tail, this secret extension of herself, this thing she kept hidden from me for eighteen years, to propel herself away, toward the open Atlantic.
And she seems okay with it.
“Surprise,” Mom whispers when she reaches me.
“You think?” Of all the anticlimactic ways to begin this farewell. I mean, we’re in the water behind the house where I grew up. Where she and my dad deposited me after birth, where she fixed me garbage eggs, where she grounded me for reasons valid and invalid.
She looks down at my legs. “So, you don’t have a fin.”
I shake my head. This seems to confirm something she already suspected. Her eyes get that serious, listen-to-your-mother glaze in them. “Emma.” She grabs my shoulders and pulls me close.
I wrest from her grasp. “I don’t hug strangers.”
I must sound like a traumatized three-year-old, because Galen darts over to us. Mom waves away a stray piece of seaweed between us and puts her arm around me again. Galen has that look on his face, the one where he intends to drop everything and hold me. Normally that’s my favorite look.
But I don’t want to be tended to right now. More than that, I don’t want anyone to feel the need to tend to me right now. I need to keep all these bratty feelings to myself. My dad always told me that holding a grudge is like swallowing poison and expecting the other person to die. I don’t want to hold any more grudges. I don’t want to swallow poison.
“I know this is a lot to take in,” Galen says. He doesn’t move to touch me though, which I appreciate.
Grom swims up behind Mom and puts his hands on her shoulders in a “couple” sort of way and I don’t want to, but I hate it, hate it, hate it. I realize I’m going to have to try way harder to embrace my grown-up self. “We won’t keep her long, Emma,” he says. “We’ll be back before you know it. You and Rayna won’t even miss us.”
“What?” Rayna rasps. “I’m not staying here!”
Grom cuts her a look. “You and your mouth are staying with Emma. It’s not open for discussion. This is all going to take a very diplomatic approach, and frankly, diplomacy is not a gift of yours.”
Toraf wraps his arms around her from behind. “We need you here, princess. To protect Emma.”
She elbows him. “You need me out of the way.”
He nuzzles her neck. “You’re never in my way.”
Galen and Grom exchange an amused look, and I can’t help but think they’re hypocrites. At any given moment, I could reduce Galen to a cooing mess, and I’m certain my mom would have the same effect on Grom. Galen doesn’t miss the reproving look I give him. Before he can explain himself, Toraf cuts him off.
“I sense a party,” Toraf says, staring toward the deep. He stiffens, going from Romeo mode to Tracker mode in fast-point-two seconds. “Trackers from both houses. Archives from both houses. All grouped together, moving this way.” He looks at Galen and Grom, his eyes full of meaning I don’t understand. “I guess they’ve waited long enough for your return.”
Grom nods. “We need to hurry now,” he says to Mom.
Mom squeezes me again, eyes full of urgency. Even so, it occurs to me that she is in her true element right now. In Syrena form. Next to the man she has always loved. She is comfortable here in the water. Beautiful. I wonder if the human way of life ever satisfied her. How could it, really? I can’t imagine how making coffee, working double shifts, and painting the living room could ever compare to this. To what she has in the water.
“I love you, sweetie,” she says. “I’ll be back soon.” I want to say “Famous last words,” but I don’t know anyone who’s famous, and I don’t actually know anyone who’s ever said that and not come back. It just seems like one of those classic movie moments where the audience can sense that something bad is about to happen.
And I’m totally picking up on that kind of vibe right now.
As soon as she releases me, Galen grabs my hand and I don’t even have time to gasp before he snatches me to the surface and pulls me toward shore, only pausing to dislodge his pair of swimming trunks from under his favorite rock, where he had just moments before taken the time to hide them.
I know the routine and turn away