“She’s not,” I said.
Jason shook his head and kept his eyes on the sink, ignoring me and his wife and daughter. “Lily told me what life was like for you before you came to live with us.”
“Lily doesn’t know everything,” I said.
“I know they put you through hell. I know none of that would have happened if I’d been a part of the family from the very beginning.”
I couldn’t argue with that. “A reunion doesn’t change the past. I’m not going back.”
“It could be different,” Jason said.
Mrs. H wheeled closer. “Jason, don’t pressure him.”
“Yeah, Dad,” said Sophie.
“Different issues,” I said. “Same sisters. You’ve met them now. Did they give you a warm reception? Make you feel all good inside?” I was practically choking on my sarcasm, but Jason was patient with me, and he deflected my hostility with something he knew I couldn’t contest.
“I’m worried about Lily’s transformations. They’re taking too much out of her. If she stayed in the water long term, she might get some strength back.”
We all turned at the sound of the staircase treads creaking.
“Look who’s up,” said Mrs. H, her voice unnaturally gleeful as Lily limped slowly into the kitchen. Her face was still so pale, the scattering of freckles on the bridge of her nose seemed to float above her skin.
“You look like hell,” I said.
“Thanks. I feel like hell.” She leaned against the counter. “I think I’m coming down with something.” Lily took one of the clean glasses and filled it with water. She drank it down quickly, then refilled it.
Jason said, “Calder and I were just talking about—”
“Not now,” I said.
Lily finished her second glass of water, then said, gasping, “Talking about what?”
“I was thinking maybe it would be healthier for you to be in the water for longer stretches. Pain avoidance might let you build up your strength. And maybe we could test out a new arrangement with Maris and Pavati.”
Lily looked at him with surprise, and then to me with a question.
I shook my head. “Your transformations are getting better all the time. Joining up with Maris and Pavati—that is not pain avoidance. Trust me.”
Jason furrowed his brow at me. “Honestly, Calder, isn’t it remotely possible that things have changed? They trusted us with the baby.”
Why was this so hard for them to understand? I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Clearly they’ll trust any idiot with the baby. It’s not like they have a whole lot of choice in the matter, and can you consider—at least consider—the possibility that I’m right about this? Nearly half a century of living with them has to count for something.”
Jason’s head snapped up and he looked back and forth between me and Lily. “Excuse me?”
“What does that mean?” Sophie asked.
Lily stood up straighter and took a step toward her father. “Dad. Settle down.”
“What’s this?” Jason asked again, a vein bulging down the middle of his forehead.
“Calder,” Lily said, her eyes begging me not to say anything more. “Don’t.”
“You’re my age?” Jason asked, taking two steps toward me.
I backed away, holding my hands up, palms out, and Lily stepped between me and her dad. “No. No. Of course not,” I said. “Not really.”
Mrs. H wheeled out of my way so I wouldn’t step on her.
“Dad, it’s not like that,” Lily said. “Not at all.”
“And you’re with my little girl?” Jason stormed.
“Hold up,” I said. “Let me explain.”
“I’d like to hear you try!”
“I would, too,” said Mrs. H, rolling around me, but she sounded more curious than mad.
We were now all standing in a circle, like a huddle in a football game no one was going to win. It had been awhile since I’d felt like an outsider in the Hancock house. I didn’t like it.
“I’m nineteen,” I said. “In every single sense of the word … except the calendar.”
“I don’t understand,” Mrs. H said. “How does that work?”
“The lake,” Lily said, and I exhaled, thankful for her help. “It slows down the aging process.”
“I’ve matured to nineteen,” I said. “Physically, mentally … You can’t think of this in a human way. You’ve only had a year, Jason. You haven’t noticed your own delay yet. You probably won’t for another dozen years; then you’ll look around and see the difference. You age one year to every three on the calendar.”
“Like dog years in reverse,” Lily said, quoting me from a year ago, and I knew she was remembering the first day I revealed my true self to her—the best day of my life; the first day in a long, long time that I felt almost human.
Jason stared at me, openmouthed. “What about Carolyn?”
Mrs. H? “Oh.”
Out-aging a mate wasn’t something I’d dealt with before, and now that Lily had changed, it wasn’t something I ever had to worry about.
The same wasn’t true for Jason. Mrs. H would out-age him. Over the next twenty-five years, he’d age only eight. By the time Mrs. H was seventy, he’d look barely fifty. And the disparity would continue to grow.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” Jason asked.
“I didn’t think that—”
Then Jason looked up, a new light in his eyes. “Wait a second. You say it slows the body down?”
Lily slipped her fingers into mine as we both felt Jason’s tension dissipate.
“What about MS?” Jason asked. “Could it slow that down? Could it cure Carolyn?”
Mrs. H looked at him, eyebrows raised. “Jason?”
“If Carolyn were changed …”
“No,” I said. “You can’t be serious.”
“If she were changed … could it save her?” Jason asked again, his intensity growing.
There was a hushed awe in the kitchen as the Hancocks considered the possibility. Lily looked at me, silently asking if it was possible. I waited for one of them to acknowledge the elephant in the room. I didn’t want to say what I was thinking. I hoped they wouldn’t make me because I didn’t want to hurt Mrs. H like that. But the fact of the matter was, the lake slowed things down, it didn’t change the past. Mrs. H was in a wheelchair. If she was changed, could she even swim?
Fortunately, I had other reasons to say no.
“It’s too big a risk,” I said to Lily. “To make the change, you know your mom’s heart would first have to be stopped.”
To Jason I said, “And it doesn’t always work. It’s more likely to kill her than save her. Plus …”
“Plus what?” Jason asked.
“Plus, you’re forgetting one little thing,” I said.
The Hancocks all waited silently.
I sighed with exasperation at their hopefulness and turned to face Mrs. H. “Even if the lake could cure you, even if there was no risk of death, mermen can’t change anyone.” I turned back to Lily. “Remember? And being a Half, you don’t have any electrical charge. So drop it. It’s impossible. We’re not talking about this anymore.”
Their faces fell. They knew I was right. “I’m sorry. I wish I could help you,” I said to Mrs. H, and to Jason I said, “And if I haven’t already said so, I’m sorry about this morning, too.”
12
LILY
Calder looked embarrassed, or ashamed, or something. I wish I could read his emotions like he read mine. Then maybe I would have known how to say the right thing. Mom, however, knew that he didn’t need us to say anything. She took his hand and gave it a little squeeze, without any words at all, and I could see it was exactly the right thing to do. That simple gesture made all the difference in Calder. He straightened his shoulders.
“I really wish I could help,” he said again, giving Mom that look that always made me wonder if he was thinking about his own mother—somewhere … out there.…
“I know,” Mom said. “We’ll figure something out. Why don’t you come out back and sit with me, Calder. I’ll paint you.”
A flicker of a smile crossed Calder’s lips, and he turned her wheelchair and pushed her out of the kitchen and toward the back porch, which was now more of an art studio, covered in canvases, drop cloths, and hard, crusty paint tubes squeezed dry.
As I watched him leave and saw how much he wanted to stay a part of my family, the cold fear of what I had to do washed through me. Nadia was never going to rest until her promise to Calder’s birth mother was fulfilled. And as long as Nadia wasn’t resting, she wouldn’t let me, either. Misery loved company after all. The problem was, I had no idea how to convince Calder of any of this, and it broke my heart to think how hard I was going to try.
My cell phone vibrated on the counter behind me, skittering toward the edge. Buzz, buzz, buzz. I ignored it. It was probably Gabby, and I wasn’t in the mood. The phone buzzed again as I watched Calder practicing funny poses for Mom.
“Are you going to get that?” Dad asked.
“No.”
Dad picked it up and looked at the screen. “It’s Daniel.”
I glanced over. Oh, brother.
“Do you think he needs help?”
Calder was doing Rodin’s The Thinker, fist on forehead. “No doubt,” I said.
Buzz.
“Lily, I think you should answer it.”
“Not now.”
Dad cleared his throat in a way that told me he was losing patience. “I thought you and Calder agreed to keep an eye on the Daniel situation.”
“Ugh, Dad. Keeping an eye on Danny is not the same thing as bailing him out of every little jam.”
The phone rang again, only this time it was the home phone ringing. Dad and I exchanged a look. Danny wasn’t going to give up.
“Fine,” I said, reaching for the receiver. “What?” I said to Danny.
“I need your help,” he said in a rush.
I turned to watch Calder’s portrait sitting. Now he was doing the Karate Kid stork pose. “Make it quick, Danny. I’m busy.”
“It’s my brothers.”
Calder glanced my way and gave me a shy smile.
“I’ll be right over,” I said, hanging up the phone so hard it rebounded and fell to the floor
Danny’s cousin’s duplex was in Washburn and located on the north side of Memorial Park. Sided with pale green Masonite, and with a salt-and-pepper shingled roof, the building didn’t seem quite centered on its foundation. Danny had the upstairs unit.
When I got to the top step, I knocked. The door cracked open an inch, stopped by the security chain. Danny peered out.
“Oh good, it’s you.” He closed the door, and I heard the chain fall loose. He opened the door again, and I walked into a tiny kitchen. It smelled like coffee and bacon grease. “My brothers will be here any minute. I didn’t know what to do. Thanks for coming.”
“I’m not sure what you expect me to do,” I said.
I’d met Danny’s brothers, Christian and Bernard, once before—back when I was searching for Maighdean Mara. Daniel’s family was descended from a long line of Maighdean Mara devotees, and they were some of the few humans still in the know about modern mermaids, but they weren’t exactly our biggest fans. In fact, I didn’t see how my presence was going to make this any better.
In the room off the kitchen I could see a wooden crib with chipped paint. Adrian lay on a fleece blanket trimmed in blue satin, staring up at a goldfish mobile. I raised my eyebrows at Danny. “Well, aren’t we domestic?”
“I hit a garage sale in White River this morning. I didn’t think anyone would recognize me there.”
I walked into the nursery and cranked the mobile, making it turn, the fish slowly spinning. The tune “Under the Sea” from Disney’s The Little Mermaid lilted from the tinny speaker. I snorted.
“I couldn’t help myself,” he said.
It reminded me of my first day swimming with Calder and the words he’d said: “It’s not freakin’ Ariel. Think Silence of the Lambs.” But no matter how hard Calder had tried to impose a horror story on me, at the time, all I could see were possibilities.
There were three sharp knocks on Daniel’s door. “Open up, bro,” said a deep voice on the other side. “I’ve got beer and cheese curds.”
Danny just stared at the door, not making a move toward it.
“So …,” I hedged. “Do you want me to open it?”
“Maybe you can just wait in the other room for a second,” Daniel suggested.
“Are you kidding me? Why did you make me come over here in the first place?”
Daniel shot me a nervous glance. “Just let me try to work it out on my own. If it sounds like I need help …”
“Whatever.” I slipped out of the kitchen and into the bathroom on the opposite side of the kitchen wall. I leaned my back against the sink and picked the polish off my nails while Danny took some deep breaths. Then the security chain fell again.
“Dude, home sweet home!” exclaimed one of the brothers, bursting through the door and dropping something heavy on the kitchen counter. “Awesome summer party hou—What. Is. That?”
“What?” asked the other brother.
I heard the refrigerator door open. Danny was playing it ridiculously cool. “It’s nothing,” he said. The sound of his voice was followed by a crack and a fizz. “Want a Coke?” he asked.
“Like hell it’s nothing,” said the deeper voice.
Footsteps fell across the kitchen floor. “Is that a baby?”
“Of course it’s a baby,” Daniel said. “What did you think, I just decided to decorate the place in infant chic?”
Awesome, Danny, I thought. Sarcasm should help a ton.
“I don’t understand,” said the second brother. “You living with some chick?”
“No, I—” Danny floundered. “I—” The last strains of “Under the Sea” petered to a halt. I heard feet traveling across the floor, then Adrian cry out as he was lifted from the crib.
“Oh, no,” said the first brother. “You didn’t. Oh, God, please tell me you didn’t.”
Danny walked back into the kitchen. Adrian’s wail almost drowned out Daniel’s voice as he continued with his perfectly eloquent explanation: “I … I …”
“Is that thing hers?”
According to the bathroom clock, it had taken Danny’s brothers all of sixty-five seconds to connect the baby to Pavati. Not a huge surprise since they’d spent a year rehabilitating Danny after Pavati had dumped him for Jack Pettit.
“After all that time deprogramming you?” the second brother asked. “I wasted the best year of my life.”
Someone snorted and muttered, “Best year.”
“You don’t know,” the voice continued. “What if that was supposed to be my best year? Maybe I could have been doing something great, and instead I spent it trying to get you over that bitch mermaid, listening to you bawling into your pillow every night, and now you’ve … Agh!”
Something big and heavy hit the shared wall between the kitchen and the bathroom.
The voice growled, “Tell me you aren’t this stupid, Danny.”
“Dude …,” said the other voice.
“Get your hands off me,” Danny warned. “Can’t you see I’m holding a baby?”
That was my cue to leave the bathroom. Danny was on his own, but I drew the line when it came to Adrian’s safety. I had almost as much riding on his safe return as Danny did. If that meant diffusing his brothers’ assumption about Pavati (correct though it was), I’d bite the bullet.
A second later I was in the kitchen. Danny’s shirt had three sweat circles going down his spine, and he was holding the back of his head with one hand and cradling Adrian with the other.
“The baby’s mine,” I said. “Not Pavati’s. Danny’s letting me stay here with him, off and on.”
“I remember you,” said Christian, the one with the deeper voice.
“Likewise,” I said. He’d believed I was a mermaid when we last met, although at the time, I wasn’t. I’d used the brothers’ misapprehension to my advantage then, the confirmation of their fears should only serve me better now.
“Get out,” said Bernard.
“Hey, watch it!” Danny said, “This is my house. She’s with me. I’ll tell her when to leave.”
“So you ditched one for another?” Bernard asked.
Danny said, “She’s not with me with me, she’s—”
Click.
Danny and I turned toward Christian, who was holding his phone up to take a picture of Adrian.
“Delete that,” Danny said.
“I think Dad would be interested to see what you’ve been up to.”
“Give it,” Danny said, holding out his hand.
“What will you give me?” Christian asked.
I swallowed hard. If Christian and Bernard started talking, and Adrian’s picture got passed around, someone might call social services, or the cops, or … worse. I couldn’t let my mind go to that place.
These boys didn’t know I was only a Half. They didn’t know I had no electrical charge or hypnotic power. They didn’t know I had no way to hurt them—on land, anyway. I’d have to compensate for my mermaid shortcomings with my acting prowess.
Doing my best Pavati, I pressed my palms flat against each other and began to circle them slowly. I kept my eyes downcast, until I’d taken a few seconds to build up the illusion of an electrical charge, then I slowly raised my gaze, looking through my lashes as Pavati did, focusing on Christian’s eyes. His pupils dilated to the point I could see my reflection in them. For a second, I scared myself.
“Give me the camera, boy,” I said. “Unless you want to make me angry.”
“Give it to her,” Danny said. “I don’t want any trouble.”
“You’re already in trouble,” Bernard said.
“Only if you make it so,” I said, my voice a perfect Pavati purr. “I have no intention of hurting your little brother. He’s only doing me a favor.”
“In exchange for what?” Christian asked.