Meredith
Present Day
Four days after Meredith’s rowboat finally touched the beach, the police found Vik buried beneath the remains of the house on the island. The storm had obliterated it. Meredith’s only regret was that he was probably asleep when it happened, thanks to the sedatives.
Her greatest concern, though, was Art. Vik had said he’d sent Bobby back to take care of him, but when Meredith finally found him, Art was alive.
“Not for lack of trying,” Art had said.
He told her Bobby had set his workroom on fire with the taxidermy chemicals while Art was working, that his shop was all but destroyed, but Art had made it out without getting too hurt. A few cuts from the broken glass. Smoke inhalation. The police caught up with Bobby shortly after. Loyal to Vik, just like Vik said, Bobby never breathed a word about the island.
She wondered if that would change once he found out Vik was dead. If the police would find the garden Tempest told her about and maybe bring closure to who knew how many families whose children had gone missing.
Meredith set to work almost immediately keeping her promise to Tempest. She gathered as much information as she could about missing children’s cases from around the time Tempest thought she might have been taken. Meredith wanted to help Tempest go through it all, to see if anything jumped out at her, but it didn’t take long for Tempest to get overwhelmed.
Tempest might have been able to handle it better if she’d had Calamity with her, but under the weight of her sister’s death, Tempest was slowly sinking inward. Though Art had gotten some response out of her showing her how to paint the bright scales of a flounder he was mounting, she just as easily retreated into Judith’s bedroom, where Meredith insisted she sleep.
Kristin was there too, for a day.
“I’m sorry,” Art had said. “I called her.”
“I know,” Meredith had said. “We talked. I’m still angry with her. I don’t know if I’ll ever not be angry, but I am grateful she was here.”
Part of her hoped for a tearful reconciliation, a demand that she and Alice come home, that she was so sorry—but Meredith was almost glad when it never came. She needed to start over. Completely. She couldn’t do that with Kristin.
They had eaten dinner in the house. Alice and Kristin played war with old playing cards until Alice practically fell over, exhausted.
“You don’t have to stay here,” Kristin said after Meredith put Alice to sleep on the couch. “You could come back to Arlington. It’s still your home too.”
“That’s not what the papers say.”
Kristin, to her credit, didn’t take the bait. Meredith might have been in the mood for a fight, but Kristin knew her better. Meredith was wrung out and bitter and so, so tired.
“I still want to see her,” Kristin said. “Maybe we can work out a weekends thing.”
“Yeah,” Meredith said. “Maybe.”
“I didn’t mean it, you know. I don’t want to give her up. I just thought…”
“You thought it would appease me.”
“I was scared, okay? This is scary for me too.” She sighed. “This marriage isn’t right for us—for me—but I still care about you. I still love Alice. I just want what’s best for all of us.”
“I know,” Meredith finally said, and meant it.
Her flight back wasn’t until the next day, but Kristin left before midnight. She was staying in town. They could have breakfast before she went to the airport. Meredith told Kristin she’d call her.
She didn’t.
The next morning, Meredith went upstairs to pry Tempest out of bed. The police wanted to talk with them again, and Meredith didn’t want Tempest telling them about Marina. With Regina and Vik both dead, there was a chance Tempest was going to be taken in by the state. Meredith didn’t want her ending up locked away somewhere. If Tempest was up for it, Meredith was going to ask if she’d want to stay here with them.
But the bed was made—never slept in—and on the mirror above the dresser, Tempest had scribbled a note in Mom’s kohl eyeliner: I’ll be okay. Don’t look for me. Then, tacked on like an afterthought: Thanks.
They hadn’t said much to each other since that night beyond Meredith offering coffee in the mornings and dinner at night. She’d wanted to explain herself, though she didn’t know exactly what needed explaining. She wanted to say a million things she didn’t have words for, to relay big, complicated emotions, forgiveness being the biggest and most complicated. She understood why Tempest had done what she had. She understood what it was to need something from someone and to be willing to do just about anything to get it.
Whatever it was Tempest needed now, Meredith hoped she’d find it.
***
For the first couple of nights, Alice and Meredith slept in Meredith’s old room together. Meredith, scared to take her eyes off Alice for longer than a few seconds, didn’t sleep much. Sometimes she woke up alone, panicked, only to find Alice sprawled out in her mother’s bed, face buried in the pillows.
Even in the harsh daylight, she was plagued by mental images that left her feeling out of touch with reality. In the time it took to blink, she was met with Marina’s empty-eyed gaze, and it was like a shot of cold water. She waited for the relief to settle over her, the knowledge they’d come through the other side of something horrible, but as quickly as it’d come that first day back, it faded.
Art told her it was a trauma response. She was still waiting for the other shoe to drop. “Took a long time for me to get back into a boat after my dad passed,” he said. “Still a struggle, to be honest, but every day it got a little easier.”
For Meredith, it only seemed to get worse.
She thought about sending Alice back to Arlington while she figured out what to do with the house, the lighthouse. Safe, she thought. Have to keep Alice safe. But when she tried to talk to Alice about it, Alice begged her not to send her away.
“Don’t you want to go home?” Meredith asked. “Sleep in your own bed? Play with your friends?”
“I don’t have any friends,” Alice said. “Art is my friend.” Then, “Why can’t I stay here?”
In the end, Meredith gave in. She told herself she was being ridiculous, that the nightmares would eventually stop, even as she started slipping half a sleeping pill in her mouth at night just so she could get a few hours of rest before the anxiety ripped her back into consciousness.
Yes, they could move. And yes, it was probably the right thing to do. But it wouldn’t matter. Alice would find her way back, just as Meredith had. Art was right. She just needed to give the uneasy feeling in the pit of her stomach time to pass.
***
A few weeks passed and Meredith and Alice fell into a sort of routine. Meredith looked for work nearby while Art and Alice produced the colorful taxidermy creations of Alice’s dreams (and in some cases, of Meredith’s nightmares; Alice insisted the bug-eyed gull sleep in Meredith’s room). Alice was happy, and Meredith thought she might get there too, in time. It was hard still, sleeping in her mother’s room, hearing her voice in her dreams. And the water. Sometimes she thought she heard it calling her. She hadn’t intended to turn on the red light when they’d returned, but in the end relented, hoping it would relieve the lingering feeling of unease.
Tonight, determined to get a decent night’s sleep, she drank too much wine and finally climbed upstairs when she found herself drifting off on the couch in front of the television. She peeked in on Alice—fast asleep, Octopussy hugged tight—and then collapsed in bed. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.
What felt like seconds later, a loud crash jolted her awake. Heart pounding, she blinked away another nightmare, her mind taking too long to shed the fear and the feel of water on her face, in her nose, in her lungs. Movement in the corner of her eye, she groped the bedside table until she found the lamp’s switch. She squinted as her eyes adjusted to the sudden light. On the floor were the shattered remains of a water glass, the curtain flailing above it. She must have left the window open. The wind in the curtain knocked the glass over.
Everything is fine. Relax.
She climbed out of bed and carefully stepped over the glass toward the window. She thought about leaving the glass until morning, but then she thought about Alice—her perpetual early riser—bounding in here to drag Meredith out of bed and down to the beach before her interview, and knew she’d have to clean it up. She’d never get back to sleep now.
She started to close the window when something down on the beach caught her eye. It was hard to see in the dark, but as the red light passed over the sand, Meredith spotted Alice, her blanket trailing from her shoulders like a cape. She was heading for the water.
No. Please.
Meredith ran through the broken glass, feeling nothing but white-hot panic. This was supposed to be over. It was over, goddamn it.
She hesitated a fraction of a second at Alice’s room, thinking, praying, she’d hallucinated it, a hangover from her nightmares, but Alice’s bed was empty. Cursing, Meredith ran down the stairs and out the already swinging front door. She would not lose Alice again. Not this way. Not now. Not after everything.
She hit the sand, and the momentum nearly sent her sprawling. The sand was loose and soft and swallowed her feet with each step. Her legs burned and she screamed her throat raw: “Alice!”
But Alice either didn’t hear her or there was something in her head blocking Meredith out.
By the time she reached Alice—finally, finally—Alice had stopped moving, but her eyes wouldn’t leave the water, tears streaming down her face.
Meredith grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, her own body trembling. Her mouth was cotton. “What the hell are you doing? You scared the shit out of me. You could have—”
Alice wailed and it cut through Meredith like a knife.
“Baby, tell me what’s wrong. What’s happening? Did you have a nightmare or…?”
Alice shook her head. “I’m sad because she’s sad, and I’m scared because she’s scared. She’s alone forever, Mom, and it hurts so bad and I can’t breathe and…and…” Alice fell against Meredith, her words dissolving into hiccups.
“No.” Meredith refused to look at the water. To see the shadows twisting in the corners of her vision. “She’s got her mom with her, remember? She’s not alone, sweetie. She’s not.”
So then why could Meredith hear her cries in her head? Why did she have to dig her feet in the sand to keep from crawling toward her?
You’re no one’s mother.
Tempest’s last words to Regina flashed through Meredith’s mind.
“Mom?”
Alice’s voice sounded so far away. Alice—Meredith thought she would be safe. She was Meredith’s whole heart. Had Marina been Regina’s whole heart? Or had Regina been so twisted by a nonexistent revenge, a desperation to live, that whatever heart she had left had been corrupted into something Marina couldn’t recognize?
They could leave tonight. They could run away, to the other side of the earth. They could hide and forget the cape and the pine forests and the endless ocean and the magic. But they wouldn’t stay away forever. Alice couldn’t stay away. In the end, Marina’s heartbreak would draw her back, the way it drew them all. It had to end with Meredith. Meredith, who never wanted to be a mother but who had enough love in her in the end to be mother to them all. All the drowning girls who had died and who had yet to be born.
She knew what she had to do. It was what her mother had tried to do, what a whole line of mothers had tried to do but maybe didn’t understand why they were doing it. And that was the problem. It was why Marina had come back. Would always come back.
It had to be Meredith because Meredith knew who Marina was, had seen her death, her pain, and had ached for her. And it had to be Meredith’s choice.
Blinking away tears, Meredith knelt in front of Alice. Forced her to look at her. “Sweetie, you have to do something for me, okay?”
Alice nodded, but her gaze kept flicking over Meredith’s shoulder, her little body trembling.
“Do you remember how to get to Art’s house?”
She nodded again. Alice often ran ahead of her on the days they went.
“Good. I need you to go there now.”
Alice stiffened, panic etched on her face. “No!”
“Alice, it’s important. You’re going to be okay. Everything’s going to be okay. I promise.”
But Alice shrank under the weight of her tears. “No it won’t! You’re going to go away, and I don’t want you to go away. I can’t do it I can’t go I won’t…”
Meredith wrapped her arms tight around her daughter, muffling her protests, grateful that Alice couldn’t see her own tears. She couldn’t do this. She wouldn’t.
She had to.
Behind her, the water raged.
She kissed Alice’s head and then pulled away, prying Alice’s hands off her clothes. “I love you,” Meredith said between gritted teeth. “I love you. Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Don’t forget it. Ever.”
Alice’s voice cracked. “I won’t.”
“Go to Art’s. Run. And don’t look back, okay? Just keep running until you get there.” Alice took a shaky step back, but when she didn’t turn, didn’t run, Meredith ordered, “Now!”
Half stumbling, Alice took off through the sand, toward Art’s. Meredith watched until she crossed the dune, until she could hear Alice’s feet hitting the boards of the bridge.
And then Meredith turned to the water.
She shivered as the water rushed over her feet. The red light brushed the waves, and Meredith saw her—Marina, floating in and out of the ocean tide. Slight. Ethereal. Meredith moved toward her, thinking all the time of Alice, hoping she would understand one day. That she wasn’t leaving her, that she would never leave her, that she loved her and would save her if it meant Meredith drowned over and over again.
Water up to Meredith’s waist, Marina was close enough to touch. She looked so young, so frail, her expression frozen in despair and longing. As each wave crashed against Meredith, the spray carried the sound of sorrow.
“Hush now.” Meredith cradled her arms beneath Marina, bringing her close. Her body was like ice. “I’ve got you.”
Marina leaned into Meredith’s chest, and as the ground dropped away, she sighed.
As they drifted lower, lower, Marina clung to Meredith. And as Meredith’s chest burned and everything in her body begged her to let go, to swim, to save herself, she thought of Alice and stilled. She brushed Marina’s hair from her face.
It’s okay. Sleep now. Mama’s here.