Judith
Present Day
Time was elastic, stretching and contracting around Judith like a cocoon. Cottony and hot. How long ago had Meredith gone to the lighthouse? Minutes? Hours? Bowls sticky with ice cream and chocolate sat in the sink; Judith dipped her finger in the milky residue and stuck it in her mouth. Three bowls for three women. But Judith hadn’t had any. That’s right. Art had been here. Though her mouth shaped an involuntary scowl, she imagined it’d probably been good to see him. She’d missed him.
Meredith had gone to the lighthouse, hadn’t she? The memory fluttered like a broken spiderweb. Yes! There. The red light slashed through the window. Judith closed her eyes as the light washed over her. It prickled, like she could feel the energy, the hum from the mechanism.
It felt alive in here, her bare feet on the cool tile of the kitchen, skin to skin with her house. The walls whispered, spitting from the vents and hissing through the gaps in the windows where the weathering had come away. The walls groaned and the floor creaked. Old women they were, their joints degrading like sand under the tide. Judith loved this house. Loved it like a friend or an aunt who slipped her candy and fed her secrets. It had out-of-the-way nooks with cracks for hiding secret thoughts scrawled on napkins, cabinets with deep shelves to cradle the things most special to her, thick walls to protect her from Out There. This house had history. It had breath. It had a life that stretched all the way back to the woman who first watched the lighthouse, who started all of this. The woman who made this mess.
And now who was left to clean it up? Judith, that was who. Always cleaning, always sweeping under rugs.
She’d been standing so long in one place her feet began to sweat and stick to the tile. They peeeeled with her first steps toward the liquor cabinet. She called it the liquor cabinet only in her head. She kept vodka and window cleaner there, and window cleaner cabinet just didn’t have the same ring. The first glass she spotted in the cabinet was a coffee mug like the ones her husband used to order for the museum gift shop. The handle was a lime-green mermaid tail, the mermaid’s face wide and smiling on the side, surrounded by turquoise hair. On this mug, one of her eyes had been worn away, like she was winking. Judith’s first instinct was to smash it. Instead, she plunked a few ice cubes in it, poured a generous amount of vodka over the ice, and then drank, her teeth grinding against the ceramic until pain shot through her jaw.
A noise upstairs startled her. She jumped, making her drink slosh over the side of the mug and drip down her hand. There was no one else home, right? So then who—
Another sound, like a voice, like water.
Still clutching the mug, Judith raced up the stairs as quickly as her knees would allow. Her heart thudded and her breath strained in her chest. Meredith’s bedroom door was wide open. How many times had she told the girl to keep it closed? Judith peered inside. The room was mostly dark, but light from the hallway illuminated her daughter’s sleeping form on the bed, covers tucked up around her face, leaving only the top of her head exposed. Something’s not right. Judith blinked hard, letting the image of her daughter blur. She kept that word on her tongue. Daughter. Daugh-ter. She tapped her tongue against the roof of her mouth, forming the word without opening her mouth. The sound was like bubbling water.
It wasn’t Meredith in the bed. Meredith was in the lighthouse. Grown.
Alice. Judith reddened as the memory pushed through the haze. Her granddaughter.
Judith sat on the edge of the bed, setting her mug on the floor. Alice’s slight frame dipped toward her weight, and the blanket fell away from her face. She looked so much like Meredith it made Judith’s breath catch. The longer she stared, though, the more Alice’s differences stuck out: freckles under her eyes, long black eyelashes, a nose that turned up at the end. Features she didn’t get from Judith’s family. Sparse eyebrows that arched far from the middle. Small, delicate ears. She almost nudged Alice awake just so she could see those big brown eyes. She gently brushed Alice’s cheek. It’d surprised her, this fierce love Judith felt for her granddaughter. She’d never been the maternal sort, and Meredith, bless her, had always been strong but a little hard to like. But Alice was something else. Something incredible. Someone that desperately needed protecting.
After tucking the blankets tightly around Alice’s body, Judith leaned over her to plant a kiss on her forehead.
As her lips brushed skin, she saw it. On the nightstand, sitting on the back corner, just out of reach of the hallway light.
The shell.
Judith’s blood went cold and her skin burned. In her head, she snatched the thing off the table and hurled it out the window, but her arm wouldn’t budge. It didn’t matter how many times she threw it away, it would come back. It would always come back.
You can make it stop. The whisper of a memory surfaced, deep in the dark place of her mind that spoke of curses and women. Of revenge. Of an island in the Pacific where she’d left her girlhood.
She stepped around the bed, knocking her mug over in the process. The mermaid’s tail broke. The smell of vodka wafted up from the floor, but she ignored it as she lifted the familiar shell and held it between her palms.
It was only a little thing, but the shell was heavy in her hands. It wasn’t as bright as she remembered, the opalescent sheen faded and cracked. The sharp points had chipped. She thought about the day she’d first found it, remembered how excited she’d been by the discovery. And then it spoke to her, and everything changed. All that happened after was her fault.
Judith had known she wouldn’t stay away forever.
Alice stirred; Judith had to be fast. There was only one thing she could do.
She cupped the shell to her lips and whispered, “I’m coming.”
***
The ocean was a ghost of itself, all gray and frothy, like cotton stretched too thin. Foam curdled in long, arching lines on the beach. Her exposed skin pinched with the cold, and she bit back a shudder. The water would be worse.
No. Can’t think of that now. She needed this. Alice needed this. It would all end with her. No more curse. No more voices crooning from the waves. This was the end and it was good.
The red light grazed over the water once. Twice. On the third time, she caught a strange glimmer in the distance. She’d never seen it before but knew in her heart what it meant. She started for the water, her gaze locked on the place in the darkness where she’d seen the glimmer. I know you’re here, she thought.
The water was like icy pins in her feet, but she didn’t hesitate, not for a second, even when a voice far behind her threatened to steal her attention. Water up to her ankles now. Her knees. It was harder to move with the ocean working against her. Wave after wave pushed her back precious inches.
“Mom?” The wind practically swallowed Meredith’s voice. Judith wouldn’t have heard it if she hadn’t been listening for it. “What the hell are you doing?”
Judith shook her head. Go back, she thought. Hear me. She didn’t say it out loud; she needed all her breath for this.
Water to her waist. Head down, she slogged through the waves until her feet slipped off a sand bar and she was floating. A wave threatened to undo all her work, but taking a deep breath, she slipped beneath it. The cold bit at her ears and nose. Skull pounding, she relished the quiet until she couldn’t stand it anymore. When she surfaced, she heard frantic splashing behind her.
“Hold on, Mom!” Meredith shouted. “I’m coming!”
Judith knew Meredith’s strength in the water. Though Judith’s husband had bowed to her insistence that Meredith never be allowed in the ocean, he was no match for Meredith’s powers of persuasion. He had taken her to swimming lessons at the Y for years, thinking Judith was none the wiser. But eventually word made its way to her. Meredith had joined a swim team. She was the fastest five-hundred-meter butterflyer they’d ever seen. It kept her out of the ocean and sated her need to be in the water, which was good enough for Judith. She never said a word.
There was no way Judith could outswim her, so she waited, treading water. The red light passed again, and Judith saw a wraith in the foam, head barely above the water, unbothered by the waves, like she was anchored to the spot.
It felt like only seconds had passed when Meredith’s hand gripped Judith’s shoulder. “Jesus, Mom, are you nuts? What are you doing out here?” She spat seawater. “Where’s Alice?”
“Alice is fine.” A pause. “She’s going to be fine,” Judith corrected.
“What does that mean?” Panic rose in Meredith’s voice. “Did something happen? Is she okay?”
“She’s asleep. In bed.”
Relief, then Meredith’s eyes widened. “She’s alone?”
Judith shook her head. If she let this go on too long, she might change her mind. She couldn’t let that happen. Pulling Meredith into her, she hugged her, harder than she’d ever done before, kicking like mad to keep them both afloat. Meredith froze in her grasp.
“Mom?”
“They didn’t do it right,” Judith said. “The others. But I’m going to do it right. Then you and Alice will be safe.”
“Do wha—” Meredith dipped slightly beneath a splash, making Judith’s stomach drop. She reached out and grabbed Meredith’s arm. She was still there. She was okay.
Judith could give her this. She would give her this because Meredith gave her Alice. She kissed Meredith’s ear. “Listen to me. This is the right thing. I know I messed up. I know you hate me.”
“I don’t hate—”
“No. Listen. I messed up, but this is going to fix everything.” Water splashed up her face and into her mouth. The salt burned her chapped lips. “I couldn’t be a good mom because of her. Except I can now. I can do this.”
Meredith’s shoulders shook under Judith’s grip. Judith stroked her hair and shushed her and promised her everything would be okay.
“What is this? What’s happening?” Meredith’s frown deepened. She shot a glance toward the shore. “We need to go back. Your lips are blue.”
“I’m fine, honey. I’ll be fine.”
Meredith tugged on her arm, but Judith easily slipped out of her grip. She forced a smile, and in that smile she tried to convey everything she’d never said to her daughter. That she was proud of the woman she’d become, that despite everything Judith had done wrong, Meredith was kind and beautiful and special. That everything would be okay.
She felt those deep, black eyes on the back of her head and waited for the fog to take her thoughts. When it didn’t, she decided it was because the girl knew her intention. This would work. This would end it all.
“Do you see her?” Judith asked.
Meredith shook her head.
“Good.”
“Mom.” Meredith’s voice broke. “Please. Let’s go back.”
Judith offered an apologetic smile before bringing her knees up and driving her feet into Meredith’s stomach with as much strength as she could muster.
Meredith doubled over, the wind knocked out of her. She gagged and coughed her name, but by that time, Judith had started a mad swim for the girl, only her hair and black eyes visible above the waves. Meredith’s coughing was swallowed by the water and the wind, and Judith was proud of herself for not giving up. So close now. A few more strokes.
But the girl was gone. Panic bubbled up her throat. She screamed until she was hoarse, and even then it didn’t stop, flaying her throat. A tickle on her ankle cut off the sound. Splashing behind her meant Meredith had regained some of her breath, but she’d be slow—too late.
Judith smiled.
A familiar grip encircled her ankle and pulled.
Beneath the water, bubbles rushing along her hips and shoulders. She was flying. She was weightless. Down, down, deep into the swirling blackness.
Finally.