Anne Brown - Promise Bound

Maris said, “I can see this isn’t coming as easily as I thought it would. I blame myself for not taking you under my wing sooner. I was hoping you’d reach this moment on your own.”

“Hoping?” I sneered.

Maris clucked her tongue again. “Expecting. I expected you to reach this moment much earlier.”

This moment? So that was the help she was offering? She was going to teach me to hunt? “Calder can resist the urge,” I challenged. “And so can I.”

“Sure, he has ,” she said, shrugging. “Calder has always experimented in self-control, but there hasn’t been just one experiment. There have been many over the years. Too many to count, really. He always falls off the wagon for a few years before trying again. No one can deny themselves forever, and that includes you, Lily Hancock.

“We all wear the mask—play pretend, put on a good show for human eyes. But in the end, you are who you are.”

“And who are you, Maris?” I asked.

“Me? I am the best choice to lead this family. Mother believed I could keep this family together.”

“But you didn’t.”

For the first time I saw her falter, but she composed herself. “I was young. I didn’t know how to play the mother role. Obviously I made mistakes.”

“Tallulah,” I said, hoping the sound of the name would cause her pain.

“And Calder, too,” said Maris, unflinching. “I don’t want to make the same mistakes with you.”

Oh, she was good. Too good. The black cloud of my heart churned stormily inside me. Without wanting to, I heard myself say, “You’d help me?”

“Back then, I was too young for the responsibility. I was too young to shoulder my siblings’ grief. Revenge was the only thing I understood, so it was the only thing I had to offer. I can see now the damage that caused. And yes, Lily Hancock. I can help you.”

“I feel so empty.”

“I can fix that. Trust me. No need to feel ashamed.”

DANIEL CATRON

I lifted the bottom of my T-shirt and scrubbed the yellow pollen from the Hancocks’ kitchen window so I could peer in. No one had answered the door when I’d knocked. No one seemed to be inside. Not even Mrs. Hancock, whom I’d never seen leave the house. All the lights were off.

Huh. Maybe it was a good thing.

I’d reached the end of my rope when it came to Pavati blowing me off. I’d spent the past three nights lying awake, trying to figure out the best way to find her. I hadn’t gotten any sleep, and that had nothing to do with Adrian. It was basically now or never. Or at least now or succumb to insanity.

Knowing Lily, she’d probably try to talk me out of what I was planning. So it was a good thing she wasn’t around. Maybe my stars were finally aligning, if stars ever aligned for me. Yeah. Funny.

But I couldn’t help thinking that maybe the Hancocks’ absence was, like, fate or something. Maybe Pavati wanted to see me just as much as I wanted to see her, and maybe she’d been waiting for an opportunity like this where we wouldn’t be interrupted or judged or yelled at. Maybe she’d done something to make them leave for a while, just in the hopes that I’d stop by. Maybe freakin’ maybe, baby . It was about time I found out. I mean, it wasn’t like I could be re -rejected, right?

Adrian lifted his head off my shoulder and sniffed at the cool air. “Yeah, buddy. You and I need to get out more, don’t we?” Seriously, that apartment was getting majorly depressing. There were only so many episodes of Cops one guy could stand, and I’d run out of variations on macaroni and cheese: mac ’n’ cheese with mushrooms and onions, with spaghetti sauce, with tuna, with Cajun spices; in a pinch I’d invented leftover macaroni soup.

I pulled Adrian’s bottle out of the diaper bag and stuck it in his mouth, carrying him like a football in the crook of my arm. He’d already lost one sock somewhere in the trip from my apartment to Lily’s front door. I pulled off the other and dropped it on the hood of my car as I made my way toward the water.

Do I call her name? Do I go underwater and call? In the past, Pavati had always just showed up, without any effort on my part. I used to think we had some deep emotional connection because she always showed up right when I was thinking about her, but then I realized I was always thinking about her, so it wasn’t so cosmic after all.

When I reached the end of the dock, I sat down cross-legged and propped Adrian up between my legs. I took off my shoes and socks and dropped one foot in the water. Nothing said come hither like sweaty feet, right?

I pulled my foot out, laid Adrian’s head on one of my shoes so he was comfortable, then dangled my hand in the water. Come on, Pavati. Don’t be shy .

The lake looked dead. I couldn’t find a single pinprick of an air bubble, a rippling circle … nada.

“Pavati,” I called out. I glanced over my shoulder at the house just in case someone had been home all along. For a second I thought I saw an upstairs curtain move, but there was still no one.

“Pavati!” I called, louder this time.

Adrian cried. His bottle had rolled away. I popped it back in his mouth and balanced my other shoe on his stomach to hold the bottle in place. I pushed myself farther over the edge of the dock and dropped my whole head underwater.

I called again, this time into the water, “Pavati!” Bubbles fluttered past the sides of my face.

I listened, but didn’t hear anything other than a boat motor. I pulled myself out, flipping my wet hair back and drenching the rest of me. Adrian startled when the cold water sprinkled his face, and he cried out. The bottle clunked onto the deck boards.

“Sorry, dude,” I said as I popped it back in his mouth.

The boat I’d just heard appeared around the bend and came surprisingly close to the Hancocks’ dock. When it was just twenty feet out, I saw a girl was driving it. She had chin-length, thick black hair and piercing eyes that told me she wasn’t one to take any crap. Binoculars hung around her neck. Gabby Pettit. Damn it. What did she want?

She cut the engine.

“Is that you, Catron?” she asked.

“What?” I put my hand to my ear as if I couldn’t hear her.

She smirked, so I guess I wasn’t going to win any Oscars for this performance. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see Lily,” I said, “but she’s not home.” It was a lie, of course, but I hoped Gabby couldn’t tell.

“I didn’t know you two were friends.”

I shrugged. “Sometimes. When the mood suits her.” I didn’t want to play nice with Gabby. (She’d shaved my eyebrows off at Jimmy Watts’s party sophomore year.) But I had to be careful with what I said. Lily had told me Gabby had suspicions about mermaids and her brother’s death.

“Yeah, I know how that goes,” she said.

“Where are you headed?” I asked, an idea suddenly occurring to me. If Pavati wasn’t going to show herself close to land, maybe I could get her attention farther out. It would be worth spending time with Gabby if that was the payoff.

“Nowhere in particular,” she said. “Just cruising. Is that … is that a baby?”

Adrian was pulling the last drops out of the bottle with a dry sucking sound. “I’m babysitting for my cousin.” It hurt to deny him as my son, but I knew lies were going to be a permanent part of our future. “Want to give us a ride?”