I’m about to argue, offer anything. And I mean anything. But she holds up a finger to my lips and traces it along my face in a motherly gesture. “I was never allowed. My sisters and I, we were given our destinies and our homes. I have not seen them in ages. My magics, they are naught but a sigh in the breath of the world.”
I take her hands in mine. “Thank you, Shelly.”
She holds up her hand. “This does not mean you do not have the means of getting there.”
“How—”
“This championship is orchestrated. I do not pull the strings. Those around you have the answers.”
I rub my face. I’m tired of riddles.
“Though,” she stands, taking my hand, the one with the palm gouged out an hour ago. “If I didn’t know any better, I would think you’ve already been to Eternity and back.”
In the train, my legs are shaking.
Racing from Central Park, on the 6 train, all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge.
“Old drunk pervert,” I mumble. “I knew he was hiding something.” Thalia pats my arm to placate me. “It’s not our way to give up our secrets. That isn’t who we are.”
“His shelf was lined with it. Water from Eternity. No wonder I feel so stupid! I drank it and that’s the reason for my super healing ability.” I wave my hand in her face.
“It’s a good thing you did drink it,” Thalia says. “Or your fighting hand would be useless.”
“Greg knows where Eternity is,” I say. “Find Eternity, find the next oracle.”
“I wonder…” Thalia says. “Why is Greg here? Why is he not at court? Before tonight, I’ve never heard of such a place as Eternity.” The doors ding open and we get out. Manhattan twinkles on the other side of the bridge. Despite it being past midnight, dozens and dozens of cars speed hungrily to their destinations. We take the same turns as before on the Brooklyn streets. The same cars on the same empty parking lot. The same silence on this dead-end road. I march up the steps to Greg’s withering house. I knock, and it feels as if the whole structure will shatter like glass under my fist. On the sidewalk, Thalia is frozen. Nose turned up to sniff the air. I want to ask her, “What is it?”
But I hear the shuffle of feet crunching over the dried leaves in the backyard. Thalia’s face is suddenly lit by a blue flame. The force that pushes us is like a powerful gust of unstoppable wind. Glass shatters and falls like rain. Brick crumbles to ash. Greg’s house erupts into blue fire. I land on the sidewalk, ears ringing. Hands try to pull me up from the ground. My head is shaking, split in two. I hear Thalia’s voice, muted and far away.
Debris pelts all around.
There’s Thalia again, tugging on me, but the blue fire is mesmerizing and consuming. It’s alive, like hands reaching out to me. “Tristan!”
My ears pop. Thalia is screaming at me. I get up and take her hand. We race back up the street in the direction we came from. I can hear the booming wail of the fire truck in the distance. We stop after a few blocks to check our bodies for missing parts.
We’re intact, although covered in dirt and sweat. Then we keep running, and when I look over my shoulder, I can still hear the crackle of flames, as if they’re following me all the way home.
•••
When I dream, I dream of the silver mermaid.
I hate saying her name, even in my mind. Nieve. Neeehv. In my dream, Layla is sitting on a white beach. It’s snowing. She’s speaking to me in Spanish, and I can’t figure out what she’s saying because even in my dreams I can’t understand it. In my dream, Layla is a mermaid. She has a golden tail that matches her eyes. She shifts in the water and I’m chasing after her until the musky Coney Island water turns navy blue and cold. There’s a whale eating silvery fish by the ton, and I swim beside it until I reach the surface.
Above us, the sky is a clean white. It hurts to look at so much snow, and everything is so pristine that I don’t even notice her sitting on a block of ice until blood trickles from the head of a silver fish. It dots the snow like a constellation and spills into the clear sea in muddy clouds. When she sees me, she smiles. The lovely angles of her face are marred by a nasty set of razor sharp teeth. “You’ve found me…” Nieve’s voice is a tired breeze.
She loses interest in her meal and dives in for me. Her voice is thin and weak, like her body. I know I can swim faster than she can, but when I turn around, she’s still swimming right at my tail. Her jagged nails touch the tip of my fins. I can hear her all around me, like an echo. “You’re mine, Tristan. You’re going to be mine.”
When I wake up, I’m in a tight embrace with someone. I hug the warmness to me and rest my forehead on the warm back—
When I open my eyes, I notice the broad shoulders. Soft, wavy brown hair, just like mine. At the same moment, he turns around and we roll over. I fall out of my bed and curse at pain from my toes to my temples.
But I manage to laugh and say, “You pervert.”
Kurt groans. There’s a sickly green pallor on his face. I’m afraid he’s going to throw up on me so I get up and throw some clothes on.
“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.”
“Why are you shouting?” He picks up the closest shirt on the floor and puts it on.
I bat my hand over his face. “Sweet baby Zeus, I can still smell the beer in your pores.”
My laugh is cut short when I remember yesterday. My craptastic date with Sarabell. My parents and their new baby. The arrow piercing my hand. Midnight poker. The prophecy. Eternity. Gregorious. Blue fire.
Kurt rubs his eyes slowly. I throw a pillow at his head. “Come on, Captain Lightweight. You slept through all the good stuff.”
•••
“Why do humans do this to themselves?”
Kurt holds on to the kitchen counter for dear life.
My mom comes in and makes tea. She holds it up to Kurt’s face and he drinks it slowly.
I take the black marker and draw a big X on Monday. Dad’s already at work and it’s Tuesday morning. I feel about a hundred years old. Then I flip on the news. A great blue fire ought to have gotten someone’s attention.
Eighty-five degrees and partly sunny with a storm warning for Thursday is followed by the morning news. Behind a frazzled newscaster is the great blazing fire, and farther behind that, the Brooklyn Bridge is backed up with traffic. Firemen blast the house with water but the flames are violent, living things like hands reaching up, climbing up the tree and fanning out against the open space on either side of the crumbling brownstone.
“That’s our combat flame,” Kurt says. “How in the world did it get here?”
My mom gapes at the same time I drop my spoon on the floor. Layla says that when silverware falls on the ground, it means unexpected visitors. I really hope that’s just a bunch of superstitious bullshit, but my merman senses are tingling.
“We were there last night. At Greg’s house.” I stand in front of the television so they look at me instead. I tell them about Shelly and the translation and running to Greg’s house. “What gets me is that he has the protection stuff. The wreath that the court gave him.”
“It’s a symbol, Tristan.” My mom rests one hand on her belly, even though she isn’t showing yet, and places the other on my shoulder. “Just like the one on our door. The king is only king right now as a formality to crown the new one. But without the trident, his power ebbs. Whoever did this knows that.”
“My behavior is unacceptable.” Kurt broods. “I should’ve been there.”
My mom takes my hand and examines the smoothness. “She shot you?”
“She’s new,” I say. “Frederik’s been calling in reinforcements because of the rise in dead bodies.”
“And they were all there,” Kurt asks. “The vampire and the shape-shifter? They heard everything Shelly told them?”
I don’t like what he’s implying. “They’re our allies, man. Anyway, I figured something out.”
I take five index cards and flip them over to the unli
ned side. I tape them in a row on the Command Central wall. “We’ve found Shelly in Central Park, but that’s been her home for a long time. She hasn’t moved anywhere. Unlike the others. Kurt, what do you know of the oracle from the Vanishing Cove? The one you were expecting to see?” “Her name is Lucine,” he says.
If Shelly is the youngest, I’m afraid to see what the oldest one of the oracles looks like. But when I start to write her name down, Kurt hops off his seat and takes the marker from me. He draws the outline of a mermaid with a split tail.
“She’s the Starbucks mermaid?”
Kurt ignores me and labels her name and location.
“Then, there’s Chrysilla, the nautilus maid.” I draw a spiral and label her as well, leaving us with two blank cards. “If Chrysilla came from Eternity, that means one of her sisters took her place.” I put the cap back on the marker, expecting them to start shouting out compliments for my brilliance. “Greg was my only chance because that’s where he got this water. That’s why I was healing so quickly. Only now he’s gotten blown up.”
Mom and Kurt exchange skeptical glances.
“What?”
“It’s just—” Mom says, like the time she confessed there was no Santa. “There is no place called Eternity. It’s a state of mind.”
I shake my head. “How do you explain my hand? Kurt, you were there. You saw Greg change after he drank that stuff.”
“Perhaps it was something else,” Kurt says. “Lady Maia is right. I’ve never heard of such a place.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing.
“Darling, you don’t understand. What Kurt is trying to say is perhaps Shelly’s throwing you off. You can’t trust them all.”
I throw my hands in the air, exasperated. “Who am I supposed to trust? Kurt? You? I have nothing else to go on except for riddles, because that’s what you people are good at, right? Riddles and prophecies. I have Nieve trying to take over the seas. Merrows killing on my own shore. Oracles swapping places. And I’m the one who has to fix it. Because of you, Mom. Because you never told me what I was. Don’t you see? I am what I am because of you, and if I fail I have nowhere, nowhere else to go.”
As soon as I say it, I wish I could take it back. My mom’s face is crushed.
Kurt shifts in his seat uncomfortably.
“I never,” Mom says, “never wanted you to get hurt.”
I laugh. In the last couple of days, I’ve been injured more than during the last twelve years of school sports combined. “I’m on the right track. I know I am. If you guys don’t want to help, there are plenty of other mermaids who will.”
“Like Gwenivere,” Kurt says.
I’m about to argue, but someone knocks on the door and I run to answer it. I need to calm down. Never in my whole life have I yelled at my mother that way. I can’t even look at her.
Even before I reach for the doorknob, I know it’s her. Her greeting is muffled as I pull Layla into a hug. She resists at first, putting her arms up, but then she relaxes and wraps her arms around me.
“What’s wrong?” she whispers.
“Thalia says you were put in the ground.” I change the subject.
“Yep. Six feet deep.” She looks over my shoulder and, as if sensing I don’t want to go back into that kitchen, pulls me out into the hallway.
“What are you doing here?” I ask.
“I came to get you. Coach called an emergency meeting.” She traces her finger on the pearly scar of Sarabell’s teeth marks. “And it’s Ryan’s memorial.”
“I have to find—”
“I know.” She rests her hand on my chest and I shut up. “I know you have the championship and it ends in four days. But when it’s over, you’ll hate yourself for not—”
“For not what?”
“Not saying good-bye to your old life.”
Even before we climb the steep steps leading to the gothic building that is Thorne Hill High School, I can smell it.
Dirt, covering my body like I’m digging into wet earth with bare hands.
At the school entrance, beneath the archway statues of two clashing angels, is a massive flower wreath with Ryan’s graduation photo at the center. Thick white candles drip on the floor like waxy tears.
I realize that the dirty smell of guilt is coming from me. If I’d told him my secret, maybe he’d still be alive. He would’ve known to run, to hide. I pull out an action figure I’ve had since fifth grade—Captain America with his tiny toy shield. The year he transferred from Nowhere, North Carolina, with his side-swept blond hair and big gray eyes and honest face—well, it was pretty annoying. So we called him that until it stopped being a joke and just became part of his shtick. Ryan was better than the rest of us. Better than me.
All around and along the wreath are tiny things left by the rest of the school. Amid all the roses and daisies are a cluster of forget-me-nots from Mrs. Santos’ garden and an Italian horn Angelo had always promised to give him but just couldn’t part with.
Kurt shifts uncomfortably. “I didn’t know to bring something.”
“It’s okay,” I say.
He shakes his head, frustrated. “It isn’t.”
I thought I’d feel weird coming back, but despite the silence in the halls, I think I still fit right in. The tension is familiar, clinging with loss, excitement, hormones, and anxiety. Yep, still the average high school.
Ryan didn’t have a funeral in Brooklyn. As soon as his parents got his body back from the morgue, they moved back to North Carolina, convinced of the dangers of the big city.
Flanked by Layla and Kurt, we file into the auditorium, which is full to the brim with kids.
“Are you okay?” Layla asks, crossing her fingers with mine.
“No.” I hate the way the swim team is looking at me. The day I left for the Vanishing Cove, we had our final meet. We wouldn’t have swum, not without Ryan, but I’m their captain. Was their captain. “I shouldn’t be here.”
“Yes, you should.”
For a second, Angelo stares at me with that way he has, like he can’t decide if he’s going to deck you in the face or shake your hand. Then again, Angelo doesn’t shake hands. Everything about him— his messy button-down, the gelled hair that feels like a helmet to the touch—is comforting. No matter what, he’ll never change who he is to the core. Then he grins and pulls me into a man-hug.
“Can you believe Principal Quinn asked me to give a speech?” Angelo holds out his fist and I bump it.
Principal Quinn finishes setting up the microphone. Angelo puts on his game face. The real concentrated kind he reserves for meets or when he’s on lifeguard duty. People can say a lot about Angelo: he’s a player; he probably stole your lunch money at least once in first grade; he chews with his mouth open; and he doesn’t stop to think about what he wants to say. But when it comes to being your friend, he’s your friend for life.
“Uhh, I don’t really need an introduction,” he says into the mic as he loosens his tie from the knot his mother probably redid three times. “We’re here to talk about Ryan Morehouse. I met Ryan freshman year. He was this dorky little thing. I-I made him buy me lunch sometimes because I knew he was so happy to have a friend, you know? One time, I went out with this girl he liked. I sort of knew he liked her, but he still didn’t turn on me like Tristan.”
I sink down in my seat. “I’m pretty sure it was the other way around.”
“Don’t worry you’re still my boy, T.” He pounds his fist on his chest, then points to me so that everyone turns to snigger.
Angelo’s voice trembles and I realize he needs to make fun of something; otherwise he won’t get through it. “Anyway. Ryan still helped me with my homework because he knew I wasn’t so good. All week I’ve tried to replay that night in my head. I try to put myself in a different location. Maybe if I wasn’t so busy trying to protect a stranger, I could’ve had his back. Maybe—who knows, right? All I know is we were a team, and Ryan was always on our side.
“We used to call him Wonder Ryan, ’cause you know, he was so vanilla. All nice and proper and stuff. But now, we should still call him that because he risked his life, like a superhero.
“I make a promise to my friend, right here and now. I never knew what I wanted to do with my life. Now I know. Maybe I’ll be a cop like my brothers, maybe those cool FBI guys. I just know I’ll make sure that what happened to Ryan doesn’t happen to anyone else.”
The auditorium cheers. One after another, they go up there and talk about him. How awesome he was. How cool. How nice. How cute. I refuse to go up because I know I’d get up there and say one thing: “I’m sorry.”
Coach Bellini gets up and accepts the Triborough trophy. The other team forfeited before we could. Four boys from their team went missing, and only one washed up on the New Jersey side of the river. The other three are still out there. Coach reminds us to be safe this summer and to come back stronger next year.
Layla squeezes my knee. “I can’t go up, either.”
“Can you believe it?” I say. “Angelo with a gun.”
“Hey, everyone has a calling.” She turns to me and kisses my cheek.
Angelo hops right off the stage and lands in front of us. He flicks an accusing finger between our faces. “Layla, did you hit your head or something?”
I get up and pull him into a fake headlock, our way of greeting each other every swim practice. The gathering is breaking up. School is over but open to those returning books and studying for state tests. Not me, though, because, in my heart, I know I can’t come back here.
“I got a surprise.” Angelo pulls off his tie and hooks it around my neck. “Quinn’s leaving for some board meeting. Bellini gave me the keys to the field. As long as we don’t do anything crazy.”
“Define ‘crazy,’” I counter.
“All I’m saying is, it wouldn’t be a proper good-bye without some fireworks.”
The sun is a white disk behind the gray overcast sky.
Angelo sets off a line of firecrackers right in the middle of the football field.
The Savage Blue Page 15