Deep Betrayal Page 0,38

south of the ferry route. There were no distinct words; instead, they hummed and blended into a kind of melody, an eerie harmony, like wind over an empty bottle.

The lake floor sloped up to meet me. I reached forward, my hands hitting the slippery timber-and-boulder foundation of our dock. I threw one arm up on the deck, and the sun hit my face, unnaturally hot, burning my skin, like someone was staring at me.

“Have a nice swim?” Sophie asked. She was sitting cross-legged at the end of the dock, drawing in a sketchbook with one of Mom’s charcoal pencils.

“Yeah,” I said. How long had she been there? What had she seen? “Thanks, Soph. Can you go grab me a towel?”

“You’re done already?” She rubbed her pencil furiously over the page.

“Um, yeah. Think so.” I stared at her, waiting for her to look up from her drawing, wondering how to interpret her words, but she just kept scribbling. “No, I’m good,” I said, finally giving up.

“Okay.” She set the sketchbook down, saying, “Back in a sec,” and she ran for the house.

I pulled myself out and sat on the edge of the dock. Four minutes. I’d held my breath for four freakin’ minutes. Without really trying. That was seriously messed up. More amazing: I’d only come to the surface because I’d reached the dock. How much longer could I have gone? I’d find out tomorrow.

I dripped water on Sophie’s sketchbook, leaving dime-sized circles that bled into quarters. When I picked up the book, I saw a picture of myself. But this time the metamorphosis was complete. She’d drawn me with a tail.

I turned around and watched Sophie come skipping across the lawn, whipping the towel over her head like a lasso. When she got to the end of the dock, she tried to snap it at me, but I grabbed it out of her hand and wrapped it around my shoulders.

We sat in silence, staring out across the lake. Dad and Calder were out there somewhere. Did Sophie know that? I sincerely hoped I was reading too much into her drawing, but I had to ask.

“What’s with the picture, Sophie?”

“You don’t like it?” she asked, her lips pursed.

“Who’s that supposed to be?” I asked, tapping the picture with my fingers.

“It’s supposed to be you,” she said. “Is it bad?” She held the picture closer to her face, scrutinizing the details.

“No, not at all,” I said. I put an arm around her shoulders. “It’s just that the last time I checked, anyway, I didn’t have a tail.”

“No,” she agreed, still sounding disappointed. “But it’s pretty, don’t you think?”

“I didn’t know you were into mermaids,” I said casually.

“They’re pretty,” she said. She picked up her things and stood. Before she left me she said, “Mom’s making blueberry pancakes. Are you coming?”

“Yeah, I’ll be up in a bit.”

Sophie stared at me for a few seconds, then said, “Don’t skip out.”

“I won’t. I said I’d be up.”

Sophie chewed on her lip and stared at her feet. “Mom looks weird. Kind of sad. So be really nice to her.”

“I’m always nice.”

“And be nice to Calder. You weren’t nice to him last night.”

Before I could retort, Sophie stole the towel from around my shoulders and ran back to the house chanting, “Lily’s in her un-der-wear! Lily’s in her un-der-wear!”

MY SCRIBBLINGS

A Lake Superior Haiku

Cold lake consumes me

as if it were the one who

needed me to live.

—Lily Hancock

MERMAID STATS as of today

Swim Time: 4 min. 17 secs

Hearing Voices?

Tail: None

15

HAMMOCK

Thursday dinner went by, still without any word from Calder and only an email from Dad, which was sent from another fictitious teachers’ conference sponsored by the so-called Midwest Ecology Review. All I could think was M.E.R.? Was that supposed to be funny? Mom didn’t seem to think so, either, although not for the same reasons.

Sometime around three in the morning on Friday, I woke up shaking. I’d left my window open. Cold lake air filtered in, and my teeth chattered uncontrollably, threatening to shatter like glass. There was an extra blanket in my closet, but I was too cold to leave my bed to get it. Same was true for shutting the window. For a second I wondered if I could telepathically close the window from where I lay. If I thought about it hard enough. Long enough. Harder. Nope. Not going to happen.

The tree branches creaked and dragged wooden fingers across the roof. No matter how cold I was, it shamed me to think Calder was somewhere out in