Deep Betrayal Page 0,85

As I got closer, I heard bits of conversation, an “I can’t” and “It’s too hard.”

It wasn’t Dad. It was Sophie. She sat cross-legged in the dark at the end of the dock, centered in the beam of moonlight, talking to herself. I’d never known her to sleepwalk.

“Sophie?” I whispered through the night air. She didn’t respond.

I crept closer. More indistinct murmurs. I thought someone said “sunglasses” (or “fun classes” or maybe “my guess is”). And then another voice, raspy in the night. “You have to set it up. Two days should give me enough time to prepare. Tuesday at dusk. Can you do it?”

Sophie said, “How am I supposed to—”

“Tell him to go to the flat rocks—south of town—he’ll know the place. You must get him there.”

“And if I do, you think you’ll be able to convince him?” Sophie asked.

“Sophie,” I called again.

This time Sophie startled and whipped around, half crouched, half ready to bolt. There was a small splash from the water, but when I got close enough to see, there was nothing there.

“Who were you talking to?” I asked.

“No one.”

“Don’t lie to me. Was it Dad?”

“It wasn’t Dad,” she said.

“Someone else then?”

There was a small pip of a sound, and Sophie turned toward the lake. I was not entirely surprised to see Pavati’s face emerge from the inky blackness—I had been imagining her so clearly just moments before. She folded her arms across her withered chest and tapped her fingers against her arms, making it clear that my presence was unwanted. Her face, yellow as the moon above her, squinted at me from the darkness, her eyes sunken in the sockets, her cheekbones protruding.

“I’ve always liked your sister better,” she said. “You’ve been problematic since the beginning.” She rose a few inches higher in the water, and her dark hair lay flat against her razor-sharp jaw and over her pointed shoulders.

I pulled at the back of Sophie’s pj’s, trying to get her to retreat, but she must have been transfixed, because she refused to move.

“What do you want?” I asked, not wanting the answer because there was nothing I was willing to give her. “Are you here to kill us?” My body buzzed with a dark, prickly heat.

Pavati grimaced as she sensed my mood, and she looked away without a word. Sophie made an apologetic sound.

“Then what?” I asked, thankful that the sight of my terror repulsed her. Right now, it was my only weapon.

“Girl talk,” said Pavati through gritted teeth. She serpentined through the water in front of our dock, back and forth, in a fluid motion.

I took another step toward the house, pulling Sophie with me. Sophie tried to pry my fingers away.

Pavati closed her eyes and turned away from me in disgust. Sophie groaned, too, as Pavati said, “Would you please relax, Lily Hancock? You look disgusting. Deep breaths.”

She squinted at me again, then slammed her eyes shut like the doors to a vault. “God, I must have really scared you. I told you. I’m just here to talk. Your sister is hardly afraid.”

Sophie whispered, “Please, Lily. Just relax. It’s okay. Pavati is my friend.”

Pavati looked over her shoulder at me and turned around with a thin smile as my anxiety turned to a less repellant aura of confusion. “Why are you here?” I asked. “What do you want with Sophie?”

Pavati stopped swimming and laid her arms flat on the top of the water. “Based on what I’ve known about your sister, and based on what I saw of your talents last week, you two might be exactly what Maris needs.”

“I don’t follow. Why are you here?”

She sighed as if I were being unbelievably obtuse. “Mermaids need family, Lily Hancock. We’ve lost fifty percent of ours. Looks like you’re our key to gaining our brother back.”

“That’s not what we were—” Sophie said, but Pavati cut her off with a look.

“I don’t have any influence over Calder that way. He’s pretty stub—”

“I mean our other brother,” Pavati said quickly.

I set my jaw and ground my teeth. If she thought I was going to turn over my father, she must have short-term memory loss.

“Easy, girl,” said Pavati. “Let me put it this way. Your skills as Halfs have me wondering about him. You say he isn’t hunting. I’ll take you at your word.”

I swallowed hard, wishing I could just as easily accept that as the truth.

Pavati continued, “But is he … normal?”

“Define ‘normal.’ ”

“Once Maris explained the truth to me about your father, I naturally assumed,