“You have already been charged with treason once, Callum,” Domnall said. “You should not push your luck a second time.” He stepped backward, closer to me. Callum followed, his fists curled at his sides and his muscles tensed.
“Let them go. You don’t need them.”
“Oh, but I do,” Domnall said. “I still have use for them. Perhaps they might be useful in my dealings with their people.”
“Pearl didn’t marry the man you are now,” Callum told him. “She wouldn’t have loved you like this.”
Domnall’s face turned red. “Do not tell me what Pearl would have wanted! You took her from me. You killed her!”
With a swiftness I hadn’t seen before, Domnall lunged at me, ripping the knife from my still outstretched hand. He pushed me backward, sending me crashing into Mama and we fell to the floor in a tangle of limbs.
I sat up, pushing the hair out of my eyes, as Callum lunged at Domnall. The finfolk king turned around to meet him, swinging his arm.
Callum’s gasp echoed through the room, roaring over the sound of Artair and Josh struggling on the floor. He doubled over, the blood draining from his face and turning his skin white.
Domnall stepped away, letting Callum fall to the ground. He still clutched the knife in his hand, though now it dripped with bright red blood.
It took a moment for me to realize the piercing noise in my ears was my own scream.
Callum rolled over on the floor, his hands pressed to the blooming red stain on his robe.
Domnall stepped back, his steely gaze locked on Callum. “I am king here,” he said in solemn voice. “And that is the way it will remain.”
Artair and Josh had frozen in mid-battle, and now they both stared at Callum. A dark red pool stained the floor next to him.
Domnall glanced at his unconscious men, then jerked his head at Artair.
“Come,” he barked. “We must prepare for the journey.”
Artair rose to his feet, but his gaze was still locked on Callum’s prone figure. He appeared to wobble a moment as a grimace passed across his face. But then he held his shoulders back and the serious expression overtook his face once again. He turned and followed Domnall out of the room.
I crawled across the floor to Callum. He was so still, his eyes looking unfocused at the ceiling overhead. Was he dead? Had I led him to his death after everything he’d already been through?
I let out a breath when he finally blinked, slowly.
“Callum,” I said, leaning over him.
He turned his head to look at me and lifted one hand from his side. “Sailor,” he said in a hoarse voice.
Tears fell down my cheeks, dripping onto his hand. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
“It is all right,” he told me. “This is what should have happened to me five years ago.”
“No.” The word choked me and I leaned over, burying my face into his shoulder. I pressed my ear to his chest, listening to his heartbeat. As long as I heard that steady beat, I could hope he would be okay.
But even as I listened, I could hear it slowing.
If only we were in Swans Landing. Grandma would know what to do. Grandma could fix anything.
As I lay there with Callum, I became aware of a roar underneath me and an ache deep in my bones. The ocean. We were on top of the door that opened to the beach below. I could smell the salt in the air and feel the whisper of the water calling to me. I wanted to shed my human form and become finfolk, letting my body remake itself.
I sat up, gasping.
“Josh,” I said. He stood with Mama, holding her hand gently as they looked down at us. Mama was eerily quiet and still, her eyes wide and focused on Callum. “We have to get Callum into the water.”
“He’ll bleed to death,” Josh said.
I shook my head. “We can use the song to heal him. The body undergoes a rebirth during the change from human to finfolk. It remakes itself.”
I had tried to sing the song before and had failed, but I had to try again. I couldn’t sit here and let Callum die in this place.
“Josh, please,” I said. “I need help getting him into the water. We have to try.”
“Okay,” Josh said at last. He glanced at my mother. “What about—”
“Mama,” I said, stretching out my hand. “Mama, remember? It’s me, Sailor. We’re going home.”
I hoped somewhere inside her was still the clarity I had seen moments ago. A tiny spark was all I needed.
Josh helped me move Callum off the door and then we pulled it open. It was high tide and the water foamed and crashed under us.
Mama looked at me, then Callum, and then at the water below the opening. Finally, she looked at Josh standing next to her.
“Oliver?” she asked.
Josh hesitated, then nodded. “Yes, it’s Oliver. Follow me, Coral. Let’s swim.”
“You can’t swim,” she told him.
“Yes, I can,” Josh assured her. “Follow me and we can swim back home. Together.”
Mama studied him a moment longer. Then she smiled and jumped through the opening into the crashing surf below.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Josh and I swam with Callum between us, moving farther away from the shore and into the waves. Mama followed close behind, not speaking, but at least she was moving with us.
The change I had tried to hold back as long as I could took over and I sank under the water, releasing a gasp of pain in a stream of bubbles. Bones popped and moved, skin stretched and tore, ripping away to reveal red and silver scales. My body shed its human form and became the other me, renewed and revitalized with the salt water I inhaled.
When I resurfaced, I found Josh and Mama also bobbing among the water. They too had changed. Mama held her hands up in front of her face, as if she expected them to grow scales as well.
But I didn’t have time to feel relief at the fact that Mama could still change form. Callum bobbed in the water next to me and he moaned, his face contorted into pain. I hoped the blood he was releasing wouldn’t attract curious sea life. I didn’t want to find out what it was that had injured the finfolk woman we’d seen on the beach that day.
“We have to sing like the finfolk on the beach did,” I said to Josh. “Use both the earth and the water songs.”
Josh didn’t look confident, but he nodded.
I closed my eyes, leaning my mouth close to Callum’s ear, and I began to hum, pulling the vibrations from deep within me. It was hard, but I squeezed my eyes shut and focused all my thoughts on the two songs. Josh’s voice joined mine and he moved close, helping me hold Callum up in the water.
I became aware of another voice in our song, an alto I had never heard before. I lifted my head and found my mother near Callum’s side. She helped hold him stretched out across the surface of the water, running one hand over the gaping wound in his side. Salty tears burned my eyes. I had dreamed of hearing her song my whole life.
Callum thrashed slightly, his eyes squeezed shut. He was still pale, much too pale. He kicked one leg, the one with the prosthetic. I reached down to unhook it from his leg, holding onto it to keep it from floating away.
Callum arched his back and cried out, and we sang louder. I pressed my forehead against his, focusing on the vibrations of the earth and the sea around me. My pulse throbbed in my head, my body already feeling exhausted with the effort. Please, please work. It had to work. I had nothing else I could do for him.
When he stopped thrashing, I lifted my head. His eyes were closed, but his chest moved up and down as he panted. He still lay on the surface of the water among the undulating waves around us.
But now he had changed.
He had only half a tail where his leg ended. The left side of his tail was there, but the right side ended in a scarred edge where the rest of his leg once was. His scales were brilliant green, like an emerald, and his half of a tail fin spread out in a translucent blue-green web.
I turned him onto his side, my hands clutching a
t the area where the knife had gone in. Where there had once been blood oozing out, now only freckled skin with a light line marking it remained.
Callum opened his eyes, blinking. His gaze found mine and he smiled slowly.
“Hello,” he said.
“Hey,” I answered, laughing as relief swept over me. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and pressed my lips to his, tasting the salt on his mouth. We sank under the water for a moment, our tails entwining. Already I could feel the warmth returning to his body despite the cold water.
We resurfaced, shaking water out of our eyes.
“Well,” Callum said, “I should almost die more often.”
“Don’t you dare,” I told him.
Chapter Thirty-Three
The sun peeked through the hazy clouds that hung low in the sky when I opened my eyes. Morning dawned, and birds were already flying over the ocean in search of breakfast. Water gurgled in my ears as I lay drifting on the surface, bobbing among the rippling waves.
With a flick of my red-scaled tail, I dove deep into the water, then twisted around and broke back through the surface, arcing gracefully. The ocean enveloped me as I slipped back in, wrapping me with the familiar song I felt deep inside me.
“Show off,” a voice said when I resurfaced, blinking water out of my eyes.
I turned, and couldn’t help the grin that stretched across my face at the sight of him. He looked more alive than he had in all the time I’d known him. I knew that under the water, his tail bore the scars of what had been done to him, as it would for the rest of his life. But I didn’t care. He was alive, and he was truly finfolk once again.
“Well,” I said with a shrug, “when you feel like diving, you gotta do it.”
Callum swam closer to me, reaching out to grab my hand. I let him pull me toward him, until our noses were only inches apart. His half of a tail fin brushed against mine, sending a tingle through my body.
“And when I feel like doing this—” He pressed his lips to mine in a kiss that made me feel weak all over and we slipped below the surface for a moment before coming up again. Then he pulled back and winked. “I have to do it.”
“Do you have to do that first thing in the morning?” Josh wrinkled his nose at us from where he tread water nearby. Mama stayed close to his side, as she had done since we’d left Hether Blether two days ago. Most of the time she stayed quiet, just following along next to us. Other times, she thought Josh was his daddy and would talk about random memories, though she never mentioned the night he died. I wasn’t sure yet if she even remembered that night at all, and I didn’t want to risk having her break down in the middle of the ocean by asking those questions.
Besides, we had other things on our minds right then. Domnall and his men had certainly left Hether Blether by now, so we swam for as long as we could each day, stopping for only a few hours of rest when absolutely necessary. For all we knew, Domnall was right behind us, using whatever methods he had to track us through the water.
There was no land anywhere in sight. The ocean stretched on into the horizon all around, like land had disappeared completely. It would be another long, hard swim.
The key hung heavy against my waist, still tucked into the belt of my robe. We could return to Hether Blether any time we wanted as long as we had it.
But all I wanted was to see another island on the other side of the ocean.
Josh yawned, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “Everyone ready?” he asked.
I nodded, looking from him to Callum and then to my mother. “Let’s go home.”
About the author
Most days, Shana Norris still feels like she’s stuck at sixteen, which is probably why she enjoys writing about teens. She always wanted to be a mermaid and fell in love with the Outer Banks during a gray late winter years ago. She lives in a small town in eastern North Carolina with her husband and small zoo of pets, which currently includes two dogs, five cats, and five chickens.
Look for the third book in the Swans Landing series coming in 2013. Also, look for the novella Shifting coming in early 2013.
To learn more about Swans Landing and the people living there, please visit www.shananorris.com. Follow Shana on Twitter @shananorris or on Facebook. Or email her at [email protected].
Other books by Shana Norris:
The Boyfriend Thief
Troy High
Surfacing (Swans Landing Book 1)
Something to Blog About
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Submerging (Swans Landing) Page 18
