chapter eleven
Once we reach the aquarium, Amira sets us loose.
“You’re free to look at whatever exhibits you want,” she says as we all gather around her in the front atrium, “but meet back here at twelve o’clock sharp. We’ll eat lunch and then head back to the library at exactly twelve thirty. We don’t want to get caught in all the Solstice Fire traffic.”
Everyone scatters.
Everyone except for Lemon, Kiko, and Jules, who just stand there looking awkward. I stand with them, mostly because I’m not sure I even want to venture any farther. Arched hallways break off from the atrium, signs announcing the treasures to be found within, like NEW ENGLAND RIVERS and OCEANS AND SEAS.
“What’s a Solstice Fire?” I ask. Sounds dangerous.
No one answers. They all just stand there like I’m invisible. Not that I’m all that eager for their attention, but it’s still not a great feeling.
“Hello?” I say.
Jules clears their throat. “It’s, uh, just this thing Rose Harbor does every year for the first day of summer.”
“There’s a big bonfire on the beach,” Kiko says. “Plus food and flower crowns and arts and crafts, s’mores and suncatchers and things like that.”
It sounds like the sort of thing Peach would love, so I’m hoping she doesn’t get wind of it—bonfires and s’mores? How about raging fires, flammable clothing all over the place, and sharp pokers in the dark? Yeah, sounds like a top-notch idea.
“Do you guys usually go?” I ask.
Jules and Kiko glance at each other. Lemon says nothing, just picks at a loose thread on her backpack strap. Eventually, the two of them sort of shrug.
“Um, so, where should we start?” Jules says.
“How about the moon jellies?” Kiko says. “I love those. They’re so beautiful, the way they move. Like magic.”
“They’re not magic,” I say. “They’re organic beings.” And they’re beautiful, but I’m not going to admit that and feed Kiko’s fire. Plus, moon jellies are relaxing to watch. Their tentacles are really short, so they don’t give me nightmares of getting tangled up and stung to death. And even if you do brush up against one, their sting is really mild, like a little zap of static electricity. Or so I’ve read.
“Thanks for that bit of enlightening information,” Kiko says, clasping her hands to her chest sarcastically.
“Easy, Kik,” Jules says.
“What?” Kiko says. “I’m just—”
“I want to go there,” Lemon says, and Kiko shuts up, thankfully. Lemon’s voice is thick, like she just woke up from a nap, but I’m done trying to figure out what’s wrong with her. I follow her finger and see that she’s pointing to the very last hallway on the right.
MYSTERIES OF THE DEEP.
I shiver and rub my arms, which are suddenly full of goose bumps.
“Yes,” Kiko says, drawing out the short e sound.
“Perfect,” Jules says.
“Wait, what mysteries?” I ask.
But Jules just hooks their arm through mine and says, “Exactly.” Before I know it, Lemon’s charging ahead toward a passageway that plunges us into darkness as soon as we enter it. I stumble along, torn between pulling back and going to wait in the atrium for the next two hours and this tiny itty-bitty flare of curiosity right next to my heart.
There are a lot of other people in the passage with us and several kids from Ocean Club, and I tighten my arm around Jules’s just to keep from feeling like I’m about to disappear. The smooth tile floor slopes downward, like we’re heading into some sort of dungeon, but then a soft blue glow begins to edge out the dark. It grows brighter and brighter until the passage opens up into a huge circular room and I finally see what’s been lighting our way.
The ocean.
The real one, not a tank, right there in front of me, a whole wall of thick glass the only thing separating us from the deep blue sea. And it’s so deep, so blue, I feel dizzy trying to take it all in. Tiny fish drift by, lots of little bits of things that could be anything from microorganisms to krill to dust. Other than that, it’s just blue. But it goes on and on, like at any moment, anything could swim into view. Anything at all.
Around the glass there are smaller exhibits giving all sorts of information about the strange things found in the ocean’s depths. There’s a display on the angler fish, a classic favorite, the scary fanged fish from Finding Nemo, which is, admittedly, completely petrifying. Next to that, there’s some information on the goblin shark. With its sharp teeth and pointed head, it looks like something that should star in a horror movie.
No one looks at any of those displays, though. If they’re not pressed up against the glass, they’re looking at another display, the largest one by far, complete with all sorts of photographs and captions. There are so many people crowding around it, it takes me a second to realize it’s a display about the Rose Maid.
ROSE HARBOR’S MERMAID MYSTERY, it’s called.
“Come on, you’ve gotta see this,” Jules says, tugging me through the crowd. Kiko leads the way and soon we’re at the front, the huge display rising up above us, lit by a few tiny amber-colored lights lining the top of the display’s glass case.
It’s mostly old photographs, sepia-toned and full of unsmiling faces in odd hairstyles and uncomfortable-looking clothes. I see that same picture of the Lee family that was in Coastal Lore, though I suppose this is the original, along with the same story about the Rose Maid’s origins. There are also a lot more pictures, all of them of Rosemary Lee. There are shots of her as a toddler, a little kid, a girl just my age right before her world fell apart. They’re mostly family portraits. I guess way back in the 1800s, people couldn’t just take a candid snapshot super quick like we can today, and all the photos are so posed and stiff, it’s hard to see what she might have been like.
But then I notice Jules staring up at one photo in particular. It’s of a group of girls standing in what looks like a schoolyard. I find Rosemary immediately. She’s maybe ten in the photo, smooth ringlets around her face, a long apron-looking thing over her dress that I think might be called a pinafore. She’s holding hands with the dark-haired girl standing next to her, their shoulders pressed close. Friends. Maybe best friends. Both of them are even smiling a little.
I don’t answer them, but a chill picks up all the hairs on the back of my neck. It is me. Long-haired and in different clothes and with a smooth cheek instead of the pocked one I have, but the resemblance is… freaky. I thought maybe that picture of the Lee family was a coincidence, a trick of the light, the angle Rosemary was looking at the camera from, but no. She really does look exactly like me. And in this picture, she’s smiling, she’s happy. She’s a normal kid, just like I was.
Before.
“Whoa,” says Kiko, who’s come up next to me and is staring openmouthed at the photo. “That’s…”
I swallow hard. “Yeah.”
Other kids whisper around me. I hear just like her and face and scars.
I force myself to ignore them, to look away from the photo like I don’t see it, even though I sort of want to keep staring at Rosemary all day long. And I never want to see it again. I feel twisty, restless, like I’m trying to find an answer but I don’t know the question.
Then I find Rosemary’s after.
It’s a photo of fifteen or so people on the beach, the ocean a gray blur at their side. A family portrait, but not Rosemary’s. Still, I find her quickly, standing at the edge of the group. She’s not facing the camera. Instead, she’s looking toward the left, toward the water, but I can still see enough of her expression to know she doesn’t look anything like that girl in the schoolyard picture. Her mouth is slack, her eyes dim. True, no one is really smiling in the portrait, but Rosemary stands out for some reason. It’s her lank hair. The way she’s the only one turned away from the camera, her whole body leaning toward the sea, a magnet searching for its other pole.
Under the photo, there’s a caption.
The Anne Lancaster family and Rosemary Lee, July 21, 1884
I think back to the Coastal Lore story I’ve read a million times by now and the date that Rosemary disappeared—July 26, 1884. So the photo was taken five days before she went into the water. Or wherever she went.
I look back at Rosemary in her school picture.
Then back to the Lancaster family picture.
Before… and after.
It’s like two different girls. Two different lives.
Is that me? Am I that different now than I was before? Who would I be if Mum and I had never decided to go kayaking? If we hadn’t gone on that exact day. If we hadn’t gone that exact route. And who am I now, after? I look back at Rosemary with the Lancaster family.
That’s what Anne Lancaster wrote about her. And that’s exactly what she looks like.
Lost. Alone.
My body washes cold, then hot. Sweat starts to pool under my arms, nausea crashing over me in waves. I can feel it happening again, a panic attack, just like that first day of Ocean Club.
“You okay?” Jules asks.
I ignore them, desperate for invisibility right now. I look away from the photos, away from Rosemary’s before and after, looking for something, anything to distract me.
But when I turn around, there’s only the ocean.
Only endless blue.
Only more mysteries, more questions.
Somehow, though, it works. The sea, at least this one behind glass, settles my breath into my lungs, soothes my wild heart behind my ribs. I stand there for a few seconds, letting the blue glow fill me up like a warm drink, but soon it’s not enough. I want to be closer.
I spot Lemon off to one side. I guess she’s been there the whole time, her palms pressed against the glass. Before I even decide, my feet walk me next to her. She doesn’t acknowledge me but touches her forehead to the glass. A tear slips down her cheek. She wipes it away quick, but I saw it. I don’t ask about it. It doesn’t seem like she wants me to. Plus, my own heart and mind feel so full right now, so overloaded, I’m not sure what I’d say if she answered me.
Instead I lean close to the glass too, let the blue take up my whole field of vision. Is this what Rosemary wanted? Is this the only place that felt like home after her family died, the place where she was last with them?
Another shiver goes through me as I think of being out there on the ocean with Mum. I press my palms to the glass and for one wild moment, I wish I was out there. I wish I could go out there, just to be with Mum again. Just to remember that perfect hour with her on the water before everything went wrong. Just to feel normal again.
The longing turns into an achy throat, a stinging nose, and I sniff to clear it. I feel Lemon turn to glance at me, but I don’t look at her. I keep my eyes on the blue, the mysteries, the last place—
A flash of color interrupts my thoughts.
Out there in the deep.
I smoosh my nose to the glass, trying to get closer, squint so hard my eyes ache.
There.
Something pale, like a spark of moonlight, which makes absolutely no sense.
“What is it?” Lemon asks.
I shake my head.
“Do you see something?”
“You did. What is it?”
“Lemon, I didn’t—”
But she grabs my hand and presses close to me, flattens her palm on the glass. “Where? Where is she?”
“Where’s who?”
She looks at me, eyes puffy, eyebrows dipping in the middle, like the answer should be totally obvious. “The Rose Maid. If anyone will see her, it’s you.”
She looks so hopeful, so desperate. I glance back at the glass, something that feels like hope pulling at my chest. But that flash of color is gone. There’s nothing but ocean. Nothing but water that takes and takes and takes.
“Why?” I ask, my voice coming out hard. “Because I look like her?”
“Well—” Lemon starts, but I don’t let her finish. The hope is gone, replaced with something hard and mean and reckless.
“Because we’re both sad and lonely?” I say, gesturing toward those pictures in the Rose Maid display. “Because neither one of us fits with anyone? Because we both lost our family?”
Her face falls. “Wh-what?”
I shake my head. “Nothing. Never mind.”
“Hazel, wait—”
“I didn’t see anything,” I say, turning away from her. I ram straight into Jules, who I hadn’t realized was standing behind us with Kiko, probably hearing everything. Jules grabs my arms to steady me. My eyes meet theirs and for a second, I want to stop, let them hold on to me. Keep me from floating away. Jules’s fingers squeeze, their gaze soft and concerned, like maybe, just maybe, they might not mind keeping me from floating away.
But then I see the mermaid on their shirt. I remember the magic isn’t real. There is no mermaid in the harbor. Mum isn’t ever coming back. And no amount of dumb matching tees will change that.
I shake out of Jules’s grasp and walk away, not stopping until I reach the atrium and that wall of deep blue is far behind me.