Promise Bound

by Anne Greenwood Brown

It was nearly midnight when the double feature was over, and I thought I was going to die. When the lights came on, I shielded my eyes and turned to find Maris’s seat empty.

  “What did you think?” Gabby asked.

  I massaged my left shoulder, then stretched my back. “Great cars. Lots of cigarettes. Awesome hats.”

  Gabby cracked a smile. “ ’Bout sums it up. There’s more tomorrow. Key Largo and To Have and Have Not. You in?”

  “Actually, that might be a little much for me,” I said, following her out into the lobby. I kept my head down but still searched for Maris. She was gone. Apparently, Maris could slip in and out of a theater as easily, and as silently, as she moved underwater. I had to hand it to her. It was mighty impressive.

  As we headed toward our cars, I noticed a strange high-pitched sound. “New shoes?” I asked.

  Gabby stopped walking. “What?”

  “Your shoes are squeaking.”

  She and I both looked down at her feet. Right behind her heels, two gray-brown rats scratched, their tails writhing. One raced around Gabby’s feet and climbed over the toes of her shoes. She screamed. I think I screamed. Rats? I’d never seen a live rat before. Well, except in the science lab, but those were kind of … cute.

  “What are they?” Gabby shrieked. She hopped backward, lifting her knees high, but the rats followed her and three more joined them, matching her progress. Chirping and hissing, they slowly swept their tails back and forth on the pavement. My stomach rose up in my throat.

  “Lily!” Gabby screamed, tripping over an empty beer bottle. It spun like a dial and clanked off the brick wall, ricocheting toward me. “Do something!”

  “Do what?”

  “Anything!”

  I picked up the bottle and threw it into the rats’ midst, but they ignored me. They were focused on Gabby and herding her into an alley, like border collies with a sheep. I kicked one, but it only bounced off the wall and ran to catch up with the others. Horror-struck, I watched as another dozen flooded into the alley after Gabby. My hand raised shakily toward my mouth.

  “We need to talk,” Maris said behind me.

  “Gah!” I exclaimed, spinning around. Calder had once told me that he and his sisters could communicate telepathically with animals, but I’d never actually seen it in action. This was just plain sick. Gabby was still yelling my name from deep within the alley.

  “Call them off. Now!” I cried.

  “I just need five minutes alone with you.”

  I turned from Maris to run after Gabby, but Maris grabbed my shoulder and spun me around, dragging me away from the mouth of the alley. “What are you going to do about your mother?” she asked.

  “What?” My head whipped back and forth between Maris and the alleyway. I couldn’t see Gabby anymore, but I could still hear her screaming and kicking over trash cans.

  Maris rolled her eyes. “I know what you told Pavati, and it made me curious. You’re always getting in the way of things taking their natural course.”

  “Yeah, well, it’s MS. I can’t stop MS. Maris, please!” Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man and a woman enter the alley to investigate, then hurry out and run toward the theater. “Let’s get the manager,” I heard the man say. Maris seemed oblivious to the scene around us.

  “Hurry up and ask the question, Lily Hancock. I heard Pavati thinking about it earlier this evening, and I don’t have all night.”

  “I don’t want anything from you.”

  “Well, you know I want something from you.”

  “Nothing’s changed there.”

  “No, something has changed. Pavati has changed. I know you’ve talked. What have you told her?”

  “Call off the rats.”

  Maris chuckled. “Fine. You don’t have to tell me. I’m sure I’ll catch your thoughts, or Pavati’s, soon enough. Care to swim with me tonight?”

  “Maybe another time.”

  Maris laughed again. “Fair enough. But I will help your mother, if you help me.”

  Maris’s words shocked me into silence. For a second I couldn’t move. Gabby’s screams disappeared. I felt like I was floating somewhere above the sidewalk and below the beam of the streetlight. I was afraid to ask, but somehow I found the words. “If you change my mom, will it cure her?”

  “I believe it would. An electrical shock like that to the nervous system …”

  A man in a white shirt and black tie came running out of the theater armed with a broom. Another man, carrying a fire extinguisher and yelling a string of colorful epithets, followed him into the alley. Several others followed just for the show.

  “Don’t think too long,” Maris said. “I’ll do this for you if you align yourself with me. Mother put me in charge when she left. She trusted me. I’m the only one who can make this family what it should be.”

  I turned to face her again and asked, “And what’s that?” The beam from the streetlight bore down on us. It cast eerie shadows across Maris’s face, but her silver eyes burned through them.

  “Powerful. Beautiful. The thing of legends. Pavati can’t do it. She’s too preoccupied with her offspring to think of the family’s greater good. Join me, and I’ll make you great, too.”

  The image she painted was indeed beautiful, exactly the way I’d imagined mermaid life back when I thought Tennyson’s poetry was an accurate portrayal: underwater castles, music, pearls, and flirtations. My breath caught in my throat. I wanted that utopian vision; my hand involuntarily rose as if to grab it.

  Maris smiled and looked down demurely, ending the dream.

  I cleared my throat. “I think it’s time to release Gabby.”

  Maris glanced casually toward the alley. “Jack Pettit’s sister.”

  “That’s right. But she holds none of the blame for Tallulah.”

  “Of course not. What do you take me for?”

  I was tempted to answer but bit down on my bottom lip instead.

  “Think about what I said, Lily. We could be great together.”

  Maris left, slinking into the gray shadows like a film noir character, or maybe more like the Pied Piper, because what looked like the black train of her skirt was really three dozen rats. And they were following the biggest one of all.

  22

  CALDER

  By noon the next day, it was still raining. I stashed the old man’s cell phone under the driver’s seat and stepped out of the car, right into a puddle. The air was perfumed with the stench of swollen earthworms. My shoulders were stiff from having slept in the car, and when I opened the library door, the memoryscent of yesterday hit my wet skin like a slap to the face.

  “You’re back,” Chelsea said as I walked in. “I was wondering if I’d see you again.”

  “Wondering hoping, or wondering dreading?” I asked, my voice expressionless.

  “A little of both.” That made me smile on the inside and maybe it showed a little on the outside, too, because Chelsea came out from behind the desk. “You left your notes,” she said, handing me the balled-up list of boats, boat owners, and addresses, now pressed flat. “You left your computer screen open, too. You’re researching drowning victims?”

  I didn’t answer, and she followed me to the same computer station I’d worked at the day before.

  I wasn’t going to read any more stories about dead children, whether I was the cause or not. I’d narrow my list down some other way. I’d hunt down each boat if I had to. Knock on doors. I pulled my chair up to the computer and logged in, continuing to ignore Chelsea.

  She stood there awkwardly for a minute, then sighed and walked off.

  I pulled up a new site to search for local phone numbers in relation to the names and addresses I’d found. Of course, it was possible none of the names I’d come up with was the one I was looking for. Perhaps the name of the boat had been changed at some point so all my research was off course. But I was banking on that not being the case. Even merfolk knew it was bad luck to change the name of a boat.


  Chelsea came back with a Sprite and a bagel. She set them on the table to my left.

  “Sign says ‘No Food or Drink,’ ” I said.

  “You look like you haven’t eaten in a while. Besides, my mom’s the head librarian. She won’t care.”

  “I would think she should care most of all,” I said, but Chelsea just shrugged.

  “So what’s your name?” she asked.

  “Calder. Calder White.”

  “So what is all this research for, Calder Calder White? I’m thinking it’s not for school. Am I right? I’m a senior.” She rolled her eyes. “In high school. But my ex-boyfriend plays hockey for Lakehead University, so I’m used to older guys.”

  “Used to?”

  “I mean, don’t think I’m too young or anything.”

  “Too young for what?”

  She laughed easily. “I’m just saying that if you want to go get coffee or something. If you need a place to stay tonight …” She stopped talking and put one finger on my notes. “How come you’re making notes on these people?”

  I covered the paper with my hand. “Just the names of some people I’m trying to locate.”

  She had no ability to read subtleties, or maybe she didn’t care. “So what do you want with them?”

  “I’m just looking for some information about who might have owned a certain boat.”

  “A boat?”

  I’m speaking English, right? “Yes. A boat.”

  She slipped the paper from beneath my hand. “I don’t know this first person,” she said, flicking the paper with her index finger, “but the second one goes to my church, and the third one just checked out some books on Middle Eastern cooking.”

  “Who?” I snatched my notes out of her hand and read the name. “John McIntyre? He’s here? In the library?”

  “Not anymore. He left a few minutes before you came in. I almost said something, but I didn’t know what you wanted with him.”

  I stared at the library entrance. Had we passed on the sidewalk? I couldn’t remember anyone in particular.

  “I can help you, if you’d like.”

  “I don’t need any help.” I studied the address on the paper. Farmer Road. It meant nothing to me. I didn’t know if it was ten miles away or right around the corner.

  Chelsea folded her arms across her chest. “Suit yourself, but between the two of us, which one has lived here her whole life and knows every dead end, alleyway, and cul-de-sac?”

  “I’m guessing that would be you,” I said, ignoring her and pulling up MapQuest.

  She leaned over my shoulder and hit the power switch behind the terminal. The screen went black.

  “Hey!”

  “Why don’t you just consider me your personal chauffeur?” she asked, but it wasn’t really a question.

  “Why would you want to do that? I thought you said you were too busy for someone like me.”

  “Because my shift is over, and my friends all road-tripped to Ottawa for the Great Big Sea concert.” She stared at me for a while as I watched my reflection in the dark monitor.

  “Oh, come on,” she said. “I’m totally bored. If you turn me down I’ve got nothing else to do. Also, because yesterday I thought you might be an arrogant asshole, but today you look kind of pathetic. Seriously. Are you homeless or something? Do you need some different clothes?”

  I sniffed my shoulder. “That bad?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “There’s a fine line between homeless and hip. Underneath the grunge nightmare, you might not be a complete disaster. Maybe even a regular guy.”

  I turned, finally acknowledging her persistence.

  She had her apricot hair pulled back in a ponytail high on her head. I wondered if she knew what the Chinese lettering on her neck even meant. My guess was “peace,” or “courage,” or “honor,” or any innumerable other words that had long since lost their meaning. And even if they hadn’t, what did this girl know about any of them?

  “Hey,” she said, shoving my shoulder, “I was only kidding.”

  “Okay. Yeah. Sure. You can help. You don’t need to drive me, though. I’ve got a car.”

  She hesitated. “On second thought, maybe I shouldn’t go with you. For all I know, you’re some kind of pathetic but maniacal serial killer.”

  “Good instincts,” I said grimly.

  She smiled. “I’ll get my raincoat.”

  When we reached my car, someone had broken the passenger-side window. Glass littered the soggy seat and the hamburger wrappers were soaked from the pouring rain.

  “Oh, man, that sucks,” Chelsea said. “Did they take anything?”

  “Just the radio,” I said, shrugging. “There wasn’t much else to … wait a sec … ah, crap, they took my sweatshirt. What the hell is wrong with people?” I quickly remembered the phone, but miraculously it was still under the seat.

  “Come on.” Chelsea grabbed my elbow. “My car is parked around the corner. We can get some duct tape and a plastic bag on our way back and patch things up. Towels, too.”

  “Fine. Let’s go.”

  She released my elbow and let her hand bump against mine as if she wanted me to take it. I pulled away. If this was how things were going to go, I’d be better off on my own. But despite my misgivings, I slid into Chelsea’s beat-up Honda Civic.

  “Buckle up,” she said.

  She navigated the city streets, then the country roads like the native she claimed to be. We sat in absolute silence. I wrote the letter L on my fogged-up window.

  Fifteen minutes later, Chelsea pulled up to an apartment building and disappeared inside. I compared the address to my notes. This wasn’t where I thought we were going. When she came out, she had a small duffel bag stuffed tight. She tossed it onto my lap and got back behind the wheel.

  “What’s all this?”

  “A charitable donation from my ex. He never locks his door, and he won’t miss it. You need some more clothes if you’re going to be running around town for a few days … or longer.” I dug through the bag and found a replacement sweatshirt, a rolled-up pair of gym socks, two T-shirts, and basketball shorts.

  Chelsea turned west at the light, away from the lake. I looked back over my shoulder at it as we pulled farther away. Paved streets gave way to gravel. Landscaping gave way to fields and wildflowers. Anticipation gave way to a strange feeling of stage fright. Fifteen minutes later, we arrived at 25 Farmer Road.

  Chelsea pulled onto the side of the road in front of a sagging structure that I assumed was the John McIntyre house. It looked like a stucco shoe box. Someone had covered the southeast corner of its tar-paper roof with a blue plastic tarp. Two crows perched on the shallow peak over the door, and a German shepherd lay beside the front step. There was no car in the driveway. John McIntyre didn’t appear to be home.

  As much as I wanted this to be over, I was even more relieved to think I wouldn’t have to start. I wasn’t ready. What do you say? Hello, missing any boys? Um, Dad? Or worse … Remember me? What proof could I offer that I was me? I didn’t know my name. I didn’t know my birthday. I certainly had no good explanation as to why I looked nineteen when I’d been lost more than forty years ago. Good thing this McIntyre wasn’t home. I wanted to leave.

  “Chelsea—”

  A pea-green Ford pickup pulled into the driveway. Chelsea turned to me with an easy smile. “Ready to see a man about a boat?”

  The German shepherd made eye contact with me and pricked her ears. A low growl rumbled through her chest. Leave, she thought.

  No threat, I responded. We’re only visiting.

  A second shepherd trotted from around the corner of the house, the tan and black hair on its back bristled. It sat by the back tire of the pickup truck, which was now parked. Intruder, it said. Stay back.

  The man was still in the truck. I could see his head silhouetted in the back window. After a few seconds, he swung open the driver’s-side door and put two mud-coated boots on the ground. He was in his mid-thirti
es, unshaven, with long hair pulled back in a ponytail. Too young to be my father. He patted the second dog’s head. “What’s wrong, Killer?”

  “That’s the guy,” Chelsea said. “Are you getting out?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “This doesn’t feel right.”

  “Feel right for what? You’re just looking for information.”

  I looked down at my lap and laced my fingers together. My knee bounced up and down involuntarily. “I don’t think he’s the one I’m looking for.”

  “Seriously? You’re not afraid of the dogs, are you?” I didn’t answer, and she kept talking. “I’m sure they’re friendlier than they look. Besides, how will you know this isn’t the right guy, unless you ask?”

  I steadied my knee. Then my voice. “I just know.”

  “Listen, I didn’t drive all the way out to the boonies for nothing. I at least want dinner out of this.”

  The girl was persistent, I’d give her that.

  “Come on,” she said. “What’s the worst he can say?”

  Oh, I don’t know, I thought. That I’m a freakin’ lunatic? The second dog moved over to stand sentry by the steps as the man jogged into the house, a package under his arm.

  “I guess you’re right,” I said.

  “Of course I am,” said Chelsea.

  When we opened the car doors, the first dog tilted her head to the side. Friend, I said, and she sniffed the air between us.

  Strange, the dog thought. She whined and laid her head back down on her front legs.

  Chelsea ran up the three concrete steps and knocked. A second later, the door opened. The man looked through the screen door at me and Chelsea before finally recognizing her face. “Oh, hey,” he said, glancing at his dogs, who were sniffing my feet. “Did I forget something at the library? You could have just called.”

  “Actually,” she said, and elbowed me hard in the ribs.

  “Actually, I’m looking for some information about your boat,” I said.

  “My boat? Is it okay?” He opened the screen door and stepped out. I took a step back.

  “I’m sure it is,” I said. “It’s Rhapsody in Blue, right?”

  “Yeah …?”