Waterborn (The Emerald Series Book 1) (21 page)

“I guess I’ll see you later then.”

“Have fun. Just…” Don’t drink. Don’t dance with any shit-faced, horny tourists. Don’t wear anything too short. Like she needed another father.

“Just what?”

“Nothing. Have fun.”

I watched her walk toward the house, a half a dozen steps before she turned around and ran back to me. She flung her arms around my neck and hugged me so tight and so quick I didn’t have time to respond. And then she trotted her way up the path to her house and was gone.

I could still smell her though, all over my skin and under it, dreading the swim home that would erase her scent from me.

And because I didn’t want to lose it, I did something I had never done before.

I walked.

I
sat
on a bench on the far side of the green in front of Maggie’s shop, opposite where a crew was working to set up the stage for the concert. Fans had already claimed their spots on the grass with lawn chairs, blankets, and coolers. Venders were setting up along the sidewalks with assorted light-up gadgets, everything from bright neon, glow-in-the-dark necklaces to swords and bubble blowers.

Erin had dropped me off early before going to pick up Ally. I had been eager to be out by myself. A solo flight, so to speak. My first outing into the world all on my own since my dad told me I was someone different, something different. Small as that world had become, the boundary on one side defined by the Gulf, and the other by how far I could get on my bike. Still, it was a big deal. In a lot of ways I still felt like an outsider looking in on someone else’s life. Or an alien secretly inhabiting another world, just waiting to be found out. Any minute now someone would notice, point an accusing finger and scream, “She’s not real.” I felt like an impostor.

No one paid me much attention though. A couple of guys in Ole Miss ball caps had smiled at me when they’d shuffled by, nothing more than the usual appreciative acknowledgment of the opposite sex. No one stared in horror. No finger pointing occurred. Just me and the bench and a warm breeze against my back as the giant cookie moon crawled across the sky.

“Caris?” Maggie called from up the sidewalk. “How are you?”

She was dressed in a flowing frock with all the colors of the rainbow, Felix in tow. His toenails clicked on the concrete as he swagged his stout body forward, tongue lolling between his jowls.

“I’m not sure,” I answered honestly. Something inside me snapped and tears burned my eyes. “You have a few minutes?”

“Of course.” The keys jangled in her hand as she unlocked the door.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I’m usually not a crier.” I wiped my eyes, following her inside the shop. Felix plopped with a satisfied grunt on his pillow.

“Well, you have had a rather startling few weeks.” She left the lights dim, thumping one of the padded stools in invitation.

“You know the whole story then?” I looked into her clear eyes and realized this was just what I needed: someone to talk to who wasn’t somehow emotionally connected to me. I knew she wasn’t a totally disinterested party. When Noah spoke of her it was with genuine affection, but as far as I was concerned she had no real attachment at this point other than professional curiosity. And she was curious, that was plain to see as her eyes danced over me.

“The most important parts.” She stroked my hand, her skin warm, a contrast to the cool metal of the rings she wore. “You’re a brave girl. What’s a few tears in the face of all you’ve discovered about yourself?” The lyrical way she spoke, the soft tone, kind eyes, sitting in her shop with the smells and the lights set to twilight, somehow made this better, bearable.

Tears. I’d never look at them the same way again. I’d been so relieved when I’d found Noah sitting on the beach behind my house, and then he’d created a miracle and I had wanted to keep it, steal is away.

“I would never hurt him. You know that right,” I said to Maggie. “I know what my mother thought. But she was wrong.”

“I know,” she said. “You are not your mother and Noah is not Athen.”

“Noah says you can put a charm in place. Can you tell me? Why did it keep my hair from growing at all until I got here? Why can’t I swim?” The questions tumbled out in a jumble, prompting her to laugh.

“Let me make some tea and we’ll discuss it. I have to admit, I’m very curious. It took more skill than I possess to create such magic.” Maggie waved me to follow her to the back of her shop through a curtain of beads that had a song of their own when I moved through them.

It was like walking through a waterfall and into the place she worked her magic. Vibrant green plants decorated every flat surface that wasn’t dedicated to work space. Some had bright flowering blooms, others with leaves in varying shapes.

“I’m not interrupting anything am I?” I eyed the bottle of champagne chilling in a silver champagne bucket.

“No.” She waved me off. “I’m meeting a client later. A very discerning one. He has an anniversary coming up and needs something special for his wife.” She strode across the small space and opened a cabinet using a key from the ring around her wrist.

Behind the back panel she tripped a door where a small safe was tucked inside the wall. The lock beeped after she entered a code and the door sprang open. Her body blocked my view so what was inside remained a partial mystery. Jewelry, I supposed. When she turned around she had closed the door. She held a deep blue velvet box in her hand, scrolled with a platinum wave-like emblem. She lifted the lid on the box and for the space of a breath the air shifted, the flames of the candles flickered as though someone had opened a door or window and let in a draft of air. A necklace, bracelet, and a pair of earrings rested on the cushy fabric, queenly in their appearance, and different from the pieces she displayed in the cases in the shop. These pearls shimmered with vibrant energy. I stared, trance-like, at the vitality inherent in each one, oddly alive, like they had a story to tell. I knew that they did.

“They’re very beautiful.” My hand hovered over one pale green pearl, my palm warming from the heat it radiated.

“Yes. And quite rare.” She closed the lid and held her hand on the box almost reverent as she placed it back in its hiding place. “And they cost a small fortune.”

She disappeared into her small kitchen and came back with two cups of tea.

“Those should make his wife happy,” she said, curling up on the love seat beside me. “Now about you. The thing you have to remember about magic is that it’s an art, not an exact science. And charms are fickle. They can misfire and have unintended consequences. I doubt it was meant to stunt your hair so absolutely. Usually a charm works as a mask, a very temporary one. Seventeen years is a long time to get it perfectly right. As far as you still not being able to swim, I don’t know. Maybe it’s as simple as you not being ready yet.”

“Or maybe she hates me. Maybe she finds me unworthy,” I said, not wanting to believe it was my fault. She had beckoned me. I’d heard her voice masked in the waves, a silent call in my dreams. I’d heard her all the way from Kentucky.

“Never think that, Caris. The Deep is a goddess dedicated to the protection of your kind. Give it time. You’ve only been here a few weeks. Seventeen years is a long time to forget who you are.”

I hoped she was right.

“My father came to see me,” I confided in a soft tone, as though somehow I had done something wrong.

“Oh.” She sat back, schooling her expression to passivity. “How do you feel about that?”

A difficult question to answer when there was no simple answer. I stared at my cup.

“I don’t know. Angry, confused.” I stole a glance at her. “Curious.”

“I can understand that, Caris. It’s a natural reaction.”

Her lack of censure relieved me. I had been mostly angry, but that didn’t keep me from beating myself up over the fact that I was curious. I wanted to know more about him. I had even found myself wondering about Sol. It had been just my dad and me forever, and I had always been content with our little family. But to discover I had a brother? I might like having a brother.

“Is it, considering what he did?” An image of Athen Kelley popped into my mind. Standing on the beach like some Greek god with the wind and the rain and the lightning as his backdrop. I couldn’t reconcile the two images of him together. Even in the midst of all that raging energy and time to think about it, I wouldn’t have thought him capable of something so terrible.

“I think what happened between your mother and father was a terrible thing. I also think what your father did says more about what was inside him than anything else. The fault lies with him, not your mother. I hate that she took some of the blame and chose to put that burden on you.”

“Are you saying you think my father is inherently a bad person?”

“I’m saying he was put to a test and failed miserably. Proved not to be the leader he thought he was.”

“Do you think people, even bad people, can change?”

“Caris, I have to believe people can change and decide to become better. Otherwise there wouldn’t be hope for any of us.”

I took another sip of tea and thought about what she was saying in relation to the man I had seen on the beach, the man who wanted my forgiveness. I wanted to believe I was the kind of person who believed in second chances. But to forgive him for raping my mother? It was asking so much. And then there was my dad. It would be the ultimate betrayal of what he had done for me to forgive the man who had stolen his life from him.

I set my cup on the table, knowing I was no closer to finding any answers, but feeling better for having asked the questions. “You’re a very good listener.”

Outside the door, the sky had grown completely dark. Lights from the shops lit the night. People milled about, getting ready for the concert. When I reached the door, I crouched down to say goodbye to Felix, running my fingers over the wrinkles on his head.

“Caris?” I turned when Maggie called me. “You don’t have to choose. You can be both. The girl with the charm and the girl without. They both suit you.”

M
usic blared
from the speakers on either side of the stage. I sat between Erin and Ally on our own little blanket island in a chain of other islands spread over the trampled grass.

“What is this?” Red liquid swirled in my cup.

“It’s silly juice. Drink it,” Erin admonished, tipping her own cup to her lips.

Words sounded in my head spoken in Noah’s voice like a voiceover in a movie trailer. Something about too much alcohol, but I was here for fun and to hang with my two new besties. We had all bought light-up necklaces and I wore mine headband style to keep the hair out of my face.

I sat back, scanning the mass of people, eyes gravitating to a particular blond head that stood over the crowd. I recognized Jeb immediately. He was not the kind of person easily forgotten. His blue V-neck shirt made his eyes look especially bright, even at a distance. His hair hung loose around his face. Almost as an afterthought, it had been braided at the ends, one hanging down each side on his chest. No two ways about it, the guy was stunning. The girl on his arm was tall and lanky, dressed in white shorts with legs that went on forever thanks to a pair of three-inch wedges.

On her other side was a dark-headed guy who looked vaguely familiar. My head buzzed with memory. Eel tattoo, cobalt eyes. Cree, I thought his name was. He’d shaved his dreads and now his dark hair was sticking up on end. I wondered if they had just been part of his pirate get-up. The shirt he wore covered most of the tattoo, a plain white tee over faded jeans that he’d cuffed at his ankles, and unlike the girl between them, both he and Jeb were barefoot.

“What is he doing here? I thought he understood he was not invited,” Ally said with a pouty frown. Her eyes, like mine, were on the two not exactly humans.

“It’s a public concert,” Erin said. “He doesn’t need an invitation.”

“Yeah, but he knew we’d be here. Shouldn’t they be somewhere else where they can compare toe jam or split ends?”

I choked on my drink, spitting a shower of silly juice over my bare legs.

“I’m sorry, Caris. I don’t mean you. You are definitely not like
them
.” Ally patted my knee as though I were some cute puppy she’d come across on the road.

I squished my toes together, ignoring the unintended sting of her words. She had meant them as a compliment, but I bristled under the insult. I had already kicked off my flip-flops due to the fact I now had a thin layer of skin sprouting between my toes. I was kind of proud of it.

“Love the dress, Caris,” Erin interjected as though sensing my growing inner hostility. I had never been referred to as a
them
before.

“Thanks.” I took another sip of juice.

“Look at her,” Ally quipped, and it took me a minute to realize it was Jeb and his arm candy she was obsessing over. Though objectively speaking, he was her arm candy.

“She’s pretty,” Erin said, raising her eyebrows at me and smiling while Ally seethed between us. Whatever private message Erin was trying to send was totally lost on me.

“She’s a stick person with boobs,” Ally observed.

She cussed under her breath when Jeb spotted us. He smiled and I thought I heard a collective sigh from the entire female population. He leaned over and said something close to Cree’s ear. Threading his hand with Stick Person’s, he headed our way. About that time, the band made their appearance on stage. The crowed erupted in a dull roar accentuated with whistles as one of the guitarists strummed the first chords of a song. It sliced through the air, charging the crowd even more.

“Oh, no he’s not.” Ally jumped up and grabbed hold of my arm. “You’re coming with me.”

She didn’t give me time to decide if I wanted to go with her or not. She pulled me from the blanket and dragged me deep into the bowels of the now writhing mass of people.

As we danced, my eyes kept wandering over to
them.
Their group had grown by two. Daniel, the beach service guy, along with another girl I didn’t know, another
them
. She had the kind of hair that made me think of a sunset. The way the sun tinted the clouds pink. It danced around her hips as she swayed to the music. Cree had made his way over to Erin, stopped, and leaned over to say something to her. She shook her head, but he persisted and she laughed, letting him haul her to her feet.

Another song started, this one more upbeat and apparently a crowd favorite. Before the first chorus ended, Cree and Erin were dancing beside me. He took my hand and I’d had enough silly juice that I let him. He pressed his mouth to my ear, talking loudly enough for me to hear over the music. “Sorry about the other day. Festival days get kind of crazy.”

His eyes were bright against dark skin that reminded me of the inside of the Derby pie my grandmother used to make at Thanksgiving, smooth and luscious, and when he smiled, dimples appeared in his cheeks. Now that I knew what he was, what I was, he didn’t seem near as intimidating.