Thomas. Agatha. Hector.
This should be easy. I never have to struggle like this. But I can’t fight the newborn feeling mewling in my chest. I don’t want Hector’s life to keep mine alive. I just want Hector. But if I let him live, I have to relinquish my hold on the whole storm. I could let go.
But I can’t.
I cannot.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
HECTOR
A wave swallows me and I’m underwater, battered upside down again. And again. And again.
I’m going to die. I know this, but I won’t stop fighting. I swim upward and gasp air, trying to tread water. Not that far away, I actually see a boat. I scream. I scream louder. It’s no good—I can barely hear my own cries for help. The water is dark and green and churning, and I’m a dark dot bobbing too far away. They’ll never see me.
And then I realize the boat has capsized. The boaters are in trouble, too. One is an old guy, white hair plastered against his head, clinging to the ropes on the capsized sailboat. I barely see a woman—in a split-second glimpse, she looks like someone’s grandma—fighting the waves in the distance, her bright life vest marking her position too far away.
An enormous wave lifts me up, up, up, on a swell. I inhale hard, and together we crash over and I’m tumbling again under the waves. And then I see her.
Anda.
She’s right there, an unmoving body under the waves. My vision is fuzzy underwater, but I know it’s Anda. Her eyes are dark coals in her sockets. And the violent surges and waves don’t move her an inch. It’s like she’s suspended in the vacuum of space, her cropped hair floating sweetly around her temples, her nightgown unruffled by the water, bare feet peeking out from the hem.
It’s not possible. None of this is possible.
I’ve ignored the things I haven’t been able to explain. The hole in the boat by the America. The earthquake, or whatever made it rise to the surface. The flower that grew and died in the span of a few hours. But I have a feeling I’m going to know, too soon, what I’ve been afraid to realize all this time.
Anda raises a single hand, and in response, the capsized boat is pulled beneath the waves. The old guy who’s holding on to the boat is pulled down too, his arm tangled in rope. He’d probably wound it around himself so he wouldn’t drown, and now it’ll be the death of him.
Anda lowers her hand. The sailboat and the man sink like stones. The last thing I see is his white face, his open screaming mouth that can’t scream underwater. Bubbles issue from the boat around him as he’s pulled into the depths.
Chapter Thirty
ANDA
I sigh.
Exquisite, this feeling. This beautiful peace where the violence that is life is finally released.
Something touches me.
I turn and see Hector. He’s swiping at my arm, trying to grasp my hand. In this state, all living things flee from me, but this boy is trying to get closer. I furrow my brow, not understanding.
Two more, Anda. Do not be distracted.
He’s so tired, he barely has the energy to reach for me before his body bobs upward. Buoyancy is his enemy. He can’t speak to me when he’s underwater, but I hear him scream when he breaks the surface.
“Stop it, Anda. Please. Oh God, stop!”
God. He prays, but not to me. Nothing can help him, except me.
Me.
No, Anda.
I blink in the mist, and the rushing force of the water whips my nightgown around my legs, tangling them. My vision blurs and I look up, seeing Hector’s legs kicking. Fifty-two feet away, Agatha is not kicking anymore. She is weeping because she saw Thomas go down with the sailboat. She knows he’s lost, and she’s mourning him. It’s a beautiful thing, her sorrow, but I cannot feed on sorrow. I see Thomas’s fight in Hector.
But I see Agatha in me.
I begin to weep.
Hector’s legs are kicking less vigorously. He doesn’t have the power to dive down to me anymore.
“Anda!” he cries out. “Please!” A wave takes him under again, and this time, he doesn’t have the strength to swim up.
The sensations war within me, tearing at my joints and sinews. I scream, for the pain. What have I done. What am I doing.
You are doing what is in your nature.
But no. I’ll do what I want. Not what I need.
Anda, no—
I open my eyes in the water. I can feel Mother’s fury and disappointment, but at a distance. I release my clawing grip on Agatha, softening the wind and waves about them so she can breathe without a lungful of wet. The Jenny is deep on the lake bottom; I have not yet broken her completely. Thomas’s body has pulled free of the rope and his corpse is floating with the deeper current toward Grand Portage. I change the water pressure and let the remaining air trapped in the fiberglass hull of the Jenny do its job. The boat shoots up like a lost cork to the surface, only feet away from Agatha.
She gasps in surprise. It only takes the smallest effort for her to grab the metal ladder on the side and pull herself up. Her relief resonates as anguish within me.
I relax my hands, and the lake storm untightens its fist, opening up. The distress signal from the Jenny is received by the Coast Guard. It will take them at least an hour to find Agatha, but they will find her. I open a passage of rainless clarity between her and the nearest Coast Guard boat.
I release Hector, too. His desperate gasps are terrible to hear. I use an undercurrent to drag him closer to shore—it’s painfully fast for him. The minutes unravel to nothing, and I meet him there, barefoot, dripping, with one foot in the world of death and one in the world of the oblivious living. Hector’s body lies upon shore and he’s coughing and gasping, turning over to pitch the water from his stomach.
You’ll be sorry, Anda. This was a mistake.
Not now, I tell Mother. Not yet.
The hunger in my bones is partially sated by Thomas’s death. It will have to last. Maybe forever.
Not for a witch like you, Anda. Look what happened to your sisters.
I think of my three sisters. The previous witches battled with their half selves, too. But their desire won out until they became wholly inhuman. Their histories are blurred because I’ve never been told how they began. But somehow, I feel their origin stories in my core. Somehow I know they were once like me, impossibly born of wind and flesh. Now they accompany the storms, three enormous rogue waves that consume ships almost as greedily as I have. Unconsciously, I have been falling into their destiny these last few years. How much time would I have left if I allowed it? Would I wake up and find my corporeal self gone? Would I even have the chance to say good-bye to Father?
My sisters wait for storms, their waves licking in hunger for work to do. Vaguely, I hear them hissing at me.
I ignore them and crouch down by Hector’s side. My fingers touch his cold chest, which heaves with effort. He’s so alive. It’s a beautiful thing to see and touch. His eyes open, wide and wild, and meet mine.