I slipped my hand to the cold side of the pillow and felt a piece of paper, folded in half, at the edge of the mattress.
WAY TO RUIN A PARTY LILY. HOPE YOU’RE FEELING BETTER.
I dropped the note on the floor and threw back the covers. My hair hung wild and tangled in my face, and I blew a few tousled waves out of my eyes. Jules cracked open my door.
“How you doing?” she asked. The way she said it made me feel ridiculous. Maybe she knew how I got the goose egg.
“Not sure,” I said, my voice froggy.
“You freaked everyone out last night.”
“I did?”
“When you didn’t come back downstairs, Robby got worried.”
I must have frowned, because Jules reproached me with a look that said I could be a little more appreciative of the fact he’d been paying attention. She was right, of course. He was only looking out for me.
“So we came up to check on you,” she said. “You had the window open and you were lying on the floor in about a quarter inch of water.”
“I don’t remember opening the window,” I said, more to myself than to Jules.
“Your dad was all freaked out. Thought maybe you’d been hit by lightning.”
“Was I?” My body did feel a little tingly.
“Judging by the fact that you’re talking to me, I’m going to go with no. But you did get pretty soaked.”
I glanced at the floor. It was dry. My mind flooded with light, over and over like the flash on a camera. A silhouetted figure filled the lens.
“Robby and I soaked it up with bath towels. Don’t worry. My mom never saw it. You really don’t remember anything?”
“Is my mom okay? She’s not worried, is she?”
“No, not once we got you in bed. I mean … you are okay, aren’t you? Because Zach got his mom’s van; he’s picking us up in about twenty minutes.”
My expression must have reflected my general bleariness.
“Beach?” Jules asked. “Remember? You and me … breaking some hearts this summer?”
The paper chain hung from my bedpost, as if wondering whether I’d add a thirty-second link. After last night’s hallucination, it looked even more pathetic than it had in days past. I could see it for what it was now: an anchor, holding me back. Jules was right. I’d let my fantasies get out of control. Leaning out into an electrical storm was just plain stupid. If Calder White wanted to be with me, there was nothing stopping him. Enough was enough. It was time for me to move on.
We didn’t get up to Square Lake until eleven, and by that time the beach was already crowded. Jules and Colleen lugged the cooler down the hill from the parking lot, while Sophie pulled an inflatable raft behind her. The boys carried armfuls of towels and dumped them in a heap on the sand before taking off running into the lake. Colleen managed to claim the last picnic table, but it had a broken bench and it was covered in sticky pine sap. Out in the water, the boys were already tossing their football back and forth.
I hadn’t been in the water since that disastrous day in May. Now that I knew my father was a merman, I didn’t know what my half nature would mean.
The lake sparkled with sunlight. It was beautiful, but I hung back and adjusted the straps on my vintage bathing suit.
So what? I thought. So what that I’d never transformed into a mermaid in all the times I’d swum in Lake Superior. Maybe it was like bee stings, building up in your system over time until one day you’re stung and your throat swells shut. Maybe, with me, it would just take one more trip into the water before genetics would catch up with me. Would I really want it to happen here? Now? In front of my friends and a beach full of strangers? That would be my luck. Why did I agree to come again?
Of course, Calder would say I was being ridiculous on all accounts. But then, he wasn’t here to tell me that, now, was he? Moving on, I reminded myself.
“Coming in, Lily?” Rob called.
I cupped my hand to my mouth and yelled back, “In a sec.”
I’d been stupid last night, thinking I’d seen Calder below my window. If it had really been him, he would have waved. He might have even rung the doorbell. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a brown oval spiraling toward my face.
“Heads up!” someone called.
I managed to catch the football between my elbow and my ear. “Thanks, guys. That’s awesome. Hysterical.”
Rob was there a second later, laughing and apologizing and dragging me into the water. I protested, pushing at his chest and trying to sit down so he couldn’t budge me. I grabbed at his biceps. He wrapped his arms around my hips. I was waist deep before I knew it and tingling from toe to hairline.
It was too late now. Whatever was going to happen, was going to happen. I dunked under, conscious of the muffled voices above me and the rush of churning water around me. The soft sound of leh, lee, leh, lee and then my name called out. “Lily.”
I resurfaced with my chin up, my wet hair dragging down my back. A feathery touch glanced across my foot, and then someone was prying my legs apart and swimming through. My feet left the ground as I rose, involuntarily, out of the water, astride Robby’s broad shoulders. He started walking toward Scott while I struggled to keep my balance.
“Chicken!” Colleen yelled as she scrambled onto Scott’s shoulders.
Ah, crap, I hate this game. I’d had enough water wrestling for one lifetime—that was for sure. But before I could say no, Colleen and Scott were coming at me with better motivation than I could muster. Even though Scott could barely see without his glasses, he was taller than Rob so they had the advantage, and Colleen’s hands were like chicken claws, clenching and unclenching.
“You’re going down, Hancock,” Scott said.
No doubt.
Colleen’s fingers laced through mine and her wrists bent to get better leverage.
“Come on, Lily. You can take her,” grunted Rob from below. He held my feet like stirrups and tried to push me up to get the better of Colleen. All I could think about was how clumsy and awkward I felt with Rob struggling beneath me.
Colleen rammed into me, and Rob staggered. The world pitched at a forty-five-degree angle and hung suspended for a second before I splashed into the lake, now deeper. Iron and silt tinted the dark water. The soft leh, lee, leh, lee filled my ears.
“Again,” said Rob, but I backed away, treading water.
“I don’t think Chicken is my game,” I said.
“We don’t have to play, then,” Rob said. “Let’s do something else.”
I sputtered water from my lips and pushed my hair off my face. “What exactly did you have in mind?”
He put both hands on my arms and gave me a look that said something I didn’t want to hear. Oh, no. Oh, no no no. I turned one shoulder into his chest, laughing so I wouldn’t offend him. I looked to Colleen for support, but she and Scott had not-so-subtly turned their backs and were focusing on each other.
“Listen, Lily, I was thinking—”
“I already have a boyfriend,” I said, hoping it wasn’t a lie, hoping I wasn’t embarrassing myself by misreading where this was going. I turned toward the beach and swam until it was shallow enough to stand.
Rob was still right there, but at least now it was his turn to look awkward. His cheeks flushed as the sun reflected off the water and up at his face. “That guy from up north?”
“Jules told you?”
“Yeah, but I guess I thought you were making him up.”
“Oh, c’mon, Robby. Why would I do that?”
“Well, you never dated anyone around here, and you weren’t up there for that long; I thought maybe you were only saying that because I hadn’t asked you.…”
“My ego isn’t that fragile,” I said.
“Oh, I know, I didn’t mean …” His hand was back on my arm.
“Whatever.” I kept moving.
“Don’t be like that. We’d be great together.”
“Don’t be like what?” I asked, spinning on him
. “Reasonable? Not idiotic? We’re friends.” This would have been embarrassing if it weren’t so maddening. What was wrong with guys? It must by the Y chromosome. Even if this made sense, we were leaving for college in ten weeks.
“Right! Friends!” said Rob. “We already like each other.”
“I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”
Rob rolled his eyes. “Are you kidding me?” He plucked at my bathing-suit strap, and I slapped his hand away.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“God, Lily, you are such a tease.”
His words punched the wind out of me. “Take. That. Back.”
“No,” he said, folding his arms across his chest. “I won’t.”
“What have I ever done to you?”
“Exactly my point,” he said, his face turning smug.
“Are you for real? Since when did you become such an ass?” I turned and slogged through the water, then marched up to the picnic table. Jules and Colleen were fighting over a chip bag. Sophie was nearby, burying herself in the sand. By the time I’d squeezed the water out of my hair, Scott, Zach, and Rob had resumed their football game, although I noticed Rob throw a few furtive looks my way, too.
Stupid, stupid, stupid boys. Ruining everything with their stupid assumptions and stupid hands and stupid promises to come back for me. I wrapped my towel around me like a sarong. I needed a few minutes to myself. When no one was looking, I stole away, following a line of oak trees thirty feet from the shore, north toward a wobbly boat dock. There were three aluminum rowboats on the shore, turned on their sides. A perfect, shady place to sit. And hide. And wait for it to be time to go home. Home. Wherever that was these days.
I drummed my fingers on the first metal hull, which rang hollow. Same with the second. The bow of the third row-boat rested against the dock. As I prepared to sit beneath its shade, a hand shot out and grabbed my ankle.
5
REUNION
I stifled a shriek and hit the sand as another hand reached around my waist and pulled me under the small metal boat.
For a moment all we did was stare. His green eyes brooding, yet as frightened as my own. His wet hair hanging in dark, twisted ropes against his olive-tanned face. His soaking-wet board shorts pressing against my thighs.
The hull closed in on us from all sides, and the small confines amplified my senses. Even the silence bounced around, echoing in my ears. The smell of patchouli hung heavy in the air. Heat licked up at us from the sand, and his breath was hot against my face.
“Look at you,” he said, and his voice was disappointed.
I pulled the towel closer around me, but he yanked it off—his hands shaking—pressing his lips to my neck, trailing my collarbone. He pulled back and studied me with as much distance as the boat would allow. I counted to five before he let out a small groan, saying, “There. That’s better. It’s killing me to look at you, but I’ve really missed that color. Nobody lights up like you do.”
Instinctively, I pushed him away. How dare he show up, out of the blue, without so much as a lame excuse for his silence. More than that, a shiver of fear raised the hair on my arms. Was he working up my emotions just so I’d be a more satisfying absorption?
I was ashamed of myself for even thinking it—Calder had worked hard to overcome the merfolk’s naturally gloomy disposition and his craving for human emotion—but from the way his hands were shaking, it was clear our separation had set him back a few steps. How far back I wasn’t sure I wanted to find out.
“Definitely better,” he said.
I laughed nervously, wondering what color I might have been when he first grabbed me. Based on the flash of terror I’d had, it must have been pretty awful. Now, despite my attempt to stay mad, he was stoking me into euphoria with his touch. I could only imagine the temptation my emotions presented. Two deep breaths and I hoped I could subdue it, but he trailed his finger across my lips and then put it to his own so I knew I’d have to work harder on that.
“Man, you look beautiful.” His voice was deep and rich like a riverbed.
“Where have you been?” I demanded.
“Around,” he said, combing his fingers through my hair, fixing his warm gaze on my narrowed eyes, drawing me into his spell against my will.
“Yeah?” I said, doing my best to at least keep my tone sharp. I wasn’t doing as well controlling my hands, which lay flat against his hip bones but no longer pushed him away. His long legs tangled with mine. “That’s all you’ve got? ‘Around’? How’s the fasting going?”
A rush of blood flooded his cheeks, making him look, if it were possible, even more gorgeous. “Don’t be mean, Lily.”
“Mean? You think I’m mean?”
“Of course it’s been harder without you,” he said. “A few close calls, but I’ve held it together.”
“Could have fooled me. What were you doing grabbing me like that? I could have been anybody.” As soon as I said it, I wished I hadn’t. It probably hadn’t mattered to him who it was. I probably was just anybody. “Close calls”? I didn’t want to think what that implied.
“You’re right,” he said, drawing his fingers down my sternum. “It could have been somebody who bathed in orange juice this morning. I really should be more careful.” He brushed a strand of hair off my face. “Hmmm. You look confused. I guess I never told you that,” he said. “You smell like oranges.”
He twisted my long hair several times around his hand and held it in a knot at the back of my neck while my hands came up to lie limply against his bare chest. A familiar silver band faded around his neck.
I sighed, giving in to the inevitable. Now that he was here, it was too much work to stay mad. And I didn’t want to be mad. I wanted him. I wanted all of him. All the time.
“You were in the lake?” I asked. My fingers traced the topography of scars that crisscrossed his back and shoulders, my soft stomach pressed against his solid one.
“So were you,” he said.
“You could have been seen.”
“Not likely,” he said, his voice blasé but gaining in intensity. “But I saw you.”
His eyes turned a dark jade green as I tried to remember what should make him sound so accusatory. I might have been able to come up with a good comeback if he’d given me more time.
“Who is he?” he asked.
Crap. “A boy from school,” I said. “An old friend.” I choked on the last word.
“Didn’t look like just a friend.”
For some reason, that really ticked me off. If he cared so much, why hadn’t he come sooner? My anger returned, and I let my words fly at him like hungry birds. “And what does it matter to you? Where have you been for the last thirty-two days? Probably traipsing—”
“I never traipse.”
“—all over God knows where. Meeting up with other mermaids. Or maybe human girls. Pulling a Pavati, I suppose?” It was a low blow, suggesting he was capable of matching his sister’s careless, cruel affairs with humans.
“I’ve been nowhere of importance.”
“Nowhere with a phone?”
“Don’t be mad, Lil,” he said, stroking my arms in long, smooth movements. “You’re muddying up on me.”
“I’m not mad,” I said. It was impossible to stay mad now that he was finally here. I struggled to even muster up a frown. “I’m not mad, but why didn’t you call as soon as you heard?”
“Heard what?” he said, his lips moving up and down my neck.
“About Tallulah.”
He pulled back and his expression was unreadable.
“Tallulah’s body,” I said. “It washed up onshore.”
He shook his head infinitesimally.
“You didn’t know?” I asked.
“That’s impossible,” he whispered.
“It’s true. It even made the local news.”
His face darkened so much I was convinced I could see the color in him. “Oh, God,” he moaned. “Lulah.”
&nbs
p; “She was badly decomposed.” I didn’t realize how ugly the words sounded until I heard myself speak them aloud. I’d meant to be reassuring. Only Jack Pettit knew that the remains were those of a mermaid. “Do you think your sisters have heard?” I asked.
“How should I know?” he snapped. “I got my wish. Even if I were at the lake, our minds aren’t connected anymore. I have no way of knowing what they’re thinking or what they’ve heard. Not anymore.”
“Couldn’t you talk to them? Find out?”
“I’m not going back there, Lily. I can’t.”
I hadn’t planned on this. I had no choice but to return. If Sophie was right, I needed to be there for Dad when he discovered the truth. “Well, I’m going home,” I said.
“Lily, no. Please don’t make me go back there.”
“I’m not making you.”
“If you go, I’ll have no choice.”
His words were delicious. I wanted him to repeat them over and over, but rather than ask I said, “I can’t let my dad go back to Bayfield without me.”
“You overestimate your ability to protect him from Maris.”
I blinked. Confused. “This isn’t about protecting him from Maris. I paid my dad’s debt. You said—”
“That will change when they find out you’re not really dead. Going back puts everyone in danger. I don’t blame you for wanting to be with your family, but can’t you make your dad stay here?” he asked.
“He has a job up there.”
“Lily, I won’t let you go.”
“Like hell you won’t.” I rolled over to escape the boat, but he pulled me back.
“Okay, okay, settle down,” he said, his voice soft in my ear. “I don’t want to fight.”
He buried his forehead against my chest. “This is my fault. I didn’t think even a storm could shake her loose, but clearly I didn’t do a good enough job of hiding her body.”
“No one will come to the mermaid conclusion,” I said, trying my best to put his mind at ease.
“Maris will hear of it. If it’s making the news, it’s only a matter of time. They’ll want to finish what Tallulah started.” Calder grimaced. “Going back is a bad idea.”