Fantasy Life (45 page)

Daray!

She kept her hand upward, felt the water go down to her
wrist. Then she brought her hand down and pushed herself up, like a kid trying to chin herself on monkey bars.

Her head burst through the water, slamming into the ceiling again, but she didn’t care. She took a breath of icy air and panted, glad for the oxygen, glad to be alive.

She was shivering—much too cold to make it long. The ocean was too cold for people without wet suits.

Too cold and too powerful.

She frowned, thinking that the water felt like water, and realizing suddenly that that was odd. It should have been slightly thicker. She should have felt the oil on the surface, just like she had been feeling it for the past few days.

The wind continued to howl, but the water was draining. It had receded to her shoulders, and she didn’t have to hold herself up any longer. She could tread water if she wanted to, but she didn’t. She didn’t want to tire herself. She had no idea if another wave would come.

She propelled herself, hand over hand, toward the window, and looked out. The moon had returned, which she hadn’t expected, casting a thin light on the ocean before.

The ocean was phosphorescent again, the white, foaming surface of the waves glowing in the moonlight. The surf seemed outrageously high, and it came all the way to the base of the wayside. Water poured off the concrete parking lot as if it were part of a waterfall, draining into the sea.

The cars were gone, and so were the lights. She couldn’t see the people either.

And to her right—movement. She looked, saw something she had never seen before, at least not outside of television news reports.

A funnel rising out of the water, black and dark and thick, whirling, whirling away from her. At first she thought it was a cloud, and then she realized it was the oil.

Oil, floating away, as if it had a place to go.

A place to dump it.

“Daray,” she whispered. But she didn’t send. She didn’t want him to feel her fear, not now, not when he might be behind this.

He probably thought she was safe at Arno’s far from the beach, high enough to be protected.

The water poured out suddenly, as if whatever was keeping it inside the building had moved. She flopped to the floor like a fish when the tide went out.

Her breath had been knocked out of her and she lay there for a moment, shivering in the cold.

But she hadn’t been hurt. She was all right.

She got up, her clothes squishing as she moved, the additional material a weight that she hadn’t expected. In vain, she reached behind the stall door, hoping against hope that her dress was still there, but of course it wasn’t.

So she sloshed toward the door, which was still open, and stepped outside.

The wind was even stronger here, but it no longer howled. The train-engine roar was gone, but there was still an underlying hum—the sound of the funnel, perhaps. She stepped around the concrete wall and stood in the rushing, ankle-deep water, somehow able to keep her balance.

The funnel still rose from the beach. Breezes caressed her, as if they were spun off from the greater wind that caused the funnel. She was alone in a parking lot that had been full not long before. She couldn’t see anyone else. No other cars, no people.

Not even Aluke, whom she had somehow thought indestructible.

She looked behind her, saw the empty highway, and several shattered buildings. The cinder-block bathhouse and the
elementary school were the only things inside of a mile still standing. Yet no debris was in the water that ran toward the ocean.

The ground had been cleared of all human contact—all but hers.

Her throat was dry. She was shaking, but not so much with the cold. Had Daray known where she was? She had found his mind earlier without his noticing. Had he found hers as well, protected her as best as possible?

The funnel rose, its end looking like a little tail, wagging in the breeze. The wind gust the funnel created slammed her into the building, then disappeared, like the last taunt of a bully.

Cassie remained against the cinder block, staring up at the clear night sky. The wind was gone again, everything was calm. The water dripped off the edge of the wayside, but there was no longer an ankle-deep rush toward the ocean.

The waves were still angry, still high, but they weren’t coming in as deep. The ocean was receding into itself, returning to normal, as if the last few days had never been.

Making it as if the accident had never happened.

She blinked, colder than she had been in her life. She stepped forward, hoping she would find someone else alive, when the wind kicked once more.

Only this time, it came to her from the ocean, a powerful gust carrying something in it. The something whirled like a leaf trapped in a breeze.

And the gust let up, and the something dropped out of the sky, landing with a thud in front of her.

It was a body.

She crouched, her breathing shallow again, as if she knew before she actually saw. Her hands reached forward as if they belonged to someone else, her body moved with them, and she saw—

Daray, eyes closed, face so pale that it didn’t look like his anymore. His body was arched in an unusual position, his head turned awkwardly.

She touched his face. His skin was cold, too cold to be natural. His skin had always been warmer than hers—compensating, he said, for the lack of a pelt.

A shadow was on his neck, a scarf, something that made it dark. She touched it—

—and cried out.

Her fingers had found jagged flesh, a bit of cartilage, maybe bone. And cold. Deep cold.

He was dead. And bloodless. Completely drained. His throat cut, his blood pouring into the sea.

The storm had come like his father had predicted. Come, worse than ever. And Daray hadn’t listened to him.

Daray had saved Cassie’s beach, her home, just like she had wanted. Only not like this.

Not like this.

Daray! Daray!

But there was emptiness where her husband should have been—a coldness where there had once been heat.

Noooo,
she cried, and tumbled against him—against what was left of him, between the cinder block, the concrete, and the water trickling back to the sea.

Anchor Harbor Wayside

Grandma Cassie stood near the road, her back hunched, her mouth open. She held a strand of hair in her right hand and twisted it like she couldn’t even feel the pain.

Emily bit her lower lip. Mommy had a grip on her hand, a tight grip, and Emily knew she wasn’t going to let go. Great-Grandma Athena was talking to the weird man who thought dead things were cool, talking about old history and oil and the
Walter Aggie.

Great-Grandma Athena kept saying it didn’t matter, and the weird man said it did, that the scientific evidence proved that it did, and Great-Grandma Athena said that science didn’t know everything, and the weird man was quoting something—
more things in heaven and earth, Horatio
—or something like that. Emily didn’t really pay attention.

She didn’t really care. What she cared about was Grandma Cassie, and nobody else seemed to.

Grandma Cassie looked like she had been stabbed in the heart, and Emily couldn’t tell why.

“Em?” her mother said.

“Look at Grandma,” Emily said.

But Mommy looked at Great-Grandma Athena, and Emily wanted to stop her, but she didn’t know how, without taking her gaze off Grandma Cassie. And Emily felt like if she stopped looking at Grandma Cassie, Grandma Cassie would fall over into the road and maybe even die.

“Your mom,” Emily said.

Mommy was still looking at Great-Grandma Athena though, and she started to say something, but Emily couldn’t hear it, because there was a big rushing noise in her ears.

Child. Daray’s granddaughter. Look at me.

Emily willed herself not to look. She kept staring at Grandma Cassie, who hadn’t moved.

Look at me.

Now Emily recognized the voice. It belonged to her greataunt, the selkie Roseluna that her Buckingham relatives hated, the woman who had tried to hurt her grandmother.

Emily let go of her mom’s hand and put her fingers in her ears.

Silly child. I’m not in your ears.

Emily almost looked. But she didn’t. Still, she could see sideways out of the corners of her eyes, see Roseluna standing next to the reporter lady that Mommy had yelled at.

Come with me, Emily. We need you. You’ll save us all.

“Emily?” Mommy crouched in front of her, blocking Emily’s view of Grandma Cassie, and put her hands on Emily’s shoulders. “Emily, are you okay?”

Emily craned around her, trying to see Grandma Cassie, but she couldn’t. For a minute, she thought Grandma Cassie had disappeared.

Emily, please. Come with us. All that magic they don’t want you to use, all those things that are part of you, belong with us.

“Emily, what’s wrong, honey?”

Great-Grandma Athena stopped talking to the weird man, and they stepped in front of her too.

Emily shook herself away from Mommy and started to run across the parking lot. Emily could see Grandma-Cassie now, swaying like she was in a great wind.

“Grandma!” Emily screamed, but Grandma Cassie didn’t seem to hear her.

Instead, Grandma Cassie toppled forward, hitting the concrete with a great smack. Emily ran faster, and now Mommy was beside her and Great-Grandma Athena too, and all the other people were looking and talking and pointing and giving orders.

Except Roseluna, who was watching Emily.

Come with me. No one will notice. Not right now.

And Emily couldn’t help it. She looked at Roseluna and felt a joy that she hadn’t felt before, a sense of belonging, of knowing who and what she was—

Then she tripped against a parking block and fell forward, skinning her knees. The pain made tears come to her eyes, but that feeling left. It hadn’t come from inside her anyway. It had come from Roseluna.

It’s how you’ll feel if you come with me.

Emily shook her head, then Mommy took her arm and said, “Baby, are you okay?” and Emily said no but Grandma’s worse, and Mommy helped her up and they all ran to Grandma Cassie’s side.

By the time they got there, Roseluna was gone.

But I’ll send for you,
she said as if she were getting far away.
When the time is right, we’ll be together. It’s the only way.

Emily wanted to tell her no, but she didn’t know how. And Emily was afraid that if she couldn’t say no, Roseluna would take her against her will, and she would go somewhere else and be something else, like Great-Grandma Athena thought she was, like everyone would know she was, if they found out she wasn’t totally human.

But neither was Mommy, and Mommy didn’t seem to hear it. She had a hold of Emily and was helping her up, and people were running to Grandma Cassie, and there was shouting about an ambulance, and that would make everything all right, right? Because it had to.

It had to.

Because Emily couldn’t take any more.

Anchor Harbor Wayside

Lyssa helped her injured daughter over to Cassie. Emily’s palms were scraped, even though she didn’t seem to notice, and her knees were bleeding. She limped as she walked, her eyes searching the crowd across the street as if she had seen a ghost.

Lyssa’s heart was pounding. Her mother lay in a crumpled heap on the curb, Gabriel beside her, his hand on her neck, checking her pulse. Lyssa’s mouth went dry.

What if Cassie was dead? What if her heart, stressed by that too thin frame, gave out? What would Lyssa do without her? She would have no one to push against, no one to worry about, no one to fear.

She reached Cassie’s side as Athena did.

“She’s alive,” Gabriel said.

Athena let out a sharp breath, like a sigh of relief. Lyssa reached for her grandmother’s hand, linking herself between her daughter and her grandmother, the circle of her family minus one.

“But I have no idea what caused this. I—”

Denne reached them, crouched beside Gabriel, and gave Cassie a quick examination. Lyssa watched him open her mother’s eyes, run his fingers along her face and neck, check her head for lumps. He also counted her pulse.

Lyssa had forgotten that coroners were real doctors too. They just practiced on the dead rather than the living.

“I think we can move her,” he said, his tone businesslike.

Lyssa stepped back, along with Athena and Emily. Denne and Gabriel picked up Cassie and lifted her into the parking lot.
Gabriel cradled her head as if she were his mother instead of Lyssa’s.

Emily was watching, eyes wide. Lyssa wrapped an arm around her, wondering if her daughter was remembering that horrible day when Reginald had died.

Lyssa hoped not. She didn’t want all of Emily’s thoughts of death to be connected to her father.

“What happened?” Denne asked Gabriel.

“Damned if I know,” he said. “I just saw her crumple to the ground.”

Athena’s expression mirrored Emily’s. Lyssa wouldn’t have thought that they resembled each other, but something in their eyes, in the way they held their bodies, made it clear that they were related.

“She been having health problems, Athena?” Denne asked.

“She doesn’t eat enough,” Athena said. “But she never did.”

“Yeah,” Denne said. “I would call her anorectic. Amazing she’s made it this long then. Prolonged starvation puts pressure on all the internal organs.”

“She’s not starving,” Emily said. “She just fainted.”

“It’s all right, honey,” Denne said. “I’ll call an ambulance—”

“No!” Emily said. “She doesn’t need one. She’s all right.”

Lyssa glanced at Athena, who shrugged.

“I don’t think we should discount what she says.” Athena spoke in a low tone.

Lyssa nodded, then put her hands on Emily’s shoulders. “What do you know, baby?”