Of Triton - By Anna Banks Page 0,3
thinking. I wonder if Rayna is okay, if she has a killer headache like I do, if chloroform affects a full-blooded Syrena the way it affects humans. I bet that now she really will try to shoot my mom with her harpoon, which reminds me again of the past twenty-four hours of craziness.
The scenes from the previous night replay in my head, a collection of snapshots my memory took between heartbeats:
Beat.
Galen reaching his hands in the dishwater. “You’ve got a lot of explaining to do, Nalia.”
Beat.
A flash of Galen grabbing Mom’s sudsy wrist.
Beat.
An image of Mom growling as Galen turns her around in his arms.
Beat.
A still life of Mom flinging her head back, making contact with Galen’s forehead.
Beat.
A shot of Galen slamming into the fridge, scattering a lifetime’s motley collection of magnets onto the floor.
Beat.
Beat, beat, beat.
The still shots become live action.
Mom attaches to him like static cling, the knife poised midair, ready to fillet him like a cod. I scream. Something big and important sounding shatters behind me. The sound of raining glass drowns me out.
And it’s that one second that Galen needs. Distracted, Mom turns her head, giving Galen a breadth of space to dodge the blade. Instead of his flesh, she stabs the blade into the fridge. The knife slips from her soapy hands and clinks to the floor.
Beat … Beat.
We all watch it spin, as if what happens next depends on which direction it stops. As if the blade will choose who will make the next move. It feels like an intermission from delirium, a chance for sanity to sneak in and take hold. Ha.
Toraf passes me in a blur, bits of what used to be our bay window sparkling in his hair like sequins. And just like that, sanity retreats like a spooked bird. Toraf tackles my mother and they sprawl onto the linoleum in a sickening melody of wet squeaking and soft grunting. Galen kicks the knife into the hallway then belly flops onto them. The tornadic bundle of legs and arms and feet and hands push farther into the kitchen until only the occasional flailing limb is visible from the living room, where I can’t believe I’m still standing.
A spectator in my own life, I watch the supernova of my two worlds colliding: Mom and Galen. Human and Syrena. Poseidon and Triton. But what can I do? Who should I help? Mom, who lied to me for eighteen years, then tried to shank my boyfriend? Galen, who forgot this little thing called “tact” when he accused my mom of being a runaway fish-princess? Toraf, who … what the heck is Toraf doing, anyway? And did he really just sack my mom like an opposing quarterback?
The urgency level for a quick decision elevates to right-freaking-now. I decide that screaming is still best for everyone—it’s nonviolent, distracting, and one of the things I’m very, very good at.
I open my mouth, but Rayna beats me to it—only, her scream is much more valuable than mine would have been, because she includes words with it. “Stop it right now, or I’ll kill you all!” She pushes past me with a decrepit, rusty harpoon from God-knows-what century, probably pillaged from one of her shipwreck excursions. She waves it at the three of them like a crazed fisherman in a Jaws movie. I hope they don’t notice she’s got it pointed backward and that if she fires it, she’ll skewer our couch and Grandma’s first attempt at quilting.
It works. The bare feet and tennis shoes stop scuffling—out of fear or shock, I’m not sure—and Toraf’s head appears at the top of the counter. “Princess,” he says, breathless. “I told you to stay outside.”
“Emma, run!” Mom yells.
Toraf disappears again, followed by a symphony of scraping and knocking and thumping and cussing.
Rayna rolls her eyes at me, grumbling to herself as she stomps into the kitchen. She adjusts the harpoon to a more deadly position, scraping the popcorn ceiling and sending rust and Sheetrock and tetanus flaking onto the floor like dirty snow. Aiming it at the mound of struggling limbs, she says, “One of you is about to die, and right now I don’t really care who it is.”
Thank God for Rayna. People like Rayna get things done. People like me watch people like Rayna get things done. Then people like me round the corner of the counter as if they helped, as if they didn’t stand there and let everyone they love beat the shizzle out of one another.
I