“I doubt that,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I could see Gabby studying me closely, but Mr. Pettit’s expression brightened just a little.
“I was hoping you’d say that,” he said. “Lily, I was really hoping you’d have something, some little insight that would tell me I was wrong.”
“Me?” I asked, turning to Gabby.
“I know you and Jack weren’t exactly friends,” Gabby said, “but Jack would say–”
“You remember how he was acting at the end?” asked Mr. Pettit, as if he was still making excuses for his son. “With all the mermaid talk?”
“I remember,” I said, swallowing hard.
“We had some pretty horrible fights about it. Jack would say things like, ‘Why can’t you believe me like Lily does?’ or, ‘If you don’t believe me, ask Lily Hancock.’ ”
“What my dad’s trying to say, Lily, is if there’s some other explanation for what’s happened to Jack, we’d all like to hear it.”
“Why do you doubt he’s dead?” asked Mr. Pettit, the whites of his eyes turning pink, then shiny with a thin sheet of tears.
I twisted my hands under the table, hoping to work out my discomfort in one part of my body while keeping my face as calm as possible. “For one, no body,” I said. “All the others were found on shore.”
The waitress returned, setting a large greasy pizza between us. No one ate.
“And if Jack was involved in a secret mermaid cult, I’m pretty sure he was its only member.”
Mr. Pettit almost smiled.
Then, in a moment of panic, I grabbed on to the postcard ruse I’d suggested to Calder earlier. “I’m sorry … I would have said something sooner if I’d known he hadn’t been in touch with you, but …” I hesitated, putting the finishing touches on my deceit. “I just assumed …”
“Assumed what?” asked Mrs. Pettit, returning to the table, her eyelids swollen and her face newly washed. She smoothed her skirt and sat down next to her husband again.
“I just assumed he’d sent you a postcard, too.”
“Lily?” Gabby asked, grabbing my wrist.
“Yeah …” Shoot. Why didn’t I just keep my mouth shut? “I got something in the mail a few weeks ago,” I said, plastering my face with my best apologetic look.
Mr. and Mrs. Pettit sat like granite statues, not blinking.
“You got a postcard from Jack,” Gabby said, testing out the sound of the words and tightening her grip on my arm. “Why didn’t you tell us right away?”
“See!” said Mrs. Pettit. “I knew Jack wasn’t dead. I could feel it in my bones. A mother knows these things.”
“Margaret,” said Mr. Pettit, putting up his hand. “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.”
“I thought Jack might turn to you,” said Mrs. Pettit. “I thought maybe he was too mad at us to call home, but I thought maybe … Oh, Martin, I told you he wasn’t dead.”
“Let’s see it,” said Gabby, holding out her hand, palm up.
“See what?” I asked. My hands felt cold and clammy under the table, and I tensed my muscles against the shiver that ran across my shoulders. Did the air-conditioning just kick into overdrive?
“The postcard, of course.”
“Oh. I didn’t bring it with me.”
“We can go to your house, then,” Mrs. Pettit said. “It would mean a lot to me to see it.”
“We can’t,” I said. “It got … accidentally … thrown away.”
“You threw away a postcard from Jack?” Gabby asked, her voice going up an octave. The diners around us stopped eating and turned to look.
I said, “Well, I didn’t. Of course I wouldn’t have done that. Sophie just didn’t realize what it was.” Great. Now I was throwing Sophie under the proverbial bus.
“Well, you can get it back, can’t you?” Mr. Pettit asked.
“I don’t think so.”
Mrs. Pettit started to cry. “I can’t do this again,” she said, and Mr. Pettit drew her in, holding her against his shoulder while she shook silently.
Do what again? I thought. Gabby’s jaw tightened, and her cheeks bloomed red.
“I’m sorry. I really am,” I said. “But the postcard didn’t say anything.” I was a terrible, horrible, despicable person. I wish I’d never come. “The card was blank, except for a J. It had a photo of Winnipeg on the front. I think all he wanted was to let me know he was okay, without letting anyone get close enough to drag him home.”
“A ‘J.’ That’s all?” Gabby asked.
“Honest truth.”
“You promise?” Gabby asked.
“That sounds like Jack,” said Mr. Pettit, nodding his head.
I leaned across the table toward Mrs. Pettit. “If I get any more, I’ll bring them to your house right away.” I would, too. I’d make up a dozen fake postcards. I’d despise myself, but at least I’d keep hope alive for this poor woman. She was so thin and fragile, she looked like she could snap in the wind.
Mr. Pettit reached across the table toward me, his hand in a fist, and rapped the table with his knuckles. “We know you will. You have no idea what a relief this is. I’m going to take your mother home,” he said to Gabby. “You girls stay and eat.” He threw a twenty on the table.
After Mr. and Mrs. Pettit left, Gabby and I sat in silence, staring at the cooling pizza. A full minute passed before Gabby said, “I’m not mad at you.”
I couldn’t look at her. “You’re not?”
“First you had me scared when you didn’t take my calls; then you had me mad when you showed up here like there was nothing wrong. But I’m not mad anymore. You’re a good person, Lily.”
I reached for my glass of water, my hand shaking. “How’s that?”
“What you did for my parents … lying like that … that was a really nice thing to do. Because you and I both know what happened to Jack.”
I miscalculated the glass’s distance and knocked it over, making a huge puddle on the table. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, laying my palms flat in the water.
Gabby pulled her purse into her lap and dug around inside, eventually pulling out a dagger, its handle decorated in beach glass and copper wire, the same dagger Calder had pulled from the mud at the base of Copper Falls. Sheshebens’s dagger.
I hadn’t seen the ancient artifact since the day Calder and I had gone looking for Maighdean Mara and found her stony corpse. I could hear the dagger’s faint but familiar hum vibrating off the Formica table. I tried not to react, but I couldn’t take my eyes off it.
“I found it in our boat after Jack went missing,” Gabby said. “Do you know anything about this?”
“What is it?” I asked, feigning ignorance. “It’s beautiful.” I reached for it, and Gabby snatched it back and returned it to her purse.
“Jack’s dead,” Gabby said. “I think someone killed him. With this.”
8
CALDER
Daniel wasn’t in any hurry to leave the Hancocks’ house. In fact, Mrs. H asked me and Jason to add another leaf to the dinner table so there’d be room for Daniel to stay. As it turned out, Mrs. H was more prepared for Adrian’s arrival than any of us. Not only did she have bottles and formula in the kitchen, she directed Jason to get a cardboard box out of the front hall closet, in which there were several plastic shopping bags full of diapers, blankets, and toys.
“Seriously? You got all this stuff for me?” Daniel asked.
“We’ll call it a baby shower,” Mrs. H said, “although it’s not a very good one. It’s a shame your mother can’t be here, but I understand how things are. Feel free to bring Adrian over whenever you want.”
“Don’t take that too literally,” I said, defending Lily’s position in her absence.
“Calder’s kidding,” said Mrs. H.
“No, he’s not,” Sophie said.
“I’m not raising you to be rude,” said Mrs. H.
I glanced at Sophie, who was chewing on the inside of her cheek. Sh
e threw me a look that said, Back me up, please.
I checked my phone. Somehow I’d got it in my head that Gabby was going to corner Lily, and she’d be desperate for me to feed her one of my long-practiced lies. But so far, not a word.
“Calder’s right,” Jason said. “It’s not good getting too attached.”
I got up and walked to the kitchen window. The sounds of Mrs. H’s cooing adoration drifted past me, through the open window, and out across the yard toward the lake. Daniel came up behind me.
“Do you think she’s out there?” he asked.
“Of course not. She went to meet Gabby.”
“Not Lily. Dude, not everything is about Lily. I’m talking about Pavati. Do you think she’s out there?”
I considered that. Pavati might be listening. She’d probably be anxious and keeping watch until she was confident Daniel was comfortable with the baby. “Yes, she is.”
“Then why doesn’t she come up to the house?”
I turned toward Daniel, furrowing my brow. “She’s. Not. Human.”
Daniel smirked. “She can look pretty human to me.”
“She’s an animal.”
Daniel wiggled his eyebrows at me suggestively, but that wasn’t the kind of “animal” I was talking about.
“It’s a charade,” I said. “She studies how to act. She lives on the periphery. But she’s never going to come up, ring the doorbell, and make a freaking house call.”
“You did,” Daniel said.
“Those were completely different circumstances, and not something I’m proud of. I’m different now. Pavati is the same as she ever was, and she won’t change. You should stay away. Don’t do anything cute.”
“Why’s that?”
“Right now, the way you light up when you even talk about Pavati, you’ll be a greater temptation to her than anyone else she encounters on the lake, and it’s early in the season. Not a lot of boaters or swimmers. You’d be about the only option.”
“She’d never hurt me. She needs me to take care of Adrian.”
I looked over my shoulder at Mrs. H. She was tickling the baby, who lay on the couch, tucked tightly into the corner. I said, “I’m sure there’d be someone to replace you if need be.”
Daniel swallowed hard. He bowed his head and wrung his hands, working the knuckles. “Will you talk to Pavati for me? See how things stand between us?”
I returned my gaze to the lake. “Yeah. Yeah, I’ll do that. Besides … there’s something I want to talk to her about, too.”
LILY
I didn’t have to worry about an argument with Gabby over her theory that someone had killed Jack with an ancient artifact. When I stared at her openmouthed, without an admission, she practically crawled over me to get out of the booth, then stormed out of the restaurant.
After she left, I remained in the booth for a few more minutes, trying to comprehend what Gabby’s possession of the dagger might mean. I couldn’t believe Calder would have done something so careless as to leave the dagger on Jack’s boat, but the way I left him that day, well, it was possible he hadn’t been thinking clearly.
Actually, clear thoughts were hard to come by these days. I needed the water. I needed to swim. I could work out what to do about Gabby, if only I had a chance to clear my mind.
I raced home and skidded the car into the driveway, kicking up dust and gravel. The late-afternoon air evaporated the beads of nervous sweat from my face and neck as I ran to the lake, pulled off my leg warmers, and waded in. Technically I was supposed to wait until Friday, but I couldn’t. I just couldn’t.
I needed the calm the water would bring—even if I had to endure the back-to-human transformation earlier than planned. Plus, it would be nice to be alone. Funny—I’d swum alone plenty before my first transformation, back when Calder and Dad were gone on their perpetual training days, but never again. Calder was ever-vigilant since I’d made the change, even before Maris and Pavati came back. It was like he was watching for me to have a nervous breakdown or something. It didn’t matter how many times I told him how right I felt when I was in the water, how happy I was to be fully me, the me I was born to be. All he could ever see was the pain that followed.
Besides the beauty of being in my mermaid form, the fantastic speed, or even the pain, the hardest thing to get used to was the lack of privacy. Every Friday I was sometimes entertained, but mostly irritated, by the cacophony of thoughts that flooded Dad’s and Calder’s minds. Calder’s thoughts could be downright lustful, though he’d try to catch himself before the shocking images drifted on the current toward me or, God forbid, Dad, who (no surprise) became quite the chaperone.
Now that the ice had melted, I’d be privy to Maris’s and Pavati’s thoughts, too—just as I had been last summer. We were family, whether Calder liked it or not. As he’d once explained, we were beads on a bracelet—strung together—sometimes sliding together, sometimes sliding apart. Despite the apparent improvement in mer-relations, Calder warned me to stay clear—that Maris and Pavati were unpredictable at best, dangerous at worst. I knew that, but my need to swim trumped any risk they might pose.
I walked toward the privacy of the willow tree—I could almost smell the charred trunk from my dream—and dropped my clothes onto its fallen branch that reached twenty feet across the shallows. Standing naked amid the budding foliage, I held my arms out wide, reveling in the wind, the lake air tingling my nose, and the sunlight and shadow dappling my skin.
I walked in—waist deep—and made a shallow dive. The explosion of pent-up energy was nearly instantaneous. How I wished the transformation back to legs could be as quick. I relaxed into my new form and swam straight north toward Red Cliff.
I reached forward with both arms and pulled myself through the water, my raspberry-pink tail undulating rhythmically behind me, pushing me. I wasn’t in a hurry. I wasn’t going anywhere special.
I squinted through the water, unable to navigate by sight and smell like Calder did. But I could hear just as well, and there was an unexpected vibration in the water.
I reached out with my mind to see who it was, catching muffled sounds, then the familiar clipped tone of Maris White.
“Good afternoon,” she said with a smirk. “I didn’t expect to see you again so soon.”
CALDER
I stepped out onto the Hancocks’ front porch, surprised to see Lily’s car parked in the driveway. Reflexively, I looked back at the house, as if she were inside and I’d somehow missed her return. But I knew better. And so did she. So what the hell was she thinking?
When I got to the dock and searched the lake, there was no sign of Lily. Neither was there any sign of Pavati. I crossed my arms over my head and pulled my T-shirt up and off, dropping it on the dry deck boards. Still nothing. No one. Not even a ripple. I pushed my shorts down to my ankles and stepped out.
“Where are you going, Calder?”
“Gah!” I cried, covering myself while Sophie giggled from her bedroom window. Clearly living with the Hancocks had caused me to lose my touch for being discreet. I dove and sliced the water before Sophie saw more than she should.
It had been a long time since I’d swum alone. I tried to remember, and decided it had been that day at Square Lake—the first time I saw Lily since my escape and her exile. Ever since then, I’d either been with Jason, or Lily, or both. The quiet was a nice change, though I couldn’t help but consider the inconvenience of no longer being able to hear my former sisters’ thoughts in the water.
My instincts told me Pavati would be close—north of the ferry line, south of Basswood, and somewhere in the space between Madeline and the mainland. It wasn’t long before I heard the tinny sound of bracelets sliding along an arm.
Pavati must have felt my disturbance in the water, because she swam directly toward me, smiling in greeting. I was fairly sure she was, out of habit, trying to communicate, but I couldn’t hear anything. She frowned at my nonresponse and pointed to the surface. I followed her up, a
nd we broke through the rough chop. The white-capped waves slapped against my face.
“Calder,” she said, her face melting into a familiar, dangerously compelling smile.
I looked past her shoulder to avoid getting pulled in by her hypnotic skills. They were better than mine, but I knew her tricks. Perhaps she’d forgotten.
She laid her hand gently against my cheek, but I took her wrist between my forefinger and thumb and lowered it back into the water.
She clicked her tongue. “Fine. I guess I understand why you’re still bitter.”
My eyes twitched in her direction, but then I looked away again.
“What can you tell me about my baby?” she asked, circling me, letting her delicate fluke breach the surface and catch the sun in dazzling cobalt blue. “Is Ambuj settled in with his father?”
“Daniel Catron,” I said, reminding her of his name, “is calling the baby Adrian.”
“Hmm. I suppose that will do.” She continued to circle. “No, I like it. Tell him I like it.”
“I will, but I want you to tell me something.”
“Anything,” she said. Her whole demeanor softened, her eyes dimming from violet to lavender. Why the generosity? What did she want from me? There had to be some selfish motivation behind her smile.
“Tell me about the letter you sent Lily,” I said, cracking my tail like a whip to keep up with her as she continued to circle.
Pavati’s mouth pulled into a close-lipped smile. “She didn’t tell you herself?”
“She’s been keeping a few secrets lately.”
Pavati turned to swim away, but I caught her before she dove.
She looked down at my hand, circling her wrist and said, “Well, who am I to—”
“Pavati.” I glared at her.
“Fine. If you insist. Maris is jealous of … Adrian.”