Anne Brown - Promise Bound

Maris howled in outrage. She lunged, barely missing Daniel. Merely wounded, she charged and rammed his chest so hard I heard his heart skip, then stop.

“Daniel!” I cried. I didn’t think twice.

I placed both palms flat on his chest and closed my eyes. An electric jolt shot from my hands, shocking his heart. Daniel’s eyes flew wide, and his body contorted, writhing in pain as the seams of his swim trunks split and his body transformed—blue and gold, with flecks of black.

LILY

It was like an atomic bomb had been dropped on Bayfield. Joy exploded from the woman’s heart and flooded the water. My own heart leapt from my chest, leading my body, seemingly meters ahead of the rest of me, screaming with both pain and ecstasy, pulling me forward.

Maris’s voice cheered in my head: “Strike!”

My own thoughts raced forward: “Yes!”

“Do not hesitate!”

Someone yelled, “Mine!”

No, mine! I thought. After all this they were going to steal my prey for themselves? Were they really that cruel to toy with me like that?

Then another familiar yet somehow unplaceable voice: “NO!”

The woman was waist deep, deep enough for me to swim to her without getting caught on the sand. My mind was a vacuum; my body worked on instinct. I lunged for the light, my fingers grazing a sodden cotton dress, feeling the softness of her arms, the backward arch of her body as I yanked her off her feet.

Maris was right. It was all too easy. I clutched the bright light to my body, spiraling deeper, reveling in the joy that permeated my skin and filled my mind, hearing Pavati behind me, screaming, “Stay away!” as I tore the woman away from the dock and deeper, farther from shore.

Stay away? Stay away from what? Am I doing it wrong after all? Doubt trickled in, but happiness still seeped from the woman into my mind—like sugar dissolving, a slush, then a syrup, then a nectar—so I must have been doing okay.

But then I felt another body close to me. I was being chased. Pavati wanted to strip me of my catch? What was she doing?

Maris said, “I’m doing us both a favor.”

I was so confused. I didn’t understand the directions they were shouting at me. I dragged the faceless woman deeper into the lake and would have succeeded in finishing her, but I was rammed from the side with such tremendous force that my arms flung open.

The woman crawled for the surface, coming up under an aluminum boat anchored fifty yards from the pier. The dull thumping sound of several panicked feet against the bottom of the boat vibrated through the water.

I lunged after the woman before she could be pulled out of the lake, but someone bit my arm and tore me away from her.

I swiped at my attacker’s head, but whoever it was ducked and twisted, and came at me from the other side, shoving a hand under my jaw, pushing my head back. I snapped my teeth as a warning and curled into a ball, twisting under my attacker’s arm and bolting after the woman, who had just cut the surface like a long, sharp knife.

CALDER

It was a nightmare. How could I have been so stupid as to lure my own mother into the lake? Had I lost every single brain cell? But I must have had a few still working because it took me less than a second to realize what was going on. It was as I’d always feared: that without me, Maris would get her hooks in Lily, that nature would take its course, that in the end Lily would be no better than me.

But Lily was better.

I could still stop this! I would not let my mother die. And I would not let Lily lose her humanity. I yelled through the water at her, “NO!”

I couldn’t hear Maris, but I could see Lily’s reaction to something she said. It gave her just a split second of hesitation, and in that bit of broken concentration, I made my move. I bit down on Lily’s arm and jerked my head to the side, pulling her with me. With a gasp of surprise, her arms flew open. I watched to see if my mother would sink. Or was she still alive? She scrambled to the surface, a flurry of bubbles behind her. Thank God.

Now Lily took advantage of my distraction and swiped at my head. Her fingers grazed my skull as I turned at the last second and came at her from the other direction, pushing the heel of my hand under her jaw, pushing her head back so she could not attack. She struggled, twisting her neck back and forth, snapping her teeth at me as if possessed by a demon. Her eyes were wild, unseeing. She curled into a ball like an acrobat, twisting under my arm and bolting after my mother. It was too late for my mom to provide any more positive emotion—the water had fallen dark—but did Lily realize that?

Two silent figures cut the water: one black as coal, the other a blue jewel.

Maris tore after my mother. The realization that I couldn’t fight all three of them dropped like a lead weight in my stomach.

“Mine!” Lily called after the other two.

“Lily, no!” I called to her. “Look at me. Stop. Please stop. This isn’t you.”

One of my mother’s shoes had fallen off in the struggle, and her foot hung limp. She was cold. Too cold. Lily caught up to me and seemed to be taking instructions from her new family. She circled her fingers around my neck as if to strangle me, with no apparent recognition. She was strong, but I was stronger. I wrapped my arms around her, pressing her body to mine, and raced her away from the scene.

Behind me I heard one shoe-clad foot and one bare one kicking against the outside of an aluminum boat. Someone had pulled my mother to safety! Now if they only had the good sense to get her back to shore.

Lily squeezed my skull between her palms, pushing my face away from hers.

“Lily, look at me. Open your eyes,” I begged.

A scream erupted from her, the likes of which I’d never heard before. Wild and primal and desperate and despairing. I covered her mouth with mine, letting her scream fill every recess of my body, absorbing her pain into my mind, my bones, my muscles. The dark descent of her heart was excruciating to bear. I hardly recognized her as Lily. Her lips were cold and steely against mine; her nails dug into my shoulders. Though she tried, I wouldn’t let her wrench herself away from the kiss. If that was what this was. I would gladly absorb this misery from her because the thought of her killing my mother—anyone, really—was so much worse.

I felt Lily’s despair seep in, slowly pooling through me with inky darkness, as if she were writing on my heart with a leaky pen. I didn’t fight it even when my stomach constricted with nausea and my fluke convulsed beneath me.

Seconds into the exchange, I felt the change in her: the softening of her lips, the faint smell of citrus in the water, the weight of her hands turning from a push to a pull as she held me closer.

She gasped, first with exhaustion and then with surprise. I didn’t know if the surprise came from her coming back into herself or from the wretched sight of me. I had never felt such anguish as that which I had just taken from her. From the way the world looked through my eyes now, I was sure my face was black and hollow. I doubled over from the pain of having absorbed such an overload of negative energy. It was worse than I could have ever imagined.

Lily pulled me back to her and kissed me again, wrapping herself around me as if she meant to protect me from the world. Our bodies twisted into one, like two trees that had grown too close together. She said my name over and over like the chorus to a song. Her hands were in my hair … and she was filling me again, but this time with something that buoyed me back up to the living.