The brick houses on the other end of the dirt path were all on stilts—because, Leo explained, of their proximity to the ocean and the threat of high tides. The beach did act as a front yard for the houses, with the tall sea grasses standing in for pruned bushes and the sea one giant, crashing pool. Most of the houses had their lights blazing, but the house we stopped in front of was completely dark. With a jolt of nerves, I remembered Leo telling our waiter that his parents were out on a boat.
“My humble abode,” Leo declared with a mock bow, but he seemed nervous, too.
I studied the red-painted front door with its gold knocker. The drainpipes that ran down the house’s length ended in miniature dolphins, their mouths open to release the rainwater.
“Hey, those are cool oceanic markings,” I said, then paused. Oceanic markings—those weren’t my words. I had borrowed that phrase from somewhere else. But where?
“Check out those,” Leo said, and pointed to the small carved turtles that jutted from the roof of the house like gargoyles. “Legend has it that they’re good luck.”
As soon as Leo said legend, I realized where I’d read the phrase oceanic markings: in A Primer on the Legend and Lore of Selkie Island, just that afternoon. In the section about Selkie merfolk. I smiled, ready to ask Leo if he’d grown up hearing tales about these merfolk, who supposedly—what else had the book said?—had homes close to the ocean, and liked the colors red and gold—
I froze. Red and gold. Like the colors on Leo’s front door. Leo’s front door, which was close to the ocean. The ocean, from which Leo had emerged earlier, as if it were perfectly normal to go swimming in a tempest. Without thinking, I glanced down at Leo’s bronzed, muscular legs as if expecting to see—what?
A tail?
Oh, my God. It was official. I was going crazy.
“What’s wrong?” Leo asked. He released my hand and stepped around me so that we were face-to-face. “Miranda? You’re all pale.”
I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. But I was thinking about the fact that Leo didn’t eat seafood, that he’d devoured that seaweed salad with gusto. I wracked my brain, trying to recall what Llewellyn Thorpe had imparted about the Selkie merfolk. I remembered something about them being nocturnal—and hadn’t Leo said I’d find him more easily at night? My thoughts were adding up in a twisted kind of logic.
Leo cupped my face in his hands, staring at me. “You sure you’re okay? Your cheeks are hot. Do you feel sick?”
Something was wrong with me. My face felt flushed. Perhaps staying out in the rain had given me a fever. Patients with high fevers sometimes had hallucinations.
“It’s nothing,” I finally said, and as soon as I heard my own voice, I realized how silly I was being. It was late, and I was tired. That was all. “I just had this random thought,” I added, laughing a little. I wanted to tell Leo that I’d imagined him as a merman so he could laugh with me, too. But the mere word was too absurd to even say out loud. Merman.
“Come inside,” Leo said, drawing my face closer to his. “I’ll get you a drink and you can lie down.”
I hesitated. There were butterflies in my stomach, as there’d been the afternoon I’d met Leo for our sea creature walk. Were these symptoms stemming from my feelings for Leo, or was it my body’s way of alerting me to something? Some sort of…danger?
What had Sailor Hat said to me on the ferry? Be careful of whom you meet, in and out of the water.
When I didn’t respond to his request, Leo tilted his head and gently kissed the corner of my mouth, then slid his lips over onto mine.
As before, the intensity of his kiss made my body unfurl like a petal, and I began kissing him back. But then Leo thrust one hand into my hair—loose, curly, untamed by the rain—and let the other slide down to my waist, his fingers stroking the skin between my T-shirt and capri pants.
Come inside. Lie down.
I wasn’t ready for this. Was I?
Suddenly, all the questions I’d tried to block out earlier flooded my mind. Who was this boy I was kissing? What were his intentions? Why was I willing to go into his empty house at night? And what had happened to me, Miranda Merchant, to make me act with such abandon?
“Stop,” I spoke against Leo’s insistent lips. Abruptly, I broke off our kiss and took a step back. “I can’t,” I said. “We have to stop. I don’t even know you.”
Leo dropped his hands. His breath was coming fast, and he stared at me, his full lips parted. “Why are you freaking out?” he asked, reaching for me. I stepped back again; it must have looked as if we were performing a tense tango.
“I think we’re—we’re moving too fast,” I replied. I felt as if I’d been underwater all evening, in a dreamworld, and I’d finally broken the surface and tasted fresh air.
“Miranda, I’m sorry, but I don’t understand,” Leo said, his voice hoarse and his eyes wide. “I thought you felt our connection, too. When we were on the beach earlier—and during our sea creature walk—”
“Which you totally set up,” I cut in, feeling a surge of indignation. I heard a crack of thunder overhead. “Look, I found out that there was no official walk that day. Why weren’t you honest with me?” I reached into the pocket of my capris and took out my extra hair band. I yanked my hair up and made a tight ponytail.
“Okay,” Leo said sheepishly. He ducked his head and scratched the back of his neck. “I invented the walk so I’d have an excuse to see you again. But so what?” he added, glancing at me with a crooked smile. “You seemed shy when we spoke at the center, and I thought that would be a good way to ask you out.”
“Then you admit you lied?” I asked. I was remembering the tour in the center, how Leo had glanced at the neuron on my Bronx Science T-shirt. Or had he been checking out my chest?
I studied Leo; under the night sky, he seemed to be shape-shifting into someone—something—else. A stranger. A hormone-addled local guy who thought he could take advantage of the lonely tourist girl. I thought of T.J., who would never presume to bring a girl back to his house. T.J.’s family knew my family; he wasn’t a stranger at all.
“I just wanted us to get to know each other better,” Leo said, frustration etched into his beautiful face. “If you’d come inside now, we could—”
“Who do you take me for?” I snapped, my city street-smarts kicking in at last. I thought of Leo’s dark-haired admirers in bikini tops. “Maybe the other girls on this island all fall for that know each other better line,” I added, “but I’m not that naïve.”
Leo pushed a hand through his hair. “What other girls?” he asked, his voice full of confusion. “You know I’m not like that.”
“Actually, I don’t.” I stared him down and, to my horror, felt my throat tighten. No. I could not, would not, cry. “I have absolutely no evidence,” I continued, struggling to keep my voice even, “that you’re any less of a creep than the majority of the male species.” Speaking in scientific terms was a trick that often kept my emotions in check.
Leo knit his brows together. “You think I’m a creep?”
My chest constricted. A little while ago, I’d been making romantic plans for the two of us. How had everything turned so sour?
“Maybe this was a mistake,” I said. “I shouldn’t have come with you to Fisherman’s Village.”
Leo’s expression changed. His lips came together in a line, and a muscle in his cheek jumped as understanding darkened his eyes. “A mistake,” he echoed dully.
I couldn’t look at him anymore. I lowered my head, studying my black flats on the hard-packed sand.
“Say no more. I get it.” He inhaled sharply. “Why don’t you take that shortcut back to your house, and I’ll go back to mine.” He didn’t pose this as a question.
When I looked up, Leo was walking away from me, up the sagging porch steps. He paused before turning the knob on his red door and turned to look at me.
“I thought you were different,” he said quietly.
“I am,�
�� I replied, starting to tremble.
“So am I,” Leo replied, his endearing half smile returning for a second before he opened the door and let it shut behind him.
Just as Leo had predicted, it began to rain again. The drops fell slowly, stinging my cheeks and my shins. I realized I was still wearing Leo’s hoodie, but my pride wouldn’t allow me to follow him and return it. Instead, I pulled the hood tight over my head and turned away from his house.
Summer-induced stupidity. That was the diagnosis, I decided as I made my way up the dirt path in the pouring rain. When people went on vacation, they shed their home skins, thought they could become a new person. Leo had been a fluke, an aberration. But I had caught myself in time. There’d be no need for the two of us to meet again.
Now all I had to do was put him, our kisses, and our laughter completely out of my head. And if there was anything I was good at, besides science, it was making certain thoughts go away.
Ten
SECRETS
The Mariner stood out pale and grand against the darkness—a port in the literal storm. Hurrying through the rain, soaked to the bone, I had but two humble prayers: that the front door would be unlocked, and that Mom would either be on the phone or asleep, allowing me to sneak upstairs.
I climbed the porch steps, and as the rain battered against the life ring wreath, I pushed at the door. It gave easily under my hand, and I felt a rush of relief.
Unfortunately, Mom was standing in the middle of the entrance hall.
“Where were you?” she asked, her eyes flinty.
She hadn’t changed out of her pretty pink dress, which contrasted with her furious countenance. Her hair was damp and she wore muddy flip-flops; she must have gone out to look for me. And the house smelled of burnt rice; she must have made dinner for us. Guilt flooded me.
I removed my soggy hood, listening to the rainwater drip off my body and onto the floor. I couldn’t begin to imagine what kind of a wreck I looked like.
“With CeeCee.” The lie leapt into my mouth.
Mom raised her eyebrows. “Really? That’s funny. I just spoke to Delilah, and she told me that CeeCee had a young gentleman by the name of Bobby visiting them tonight. Somehow she failed to mention that you were there, too.”
Oh, I thought, swallowing. This is what getting in trouble feels like.
“And don’t try telling me you were with T.J.,” Mom added, and I flinched automatically at his name; he’d been the last person on my mind tonight. “I called his father as well.”
I’m sure you did, I thought, scowling.
“I was walking on the beach,” I replied at last, speaking quickly and studying the staircase behind Mom’s shoulder. “It started to rain, so I ended up in Fisherman’s Village.” I wondered, my heart thudding, if there was a hickey on my neck, or some other sign on me that would reveal the truth.
“Alone?” Mom pressed, narrowing her eyes at me.
When Wade was in high school and I was in middle school, he’d sworn to me that Mom was psychic; she’d always seemed to know with whom he was out breaking his curfew. I’d dismissed his theory then, but now the notion that our mother was a mind reader didn’t seem too far-fetched.
“Yeah, alone,” I lied again. I was becoming quite adept at it.
“Where did you get that sweatshirt?” Mom asked, lifting her chin.
Right.
My gut clenched.
“I bought it,” I replied. Was this a new talent?
Mom sighed and began to pace the narrow hallway. “I know, I know,” she said, shaking her head. She seemed to be speaking to herself. “It’s natural for every kid to go through a rebellious phase. Your brother’s seemed to last a lifetime. But somehow I always thought you’d bypass yours.”
“I’m not rebelling!” I cried, forcing myself not to recall my conversation with Leo. I unzipped his hoodie and flung it onto the claw-footed chair in the corner.
“No?” Mom spun around to face me. “Then what would you call leaving for no reason—interrupting our discussion, no less—and disappearing for the next two hours without a peep?”
“I didn’t have my cell phone,” I said, twisting my wet hands behind my back.
Mom stopped pacing and massaged her temples. “Miranda, I asked you to come to Selkie Island so you could help me. I thought you would be the one person who wouldn’t unduly stress me out. And now you’re causing me the biggest stress of all!” Her voice echoed through the house.
“Well, I guess you have Delilah to confide in now,” I snapped, surprised by the hurt I felt at Mom’s words. “Considering you guys are so buddy-buddy and all.” I pictured them in their matching head wraps on the beach. “I thought she annoyed you.”
“Pardon me?” Mom snapped, looking taken aback. “It is not your place to comment or judge if I choose to reconnect with old friends.”
“Like Mr. Illingworth?” I shot back.
Mom leveled me with her gaze, her expression oddly triumphant. “That’s what this is about, isn’t it? Mr. Illingworth and T.J.’s visit?”
“No. Whatever.” I was drained. All I wanted to do was draw myself a hot bath and carry on with the business of forgetting Leo. “You said yourself that your and Mr. Illingworth’s dating wasn’t a big deal. Why do we need to dissect it?” Can’t you ever not be a surgeon? I added silently.
Mom took a big breath and pressed her palms together. Her face had gone splotchy. “Miranda, there’s something you should know,” she said.
Fear poked at me. “Mom…” I began.
“Mr. Illingworth and I didn’t just date,” Mom said, looking straight at me as her face grew increasingly splotchy. “When I was eighteen, we were engaged to be married.”
I felt the wind knocked out of me. I stared at my mother, overcome with confusion and shock. The rainwater drip-dripped off of me.
“That’s—kind of a big deal?” I managed to say, only it came out as a question.
“Yes,” Mom answered, looking at her flip-flops. “It was, at the time.”
“Does T.J. know? Does CeeCee?” I asked, my mind racing. “Does Dad? Does Wade?” It was fairly obvious, I realized, that Delilah did.
“I don’t believe that T.J. or CeeCee know. Wade definitely does not,” Mom replied softly. “Your father does, of course.” Her tone was matter-of-fact.
I shook my head. “But my whole life, you never once mentioned…” I trailed off.
Mom stepped forward, her hands clasped together so tightly that her knuckles were white. “It never seemed practical to tell you,” she said. “I never imagined you and I would end up on Selkie together, or that I’d see Teddy again. I thought that part of my life was dead and buried, Miranda.”
The wind lashed against the windows and made the lace curtains dance. The past seemed to swirl around us like a ghost.
Eighteen. Mom had been eighteen and engaged. I’d be that age in two years. I tried to picture myself in a wedding gown, a diamond ring sparkling on my finger. And who would I be marrying? Greg? T.J.? Leo? I felt like laughing and crying all at once.
“Why didn’t you?” I finally asked my mother. “Why didn’t you marry him?” It was jarring to think that, had Mom done so, I—the specific combination of my parents’ genes—would never have existed. A chill went through me.
Mom stepped up to me and put her hands on my arms, but I jerked away. “You’re going to catch a cold,” she said. “You should take a hot shower. We’ll talk about this another time. Doctor’s orders,” she added with a small smile.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” I snapped. It was my last lie of the night. And with that, I brushed past Mom and started for the stairs, leaving small puddles in my wake.
“Miranda!” Mom barked, her voice so stern that I turned around. “I appreciate that this information was difficult to hear, but I expect you to behave yourself. No more traipsing off to Fisherman’s Village. Do I make myself clear?”
“Don’t worry,” I said, hearing the bittern
ess in my tone. “I won’t be setting foot in Fisherman’s Village again.” I fought down a tug of sadness. “But you can’t keep me in here like a prisoner,” I added defiantly.
Mom let out a short laugh. “You,” she pronounced, folding her arms across her chest, “are as stubborn as your grandmother.”
The monster, I thought. Then I turned and pounded up the stairs. I flew into the guest room and slammed the door as hard as I could—the first time I’d done so in all my sixteen years.
For the next two days, the weather accomplished what I’d said Mom could not. Chilly rain streaked the windows of The Mariner, trapping me inside.
Every time I glanced out at the downpour, I thought of the dolphin drainpipes on Leo’s house and felt a sharp sensation in my chest. So far, my forget-about-him plan was not going too well. At night, I kept having vivid, salt-scented dreams about our grotto, only the grotto was underwater and Leo and I lived there, kissing under clouds of seaweed. Waking up became a reprieve from the gnawing sense of longing.
Though Mom and I were marooned together in the house, we stayed out of each other’s way. While Mom set up downstairs, organizing the kitchen and making phone calls, I took charge of the top floor, going through the room that had once been Uncle Jim’s and was now stuffed with old bicycles, rocking chairs, and more portraits of Isadora—though none as extravagant as the one hanging in the study.
At one point, Wade called my cell from L.A. “Just doing my brotherly duty and saying hi,” he’d chuckled before putting Dad on the phone as well. They both sounded so California breezy, so far removed from the haunted quiet of The Mariner, that talking to them only made me more depressed. And it wasn’t like I was going to tell either of them about Leo, T.J., or Mom’s new quasi-boyfriend.
On the second day, I ensconced myself in Isadora’s walk-in closet; back when we were still on speaking terms, Mom had mentioned that we needed to pack Isadora’s clothes and ship them to a consignment shop in Savannah. I was grateful to the task for—somewhat—taking my mind off Leo and everything else. And were I a fashion lover like CeeCee, I would have been in heaven. Exquisitely crafted sundresses in different jewel tones swung from the hangers, beside shelves of white-buckled high heels, patent leather mules, straw hats with fat sashes, and tiny purses encrusted with crystals.
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