It wasn’t a question, but Josh nodded. “Yes. We’ve come in search of someone.”
Domnall walked back to the table and picked up a dented metal cup. He took a sip, then said, “Your names are unknown to me. There is no one here you could possibly seek.”
“We want to make sure,” I said. “She left long ago and intended to come here. Her name was Coral Mooring.”
I thought I saw Domnall flinch. It was only the slightest movement, so I couldn’t be sure that he had. His still had the same stern expression when he turned back to me.
“There is no one here that you are looking for,” he said. “Now the question is what to do with you. Because you accompany a known traitor and murderer, I am afraid I cannot let you go free until I am certain of your intentions.”
My head whipped toward Callum, but he didn’t meet my gaze. A traitor and murderer? My knees trembled, but I worried that if I let go of him I might fall.
“Take them upstairs,” Domnall instructed Artair. “Make sure guards are posted outside of their room. They are not to leave this island.”
* * *
“That went better than I’d hoped,” Callum said once the heavy door had closed behind us. The three of us had been dumped into a narrow room that contained only a thin mattress on the floor and a chair near the slit that served as a window. The walls were stone and dark, the floor dusty and grainy with sand. The whole room had a wet feeling to it, almost like I was wading through water.
I whirled around to face him. “Better?” I asked. “We’re prisoners.”
“But we’re unharmed,” Callum responded, shrugging. “I’d call that better than the alternative.”
I laughed, the sound bouncing off the walls around me. “I’m locked in a room on a vanishing island thousands of miles away from home. With a convicted murderer. And I’m supposed to be happy about that?” My voice rose in pitch as I spoke until I was nearly shrieking.
Josh put his hand on my shoulder. “We’ll figure this out. We’ll get out of here.”
“Sure, we will,” I snapped, pushing his hand away. “Once we’re starving and shriveled up into nothing, we should all be able to squeeze through that window over there.”
My voice broke on the last word. A lump choked me and tears stung my eyes. This wasn’t how it was supposed to be. I was supposed to get here and find my mother, and she would be happy to see me. I wasn’t supposed to be a prisoner in Hether Blether, still with no idea whether my mother had actually ever made it here.
I tried to hold the tears back, but they fell anyway. Then my chin quivered. A sob escaped from my mouth and I collapsed to the floor, burying my face in my hands so the guys wouldn’t see.
Arms encircled me, hugging tight. Josh. I could recognize his scent anywhere. It wasn’t the first time he’d held me while I’d cried. I didn’t cry in front of people, except Josh. Even Dylan had never seen me break down like this.
Some time later, my shoulders stopped shaking and I sat up, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. Josh still sat next to me, one arm draped around my shoulders.
“I didn’t do it, by the way.”
My gaze flicked toward Callum. He sat on the bed, his half leg extended across the mattress and his back pressed to the wall. I had almost forgotten he was there.
“What?” Josh asked him.
“In case you were wondering,” he said, his eyes locked on mine, “I’m not a murderer.”
“Then why do they think you are?” I asked.
Callum shrugged, his forehead creased into a deep scowl and his fists clenched in his lap. “Because they wanted someone to blame, and I was the easiest choice.”
I looked at him for a long time, trying to figure out if this was true. “What happened?” I asked.
But Callum turned his head, staring at the wall next to him.
We spent the entire day in that room. Food was delivered sometime during the afternoon, a tray of bread and fish. It wasn’t much, not nearly enough for the three of us to share and feel full. But I ate every bit I had, then stared longingly at the food Callum had barely touched. I hadn’t realized how hungry I was until the food arrived. If I closed my eyes, I could picture Grandma’s cooking. Roast chicken and collards and steamed crabs and banana pudding. My stomach growled.
“Here.” Callum pushed his plate toward me. He hadn’t eaten enough to satisfy even a child.
I shook my head. “You should eat.”
“I don’t want it,” he said. “Have it.”
I felt guilty about the extra food, so I split it with Josh. Callum watched us eat, but he didn’t look as if he regretted giving his meal away.
When I asked the guard outside for a bathroom break later, a metal pot was pushed through the door before it was slammed shut again.
“What’s that?” I asked, wrinkling my nose at the pot.
“The toilet,” Callum told me.
I looked at him like he’d lost his mind. “I am not peeing in that.”
“Then don’t,” he said. “But could you bring it here so I can?”
I turned toward the door and pounded my fist on it. “Let me out!”
Chapter Fifteen
It was easy to lose track of time, locked away in that little room. We slept a lot, since there wasn’t much else to do. Josh studied the world outside through the narrow slit of a window on one wall, trying to gather information about Hether Blether. There wasn’t much to see and his reports to us usually involved seeing finfolk swim along the shore to catch fish.
We were given robes to wear and food to eat, but that was the extent of our contact with anyone else. I was half-asleep when the door opened the guard called Artair stood there, his eyes scanning over the three of us. I sat up, my heart pounding against my ribs.
“You,” he said, pointing at me. “Come with me.”
Josh moved in front of me. “She doesn’t go anywhere without me.”
Artair barely glanced at him. “You were not requested. Domnall wants to speak to the girl.”
A cold sweat broke out along my neck. What would Domnall want with me? I wasn’t eager to see him again. I wasn’t sure if I could hold back my anger at being imprisoned here.
“No,” Josh insisted. “If she goes, I go with her.”
Artair’s grip on his spear tightened. He said in an even tone, “She will not be harmed. Domnall wants only to speak to her, and then she will be returned.”
Josh opened his mouth to protest again. I glanced at Callum, who nodded slightly to me. His eyes told me it would be okay. I had no choice but to trust him.
“It’s okay,” I told Josh, pushing him back. “I’ll be fine.”
“You don’t have to go,” Josh said in a low voice.
I waved his words away, trying to hide the nervousness I felt. “I’ll be back soon.”
Artair led me back through the same narrow halls I had traveled down on my way toward the room where we were being kept. How long ago had that been?
“How long have we been here?” I asked.
I didn’t expect Artair to answer me, but he responded, “Two days.”
Two days? It had felt like a week, at least. I had no sense of time within my prison. I wasn’t even sure that time on a vanishing island worked the same as it did in the rest of the world.
Instead of taking me to the large room where I had first met Domnall, Artair delivered me to a small room downstairs. The room was nicely decorated, the walls painted with blue lines that I could see were meant to be waves. The chairs in this room were gathered around a large door cut into the floor, which was closed. White marble statues stood in the corners of the room, depicting men and women and one of a small bronze mermaid. All of them had blank expressions, empty eyes and frozen smiles. Something about the statues disturbed me, so I kept my gaze away from them.
Large windows along one wall looked out over water that glimmered under the hazy sun. Crystal prisms hung in front of the windows, casting little rainbows all over th
e room. I reached for one, turning it slowly in my hand so I could see the colors inside it. Grandma had crystals hanging from the skylights in our house back home. Sometimes we would lay on the floor under them and watch the rainbows dancing on the walls.
We hadn’t done that in years. One day I stopped doing it, and eventually Grandma stopped asking.
“It is a beautiful view,” said a voice behind me.
I jumped and found Domnall standing near a chair. He hadn’t been there when I’d entered the room.
He gestured toward the chair across from him. “Please sit. Would you like something to drink?”
I was desperately thirsty, so I took the cup of water Domnall offered. I considered the idea that it might have been tainted with something—a poison to get rid of me, maybe. But it tasted like saltwater, nothing more.
“Thanks,” I said grudgingly.
Domnall sat down, keeping his back straight and regal, his hands cupping his own drink. “I am sorry that your welcome to Hether Blether has been...unpleasant. It was for safety concerns, I assure you.”
“What do I need protection from?” I asked.
“Not your protection,” he corrected me. “I was concerned for my people.”
I scowled. “I have no interest in your people. The only reason I’m here is to look for my mother.”
Domnall took a sip of his own drink, then set the glass down on an old wooden table next to his chair. “You must have come a long way,” he said.
I nodded. “Yeah. So?”
“Where exactly are you from?”
A chill crept its way down my back, making the little hairs along my arms stand on end. “Why do you want to know?” I asked.
He smoothed the fabric of his robe across his lap. “I am only curious. It is not often a lost one such as yourself comes back to Hether Blether.”
“Lost one?”
“That is what we call those descended from the finfolk who left our island many years ago,” he explained. “Truthfully, the stories have become mostly legend. It was always believed that anyone who had actually left most likely met their demise somewhere in the human world.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “But you. You are proof that there are finfolk out there, lost ones still living through their descendents. It is a remarkable thing to consider, a colony of finfolk far from our shores. You must understand how fascinated that makes me.”
He spoke with the smoothness of someone who was used to charming people. It was no wonder that he was king.
But I also had experience in charming people. And I knew lies and half-truths when I heard them.
“What makes you think there are all these others out there? Maybe I’m the last of my people.”
Domnall scratched his whiskers for a moment. The long scar across his face formed a dividing line within the hair across his jaw. “How old are you?”
That question seemed general enough. “Sixteen,” I told him.
“Where did you come from?”
“Across the ocean,” I answered vaguely.
“Where?” he asked again.
I waved a hand. “Far away.”
He scowled down at me, but I clenched my teeth to keep my chin from quivering.
“How many others like you are there?” he asked.
“None.”
He blinked. “None? I assume you have parents, a family. You have a brother, so there is at least one other like you.”
I raised my chin. “There are none like me. I’m one of a kind.”
His forehead creased into an annoyed scowl. Whatever it was he wanted, I wasn’t playing his game the way he had expected. Every muscle in my body was tensed, ready to spring into action at the first sign of trouble.
My gaze fell on Domnall’s hands. They were huge, each one more than half the size of my head. I knew I couldn’t outmatch him physically if he decided he’d had enough of me. My only hope was that maybe my smaller body was faster than his larger one.
“How do you know Callum?” he asked.
I blinked, surprised at the change in questioning. “I met him in Westray.”
“How much of his past has he told you?”
“Not much,” I said honestly. “He told us he was banished. He didn’t even intend to come here. He was only going to get us close, and then he planned to go back to Westray. But then the boat was lost because I—”
I stopped myself in time, remembering Callum’s warning. If I mentioned that I had seen my mother because of the song, they would know I wasn’t fully finfolk.
Domnall raised his eyebrows. “Because?”
“Because we heard the song and jumped into the water to follow it.” I shrugged. “Callum apparently couldn’t resist the call.”
Domnall sat back in his seat, a skeptical look on his face. He studied me intently, as if he could find the answers he wanted written on my body. His stare was becoming unnerving and I shifted a little in my seat.
“Why are you asking me so many questions?” I asked. “I told you why I’m here. I want to find my mother. Then I’ll go and you can forget all about me.”
He stood and moved toward the window, his back to me.
“How would you like a more comfortable living arrangement?” he asked. “You can move out of that room you are in. You will be free to explore the island all you want.”
I narrowed my eyes. “What about my brother and Callum?”
Domnall’s shoulders tensed, but he said, “Your brother too. Callum...I will need to consider his case. He is a convicted criminal here. But I will see what I can do to make sure he is treated well.”
I suspected that all Domnall had to do was say the word and the charges against Callum could disappear entirely. A king had the ultimate power, didn’t he?
“What’s the catch?” I asked.
“No catch, as you say,” Domnall said. “I want you to be treated well during your stay here. I would like to get to know you, Sailor.”
There had to be something else, something I wasn’t seeing.
“No deal,” I said. “I’ll rot in that room, thanks.”
I got up to leave, assuming that our little talk was over now that I’d turned him down. But then Domnall turned to me, his hands clasped behind his back. The sunlight streaming through the window shone on his golden hair. He was handsome, even with the jagged scar marring his face.
“What if,” he said slowly, “I could take you to your mother?”
Chapter Sixteen
Josh lunged at me when I entered the room. “What happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said. I swallowed hard, then added, “We’re free to go.”
Josh stepped back, looking at me and then at Artair, who stood in the hall, his spear still in his hand. “What?”
“We’re being moved,” I said, not quite meeting Josh’s eyes. “We’re not prisoners anymore.”
“Moved to where?” Callum spoke up. He still sat on the mattress, unmoving, but he eyed me suspiciously
“Domnall is giving us a suite to stay in here at the palace.”
“But why would they lock us in here, just to let us go like that?” Josh asked, narrowing his eyes. “What happened in there?”
The room was silent for a moment. I didn’t want to tell them I had agreed to talk to Domnall in exchange for seeing my mama, despite the fact that he scared me. Josh might have understood, but I doubted Callum would.
“Nothing happened,” I said at last. “Domnall realized there was no valid reason to keep us locked up.”
Callum snorted, but I ignored him.
“If you do not wish to be captive any longer, I suggest you come along,” Artair said from the doorway.
Josh studied me a moment longer, then he turned toward Callum. But I grabbed his arm and shook my head.
“What?” Josh asked, his forehead creased into a deep scowl.
“It’s just us,” I said softly.
“Just us what?”
My gaze me
t Callum’s for the briefest moment. His green eyes turned dark and then he said, “She means Domnall is only releasing the two of you. I get to stay here, enjoying the comforts of these lovely quarters.”
“Sailor?” Josh asked, a sharp tone to his voice.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered “I tried, but...”
“But I’m a criminal,” Callum finished when my voice trailed off. He waved a hand at us. “Go. Don’t worry about me. I imagine I’ll be right here for some time, unless Domnall decides to toss me off the island again.”
Every part of me rebelled at the idea of leaving Callum locked away. But there was nothing I could do. Domnall had armed sentries everywhere. I couldn’t possibly hope to escape with Callum unnoticed, and not having his prosthetic made it impossible for him to outrun them.
“We can’t leave him,” Josh said. “He helped us get here.”
“We have to.” I pulled Josh toward the door.
The last image I had of Callum was of him sitting on the bed, his face turned toward the narrow window slit. He looked as if he had accepted his fate long ago, but something inside me lurched with fear.
“I’ll come back soon,” I said.
Callum didn’t acknowledge my words.
Artair led us to a wing of the palace on the lower level. He opened a set of heavy wooden doors to reveal a room suspended over the beach. A door cut into the center of the floor showed waves lapping onshore underneath the suite. The furniture was situated near the hole, chairs and tables gathered around it as if the hole in the floor were a wide-screen TV.
“There are two bedrooms,” Artair said, gesturing toward doors along one wall. “A conch will sound at meal times. Domnall usually eats alone in his quarters, but you may eat in the dining hall. You are free to come and go as you please.” The quick scowl that flashed across Artair’s face showed he didn’t particularly like that idea. “The village can provide you with anything you need, but please do not call attention to yourselves. I trust you will not cause any problems for our people.”
With that, Artair left without even saying good-bye. He shut the door behind him and Josh and I were alone in the small suite, listening to the sound of the water under our feet.
Submerging (Swans Landing) Page 9