the results of his actions have put people on edge around here.” She pulled her arms through the dark water, drawing herself closer to me. “There’s no good hunting these days. Tomorrow’s the Fourth of July. There will be a lot of party boats on the St. Croix River. I’ve got a favorite spot just north of the Stillwater lift bridge. Lots to choose from. That should sustain me until I get to the Gulf.”
“Uh-huh.” I shuddered, trying to picture it. Clouds shifted and let the moonlight shine through, dappling the space between us. For a second, it made Maris almost pretty. Like she used to be.
I wondered when the emotional cravings would start for me, or if they would at all. I couldn’t imagine being miserable as long as Calder was with me. So far I felt nothing but awe and amazement.
“Calder says he didn’t change me. Was it you?”
Maris smirked and said, “No. You changed by yourself. Strange, that. I would have thought if it was going to happen, it wouldn’t have taken so long. But Calder was ridiculously slow when he started out.… Still, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a mermaid whose transformation skills were so delayed. Must be your diluted genetics. Hmmm. No ring,” she said, touching my throat. “I didn’t want to go before I knew my family was all right.”
“All right?” I sounded like an idiot, but I hoped her assessment meant I wasn’t so delayed to be stuck like this.
Reading my thoughts, she smiled apologetically. “All I ever wanted was for my family to be together. That’s what’s most important. Our family looks different today than it did a few months ago, but I can be flexible. No one can replace Tallulah, but Mother would want us to be together. You, your sister, your … dad.” The concept was obviously still difficult for her to grasp. “Calder, too. Oh, speak of the devil, here he comes.”
Calder’s dark hair streamed behind him as he swam a torpedo’s course toward my side. My anxiety subsided at the sight of him—transformed—his silver-sequined tail bending the water.
“Calder, it’s all right,” I said, repeating Maris’s assessment. “She’s just leaving.”
“I’m sure you’re not sorry to see me go,” Maris said, but he did not react to her goading. “Oh, that’s right. Lily, you’ll have to translate for us.”
“Ask her why you can’t change back,” Calder said as he pulled me to his side.
Maris appraised us with mocking eyes. “You two were made for each other. Slow and sentimental.”
“What did she say?” Calder asked.
“She says I’ll get faster with practice.” My blood cooled at the thought of having to practice that torture. Couldn’t I just stay in the lake forever?
“If you want,” Maris said, reading even the thoughts I didn’t intend for her to hear. “You’re welcome to join me.”
“Join you?”
“No,” Calder said in response to my question, and with a flash of his silver tail, he took a defensive position between me and Maris. “I won’t allow it.”
Maris shrugged and looked past Calder to me. “I can see you’re curious about the possibilities, Lily Hancock. I’ll be back in the spring. We can see how things are then.”
“What is she saying?” Calder asked.
I wished it were daylight so I could better read her expression. I said, “Maris misses her family.”
“I don’t know what she’s playing at,” Calder said, “but tell her she doesn’t fool me.”
“Calder misses you, too,” I said.
Both Calder and Maris twitched, and she leapt into the night air, bending into a back dive. We surfaced just in time for her black tail to slap the water and send a stinging spray into our faces. We watched the telltale signs of her path—the dark shadow, the disturbed current—until she was gone.
There was a moment of silence before I asked, “So what happens next?”
Calder didn’t answer, and I knew he was wondering the same thing. Would I ever regain my legs? Could I avoid the need to hunt? But when I turned to face him, he was taking in every detail of my new body. He smiled a closed-lip smile and said, “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more beautiful …”
He pulled me against his body and took me under the waves, our tails entwining, feathery flukes undulating under us. His kisses were deeper, sweeter than ever before. His thoughts resonated in my mind. At first they were a mere vibration, a D string, a sonnet, and then they were a ballad, and the chorus was “I love you.”
MY SCRIBBLINGS
A Mermaid’s Love Song
She is fast, but he is faster
A million bubbles flying past her
as they stream through archipelago
moonlight sets the water’s edge aglow
Down they dive their arms entwined
like a fruitful, ample vine
To their castle, pale and green,
chasing their forbidden dreams.
—Lily Hancock, “Mermaid”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing a novel can make you feel a little crazy sometimes. While I was writing Deep Betrayal, Lily kept waking me up at night and telling me how things were supposed to go down. I’d say, “Really? Are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather …” This is where I get to thank all those people who told me to shut up and keep out of Lily’s way.
So here’s to you: Nina Badzin, Heather Anastasiu, Kristen Simmons, Deede Smith, Beth Djalali, the Minneapolis Writers Workshop, and Dave Meier for telling me that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.
Thanks to Jacqueline Flynn, Joëlle Delbourgo, Françoise Bui, Paul Samuelson, Sonia Nash, Random Buzzers, Kathleen Eddy, Holly Weinkauf, Amy Oelkers, Pamela Klinger-Horn, and Rachel Bongart and to YA book reviewers, bookstores, librarians, book clubs, and readers everywhere who love Calder and Lily as much as I do and who forgive them their mistakes.
Thanks to the Apocalypsies for all your support, guidance, Thursday-night chats, and crude jokes.
Special shout-outs to the kids in my life who have provided inspiration along the way, especially: Sammy, Matt, Sophie, Zach, Marie, Kelly, Andreas, and Sam.
Finally, my gratitude to Greg, without whose love I wouldn’t know what to write.
COMING IN
SPRING 2014!
Don’t miss the conclusion of Lily
and Calder’s gripping story in
Promise Bound
ANNE GREENWOOD BROWN (annegreenwoodbrown.com) lives in Minnesota with her husband and three children. She has worked as a lawyer, a teacher, a bartender, a ski instructor, and a chicken farmer. More than anything, she loves to tell stories. Deep Betrayal is the sequel to Lies Beneath.
Table of Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
1: No Coward Soul
2: Exiled
3: Blue
4: Chicken
5: Reunion
6: Truth
7: Negotiation
8: Bayfield
9: Serious
10: Defiance
11: Naked
12: Date Night
13: Fight
14: Discovery
15: Hammock
16: News
17: Preparation
18: Camping
19: Concentrated Time
20: Father’s Day
21: Eavesdropper
22: Bound
23: Witness
24: Confession
25: Worms
26: Bait
27: Dead End
28: Convinced
29: Cornucopia
30: Myth
31: Lair and Liar
32: Coyote
33: Neglect
34: Defeat
35: Accident
Acknowledgments
About the Author