by Cindy Brown
I stopped walking so I could think. Yes, there had been clues, subtle but there. The crone’s Magician card. The gossiping woman who had blanched when I asked her if the killer was named Billy. The jousters around the campfire saying that everyone knew it was an accident—because they knew William never intended murder.
But there was William’s drug overdose. I didn’t think it could be intentional or his friends would have been more worried. They wouldn’t have let him out of their sight, maybe not even out of the hospital. So was it accidental, or...? What if it was really an attack on William? What if someone actually missed Angus and decided to revenge him?
I made a one-eighty and picked up my pace. I wasn’t giving up. I was going to talk to William.
I walked toward Tin Can Alley to find William’s RV. I felt lighter for some reason, maybe because I had a direction, or maybe because I wasn’t giving up on—
Splash!
I stopped. A splash? The fairegrounds weren’t used after dark, so the only light came from the moon and some security lights mounted on buildings. I looked for some sort of movement or maybe the glimmer of light on a puddle. Nothing but a few bats catching the edges of the light. I started walking again, then stopped. The sound bothered me. This was the desert. There were no splashes in the desert. Maybe squelches in the mud pit or...
The Undersea Grotto. It was right across the street. Maybe the after-hours party had moved there? Maybe not. It looked awfully dark. I jogged toward the Grotto. Huh. No one outside. I stepped inside. Still dark. No laughter or splashing or undersea party. Empty, the ropes that kept people in line snaking through the darkness. I started to go back outside, but as my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I noticed something in the tank. A fish? No, too big for a fish, though it had silver scales.
Oh no.
I hung onto one of the ropes and closed my eyes. It didn’t help. I was back in Spokane again, eleven years old again with snowflakes freezing on my cheeks. Then, a crack and shout, and Cody’s blonde hair floating out from his head like a halo, slowly sinking in that icy pond...He was...and I couldn’t...
Oh no, oh no, oh no. I couldn’t breathe, like I was the one was shocked into paralysis by the cold, who didn’t have time to even gulp air, who felt the water pressing against my nose and mouth...
I forced open my eyes. He was still there, in the tank, underwater. Long blonde, no, silver hair twisted in the water like strands of kelp. Amongst all that hair, an eye opened. A chill ran through me. So much sorrow in that gaze. William’s gaze.
Omigod, omigod, omigod. It was happening. Again. I still felt like I couldn’t breathe and so afraid that I couldn’t move. Fear of the water, fear of screwing up, fear of losing someone again. But I had to do something. There was no one else around and no time to get anyone.
I willed my feet to move, and they did, around to the side of the tank, where a ladder stretched to the top. I focused on each rung. You can do this, you can do this, you can do this...I made it to the top of the tank and climbed onto the platform that ran around the rim, where the mermaids must sit before diving in to the water. Into the water. You can do this, you can do this you, can do this...
Still afraid. Could you die from fear? You can do this, you can do this, you can...
I jumped into the water.
Chapter 63
The cold darkness slipped over my head. Then I was somehow Cody, sinking in a panic. I struggled to the top of the tank and gulped air. I made it. Everything was okay. No. I wasn’t Cody, everything wasn’t okay and I needed to go down, not up. I beat down the terror that rose in my throat and kicked my way to the bottom of the tank: pressure in my ears, pressure in my head, pressure in my heart.
William floated upright near the bottom of the tank, weighed down by the fish scales I’d glimpsed earlier—his chain mail. Oh my God. I couldn’t think about how much he must weigh with that on. And then, I couldn’t think of anything. It was as if I’d entered some sort of mental and emotional vacuum, as if my mind emptied itself—of all fear, all anxiety, of everything except push.
Push said my legs, my arms, my chest.
Push.
My whole being became just something that pushed.
PUSH.
And then somehow Cody—William was on the partly submerged ledge and we were both breathing blessed, blessed air.
I checked his breathing, hoping hoping hoping I wouldn’t have to perform CPR. William sputtered, coughing water. Thank God.
He laid his head back against the wooden platform. I climbed up onto it (I wanted to be all the way out of the water) then collapsed on the wet boards. An odd combination of exhaustion and exhilaration ran through me. I didn’t want to move, but adrenaline still shot through my veins, making my heart race and...
Hey.
I did it. I saved William. From drowning. I did it. Oh my God, I did it. I had no idea how, but I did it.
The pounding in my chest became a drum, a happy parade beat. A ball of warmth began to glow inside me, making me warm and light and near to bursting with happiness, like Scrooge when he realizes it’s still Christmas; like George Bailey when he realizes he still has his wonderful life.
I did it. I saved him. I turned my head to look at William, and he seemed unbearably beautiful in his humanity. “William,” I whispered. “You have got to stop doing those drugs. There were no mermaids singing.”
He opened an eye. “It’s you.” He shut it again, groaning. “No. There are no mermaids. But there is something. At the bottom of the ladder.”
I sat up. “What? What’s down there?” Evidence that someone else had been there? Could William have been attacked, somehow put in the tank? I didn’t think so. It’d be pretty tough to get a stoned guy in chainmail up that ladder. “What is it, William?” But he didn’t say any more, just lay with eyes closed, breathing easily, as if he were sleeping. I knew almost nothing about hallucinogens—maybe you got really tired after a trip?
I crept quietly down the ladder, not wanting to wake up William. I reached the bottom. What was the something that was here? I felt around in the dark. My hand touched a piece of paper taped to the side rail of the ladder. Must be a note. But though my eyes had adjusted to the dark, I still couldn’t read the writing. I needed to find a light. I stepped outside the Grotto.
Omigod...The world was so beautiful. The full moon shone like a mirror in the clear desert night, bathing everything in blue, turning the stones in the road to silver and casting lacy shadows through the mesquite trees. Everything was so beautiful and I was so full, so buoyant with happiness I felt like I wasn’t walking but gliding inches above the rocky ground.
I’d saved William. I wasn’t who my mother thought I was. I wasn’t self-centered. I was good. A good person in a beautiful world. I felt the night’s beauty deep inside me: the moon, the mesquites, the rocks, even the bats flitting around the security light.
Which was where I was heading. Right. I walked toward the light, which warmed the night with its yellow halo. Wow. Whatever drug William had taken, it couldn’t match this euphoria. Now, what had he written on the note? Something about mermaids? Or magic? Or—
No. I stared at the paper. No, no, no. Not those words.
I raced back to the Undersea Grotto, out of the moonlight and into the darkness. It entered me like a breath, taking up all the space so recently filled by beauty. I willed my eyes to see in the blackness.
There was no one in the tank. “Thank God,” I said aloud.
“You should leave now.” William’s voice from above. He must still be on the platform. “I want to do this by myself. Besides, I suspect it will be... messy.”
Messy? I looked up at the platform. William was sitting up now. And he was holding a gun. “Stashed this up here,” he said, breathing hard. “Hedging my bets.”
“I read your note,” I said carefully, calm on the outside while my insides w
hirred like a blender. “If what you wrote is true, Angus’s death was an accident. You were just trying to scare him. You didn’t know he wasn’t wearing his gorget.” Keeping close to the tank and out of William’s sightline, I crept to the ladder. Maybe I could get the gun away from him. Or maybe he’d shoot us both. It didn’t matter. I had to try. “You can’t hold yourself responsible.”
“Ah, but I can. I do. Though I only planned to knock Angus off his horse—which is bad enough—in my heart I wanted him gone forever. And now he is. I was trying to save us all, and instead...I’ve ruined everything. I don’t deserve to live.”
I wanted to say something, no, to shout something, anything that would make William understand that taking another life wouldn’t make up for Angus’s death. But I didn’t want him to know I was climbing the ladder, so I kept silent.
“I have no family except these people...”
I reached the edge of the platform.
“And now I’ve betrayed them.”
I peered over the rim. William sat at the far end, legs dangling into the water, gun in the hand closest to me. No way to sneak up on him now.
“I murdered Angus. Killed our futures. Destroyed any love they had for me.”
“Destroyed their love?” I stepped onto the platform. “You can’t be serious. You’re one of the most loved men I know.” I still sounded calm, but felt as if I was on the bottom of the tank again, pressure against every inch of my being. And fear again, fear that I couldn’t save him this time.
“Not now. Not after this. I killed Angus. Killed him. And by doing so, I put everyone I love in jeopardy. I preach kindness, but I allowed people to lie for me. I let Bianca cover for me. I nearly forced Riley go to prison, for God’s sake. ‘Might for right’—I’m such a hypocrite.”
I had to stop him, to make him see the way people loved him, the good life he had. What he had. Cody’s words rang in my head. “William.” I moved close enough to put a hand on his shoulder. A mistake. He jerked, then raised the gun to his temple. I swallowed hard. Don’t panic, don’t panic.
“You can’t imagine it,” he said. “You can’t imagine taking a life through your stupidity, trying to live with that every day, reminded by everything around you. It...crushes me. I can’t live with it.” A click as he pulled back the hammer on the gun.
Help, help, help, I prayed. Then, a miracle. That ball of warmth grew inside me again, smaller but there—all goodness and love and light. I felt as if I’d swallowed the moon. Impossibly, it was inside me and it was silver and it divided itself into bubbles that rose to my mouth and turned into words. “Actually I can...I can do more than imagine what you’re going through. I’ve been where you are. It seems...impossible to go on.” It didn’t feel like me talking. “Impossible to ever be whole enough or good enough to be loved, ever again.” William stared into the darkness, his eyes focused on nothing. “But here’s the thing: people love us anyway. They love us not just in spite of our imperfections, but even because of them. Being imperfect makes us human. Touchable. Lovable. I don’t even know you, and I love you. You somehow saved me.”
He looked at me then, lowering the gun just a fraction. “I saved you?” Cynicism in his voice—but also a little hope.
“Yes, you did. You helped me see that I haven’t really been living, that I’ve been afraid to open up to anyone, that I actually might be able to love and be loved.”
“I didn’t do that.”
“You did. Saving you saved me. It was like a film was lifted from my eyes, one I didn’t even know was there.” I’d been running blindfolded half my life, running away so I wouldn’t get hurt again. I’d kidded myself that a career could make up for connection. That the adulation of an audience could replace real love. “And now, I can see the possibility of life and love—the possibility that I saw for the first time tonight, thanks to you—and I can face my fears. I can connect to this beautiful world.
“I won’t lie to you,” I continued. “It’s not easy to step out in faith. It’s taken me years—until just a few moments ago, I guess. And I don’t know how you’ll get there, but here’s what I do know.” I looked William in the eye. “There are people who will help you through this.” I saw the faces of Uncle Bob, Cody, and Matt.
“You did something wrong,” I continued. “You’re imperfect. You caused an accident. But you are loved. And worthy of love,” I held out my hand for the gun, “and life.”
I saw it, deep in William’s eyes: Hope grew. He lowered the gun from his temple, then stretched out his arm in front of him. My throat tightened. Was I wrong? Was he turning it on himself again? No. William opened his hand and let go of the gun, dropped it into the water. It sank beneath the surface, carrying his sorrow, and all my bad years, with it.
Chapter 64
Riley flew into the mews, nearly breaking down the door in the process. “Bianca! Is everything all right? Bianca!” He stood at the door panting. “Thank God,” he said when he saw her on the other side of the room. “But what’s going on?” He pointed out the door, where a police car was parked on the dirt road near the mews, its lights flashing blue and white in the dark desert night.
“Everyone’s okay,” I said. “They arrested William.”
“William? Oh man. That sucks.” Riley’s face took on an unusual expression: He looked like he was thinking. “So he hit me on the head and posed as me. Probably why he helped raise the reward money for my horse.” Riley shrugged, forgiving William immediately. Not the type to hold a grudge. “But why are the police here at the mews?”
“William wanted to wait for the police here.”
After we left the Undersea Grotto, William insisted I call the police. He wanted to confess, to make amends, especially since Riley was still under suspicion. My phone had gone into the mermaid tank with me, but a light still shone in the mews so we went there. “This is good,” William had said as we knocked on the door. “I can apologize to Bianca too.”
“Apologize?” Bianca opened the door—must’ve been right on the other side. “You...you don’t...you’re a very silly man.” She drew William into a big hug. “And you’re all wet.” She looked at me. “Both of you.”
“We had...a sort of baptism,” I said. “And now it’s a new life.”
William continued to hug Bianca, his eyes closed. “A new life,” he said.
Now, about a half hour later, I was dry (desert air, you know), and Riley stood awkwardly near the mews door. “Hey.” He walked toward Bianca. “I, uh, got out last night.”
“I know,” she said.
“And I wanted to say thank you. For raising bail.”
“You’re welcome.” Bianca stood still as Riley approached.
“But I wasn’t sure if that meant...you know, if you forgave me.”
“Riley, you didn’t push me. There’s nothing to forgive—on my end.” They were just a few feet apart now. “I’m sorry,” Bianca said to him. “For everything. It was like I lost my mind for a while. I just...I couldn’t tell if you were with me just so you could live in the fifth-wheel.”
“What? No. I mean, it’s a sweet RV, man, but no. It’s all about you. I love you.”
Bianca opened her arms and Riley went to her, lifting her off the floor in a big bear hug. When he set her down, she made a face, wrinkling up her nose.
“What?” Riley said, then sniffed the air. Then he lifted an arm and smelled underneath. “Whoa, is that me?” He clamped his arms down by his sides and smiled at Bianca. “Hey, do you think if we’d never invented soap we’d like the smell of B.O.?”
“That’s why I love him,” Bianca said to me. “He’s so deep.”
The elation I’d felt after saving William had necessarily abated while I saved him a second time and had to turn him in to the police, but it was back. I walked to my truck through the dark faire, feeling like a buoyant light, a moonbeam, part of that
wide starlit sky. I was looking up at those stars, which is why I didn’t see the figure hiding in my truck bed until it leapt out of the truck in front of me. “Aah!” I screamed.
“Aah! You scared me.”
“I scared you?” I said to Matt.
“It was a pretty impressive scream.”
“I’ve had vocal training. And you jumped me.”
“It was supposed to be romantic, in a Three Musketeers sort of way.”
“In a scary Three Musketeers sort of way.”
“Not romantic?” He took a tentative step toward me.
“Well, the fact that you’re here is romantic.” I took a step closer too. “Driving all the way out to the edges of the desert to find your lady love this time of night...Hey...”
“Uncle Bob told me where you were.”
I loved the fact that he knew what I was going to ask.
“I wanted to talk,” he said. “I was going to surprise you.”
“And you did.” I pulled him close to me and kissed him. “And now I’m surprising you.”
“You are,” he mumbled through the kiss. “It’s a very nice surprise.”
After a minute or two, we let each other go. Now Matt sniffed the air. I resisted sniffing my armpit. I’d showered that morning. “Why do you smell like chlorine?” Matt asked.
I unlatched my tailgate, hopped onto it, and patted the space beside me. “Let’s talk.”
I told him about Bianca and Angus and Riley. About the bird smuggling. About William. “Wait, you jumped into the tank?” he asked.
“Don’t forget the gun part.”
“But you jumped into a twenty-foot-deep tank of water? In the dark?” Matt knew me well.
“Yeah.” I didn’t want to talk about it. There were other things I needed to say. I started off by telling Matt about John Robert and Lewis and no Broadway.
“Did you know you were shooting yourself in the foot when you convinced John Robert to call Lewis?”