Fathom

by Merrie Destefano

  That monstrous beast had come hunting Selkies who had been on land too long, and any one of us could be its next target.

  Up until last night, Kira had been safe.

  But now that she’d turned, the beast would surely come looking for her. She’d been on land longer than any of us—all of her life, in fact. She had disobeyed the Law of the Sea—those born of the Sea must return, or pay the price.

  And the Hinquememem, a creature of nightmares, was just the beast to exact that penalty.

  So I crouched in the shroud of darkness, hidden behind the bushes, my breath coming in small gulps as I sifted through the thick odor of hawthorn bark and leaves. I would watch and wait until morning, for the beast did not travel on land during daylight. With a great reluctance, I huddled alone on a night when the rest of my kind were giving in to the Burning.

  Chapter 25

  Kira:

  The sun set and a lavender sky deepened until, far away on the distant horizon, the first stars glittered over the Pacific. Then a breeze picked up, rattling the branches that hung over every window. Like claws, they scratched across the glass. Meanwhile, the wind settled into a low soft moan as it circled the house, murmuring through the trees. During the day, my yard felt welcome, all the boundaries well-marked and safe. At night, this changed. When the skies blackened, the edges of my world blurred and I always wondered what lurked outside, what shapes were shifting between cliff and canyon. And could one of them be watching me, now?

  I paused before one of the windows, startled when I saw my own reflection staring back at me.

  Dad turned off the DVD player. Bella, Edward and Jacob retreated into memory, none of them real anymore. Gram had fallen asleep in her chair, her basket of knitting on the floor, and I fetched a blanket, tucked it around her carefully. I’d learned long ago to let her sleep wherever she wants. Dad stretched, revealing scratches on his arms, battle wounds from trimming the hawthorn.

  “I’m going to take a shower and go to bed,” he said with a yawn.

  Perfect. I nodded good night. Straightened up the living room, put away our popcorn bowls and picked up the empty soda cans.

  Then I burrowed in my room, door closed, Gram’s books open on my bed, a notebook and pen ready to take notes. I had several schoolbooks spread out too, just in case Gram or Dad walked in. I flipped through the pages, looking for anything about Selkies or Roanes or mermaids, specifically any magic spells that could turn humans. So far, all I’d found were a few obscure references to mermaids who could grant wishes under duress. That wasn’t even close to what had happened last night. Then I stumbled upon an entire chapter devoted to the Na Fir Ghorm, those creatures Gram had been telling stories about at dinner last night.

  I flipped through the pages quickly until I finally came to a section that contained a drawing of a Selkie. It wasn’t quite right, but it was close enough. I read the caption below the drawing out loud, “According to legend, they usually shift into seals when they’re not human. Other folklore claims that when in their true shape, they’re covered with tiny green scales and their eyes glow in the dark—”

  I sat up, chewed the tip of my pen. Now that was more like it.

  Unfortunately, the text then went on about some other unknown creature that hunted and killed Selkies. I thumbed through the pages in that chapter, but there was no more information about Selkies or Roanes. With a heavy sigh, I realized that I might actually have to read all three of these books from cover to cover before I found anything useful. No wonder Gram spent hours pouring over these things.

  I scanned several more pages, hoping to find more information when I stumbled upon an old wood engraving. It was an exact replica of my Celtic cross necklace. I could even see the wood grain carefully etched into the ink illustration.

  “…Must be made from hawthorn wood, harvested during a full moon and left to age for a full year for the talisman to work. Other forms of protection include freshly cut boughs of hawthorn hung over windows and doors—”

  Outside my room, the wind sighed and teased the branches, dragging them across the window. Scritch, scratch, ssssscrrraatccchhh. An unnerving sound. I’d never asked Gram or Dad what the branches were supposed to do. I don’t think I wanted to know.

  Now I wondered if they were supposed to protect us from Selkies that wanted to drag us off into the water and steal our humanity.

  I glanced back at the book, fingers tracing the words now, searching for truth.

  “…Sometimes charms can be made using small squares of white cotton, filled with equal portions of salt and sand, but the strongest protection against an attack is aged wood from the hawthorn tree. In centuries past, coastal villagers fashioned great doors hewn from this wood and used them as their city gates, with a massive wall that surrounded their houses. During the high tides of summer, torches were kept burning along the wall all night long, feigning the bright light of day, in the hopes that this too would keep the Hinquememem at bay—”

  Something slipped through my mind, made me pay attention. I read that passage, over and over, but my eyes kept returning to the part about doors made from hawthorn.

  The cellar door. Where my mother had locked me up. Screaming and blood on the floor and the setting sun, our house filled with darkness. My sister had disappeared, but maybe my mother hadn’t killed her after all.

  Maybe my mother had been trying to fight off whatever had taken my sister.

  I slipped my pen in Gram’s book, marking my place, then I got up and tiptoed through the living room. A small lamp cast a yellow glow in the corner, outlining Gram, her body slack and defenseless. Meanwhile, a foreboding darkness yawned in the kitchen doorway and I slowly approached it. I stumbled on the door jam, reached into the kitchen and flipped on the light. All the elements of a normal home emerged from the shadows—a small table, a row of cupboards, a stove and a refrigerator—but they looked surreal now. Like cartoon elements of my past life. I couldn’t focus on them.

  Only one thing seemed real. It dared me to approach.

  The cellar door.

  It was calling me.

  Destiny. Still not my favorite word.

  I couldn’t stop my legs from taking halting steps across the wooden floor. I was on autopilot, although some small part of me wanted to go back to my room, to return to that safe place where I was just a normal teenage girl.

  In my mind, I was writing a poem about loss and broken hearts, one word per step. It took nine long steps and nine equally long words to cross the kitchen. In the process, I realized that the wind outside had paused, as if it were listening to me, as if I’d put it on edge with the moan inside my soul, that long aching moan that I’d been crying ever since I was five.

  Open the door. And let me out.

  My left hand pressed flat against the wood, looking for a secret signal. The wood breathed and sniffed my flesh, it recognized me and responded.

  It burned me. Just like my cross.

  I yanked my hand away before a rash could form. It felt like my palm bore a thousand burning slivers. Then I rooted through a drawer, hunting until I found a flashlight and I brandished it like a weapon. Hand on the doorknob, I pulled the door toward me. A sigh rushed up from the basement, carrying the scent of dust and cobwebs and mysteries unsolved. I shined the light on the steps, down to the floor where it pooled in a crooked oval. A dirt floor appeared, followed by a hanging bulb that swung slightly as I descended, step by cautious step, into cool damp darkness. Stone walls marked the perimeter of the foundation and I swept my light from left to right. I pulled a cord and a bulb burned bright and naked overhead.

  There wasn’t much down here, yet I knew that something waited. One more part of this puzzle. Some memory from my distant childhood. I passed a small city of cardboard boxes that held my past, labeled in fading marker with short phrases like Christmas Decorations and Baby Clothes and Camping Equipment.

  Then I saw them, tucked in a corner below the windows—a pair of bassinettes. M
y sister and I had been so close in age, just ten months apart, that we had both slept in these at the same time. I moved closer, ran my light over the rugged shapes, hand-carved from wood. I stopped, focused the light on the symbol that would have rested right above my head—a Celtic cross, just like the one around my neck. I touched the crib, sent it rocking gently, my fingers wrapping around the spindles that once held me safely inside.

  The wood burned my flesh.

  I took in a sharp breath. They were made of hawthorn, the bassinettes and the door. Then I remembered my mother, holding my sister and me, telling us stories as we lay sheltered in the arms of the great hawthorn that stretched above the garden. The fragrance of roses drifting up while she spun stories about imaginary creatures that roamed the world.

  I slipped a few steps backward, sat on the stairs and tried to remember her stories. Had she ever told me about Selkies? Had she ever mentioned anything that came hunting and hungry during summer months? I felt like the secrets of my childhood were being revealed, layer by layer. Then it came back to me, a nightmare memory that I must have blocked out until now. I heard my mother’s voice, telling me about a creature that trolled the ocean, with long octopus arms covered with suction cups and hair like dreadlocks of seaweed and broad flat feet. It swayed and wavered on land, though it could swim as graceful as an otter. It lived in the oceans, the rivers, the lakes, and it hunted anyone or anything that—

  I paused. Something was moving in the yard, just outside the cellar window. Instinctively I jumped up and yanked the cord, thrusting the room into suffocating darkness. I flicked off my flashlight and listened. For the first time I noticed how difficult it was to breathe down here. The scent of hawthorn settled in this narrow damp space like thick oily smoke. It slicked down my throat, stinging each time I pulled air into my lungs.

  Meanwhile, something was moving through the bushes outside the window. A shadow fell across dusty glass, followed by the sharp crunch of a foot against gravel. The moon cast long, thin beams down into the cellar and I pulled away from the center of the room, quietly, one soft step at a time.

  Chapter 26

  Kira:

  I scrambled across the room as far as I could, until my back thumped against the cellar wall beneath the stairs. Still, something scuffled about in the brush outside, twisting the oleander, opening a space right in front of the basement window. A shadow crouched down, fingers tapped against glass.

  “Kira. Are you down there?”

  I sucked in a long breath, then rushed forward. “Sean?” I stopped halfway across the floor, wondering if it was really him. Why would he be here in the middle of the night?

  He knocked softly against the glass with his knuckles and I saw the outline of his head and shoulders. “Kira.”

  I scurried to the window, too high to reach without a ladder, and looked up. He saw me and smiled and I suddenly remembered what I had been doing the last time he saw me.

  I had been driving away from the party with Caleb.

  “Can you come outside? Just for a few minutes?” he asked.

  I nodded, then gestured toward the back door. I flicked on my flashlight and hurried up the stairs. When I opened the back door, he was already there.

  “Hey,” he said, his hands in his pockets. He wore jeans and a T-shirt, but it wasn’t enough to shield the chill wind. His shoulders hunched forward.

  “You wanna come in?”

  He shook his head. “I can only stay for a few minutes. My parents went to get ice cream, so I snuck out.”

  I came outside and we sat next to each other on the steps.

  “I just—I wanted to make sure you were okay,” he told me, but then his voice trailed off and he stared out toward the driveway. “I was really worried about you last night. First, I heard that you had been drinking and then, that you went down to the beach and I remembered what had happened to the seals the other day. There could have been a shark in the water or you could have drowned. I thought maybe—” His voice changed, like the words were getting stuck in his throat.

  “Are you?” He was facing me now. “Okay, I mean?”

  “Yeah, I guess.” I took his hand in mine. “I’m sorry.” I wished I could tell him what had really happened, but this didn’t seem like the right time. “Don’t be mad at me, Sean, please, okay? My dad’s mad, Gram’s mad. I didn’t know there was alcohol in that drink or I never would have taken it. There might have even been some sort of drug in it. I’m still trying to figure out what happened.”

  “Caleb didn’t hurt you, did he?”

  His question surprised me. “Caleb? No, he pulled me out of the water. Those girls—” I stopped.

  “What girls? What happened?”

  “It’s going to sound too crazy.”

  “I don’t care,” he said. “Tell me.”

  “I think they were trying to drown me. Or maybe it just was part of some freaky ritual. A group of us swam into a small cave and the water was rising and Riley kept pushing me under the water, saying something like, turn, turn.”

  He frowned. “Did you tell the police?”

  “I didn’t think anyone would believe me.”

  “You could tell my dad. He’d listen to you.”

  “Sean, there’s more to it than that.” I stood up and began to pace the porch. “I must have been hallucinating last night because the other girls suddenly turned into some kind of sea creatures. And Riley kept pushing me under the water until I turned into one too. Then I couldn’t change back. It was awful.” Sean stared at me, a pensive expression on his face. “See, it’s too weird. How could I tell anybody that story?”

  “I don’t know what really happened, Kira, but you still should have told the police. Maybe they could have done a drug test on your blood or something. Whoever gave you that stuff should be arrested.”

  “What about Riley and her friends?”

  He glanced down at his feet.

  “You think I imagined all of it.”

  “No, I didn’t say that. Your hair and clothes were wet when the police got there, so you obviously went swimming. But maybe you were having problems and the other girls were trying to help you.”

  I laughed. “Yeah, they were trying to help me all right. Help me get to the bottom of the ocean.”

  “I think you should stay away from them, Kira. From Riley and those other girls.” His voice lowered a notch. “And from Caleb.”

  Why did he keep acting like Caleb had done something wrong? “I told you, Caleb tried to help me—” I held my breath for a moment, suddenly wondering how I had gotten my dress back on. There was a big hole in my memory, from the moment Caleb had carried me down the beach until when I woke up in Brianna’s car. Anything could have happened during that time, but wouldn’t I know it? If he had—if he had touched me, wouldn’t my body remember?

  Sean was standing at my side now. “Something else happened last night, didn’t it. What?”

  I shook my head. “No, nothing else. It’s just—” I didn’t want to tell him.

  “If he hurt you, I swear—”

  “He didn’t. Really. I just—I can’t remember how I got dressed or how I got up to the car.”

  “Kira, this is really important.” He took my hand. “If you think he did anything to you, then you should go see your doctor.”

  “No. He didn’t. I promise. I’d know because I haven’t—I mean, I’ve never—”

  “Okay. I just wanted to make sure. I feel responsible. I promised your dad that nothing would happen and then—”

  Neither one of us knew what to say next. An awkward silence filled the space between us. It pushed me a step away from him.

  Sean had been my best friend for years, but we’d never talked about sex before and I sure didn’t want to start now. Not when I felt so attracted to him. I wondered if he had ever felt the same way about me. Maybe I had forced him to kiss me last night.

  My stomach felt queasy, like I might throw up. My hand slid out of his. I felt
guilty and wasn’t sure why.

  “I should probably go inside, before my dad hears us out here,” I said.

  “Yeah.” He tried to get me to look in his eyes, but I didn’t want to. “Call me if you want to talk, okay? About anything.”

  I nodded. He probably thought I was hiding something. But I’d never kept secrets from him. Why would I start now?

  He waited until I was inside the door, then he said, “See you on Monday.”

  “Yeah.”

  Then he melted into the shadows and the last thing I saw was him running down our driveway as he headed back to his house.

  Chapter 27

  Kira:

  Nothing seemed the same after Sean left. I closed the cellar door without thinking and when I got back to my room, I just piled all the books and papers on the floor beside my bed. I didn’t care anymore. About what had happened to my sister or my mother, about what had happened last night when Riley shoved me under the water.

  I crawled under the covers without changing my clothes. I didn’t even turn off the lights in my room. I just yanked the blankets over my head and curled into a ball.

  All I could think about was Caleb carrying me over the beach last night.

  But what had happened after that?

  And if something had happened, was it going to change my relationship with Sean?

  My stomach hardened in a knot, like I’d been eating sour green apples. Meanwhile, the stench of hawthorn seeped through my window and made it seem like the room was filled with smoke. I tried to go to sleep but couldn’t. I just laid there all night long, listening to the rustle of the bushes and the surge of the ocean and the whisper of the wind, all the while sure that something or someone was creeping around the house, searching for a way inside.

  But I didn’t care, even if there really was a monster outside. In fact, part of me wanted to rip that hawthorn down and invite the beast inside.