Collapsed, not breathing. Wet and not wet. Lying on her side, turning. The sun bright and hot.
Air, heavy and fragrant, rushed into her lungs, and Sami’s chest expanded. She gasped and coughed, twisted onto her hands and knees, sputtering water, head lowered. Very gradually, she caught her breath, slowly realizing she could breathe normally again.
Sami rolled back to sitting. Pulling wet hair out of her face, she looked around. She was on a gentle slope of wet sand, waves rolling and breaking just a few feet away. Home. She stood cautiously and felt the mixture of Silverworld and Actual World waters evaporating from her clothes and skin.
The sky was a cloudless sapphire, and white birds arced over the ocean. Shielding her eyes, Sami admired the way the sand itself seemed to mirror the sunshine. She was standing on a short stretch of beach just a few blocks from their house. The sand felt warm and soft, with the familiar substance of the Actual World. It was good to stretch her sore muscles, to feel the humid air. The early-morning sun felt like a kiss on her head.
She realized, as she walked, that she was happy. Her chest rose with gratitude, and she inhaled the scent of gardenias. How she’d missed her home! Home was the place where her family was, but it was also this place: it had grown roots inside her—almost without her noticing. Florida had become a part of her and she was a part of it.
Tony was sitting on the couch as she walked in. He wore his usual shorts and T-shirt, but there was a blanket crumpled around and under him and his hair stuck straight up.
“Well, hello.” She laughed, hands on her hips. “I guess you slept there all night?”
“Sami!” He jumped up and swooped his arms around her. “Oh, Sami, oh thank God.”
Sami laughed with surprise, but hugged her brother back. “You missed me? For real?”
“What the heck? Where were you last night? What happened to you?” He took hold of her arms. “Wait a second. Man, look at you—it’s like you grew overnight.”
“Ha, good imagination,” she said with a smile, and headed for the stairs. “Is Mom in her office?”
“Wait—where are you going?”
Sami started up the stairs. “I need to talk to Mom—and Teta, too.”
“Sami, they’re not here.” Tony stood at the base of the stairs.
Something in his voice made her stop. She turned and looked at her brother before taking two steps down. “What do you mean?”
He shook his head and Sami realized he was having trouble answering. Her pulse begin to throb in her throat. “Is Teta okay? What’s wrong, Tony?”
He shook his head again and finally said, “She’s—she had a pretty bad night. Almost like she was having trouble breathing. She was tossing in bed and sort of moaning. I’d swear I heard her say something about falling—twice. It was the first thing she’s said in, like, forever that I’ve been able to understand.”
“She said she was falling?” A shiver ran down Sami’s spine. She felt the deep plunge into the Nixie’s void again.
“I’m not exactly sure—but it was scary. Lots of groaning and twisting around in bed. I guess she’s feeling better now.”
Sami frowned. “You guess? Tony, please, where is Teta?”
He lowered his eyes. “Mom took her—pretty early this morning. It was still dark out. To that place. That home?” He lifted his eyes. “I guess she didn’t want to upset us—they kind of snuck out. She doesn’t know you weren’t in your room last night. I covered for you—said you were doing homework,” he added in a low voice. “Mom texted a little while ago and said they thought it would be easier on everyone if they just got Teta settled in first and then we could go visit.”
“What’s the name of the place again?” She was already at the front door.
“Hold up! Where are you going?” Tony scuffed on his flip-flops.
“To get Teta!”
He followed her out the front door. “There’s nothing we can do, you know. They don’t want us hanging around right now.”
Sami turned to him. “Do you know the way? To the nursing home place?”
He lifted his arms and let them flop against his sides. “Yeah, it’s off Breezeway Ave. But what are you doing? How are we supposed to get over there?”
Sami looked at him like he was a little slow. “We’ve got bikes, remember?”
Tony followed her into the garage. “It’s all the way across town!”
“So? It’s a small enough town.” Sami climbed on her bike, threw her lock into her basket, and took off. “Keep up!” she shouted over one shoulder.
She flew over curbs, over the cracked sidewalks of their neighborhood, and under the wide, flat canopies of the poinciana trees. Pretty soon she could hear the whir of Tony’s bike just behind her. “How are you biking like this?” he panted.
Sami squinted through the sunlight and wind as they moved into the bicycle lane and sailed under the long, narrow shadows of palm trees and condos. It occurred to her as she pedaled that not so very long ago, she probably wouldn’t have done such a thing—just hopped on her bike and ridden. She might’ve waited for a city bus to take her, but she never would have weaved and dodged, circled around car doors and little dogs on leashes and old men curved over their walkers. Now she almost felt sorry for her old self—how timid she used to be and how much she missed out on because of it. As she pumped, her senses raced, spotting each obstacle, darting to the fastest path. Sami took her bike over an especially high curb and sliced through a puddle, throwing spray. She called back to Tony, “Watch out for that one.”
When she didn’t hear an answer, she twisted on her seat and realized her brother was about eight blocks behind her, puffing as he pedaled and shouted directions.
We’re coming, Teta! She tried to push her thoughts through the air, as she had in Silverworld. Hang on.
She zigzagged across a great gray sea of parking lots, up to the automatic glass doors, then jumped down and rolled her bike into the bright lobby. A flowing sign hanging over the front desk said SILVER BEACHES MANOR. A woman in a teal nurse’s uniform scowled at Sami’s bike and sent her to the rack outside the lobby. Tony was just coasting into the lot as she locked up.
“Where did you learn to ride like that?” he panted. His face shone with sweat.
“C’mon, we can talk later.” She held the door open.
In the waiting area, the receptionist lifted a narrow black eyebrow when neither Sami nor Tony had any identification. She tapped and tapped, searching for Serafina Alattar, then finally pointed at her screen. “They’re just moving her in now. But I can’t admit kids without a guardian or some kind of ID.”
Sami pleaded, “I just got back from a long trip, and I’m super worried about her. My grandmother hasn’t been feeling well, and I know it would make a huge, huge difference to her if she could just see her grandkids.”
The receptionist looked sternly at Tony, who half nodded and mumbled, “Um, yeah. Yeah, that’s totally right.”
“Grandkids?” Again, she lifted one pointed eyebrow, then sighed. “Let me call the room.” Holding the phone propped between her ear and shoulder, the woman clicked long, crimson-painted nails on the counter. She tapped her pencil several times more, then put the phone down. “No one’s picking up. She’s probably not done checking in. Why don’t you go home and wait there? I’m sure your mom will be able to bring you by later.”
“No!” Sami shouted, then she felt Tony’s hand on her shoulder. “I—I mean, I’m sorry. But we just bicycled here from our house. It’s all the way on the other side of town. It took us, like, forty minutes. Almost an hour. We’re so tired and we had to dodge all this traffic! Besides, we’re just super anxious to see our grandma—it would mean so much to us.” Sami made her eyes as wide as she could.
The woman’s deep green gaze met Sami’s for a moment before lowering. Sami noticed a little silver mermaid pinned to the lapel of the woman’s blazer. “Oh, I love your pin,” Sami blurted. “Mermaids are so cool!”
“Oh yes,” the woman said with a tiny smile, then frowned, suspicious. On an impulse, Sami tried sending a thought to the woman: Please, please—you’ve got to help us.
Something seemed to flicker across the receptionist’s face: she blinked. Then shook her head and said, “Well, I must be out of my mind. Come on, while there’s no one around. I guess it can’t hurt to just go take a peek.”
They walked through a window-lined atrium crowded with jungle-green ferns and waxy flowers. By a potted palm, a woman with flyaway white hair patted a curved leaf as if it were a friend’s hand. The other end of the atrium opened to a long corridor of rooms. A few doors creaked as they walked by and some residents peered out, their lined faces studying Sami and Tony. At the end of the hallway, there was a small heap of suitcases and books. The receptionist stopped, tugged her blazer down, and knocked on the open door. “Hi, hi, anyone home?” she sang. “We’ve got a little surprise for you.”
The room had a set of French doors that looked out over a garden and the walls were painted a soft watery blue. Sami’s mother was hanging up dresses from an open suitcase and Ivory was either trying to hand a teacup to Teta or take it away. Sami’s grandmother was sitting hunched, nearly swallowed up by an oversized armchair in the corner. Her eyes looked enormous in her shrunken face and the knuckles stood out in her fingers as she gripped the armrests. When Sami and Tony walked in, she stared at them blankly, mute and frightened. Sami could see her grandmother had absolutely no idea who they were.