Oh, no, oh, no, oh, no. The waves clipped the boat in time to the words in my head.
Alice steered a flat-bottom at least thirty feet in front of me, a clear shot to the harbor. I was already behind, so I had to throw on clothes. I revved the engine to full speed, needing to catch her before she got to Mrs. Cantini. Though, what would I tell her once I reached her? How could I convince her to keep my secret? What would happen to Stone if she refused to stay quiet?
It was still morning. Almost noon, perhaps. Though an ugly morning.
Above, the sun was a ghost behind spiritless clouds, and the wind was as harsh as my beating heart. The motor shook at its speed. Tears of my beloved black sea sprayed my eyes. I kept them open and fixed on Alice as I ate the distance between us.
Once her boat reached the dock, she jumped out with a rope tangled in her hand. She hurried to tie it to a wooden beam. My jon boat slowed until it clipped hers from behind.
“Alice, stop!”
She finished before I could and threw me a glance before taking off.
“Alice, listen to me,” I begged, working faster to get my boat secured to the dock.
Then I charged after her, grabbing the back of her raincoat just before she reached the wooden stairs. I spun her around to face me.
Alice appeared much older under somber skies, her jowls shaking, her wrinkles deep and angry, and her button nose aflame. Most of all, her eyes narrowed into black beads.
“Why did you follow me?” I grabbed her jacket and pulled her closer. “Why couldn’t you just leave it alone?”
Alice’s nose twitched with disgust, and she looked deep into my eyes. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t see anything,” she lied. Right to my face. She escaped my grip and straightened her back. “But if I were you, Miss Adora, I would spend the remainder of my day with my mother. That way, when the dutiful maid returns to the manor, and Mrs. Cantini asks if she found you, and where you’ve been, the maid won’t have to lie.”
My sore fingers dropped to my side.
She was willing to keep my secret. But why?
“That’s where I was,” I whispered, catching on. “I was with my mother.”
Her dire eyes nudged me. “Because you missed her.”
I did miss her. That wasn’t a lie.
A rain shower started. It was icy and soft and came down on us slowly. I looked up, and the silver clouds morphed into darker, ashen ones.
“I’ll be with my mother for the rest of the day.” I returned my gaze to her so she understood the seriousness on my face. “But we will talk about what you saw. Don’t bring this to Cyrus or Mrs. Cantini. To anyone.”
“I wouldn’t even know what to say.” Then she turned and trotted up the slick wooden stairs.
I didn’t know what to say either.
When I stepped into the cottage, I expected laughter and the scent of pancakes, French toast, or crepes seeping and swirling. I didn’t expect silence and a chill.
Fable, Ivy, and Dad should have been up at this hour.
My heart thundered up the stairs, the most disastrous scenarios toppling over in my mind. But it all halted when I found my family asleep in the attic. They must have had one of those long nights. The silent, stirring hours that followed once emptiness crawled into a person. An unforgiving feeling when something was missing.
We had many long nights after Mom succumbed to catatonia and even longer nights since the Shadows came.
I gazed down at my sisters. Fable’s twisting brown locks laid across Ivy’s perfect skin. I hadn’t been away for long, but I remembered the most harrowing nights in this attic. We no longer had responsibilities to keep us busy. We only had silence and darkness—an abyss trapping us with our dreadful thoughts.
I descended the stairs to Mom’s bedroom.
She lay like Sleeping Beauty: hands folded, eyes closed. A dreamy beep in the bedroom was her heartbeat on the monitor at her side. Her appearance would make it impossible for anyone to believe that there was endless torture playing in her head.
Floorboards groaned under my feet when I took careful steps to her closet. Her lovely silk and chiffon gowns dangled like gem-colored spirits in her armoire. I fingered the blood-red one and let it slip between my fingers. It transported me back to when I was younger.
The fabric tickles my toes when I twirl, and the skirt laps across the floorboards with a whoosh. Thin straps fall off my shoulders, but it still hugs me like I’m surrounded by water. I’m pretty—a mermaid who isn’t ready, but a great big opening at the bottom for a tail to soar through a current for when I am. No one can see what I can do in a dress yet, oh, but one day they will. All I can think of—as I look into my reflection—is what I’ll become when I’m older. One day, this dress will fit me in the same way it fits Momma.
Footsteps ascend, and my breath catches on a twirl.
The bedroom door swings open, and Momma stands behind me in the armoire’s reflection. Her face falls, and for a moment, her eyes appear distant. Almost as if she yanked a memory from its roots.
“Adora, take it off,” she demands.
Her voice is angry, and tears instantly bubble in the corners of my eyes. The skirt is balled into my fist as I try to keep it off the ground. “I don’t want to.”
Her face folds into a grimace. “You look ridiculous.” She stalks deeper into the room and suddenly stands over me, yanking on the straps to pull them down. “It doesn’t even look pretty on you. Take it off. Take it off, take it off, take it off!” she shouts in a way I have never heard from her before.
I try to stumble away and hug it tightly around my body. “No, Momma, stop!”
In the scuffle, the dress tears. The rip sounds like it’s tearing open our chests.
Mom falls to her knees and clutches the broken strap dangling from the hem.
“Look what you’ve done, Adora!”
I pile the skirt into my arms and run through the bedroom doorway and down the stairs. I run and run and run.
The beep from the monitor pulled me back to the present.
I was standing in front of the armoire mirror. Both of its doors were hanging open. The dress was clinging to my body, the shade of blood dripping from my silhouette.
In the mirror’s reflection, Mom was sitting upright behind me.
Straight black hair curtained her hollow cheeks.
Two big ocean eyes wide open and looking right at me.
A scream burned my throat.
I slammed the armoire door closed, and the mirror shattered to the floor.
Broken shards of glass rained down around my feet.
I turned on my heel. Mom was lying in bed with her eyes closed. The heartbeat on the monitor was slow, steady, and paralyzing. A chill penetrated my bones.
The bedroom door flung open and hit the wall when Ivy stumbled inside, out of breath. Her gaze swept the room. When her eyes met mine, her spine seemed to melt.
“Oh, it’s you,” she said with a sigh. Her black hair was flat on one side and matted on the other. It was the first time I’d seen her in Mom’s room, and she dropped her head and squeezed her temples with one hand. “I thought—I thought that was Mom.” She shook her head. “I thought that for a second, maybe she woke up.” Her voice was tired. Lifeless. “What happened in here? Why are you here, and why are you wearing that dress?”
Confused, I looked down, and it was Mom’s red dress that covered me.
I didn’t recall ever putting it on.
“I-I I don’t know.” My eyes snapped back to Mom. “She was looking right at me. In the mirror. She was sitting up and looking right at me in the mirror, Ivy.”
“You have the most colorful imagination.” Ivy glanced around at the broken glass scattered like glitter, and this was it. This is the moment Ivy thinks I’m crazy, too.
I grabbed Mom by the ankle and shook her leg.
“Get up!” I shouted, desperate to prove I didn’t imagine it or make it up. “I know you’re awake, and I know you can hear me. Now get up!”
Mom didn’t move. Of course, she didn’t move.
I dropped her ankle and faced Ivy.
“I’m not lying to you,” I whispered, defeated.
Ivy walked to the side of the bed and studied the monitor. “Everything’s fine. Maybe you saw what you wanted to see.” She looked at me with a shrug. “Wouldn’t be the first time.”
My fists clenched, but before they could pierce, I sprang them open. “I didn’t imagine it, Ivy. I know what I saw.”
She left the room with a shake of her head.
I stood shocked. My back was stiff, and my heart thrashed in its cage like live wire. It was impossible to escape the haunting image of Mom staring back at me. It was all I could see the entire way to the kitchen.
I sat down at the island, still wearing Mom’s dress. It fit me like a glove. The strap was still broken and dangling down my side, but the other fit perfectly around my shoulder.
Ivy flipped on the coffee maker. “So, you’re sleepwalking,” she said with her back to me. “You haven’t done that in a while. With Cyrus’s hyper-sensory abilities, he must be losing his mind over it.”
“I’m living in a different house, with different walls and different sounds. I’m adjusting, that’s all.” I pulled the skirt of the dress into my lap, desperate to change the subject. “Remember when I was a little girl, and I wore this dress, and Mom hated it?”
“Yes,” she said, not laughing, but air blew through her nose. “You were obsessed.”
“I never understood why she kept the dress if she hated it so much.”
“Sometimes people keep things to remind them of where they’ve been. Emotional scars. It keeps them strong.” She turned, splaying her hands behind her on the countertop. “Kind of like how you keep all those knickknacks in the wall behind your dresser.”
I narrowed my eyes.
“What?” She lifted a shoulder. “I needed something to take the edge off, and that’s where you keep fuil and deòir.”
Mermaid blood and Heathen tears. Uppers and downers.
“Don’t change the subject. Tell me why this dress was so important to Mom.”
The coffee pot gurgled. Ivy grabbed two mugs from the cabinet and poured in rich caffeine. She passed me a mug and leaned over the island until she was resting on her elbows, cupping her mug between her palms. The heat from the mug swirled from our coffee and into the air.
“Did Dad ever tell you about the time he and Mom met?”
“No,” I said, spooning sugar into my coffee and watching it dissolve.
“It happened at the Founder’s Day Ball. 1994.”
I brought the mug to my lips, not surprised. “Founder’s Day Ball, just like everyone else in this town.”
She took a sip, too. “Not exactly. Mom was dating Mr. Cantini.”
I choked on my swallow.
She expected it and continued, “Mom wore that dress, and Dad couldn’t take his eyes off her. But what happened that night wasn’t a fairytale, and certainly not something you’re going to repeat to Fable. She still has a light in her eyes, something we’ve lost. I don’t know, maybe I’m selfish, but I want Fable to keep that light for as long as possible.”
I understood what she meant. Fable was sunbeams in a bottle. Naïve, and maybe even a little too trustworthy. She saw the good in every person she met. “I won’t say anything.”
Ivy nodded. “Dad watched Mom the entire night. She was dancing with friends, sipping her drink slowly because she wasn’t much of a drinker. He said he felt pathetic because he knew Darnell was watching her, too. Darnell and Mom had just gotten together and were only on their second or third date, but Dad couldn’t help himself. He knew if he couldn’t get her alone, even for just one dance, he’d regret it.” She stopped there.
“So, did he?”
Why was I asking?
Of course, he did. We existed.
“When there was an hour left at the ball, Dad lost her in the crowd. He said he remembered getting anxious, watching that infamous clock tick away on the far back wall. You know which one I’m talking about?”
The story was fascinating me. “Yes.”
“Dad climbed the steps to the left corridor. And there was Mom and Darnell, alone in the shadows inside a transparent dome. Which only meant one thing.”
“Sex magic.”
Sex produced magic. For it to work safely, the participants must all have witch blood running in their veins, their magic must have ascended, and the sex must be pleasurable for all involved. A timely state of euphoria led to the rise of magic. There were gatherings to support it. Encourage it, even. Sex magic kept the witches of Sacred Sea powerful.
“Dad turned to get out of there, but then Mom screamed his name.” She shook her head. “She screamed Dad’s name, Adora. And when Darnell looked up and saw Dad, the dome disappeared. Dad saw her face, and that was when it hit him.” She didn’t have to say more. I already knew and felt my burning anger rising in my blood. My fingers squeezed around the mug, not wanting to hear the rest, but she continued anyway, “They weren’t producing magic together. Darnell was trying to steal Mom’s magic, and she was terrified and crying, and Dad lost it.”
“I’ll kill him,” I said through my clenched teeth.
On the downside, magic could also be transferred through force. If not careful, the magic we were born with could be taken by another through sex. Though not all at once. It would happen gradually. Piece by piece until nothing remained but an empty vessel.
“And Dad forced me to marry into that family? After what Darnell did to Mom?”
“You know as well as I do that Cyrus is nothing like his father. And Viola? She did Sacred Sea a favor. She only agreed to marry Darnell to preserve the Cantini bloodline and have his children. Why do you think no one has seen Darnell in years? Viola took one for the team and weakened that monster so he could never fight back.” She raised her mug to me. “She’s a good woman. Difficult, but good. Without her, we wouldn’t have Cyrus at all.”
I hadn’t realized until this moment how similar Viola and I were.
How she was willing to have a loveless marriage as I was.
Ivy let off the counter and leaned into her hip. “Anyway, that’s the story. Cyrus has no idea about his father, and if I were you, I wouldn’t tell him. Viola would lose it.”
“It’s not my place to tell him.”
“You’re his fiancé,” she said, throwing it like a grenade.
“Right, but still not my place.”
She sucked in a breath. She let it go. “It still doesn’t feel real.” She looked up at me. “I love Cyrus, and that’s not going to go away just because of the order. While I wish you could understand how I feel, you’ve never grown close to anyone the way Cyrus and I have. Not even Kane.”
And I almost relapsed and told her about Stone. The words of how I could finally, somewhat, understand how she felt swirled inside my head. But these words never made it out.
She saved me by quickly saying, “Speaking of the witch, you should probably get back to him. Morning sex is his favorite.”
My head fell back. “Dammit, Ivy. I’m not having sex with him.”
“I’m not an idiot. You’re glowing like you just got fucked less than twenty-four hours ago. And it can’t be from Kane because you’ve never glowed like that with Kane.”
“Ivy—”
“Just go.”
I run, my soles slapping cold sand. I won’t stop until my toes sink into the bitter sea. I collapse on the shore, wrapping my arms around my knees, hugging them tightly, and look out into my ocean.
The tide comes in, frothy hands grabbing at the dress, trying to rip it from my body. The scarlet silk sweeps into her waters, and it looks like the ocean is bleeding.
It looks like the sky is bleeding, too—cobalt veins ripped open and spilling crimson into the sunset.
I let go of my knees, my hands falling to my sides, my nails digging into golden grains, and I let my spine hold me. I don’t cry, though. Mermaids don’t cry.
I can feel Mom walking up behind me, but I don’t turn to look at her.
She sits right next to me, and we’re both quiet as we stare out past the border. Notes of sea salt and brine are sewn in every cruel wind, icy air striking our raw cheeks. The lighthouse beam spins, casting its light across my face.
I wish she would leave and not poison my sacred place.
A beat of tension passes, and then—“Have you ever seen a fish drown, Adora?”
Her voice is tranquil, soft. Almost a whisper.
“Fish can’t drown, Momma.”
I see her from the corner of my eye. She isn’t looking at me but still looking at the ocean. “It’s heartbreaking to watch. A fish belongs in the water, but if the water doesn’t move across the fish, it can’t breathe. Panic sets in, and the fish darts here and there, eager for a breath, thinking, this is my home, this is what I’m supposed to do, I belong here, why can’t I breathe? Gills flap slower, hope drifts from its eyes. The one place it’s bound to squeezes around the fish tighter and tighter until finally, the fish gives up, lies on its side, and dies.”
That’s when I look at her. “Are you drowning, Momma?”
“Yes,” she takes a deep breath, “and one day, you will, too.”