Chapter Twenty-Five

The Cliff

The covers clutched at me like an anemone’s tentacles, pulling me down. I squeezed my eyes shut, forcing myself to stay in the bed, because that’s what humans do. But the walls were creeping closer, and I couldn’t stop thinking about cages and zoos, and people pointing, and my heart was pounding louder and louder, and my eyes flew open—

Black eyes were staring right into mine.

A predator! My hand shot out instinctively and grabbed it around the throat. I hurled it across the room and leaped out of bed, my teeth bared for battle, my knife already in my hand.

It didn’t move. I crept closer, straining to see in the dark. It lay on its back, belly bared in surrender, four stubby legs jutting out.

I sighed at myself in disgust. It was the dead boy’s teddy bear.

I picked it up gingerly by one paw and tossed it on the bed. I buried it under a pile of covers. Now it couldn’t stare at me with those hollow eyes.

I slumped down against the wall. I was an idiot. How could I have thought that bit of mangy fur was alive? In this house, in this world, I didn’t even know what was real. I could feel myself slipping away.

My hand tightened around the handle of the knife. The one Mam brought me so I’d have my own sharp claw. It was all I had left to remember who I was. This, and my magic green stone.

I dug the stone out of the sheath and rolled it in my other palm.

Outside, wind wailed across the sea. Trees thrashed; a branch cracked and tumbled down. A gust slammed into the house like a fist.

The storm was calling to me.

I stood and eased the door open, listening. I snuck down the hall, through the room with the smoldering fire, to the other door. I turned the handhold. A blast of wind struck my face, and then I was running through pelting rain, gulping down lungfuls of crisp, raw air.

The gale shoved me across gravel and grass and rocks, the waves thundering louder and louder, until I stood at the very edge of the cliff. Combers crashed against it so hard, their spray flew all the way up to my face—salt and rain, rain and salt. I took a breath and raised my arms, ready to dive and swim through the whitecaps and find my clan.

Find them?

My arms dropped. I’d never find them. Without me to slow her down, Mam would be back with the others by now. Maybe they were already swimming to the far north. Wherever that was.

No. If I ever wanted to see them again, I had to stay on Spindle Island until Mam returned. Two moons of fork and cornflakes and trash.

I lay on the rocks and the rain lashed my face until I was too numb to feel.

Maggie stood over me, making clucking noises in the gray morning light. She wrapped me in a blanket and steered me inside. She wanted to put me in hot water again, but she settled for giving me a dry set of clothes, saying, “Change in the bathroom while I straighten up.”

I tugged on a T-shirt and slipped on the shorts. Then I reached to the sheath, pulled out my knife, and rummaged for my green stone. Before I joined Maggie, I needed to make the world look like the ocean, where I belonged. But the sheath was empty.

I ran back into the dead boy’s room. The bed was neat again, the teddy bear perched firmly on top. The floor was too clean. Where was it?

I ran outside and searched along the top of the cliff.

Maggie stood at the door. “What’s the matter?” she called.

“I lost it!” I ran past her back inside and started ripping the covers off the bed.

“Lost what?”

“My stone! My magic green stone!”

“Magic?”

“You can look right through it. It turns everything underwater green—”

“Oh, the beach glass.” She headed toward the kitchen. “Come on, I put it with the rest.”

What did she mean, the rest?

She picked up a container and tipped it over the table. A torrent of stones tumbled out, blue and green and gold. Each worn smooth by endless waves. Each so clear, the light shone through.

I sucked in my breath. I’d thought mine was the only one.

I picked up a green stone. But no, the color was too dark. I threw it down and grabbed another. The shape was wrong. The stones made cool, tinkling noises, laughing at me.

A pale green stone peeked out from under the pile. It was the right color, and there were the curves that fit perfectly in my palm. But now I saw the scars pitting its surface, and the ground-in flecks of dirt. Against all the others, it looked dull and common.

I left it there and walked away.

That day Maggie only checked the phone six times. The rain slowed to a drizzle.

“I could start up Jack’s precious truck,” she said. “But I hate driving that thing. The phone will be working soon. You might as well stay another night.”

And another. And another.

Each night I’d lie in the bed until the house was dark and quiet. Then I’d slip outside by the sea, my heart aching with longing for my clan, until the waves finally sang me to sleep. I woke before dawn to scavenge barnacles and seaweed, sneaking back inside before Maggie woke.

I copied how she made the bed. I used the broom. I brought in wood and stacked it next to the firebox in neat piles. If I was polite and helpful and human enough, maybe she’d stop talking about sending me away.

One day she picked up the phone and it buzzed like a swarm of flies. She reached a finger to its face, then paused, looking thoughtful.

“Another few days won’t hurt,” she said, setting the phone back down.

The sky was dawning a thin, pale blue. I crouched at the base of the cliff, swallowing another barnacle. I was tired of barnacles. I wanted fish, fresh and salty sweet. Maggie wouldn’t be awake for ages. I had plenty of time.

I slipped from the rocks into the water. I wouldn’t go very far, not so far I’d be breaking my vow. Just far enough to catch some real food.

I dove down and right away I found a fat crab. I surfaced to break off its legs and suck out the meat. I smashed its shell on a boulder and picked it clean.

I ducked and swam along the rock face, right into a cluster of little silver fish. I gulped one down, relishing the crunch of small bones against smooth flesh.

I kicked to the surface and turned a somersault. Here, in the water, I knew who I was. I dove down and rocketed back up, I spun and spiraled, floated and stroked, as graceful as you can be in a body without a tail.

But as I played, the sun was rising. Finally I had to admit it was time to go back to the house.

I belly flopped up on a flat rock, then scrambled up the cliff. I was hefting myself over the edge when I froze.

There was Maggie, staring at me.

“Where’d you learn to swim like that?” she asked, her voice full of wonder.

I knew better than to answer. I pulled myself to my feet.

She gazed out over the cliff to the sea, then back at my arms, my legs. “You look like you belong out there.”

My breath caught. This was the last thing I expected, to feel understood. It confused me.

“I’ve lived by the sea my whole life, Aran, and I’ve never seen anyone swim like that. Like you’re part of the waves. I knew you were different, but . . .”

“Oh no,” I said. “I’m just a regular human boy.”

She raised her eyebrows. “But a boy who needs to swim.”

I gave a quick, hard nod.

She chewed her lip, weighing something. “So you need to be by the ocean. You’re not going to like a foster home in the city.”

I shook my head, pretending to know what she meant.

“When did you say your mom’s coming back?”

I gulped, hardly daring to hope. “By the second full Moon. I know she will.”

Maggie looked deep into my eyes, really seeing me for the first time. A struggle passed over her face, and then she nodded. “All right, I’ll try to keep you here until then. But not any longer. My health isn’t good. I could . . . I could have to go to the hospital at any time. And you have to promise me, if Jack calls to say he’s coming home, you’ll go to foster care. No back talk. Have we got a deal?”

The only part that mattered was about getting to stay. Mam would be back in time and the rest would never come to pass.

“Is a deal like swearing?” I asked.

The corner of her mouth twitched up. “I guess it is.”

“Then we have got a deal,” I said, holding my hand to my heart in the way of vow making.

She wrapped an arm around my shoulders. To my surprise, I didn’t mind.