Fish Out of Water

chapter Twelve

Love and Guilt


Dirtwater

I decided as soon as Ran left that this was the end of Mom’s secrets. I mean, if the goddess mother could trust me with what she knew, surely my mother could as well.

Somehow it’s all linked up. Mom and her past. Imd. All that was happening now.

I just couldn’t work out how.

I looked at myself in the rearview mirror trying to decide if I looked any different now I was officially important. One of The Three.

Why me? How could the dolphins have known about me, all those millennia ago?

How could they have foreseen me? How could they even have known I would be born?

And how could they possibly think I could stop the bloodtide, whatever that was?

I looked into my own eyes in the mirror and thought again about how different I was from other Aegirans. Why would it be an outsider who could deliver them?

And if destiny picked me, who were the others? One I knew, one would come to me…

I thought about all the people I knew who were maybe having visions. Cleedaline? Maybe, thinking back on the incident with the rip in The Eye, Lecanora? Maybe Carragheen, (although Rick had insisted he wasn’t one of The Three)?

Did visions make you one of The Three? Did you need to have visions to be a paid-up member? I banged my head against the steering wheel.

Ouch. This wasn’t getting me anywhere.

I fired up Ariel and sped down to the Council Chambers, where a sheepish looking Chip, Mom’s assistant, was helping her with some papers while Aldus waited outside her office. As well as being Sheriff, Aldus is a member of the Dirtwater Leadership Council, and Mom was planning to meet with him to tie up loose ends before we split back to Aegira.

But I’d forgotten, and hadn’t planned on running into Aldus.

“Well hello there,” he greeted me toothily. “Thought you might’ve stopped by before this.” He hitched his trousers self-importantly, and went back to scratching Benito’s ears. “We’re gonna have fun together, boy, aren’t we? While Mommy’s away.”

“Sorry Aldus,” I shrugged sheepishly. “I had some things I really had to do. Was planning to stop by after.”

He looked contrite for getting on my case and I realized Mom had already done a job on him. Ran bless you, Mom. “Sorry, Rania, I wasn’t tryin’ ta bust y’ chops.” He lowered his voice. “Your Mom told me about your Aunt. Terrible, terrible. Of course you must take some time off. We’ll be fine here.”

“But what about Clee…” I almost slipped up and corrected myself before Aldus could register the gaffe. “Blondie. What about Blondie? Any leads?”

“None,” Aldus said defiantly, shaking his head in perplexity, like a man who’s searched high and low and turned up nothing. “But don’t worry, sweetheart, we’ll keep working on it.”

“Great,” I agreed half-heartedly. I was saved from having to provide further details about an ailing Aunt by Chip listening to his earpiece and motioning for me to go to Mom.

“Sorry Aldus,” he mouthed. “Ladies first.”

“Sure thing,” Aldus agreed good-naturedly, and helped himself from a plate of brownies.

I burst into Mom’s office, a woman on a mission, and she could smell determination on me the moment I was inside. “What is it, darling?”

She sounded sweet, but looked cagey, like she could sense the storm about to break.

“I need to know, Mom,” I started. “I need to know what happened to you. Who happened to you. And what brought you to Dirtwater. I think it matters.”

“Has something happened?” Mom seemed tense.

“A lot’s happened,” I confirmed. “I was visited by the Goddess. And she thinks you need to ’fess up.”

Mom sat down swiftly, obviously a little startled by this turn of events but not about to freak out, ’cause it just wasn’t her style. “I see,” she said placidly.

“So?” I prompted her with my eyes.

And hers darted sideways. Evasion.

“Darling,” Mom sighed. “I know that the time is very close when we will need to talk. But that time is not yet. It’s hard. You see, sometimes secrets do not belong only to you. And the telling has implications for others. Not even just those who were there.”

I expelled my breath in one noisy whoosh. It was all I could do to stop myself from whining at her: But Moooom, the Goddess said you had to tell me…

Mom continued, and from her tone she seemed oblivious to how badly I needed this, except that I could see that little furrow between her eyebrows that meant she was stressed. A tiny sign, but the only one she ever gives away. “You have to trust me when I tell you that I will share about it all, very soon. But there are others who need the chance to hear it too.”

“Who?” I needed something.

“Someone you wouldn’t want to hurt. I’m sorry, Rania, I can’t go into it now. We’ll talk later. If I thought you needed to know immediately, I promise you that I would tell you. But even though I know it’s important, I can’t really believe that anything about it all is connected to what is happening now. It just can’t be. It’s such… ancient history.”

And that was it, end of subject. But I couldn’t resist a final shot as I flounced out. “Well, that’s not what the Goddess thinks. But what would she know?” I’m not much of a one for flouncing so it was an indicator of how pissed I was that I was doing it now. This was just so Mom, not to be swayed from what she sees as the right path, even by the voice of Ran herself. And not to even be that surprised that Ran’s been talking to me.

Ran – the Goddess herself.

You know, as a kid I often wondered what I’d have to do to shock my mother, and I guess now I know it’s darn nigh impossible. Maybe I should have told her I’m one of The Three? Except I wasn’t sure I really believed it myself.

I barely registered Aldus as I scooted out of there, my rebellious brain fixing to cause some trouble, one thought pushing through to the front of it.

The purse. The secrets were in the purse. And I was gonna open it.

By the time I got home, I’d convinced myself that it was definitely the right course.

Mrs T knew, she knew there was something in there that mattered. She said the visions would help me know when the time is right. Well, where I come from things don’t get more right than the mother of all mermaids popping up and suggesting that some secrets need to be unlocked. So this time I was going with her intuition rather than Mom’s.

As I pushed through our front door, and headed for the bathroom, where I’d stashed the bag, a little thrill of excitement was lighting up my circuitry. I’d wondered about Mom’s secrets for so long, and I was pretty sure I was about to get some clues. I felt like I was getting ready for a date, all nervous and fluttery but with this added buzz lent by the years of mystery.

I was so pumped I didn’t even notice him when I first walked into the dark room. Or as I padded across to the bathroom, quiet as a thief. But as I reached for the door, I registered the other-wordly strains of Portishead coming from the ipod dock.

Dark, ethereal and full of portent.

I spun back, slowly.

Knowing. Somehow, knowing.

He was lying on the sofa, wet and motionless, and when my eyes settled on him, the tummy flutters that had been building ramped up about seven thousand notches.

I quietly pulled out my Glock.

“Wake up, sleeping beauty,” I said, as I pressed it into the dip between his closed eyes.

“I wasn’t sleeping,” he growled, opening indigo eyes and smiling a lazy smile at me through sinful golden lashes and the long, black chamber of the gun.

Carragheen was glistening wet and naked under the suddenly very small white towel he must have grabbed from the bathroom rail on arrival. He was brown and dark blonde, and his purple-blue gaze was pinning me to the spot. His hair was wet and curling on his neck, and towards one side of it I could just make out the blue green fish of the watch-keeper tattoo. As my gaze travelled down, I registered the tight bulge of his biceps under broad, elegant shoulders, and the narrow tapering of his waist, below which red-gold hair drew the eye towards white towel.

He looked good. Oh man, did he look good. He was like some kind of God.

“You’re okay.” His lupine face was inscrutable as indigo eyes roved insolently over me.

I felt like he was touching me, all over, and my gorgeous Glock shook a little. “Just fine.”

He expelled his breath and I realized he’d been holding it. And that he was relaxing now, even though I had a really very frightening weapon pressed against him.

And possibly my crazy eyes on.

The apartment was warm and dry, so judging by his still-wet appearance, I’d say he’d only been here a matter of moments. But his gaze was lucid, so he’d been here long enough to get through the hydroporting afterburn and pull the pieces of himself back into one spot.

Portishead wrapped silky threads around my brain as I mentally tried on different courses of action. In the background, that mermaid-like voice entreated some man to give her a reason to love him.

I had no idea why Carragheen was here, but even though I could barely see him through a hazy red film of guilt (about Doug) and rage (at his duplicities), even though I was holding my gun on him, determined to make him talk, a sheer wall of lust slammed into me.

I was going to hell.

“Rania.” He continued to ignore the gun and his voice was like a balm on the wrung-out, messed-up bruise that was my mind. He waited, that half-smile playing around full lips.

I didn’t respond because I was still too busy mentally considering and discarding possible courses of action in between trying to get a handle on the confusing beauty of the man. He watched me watching him for a moment before lazily reaching up and plucking the Glock from my grasp, dropping it to the floor like a distracting child’s toy.

And I let him.

Then he stood, filling up every available inch of my personal space. “It is good to see you,” he whispered in that Lucky Strikes and taffy voice.

Oh yeah, baby, and then some.

But I gave myself a solid talking to inside my head before I responded. Bad enough that I’d totally ruined my cop cred by letting him disarm me. I couldn’t come over all easy-to-get. I needed answers. About Zorax. About Tila, and “the second one”. He had explaining to do. I tried hard to block out the magical music and give my inner harlot a solid shake. “What are you doing here?” I was going for terse, but suspected I was just coming off strangled.

“Zorax came to see me,” he said softly. “After he saw you, in Williamstown. He wanted to know if I’d learned anything from Cleedaline before she died. About where Imogen is.”

Zorax again. Persistent.

I waved the Glock at Carragheen like I had at Zorax earlier in the day.

“Were you the one who told him Imogen was missing?”

“No.” He was searching my face, as I was his. His words were deliberate and they had the ring of truth to me. I’m an expert in lies, but the truth has a quality you can’t describe. Like I said before, you just know it when you see it. He was telling the truth.

“Did you tell him you’d been to Cleedaline?”

“No.” His words were clipped, and his body stiff, affront in every hard angle. But even cold and distant those hot eyes were still nothing like those of any merman I’d ever seen.

Portishead insinuated its way back into my brain, telling me something about how a thousand flowers could bloom. I suppressed a shiver and hoped the semi-darkness would hide the flush I could feel creeping up my chest to my face. “I hadn’t talked to him at all, until a few hours ago, when he came to me. He said he had seen you, and that you told him Cleedaline died because I visited her. He wanted to know if I learned anything from her before she died.”

Again, I believed him. “Didn’t you wonder why he went to Williamstown?”

“He told me he’d been tasked by the Triad to investigate Imogen’s death.”

I thought about Zorax with Imogen’s locket around his neck, and wondered why he drew attention to himself by going to Carragheen. Maybe his “investigative” efforts were actually some not-very-slick cover for whatever it was that he’d done with her, was doing to her.

I watched Carragheen’s face, wondering what he made of it all. “What did you tell him?”

“Nothing.” His voice was a hiss, laced with poison. “I don’t trust him.”

Clever boy.

“Well, that’s a coincidence,” I said slowly. “Because he doesn’t trust you either. And neither do I.”

Carragheen was up from the sofa now, moving towards me, and I was like a sheep, caught in the wolf’s stare. He was so close I could smell the salt on him, and see the golden hair curling on his arms, and the blue veins tracking like highways across them. The music had stopped and I could hear his breathing. I noticed it was in time with mine. Perfectly.

In, out. In, out.

Somewhere I heard the dripping of a tap and wondered which water source he had used to get here. It sounded slow, like an old record played on the wrong speed.

We were sizing each other up.

In, out. In, out.

Drip, drip.

“Is that true?” He was asking with his mouth but watching with those wild midnight eyes. “Is it true that you don’t trust me?”

I tried to make light. “Don’t take it personally,” I offered, going for a giggle but sounding kind of emphysemic instead. “I don’t trust anyone.”

“That’s not true,” he countered, moving even closer so I could almost touch him. “You trust Lecanora. You trust your mother. You even trust that dolphin.”

“Yeah, well, we have some history there. You and I, we have…”

“The future.”

I looked at him quickly, but he didn’t look worried or embarrassed. My mouth swung open. “Hang on now,” I started. “Where I come from one kiss doesn’t mean—”

“Rania,” he cut me off. “I grow tired of this nonsense. Let us finish it. Is it Tila?”

I considered lying, denying I even cared, but I didn’t. I wanted to know. I wanted to understand. So I just swallowed and nodded.

He sighed, and brought one warm hand up to cup my chin, stroking the side of it with one long finger. “Sit,” he instructed me, motioning to the sofa. I did as he told me to, powerless before the purple-black intensity of his stare.

He started softly, staring off into space. I could see him measuring his words. “Tila is my sister,” he said. “Well, half-sister really. Her mother, my… wife… is a young woman I knew, a girl really. She’s very beautiful and was very pure. Leisen. Her name is Leisen.”

My face flushed at the sick jealousy that consumed me as he spoke.

“My father raped her.”

The gasp escaped before I can stop it. “How do you know?”

“I know him,” Carragheen said. “I’ve had a life-time of knowing him, his arrogance and cruelty. He was her priest. She was… is… a very pious woman. She was searching for something. My father took advantage of that. And then she became pregnant.”

“But what did she say? Did she say Tila was his?”

“Yes, of course,” Carragheen’s face was creased and distant, sharp folds biting into the boyness of him. He was gripping the edge of the sofa and concentrating on the tale, telling it in sharp, staccato sentences, as though the words themselves were brutal. “She told me they had been lovers. Eventually. One of her friends called to see me. Leisen wasn’t coping during her carrying time. She was sad, and sick. The friend told me that the baby was Kraken’s, but that he’d denied any ownership of it. I tried to help. Sometimes Leisen would become… sick? Very sad. I would stay over, stay with her. That’s when I heard her nightmares, and I knew then that my father had hurt her.”

“What did you do?” My stomach rolled and churned as I thought about what had happened to the girl. I’d seen it so many times, and yet it still made me quiver inside.

“I went to him. I told him what I knew. He denied it, of course.”

“What did you do?”

Carragheen paused, and I watched one fist flexing unconsciously in his lap. “I hurt him.”

“Ah.” A brawl? Down there?

He saw the question in my eyes. “I can fight,” he said. “And I’m not afraid to.”

I imagined the scene. The horror of it.

“And you know what else?” he was asking me, but his eyes were distant, looking up at the ceiling.

I shook my head.

“It felt really good.” Each word was enunciated slowly, precisely, like he was still savoring the memory. “But they intervened. They protected him. The temple guards.”

Damn.

“He told me that if I told anyone what I had said to him, he would denounce the girl, and the baby.” He smiled wryly, those dark eyes firing. “And then, of course, she would be lost.”

I nodded, understanding. Denouncement is a form of excommunication. It doesn’t happen often but when it does, it cuts the victim off from other Aegirans. For creatures of community, the effect is worse than death. But Carragheen had more to tell.

“You know how it is there. Children cannot be fatherless. And Leisen was afraid of my father.” The question hung between us, although the answer seemed clear to me now. He looked right into me, purple eyes direct. “Marriage was the only way to protect her, and the baby. And then… my sister came, and I loved her so much.” The angry angles of his face softened at the mention of Tila, and my throat constricted as I watched him.

“But why did you send Leisen away?”

Carragheen’s lush mouth tightened into a sharp line. “I did no such thing.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“We’ve never lived together. Even if I felt that way about her, which I don’t, Leisen has no interest in men, in love. She never has. And now, even less so. She spends her days in prayer, trying to get closer to the Mother.” He paused. “She’s been getting worse, Leisen. She loves Tila, very much, but she’s not able to look after her all the time. Leisen knows she’s not well, and she asks me to take Tila, for a while, and I do. And then she wants her back, but I try to wait until she’s better. It’s very hard on Tila. My sister. I look in her eyes and I see so much of me.”

It was an incredible story, and yet I could read his disillusion with his father in the defeated lines of his body as he told the tale. I went to him, and put my hand on his arm. Then I remembered, and yanked it back. He started as though I’d slapped him, and looked hard at me, his indigo eyes boring into my brown ones. “There’s something else that’s troubling you.”

Oh yeah, baby. I was thinking about “the second one”. What could he possibly tell me to explain that away? Carragheen shifted uncomfortably in his seat, his head facing downward into his palms, and I wondered if he was going to deny, or obfuscate. Then he looked up at me again. “Yes, there is something else to tell you,” he started. “Rania, this is going to be hard for you to believe, to understand.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, waiting.

“I’ve been… seeing things.”

My eyes snapped open and everything in me sang out loud. I don’t know what I thought he was going to say, but not that. I couldn’t have been happier if he’d said: Let’s forget all this Aegira crap and go get some Ben ‘n’ Jerry’s.

He had visions too. I wasn’t crazy. I wasn’t alone.

Carragheen looked perplexed by my reaction, clearly not what he had been expecting.

He went on. “Visions, really. They started a little while ago. First as dreams, then sometimes waking. And I’ve seen Imogen, in the visions. After the girls told me about her, I started to see her. And…” He looked over at me quickly then looked away. “And I don’t think she’s alone. I saw another girl. I couldn’t see who it was. I didn’t mention it to you, I wasn’t sure how I’d explain it. You see, I’m still not really sure what this thing is.”

I was looking at him, understanding exactly what it was he was feeling, but I could tell he was still worried at my reaction, because he went on quickly. “I am quite certain that I am not crazy. But you wanted facts. And the… second one… it’s no kind of fact.”

“Have you told anyone? About the visions?”

“Cleedaline,” Carragheen responded straight away. “I had to tell someone.”

I watched him carefully. All the pieces fit together. What he was saying and how it felt as it settled in my brain and my heart. It felt like he was telling the truth. And it fit with Cleedaline’s words, in her little note, hidden in the cookie jar. But I couldn’t tell him. For some reason I couldn’t say me too. Even though I wanted to. Why was I holding back? I tried to watch my thoughts, like my Mom taught me. Firstly, because I still wasn’t sure. One thought kept getting in the way. Why is Mom afraid of this, of me with him? Secondly, because it wasn’t right. Not with Doug, sick and broken in the hospital, and me responsible for everything.

As I sat and listened, and thought, the air thickened until I felt like I was breathing molasses. There was so much between us it was hard to believe it couldn’t be seen with the naked eye. I was remembering the kiss, back in Aegira, and my body burned for a reprise.

He moved a hand behind my head, patting my head and teasing soft circles in the baby hairs that lace the back of my neck. He blinked slowly, and I watched, hypnotized by the course of red-gold lashes and the steady certainty of his stare. Carragheen was still a wolf, circling deliberately, moving closer, lulling me for the strike. Even though my logic was warning me off, I was the most willing chicken in the henhouse. And if he didn’t hurry up and cut to the chase I was gonna scream with frustration.

He stopped speaking and there was only a heartbeat pause before he used the weight of the hand at the back of my neck to pull my face towards his.

I kissed him back with everything I had, and it was as though some reckless part of me wanted to brand him as mine. My body and soul were acting independently of my brain, which had conveniently taken a back seat.

I thought about Ran’s words about her lover: I had always known him.

I felt Carragheen hesitate, pull back, and I realized he wanted to tell me something.

With the last ounce of my strength and instinct for self-preservation, I used the tiny break in the action to give my brain, which was feverish with desire, a swift slap.

As much as I wanted to, I could not sleep with him, not when he was married, even if the marriage wasn’t conventional. Not when I didn’t understand Mom’s doubts. And not with Doug to think about. This was not my Mom’s assistant. This was something else altogether. And, mostly, because I didn’t know. I didn’t know if he was The One. I couldn’t afford mistakes. I only had two weeks to go.

But he was looking at me with those eyes I couldn’t say no to.

It’s the last refuge of a coward, but I squeaked that I needed the ladies and scurried away.

It was only when I was standing, confused and panting against the locked bathroom door, like that little cartoon cat escaping from the amorous skunk, that I saw it and remembered. I’d forgotten about the hurry I’d been in to open it when I came bursting in to find him on my sofa. I retrieved the bag from where I’d stashed it, on a shelf above the sink.

But I’d moved from the cocky certainty of an hour ago. I still wanted to open it, but I wasn’t angry anymore. I was afraid, and perversely glad Carragheen was outside the door.

I snapped open the clasp and two tiny shells fell out onto my palm. I’d never seen that type of shell before. They were like perfect little ears, and as small as a penny. I turned them over in my palm, and made a quick decision.

When I showed Carragheen, a delicate crease appeared between two perfect sculpted eyebrows. “Lovers ears,” he said softly, expelling his breath in a little whoosh. “Who do these belong to?”

“They were my mother’s.” That look again, inscrutable. What did he know?

“Do you know if your mother had a lover? Back in Aegira? Before she left?”

“I think so,” I nodded. “What are they?”

He explained. “They’re an ancient thing. I’ve only ever seen scratchings of them. Lots of people think they’re just myth. Dolphin magic. Lovers slipped them into their ears, one each, you see, and you then could find the other, always. No matter where they were.”

“Huh,” I sighed, thinking. So these belonged to Mom and… who? Someone else. Someone she loved enough to need to be able to find him, always. My mind was alight with questions. “What’s their range?”

Carragheen laughed darkly as I asked the question. “They aren’t weapons, Rania.”

“You know what I mean,” I insisted. “Like, could they find someone in Aegira, if you were on the land?” I was thinking about Mom, watch-keeping. Was that why she got them? Did her lover stay back in Aegira? Had the lover’s ears been their link to each other?

“Like I said,” Carragheen continued, the little frown still in place, searching his memories. “I don’t know much. They were supposed to be charmed by the dolphins. And lovers would use them, lovers who believed they were to be together forever. The charm would last as long as they lived, and die with them.”

“So I could use it to find someone, anywhere?” I was thinking about Lecanora, hoping she was okay, and slipped the smaller of the two little shells into the crook of my ear.

“No,” he said, thinking. “I don’t think so. I think they were individual to the user. You would need your own set of shells.”

But I was barely registering what he was saying. Because as I slipped the shell into my ear, I became lost in a purple mist. It was kind of a vision, but different. More like… a dream. The mist was swirling and shifting, and I held on to Carragheen’s arm for anchor. I felt dizzy and achey, and then the mist cleared and I saw him as clearly as if he was standing in the room.

Kraken. In the Eye of the Goddess, floating in prayer before the golden statue of Aegir.

I recoiled in shock, snatching the thing from my ear and hurling it across the room.

“Holy shit,” I swore, scowling into Carragheen’s face. Wondering if he knew.

“Mom’s lover, it was… your Dad.”

I could hear the low scratch of Carragheen’s voice vibrating in my ear, but I couldn’t seem to make the sounds separate into words and ideas. And I couldn’t see him, because my eyes were fixed on the shag rug somewhere near my feet. Each fat creamy thread seemed separate and distinct, like I was looking at the rug through a microscope. And each one seemed to be raising its head with agonizing slowness and looking at me, mocking me. I could feel the sweat breaking out on my top lip, hot and prickly, and I brought one nail up to brush it away, watching the path of my finger like it belonged to someone else.

Somewhere, somehow, that tap was still dripping.

I looked down at my finger, at the drop of sweat on it, trying to recognize what I was looking at. It was a perfect, miniature crystal ball, rolling gently down the sand dune of the soft pad of my finger, light refracting in its curves.

Mom. Kraken. Kraken and Mom.

Carragheen reached out a hand and touched mine. At the swift jolt from his warm skin, the droplet of sweat skittered off my index finger, and seemed to fall in slow motion to the floor and then smash against the rug. As it did, time resumed its normal speed.

I had to go talk to Mom.

It must have been so bad. I’d always known there was something, some man, at the heart of all of Mom’s secrets, but I also knew it had to be more than that. Mom’s no shrinking violet. She’s strong, and wise. It would take more than a love affair gone wrong to get her so spooked.

I looked at Carragheen and thought about the kiss. A nerve jumped in his temple as he watched my face. From this vantage point, I saw again the similiarities with Kraken. That wanton face, the carnivorous edge. The full lips. I remembered myself kissing those lips, and closed my eyes. Against the backdrop of my mind’s eye, Carragheen’s visage morphed into Kraken’s, and I was imagining myself kissing the arrogant old priest. The arrogant old rapist priest, I reminded myself cruelly. Mom’s old boyfriend. A dull lurch saw the bottom drop from my stomach, and I suddenly tried to remember when I had last eaten.

“Did you know?”

He opened his mouth, squeezing my hand as he made to respond.

He knew. He freakin’ well knew about my mother and that freakin’ rapist.

I thought about the story. Tila, and Leisen. I knew it was all true, all he told me.

So why hadn’t he told me this?

Now I understood Mom’s fears. Did she see echoes of Kraken in his son? The shells reminded me how many unknowns remained and how much danger was waiting. And here I was. French kissing some mysterious hottie like a schoolgirl while women were being tortured, Doug was in the hospital and I was supposed to be saving the world.

A hottie who was keeping secrets from me. Important secrets.

“Leave,” I whispered, turning my face away.

He spoke into my mind. No.

I refused to go into his brain, and focused on a spot on the wall. “Leave.”

I am not him. He squeezed my hand again, harder, bringing one hand up to my chin to pull my face roughly back towards his. That nerve still jumped wildly at his temple. His eyes shone, darker than I’d ever seen them. You know me.

I turned to him, pouring all my fury stilling my breath so I could speak as calmly and slowly as possible, each word a perfect bullet. “I. Know. Nothing. About. You.”

Still, he held my gaze. This time I didn’t look away. “Leave. Now.” He dropped his hand from my chin, and wiped it on the towel at his waist, shaking his head. Seconds later, he shut the door quietly as he went. Saying nothing but looking like a man with a lot to say.

After he left, I sat very still on the couch in the place where he’d kissed me. The flat was death quiet, apart from the slow dripping of that tap. I looked over at the clock, but had trouble deciphering the numbers. I scratched at my arm, where the scar ran the length of it, but felt nothing. I pinched a twist of plasticy scar tissue between my fingers. Nothing. I thought about the homeless girls I’d met in the city, cutting deep trenches into their teenage skin, proof of life. For the first time, I got it. My limbs were leaden. I wondered if they would ever move again.

My cell suddenly buzzed and leaped on the coffee table in front of me. I stared at it as though it was some strange, alien artifact. After what felt like hours of its tinny buzzing, I picked it up to switch it to silent. As I did, the ringing stopped. But not before I caught sight of the numbers flashing on the screen. My brain whirred and clicked, trying to make sense of them, taking long moments to connect before coming through for me.

Susie.

The room seemed to snap back into focus.

I punched the voicemail button, suddenly aware of my breath again as my heart rate went from frozen to boiling point in nanoseconds. And then I heard her, words spilling out with girlish shyness at leaving a message. “Um… Rania. ‘S’me. Susie. Just wanted to tell you I’m okay. And I did it. I told mama about the dreams. And she made me hot chocolate. Bye.”

The breathy monologue over, I looked at the phone as I punched the “end” button.

Huh. Susie. She told her Ma. She listened to me.

I felt all the numb edges of my skin start to sizzle back into life.

This Carragheen thing was not the end of the world. Not yet, anyway. It was just a blip.

I took a long, deep breath. A breath that felt like the first I had taken since I’d seen him, sitting there on my couch. It was a blip, but it would serve a purpose. For a start, it would teach me to buck the habit of a lifetime and start trying to trust new people.

Any other time I would have gone to Mom straight away, and told her what I’d learned. Asked her about Kraken, about what had happened between them. But I knew that wasn’t the right course of action tonight. I couldn’t rush in. This was her history, Mom’s history, and it deserved some respect. Some privacy. I was gonna have to wait until we had some alone time.

Right now, Mom had things to do. And so did I. I needed to get back to Aegira, regardless of what had just happened, regardless of what I had just learned. But first, I needed to go check on Doug, make sure he knew I wasn’t deserting him but that I needed to get these baddies. For him. For me. And for the others.

So. I put aside my fears, and my rage at Carragheen. And drove.

I would have liked to take Ariel but I had to return Mary’s sedan. As the little car ate up the miles, I watched the black tarmac and smelled the smells of my home. The only real home I’d ever known. My head started to clear and I felt more like myself. I gave my scar a hard poke and registered the itchy wince that meant I was real too. I was back.

When I got to Dirtwater Memorial, I parked the sedan around back, with a “thanks, sorry” note taped to the windshield. I needn’t have bothered. When I got inside, Mary hadn’t left. She’d been keeping vigil by Doug’s bedside. Larry was still there too, sitting at a computer and frowning like he did when he was trying to solve the Times crossword.

“Hi,” I said, feeling fifteen different kinds of guilt rock me as I thought about kissing Carragheen while Doug lay there, in pain and alone. “How’s he doing?”

Larry pushed back his chair, scratched his right ear and puffed out a defeated sigh. “Rania,” he said with a whoosh of breath. “Come here.” He motioned to the chair beside him. I could feel it coming, and I knew it was gonna be bad. I felt sick right down to my toes.

“It’s bad,” he confirmed. “Doug came out of his coma… momentarily.” I watched Larry clock the hope light my eyes and move quickly to squash it before I allowed myself to indulge in any fantasies about Doug being fine, and living to ride another day. “No, Rania,” he cautioned me, a hand on my arm. “He… he’s not right.”

“What do you mean?” Not like Larry to be so cryptic.

Larry ran his big hands through that silver hair, chewing his lip. “He’s… he was ranting and screaming. He didn’t recognize us, didn’t know his name.”

“What?” I felt my brain want to slip back into that place it had gone to in Mom’s apartment, slowing down, not computing. I shook my head violently, giving my brain a mental shake at the same time. No way, brain. You don’t get away with your part in this that easy.

I tried again. “What do you mean? You mean… he’s gone crazy?” It wasn’t something I could imagine. Solid, brave Doug. Losing his mind. It just wasn’t possible.

Larry just shrugged, and I saw the exhausted lines criss-crossing his face, and the dullness weighing down those eyes that had seen it all.

“No,” I stammered, feeling my tongue thick and clumsy in my mouth. Don’t cry.

Don’t. Cry.

Larry threw a heavy arm around my shoulders and guided me into where Doug was lying. He looked pale and somehow smaller. The smell of antiseptic and linen played in my nostrils. I stood still, willing my legs to move forward, go to him.

Larry took the initiative. I watched him walk over to Doug, pick up one huge hand, touch his wrist carefully, feeling for the pulse. “Me again, pal,” he whispered gently.

And something about that. That tiny, simple gesture, from this man I loved. To this other man who was hurt because of me. I imagined Larry, in war zones and jungles, with other men. Wounded and broken men. I imagined the things he’d seen. I knew what those things had done to him. But I also knew, better than anyone, that he’d never seen anything like this.

My breath started to hurt as it picked its way in and out. Spots swam before my eyes.

No. No, no, no. Don’t cry.

It was as though Doug heard me. He began to moan.

A deep, pained braying that I could feel right down to my toes.

Larry turned back to me, and I looked at him for answers. He shrugged helplessly. “Doug obviously got a really major buzz from this thing, whatever it is. More than you did. Maybe more even than Blondie. He’s seriously tough, so it didn’t kill him. But the pain, the effects of it... you need to understand, honey, he might never recover.”

Larry guided me outside the tiny cubicle, one arm around my shoulders. Then he pulled back and looked at me. Whatever he saw made his mouth turn down at the corners in this eloquent gesture of sympathy. He touched my shoulder, the lightest of feather touches, and, finally, I crumpled, hurling myself against him, beating his solid chest as he stood to hold me.

“No.” I yelled at him, feeling the starched thickness of his shirt as I pummeled it over and over. “No, no, no. Bullshit.”

“Shhh, sweetheart,” Larry soothed, patting my hair.

I couldn’t speak, just sob, my cries climbing higher and higher. The noise echoed through the little white hospital, bouncing off stainless steel benches and sterile surfaces. I kept trying to claw back control, dragging in breath after breath to try to pull it together but the cries were being squeezed from my insides, like I was a rag doll being played with by a giant. My ears felt like they do when I fly, all messed up with the pressurized cabin. All I could see was the white panel of Larry’s shirt and a black red haze. My shoulders hunched with the weight of it all. So much, and now this. Now I had done this to Doug. Who had only been trying to help. You know, it really is true. I don’t cry.

Not when I got told I was on borrowed time at the tender age of sixteen.

Not when I got zapped.

Not even when my heart got stomped by a lying merman.

And yet here I was. Sobbing like a baby.

Just when I thought I would never stop, that I would stand here ruining Larry’s short forever, an authoritative clap grabbed my attention. I turned to see Mary, poking her head out of the doorway to Doug’s room and clapping nursey hands at me. Her bossy little brown eyes showed pity, but also something else. Her mouth was a tight line and she was sucking in her cheeks. She held up a finger to her lips and spat an emphatic shush at me.

“You’re not helping,” she said, not meanly, but in a voice that brooked no complaints.

My cheeks flushed and the skin on my scalp prickled.

How could I be making such a scene when others had been doing all the hard work?

I dragged in my breath and squeezed my eyes shut, pinching my arm hard at the tenderest part, where the scar bit deep and gnarled, trying to shock myself into sense.

I pulled back from Larry and rubbed my eyes, trying to breathe like the yogi taught me, filling up my diaphragm and focusing on an imaginary red spot on my forehead.

When the worst was done, Larry spoke again. “It might pass. It’s just so very hard to tell. I gave him some really serious sedatives. He was incredibly distressed.”

“I should have been here.” I felt the red black cloud blanketing my vision again, and the ugly push of self-hatred fill my veins. “I should have been here when he woke.”

“It wouldn’t have helped,” Larry said, shaking his head. “He didn’t know anyone. He didn’t know his name. It would only have freaked you out, to see it.”

I thought about Ran. He will recover, with your help. And his part in this is not over yet. How could she know that he’ll recover? Maybe she just didn’t realize how bad he was. And what the hell was I supposed to do about it? I didn’t know how to fix this.

Or did I? My brain skimmed to Rick, and his herbs. Could they fix this?

I went in again to see Doug, who was sleeping now, looking so peaceful I could almost believe Larry was lying, except I knew he wouldn’t. Mary came back in with some equipment.

I patted her shoulder. “Thank you,” I whispered.

And she smiled.

It was midnight when I woke to Mom shaking my shoulder.

I would never have thought I would drop off, here on this little chair in this hospital room, my brain turning over and over what happened between her and Kraken, and running over Larry’s words. But even with all the madness of the day whirling in my brain, it wasn’t hard at all. The last four days, maybe all that bawling like a baby, and I guess the hydroporting as well, had done their work, and my body and brain switched off into the deepest of sleeps.

I could hear the stilted creak in Mom’s movements as she went over and placed her fingertips on Doug’s eyes, whispering a blessing. The sound told me she was tired too, so tired. I thought about all the unknowns of the next few days, and the long journey facing us, and I figured I’d have to wait a little to talk to her about Kraken. She needed some rest.

I just hoped she would understand my snooping. And that I wasn’t leaving it too late.

Even though it was late, I called my Dad from the phone at the hospital (no cells allowed) to tell him I was going away again. Because I always keep him posted on my movements, and maybe also because I wanted to hear his voice, warm and reassuring. He had a phone in his cell, so I knew he’d answer. And he must have heard something in my voice, because he chuckled down the line at me, sounding so close and so dear that I felt my throat constrict at the sound.

“So you found it then?” It was a question, but really more of a statement.

“Found what, Dad?”

“Your courage. I seem t’ remember you were looking for it when you came by here a coupla days ago.”

No way. I felt more scared than I’d ever felt in my life at this point. Rushing into burning buildings had nothing on the fear I was feeling. But I did know one thing. I’d be screwed if I was going down without a fight.

“Nah,” I said shortly, hoping he wouldn’t hear the tremor in my voice as I thought about how the things I was most afraid of had started to come to pass. Hurting people I love. Realizing I’ve got to save people, and that I don’t know how.

I thought about Doug, strung out and hurting in the room down the corridor.

And me, not able to stop the tide of hurt.

Dad paused, and then laughed again. “You’re wrong, y’know, bella. I can hear it in your voice. You gotta remember, courage doesn’t mean you’re not scared. Courage just means you feel the fear and do it anyway. Like those motivational f*ckwits say. I can hear it in your voice. You’re off to do it, aren’t you?”

I paused a moment, considering his words. “Yeah,” I agreed.

A pause, and then he asked. “Am I allowed to know what it’s all about?”

“Nah, Dad. Sorry.”

I so wanted to tell him. Empty my brain of all the things I was carrying, all the things I was trying to make right for everyone, and just lean on his solid strength.

But how could I? Where to start?

Well, Dad, it’s like this. You always knew we were kind of different, and hey guess what? We’re actually mermaids, and you see, some bad-ass is stealing people, and trying to kill me, and oh yeah, they just fried Doug so bad he’s drooling crazy at the hospital. I need to save them all, and the world while I’m at it. Otherwise say good-bye to your baby girl. But hey, don’t worry, nothin’ you can do about it. See ya in a coupla days!

How could I lay that crap on him and then leave him there to worry and fret about it all?

Like he could read thoughts too, he said, “‘Cause, y’know, if y’need help, I’ll come.”

“Come?” I was confused. “Dad, in case it’s escaped your attention, you’re in jail.”

“Ah,” he honked. “What’s jail? Just a place. Not so hard if my baby girl needs me.”

But I couldn’t take Dad where I was going. So I shook my head and tried to harden up.

“Dad, honestly, it’s fine. It’s no big deal.”

I could hear him waiting, weighing up what I was saying. “’Kay, sweets, but remember, the offer’s there. No four walls in the world could hold if you needed me. Y’know that, right?”

“I know it, Dad,” I said, shaking off my melancholy and trying to sound cheerful. “Really, everything’s fine.” I corrected myself quickly because I find it had to lie to Dad. “Everything’s going to be fine, anyway.”