brother. It was only a matter of time. All I knew for sure was that we were back to where we started, and I had run out of good options. There was no one left to blame.
My fingers rubbed nervously at the beach glass around my neck. It heated at my touch and gave me comfort. I’d wanted to ask Calder about it since our confrontation with Maris and Pavati on Oak Island, and even more so since he told me the story of Maighdean Mara’s three daughters, but I’d been afraid he might make me give the pendant back to Maris, and it was my last connection to Dad.
Still, now, in the silence, seemed as good a time as any for the inevitable. “What do you know about my pendant?”
Calder glanced down at it and furrowed his brow. He looked at the water in front of us and said, “I never saw it in real life until you and I were on our way back up here, but I’ve seen it plenty of times in Maris’s memories. It was our mother’s. She was a direct descendant of Maighdean Mara’s daughter, Namid. I don’t know how you came to have it.”
“I told you. It was a graduation present. Dad said Grandpa gave it to him, to give to me.”
“Yes, but how is it that Tom Hancock had it?”
I didn’t know the answer to that. “I think your mother is in the glass,” I said.
“She’s not in the glass. I know where she is.”
“I don’t mean literally, I mean … I think she’s with me, somehow. If I’m afraid, she calms me. She’s what drew me to the water … the day Maris attacked. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. She made me go in.”
“You think my mother set up an ambush?”
“That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying—if I had to guess—I think she’s glad we’re home. When she called me into the lake, I think she was calling me all the way home.”
Calder pulled me in front of him, wrapping his warm arms around me as he steered the boat. The early-evening air was clean and cool on my face.
“That’s how I feel when I’m with you,” he said. “All the way home. And I don’t want to give you back, either.”
I leaned against him, letting him support me. My lids grew heavy. Each time I opened my eyes, the sun seemed to have lunged farther across the sky. By the time we pulled into the marina, the light was fading to purple.
“Do you think Maris knew Maighdean Mara was dead?” I asked, breaking the silence as Calder finished tying the dock lines at the Pettits’ slip. “Do you think she was mad about me having the pendant and she was tormenting us with a big wild-goose chase?”
“I don’t think so,” he said grimly.
I looked at my fingers. My nails were lined in a dark, chalky substance. Traces of Maighdean Mara—a mystical creature reduced to gritty residue. “Neglect is a terrible thing,” I said, holding my hand out in front of me.
“Yes,” he said.
“It’s scary. None of us is meant to be alone. It was a mistake for you to leave your sisters.”
“No. I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but that’s not one of them.”
“You said yourself you couldn’t make it on your own. That you just wandered aimlessly, and when you did search for something, you searched for family.”
“I have a new family now.”
“Mine? Look at us. Right now, the epitome of neglect. I’ve seen my dad once in the last three weeks, and that one time he was saying goodbye.”
“He’s around. You know he’s around. He’ll come home as soon as he can manage.”
“You’re missing my point.”
“What’s the point, Lily?” He reached for my hand and helped me step from the boat to the dock. We held hands as we walked slowly, defeatedly, back to the car.
“Your sisters are neglecting their natures, and they’re near death. Now Maighdean Mara”—I pulled my hand free and held it up before he could interrupt me—“I have no idea how great she once was, but now there is nothing left of her. Neglect, Calder. It’s a destructive thing.”
“Where’d you hear all that?”
“Father Hoole told me … that day you saw us talking … the day Jules and everyone showed up. But listen to what I’m saying. This senseless killing, it comes from somewhere. It comes from hurt. It comes from some great neglect.”
“We’ve all been neglected at some point.