A Fierce and Subtle Poison - Samantha Mabry Page 0,79

was standing, a good forty feet from what should have been the water’s edge, the surf crashed around my ankles and calves, at times rising nearly to my knees. The ground beneath me shifted and slipped.

Through the rain that cut down from the sky, I saw the white crests of waves beating their way toward me. I scanned the water for the pale limbs or puffed-up clothing of a little girl named Lina, floating all alone because I’d thrown notes and jumped over a wall. But there was no color, nothing out of the ordinary in this out-of-the-ordinary scene, just the hungry waves that gathered everything they could take back with them into the ocean.

I knew Lina was gone, lost to those greedy waters.

Celia pointed again, this time to a spot several yards down the beach. Isabel and her dad were standing apart, facing one another, in water that nearly reached their waists. Isabel was holding her father’s sleeve. Her mouth was up near his ear, her lips relaying a message. Her wet hair flew around both their heads.

I cried out to Celia to hang on as I began to stomp farther out into the water.

I watched as Dr. Ford lifted his free hand and placed it on the back of his daughter’s head in the effort to try to control the fluttering strands of her hair. Isabel dodged away from his touch. As she stumbled back, her head turned. It was obvious from her expression—collapsed, gray like the roaring storm clouds—that my coming after her had broken her heart. But she had to have known that’s what I’d do. She’d watched me. She’d known that ever since I was a kid, I’d been drawn to her house—to her. I wanted in, desperately. I wanted to make things right, bring light to her shadowed rooms, and pry her loose from the grip of an old curse.

And yet if I tried to save Isabel Ford—pulled her off this beach against her will and then went running through the forest gathering plants for her until I was ranting and covered in blisters—I would merely be one more person who controlled the curve of her life.

Isabel didn’t need a hero. She was saving herself, lifting her own curse, atoning for the Saras and the Marisols and the Linas, and all the other nameless disappeared girls.

Still, I took a step forward, toward Isabel, always toward Isabel, but my foot never found the ocean floor. I was under water; Celia was under water, panicked and thrashing.

The tides kicked and spun both of us, but I managed to fight back and break the surface. Gasping, I pulled Celia up by the armpits. Her head flew back and slammed against my chin. The impact stunned me, and Celia again slipped from my arms and fell back under the churning water. I plunged my hands into the chop and found fabric. I pulled and pulled, frenzied and desperate, but it was just the blanket. I’d lost Celia to the water. After all this, I’d let her fall right out of my hands.

Just then: a head broke the surface. Celia’s. It was followed by another. Isabel’s. Isabel was holding up Celia while her chin rested on top of the little girl’s head. Her forever-melancholy eyes closed slowly, opened slowly, with great effort. She wheezed, sucking strands of her hair, both black and chalk white, into her open mouth.

A sob broke from my chest—not just because Isabel was dying, but also because, out here in the great, wide ocean, she was so small. There needed to be more of her. She had the soul of a giant, and no one would ever know.

“Go!” Isabel tossed Celia to me and then turned. She took a gasping breath before half wading, half swimming back to her father.

This time, I did as Isabel commanded. I paddled back far enough to find semisolid footing and was able to lurch back toward the tree line with Celia in my trembling arms.

“I’m sorry,” I sputtered. “Celia, I’m sorry. Are you okay?”

Celia wasn’t listening. Her eyes were focused on the girl who had saved her.

I turned. Dr. Ford and Isabel were again facing one another. Isabel could hardly stand, her weight shifting on failing legs. Dr. Ford reached for her again, this time for her hand. Again, she dodged away, but instead of merely stumbling, she fell, sideways into the sea. Dr. Ford was quick. He caught his daughter’s wrist with both his hands and strained to