Anne Brown - Promise Bound

“Feeling better yet?” I asked, though I could see she was still exhausted from her last transformation.

“Maybe if I swam more often it wouldn’t be so bad.”

“You don’t want to overexert yourself.”

“At the very least I don’t want to hold you back. Don’t wait for me. You should go out tomorrow with Dad. You’re looking a little dry.” She moved over to make room for me on the couch. I hesitated, looking anxiously toward her parents’ bedroom.

“If it’s all the same,” I said, “I’m happier suffering through with you. Besides, you know how much I love a challenge.” And it was true. I was pretty damn impressed with myself. A six-day stretch between transformations! It used to be I’d get the shakes after twenty-four hours. A year ago, three days nearly turned me to chalk. I didn’t know if it was a matter of practice, sheer will, creative coping skills, or something more phenomenal than all three put together, but I didn’t really care so long as I could be there for Lily. I could see how much she needed me.

“Good,” she said, as if she were considering a different challenge altogether, and placed her palm over the pendant around her neck.

“Why don’t you just take that thing off?” I asked.

She looked at me miserably. “I would, but I feel uneasy without it. I … I think Nadia is trying to communicate with me. Remember that story you told me?”

“No.”

“You don’t remember?”

“I mean, no, I don’t want to hear it. I’m sorry, Lily. I really am. But I don’t want to talk about my mother.”

She stifled a yawn. “That’s fine. I don’t really want to talk about her either.”

“It’s probably your imagination,” I said. “And the stress of all the changes you’re going through.”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”

I frowned.

“Okay,” said Lily, “then let me rephrase my earlier statement. I don’t think Nadia is trying to communicate with me. I know she is. It’s just that I don’t know what she’s trying to say. You told me the pendant stores mermaid histories.”

“That’s just a legend,” I said.

“Like the dagger was supposedly part of the legend? Like Maighdean Mara was only a myth?”

“Point taken, but that doesn’t mean you don’t have an overactive imagination.”

Lily avoided the argument and changed the subject. “Gabby called again today,” she murmured, tapping the couch cushions for me to lie down.

I added another log to the fire and lay beside her, curling my body around hers, protecting her from a threat that I could feel but couldn’t see. Lily pressed her face against my shoulder while the logs crackled in the stone fireplace.

“Did you talk to her this time,” I asked, my lips behind her ear, “or did you make her leave another message?”

“I couldn’t avoid it anymore. Gabby’s pretty persistent.”

“Is she enjoying college?”

Lily traced the point of my collarbone with her finger. “That’s not what she wanted to talk about.”

Yeah. I knew that. Lily rolled onto her back, and the fire cast a warm glow across her face. She closed her eyes, and her lids shimmered like gold leaf in the firelight. This was how I preferred her. Warm. The raspberry-pink glow of happiness melting around the outline of her curves. It had been awhile since I’d seen those colors on her.

Lily sighed, and I kissed her forehead. “So what do I do about Gabby? And Jack?” she asked.

“I’ve told you. There’s nothing anyone can do for Jack.”

Nearly half a century as a merman, and I’d never had to deal with this side of things before. It made me uncomfortable to think of all the families who were still searching for children because of what I’d done. The days when I hunted humans to satisfy my emotional appetites seemed like a million years ago. Ever since Lily had fallen—literally—into my life, I’d forgotten what it felt like to be empty, desolate, alone. The need to hunt was forever gone.

Lily rubbed the pendant, her thumb moving methodically over its smooth contours.

As she did so, my eyes watched the ring finger on her left hand, wondering, dreaming. Unbeknownst to her, I’d spent some time over the winter fashioning a ring for her. It wasn’t fancy, only braided copper wire and a polished agate. But now that it was finished, I had no idea how to present it to her. I didn’t even know what it should mean. Only that I wanted her with me. Always.

I’d told Jason about it over a week ago. I guess I was asking his permission. I’d seen that in the movies, but his reaction didn’t make me any braver.

Jason: “Well, what did Lily have to say about it?”

Me: “I haven’t said anything to her. I thought it was normal to ask the father first.”

Jason: “Son, I appreciate the gesture, don’t get me wrong. But this isn’t something you should surprise her with. Are you sure? You’re both so young.”

Me: “Do you think she’d say no?”

Jason: “I think she’d say what’s the hurry.”

Hurry . The need for hurry glowed in Lily’s skin, and in her eyes, and in the light that shone from both. Or rather, the absence of that light. Couldn’t Jason see that in his own daughter? Couldn’t Sophie, who despite her maintained humanity was more in tune to moods and emotions than any full-blooded mermaid I knew?

Jason: “It doesn’t have to be an engagement ring. Why don’t you call it a promise ring? They were very popular in my day.”

I had to admit, a promise ring fit my mer-sensibilities. In promising myself to Lily—a promise she knew I’d be incapable of breaking—maybe I could restore some of the happiness that last summer’s events had stolen from her. I don’t know. Maybe I was kidding myself.

As Lily worked the pendant in her fingers, she didn’t blink; her thoughts seemed very far away. “We could fake some postcards from Jack,” she said, propping herself up on one elbow. “You could go to Canada and send them from there, saying, ‘Don’t worry about me. I’m hiking through Ontario. I’m fine. Love, Jack.’ That sort of thing. I wish I had saved the card he gave me. You could have used it to copy his handwriting. It was messy. That’s all I can say about it.”

Beneath her oversized cardigan I recognized the Jimi Hendrix T-shirt she’d worn when she confronted Jack, and nearly lost her life.

“I would never go to Canada without you,” I said. I waited a few seconds, but she didn’t respond. Finally I prompted, “So?”

“So … what?” she asked.

“So, if I go to Canada, will you come with me?”

She looked at me with a serious expression. “Do you think postcards would give the Pettits some peace?”

“What more can we offer? Really, Lily, people go missing every day.”

“And that’s supposed to make me feel better?”

No. Not really . I drew one finger through her hair and tucked a strand behind her ear. “Why do you have to feel bad about this? It’s not your fault what happened to Jack.”

“It feels like my fault.”

I sighed, trying to be patient. “If it were up to you, everything would be your fault … but you didn’t answer my question.”

“What question?” Pine sap snapped in the fireplace and scattered sparks on the hearth.

“If I go to Canada, will you come with me?”

“Let’s just wait and see,” she said, kissing the end of my nose as if punctuating a sentence.

LILY

When I came down the stairs, I was glad to find Calder awake, too. I didn’t want to go back to sleep. I smiled against his chest, remembering the way he half crawled, half climbed the stairs toward me and, when he stood up, how his pajama bottoms hung low on his hips, revealing the line of muscle that made my insides squirm.