Unfaithful (13 page)

I joined my powers with Drake’s and together we hurled the thunderbolt back at the Witch, who disappeared and reappeared right in front of us a split second later. We exchanged defiant looks. Everything—nature itself—went still in the presence of two Subterraneans and a Witch. She couldn’t defeat us on her own, just her against the two of us. Her serpent hissed a threat and the Witch smiled, training her black eyes on Drake. Blowing him a kiss, she vanished.

I grabbed Drake by the shoulders and shoved him against the tree. “What were you thinking?!”

“I’ve got a score to settle with her,” he said, looking grim.

“Yeah, I realize who that Witch was. I was there too, remember?” Of course I remembered her: Kreeshna, a woman of Amazonian proportions with dark skin and a lethal gaze. She’d killed a lot of Subterraneans the day I first met Drake, but I’d managed at least to save him. “Christ, Drake! She could have killed us both!”

Drake sighed and rested his hand on my shoulder. “I know. I’m sorry, man.”

We gave each other a rough hug, easing the tension in the air.

“No problem. You’re my best friend. You okay?”

“I was so stupid!” he said. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what got into me. I put your life in jeopardy. If it hadn’t been for you, that Witch would have taken mine. She came on to me. I was sure I had it all under control. I pretended to play along but then she clouded my mind and . . . that’s all I remember.”

“She used your power. She turned into someone else,” I said.

Drake’s eyes wavered and it was like the Witch’s thunderbolt had returned from out of nowhere and struck him. My hunch had been right: it was the girl Drake had lost, the one he never stopped grieving for, no matter how hard he tried to hide it. I knew he didn’t like to talk about her. He pushed that part of him deep down so no one would see it, withdrawing into himself. He looked at the world from behind a tough outer shell and let everything else roll off his back. Sometimes I envied him; other times I thought it must be terrible.

“Thanks, bro. You saved me,” he said.

“Once again,” I reminded him with a laugh. Slapping him on the shoulder, I said, “That’s what we do, though, isn’t it? We’ve got each other’s backs.”

“I’m not risking my life when I cover for you with Gemma’s parents.”

 “I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Iron Dog is bound to attack you one of these days.”

“Let’s hope not or we’ll find out what the little rodent tastes like roasted.”

“That’s disgusting!”

“What did I say? Everybody knows I can’t stand the thing. If it were up to me, I’d already have gotten rid of it. You don’t know how hard it is for me not to smother it in its sleep!”

“Poor Irony,” I murmured. For a long moment neither of us said anything, then I took my phone out of my pocket and punched in Gemma’s number.

“She awake already?”

“No. I just let it ring once. She’ll find the missed call when she wakes up. That way she’ll know I was thinking about her.”

Drake didn’t reply. For a moment he seemed lost in thought . . . or in his memories, maybe. “Ever wonder what things would be like if you’d decided differently?” he finally asked.

“I don’t know how I would feel if I’d decided not to save Gemma,” I admitted. It was impossible to imagine my world without her in it. I looked at the sky. The clouds were gathering, churning and brimming with energy, ready to unleash a downpour. “To me, Gemma is the storm, the thunder, the lightning . . . but she’s also the sun and the stillness of the moon. She’s all those things and without her I would be an empty sky. No sounds, no colors. I’d be lost in a black universe. She’s my energy.”

“I know the feeling.”

I turned to look at Drake, then lowered my head and stared at my shoes. He probably beat himself up every day about the choices he’d made. The wrong ones, the ones he would never stop regretting. No, I had no doubts. If I had chosen not to save Gemma that day in spring, I would have regretted it forever.

“I—I’m in love with her. I love her with all my being,” I confessed.

“She’s so beautiful it would be hard not to love her,” he said, teasing me.

“Hey, stay away from her!” I punched his shoulder, laughing.

Drake raised his hands. “I meant for
you
not to!”

“Drake, you think one day you might find another girl to make you forget your bad memories?”

“Nope,” he replied without hesitation, “ . . . but I never get tired of trying.” He wiggled his eyebrows and we both burst out laughing.

For a Subterranean, love went beyond mere mortal emotion. Once our spirit had united with someone else’s, it was impossible to sever the bond. But Drake had bonded with his fiancée when he was still alive, so maybe there was still hope for him, though I wasn’t totally convinced.

We talked for a long time, sitting at the foot of the pine tree. I liked hanging out with Drake. Everything seemed simpler when he was around.

A glimmer appeared in the sky, heralding the dawn. I looked at my brother, absorbed in his thoughts, and rested my head quietly against the tree to watch the rising sun.

Blue. I was surrounded by nothing but an intense, unvarying, infinite cobalt blue. It seemed to dominate everything, extend everywhere, as far as I could see. I had no idea where I was nor did I care. I felt the soft, grassy, slightly damp ground beneath my back. The sound of lapping water in the distance filled me with a feeling of tranquility. The blades of grass rustled softly as they danced in the light breeze. They caressed my hands as I moved them over the soft mantle, feeling its consistency.

I heard every sound around me, even the remotest. Every whisper drifted through me as if I were part of it. My mind lost itself in the infinite cobalt that hung over me, protected from the outside world by the melody that lulled me into a pleasantly peaceful state. Lying there, the feeling that I needed nothing else became more and more of a certainty, as though the sky were a void that absorbed all my thoughts, carrying them farther and farther away to a place where nothing else existed.

All at once a whisper, so delicate and hypnotic I was sure it must belong to some enchanting creature, entered my consciousness. I closed my eyes and focused on the sweetness of the sound, forgetting everything else. The breeze lightly brushed my skin as if a ghost were passing over me, and the sound resolved into a voice.

“Naiad . . .”

No one ever called me by my middle name. Confused, I propped myself up on my elbows. The voice vanished, carried away on a breath of air. I lay down again, filled with a sense of peace too profound to worry about it, and it returned, whispering my name, lulling me with its tender melody. I half closed my eyes, almost as if the voice had trapped me in an enchantment in which oblivion summoned me, forcing me to forget the world. I was sure I’d never heard a sound so imbued with power, and deep in my mind I heard the promise that if I managed to reach it, that power would become mine. Driven by the desire for it, I opened my eyes and listened closely without moving a muscle for fear of losing it again.

Who could such a soft, enchanting voice belong to? And how did they know my middle name? The desire to know spread through my mind until it became unbearable. My body rose impulsively, guided by the sound of my name whispered in the wind.

“Naiad . . .”

Like a siren’s hypnotic song, the enchanting call was impossible to resist. I barely noticed my body drifting toward the lake. Cool water wet the tips of my toes and awakened me from the trance that had led me to its edge. I looked down and frowned to see my bare feet lapped by the waves that danced on the lakeshore. Raising a hand to my head, I experienced the strange feeling that someone had crept into my mind, leaving behind the mark of their trespass. My eyes wandered over the clearing, confused about how I’d reached the shore without realizing it.

“Naiad . . .”

I shivered as the call insinuated itself into my brain. As if I were under a spell, all hesitation suddenly seemed illogical. I forgot everything except the visceral desire to reach that voice. It was as if some instinct buried deep inside had taken hold of me. Nothing in the world was more important.

I lifted my bare foot, expecting it to sink into the water, but it stopped short of the lake’s surface. I raised the other foot and then the first one again, moving forward without wondering why my body was suspended on an unmoving pane of glass.

A flurry of cool air shook me out of my dazed state. It was as though part of me were struggling against the desire that had gripped me. Confused, I stared at the mirror of water offering me its support. The shore was far behind me and my body was completely dry.

“Naiad . . .”

Like a deadly poison, the voice unexpectedly took on a sinister edge that eroded my will to resist its call. It was more somber now and seemed to be coming from the depths of the lake. I didn’t care what I had to go through to reach it. I took a step and this time my foot entered the water, which wet it up to the ankle. Another step. And then another. The farther I went, the stronger the voice became, seeming to come now from within, like a part of me. It was a breeze that blew gently on my worries, clouding them. I had the vague sensation the place had changed, almost as though the shores of the lake had been replaced by a grotto in which I was being held prisoner, but I couldn’t perceive it clearly. The surface of the lake glowed with strange, pearly reflections.

The cold water wet my wrists . . . my arms . . . 

“Naiad . . . let yourself go . . . Don’t resist us . . .”

The whisper filled my head, trapping me in its melody until the water reached my chin, jarring me out of the enchantment. The veil that had led me to that place dissolved. Then why did I
long
to go further? Why did I covet the promises hidden in the voice? The yearning to reach it had grown so powerful I wasn’t even frightened of the darkness drawing me into the depths of the lake—I even forgot to grant my body one last breath. What could a breath be worth compared to what awaited me under the water?

My nose, cheeks, eyes disappeared beneath the surface of the lake as the water underneath solidified into a crystal staircase that guided me ever deeper. The water engulfed me to the ends of my hair and the cold penetrated my flesh as darkness enveloped me.

Sporadic air bubbles floated up from my body toward the surface and I watched them helplessly, feeling emptied of breath. Even so, I continued to descend, driven by the dark force possessing me. The voice was ever present in my head, urging me on. I couldn’t give up, not now that it had become so intense, so
close
. It was so kind and comforting, full of a promise I couldn’t relinquish.

Suddenly I felt I was sinking, my body too heavy to hold up. The water was crushing me, the pressure squeezing my chest, preventing me from going further. I felt suddenly weak, wanting nothing more than to surrender to the arms of darkness and let myself be cradled by the water caressing my skin.

All at once, a gleam of light illuminated the shadows that clouded my mind and the abyss into which I was sinking, deprived of all strength. I found myself staring at it, forgetting all else except the desire to reach it. It was so radiant. If only I could find the strength to attain it I would be saved, I knew it.

“Naiad
. . .
You’ll be safe here
. . .
Don’t resist and no one will be able to harm you any more.”

The voice bound me to it. I blinked and another puff of air escaped my mouth when I saw its source, close enough for me to reach out and touch. It was a breathtakingly beautiful woman with long dark hair that flowed and drifted in the currents. She wore a long white gown that swayed around her, enveloping her pearly skin.

“Come to me.”
She held out her hand.

I tried to bring her into focus but the image split into two and then merged back into one. Her lips curved in a sweet smile, her features so harmonious that the only thing that prevented me from taking her hand was my weakness. I suddenly felt on the verge of fainting.