled something wonderful. Eggs and bacon and toast that wasn’t burned. And coffee. For the first time I thought coffee smelled delicious.

  Maybe I was growing up. Isn’t coffee supposed to be a rite of passage?

  I stretched, looked through the doorway into the kitchen, saw Sean helping Gram make breakfast. As usual, she was telling him what to do, while she leaned back in a chair, knitting.

  I wandered into the kitchen, glad to see Sean’s lopsided, dreamy grin, his long dark hair hiding his eyes while he scraped a spatula through a pan of scrambled eggs. I wanted to wrap my arms around his waist and give him a big hug, but I resisted the urge. After all, Gram was watching me.

  Staring was more like it.

  Her eyes burned and the corners of her mouth creased downward.

  “Where’s your necklace, girl?” she asked.

  “I—she—Riley took it.”

  “When?”

  “I dunno, a couple hours ago, when you were sleeping.”

  She gave me a sideways glare. “You telling me the truth?”