Deep Betrayal Page 0,26
and hot against my chest. The spot of heat spread through my skin to my heart, drawing me closer to the water as if reeling me in. I struggled to remember why I was supposed to stay on land. My head and my heart felt detached from each other.
Maybe I’ll dip my toes. That was hardly dangerous. Then I’d be a good girl and go back to the house. Calder and Dad would never have to know.
I hiked up my long skirt and wetted my toes on the sandy shore. After a few seconds, I waded in—just up to my shins—then sat down on the soft sand. I leaned back, letting the cold water break across my thighs, flexing and curling my toes, digging my heels into the sand.
Closing my eyes, I imagined the feel of my legs blending into one. I could almost feel the heat, the burn, the knitting of bones. Somewhere out there, Calder and Dad were circling sunken ships, sweeping underwater sand dunes. But here on the beach it was only me and my imagination, and if I closed my eyes, it was almost as good. I snorted. Yeah, right.
The sound of a boat engine broke through the daydream, and I wish I could say I was surprised to see Jack out in the Sun Sport. The boat was close enough for me to see the light glinting off his mirrored sunglasses. If he saw me, he didn’t acknowledge it. The ever-present binoculars hung around his neck.
I wondered when Pavati would make good on her promise from last May to visit Jack and, when she did, if he would call a truce. It was painful to watch him suffer like this. Even if Pavati didn’t want to be with him anymore, the least she could do was tell him why.
I took off my skirt and inched out farther. I lay down flat, letting my hair fan out around me. The waterline pulsed at my temples. Metallic humming filled my ears, numbing my brain. I quoted T. S. Eliot under my breath.
“Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table.”
I wasn’t surprised not to be cold. What I couldn’t get over was the sensation of heat. It started in my toes, and then the soft spot behind my knees. My thighs burned as if I’d climbed a hundred stairs. And then there were whispers.
I turned over onto my belly and pulled myself out deeper with my hands flat on the sand until the ground dropped off below me, and I was swimming. I breached, gulping at the air, then dove, moving my body like a dolphin, savoring the oxygen like an expensive delicacy.
“To wonder, ‘Do I dare?’ and, ‘Do I dare?’ ”
Did I dare to discover what my birthright could mean? When I came up for air—somewhat disappointed that I still required it—I was surprised by how far out I’d gone. It was way beyond what I could justify to Calder, so I quickly tucked and rolled in a somersault, turning back for shore, swimming underwater.
Small, delicate whispers, like feathers, brushed against each other, slipping together, blending into the next. I tried to listen harder as I quieted my thoughts and disturbed the water as little as possible. Now and then, if the sounds were hard or crisp—a keh or a teh, sometimes a deh—I could almost make out a whole word. I imagined they were calling, whispering, “Come to me.” But then the whisper was a shout. Then the shout was a screech.
I broke through the surface, flinging water from my hair, and Maris was rising out of the water, staring down at me, violence in her silver eyes, her face radiant with fury.
She dove, and bone-cold fingers clamped down on my ankles, pulling me deeper. My body bucked and twisted as I tried to climb my way back toward the shore. I had been here before, locked in a mermaid’s embrace. But being there by choice was so much different than now. I grabbed Maris’s corn-silk hair and pulled. I slashed at her face. For a second, she loosened her grip, and I kicked furiously for the surface, only to get pulled back down.
And then there was another set of arms, and I was being yanked apart. My skin stretched and joints popped. I thought I might transform, that perhaps the adrenaline of the moment would be the catalyst for a metamorphosis. But