Submerging (Swans Landing) (17 page)

“I thought I would join you today.” Domnall gave me his charming smile, which only made my stomach twist in nervousness. Whenever I was at the palace, I stayed in our suite as much as possible. I could feel Domnall watching me whenever I roamed around the halls or the grounds. He was always in the shadows or looking down at me from a balcony or window. He rarely spoke, just watched. If it wasn’t for Callum still being locked away in the palace, I would have left long ago.

Josh helped me into the boat, both of us ignoring Domnall’s outstretched arm. We had talked about Domnall’s watching me, and neither of us felt comfortable with him.

The boat rocked slightly as Artair rowed out into the bay. I kept my gaze focused on the crumbling homes that dotted the peninsula ahead of us, though I felt Domnall’s presence behind me. I knew if I looked over my shoulder, I’d find his blue eyes locked on me.

The boat slid into place next to the dock, and I climbed out as soon as it had stopped, not waiting for Artair to tie it off.

“I want to go in alone,” I said.

“But—” Josh started.

I shook my head, cutting him off. “It might be easier for her if only person is there at a time.” I knew Josh was getting impatient to ask his questions. But what would be the point? She wouldn’t remember anything anyway.

Josh and Domnall followed me toward the village. When I reached the door with the lily carved into it, I took a deep breath and then stepped through, knocking softly as I entered.

Mama sat at her desk again in front of the window, only this time she wasn’t bent over the papers in front of her. She sat straight in her wooden chair, her hands clasped together in her lap and her face turned toward the window. Through the glass, she had a great view of the ocean. White-capped waves rippled across the surface far offshore and birds dove and arced through the air above the water. The ever present mists rolled toward the horizon.

“Mama?” I knelt next to her, putting a hand gently on hers. The warmth and solidness of her body gave me comfort. She was thin, and the skin of her face hung loose and dull. But she was here and not an image created by the finfolk song. If I looked closely, I could see her resemblance to Grandma. They had the same wide blue eyes and curving nose.

She didn’t look away from the window, but she spoke. “I think I’ll go swimming today,” she said. “I haven’t been in a long time.”

I couldn’t tell if she knew where she was. Or even what day it was.

“Maybe down by the pier,” she went on. “I always like jumping off the end.” She laughed. “Sometimes I do it when the tourists are fishing. It always startles them.”

My shoulders slumped. She was obviously still confused. The pier she spoke of was probably the Swans Landing Pier, which had been broken during a hurricane ten years ago and never repaired. No one fished there anymore, not that many tourists even came to our island at all these days. Not like they used to, in Grandma’s stories about the old days, before my father died and before everything changed.

“Mama, it’s me,” I said gently. “It’s Sailor. We’re not in Swans Landing, we’re in Hether Blether. Do you remember coming here?”

She turned her head toward me, blinking slowly as if trying to focus on my face. “Sailor?” she asked, her brow wrinkling. “That’s a pretty name.”

I smirked. “You should think so, you gave it to me.”

Mama suddenly sat up, shuffling the papers on her desk into a messy stack. “I forgot I have to work at the store today. Daddy is expecting me.”

She stood and walked across the room to an old wardrobe, pulling open the door and pushing through the couple of robes that hung inside. They were old and shapeless, much like the brown one she wore.

“Mama,” I said. “It’s okay. You’re not working today.”

But she didn’t listen as she searched through the clothes again. “I promised Daddy I would work there this summer,” she said. “He was so happy when I said I would.”

It was strange to hear her speak of her father. I knew Jim Moody was my granddaddy and I knew he loved Grandma. But he had never spoken of my mother to me and Grandma never mentioned him except when she talked about the variety store he owned and where she worked sometimes. Jim—I had never been able to call him Granddaddy—rarely ever spoke to me.

Mama seemed to have already lost this train of thought and she returned to her desk, sitting down and sorting through her papers. They were drawings, mostly of the ocean or trees or birds. I stood next to her and gently touched her shoulder as she shuffled through each sheet. She didn’t flinch or move away at my touch, so I left my hand there to feel some kind of connection to her, even if she didn’t know who I was.

When she moved one paper to the back of the stack, the drawing on top made me gasp. It was the narrow strip of beach at Pirate’s Cove, back in Swans Landing. The beach was accessed by a narrow path that wound through the forest of live oak trees on the southern end of the island. It was small and mostly overlooked by anyone who didn’t know Swans Landing well. It was the only place where finfolk could swim without being seen by anyone else.

“You remember,” I said to my mother. I pointed to the picture. “You know this place.”

“Pirate’s Cove,” she said. She stared down at the drawing in her hand, her mouth turned into a frown. “I used to go swimming with him there. It was our special spot.”

My heart pounded against my ribs. My knees threatened to buckle and give out. I eased myself down until I squatted next to her. Did I dare ask her the question on my tongue? I didn’t want to push her, but I had to make some progress.

“Mama, do you remember what happened to Oliver Canavan?” I asked.

“He...” Mama’s mouth trembled. “I didn’t mean...He shouldn’t have been there.”

“What happened?” I asked gently. “Please, Mama, it’s important. Can you remember what happened the night Oliver died?”

Mama’s eyes turned toward me. They were wide and her face was pale. “Oliver is...dead?” she asked in a small voice.

“Mama—”

But already her eyes had taken on the vacant look. She shook her head, whipping her hair back and forth. “No. No, no, no!”

At her shout, the door burst open and Josh ran into the room. He skidded to a stop, staring down at my mother. She still sat in the chair at the desk, but now she was shaking violently and screaming “No!” over and over.

“Mama!” I said, trying to reach for her. She shrieked and backed away from my grasp, knocking the chair over as she stumbled to her feet. She backed into the corner, still shaking and screaming.

“Sailor, don’t,” Josh said when I started toward her. He looked at Mama, his lips pressed into a tight, white line. “Ms. Mooring?”

Mama’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her face paled, then she broke into a wide smile. “Oliver,” she said, reaching toward Josh. “I found it, like you said.”

Josh swallowed hard. “Ms. Mooring, my name is Josh Canavan. I’m Oliver’s son.”

Confusion flitted across Mama’s face. “Oliver?” she asked.

“He died,” Josh said softly. “A long time ago.”

Mama crumpled to the floor, pressing her hands against her face. She let out a wail of, “No! No! No!”

I knelt next to her, but Mama batted at me wildly, scratching my arms with her ragged nails.

“We should leave,” Josh said, pulling me to my feet.

“But she’s needs help,” I said.

Josh shook his head. “We can’t help her right now.”

I let him lead me out of the room. I grabbed the drawing of Pirate’s Cove off the desk and folded it quickly until it was small enough to hide in my fist.

Domnall waited for us outside the hut, looking unconcerned even though we could still hear Mama’s shouting.

“Do you understand yet what the human world does to finfolk?” Domnall asked, his gaze locked on me.

I walked past him without answering.

“There is a reason we choose banishment for those who commit the unpardonable crimes,” Domnall went on. I heard the crunch of his footsteps on the sandy ground behind me. “The human world kills us, slowly or quickly, it does not matter. It always ends like this. Your mother is proof of this. You see what she is now. That is what the taint of humans has done to her. It is what they will do to us here in Hether Blether, unless we can stop it.”

I spun around to face him. “What about me?” I asked. “What about Josh? We’re not like that. Callum isn’t like that. What does that mean to your theory about the human taint?”

Domnall stared evenly at me, despite my outburst. “Callum has only been in the human world for five years. You and your brother are also fairly young. Perhaps you have not yet succumbed to the destruction that world is doing to you.”

“Humans didn’t do this,” Josh said. “Something else happened to make her like that. Maybe something you did, for all we know.”

“She was found in that condition sixteen years ago,” Domnall said. “I have had my best people of medicine tend to her, yet nothing has changed. She is not the only one. There are records of others, in the palace archives. Another like your mother arrived years ago when I was a young boy. This woman had come from your world and found her way to ours. She also was disturbed, as your mother is. The human world is not the place for our kind. We have to stop their spread from reaching Hether Blether.”

I squeezed my fist where I had hidden Mama’s drawing. “I’m not helping you find and destroy my home.”

Domnall laughed. “I do not want to destroy it, I assure you. I only want to protect our people before they become ill.”

“No one is sick!” I shouted.

“Have you never known anyone else who behaves the way your mother does?” Domnall asked.

I stopped and turned to face him. My gaze met Josh’s over Domnall’s shoulder. We both knew someone else who behaved like that—Josh’s mother.

But Domnall’s reasoning still didn’t make sense. Mrs. Canavan wasn’t finfolk. She was human, and she hated the finfolk. She would have been happy to see all of us leave Swans Landing.

Domnall looked between us, his face grave. “It is not only your people who are at risk. Hether Blether itself is dying.”

Josh and I turned toward Domnall. “What?” Josh asked.

“What do you mean?” I asked.

Domnall’s expression was unchanged. “I mean exactly what I said. Without the protection that has divided us from the human world for countless centuries, Hether Blether will cease to exist as we know it. The infection that has affected your mother’s mind will spread to the finfolk here, as well as the ones in your world. The finfolk race is dying out. And if we do nothing, our kind will not survive.”

He stepped forward, holding his hands out toward me, palms up. “I come to you not as a king, but as a man asking for your help.”

“We’re not doctors. We have no special magic to put the protection back in place.”

“You are wrong,” Domnall said. “Every finfolk who sings the song can put the protection back and chase away the taint in this land. It is a song of rebirth, and it can be used to make us new and remake Hether Blether. You can help by telling me where the others like you are. If we can bring them back, we can save Hether Blether and all of the finfolk people.” He stepped back, dropping his hands, his expression solemn. “The choice is yours.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Callum stood near the slit of a window, balancing himself on his leg, when I entered his room.

“Feeling better?” I asked. He certainly looked better. Color had returned to his face and he was gaining back some weight already.

“I’d be better if I could breathe in the salt air through more than this tiny window,” he said. “Finfolk aren’t meant to be kept away from the sea, even ones who aren’t really finfolk anymore.”

Once a finfolk knows the salt water, it’s impossible for him or her to leave it for long.

“Why can’t you change?” I asked as I sat down on the corner of the mattress, wrapping my arms around myself. I was grateful for the chance to think about something other than my mother.

Callum hesitated, then worked his way toward the mattress, steadying himself against the wall as he hopped.

“Part of my punishment was that I would lose the ability to swim like I once had,” he said. He gestured toward his leg. “This apparently wasn’t enough for Domnall. He had to take away all chances of my return.”

I gulped at the realization that Domnall had cut off Callum’s leg. “But how? How is it possible to make you not finfolk?”

“I am still finfolk. What I said before about not being finfolk is not technically true. I can still sing and I need to be near the ocean to survive. But I can no longer change form. Not that changing would do me much good, considering I would be incomplete without my leg. But as to how it is possible, it is done with a song.”

I raised my eyebrows, remembering the finfolk healing the woman on the beach. “You mean by combining the songs of earth and water into one?”

Now Callum looked surprised. “How do you know about that? I did not think your people had retained much of the ancient knowledge.”

“We didn’t,” I said. “At least, I’ve never heard of anyone doing it back home. But I saw some people heal a woman on the beach a few days ago.”