“Mama!” I said, trying to reach for her. She shrieked and backed away from my grasp, knocking the chair over as she stumbled to her feet. She backed into the corner, still shaking and screaming.
“Sailor, don’t,” Josh said when I started toward her. He looked at Mama, his lips pressed into a tight, white line. “Ms. Mooring?”
Mama’s mouth opened, but no sound came out. Her face paled, then she broke into a wide smile. “Oliver,” she said, reaching toward Josh. “I found it, like you said.”
Josh swallowed hard. “Ms. Mooring, my name is Josh Canavan. I’m Oliver’s son.”
Confusion flitted across Mama’s face. “Oliver?” she asked.
“He died,” Josh said softly. “A long time ago.”
Mama crumpled to the floor, pressing her hands against her face. She let out a wail of, “No! No! No!”
I knelt next to her, but Mama batted at me wildly, scratching my arms with her ragged nails.
“We should leave,” Josh said, pulling me to my feet.
“But she’s needs help,” I said.
Josh shook his head. “We can’t help her right now.”
I let him lead me out of the room. I grabbed the drawing of Pirate’s Cove off the desk and folded it quickly until it was small enough to hide in my fist.
Domnall waited for us outside the hut, looking unconcerned even though we could still hear Mama’s shouting.
“Do you understand yet what the human world does to finfolk?” Domnall asked, his gaze locked on me.
I walked past him without answering.
“There is a reason we choose banishment for those who commit the unpardonable crimes,” Domnall went on. I heard the crunch of his footsteps on the sandy ground behind me. “The human world kills us, slowly or quickly, it does not matter. It always ends like this. Your mother is proof of this. You see what she is now. That is what the taint of humans has done to her. It is what they will do to us here in Hether Blether, unless we can stop it.”
I spun around to face him. “What about me?” I asked. “What about Josh? We’re not like that. Callum isn’t like that. What does that mean to your theory about the human taint?”
Domnall stared evenly at me, despite my outburst. “Callum has only been in the human world for five years. You and your brother are also fairly young. Perhaps you have not yet succumbed to the destruction that world is doing to you.”
“Humans didn’t do this,” Josh said. “Something else happened to make her like that. Maybe something you did, for all we know.”
“She was found in that condition sixteen years ago,” Domnall said. “I have had my best people of medicine tend to her, yet nothing has changed. She is not the only one. There are records of others, in the palace archives. Another like your mother arrived years ago when I was a young boy. This woman had come from your world and found her way to ours. She also was disturbed, as your mother is. The human world is not the place for our kind. We have to stop their spread from reaching Hether Blether.”
I squeezed my fist where I had hidden Mama’s drawing. “I’m not helping you find and destroy my home.”
Domnall laughed. “I do not want to destroy it, I assure you. I only want to protect our people before they become ill.”
“No one is sick!” I shouted.
“Have you never known anyone else who behaves the way your mother does?” Domnall asked.
I stopped and turned to face him. My gaze met Josh’s over Domnall’s shoulder. We both knew someone else who behaved like that—Josh’s mother.
But Domnall’s reasoning still didn’t make sense. Mrs. Canavan wasn’t finfolk. She was human, and she hated the finfolk. She would have been happy to see all of us leave Swans Landing.
Domnall looked between us, his face grave. “It is not only your people who are at risk. Hether Blether itself is dying.”
Josh and I turned toward Domnall. “What?” Josh asked.
“What do you mean?” I asked.
Domnall’s expression was unchanged. “I mean exactly what I said. Without the protection that has divided us from the human world for countless centuries, Hether Blether will cease to exist as we know it. The infection that has affected your mother’s mind will spread to the finfolk here, as well as the ones in your world. The finfolk race is dying out. And if we do nothing, our kind will not survive.”
He stepped forward, holding his hands out toward me, palms up. “I come to you not as a king, but as a man asking for your help.”
“We’re not doctors. We have no special magic to put the protection back in place.”
“You are wrong,” Domnall said. “Every finfolk who sings the song can put the protection back and chase away the taint in this land. It is a song of rebirth, and it can be used to make us new and remake Hether Blether. You can help by telling me where the others like you are. If we can bring them back, we can save Hether Blether and all of the finfolk people.” He stepped back, dropping his hands, his expression solemn. “The choice is yours.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Callum stood near the slit of a window, balancing himself on his leg, when I entered his room.
“Feeling better?” I asked. He certainly looked better. Color had returned to his face and he was gaining back some weight already.
“I’d be better if I could breathe in the salt air through more than this tiny window,” he said. “Finfolk aren’t meant to be kept away from the sea, even ones who aren’t really finfolk anymore.”
Once a finfolk knows the salt water, it’s impossible for him or her to leave it for long.
“Why can’t you change?” I asked as I sat down on the corner of the mattress, wrapping my arms around myself. I was grateful for the chance to think about something other than my mother.
Callum hesitated, then worked his way toward the mattress, steadying himself against the wall as he hopped.
“Part of my punishment was that I would lose the ability to swim like I once had,” he said. He gestured toward his leg. “This apparently wasn’t enough for Domnall. He had to take away all chances of my return.”
I gulped at the realization that Domnall had cut off Callum’s leg. “But how? How is it possible to make you not finfolk?”
“I am still finfolk. What I said before about not being finfolk is not technically true. I can still sing and I need to be near the ocean to survive. But I can no longer change form. Not that changing would do me much good, considering I would be incomplete without my leg. But as to how it is possible, it is done with a song.”
I raised my eyebrows, remembering the finfolk healing the woman on the beach. “You mean by combining the songs of earth and water into one?”
Now Callum looked surprised. “How do you know about that? I did not think your people had retained much of the ancient knowledge.”
“We didn’t,” I said. “At least, I’ve never heard of anyone doing it back home. But I saw some people heal a woman on the beach a few days ago.”
“It is an old power,” Callum said. “The song the finfolk on the beach sang is one version of it, a simpler one. The one that was used on me is much older and more complex. Like how the healing song can be used to heal wounds while changing forms, this song can be used to keep someone locked in one form.” He shook his head. “I can’t say precisely how it works, but it blocks the body’s ability to shift.”
“That’s impossible,” I said.
He smirked. “You saw the evidence for yourself. I swam for hours with you and Josh, yet I never changed. I’m stuck in my human form.”
“Can it be reversed? Could someone sing the song again and let you change?”
“Maybe,” Callum said. “It has never been done that I know of. The song is usually done only on finfolk who have committed a big enough sin to be stripped of their rights. Once they are banished from Hether Blether, they never come back.”
“Except you,” I said.
Callum grinned. “Aye, well, I had the foresight to steal t
he key before I left.” He winked.
I tried to laugh, but the thought of Callum being stuck in one form forever was overwhelming. I couldn’t imagine not swimming as a finfolk. “It’s not right,” I said. “Domnall shouldn’t have done that to you.”
“It is only done in certain circumstances. We don’t believe in killing our own kind, since each finfolk carries a part of our people’s essence. Killing each other would make all of us weaker. But we can take away the ability to change in place of death. It is a death of its own kind.”
I thought about my mother, trapped here on this island for sixteen years. Had Domnall done this to her, like he had to Callum? Had she ever tried to go back home?
“I’m sorry,” Callum said, seeing my frown. “I didn’t mean to upset you with this.”
I shook my head. “No, it’s not that.” I swallowed, trying to figure out the best way to explain everything that had happened that day. I hadn’t told him yet about my mama. I hadn’t been able to talk much about her.
“I found my mother,” I finally said.
“Here in Hether Blether?” he asked.
“On the peninsula.”
“Your mother is there? You’re sure of that?”
I nodded. “I’ve visited her a few times. I went today. She’s not...healthy.”
“How long has she been here?”
“Sixteen years. She somehow found her way here.”
Callum’s eyes widened. “There have been rumors before, of people from outside our island finding their way here. But I always thought it was just that, rumors. How could she have been here that long and no one knew?”
“Domnall knew.” I dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands. “I don’t know what to believe. He says she’s been like that since she got here, but I can’t help wondering if he did something to her. She doesn’t seem to know where she is or even when it is. She won’t respond to me, even when I tell her who I am. She wasn’t like that when she left our home. Grandma would have told me if my mama had been like that.”
Callum placed a hand over mine. His hands were so much larger than mine, though his skin was much paler and freckles dotted the back of his hand. “Perhaps,” he said. “Or perhaps your grandmother wanted to protect you from the truth.”
“She’s not crazy!” I shouted at him. “Something happened. Either something here or something back home. Something made her like this.”
“Then you have to try to find out what exactly it was,” Callum said. “Keep talking to her.”
“Domnall said my mother’s condition is caused by an infection from living in the human world. He says this taint or whatever it is is spreading to Hether Blether, and he needs to bring the lost finfolk back home in order to save the island.”
Callum sighed. “Domnall has a lot of ideas lately.”
“What do you think?” I asked.
He looked at me, his expression grave. “I think you should leave Hether Blether as soon as possible and never come back.”
I swallowed at the tone in his words. “Why?”
“Because this land is not healthy,” Callum said. “Domnall is not healthy. He doesn’t know you’re part human, but once he finds out he will do whatever he thinks is best to get rid of the tainted part of you and your people. The song can be used in other ways, Sailor. He can block the part of you that makes you human if he figures out how to change the song.”
“So Josh and I are in danger?” I asked.
“I think so, yes. Take your brother and go. Swim toward the mists for as long as you can. Eventually you’ll find your way through to the human world.”
“What about you?” I asked.
Callum shrugged. “I’m a deformed finfolk. Don’t concern yourself about me.”
I was aware of the guards outside the door, so I kept my voice low. “But you’re the reason we even made it here. I can’t leave you behind to rot away in this room.”
“You can’t save me,” Callum said. “I’m not important, nothing to worry about.”
Tears stung my eyes suddenly. “You’re important to me,” I said.
Time froze as my words hung in the air. The muscles along Callum’s neck twitched as he swallowed. His hand was still clasped over mine, his fingers squeezing tight.
A heartbeat passed, then another.
And then my lips met his. I didn’t know who had leaned forward, maybe both of us did, but my mouth pressed to his, crushing lips in a kiss that sent static tingling through my body. His hands moved into my hair, grasping my head and pressing me closer to him. I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, feeling the width and strength and solidness of his body.
When we were eleven, Dylan and I had kissed once. I had wanted to have my first kiss and in my mind, it would always be Dylan and me. We were meant for each other from the moment we were born. Everything that had ever happened in my life had happened with Dylan at my side. So we had kissed, the only time Dylan had ever kissed me, despite my numerous attempts to make him see that I had always been the one meant for him.
But this...no one had ever kissed me like this.
I wrenched myself away from Callum, stumbling as I pushed myself up from the mattress. His lips were red and he seemed as breathless as I felt. He blinked, his eyes showing a dazed look.
“I—I’m sorry,” I blurted out. “I have to go.”
“Sailor—”
I pulled open the wooden door and then tore down the hall, past the stunned guards.
Chapter Twenty-Four
“Leaving so soon?”
Domnall stepped out of the shadows at the end of the hallway, stopping my run toward the stairs. His blue eyes looked me over. “You are flushed,” he said. “Are you unwell?”
“I’m fine,” I said quickly. I tried to calm my panting breaths, but my heart still thudded against my chest and my pulse pounded in my ears.
“Perhaps you would like to sit down?” Without waiting for my response, Domnall gripped my elbow and led me down the stairs. He took me to the place where he had first offered to take me to my mother. The door in the floor was open and water rippled below. A door to my left showed a bedroom decorated in matching dark blue and gray. My gaze found the sightless statues watching me from the corners and I looked away quickly, not wanting to think about the humans that might have lost their lives when the ships carrying them sank.
My tongue scratched against the roof of my dry mouth. “I should go back to my room,” I said.
Domnall closed the door and then crossed the room to a table where a silver pitcher and cups sat. He poured a cup of water and then offered it to me.
“Drink,” he said. “You look disturbed. If Callum did anything to harm you—”
“He didn’t harm me!” I said.
Domnall blinked once, his expression neutral. He offered the cup again and this time I took it, clutching it tightly to keep my hands from shaking.
“You have been spending a lot of time with Callum lately.”
“He’s stuck in a room by himself. He needs company.”
“Aye,” Domnall said. He walked around me in a slow circle. “But I notice your brother only comes occasionally, while you are there often, sitting alone in that room with him. It makes one wonder...”
I glared at Domnall’s head as he continued around me. “Wonder what?”
“One wonders what exactly is the nature of your relationship with Callum?” Now Domnall stopped in front of me, gazing back at me intently.
“There is no relationship between us,” I said, clenching my teeth together. “I am keeping him company because you feel the need to keep him locked away.”
Domnall shrugged. “It is what we always do with prisoners who are awaiting judgment.”
“So judge him already!” My voice echoed off the sandy walls around us. “Are you keeping him locked up like that to torment him?”
Something flickered at the corners of Domnall’s mouth, a smile maybe, or a grimace. It was gone so quickly I coul
dn’t be sure. “Has Callum told you what he did to cause his banishment?”
“No,” I said, sighing. “And neither have you, for that matter.”
Domnall stopped next to a table, pulling open a drawer and staring down into it for a moment. From my position I couldn’t see what held his interest.
“I am only the judge, as necessitated by my role here,” Domnall said. “Callum must atone for his sins.”
“He said he didn’t do it. What evidence do you have to keep him?”
Domnall’s eyes were dark, his forehead creased into a deep scowl. “I have his own confession.”
My blood turned cold in my veins. But Callum had told me he hadn’t killed anyone. If he had confessed, why did he now deny it? Who was telling the truth around here?
My legs trembled and I leaned back to brace myself against the wall. Callum’s kiss still tingled on my lips. How could he kill someone, and yet sit on that bed looking so vulnerable and innocent? Had he played with my emotions to get me on his side?
“You know he is a criminal. You have seen it.” He reached into the open drawer and retrieved a twisted piece of metal. The key that had led us to Hether Blether. “He stole this when he was banished from our island. He took it because he always intended to break his punishment someday.”
Anger and confusion battled inside me. I didn’t know who I should trust.
“Yet,” Domnall went on, returning the key to the drawer, “that is a smaller crime. As to the other crimes, perhaps he was under emotional duress at the time of his confession. Sometimes the mind does not always portray things accurately, correct? For instance, looking at the emotions flitting across your face, one might think you had an interest in Callum. Some feelings toward him, perhaps. But one might be wrong, might they not?”
“I have no interest in Callum,” I said, the words almost choking me.
Domnall clasped his hands together behind his back. “Good. Because I am close to my judgment of him, and there are those who urge me to cut off his other leg so he might never be able to swim again.”
I gasped. “You can’t do that!”
Submerging (Swans Landing) Page 13