Promise Bound

  “Sure, whatever, Lil. I taught you that trick. But you’ll tell me if you run off and do something crazy?”

  “You got a deal.”

  After a few hours of rummaging through my closet, I picked the most Pavati-perfect, dress-the-part outfit I could find: a long peasant skirt and an embroidered vintage camisole. I curled my hair and loaded up the bracelets. When I was done, I studied myself in the mirror and adjusted the skirt lower on my hips. Hmm. I looked more like a fortune-teller than a Bollywood superstar, but maybe it would have the psychological effect I was going for.

  I took a few moments to work out my key points, then walked down to the dock, jingling with each step, and hung my feet into the water. If Pavati still wanted to talk to me as much as I thought she did, she’d notice my scent and show herself. Plus, I wanted the security of land. Sure enough, I waited only five minutes before she slowly emerged in front of me—the top of her dark head, then lavender eyes, cheekbones, perfect lips, neck encircled by a silver band, which glistened in the fading sunlight. Water dripped from the tip of her chin. The lake rippled away from her bared shoulders.

  “You look very pretty tonight,” Pavati said. “Going somewhere special?” There was a beautiful serenity to her voice.

  Dress the part. Check. “Nowhere special.”

  She swam back and forth around the end of the dock, ten feet out, surveying me from all angles. “I don’t know why I never noticed before. You have potential.”

  “Potential?” Hmm. Maybe I’d dressed too much the part.

  “We could make a good team. Bait and lure, if you know what I mean.”

  Danny had once called human beings mermaid Prozac. I knew exactly what Pavati meant by “bait and lure,” but by the looks of her, she didn’t need any help from me. Her face practically glimmered—backlit by some poor soul’s last smile.

  “You don’t really mean that,” I said, shuddering. “You always considered me the annoying Hancock sister.”

  “Try not to be so sensitive,” Pavati said. “Everyone knows I have a soft spot for the little ones.” She glanced up at the house. “Have you seen Daniel Catron today? How’s Adrian?”

  “How could you do it?” I asked. “Who was it?”

  “Who was what?”

  I threw my arms up in the air. I realized it was a gesture I’d picked up from Calder. “Aren’t you supposed to be rationing yourselves? Hunting on some kind of controlled schedule?” What was I doing? Negotiating with a murderer. This was insanity. Pavati was no better than Maris, no less a monster. I would have walked away, but Mom’s plea kept me rooted to the spot.

  “I’m not a bad person,” Pavati said, her voice thick with stolen serenity. “I do what comes naturally. It’s not my fault I’m at the top of the food chain.”

  I groaned. There was logic in that, but it didn’t make her hunting habits any less horrible. Still, could I really fault a predator for preying? Was the lion evil for hunting? Or the crocodile? Evil, no, I decided. Scary, yes.

  She tipped her head, studying my eyes. Then she turned slightly, inviting me to follow. “Swim with me?”

  I smiled at her question. I wasn’t going to give her the opportunity to read my thoughts before I was ready to share them out loud. “Not tonight, but tell me this. Do you have any idea what you’re doing to Danny? How can you play with his emotions like this? Particularly after what happened with Jack.”

  It wasn’t what I’d come to discuss, but the question had been bothering me for so long I couldn’t hold it in any longer. If I thought she had an ounce of humanity, some smidgen of charity toward a human being, then maybe I could stomach making Mom’s ultimate request.

  Pavati drew closer and her mouth tightened. “I thought we might talk about something else today.”

  I stared at her. Silent.

  She inhaled slowly through her nose, then exhaled fast. “Jack Pettit was an unfortunate mistake.”

  “He was a human being, and you toyed with his heart until there was no humanity left. Now you’re going to do it all over again with Danny.”

  She looked away. “I don’t hear Daniel complaining.”

  I groaned mentally, but it was not lost on her.

  “Lily,” she said, her voice a warm purr, “you are still so innocent, aren’t you?”

  My stomach tightened at her question, and she tipped her head to the side as if she were reading my memories. I was right to refuse a swim.

  “Men,” she said, “were put on this earth for one purpose, and one purpose only: to perpetuate the species. Daniel Catron, at his young age, has already achieved his ultimate purpose. What is wrong with that? He should be thrilled.”

  “And what about love?”

  “Love?” Her eyebrows shot up like birds taking flight.

  “Yes, love,” I said, annoyed. “Don’t act like you’ve never heard of it.”

  “And you think I’m dangerous,” she said, laughing at the irony. “Love is the most dangerous thing of all. My mother loved, and look where it got her.” She paused and her expression turned smug. “Yes. Even you know I’m right. I have no use for love.”

  “Then what about your son?”

  “Ah. Well.” She shrugged. “That is a different kind of love.” Her gaze left my face and she glanced toward the house. “Is he inside? Could you bring him to me? I’d just like to look.”

  “Danny took him to his house.”

  She bowed her head. “Is Calder with him, then? He said he wanted to keep an eye on the situation.”

  “Actually, he’s gone away.”

  Pavati chuckled low and throaty, like she thought she was finally getting the upper hand. “Let me guess. You’ve decided to join me, and Calder refused to stay and watch.”

  “No, it’s not that. I’ve been having … dreams. About Nadia. About your mother.”

  Pavati’s eyes widened and she leaned through the water toward me. She was so close now I could almost reach out and touch her. Her gaze dropped to the pendant and then went back up to my face.

  “That pendant you’ve been wearing, it stores—” she said.

  “I know. But the dreams … it’s not like I’m reading a history book … Nadia’s … communicating with me. It’s personal.”

  Pavati looked at me hungrily. It wasn’t a hunger for my life—actually, based on how low I was feeling emotionally and what Calder had explained to me about absorption, I doubted she wanted anything I had to offer—but more like she was jealous of my dreams. I suppose that was right. If I’d lost my mother, wouldn’t I be hungry for one last conversation?

  “What did Calder have to say about that?” she asked.

  “He doesn’t believe it.”

  The feathery ends of her delicate fluke flitted through the air behind her. “So what does Mother say? In your dreams?”

  “Nadia wants Calder to find his biological mother. She was quite insistent.”

  “The Thin Woman,” Pavati murmured.

  I sucked in my breath. “You know her?” I asked, my voice rising an octave.

  “I know a little,” Pavati said, sensing the upper hand her information afforded.

  I got down on all fours at the end of the dock. The boards felt hard and splintered under my bare knees. “Tell me,” I said.

  She smiled. “Join me.”

  I shook my head, and annoyance flashed across Pavati’s face.

  “So why did you call me? If it’s not about Adrian, and it’s not about my letter, and if you refuse to join me, what more can you possibly have to say?”

  The time had come. I wished I’d followed Jules’s advice and brought note cards. My well-developed arguments were slippery and elusive in my brain. “Would you change my mother?”

  Pavati’s eyes flew wide with scandalized disapproval. “Absolutely not.”

  “Hear me out. I have something to give in exchange.”

  She looked doubtful, but said, “I’m listening.” Her hands moved back and forth through the water.


  “Adrian. Danny already understands that he holds the trump card. He’ll use Adrian to get to you. I can guide him any which way I choose. If I tell him you’ll follow if he runs and takes the baby, he’ll run. If I tell him his best chance to be with you is to return the baby on schedule, he’ll meet you at the pier.”

  “You know what I’d do to him if he ran. You don’t fool me.”

  “Yes. But you’d have to find him first.”

  She clicked her tongue. “I’m surprised at you, Lily Hancock. I didn’t realize you could be so unfeeling. Such a gamble to take with his life.”

  “Why won’t you negotiate with me?” I asked. “What is my mother to you in comparison with Adrian?”

  “It’s about your sister,” she said.

  “My sister? What does Sophie have to do with this?”

  “She is young. She still needs her mother. I won’t be the one to take that away from her.”

  “Mom’s illness isn’t going to get better. We’re going to lose her anyway. Sooner than you think.” I crossed my fingers behind my back. Saying the words out loud made them more true—truer than I wanted them to be.

  “I don’t know that changing her would cure her, and I’m not going to take the chance of accidentally killing Sophie’s mother. Your mother.” After a pause, she rolled her eyes. “I know what you think of me, but believe it or not, I’m not completely heartless. I’ve been there. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy. Not even a Hancock.”

  “Then would you change me, too?” asked Sophie, coming up silently behind me.

  I spun, a flash of panic burning across my chest. “Sophie, get out of here! Go back to the house.”

  Sophie set her jaw and folded her arms over her chest. “You can’t make me. It’s not fair. I want a vote in what’s going on around here. You sent Calder away. What if I wanted him to stay? No one ever asks what I want. I want to be like you. Both of you.”

  “Let’s just see what develops naturally,” Pavati soothed, her voice taking on a noticeably maternal tone.

  “No,” Sophie said. “It’s never going to happen for me. Not naturally, anyway.”

  “You don’t know that,” I said. “Now go back inside.”

  “I did the chart,” Sophie said.

  Pavati and I exchanged a look. “What chart?” I asked.

  “We learned in science about dominant and recessive genes,” Sophie said. “Mr. Callahan showed us the chart for the redhead gene. You got that one, too, Lily. It’ll work out the same with everything else. Lily will be the only one, and it’s not fair.”

  “I don’t follow,” said Pavati.

  “Mom had two human parents,” Sophie said matter-of-factly.

  Suddenly it occurred to me that I had no business trying to engage in a mermaid debate. My skills were paltry when compared with my little sister’s. As young as she was, Sophie could be very persuasive; she always had the data to back her up.

  “So?” I asked nervously.

  “Dad had one human and one mermaid parent. That means that no more than half of his kids will get the mermaid gene.”

  “I don’t think it’s that simple,” I said. “It took me seventeen years before—”

  “Mom can’t wait for me to turn seventeen. That’s six more years!” Sophie exclaimed, practically screaming. Pavati and I both took a step—or in her case, a stroke—backward.

  “Sweetheart,” Pavati said. “I’m not going to change you. It’s not going to happen like that.”

  Sophie bowed to get her face as close to Pavati’s as possible. She set her teeth. “Then I’ll. Find. Maris.”

  “No!” Pavati and I exclaimed together.

  “Ugh,” groaned Sophie. She picked up one of my sandals and chucked it into the lake.

  “Hey!”

  She growled at me, then turned on her heel and marched up to the house, only pausing to yell over her shoulder, “I hate you both!”

  Pavati and I watched her go. I wasn’t ready to give up on our negotiation. “I have something more to offer.”

  “Go on,” she said.

  “I promised Calder I would never join you without him.”

  “That was an unfortunate promise to have made.”

  “But I didn’t make that promise on behalf of anyone else. If you changed my mom, I could convince my dad to join you. You’d gain two. Even without me and Calder, you’d have the numbers against Maris.”

  Pavati met my eyes. “I won’t change your mother. But convince your father to join me, and I’ll give you Daniel Catron, emotionally intact.”

  I raised my eyebrows in surprise—a reaction that was interrupted by Sophie slamming the front door behind her. Both Pavati and I flinched.

  After its vibrations dissipated, I returned my attention to Pavati’s lesser offer. “You’d promise to love Danny?” I asked. It wasn’t what I wanted, but it was a significant move on her part. I couldn’t ignore it. If Pavati was promising to love Danny, then she was promising to stay close to him. And if she made herself a part of Danny’s life, then he wouldn’t fall apart like Jack had. He wouldn’t get desperate. He wouldn’t resort to reckless behavior.

  Before Pavati could answer, the front door opened again. It was Dad. Pavati ducked below the surface.

  “Lily, are you out there? Sophie says you’re in the water. What are you doing? It’s not Friday.”

  Little liar. “No, Dad. Dry as a bone.”

  “Well, Gabby’s on the phone. She wants you to go to some film noir festival with her in Washburn. What should I tell her?”

  Pavati surfaced on the far side of the dock.

  “I’ll be up in a second, Dad.”

  The door closed again, and I turned back toward Pavati. “So?” I asked. “If my dad sided with you, would you promise to love Danny?”

  “I would promise to let him think that I love him. That’s the best I can do.”

  But something in the way she averted her eyes made me think it was only half the truth.

  20

  CALDER

  Back on the road in the hamburger-wrapper car.

  I slipped my fingers above the visor, dug through the center console and then the glove compartment, looking for cash. I came up with seven dollars and fifty miserable cents. It wasn’t going to get me too far in Thunder Bay.

  I lifted my foot off the gas and coasted. There was still the chance to turn around. Obviously I couldn’t avoid my promise to Lily, but I didn’t have to go all the way to Thunder Bay. I could research my parents from any coffeehouse with Wi-Fi. But the thought didn’t last long, and I stomped on the pedal, pushing my speed up to eighty.

  When it came right down to it, eventually I’d have to start talking to real, live people. I cringed at the memory of one of my and Lily’s first conversations. “Didn’t they look for you?” she’d asked. At the time, the idea had been beyond my comprehension. I had given my human parents so little thought over the years that it was difficult to imagine my death having made a lasting impression on them. Now I was going to start asking the general populace of Thunder Bay if anyone remembered me? Lily believed a three-year-old couldn’t fall off a sailboat and be completely forgotten—even after all these years. I guess I had to trust that—despite my years of study—Lily understood human nature better than I.

  Trust was going to be tough going, though, because right now, Thunder Bay was alien to everything I knew; it seemed impossible that anyone there would have heard of me. And who was I anyway? Tallulah had chosen the name Calder, so what name would I even ask about?

  When I crossed the Minnesota border at Pigeon River, the customs officer waved me through. “I can let you go to Canada,” he said, “but you better find your passport if you want to get back in.”

  Yeah, right.

  I pushed the driver’s seat back a few notches, stretched out my legs, and succumbed to the rugged and rocky landscape. The shadow of the mountains shrouded me, and mesas pressed against the roadside before breaking into a valley of
sprawling farms, their wheat fields plowed and recently planted. After an hour or so, the valley gave way to pine trees and Mount McKay, hotels, a roadhouse, and scattered gas stations before leveling out to more flat highway and ugly factories.

  The expressway had taken me too far inland to see Lake Superior, but I could still smell it, faintly, beneath the acrid factory smoke that wafted through my car’s vents. I turned onto Arthur Street and made my way straight for the water, trolling along the shoreline. Somewhere out there, too far away, the lighthouse at Isle Royale blinked in the early-morning sky. It was mirrored by the red light on my newly acquired phone, blinking on the seat beside me.

  I didn’t know if I hoped for or dreaded another text from Lily … or possibly worse, from Jason.… What would he say about the girl on the beach? I didn’t check to see who was calling. Their disappointment in me was palpable across the miles.

  The waves, too, seemed to scold me as they chopped against the strand. The lake wanted to reclaim me, but I steeled my nerves. Later, I told it, and a wave hit the pier so hard it sent an answering spray into the air.

  I drove back up Arthur and stopped a person on the sidewalk to ask directions to the closest library. He pointed me toward Brodie Street.

  The library wasn’t hard to find. It was an impressive building: red brick and stained glass. Pale, lighter stone made pillar-like stripes up to the roof. I parked the car. My rain-soaked clothes had dried stiff. I missed the smell of the Hancocks’ laundry soap; I missed Mrs. H folding my clothes, treating me like her own son.…

  I stripped off the old sweatshirt and threw it on the passenger seat. I would have ripped off the scratchy T-shirt, too, if I thought I wouldn’t get turned away at the library door. I entered and followed the signs to the reference desk on the main floor.

  “Can I help you?” asked the girl behind the desk. Her smile was more of a smirk, and her eyes sparked in a way that gave me pause. Something about her reminded me of Tallulah. It wasn’t just her hair, which hung in loose ringlets, the color of pale apricots. It was—as I originally thought—the way she looked at me: like someone who would come in for a kiss but bite my nose instead.