About a hundred determined Riley citizens hunkered around me in similar chairs on the cold brown lawn of the town square. The square’s precise streets were filled with their parked cars and trucks. A freezing wind whipped the limbs of several stalwart sourwoods on the central lawn, and the last of the season’s huge acorns banged like gavels on the roof of the bandstand that served as the ceremony’s stage. Every bang made me jump.
The silent song grew louder inside me.
Sweat gathered between my shoulder blades and breasts, melting me front and back, pooling in the creases where my thighs joined my body, wetting me between the legs and under the armpits. I wore a long wool dress, a quilted blue coat, insulated gloves, and a thick polyester scarf wrapped around my throat—all for discreet public effect only. My cold-natured body was roasting alive, but, more than that, the song was urging me to melt my own skin and emerge in a new form.
Suddenly I sensed a voice inside the song. Inside my head. A dulcet female voice, gentle, firm, elegant. Not spoken so much as insinuated. Meet us at the nearest water, my dear.
I swayed in my chair. What insanity was this? What delusion?
Stand up, Alice. Strip off your ugly, miserable wrappings and bask in the winter sun. Fling a smile at these ordinary fools as you glide away without a shiver. Leave them sitting here bundled up like gray rabbits in their ignorance. Stand up, Alice. Stand up for yourself.
I opened my eyes and scrubbed perspiration from my face. I shook. Leave me alone. Who are you? I refuse to listen. I’m not psychotic. I’m not a fool. You don’t understand. This life is all I have. I can’t ruin it.
You’re wrong, Alice. We’ve found you. We’re here, Alice.
Where?
Behind you. Turn around and look.
I couldn’t help myself. I began to swivel in my chair. A dozen Rileys, including my mother’s eldest sister, stared at me. I faced forward again. My skin burned. Now I was not only hearing voices, I was replying to them and looking for the owners. Horrified, I riveted my attention to the preacher. He raised his head, shut his Bible, and stepped aside for the mayor. The mayor, a woman with stark brown hair and the methodical manner of a woodchuck gnawing a hard tree branch, began giving a short speech about me. “No matter how Alice saved that beautiful little child,” she said in a toothy voice, “it’s her secret. We know she’ll tell us the real story about her heroic act someday. We know she’s just too shy to tell us yet. We know the truth is as heroic as Alice’s storybook explanation.”
How dare she, Alice? Stand up and tell that pompous little woman your integrity is beyond question.
The mystery voice, again, urging me to rebel against my town, my family, the only home I had in the world.
Please, I begged. Stop.
“Alice, come up here,” the mayor ordered. I couldn’t make myself move at first. Sitting behind me like a watchdog, my mother’s eldest sister clamped a hand on my shoulder and shoved me slightly. I wavered to a stand, locked my trembling knees, then slowly made my way across a mere yard or two of winter lawn, every step requiring total concentration. Beads of moisture slid down my face. On the bandstand’s stage, a stern man in a gray suit and overcoat rose from a chair beside the podium. I made my way up the bandstand’s whitewashed wooden steps as if blind, never raising my eyes to either the people on the stage or the crowd on the lawn.
“Alice,” the mayor chewed into the podium’s microphone, “please welcome the governor’s dear friend.” She named the man’s name, but it didn’t matter. He was a substitute for the little girl’s family, an insincere stranger sent to shield them from my strange self. He rose firmly and began to speak, holding up a plaque bearing my name and the insignia of some obscure foundation I’d never heard of, possibly one that had been made up for the occasion. “The governor and his family are sure of one thing—sure they’re grateful their precious little girl is alive, safe and well. You did the right thing, Ms. Alice Riley. You know in your heart you did the right thing by saving a child’s life, and that’s all that matters.”
How dare he imply your motives remain in question, the voice whispered.
I gripped my hands together and stared, dazed, as the presenter turned and looked at me. He held out the plaque almost like a challenge. Several reporters posed themselves to snap pictures, and the white-hot light of an Atlanta TV crew suddenly scalded the scene. I blinked hard as I looked up at the presenter. His pity, disgust, and resignation constricted my chest and made me gasp for air. This was my life—eccentric and ugly—this was how people saw me, and suddenly I realized this was how I would always see myself, too, shrinking inch by inch until one day I would simply evaporate.
The singing voice suggested otherwise. Imaginary or not, suddenly I had to look. Sweating, shaking, I turned my head toward the crowd with excruciating care, squinting directly into the TV light, bracing my feet wide apart as my breath shortened to a dizzying pant. A hundred pinched and disapproving faces stared back at me, just like the award presenter, shortening me, melting me, and me letting them. My heart sank. No one was out there but mirrors of those faces.
But then.
But then.
She stepped into a grassy aisle that divided the rows of chairs. She stepped out of the light, it seemed to me, and walked right up that center aisle with a stride more graceful than a dancer’s, and she stood, tall and beautiful, silver hair piled in some soft, intricate fashion on her head, her body cased in a beautiful light suit not at all right for the place or the weather. Her eyes were the deepest green, lined at the corners with wisdom, utterly hypnotic. I could not breathe. She didn’t lift a hand, say a word, even nod. She sang to me with the silent vibration, the voiceless whisper. And behind her arrived two others, just as amazing, younger, one luxuriously dark-haired, one a flamboyant redhead, their hair upswept, their manner regal, their green-eyed regard so stunning that everyone, everyone turned to stare. They wore the finest rich silks, pearl bracelets, diamonds, delicate and elaborate gold pins with handsome gemstones in them. They stood out like angelfish among plain brown trout. Every man in the crowd wanted to touch them. Every woman wanted to be them. I had never seen females so beautiful in my life.
“Alice,” the silver-haired doyenne said aloud, in a voice as lyrical as a southern trade wind. She put more devotion in my name than I’d ever heard before. “Alice, my dear. We’re your father’s family.”
Everyone gasped. I took a step back, shaking my head. I felt bewildered, afraid, enthralled; I was half-fainting. What to say, what to do? How did she know me, and what did she know about me? My father’s family? Impossible. His identity was a mystery to me, to my mother’s family.
My mother’s eldest sister leapt to her feet, frowning at the strangers, who ignored her. “Alice,” she called out loudly. “I don’t know what this is about, but take that award and say thank you, right now. Alice. Get off the stage. If you know what’s good for you, take the award and quit standing there like a fool.”
My gaze sank, defeated, away from the silver-haired woman’s troubled scrutiny. Shame clouded my vision. I looked down, down. At the same time, I slid my shaking hand out to one side, to take the proffered plaque.
Alice, don’t accept so little when you deserve so much. The stranger’s voice rang in my head again. Look at our feet, Alice. Recognize your own kind.
I peeked furtively through the bandstand’s railing. All three women had slipped off exquisite shoes, here in the mountains in the middle of winter, on ground so cold particles of ice crunched in the dead grass. To show me their feet. Delicate, arching feet. Perfect, strong feet. Sensual feet, outrageous feet. Adorned with jeweled ankle bracelets, the nails gleaming with glossy polishes. The silver-haired one shifted one naked foot just so, arching it like a swan’s head, spreading her toes. The others did the same. I uttered a low, keening sound.
Webbed feet. Like mine.
“Take the damned plaque, Alice,” my mother’s eldest sister warned again.
My h
ead snapped up. I looked at her, then at the presenter, then at the plaque. I jerked my hand away. I staggered down the bandstand’s steps, threw off my coat, and fled, gasping for breath.
In the chaos that ensued, Pearl Bonavendier sighed in dismay. Mara Bonavendier rolled her eyes. “Pathetic,” she couldn’t help saying.
Lilith frowned and signaled for them to follow.
5
Land People fight and struggle and yearn to find magic in their lives. Water People hide behind that magic, but realize the loneliness of it.
—Lilith
I hovered like a ghost, shadowed in the ultraviolet glow of the fish tanks at the Riley Pet Shoppe. I waited for the three web-footed women to find me. I knew, instinctively, that they would.
I smelled the fragrance of their fine perfumes and fabrics as they made their way down the alley behind the shop; I heard the whisper of their fabulous feet on the concrete lane, there; I imagined just the slightest, alluring tang of seasalt in the air around them. My chest heaved. I clutched a countertop for support.
It was a Sunday, and the shop—or shoppe, as the owner insisted on calling it—was closed, the lights off, the blinds drawn. The gloaming of the winter afternoon dropped deep shadows over the shelves and cages. Watching me was a menagerie of hamsters, mice, parakeets, snakes, iguana lizards, and hundreds of small fish. Every creature, whether fin, fowl, fur, or reptile, moved to the fronts of their cages and tanks. The parakeets twittered at me; the hamsters made soft, squeaking sounds. The fish merged in neat schools, all facing toward me. I was a magnet for small creatures, beloved by them, trusted. I sang to them every day. They listened.
Silence enveloped me except for the bubbling of the aquariums and the soft callings of my small allies. I waited in that quiet, artificial jungle, jerking my gloves off and dropping them on the floor, tearing my scarf away and losing it somewhere on a shelf, my boyish hair rumpled like an auburn scrub brush, my skin gleaming with sweat, fear, and awe. The sound of my breathing made a low roar in my ears.
Click. The shop’s back door opened, followed by the softest padding of footsteps beyond the doorway to a storeroom. “Alice,” the silver-haired one called quietly from the storeroom. “Shall we enter?”
It was a little late for niceties, now that she’d been inside my head. I backed into an alcove fitted with floor-to-ceiling fish tanks—a dark, safe cave, I’d always thought, surrounded by bubbling water and friendly, swimming creatures. “I’m here,” I said in a voice that shook. “With the fish.”
The three women entered the shop’s main room with the gossamer grace of leaves floating on a stream. I straightened, clenched my hands by my side, and stared at them from my dim corner. They gazed back, the dark-haired one looking impatient, the redhead very kind and earnest, Silver Hair frowning at me with wistful eyes.
“Yes, I’m pathetic,” I confirmed quietly, and Dark Hair grimaced.
Silver Hair stepped in front of the other two like the queen of a small delegation. “No, you are simply—” she paused, searching for the right words—”simply unaware of your true nature.”
“And who are you, may I ask?”
“My name,” she said, “is Lilith Bonavendier.” She nodded toward the dark-haired woman. “This is my younger sister, Mara.” And in the other direction, toward the redhead. “And this is my second younger sister, Pearl.” She paused. I suddenly noticed that the fish, the mice, the hamsters, the snakes, the lizards, and the birds now faced her way. None of them moved or made so much as a peep. “And you,” Lilith Bonavendier went on, looking straight at me, “are our youngest sister.”
“Only our half-sister,” Mara corrected, then blanched when Lilith gave her a hard look.
I took a step back, pressing myself against a wall of aquariums. Like all the other small creatures, I gazed at the three women in hypnotized wonder. “What kind of game is this?” I whispered.
“Oh, Alice. Sisterhood is never a game.” Pulling something from a tiny silk purse bound to the waist of her exquisite pale suit, Lilith moved toward me slowly, as if I might bolt, which I might. She laid the offering on the top of short display shelf. “A photograph,” she said, “of your mother with our father.”
She stepped back.
I picked up the old snapshot. My hand shook. I gazed at my teenage mother, smiling on a sun-drenched Georgia beach beside a handsome, white-haired man. Both were dressed in swimsuits, her looking like a wholesome girl next door on the cover of a Beach Boys album, him looking fit and suave and incredibly desirable. And, quite possibly, fifty years her senior.
“This man,” I said, “could be my grandfather.”
“I assure you, he is not. Father was not an ordinary man. He was, after all, a Bonavendier.”
Mara added tightly, “Tell her exactly, Lilith. We Bonavendiers don’t look our age. Father was eight five when he died that summer.”
“But he didn’t look a day over fifty,” Pearl amended.
I laid the photograph down. “And if I may ask, how old are you-all?”
“How rude,” Mara said instantly.
“I am seventy and quite pleased to be so,” Lilith countered, nodding to indicate her own lithe form. She lifted a hand toward Mara, who yipped in dismay. “Sixty-five.” And Pearl, who laughed. “Sixty-two.”
I stared at them. Mara and Pearl couldn’t possibly be much older than I, and Lilith had the skin of a beautiful forty-year-old, despite the silver hair. Southern socialites are notorious for lying about their ages—gilding the magnolia—so to speak. But none ever claim they are thirty years older than common sense says is possible.
Remain polite about their delusions, I told myself, staring at the floor to hide my alarm. And just play along until you can escape. “I see.”
Lilith watched me closely. “No, you don’t. We don’t live by the rules of ordinary people. You know that in your heart. You know anything I tell you may be possible. Look at me, Alice. Please.”
I raised my eyes to hers. Her expression softened. “Study our eyes. Gray-green, like the sea. Just like yours. An extraordinary color. Unique to our kind. To our family. Mara. Pearl. Look at her eyes. Let us all look straight into Alice’s eyes. And Alice, you look at us.” She paused. “All four of us standing here today are linked by the most amazing destiny. We have our father’s eyes.”
In the deepening silence between words, the pauses of reflection and emotion, the acidic wash of stark scrutiny and shock, in those spaces where the truth lives, I knew, I felt, I saw. But I shook my head.
Lilith Bonavendier immediately swept toward me with a knowing gleam in those amazing eyes—eyes I had seen in my own mirror. “Alice. Your father’s name was Orion. Orion Bonavendier. Our mother, the love of his life, had died not many years before he met your mother. He was still grieving, distraught—dying of a broken heart. Nothing could stop that.”
Lilith touched my face. “He met your mother when she came to work as a counselor at the children’s camp called Sweetwater Haven, on a brackish river along the mainland, not many miles from our island. This young counselor—your mother—was bright and beautiful, and we all appreciated how she drew our father out of his misery. I can’t say I’m proud he seduced her, but I’m sure he never meant to destroy her, Alice. And I am certain—in the depths of my dreams, in my soul, my instincts, my sisterhood with you—that your mother adored him, and she was only driven to disaster by her family once she returned here.”
“She drowned herself in the town lake,” I said grimly. “After she saw the web-toed mutant she’d birthed.”
This cruel assessment made the three women draw themselves up and frown at me. Lilith said with an incredulous tone, “Is that what you’ve grown up believing about your mother and yourself?”
“It’s the truth.”
“No. I have notes your mother wrote to Father. She was in love with him. She wanted to stay with him. She wouldn’t have rejected any child she had with him.”
“No mother can turn her
back on a Bonavendier baby,” Pearl said. “We’re quite alluring, even in the crib.”
“You were taken away from her, Alice. That’s the only explanation that makes sense. That would have driven her to despair. I expect her family intended to place you for adoption.”
My thoughts whirled. I felt as if I was struggling just under the surface of shallow water, caught in a vortex. “You’re offering me a convenient rationale, I’m afraid.”
“I’m offering you the truth. Come with us, Alice. Look at the proof we can show you of your heritage. See where you belong.” She paused, her expression becoming supplicating and sad. “Accept our apologetic and sincere love.”
Love? I had never known love in my life, and the use of it as a lure from strangers enraged me. “Let me understand this,” I said between gritted teeth. “You’re saying my mother, a very young woman—not even out of her teens quite then—a small-town girl raised in a time and place where morals were very strict and the rules undeniably severe—you’re saying she was willing to give up everything for a summer seduction orchestrated by an eighty-five-year-old grieving widower? And I am supposed to believe she adored him—and wanted to bear his child? Me. And you actually care?”
“Yes. Absolutely. Listen to your instincts, Alice. Trust your faith.”
“Faith is a blind word, used to excuse every mistake.”
Lilith took a step toward me. “No. Alice, say what you will, but you do want to believe me.”
“This is all an elaborate defense for a tragedy that shamed you.”
“Yes, I’m ashamed we hurt your mother—and you. And yes, this is an elaborate effort to redeem that terrible crime. But, then, we Bonavendiers are an elaborate kind of being.”