Swans Landing #1 - Surfacing (29 page)

Josh held her against him, squeezing as she fought to break free. “Sailor, stop!” he shouted in her ear.

Sailor stopped squirming, but her gaze was locked on me. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she panted through her bared teeth. “It’s not fair,” she said, her voice thick with a sob. “Ever since she got here, she’s messed everything up. First she took Dylan from me and then you and then Grandma.”

I stood, rubbing at the scratch across my cheek from her nails. “You drove everyone away,” I told her.

Her body went limp in Josh’s arms, her head falling forward. I didn’t realize she was crying until I heard her sniffle. “I want to go back,” she said. “I want my mom back. I want everything to be like it was in Grandma’s pictures, before all of this happened.”

I choked down the lump that Sailor’s words caused in my own throat. I wanted that too, more than anything else. The one person of our group unaffected by death, the one person who could maybe be strong enough to hold us all together, was the one person we had all managed to drive away.

“Come on, Sailor,” Josh said to her in a soft voice. “Let’s go home, okay?”

She nodded, keeping her head hung low.

I led the way back through the forest while Josh walked with Sailor at his side. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that Sailor was Josh’s sister. Half-sister. It seemed that I would be forever destined to have my life entwined with Sailor’s, as long as both of us held a connection to Josh.

I saw the group sitting outside Moody’s Variety Store about a second before they spotted us. My feet shuffled along the ground when I hesitated, uncertain whether to turn back or keep going. But I had Josh with me and his presence gave me strength, so I held my shoulders back and continued walking, bridging the distance between us.

“Hey look,” Elizabeth said to her friends, “I think the new girl is in need of another Diet Coke shower.”

Jackie and the other two giggled behind her, taking loud slurps from their own drinks. Jim, the old man from the store, sat nearby in his wooden chair, polishing his harmonica on his shirt as he looked at us over the fire blazing in the old metal barrel. Mr. Connors sat next to him, scratching his beard and watching our approach.

“It’s a public street,” I snapped. “So move aside unless you want another fat lip to match the one you’ve already got.”

Elizabeth’s face twisted into an ugly sneer at me. “Hit me again and I’ll see to it that you’re never welcome back into school,” she threatened. She looked over my shoulder at Josh and Sailor, and her expression tightened. “What are you doing with them, Josh?”

“We’re just passing through,” Josh told her. “Let us by and we’ll leave you alone.”

She stared incredulously at him. “Have you forgotten what we’re fighting for? They killed your father.”

“Then it’s my fight, not yours,” he said in a calm voice. “Let us pass.”

Elizabeth glared at us for a long time, her fingers clenched around her drink. She drew her arm back slightly and I braced myself for the impact of the ice and liquid.

“You throw that drink and don’t expect you’ll get another one for free,” Jim growled. He played a few notes on his harmonica. “I ain’t giving away drinks for y’all to waste. So don’t throw it unless your daddy is willing to buy you another one.”

Mr. Connors’s eyes moved over us slowly, scrutinizing. “How’s your mother, Josh? I heard she had a real bad spell recently. At the Westray house, I believe it was.”

I hadn’t planned to tell Josh about his mom screaming in our front yard. I didn’t think it was something that would make him feel any better about her condition.

“She’s fine,” Josh said in a tight, controlled voice. I could hear the hurt in his tone and I regretted not telling him.

“Yes, well,” Mr. Connors said, frowning deeply and rubbing at his chin, “your mama was such a different woman back before your daddy died. One of the brightest and funniest women on the island. She had so many dreams for the future. But when your daddy died...” He paused and shook his head. “I’m sorry. I meant when your daddy was
murdered
.” His venomous gaze slid to Sailor and then me. “Well, you see what your mama is now, don’t you?”

His tone indicated the words he didn’t say. That Josh should hold a personal vendetta against our kind for taking his parents away from him. That he should be the one to fuel the fire that the people like Mr. Connors had held against the finfolk all these years for him.

I waited for Josh to say something, my muscles tensed and ready to react at a moment’s notice. Elizabeth still held her drink in a raised threat, smiling smugly at me from the protection of her circle. Somewhere in the distance, a bird’s shriek shattered the silence.

“We’re just trying to get home,” Josh said.

“You heard him, girls,” Jim barked. “Let them by. Come back with your guitar if you want to play tonight, Josh.”

Elizabeth dutifully stepped aside and her friends followed suit. I kept my gaze locked on hers as I walked by, my fists clenched at my sides.

When we had turned the corner toward Sailor’s house, I finally said what had been eating at me during the entire exchange.

“Why didn’t you tell them you’re finfolk too?” I demanded, whirling around to face Josh.

He blinked at me, hugging Sailor to his side. “My mom has hated the finfolk ever since she found out about my dad’s affair. She blames them for his death. She always told me that if anyone knew, they would treat me the same way they do the others.”

“So living a lie is better than admitting the truth?” I asked.

Josh let out a long sigh. “The truth isn’t easy.”

“No kidding,” I said. “But after all the secrets people have kept from me lately, I can say honestly that having the truth out there is better than constantly wondering what is real and what isn’t.” Anger began to bubble up inside me as I thought about all the many lies and half-truths people had told me. Not just since my arrival in Swans Landing, but since the day my mom had taken me away long ago. “You’re living a half-life. You walk around here every day with people like Elizabeth, pretending to be one of them. You let them say whatever they want about people like us and you do nothing to stop it.”

“It would crush my mom if people knew the truth,” Josh protested.

Who was this person standing in front of me? I felt as if I’d never even really known him at all. There was the Josh who had spent secret hours with me at Pirate’s Cove, and then the mask Josh presented to the rest of the world.

Which one was real?

How would things have been different if Josh’s dad had never died? Mom might have stayed in Swans Landing and let me grow up living on both land and water. Josh’s secret might have been known by everyone all along. And where would that have led us? My head spun the with the possibilities, the what-ifs that would never have an answer.

That first day we’d met, his eyes had issued a challenge to me. Since then, I had thought that the challenge was stepping over my own boundaries and being with him, convincing him to leave with me.

But now I realized that I’d gotten it entirely wrong. The challenge wasn’t getting closer to him.

It was walking away.

“I won’t live a lie anymore.” My voice trembled slightly as I spoke, but I sucked in a deep breath, the smell of the salt in the air giving me strength.

“Mara,” Josh said, his features crinkling into a painful scowl.

“Good-bye, Josh,” I said. Then I turned around and ran through the fading sunlight, painfully closing the last door on my connection to Josh.

Chapter Thirty-Four

I burst through the front door of Lake’s house, my body alive with the need to move and dive deep into the salty water. I would pack up everything I wanted to keep with me and then I would be gone before night fell completely. With my faith in Josh now gone, there was nothing else to hold me here. I was sorry that I would leave with Dylan angry at me, but apologizing to him would only delay the inevitable. And I couldn’t stand to waste another minute on good-byes.

But the scene that awaited me in Lake’s living room made me skid to a stop inside the front door. Lake sat in a chair and stared evenly at me, his hands planted firmly on his knees. Across from him sat Mr. Richter on the faded couch, drinking a glass of tea.

“Mara,” Lake said, “do you care to explain why you left school early today and skipped your appointment with Mr. Richter, without my permission?”

The sight of Mr. Richter in Lake’s house had me stunned into silence. I shook my head, trying to regain my composure.

“It is vitally important that you keep your meetings with me, Mara,” Mr. Richter said as he set his glass down on the battered coffee table. “You are too impulsive, too emotional and this can lead you into doing stupid, even dangerous things. I truly believe that you could benefit from some structured guidance and counseling.”

“I agree,” Lake said.

They were ganging up on me, making decisions about my life without my input, just like everyone had done since the moment I was born. The anger I’d felt from my encounter with Elizabeth and then my fight with Josh had now turned into a boiling rage inside me.

“Do either of you care about a thing I have to say?” I asked. “I’ve tried to explain my side of the situations, but no one listens. You find a way to blame everything on me and expect me to be the one to make all the apologies.”

Lake stood and took a step toward me. “You don’t think before you act. You can’t go around punching everyone in the face whenever you feel like it. You can’t run away from your problems because you don’t feel like talking to someone at the time.” He ran a hand through his messy hair and sighed. “Honestly, Mara, I don’t know what to do with you. I don’t know how to get through to you.”

“The reason I run away is because I am exactly like
you!
” I snapped. “Instead of coming after Mom and me, and trying to figure out a way to make everything work, you chose to hide from it all.”

“We’ve discussed this,” Lake said in a low voice. “I couldn’t leave the island. You won’t be able to leave the ocean either now that you’ve been in it. It will kill you to be too far inland, wait and see.”

“You could have left any time you wanted!” I shouted, causing him to flinch. “
You
made the decision to stay and let us go.”

Mr. Richter stood, holding up his hands as he walked toward me. “I think these are feelings that you both could benefit from talking about in a rational manner. It’s clear that there are some deep-seated emotions about this matter—”

I let out a growl of frustration. “I’m not interested in talking about anything!” I pressed my fingers into my temples, squeezing my eyes shut. “Just leave me alone, all of you. No one here has ever once been totally honest with me since the moment I arrived. I don’t want to talk, I don’t want to listen, and I don’t want anything to do with any of you ever again.”

“Mara—”

I wasn’t sure who had called my name, maybe both of them, but I didn’t pause to find out. The door slammed with so much force behind me that the house shuddered, the windows rattling. I stumbled down the stairs, almost falling headfirst down the last few before I caught my balance.

The cold air seeped deep into my lungs as I ran down the street, the fuzzy lights from houses and the stars overhead blurring in my vision. Hot tears trickled a path down my cheeks and the ocean’s call was a deafening roar in my ears. I nearly ran over someone during my sprint down Heron Avenue, but I didn’t stop to see who it was or offer any apologies. It didn’t matter anyway.

My time in Swans Landing had come to an end.

My feet propelled me on their own, straight toward the crashing waves on the beach just beyond the shops that lined the street. I could hear nothing except the call of the ocean, pulling me toward home. Every moment I stayed on land was a moment closer to drowning on the air I breathed.

Only the dim light of the quarter moon above lit the beach near the creaking pier. I found the abandoned store with its boarded up windows and climbed over the gate. The pier swayed a little in the water, groaning as waves crashed against it. I walked as far toward the broken end as I dared and kicked off my boots. The breeze blew my hair back from my face and I looked out at the black water that surrounded me.

Memories flooded my mind as I shivered. Mom and me, laughing as we watched TV together, eating too much popcorn and painting our toenails crazy colors. Every birthday party I’d ever had, when she’d go all out to give me the best day I could possibly have to make up for the fact that the one thing I wanted—the one person I wanted there most—would never show up. The lazy summer days we spent camping in a tent at the lake, telling ghost stories and our hopes for the future. All the days when I thought my life was normal. When I thought I was normal.

Then different memories filled my head. Dylan’s friendly smile. Sailor’s rolling eyes. Miss Gale’s warm hug. Josh’s kisses that left me breathless.

And Lake. Lake’s awkward embrace that first day at the ferry dock. His burned pancakes. Crab pots in the Pamlico Sound. His seashell picture in Josh’s room.

It would be easy to push it all aside and say that my time here had meant nothing. Just a blip in the timeline of my life. But Swans Landing and its people had changed me. They had awoken me to this new life and given me the chance to finally take control of my own path in it.