I was going to ask them if they were ready, but I couldn’t be sure what type of answer I’d get, so I escorted them into our common house. A small statue of Freyja stood on a ledge beside the front door and I touched it gently before crossing the threshold. Oh, how good it was to be home.
A little barking dog greeted us, sniffing excitedly at my feet. I bent down to pet it until the rusalki entered behind me. The dog ignored my presence and ran to them, though its barking quieted. Azalea reached down to pick up the white fluff ball and cradled it in her arms.
“Faline!” Aunt Patricia ran to me and wrapped her arms around my neck, holding me in a tight embrace. “You don’t know how good it is to see you.” She sniffed me and then lifted her head. “What is that smell?”
“Allow me to introduce what’s left of the rusalki coven. Azalea, Vernonia, Daphne, and Drosera Moks,” I said, stepping aside to make the introductions.
The three Wilds behind me nodded. The rest of my coterie joined us in the tiled entry. I interrupted the early stages of a staring battle. “Let’s go to the living room. It’s getting tight in here.”
“Is it?” Daphne asked. “It feels quite spacious to me.”
“It would, compared to your home,” I said, leading the group toward the white couches, and realizing I probably didn’t want them to sit on the cushions and ruin the fabric.
“We are happy to sit on the floor,” Azalea told me, clearly having read my mind. She and her sisters sat where they stood, on the dark wooden floor opposite the couch. Shawna’s dog sat in Azalea’s lap, a content look on its face.
“The rusalki read minds,” I warned my sisters and aunts. “They’ve also created a little living area on the outskirts of our property so they won’t need a room here.”
“Well, you are more than welcome to stay wherever you like,” Olivia said. She sat on the couch. “But this arrangement works best. The mermaids are on their way, and they weren’t specific as to how many were coming.”
“Ending the mermaid’s life was necessary,” Vernonia said.
Awkward silence filled the room.
“I didn’t say it wasn’t,” Olivia muttered.
“No, but you thought it.” Azalea seemed completely composed sitting on the floor with her legs folded, petting Shawna’s dog.
“Well, yeah, I did. The Wild Women groups haven’t come together in over a couple hundred years. Faline makes that happen, gives us hope to not only get our sister, but get our lives back too, and you guys go and kill a key player who’s a member of the largest and richest group of Wilds.” Olivia scrunched her eyebrows as she spoke, clearly irritated.
“I’m concerned as well,” Aunt Patricia added. “Our goal is to fight the Hunters, not one another. I’m not sure how we should approach this topic when they arrive.”
“She betrayed her kind,” Azalea said.
“Okay,” Olivia said. “But did she betray the mermaids and the other Wilds or just the other Wilds? Are the mermaids on board with her? These are things we should know.”
Azalea looked up from the white dog and peered at Olivia. “You are not the sister in your family who’s plagued with anxiety, yet you exhibit such behavior.”
Olivia looked at me and raised her eyebrows with an are you serious expression. Azalea did have a point. Normally it was Celeste who fretted over everything, but Celeste sat on a white chair, listening. “Um, no. Not unnecessary anxiety. I’m trying to plan how this is all going to go down. Are we about to fight the mermaids? Because yeah, that possible scenario makes me a little anxious.”
“I will explain everything to the mermaids,” Azalea said.
“No, that’s not the best idea,” I chimed in. A plan popped into my head and I ran with it. I motioned toward my coterie. “When they first get here, we will behave normally. The rusalki can read their minds and see if the other mermaids are working with the Hunters, too. If the rusalki don’t interrupt us with news that the mermaids are traitors, we’ll tell them what happened. I’ve brought her things to give to them along with our condolences.”
“And what if they’re all working with the Hunters?” Olivia asked me.
“Then we’ll tell them something else happened to her and try to get Hunter information from them. It’d help to know how much and what they’ve shared with the enemy.” I spoke while wondering what my sister would say if she knew that I too was sharing information with the enemy.
Azalea’s head turned sharply toward me and tilted to the side.
Shit.
I kept talking, hoping Azalea hadn’t just read my mind about Marcus. “I don’t like being dishonest, but we can’t afford the time and casualties in a fight with them when we need to be focusing on saving our sisters and mothers.”
Olivia nodded. “Desperate times…”
I waited for Azalea to expose my secret about Marcus. She only raised one corner of her lips. I hoped that meant she agreed with the plan.
Either way, I had to change the subject before she exposed me—a metaphor about a bird leaving its nest or something. “You said the mermaids were on their way?” I asked my Aunt Patricia.
“Yes.”
“Are they flying or swimming?” I asked.
“Swimming,” Aunt Patricia answered. “At least ten of them, from what I gathered. But like Olivia said, we don’t have an exact count.”
Azalea stood and the other rusalki followed her lead. She softly placed the dog onto the floor. “We have made one another’s acquaintance, and we will now take our leave,” she said. “Please summon us the moment the mermaids arrive.” The rusalki showed themselves out.
Olivia opened her mouth to speak, but I put a finger over my lips and waited until I could no longer hear their steps outside along the gravel. The moment I lowered my finger, she started in.
“What the hell was that?” Olivia said. “Weirdos.”
“Powerful weirdos,” I corrected. “They were being nice today, probably respecting our home and territory. But when I showed up at their home they got into my head. The way they keep the Hunters at bay, they check in for their monthly screenings and then get into their minds, make the Hunters think they’d already tested them and that all the rusalki passed the test.”
Shawna’s white fluff ball of a dog pranced toward me and sat at my feet, eyeing me with the look of “you know you want to let me up.” And I did want to let it up. I scooped the animal from the floor and placed it into my lap. “The mermaids are cunning, but they’re also into peace and having an elevated consciousness, so I don’t think they’ll come at us with violence once I break the news, if it gets that far, which it probably will. I don’t think the rusalki will find them to be traitors.” But then again, I didn’t think Gabrielle was a traitor either. “And just to be sure, while I explain exactly what happened to Gabrielle in Maine, the rusalki can read their minds then too.”
“So, you’re saying the mermaids will be the most civilized group?” Olivia asked.
“They would have been if a rusalka hadn’t killed their sister. Now I’m just hoping they practice what they preached to me on their island, about Wild solidarity. The harpies are also civilized, in their own way. They’re emotionless and pretty stuck up. Private. Think of tall, thin, human-looking owls that stare at you. Oh, and they want to share a room.” I sat the dog on the cushion beside me and padded into the kitchen to grab a bottle of water from the fridge as I spoke. “The succubi will be the most difficult to control. They absorb energy and can manipulate it. They had me on the ground, unable to move at one point, and then offered a threesome a few minutes later. They’re all over the place.”
Celeste’s eyes widened at the threesome comment and I shook my head. I couldn’t help but laugh a little. Yes, it was good to be home. But more importantly, it was good to finally be close to saving Shawna.
I chugged my water and checked my phone. I yearned for a shower and clean clothes.
I had to take the stairs to my house with Gabrielle’s and m
y suitcases in tow. I flung my bag on my bed and took a moment to breathe in the scents of home.
If my mother was still alive and I rescued her, we’d share this tree home. Would we get along? Would our personalities mesh? I’d always been resigned to watch mother-daughter relationships from the outside. Would it ever feel normal to experience from the inside?
Twenty-Five
I stirred the chopsticks in circles, entwining the few noodles left in the bowl. Any other night my sunken-in couch would wrap me in comfort almost as much as the terrycloth robe I wore. I’d delight in the sounds of nature echoing through the woods. But this night I sat rigidly on my couch, itching to get out of my robe and into boots and a holster. I dropped the chopsticks and sat my bowl away from me. I hated this. Hated the waiting while Shawna suffered goddess knew what.
“So weird, how it’s all spread out like this,” a female said from below my tree. Gravel shifted under her feet.
I jumped from the couch and perched on my porch. Finally. Twelve mermaids walked barefoot, wearing thin flowing dresses of different colors, headed for the common house.
“Do they dislike being together?” another said.
“You’ve met one. Would you like being around her all the time?”
I rolled my eyes. Mermaids.
“They have impeccable hearing,” an older mermaid reminded her sisters. Azul.
I took a deep, cleansing breath, and then scaled down my tree trunk to meet the mermaids in front of our common house. “We certainly do have impeccable hearing, Azul,” I said. “Welcome. I’m so glad you could come.”
Azul offered me a hug and I returned the gesture. “Where will we be staying?” she asked when we parted.
I pointed to the large building. “There are rooms ready for you,” I said.
I had them follow me to the common house—twelve mermaids with barely any clothes on, shells woven into their hair in various places and pendants of their finned goddess hanging from their necks. Among the Pacific Northwest’s rainy, wet, wintery woods, they stood out like a flock of scarlet tanagers perched on an empty branch in the fall… Or like fish on dry land.
I opened the door to our common house and invited them in with a sweep of my arm. Several of them eyed the ferns that stood in most corners and lush vines that wound from one shelf to the next, filling our walls with greenery. The lack of water had to bother them, but no one said anything.
I made the introductions between the mermaids and my coterie, in which many stiff handshakes were shared. I had a hard time differentiating the mermaids’ scents to identify their emotions with all the saltwater seeping from their pores and hair. I waited anxiously for the rusalki to sense the new arrivals and come walking through the front door. They’d told me to summon them, but didn’t say how.
“I don’t understand,” a black-haired, tall mermaid said. She peered around the large living room area. “Where’s Gabrielle? Why isn’t she greeting us instead?”
I kicked myself for forgetting Gabrielle’s bag in my tree home, but then decided maybe it wouldn’t have been appropriate to greet them with their passed sister’s suitcase in tow.
“Let’s go into the kitchen,” I said, walking toward the room lined with stainless steel appliances and dark wooden cabinets. “We can sit at the table and discuss the newest turn of events.” If you could call it that.
Our common house’s kitchen was large and fit a narrow, long, dining table made from an old cedar tree that had fallen in a storm one winter many years ago. Bark still clung to the slightly rounded bottom side of the table, though the top had been sanded flat and lacquered. We’d lacquered the bottom too, but it didn’t shine because of the bark. I really hoped a fight didn’t break out that would destroy that table. Shawna loved that table.
We rarely had visitors enough to fill the table, but dissecting the great tree seemed sacrilegious. Today our decision proved worthwhile. Only a few younger mermaids had to stand for lack of chairs and table space. It was obvious that they’d left their youngest members at home, and a few of their strongest for protection.
I understood. I appreciated all the help we could get. Though, I couldn’t be sure that they’d help us once they found out about Gabrielle.
“Why are we sitting here instead of kissing our sister?” one mermaid asked another. She’d allowed a sprinkling of light orange scales to creep across her forehead from one temple to the other above her eyebrows like a crown.
I peered around for the rusalki. Where were they? They were supposed to be here, reading minds. The mermaids stared at me. One stood from her chair to tower above the sitting huldra, I assumed. Damn it, I had to tell them.
You may, someone spoke into my mind. I looked around the room, but spotted no ruaslki.
Can we trust Azul? I wondered.
They will move forward with you as promised, the voice answered.
Again, she hadn’t answered the question I’d asked, but with the mermaids staring at me and tension threating to brew over, I trusted the rusalka.
“Because Gabrielle didn’t make it out of Maine,” I said.
Azul shot me a hard look. “What does that mean?”
The members of my coterie tensed. The air in the kitchen thickened.
“We tried to visit the rusalki, to enlist their help, but they found Gabrielle unworthy.” Bark tingled as it crept up my wrists. I pulled my hands from the tabletop to hide on my lap.
“You’re not being clear.” The mermaid I’d met in the bathroom, Elaine, hit the table as she spoke with a raised voice. “We’re all tired from our travels,” she said to her shoal. “Too tired to be jerked around and forced into playing huldra games.” Her gaze settled back on me. “It’s beyond me why we thought we could trust you with our sister’s safety. You couldn’t even keep your own sister safe.”
I stood in a flash and dug my nails into the wooden table top.
Another mermaid with green scales along the tops of her shoulders pushed her chair out from under her and loomed over the table.
“You want it straight?” I said as I worked to restrain myself. They had every right to be upset, but bringing Shawna into this crossed a line. “Because I wasn’t playing games. I was trying to be respectful of the loss of someone I came to call my friend. But if you could give two shits about how the message is given—”
“Loss?” Elaine asked through clenched teeth. A monstrous look flashed through her eyes.
Another mermaid tapped the table and shook her head. “No, no, no,” she muttered.
“She was killed,” was all I could push through my burning throat before I had to pause and swallow. A chaos of yells and questions filled the room, but I continued. “She was my friend. I tried to protect her, to stop it from happening.”
“How dare you wait to tell us now,” Elaine seethed.
“I thought you should be told in person,” I countered.
Elaine threw her hands up. “I’m done here. I want no part in helping this huldra or her sister.”
Azul closed her eyes, inhaled through her nose, opened her eyes, and exhaled through her mouth before she spoke. “As awful as we all feel, I am sure Faline speaks the truth. There is no reason to be cross with her or her coterie.” Azul leveled a gaze at Elaine. “And our shoal knows that this is not simply about a missing huldra. We are here for a reason much bigger than one Wild.”
“I don’t want to stay in this home any longer.” Elaine backed away from the table as if she were preparing to leave.
Aunt Patricia placed her hands on the table and spread them out, one in my direction and one in Elaine’s. “Death is never an easy thing to discuss. Let’s bring this down a notch or two before your coming here defeats the purpose.”
Azul chimed in, “I agree.”
Elaine and I held an intense stare from across the table. Neither of us sat. Her eyes shifted to my hands and I hid them behind me.
Azul patted Elaine’s backside and Elaine sat. A few of the other standing mer
maids fell to their chairs as though the lack of a fight left them to collapse in their pain.
I sat, careful to hide my hands beneath the table. I didn’t need my bark triggering an already on-edge mermaid. I knew, too well, how quickly travel exhaustion can escalate to defensiveness.
“Please, Faline,” Elaine said through tight lips. “Continue in telling us about our fallen sister.” Tears slid down her sisters’ faces as she spoke. Her own eyes glistened.
“The rusalki read minds,” I said. “It’s one of their abilities. They caught us on their land, or what they deemed as their territory, and reached into our minds. They said she had been working with the Hunters, and they ended her life for it.”
A few soft sobs broke the short stint of shocked silence. Elaine shook her head. Azul folded her hands together and closed her eyes. The mermaid with the scales across her shoulders jumped up and ran from the room, sobbing uncontrollably.
“So the rusalki think they’re judge, jury, and executioners of all Wild Women now?” Elaine asked, clearly pissed.
“We think of ourselves as no such thing.” Azalea spoke from the kitchen entrance with the living room at her back. Her rusalki sisters stood on each side of her.
I hadn’t heard the door open, but maybe they hadn’t needed the door.
Daphne explained, “While one’s thoughts can be deceiving to themselves, their intentions are powerful and clear, like raindrops, magnifying all.”
“Please.” Olivia stood and invited the rusalki to the table. “Join us.”
The four females with tangled hair, dressed in animal skins and leaves, glided into the kitchen and stood together at an empty end of the table.
“We should have never tried to help.” Elaine wiped an angry tear from her eye. “Gabrielle agreed to go with you, to walk beside you, and now you sit here and she doesn’t. We should let the Hunters do whatever they will with your sister.” Elaine stood and pushed the empty chair toward the table. “I will take no part of this.”
Freyja's Daughter Page 21