Anne Brown - Lies Beneath

Worse, I had no idea how long I’d been unconscious, and no idea whether I had any time left to undo my folly. I worked to rebuff Maris’s telepathic replay of the time I’d lost. My efforts were in vain; she was too persistent. Maris burrowed her way into my brain like a parasitic worm until I could see Lily’s face as clearly as if she stood in front of me. Now I would hear every devastating detail. This was Maris’s intended punishment for me: to watch remotely and bear silent witness to Lily’s destruction—and with Lily’s, my own.

“See what you’ve missed,” Maris said. “Watch.”

With that word, Maris filled my head with everything I’d missed while I’d lain unconscious. She turned my mind into a movie screen, upon which she projected terrifying images and all-too-familiar voices I did not want to hear:

Tallulah swam back and forth along the shoreline. Distant thunder roused Lily from her sleep in the hammock. Sitting up, she looked around. Disoriented .

“Calder,” Lily whispered. She rolled out of the hammock and tiptoed closer to the water .

From the confines of the net, I yelled, “Stay back!” But it was like yelling at a movie actor. The scene had already been filmed. How long ago I still didn’t know. There was nothing I could do to change the past. Maris’s mesmerizing projections continued, and I could not look away:

Lily didn’t notice the pale, fervent face, the golden hair shadowed by the overhanging trees. She bit her lip and took a few cautious steps .

“Calder,” she whispered again—more confused this time. “Calder, are you out there?”

Still no response. She wrapped the wool blanket tighter around her body. Her face contorted with worry as she stepped onto the dock. When she reached the end, she searched across the lake toward Basswood .

Maris inspected the ends of her hair, then looked up as I tried to yell my way out of the trappings. “Fitting punishment, don’t you think?” she asked, her voice a syrupy sweetness. “Who knew Tallulah could be so devious when scorned?”

I refused to believe it, but I was convinced as Maris remembered Tallulah moving in on her prey.

Lily gasped. “Geez, Calder, you scared me.”

“Not Calder. Tallulah.”

Retreating, Lily tripped over the edge of the blanket .

Tallulah smiled and held out her arms. “I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Another trick!” I cried out.

The eerie vibrations of Maris’s laughter gouged deep tracks in the sand. “Wait,” she said, “this is a good part.”

“What do you want?” Lily’s voice came out cold and thin. “Where is he?”

“He left,” Tallulah said, comparatively warm and velvety. “He was only using you. You must have seen that in his eyes. No? The flicker of deceit?”

Lily shook her head .

“Don’t believe her!” I continued to yell. I hated that my agony was entertaining Maris, but I could not contain my pleas.

“Although I can see why he dragged things out,” Tallulah said. “You are quite pretty. I hadn’t really noticed before. Calder does like pretty things. For a while.”

I watched, spellbound, as Lily readjusted the blanket, pulling it high and tight under her chin. The wind blew her hair in wild tendrils, making her look simultaneously romantic and tragic.

“Oh, that was a nice touch, don’t you think?” Maris asked. “What she did there with the blanket. Did you see that?”

“But life isn’t always pretty, now, is it?” Tallulah said. “We can’t forget the past. It’s not in our nature.”

Lily took another step back, and hope rekindled in my shriveled heart .

“Stay,” Tallulah said. Hypnotic. Lily stopped. Her shoulders twitched, as if she wanted to run but her feet were locked in place .

“I’m here to warn you,” Tallulah went on, “but, as I said, I’m not here to hurt you.”

“Warn me?”

“I’m sure Calder’s told you we’ve been hunting your father. Do you really think after all this time, now that we have him in our sights, now that his scent is in our mouths, that we would just walk away? You look like a smart girl. A brave girl. How do you think this is going to end? Surely you can see it.”

“Please,” Lily said. “Please leave us alone.”

Maris nudged me with her foot, and I rolled like a log onto my side. “Hear how she begs there?” She almost laughed. “A family trait, I see.”

Lily clenched her teeth. “Calder didn’t lie to me. He told me everything.”

A clap of thunder nearly drowned out Tallulah’s next words: “Then you know what’s been promised us.”

Lily’s voice was little more than a whisper. “My mom is sick. We need my dad. It’s not his fault.”

Maris and Tallulah answered her in unison. Maris’s “No” was angry, but Tallulah said “No” as if she was considering Lily’s argument.

“You’re right. It’s not his fault. Calder said something about that once—that your father wasn’t the debtor, merely the collateral. But you see, in the end, it’s a distinction without a difference. In the end, we must take him.”

“Collateral?” Lily’s eyes scanned the water as if the solution lay somewhere under the waves .

“Stop looking for him,” Tallulah said, her velvety voice giving way to hatred .

“What about me?” Lily asked .

“What about you?” Tallulah’s lips twitched .

Maris chuckled, then muttered to herself while fear wormed its way into my stomach, twisting and curling.

“Would you take me?” Lily asked. “In my dad’s place.”

A slow smile spread across Tallulah’s face. “You’re a smart girl. Just come to the end of the dock, and I promise you, we will release our claim on your father. Calder must have told you we cannot break a promise. You can trust me on that.”

“Not here. Not where my parents might see.”

Tallulah’s face turned stony, and the water roiled as her tail thrashed behind her .

“There’s a rock just a little farther north,” Lily said. “It juts into the lake about ten feet above the surface.”

“I know it.”

“I’ll be there.”

“I won’t wait long, Lily Hancock.”

“I won’t be long.”

“We’ll see about that,” Tallulah said, sounding bored now. “In my experience, Hancocks aren’t known for keeping their promises.”

“This time it’s different,” said Lily. A forked line of lightning split the sky like a broken dish .

“No!” I cried as Lily’s promise echoed in Maris’s memory. But I knew my plea would go unanswered, and nausea rippled through my belly.

Less than an hour after I found myself trapped in the net, the first raindrops pelted the surface. Maris’s replay was over. While she and I waited for the story to continue in real time, across the cold channel, Tallulah waited for Lily to come to the cliff. Even from this distance, I could sense Tallulah’s patience waning.

Maris swam closer to me. She circled the net twice and coiled her body close to mine, twirling one finger in my hair. I had long since given up trying to free my hands and had switched to using my teeth on the mesh of knotted ropes. “Be patient,” Maris said, sounding maternal and soothing. “No need to expend so much energy. This will all be over soon.” She rested her hand on one of the stakes that held the net firmly to the sand.