Then We Fly

by Rebecca Salas

  My nights felt more like a slow torture than an adventure. Thankfully I didn’t dream of pain every night. In recent nights it had improved. I had more dreamless nights than nights filled with nightmares. I was enjoying the change and I didn’t want to do anything to ruin it.

  When I got into my room there was a breeze coming in from the open balcony which sent a chill down my arms. I closed the doors and was soon climbing into bed. In the dim light I almost didn’t see it. Set on my pillow was a large white feather. I set it on my dressing table and got back in bed. I knew what Violet wanted from me, and I knew that I was in her debt from the last time I saw her. As I pulled the blankets around me, I felt chills run down my body despite the warm of the night.

  {MISSING SYMBOL}

  The dream was dark, but it wasn’t empty. It was filled with fear and pain. I was surrounded by a sea of panic, its waves lapping at my face and threatening to smother me. My stomach turned growling with hunger, I pressed my balled fists into it, trying to keep it quiet. I didn’t want to be noticed. The dark space was filled with a rotten and burnt odor and a fly buzzed around my ear. Dim light flicked on from under the door in front of me. The waves of my panic rose, and I wanted to escape, but I knew there was no way out. My previous attempts at escape had all ended painfully. Now, my only hope was to keep quiet and go unnoticed.

  A shadow moved behind the door. He had noticed me. I could feel the hatred rolling off of him. He was coming for me.

  {MISSING SYMBOL}

  I opened my eyes to my dark room, and I wanted to cry, but I was too scared to make a noise. Too much of the fear from the dream lingered for me to feel safe. I was sweating and hot, but I still pulled the blankets up over my head. I wished that I wasn’t alone, I wanted Fynn to come and comfort me or even Oran, but nothing was getting me out of that bed. I was trapped by my fear as hot tears poured down my cheeks. I stayed that way for an eternity. Eventually light started to show around the edges of my blanket and I fell back to sleep.

  I wasn’t going to try to dream again. I did my best to keep myself busy after that. I didn’t want time to think about my dreams, or what the nightmare might mean. It had been an extension of the same nightmare that I had been having for the past months, and I wanted it to go away. I didn’t want to think about the girl who was experiencing those things. I didn’t want to know if it was Naida or me or someone else. I wanted to pretend the dreams never happened. My one comfort was that the details faded quickly when I avoided thinking about them, all that was left was a memory of the pain and fear. There was one other detail that I couldn’t escape; Blake wasn’t as dead as I’d been led to believe.

  I was furious with Oran and Fynn for lying to me. It didn’t even make sense. Why let me think that I was safe? Blake wasn’t likely to just forgive me for screwing up his plans. Last time I saw him he had stabbed me. It was too much to hope that he might let it go, and if I was in danger, I had a right to know about it.

  I tried to ignore the looks I would get from Oran and now Fynn. They seemed to be watching me closer than ever, maybe they were feeling guilty. Luckily Zoya returned that week and I was able to distract myself with her company. Zoya had spent weeks off and on away from the island in search of Shea. Ever since she found out what Avice had done to him, Zoya had done everything she could to find him, but so far, she hadn’t had any success.

  The same as with times before, Zoya came home distracted and a little hopeless looking. I tried to distract her in every way that I could, for both of our sakes. I wanted to ask her what she knew about Blake, but I didn’t want to chance ruining her already fragile mood. We were both avoiding a lot these days, now I was even avoiding Fynn. I wanted to confront him, but that would mean telling him things I was supposed to keep secret.

  At first, I tried to distract Zoya by watching movies in the theater that we had enjoyed many times in the castle. It was difficult though, because I was avoiding horror and she was avoiding romance. We settled for comedy, but some romance or horror always snuck in.

  I was eager to know how her search had gone, but the only thing that really mattered was that she came back alone. For the first few trips I would ask her about it, and try to make her feel better, but talking never helped. More often than not the talking seemed to prolong her days of depression. These days I would provide whatever distraction I could and wait it out.

  In a few days Zoya was back to her normal perky self, and we fell into a comfortable routine. Today we were going to visit Iredaea, the underwater portion of the kingdom. I was constantly amazed by what she would show me there. I remembered the first time I had seen those lights glimmering deep under the water and wondered where they came from. Since I had moved into the castle, I had discovered for myself. In my head I had taken to thinking of that place as Atlantis, though that wasn’t its name.

  An entire castle lay under the ocean, and it glowed an iridescent white in the sunlight. The massive building was easily six stories tall with spiraling towers scattered across the top. Air bubbles escaping from the handful of steam vents under the castle wrapped the castle in a soft curtain. The jewel lined windows scattered rainbows across the seafloor and bounced across the white exterior walls, but what had caught my attention on my first visit wasn’t the architecture or the colors, it was the people. Hundreds of mer people swam around at every level of the underwater castle.

  They were as varied as any race. Some had long hair and some short, and in every color imaginable. There were a fair number of blondes and brunettes but equally mixed in were the mer with blue and purple hair, I had even seen a few with baby pink hair. Their tales had less variation; they all had something resembling a dolphin’s tail mostly in muted tones ranging from brown through dark gray.

  Clothing appeared to be optional, but few were entirely naked. If they went without clothing as I was accustomed to it, they made up for it by covering their bodies in necklaces and jewelry. Everyone sparkled. Some wore layers upon layers of pearls, cascading down their chest and stomach, but other choices were less expected. I saw several mermen wearing jewelry made up of rusty bits of spikey metal, but most of the men seemed to prefer to go without anything at all.

  There were also the mer people with legs, who seemed to enjoy the underwater environment almost as much as their water bound counterparts. These would congregate inside Iredaea’s castle with some rooms filled with air supplied by pipes from the surface, but most of the rooms were water filled.

  The selkies were less common, at least in seal form, most seemed to prefer the privacy of their submarines and underwater homes.

  I rarely saw Fynn around the underwater castle. He usually kept to his rooms above water or hid away in his private underwater house. I had seen him less and less these past few months. He was always friendly and eager when I saw him but seeing him was becoming less and less common.

  Swimming around and thinking about him I decided, I was going to talk to him about Blake, and I would delay my visit with Violet until I had something to tell her. Which, if I was being honest, I hoped would take an awfully long time. I didn’t want more nightmares. With a word of parting, I broke away from Zoya’s tour of this section castle in search of Fynn’s house.

  The selkie’s homes were congregated away from the castle in loosely arranged groups. They were all filled with air, because while the selkies could hold their breath for an exceptionally long time, they couldn’t breathe water.

  Fynn’s house was on the edge of a cluster of submarines close to the sea floor. The metal dome was attached to the sea floor. Unlike the others, Fynn’s was meant to stay underwater indefinitely. A thick pipe to the surface supplied fresh air and a chute down which supplies could be sent. This deep under the ocean the water grew darker and the water pressure began to hurt my ears.

  I couldn’t see any light escaping through the porthole windows, but I continued on anyway. I swam down beneath the metal hull and up into the moon pool. The room was dark, lit only by the faint glow of
electronics in one corner and the dim light that filtered in through the portholes. I pulled myself out of the water, sitting on the grated edge of the pool and adjusting to breathing air again, it didn’t matter how many times I had made this adjustment, there was still a certain amount of sputtering.

  I had only been here once before, when Fynn had brought me after touring some of Iredaea, he came here to get some things before heading back to the surface. The visit had been brief and being here now I couldn’t control my curiosity when I realized that I was by myself. I stepped into the room to snoop around a bit.

  Fynn’s house had multiple rooms, it was built for a longer stay, and more people, but as far as I could tell in my brief visit, he lived there alone. The main room held one brown leather couch and a simple round coffee table. In the corner there was a desk and computer, but other than that the room was bare. Everything was organized and almost sanitary feeling. There was nothing of Fynn in here. The room was practically barren. There were no pictures, or notebooks or anything to suggest a real person actually lived there.

  The only point of interest in the room was a painting that hung on one wall, a map of the world. It looked incredibly old and had all of the continents drawn slightly out of proportion, surrounded by huge sea monsters depicted in the oceans. Not long ago those sea monsters would have seemed to me a fairy tale, albeit a scary one, but now I knew better. I knew how real some sea monsters could be.

  Overall, the room left me feeling sad. I was hoping for some more insight into Fynn. In these past months he had been gone more often than he was around, there was still so little that I knew about him.

  I walked into one of the adjacent rooms and I had recognized the room almost instantly. Apart from the lack of a ladder, the room looked very much like Wylie’s. The bed and dresser were arranged in the same relative position to the porthole. I clenched my jaw and turned around, escaping from the memories. I walked straight into a bare chest. I jumped back, letting out a scream.

  Fynn reached out and grabbed me by my arms, stopping me from falling backwards, his brow furrowed.

  “Are you ok? I didn’t mean to scare you. Actually, that’s not true. I was totally trying to scare whoever was snooping around. I just didn’t realize that person was you.” He smirked.

  I freed one arm and smacked him on the chest.

  “Don’t you ever do that again!” I tried to sound forceful, but Fynn only laughed.

  “Sure, blame it on me.”

  “I will.” I smiled, finally recovering from the shock. Fynn extended his free arm and switched on a light.

  “Looking for something?”

  “You, but since you were gone, I decided I would settle for some super-secret Fynn… stuff.” I gestured to the room. “Unfortunately, your place seems to be low on stuff.”

  “Did you check the bathroom? I am fairly sure there is some super-secret soap in the shower.” He pointed in the direction of a door I hadn’t inspected.

  “Yea… super-secret soap just isn’t going to cut it.”

  “You never know, you could always try selling it on eBay. You might be surprised by the demand for selkie soap. It’s very… moisturizing?” He half smiled; no hint of his former concern left behind.

  “Moisturizing soap? That’s all you’ve got for me?” I raised an eyebrow. He smiled wide and leaned in close, his face only an inch away from mine. He looked down at my lips and held still, his face growing intense. My breathing became unsteady.

  “Yep.” He popped back and turned to walk away. I felt like I had been cheated. “I’m sorry to leave in a rush, but I was actually in the middle of something that I have to get back to.”

  “What?” I blinked.

  “Really, I’ve got to run. Feel free to steal the soap.” He gestured off toward the bathroom, with a crooked grin and then he jumped feet first back into the water. I considered grabbing his soap, but still in a nosey mood I figured I would try and follow him instead.

  I jumped quickly into the water and I wondered if I had crossed the line into stalker territory. I looked around and saw him, already faint in the distance. I followed him heading toward the sparkling castle under the sea. Despite the fact that I had discovered a handful of new abilities since coming here, an improved ability to swim wasn’t among them, and Fynn only got further and further away.

  He entered the castle through one of the smaller side entrances and after a few minutes of hard swimming I finally reached the same entrance. I peeked around the corner into the castle. The entrance was empty and so were all of the rooms adjacent to it. It wasn’t long before I felt ridiculous and gave up, annoyed. All the effort had left me tired and I decided to head back to the surface, but only after returning to Fynn’s house to steal his soap out of spite.

  Later, I smiled to myself as I carefully placed his soap next to the sink in my bathroom.

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  Chapter Two

  The dark room was filled with fear. Panic ran through my veins and I felt the urge to run, but I was trapped. I knew he was coming, and with him would come pain. I huddled in the corner of the dark closet and listened to his footsteps approaching. I wiped the tears from my face; I couldn’t let him see them. The tears only made him more violent. I stared up at the doorknob waiting. The steps came closer and stopped in front of the door. There was a click and then the doorknob turned.

  Light came in through the crack of the opening door and blinded me. Instinctively, I raised my hands over my face. He reached down and grabbed my hand, pulling me to my feet and out of the closet. He was gentler than he had ever been before, but I fought down the desire to hope.

  “Shhh,” he hushed. “There, there, I forgive you.” He leaned closer and kissed my forehead. My instinct was to pull away, but I held still, afraid of his wrath. He began to hum, and my body was filled with warmth. I almost jerked away, but then I couldn’t remember why. I followed him out into the warm sunny room.

  {MISSING SYMBOL}

  I opened my eyes to see that the sun was just beginning to lighten the horizon. I still had time to try and get in touch with Violet. She deserved to know what was going on. It wasn’t right to keep the truth, no matter how horrible, from someone who might be able to help Naida. And Naida clearly needed help. Things seemed clearer to me in this dream, or maybe it was because I was able to see more than the dark closet. Naida was the girl in my dreams, not me, and now I had no doubt about who her captor was. I laid back and tried to force my adrenaline filled body back to sleep.

  {MISSING SYMBOL}

  Colors filled the sky with each new wisp of wind. Violet twisted and turned, soaring and diving through the sky, a look of pure joy on her face, and I was there flying with her. I looked back at the pair of perfectly formed white wings on my back and I was tempted to follow her through her dream and enjoy the freedom.

  “But you won’t, not today.” Violet said, turning back to look at me over her shoulder.

  “What?” I asked. I looked down to see there was an island beneath us, where only a moment ago we flew over the open sea. Violet landed and looked up at me; she wanted me to follow her. That was when I realized what had happened, I could feel what she was thinking, her desires and emotions were clear to me.

  “See.” Violet said nodding her head. The wind swirled around us in a range of colors that seemed to change with every tilt of Violet’s head. “Now, as interesting as this experience is, tell me, what have you seen?” I thought about my dream of Naida and the wind began to change colors, no longer was I surrounded by pink and yellow, but navy blue and deep green. I looked at Violet’s concerned face. “Tell me.” Violet’s voice was more forceful than I had ever heard before, and I felt compelled to speak.

  “I didn’t understand at first.” I cringed. “I didn’t realize it was her.”

  “Tell me, Cora Reed.” Violet practically sang the words and they were a compulsion to speak. I had no control, I wanted to tell her, b
ut even if I hadn’t, I would have had no choice. Her power over me within this dream was disconcerting.

  “Blake has her. He’s been doing awful things to her.” I winced at the thought. “And now his game is changing, he’s doing something. He’s manipulating her.” A thought occurred to me. “Why doesn’t she stop him? I’m certain she’s more powerful than he is.” My mood shifted like the wind and I was angry for Naida. “How could Naida let him do this to her?” I practically yelled and the wind around me blew black.

  “It’s my fault, pet.” A gray fog wrapped around Violet’s feet and the wind calmed, dropping her black hair around her shoulders. “I am going to trust you with a piece of my story, pet. I can trust you, can’t I?” Sadness flowed around her in a thick fog.

  “As well as I can trust you, Violet,” I said. She almost smiled.

  “You are my very clever pet. Have you figured out this riddle yet?” She twitched her head to the side and looked into my eyes. “Maybe not so clever after all.” She straightened up. “Naida is my niece, a mistake as Blake saw her. And, being so unlike either of her parents, my responsibility.”

  The wind rushed past me in a gust of orange astonishment.

  “Then why did you keep her prisoner?” The image of Naida bound by a thin chain to a small island flashed in my mind, and the wind began to pick up again, blowing blue around my shoulders.

  “It was to protect her. I tried to help her escape once. You’ve seen it I know. Raidne said you showed her the dream, what it was like for Naida when she was escaping. She couldn’t get far enough though, and he found her.” The fog that wove between her legs grew black. “I did everything I could do to protect her from that ever happening to her again, but it’s worse now; I can see it in your eyes.”

  “Why doesn’t she stop him Violet? I’ve met Naida, remember? She is way more powerful than Blake.”