Anne Brown - Lies Beneath

I dunked below the water and came up again. “Don’t underestimate my sisters, Lil. Nobody ever plans to go to them, and yet so many do.”

“You don’t think they’d come to the house, do you?”

“That’s one thing you don’t have to worry about. A kill is only honorable on the water.”

“Honorable?”

I gave a short laugh. “Yeah, that used to make sense to me. I don’t suppose you want to tell your dad the whole truth?”

“And let him know Grandpa planned to sacrifice him? No thanks.”

“I thought so. So this is what I want you to do. I’m going to pull your boats out and sink them. That will be the easiest way to keep your dad off the water. But you need to convince him that being so close to the lake, almost losing Sophie, is too stressful for your mom. That it’s bad for her health. You must convince him. You have to leave, Lily.”

She looked panicked. “But what if he agrees?” she said, gripping my hands tighter.

“I’ll be close behind.”

She paused, considering my demands, then stood up. “Get out. Get dressed. Meet me in the hammock. It’s freezing out here.” She ran back toward the house, her hair streaming behind her.

A few minutes later Lily crawled into the hammock beside me and pulled a wool blanket over us. The hammock swayed, and we floated under the trees. I stared up at the blackened sky. She drew small concentric circles on my chest with her finger.

“Why did you do it, Calder? Why did you save him?”

“What else could I do?” My voice was low.

“You’d planned to kill him before.”

“I did.”

She stopped drawing circles and laid her palm flat against my chest. A patch of five-fingered heat soaked into my skin.

“I realized killing him would kill you. And that would kill me.”

“Figuratively speaking,” she said.

“I’m not so sure about that.”

“So that’s it?” she asked.

I didn’t answer right away, trying to understand what she was really asking. “What more should there be?”

She had no response for me.

“Now you tell me something,” I said, lifting her chin with my finger.

“What do you want to know?”

“How is it that you can be here with me? Regardless of what I did last night, how can you forgive me?”

“I like to think of it the other way around.”

I waited for her to explain.

“What would happen if I didn’t forgive you?” she asked.

“Hopefully, your family would take off and hide. I’d do my damnedest to sabotage my sisters’ attempts to find you again.”

“You’d go away?”

“Yes, of course.” I answered easily, not thinking of the logistics, and twisted a lock of her hair around my finger.

“That’s impossible to think about, but that’s not really where I was going with this.”

“I’m listening.”

“Look at your sisters, Calder. They’re bitter, miserable creatures who’ve now turned on you. They’ve spent half a century obsessed with nothing but murder. Do I want to sentence myself to that kind of prison?”

I understood. Hadn’t I always felt shackled to them? “But how do you do it, Lily? What are the mechanics?”

“Forgiveness? I don’t have a choice. Or at least, no other good choices.”

“I’m not sure I can forgive them for what they tried to do last night—to your father, to Sophie, but most of all to you.”

“Forgiveness isn’t just for them , Calder. It’s for you. Forgiveness is freedom. It’s something you do for yourself—to keep who you are intact. Now that I think about it, in some ways, it’s kind of a selfish act.”

I tightened my grip around her shoulders and pulled the blanket up under her chin. There must not have been any clouds because the stars burned unusually bright. I imagined, from their vantage point in the sky, they could see the approaching sunrise. It made me wonder. Was it better to see the source of one’s demise approaching or to be surprised?

“Look at the stars, Lily.”

“I’d rather look at you,” she whispered back.

“You can do that later.”

She raised her head an inch, and her eyes burned into mine. Her hair fell in soft loops across my shoulder. “Can I, Calder? I thought you were trying to get rid of me.”

My eyebrows pulled together as I frowned at her. “Why would you say that?”

“ ‘Leave, Lily.’ ” She imitated my voice from back by the dock.

My face softened. “I also said I’d be close behind.”

“Words,” she groused, and she laid her head back down on my shoulder.

I reached over with my right hand and gently turned her chin so she’d look up at the sky. “See the stars, Lily?”

She sighed, surrendering. “Of course.”

“Do you think they can see the sun coming?”

“I don’t know. Probably?”

“Do you think they’re scared?”

“They’re burning balls of gas, Calder.”

“Oh, c’mon. Where’s the poet in you?”

She exhaled, and I sensed her smile. “I see. Well, in that case, yes. They’ve finally come home. They are triumphant in their midnight kingdom. But the enemy approaches. They have the numbers on their side, but the enemy is bigger, stronger, with a history of winning that goes back to the dawn of time. They’re definitely terrified.”

I nodded. She understood my analogy.

“But they don’t run, Calder.”

Air caught in my throat.

“I’d rather lie in a hammock with you—with nothing but happiness surrounding us—and be ambushed than run away.”

I shook my head. “If I stay on the lake, I’d be like the stars watching for the sun. I could hear them, I could warn you, and you could get away.” What I didn’t say was that if I had never put on my human vestiges, I would not be here with her. And I didn’t want to be anywhere else ever again. Lily lay on her side, her left arm draped sleepily across my chest, her left knee pulled up over me, as if she were the one protecting me from what lay ahead. My arm was her pillow, and she pressed her nose into the side of my neck.

“How are you feeling, Calder?”

“Happy.”

She exhaled softly against my neck and her breath warmed my skin. “Me too. You do know what that means, don’t you?”

Yes. I knew what it meant. I’d known it for some time. Ever since I saw the college kids dead on the beach and felt no urge to search for my own prey.

“You’re not like them anymore.”

“But I’m not like you, either,” I said.

She gripped me tighter. “You’re right. You’re better.”

I rolled my eyes. “I’m a prize, all right. I wonder what your dad would think about you snuggled up to a sea monster.” I marveled at how I could think of—even mention—Jason Hancock with no thoughts of malice.

“Which reminds me,” she said. “I read something else that might interest you.”

“Not another poem.”

“Not exactly. It’s from the Bible.”

I turned to face her now. “Now I’m interested. I had no idea you were religious.”

“Oh, you’ve just begun to scratch the surface with me.” She cleared her throat. “I memorized it. Are you ready?”

“I’m ready,” I said. “Knock my socks off.”

“ ‘Then God said, “Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures.” And so it happened. God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of swimming creatures with which the water teems. And God saw that it was good.’ ”

I pulled her on top of me. “Well, who am I to argue with God?”

“Exactly.” Her mouth found mine. Her lips were warm and soft. She tipped up her chin, and my mouth slid down her throat to her collarbone and then her shoulder. Her natural scent mixed with the smell of herbal shampoo and freshly cleaned laundry. Nothing had ever been more right.