Deep Betrayal

chapter 13

FIGHT



We were some of the last to arrive at Oleson’s barn. I recognized a few faces from the party I’d gone to at the Pettits’ awhile back. I also saw the parish priest, Father Hoole, and a bit later, Mrs. Boyd, with whom I tried not to make eye contact. Jack made it to the movie, too, though he was clearly there against his will. He scowled at the ground and leaned against an outbuilding that looked as beaten down as he did.

Practically the whole town turned out. Multiple generations gathered together, talking, laughing, turning bratwursts on a grill. I tried to ignore the strange looks and turning heads or, when that failed, hoped they were gawking at Calder’s usual conversation-stopping good looks and not at me.

I smiled nervously at several mothers who were spreading out their family blankets, overlapping theirs with friends’ to create large, quilted continents. We’d have to act quickly to claim our territory; the center areas had already been staked out.

“Why are there so many little kids here?” I asked. “It’s an R-rated movie.”

“They’re just here for the ice cream,” said Calder. “They’ll all be asleep before it’s dark enough to start the movie. Okay, over here.” He towed me to an open patch of lawn in a circle of light cast by a floodlight that was mounted on a pole and swarmed by moths. The side of the barn was covered in king-sized white bedsheets, sewn together and stretched taut. I chewed my lip.

“Are you nervous being here with me?” Calder asked, taking Gabby’s quilt from my arms and laying it flat on the lawn. “It’s okay if you are,” he said. “I’m kind of nervous, too.”

“What are you nervous about?” I asked.

“Crowds give me a headache. If it wasn’t going to be dark soon I wouldn’t bother to come. Besides, don’t you feel like the whole world is looking at us?”

“Ugh. If they are, I hope they’re focused on you. I look ridiculous.”

“You are intoxicating.”

I blushed and buried my head in my hands. “It’s Gabby’s fault.”

“She did a good job,” he said, uncovering my face, “although I do miss your style.”

“Are you talking about the clothes, or am I not my normal color again?”

“Now that you mention it, both.”

I didn’t know what to say to that, particularly because he frowned when I mentioned the changes he saw in me. We sat in awkward silence for what seemed like hours. Alone, I could have told him almost anything, but I couldn’t put two words together when I felt so on display.

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before someone decided it was dark enough to start the movie and killed the outdoor lights. The town took their seats and obediently fell silent, with the exception of someone’s baby. The little kids were already sleeping. The air was thick with bug spray. The movie projector flickered, then projected the image of a young girl onto the side of the barn.

I watched as the girl made the rookie horror-movie mistake of separating herself from the group. She ran by a dark, weather-worn fence that looked strangely like the skeletal remains of a large fish. A boy chased her, and she teased, stripping off her clothes—piece by piece. I’m going swimming, she said. Normally, I’d make some crack about How stupid can you get? But considering my recent run-in with Maris, I was in no place to judge.

The girl swam naked out into the ocean, too far from shore, the da-dum music working its way into the audience’s collective psyche. I wished the girl could hear the music. Maybe she’d turn back.

Calder sighed. I glanced over to see if he was all right. His profile was a beautiful line that I wanted to run my finger along, letting it bump over his lips, which were slightly parted now. Maybe he would slip his hand behind me. He could lean in and kiss me. I imagined his hand going to my neck, and then my sigh as he lay me back on the lucky blanket, his weight pressing down on me, his knee between my legs. The crowd disappearing …

I bit down on my bottom lip and imagined its softness between his teeth.

But Calder paid no attention to me. He was focused on the swimming girl, watching her warily, holding his breath. The shark jerked her under. The audience screamed. The girl’s eyes grew wide. And then she was pulled again. She rang the bell on the buoy. A flash of the shark. And she was gone. The water stilled. The boyfriend lay passed out on the beach.

Calder groaned. “That’s so fake. A great white would never act like that. They’re normally very sweet.”

“I think I’d need more convincing,” I said. “Those are some seriously scary teeth.”

He slipped behind me, letting me recline against his chest, and pulled the neckline of my blouse up, over my shoulders. “Teeth are the least scary thing out there,” he said, wrapping his arms tight around my waist, squeezing a little to make a point. The strength in his arms was sure and comforting.

“Terrifying,” I said as I settled in.

Sitting in the dark made me feel brave and excited. I wanted to test the boundaries. I wished Calder would. He couldn’t have thought I would push him away if he tried. But neither of us moved.

Calder’s legs flanked mine, which tingled at the contact, all my cells fizzing like mist on a power line. At first I thought my toes were falling asleep, so I adjusted my position, and bright white sparks snapped in the small spaces between us.

I leaned to my left so I could see his face and found him staring at me with those eyes that nearly glowed and drew me closer, those eyes that scared me a little because of what they confessed of his heart.

“Stay still,” he warned. “Or maybe a little distance would be better. It’s harder to control the electrical impulses when you’re close.”

“No, this is good,” I said. “Please stay.”

He pulled back anyway and flipped over to lie on his stomach. I followed his example, lying alongside him, my head resting on my arms. He wove our hands together, and the tingling that had once been in my toes bounced between my fingers.

“Sorry,” he said. “I hope that doesn’t hurt you.”

I shrugged. I’d always heard about sparks flying between people. With us it was a literal thing, and I didn’t mind that one bit. I kissed Calder’s fingers and looked up at the screen. The colored shapes of people moving across the side of the barn were like the inside of a kaleidoscope. The dialogue sounded like the inside of a seashell. I didn’t know if I was just that tired or if it was too much of a strain on my eyes to watch the movie from that angle, but I soon drifted off, dreaming about a boat loaded with friends as a bloodthirsty monster circled us.

Someone screamed. My dream? Somewhere else? The monster threw one black arm over the stern and slunk over the rail, slipping like an enormous leech onto the floor of the boat. I jumped back while someone braver than me pushed the long hair from the monster’s face: My face. Pale and freckled. Another, more beautiful, face pressed close, saying my name.

“Lily?”

I woke with a gasp as the credits ran and the outdoor lights flicked on. I’d missed the end. Had the monster eaten everyone? Did the hero kill the shark? Who was the hero again? Around me the whole town gathered up its lawn chairs and blankets, coolers and bug spray.

“It’s over,” Calder said. “You were really quiet. Did you fall asleep?”

“No,” I said unconvincingly. “It was great.”

“Definitely an unfortunate choice. A movie like that could really hurt tourism.”

Before I could respond to his joke, a cacophony of young, male voices erupted from behind the Porta-Potties. Calder glanced over and grimaced. “Oh! Oh, man. Come on. Let’s go.” He jumped to his feet and yanked at the corner of the blanket.

“What is it?” I asked, getting to my knees. I toppled over as he pulled the blanket out from under me.

“I got to get out of here,” he said. “Are you coming with me?” He grabbed my hand and pulled me up so fast my feet left the ground.

“Of course I’m going with you. What’s the hurry? What’s going on?” My mind was still groggy from my dream, and the ground seemed to shift and sway under my feet.

“Jack.” Calder pulled desperately at my arm, dragging me toward the car. He practically threw me into the passenger seat.

I turned around to look out the back window. I could see Jack. A group of guys I didn’t recognize surrounded him in a circle. One guy pushed Jack, and he staggered backward into the arms of another, who shoved him again. Jack spun around and threw the first punch. And then everyone was yelling and piling on top of Jack, who disappeared into the scrum. A couple of men came running up and pulled the pile apart.

“What’s going on?” I demanded of Calder. “What are they saying?”

Calder threw the car in reverse and peeled out of the gravel parking lot.

“That Pettit kid is getting on my last nerve,” he said through his teeth, his back hunched over the steering wheel. Despite everything Jack had done, that didn’t seem fair. He was the one getting his ass kicked.

Calder was still ranting. “He can’t keep his mouth shut. He’s going to start naming names. With me making such a public appearance, guess whose name will come up first.”

“No way,” I said, wondering what he’d heard that I’d missed. “Jack’s messed up, but he’s not sadistic.”

Calder shot me a scandalized look, and I thought of Tallulah.

“That was different,” I whispered. He took a corner too fast, and I fell against the window. “So you’re running away from Jack Pettit?”

Veins bulged in Calder’s temples, and his face flushed. “I’m not running!”

I tugged my seat belt tighter. “Okay. You’re not running. What’s Jack fighting with those guys about?”

“Same thing as before. The two kayak accidents from this week—”

“So you did hear about the kayakers.”

“How could I not?” he asked with an exasperated sigh. “Both of them reported seeing a dark shadow in the water and then bam, their kayaks turned over and they were pulled out. I expected Maris and Pavati to hunt, and I worried their grief would cause them to take too many lives in too short a time, but letting two kayakers get away?”

“I don’t understand. That’s a good thing, right?”

“Wrong,” Calder said. “The worst thing. Letting a target escape is sheer negligence.”

“You think because those kayakers have told their stories, Jack will have more fuel for his anti-mermaid crusade?”

Calder’s fingers gripped the steering wheel tightly. “That’s part of it. For now the other guys are still giving him crap. They’re calling him a freak back there. That’s what started the fight.”

“That’s good, then,” I said.

“For whom?” he asked, looking quickly at me, then back at the road.

That was a question I couldn’t answer. “You just said no one believes Jack.”

“Not yet, but it will take only one to get it started. It’ll be like before. At first, it’ll be curiosity. Some adventure seeker will come searching the caves. Then they’ll come with underwater cameras and sonar.”

“Be serious.”

Calder yanked the steering wheel hard to the right and hit the brakes. I fell forward into my seat belt, and my hand hit the dashboard.

“I couldn’t be any more serious. How can you ignore the facts?”

“Maybe life is better for me if I do,” I said grimly.

His eyes flashed emerald. “Don’t be a fool.”

“Don’t call me a fool!”

“We should have never come back to Bayfield,” Calder growled.

“You didn’t have to.”

His face darkened, and his eyes turned more menacing than I’d ever seen them before. For the first time, I could see the bleakness of his soul. It coiled and curled like smoke and eels in his darkening eyes. How was it that his mind could spiral into misery so quickly? It scared me that I wasn’t proving an effective talisman against his despair. Not now, anyway.

What scared me even more was the strange heat that pulsed through my own chest. I might not have been able to see the colors, but I could feel the burning, mustard-colored haze that hummed around the outline of my body. It didn’t surprise me at all when Calder recoiled at the sight of me. If I didn’t have enough control over my own emotions, how could I bring him back to himself?

“I need a fix,” he snarled. “I’ve pushed this abstinence long enough. I’ve been kidding myself. If Jack wants a monster, he’s got one!” Calder hazarded another glance my way and snapped, “Because you’re certainly not helping me any.”

I sucked in my breath and stared straight ahead while Calder added, “What is wrong with you? Take that necklace off.”

I wheeled around on him and slapped my hands down on the cracked vinyl seat. “Why is this my fault? Why do I have to be the one to make everything all better for you. For Dad? For everyone?”

“No one asked you to.”

My mouth popped open to give him the best retort I could muster, but nothing came.

“God, Lily, you’re impossible.”

I turned toward the window and yanked my blouse back over my shoulders. “Take me home,” I said, folding my arms across my chest.

Calder threw the car back in gear, muttering “Gladly.” A few minutes later he pulled into my driveway. He didn’t say good night. I didn’t either. I slammed the car door and ran up the porch steps.

“How was the movie?” Mom asked.

“Awesome. I’m going to bed,” I said as my feet hit the stairs.

“Lily?”

“Good night.” I slammed my bedroom door with enough force that our family portrait, which hung on the other side of the wall, slipped off its nail and crashed to the floor.