Waterdreamer (The Emerald Series Book 2)

by Kimberly James

  I watched her make her way up the sidewalk. Felix barked his farewell and my attention riveted to the envelope in my hand. My name was scrawled on the outside in an unfamiliar handwriting. Rena’s. My mouth lifted at the corners. It was much prettier handwriting than mine. Caris, it said. No last name, just Caris.

  I raised my head, my intention to call the woman back. I searched, dimly aware I wasn’t sure what she’d been wearing, but she was gone, her face and voice already escaping memory. I might have imagined her all together if not for the very real envelope in my hand. It trembled in my fingers.

  “Come on buddy,” I said to Felix, tugging on his leash.

  I walked back to the shop, carrying a ghost in my hand.

  Sixteen

  I barely remember walking Felix back to the shop. Barely remember unleashing him to lay back in his bed. I rode my bike home in a fog of wondering.

  Why had she left a letter? Did she know she was dying?

  I put off reading it as long as I could. Once read, it would be over. I’d never have another word from her. As of now, after eighteen years, there was still something she had to say to me. I liked being in this place, sitting on my balcony, the letter tucked protectively in my lap, knowing she was about to talk to me.

  I’d grabbed the picture of her from my bedside table after I escaped to my room. The frame sat on the table beside me along with the picture my uncle had given me, her smiling lips waiting for me to give them words. The wind blew steadily, creating the illusion of her hair flying on the breeze along with mine.

  I lifted the envelope and held it to my nose, inhaling her scent. It sparked a long forgotten memory. Of candles. Of a storm. A quiet voice in my ear. How could I remember such a thing? I slipped the single sheet free of the envelope, the paper thin and crisp, the fold lines deep with age. I read the first line.

  My dearest Caris,

  My vision blurred with tears that wouldn’t fall. My heart soared with each carefully written word. It broke over every line. One page. All I had of her was one page and by the time I read to the end, I was devastated. I was elated. I read it again and again until the words recited themselves in a voice I imagined to be hers. They chased me from my balcony, down the stairs and through the hastily spoken words to my dad. They chased me over the sand and into the Deep as if there they would make sense.

  The letter was wrapped tight in the purse I wore, protected from the wet, but her words filled my head, blending with the gurgle my body made as I glided through the water. They floated on the current along with the jellyfish and clumps of seaweed. Here I could let the words go. Scatter them like sand dollars on the ocean floor. After a while their impact lessened. And then, I was just sorry. Oh so sorry.

  At one point during my swim, I came upon a tiger shark. I stilled when its lurking shadow came into view hanging in the water like a puppet on a string. The shark appeared totally disinterested in me as he swiveled through the shallow waters. Once I realized he posed no threat, I swam parallel with him for a time, keeping my distance, my hand always close to the knife secured around my thigh.

  After a few minutes, I turned for deeper water with no thought to where I was going. A lie I told myself. I knew my destination. Instinct led me right to him. Or it may have been her. Rena.

  I surfaced beside Athen’s boat. He stood on the deck, his fishing rod clutched in his hands. I floated in indecision and watched him. He was comfortable in his solitude, so much a natural part of the seascape. I’d never thought about what had really driven him to deprive himself the way he did. Always alone. There was something quiet about him today, deeply still. Like the water that hugged my shoulders, still as a mirror, shiny under the afternoon sun.

  He must have sensed my presence. He turned his head in my direction, his eyes widening slightly when they rested on me. His smile, when it came, was easy and in an instant he looked less lonely.

  “Caris, what are you doing out here?” Concern rang in his voice and etched his gray eyes. He returned his rod to its holder, and I swam for the ladder. Hands gripping the metal, feet planted on the first rung, my eyes skated over the name of his boat scribed across the bow. I’d never noticed it before. Stormsong.

  “I don’t mean to interrupt,” I said as I took to the deck, slicking my hair back with a wipe of my hands.

  “You’re hardly an interruption. You must know that.” He regarded me with patient speculation as I fought to articulate just what had driven me here. To him. A letter I’d yet to fully interpret. Something told me he could help me understand.

  “Do you want a drink? Something to eat? I’ve got some bread and peanut butter. I think there’s some jelly left.”

  “Thanks, but no. I reached inside my purse, thinking the easiest thing to do would be to just let him read it. The envelope I pulled from the protective liner crackled under my fingers, drawing his attention. “I wanted to show you something,”

  “What is it?” He wiped his hands on a towel before tossing it onto the seat nearby.

  My hand shook as I drew the piece of paper out of the envelope. It was only a few short paragraphs, but I felt changed by them. Though the letter was addressed to me, I thought the words were meant for him too. Maybe if he read them, he would be able to forgive himself. I knew I had.

  “It’s a letter from Rena. I thought you might want to read it.” I offered it to him. An olive branch. A final peace offering. The bridge that could set us on a path to a real relationship. A relationship I now knew I wanted, in some ways needed.

  He hesitated, eyes drawn to the single piece of paper. When he finally took it, his touch was reverent. He stared at the fragile paper in his large hand then lifted it halfway to his face. Why I would notice his fingernails at this particular time I had no idea. They were rounded on the ends, finely shaped and cleaner than I would have expected from someone who handled so many fish. His catch flopped in a bucket nearby, gray scales drying out under the warmth of the sun.

  “I can smell her,” he said. “After all this time.”

  “Yeah, I did too. It’s all I remember about her.” I thought it was, but I’d heard her voice in my head while I read the letter. Words from her own thoughts, written in her own hand.

  “What does it say?” he asked, his voice near a whisper, almost fearful.

  “Read it.”

  He stared at me for the longest time before his gaze dropped and his eyes began to scan the words. I watched his face for as long as I could stand, until his expression became so pained, I had to turn away.

  My dearest Caris,

  First, know you are perfect. Know you are loved.

  Even now I hear your father’s voice in the wind calling to me and it breaks my heart that I drove him to such a place. He couldn’t know what was in my heart when he answered my Song. A desire to control him. A desire to enslave him. I used my gift of Song against him and now he is out of control. He must be stopped, and I must be the one to stop him since I share the blame. I don’t expect you to understand what I don’t fully understand myself. Just know this is something I have to do. A sacrifice I need to make, not only for you, but for me, and ultimately for Athen.

  I’m determined to make you the best thing I ever did. Know that it brings me great joy Athen and I created something so good out of a dark and inescapable moment.

  Don’t be sorry for me. Don’t cry for me. Please don’t ever do that. I know you’ll have the gift of Song. I hear it already. The sweetest sound. I’ll die hearing it.

  I forgave Athen. The minute I felt you move inside me, I forgave him. I hope you can do the same. I’m confident you’re a young woman with a kind and forgiving heart. Patrick would have made you that way. I won’t ask you to forgive me. I’m sure I don’t deserve it.

  Live and be happy, Caris. That is my deepest wish as I sit here with your scent still on my hands. If there’s any way in the life that comes after this one for me to smile down on you, know that I will.

  Rena

 
I turned at the sound of his strangled breath. The letter quaked in his hands as a shudder passed through his body. His hands trembled. “Where did you get this?”

  “A woman gave to me,” I said, confused by the tone of his voice, the depth of turmoil in his gray eyes. They churned like the billowing of dark smoke. A current ran over my skin, seeming to suck the energy from my pores. The image of him standing in front of me wavered in the sudden shimmer on the air. His anger reached for me. For some reason my mother’s words angered him to the point I didn’t recognize him anymore.

  “What woman?” he demanded. The sky answered before I could. A low rumble of sound that shook the boat.

  “I don’t know. I’d never seen her before, but she knew me.” This wasn’t going according to plan. I had wanted to offer him hope, a sense of peace. I’d wanted him to know she forgave him. I didn’t expect it to make him angry. More than angry. He looked destroyed.

  His jaw clenched and he dropped his chin, the motion almost involuntary, as if his head were too heavy for his neck. I watched as his eyes darted over the letter again. His face was all harsh angles of jaw and cheekbones, not a trace of softness left in the skin. What was he reading into her words? What had I missed?

  “Rena, what did you do?” The letter slipped from his hand, falling to the deck of his boat. I scrambled to pick up this precious treasure before water could ruin the only words my mother had written to me. Or the sudden burst of wind carried it away.

  “What’s wrong?” The air weighed heavy on my skin, crushing my good intentions.

  He turned tortured eyes on me. Violent eyes. I took a step back. For all the warnings I’d been given about my father, I’d never been truly afraid of him. Wary and distrusting, but never afraid he might hurt me. I wasn’t so sure now.

  “She sacrificed everything. Because she believed I would hurt you. Because she believed it was the only way to stop me.” The accusation in his words punctuated the swirling wind.

  “What are you talking about?” My hair blew across my face, blinding me.

  “Magic.” He spat the word as if it were the most distasteful one he’d ever held on his tongue. “The Charm that kept you hidden. That kept you unnaturally comfortable hundreds and hundreds of miles from your birthplace for nearly two decades.”

  I could argue that I’d never been comfortable. That I still wasn’t. What he deemed to draw out of me with his energy, with the force of his feelings was decidedly uncomfortable. And yet, that part of me only he spoke to wanted to respond even knowing the pain, the destruction that would surely follow. That’s what he looked like. Destruction.

  The wind descended on me, threatening me with its grip and enticing me at the same time. Its fingers grabbed at me, stole under my skin. It wanted what I had, the power I possessed. But it wasn’t the wind asking. It was my father. Right now they were one and the same.

  “I don’t understand,” I stammered, unable to credit his sudden and absolute wrath.

  “Magic always has a price. And magic that powerful…” He reared back his head and howled. The wind joined him, hot on my face.

  A memory flickered in my mind. Words spoken in Sol’s voice.

  Takes a powerful bit of voodoo to create a Charm like that.

  I felt sick, my knees weak with understanding. Rain began to fall. Cold rain.

  “No.” My eyes pleaded with this man to tell me what I already knew in my heart wasn’t true. It couldn’t be true.

  “She left us both,” he choked. His voice managed to sound dry and desolate even with the sky overhead saturated and weeping over us. Weeping over the Deep as far as I could see.

  “It was a complication of childbirth. An infection,” I insisted. The truth I’d lived with all my life, tragic but acceptable. What he suggested was unthinkable. That she somehow gave her life? I wouldn’t believe it. I couldn’t.

  “No. It was a sacrifice.” His voice boomed on the wind. He was beyond hearing me. His eyes, when they focused on me, beyond seeing. Another place held him, a different time. This was the man of my nightmares. “I want you to leave.”

  “No.” My protest lost itself in doubt. “I came here so you could help me understand. I still don’t.” My blood pulsed in response to the energy he freely and purposefully let loose. My skin stretched tight. Like I would split wide open if I didn’t let it out.

  I wanted to. God, I wanted to.

  “Leave!” His voice was thunder. The hatred in his eyes lightning.

  I jumped on the rail and dove.

  * * *

  The letter was ruined. In my haste, in my fear, I’d failed to protect it. By the time, I got to the Muerta Blanca the paper fell limp in my hand. The ink ran so that some of the words were so distorted they were unreadable.

  “No.” I gently spread the letter in my hands, searching for the words that set my father off. Some irrational thought led me here. Forgotten words that at the time held no meaning for me.

  Takes a powerful bit of voodoo to create a Charm like that.

  I searched the cabin. His bed. The boat. All empty.

  “Sol,” I screamed until my throat scratched with rawness, my Song a desperate echo.

  He answered, his lithe body a shot out of the blue-green water. His fist clenched around the handle of his knife, dark eyes wild and fierce.

  “Caris.” Sol’s eyes questioned, probing deep.

  Noah wasn’t far behind, answering the same tumultuous Song. He landed with a thud on the deck beside me, bringing a cascade of warm gulf water with him, franticly searching for the cause of my distress. He wouldn’t find it. It was inside me. Possessing me. It clawed for release, shredding me from the inside out. The two of them stood ready to do battle. To fight for me. But there was no one to fight but myself and an ugly truth.

  “What happened?” Sol asked just as a steady wind reached us. We all three turned our faces to the sky and the dark cloud spreading over the gulf. My father’s face was in that cloud, the wind infused with his hot breath.

  My hands fisted in my hair. I laughed and it echoed over the water as if answering the roll of thunder moving closer. The cloud moved closer. The rain moved closer. I could make out the sheet of it in the distance. Was I losing my mind? Was it really coming for me?

  Noah and Sol both looked at me with the same alarmed expression. Their knives useless against what loomed toward us with what seemed like ever increasing speed.

  “Caris, what the hell is going on?” This from Noah. He sheathed his knife and came towards me.

  “No.” I held out my hands. I wouldn’t find comfort in his touch, only chaos. His touch would snap something inside me. Break this damn of emotion wide open when I felt the need to contain it. The air begged. The water begged for me to succumb to its release. “You can’t touch me. I won’t be able to stop it.”

  Stop what? What was I saying? My thoughts were incoherent and scattered like the clouds racing across the sky. Nothing made sense. Least of all what Athen had said. He’d said she killed herself to fuel a Charm. She killed herself for me. Because of me. Because of him. To stop him. Did he need to be stopped? Did I?

  My breath came fast, my heart in danger of exploding. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. It wants out. I can’t let it.”

  “Caris,” Sol’s voice whispered over me, soft and soothing. I closed my eyes, thinking it would help, but all I saw was Athen’s face. All I felt was his rage. My face crumbled and my voice broke on a sob. The air grew heavy and pressed down on me. “Caris, look at me.”

  I dropped my hands. My lip quivered. “He was so angry.”

  “Who?” Sol barked. At least I thought it was Sol. It could have been Noah. It could have been the wind, or the thunder that rolled overhead, long and crackling. It only added to my confusion.

  “Athen,” I stammered. “He yelled at me, he…”

  “Is that him?” Sol raised his voice to be heard over the rising wind. The boat pitched underneath us and I had to fight for balance.
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  “Did he hurt you?” Noah stepped forward, his eyes burning with intent and the frustration he endured at not being able to comfort me.

  “No. No. I hurt him. Somehow I hurt him.” And he’d sent me away. “It was the letter.”

  “What letter?”

  “There was a letter from my mother. I let him read it. I thought it would help him. I thought it would comfort him. It made him angry. I’ve never seen him like that before. I guess I didn’t understand what her words meant. He said…” I lost my voice, momentarily stolen by what he suggested. What he believed and I refused to accept. I’d thought he’d be sad. I thought he’d be regretful, just like I had been. But in the end, I’d found comfort in her words. At least until now. “He said she sacrificed herself. That she traded her life for the Charm. Could that be true?”

  Sol came over to me and took my arm by the wrist. Noah’s pearl sparked with heat and licked up my arm. Sol gave a start. So much magic between us. It coursed around us with a life of its own. Powerful and dangerous. But nothing like what was bearing down on us, inching closer. “Let me see it.”

  “It’s ruined,” I choked as he peeled it out of my fingers. I watched him scan the words as best he could. Watched his mouth purse, his jaw clench.

  “I’m sorry, Caris,” he said, the tone of his voice, the look in his eyes an affirmation of what my father told me.

  “She sacrificed herself for me. For him.” My heart broke for a woman long dead. For a girl desperate enough to give up her life. For what? To save me? To stop Athen?

  “She loved you.” Sol’s words were meant to console but they only added to my distress.

  And then that wall of rain hit us like a wet blast. In an instant a deluge fell as the cloud overtook us, rain falling so hard it stung my cheeks, my shoulders. Like shards of ice falling from the sky.

  Sol grabbed me by the arm and yanked me into the cabin. Noah slid the door shut behind us, but it wasn’t enough to banish the howling outside, the howling in my head. We were all soaked and my lips trembled with cold, with fear.