Anne Brown - Lies Beneath

I’d never known Tallulah to break the skin, but this was not the Tallulah I knew. The image of Lily’s broken body fueled my rage and pushed me faster. I would kill my sister. Tallulah would know my pain. I bent my body toward the surface, the metallic scent of blood flooding my senses, and prepared myself for what I would see. But I had made all the wrong assumptions.

High atop the cliff, Jack Pettit stood at the rocky edge, the scope of a hunting rifle pressed to his eye. He pointed the barrel at Tallulah, whose lifeless arms floated an inch below the surface. Her silver tail hung low while a dark red line spiraled out of her body, then dissipated in the churning water. Tallulah’s blood filtered through the water, across my lips, coppery on my tongue: her macabre parting kiss.

My shoulders tensed and my muscles hummed with adrenaline. I suddenly couldn’t remember if Tallulah was to be hated or mourned. Despite everything, I felt only pity and wondered if Maris had encouraged Lulah’s misguided affections for me, used them , like any other tool in her box of manipulations. I could not abandon my sister’s body to the carrion birds. Or worse, to Jack Pettit. Most importantly, I could not allow Tallulah’s body to be discovered.

Jack lowered the rifle, and his eyes locked on mine. “All mermaids ever do is hurt people,” he shouted. “Not anymore.” Then he raised the rifle again, centering me in his scope.

Before he pulled the trigger, another voice yelled, “Stop!” and Jason Hancock collided with Jack’s shoulder. There was a grunt and a clatter as the rifle slipped from Jack’s fingers, hit the rock, and fell into the lake. Jack ran away before the splash.

Hancock and I spotted Lily at the same time. Waves had pushed her against the face of the cliff—arms splayed wide, palms pressed back against the precipice. Her heart slogged out a lazy rhythm I could feel in the water. Her pale face tipped back against the onslaught of waves, like a battered water lily. “D-don’t,” she said.

Hancock swayed, and his legs trembled. He bent his knees in preparation for a jump his mind could not force his body to make.

“Jason!” I called up to him. “I’ve got her.”

Why I said it, I will never know. If I thought my words would be reassuring, I was wrong. I’d forgotten how different I was—that I was not human, that my presence would not provide him comfort.

When Hancock saw my tail twitching and slapping at the waves, he yelled, “Stay away from my daughter!” and searched reflexively for the spot where the gun had gone in.

I held up my hands, palms out. “I won’t hurt her. I would never hurt her.”

“She’s gone!” he cried. “Oh, Christ, she’s gone!”

I dove.

And I dove.

Down.

Deep.

Lily hung in suspended animation, her arms extended softly in front of her. The last blip of air—a thin line of bubbles—trailed from her nose to the surface. The lake was as silent as a grave.

Fifty feet separated us. It would take mere seconds to reach her. My fingers tingled with a new flow of electricity as I prepared to reach out and reinvigorate her, not really knowing if it would work. Another part of me wondered if it was better to let her die. Was a martyr’s death really so much worse than the life of a mermaid? Was it selfish of me to save her? Could I condemn her to the life I hated, and could she still love me once the damage was done?

All these questions melded together until they were a jumbled patchwork of hopes and fears. I reached for her, closing the last few feet. My fingertips charged with a brilliant blue light.

There was a splash from above: Jason Hancock, submerged for the first time in his life, swimming with powerful, purposeful strokes to save his dying daughter. The man had no tail, but it was only a matter of time. I’d witnessed thousands of transformations, and I knew the signs. A silver ring already shimmered around Hancock’s throat, and his eyes glowed with an unnatural fire. He showed no awareness of his impending change. Only I bore witness.

My confusion caught me up short, if only for a second. Just enough time for a stone to skip across the surface. Really no time at all. But in my hesitation, two arms wrapped around Lily’s chest and pulled her to safety.

And they weren’t mine.

Lily’s lips parted silently, and her head dropped backward over someone’s arm . With the jerk of her head, I woke from the dream, gasping beneath a canopy of trees, calling “Lily!” I tried to pretend it was only a dream, but I’d never felt such an all-consuming rage. I’d been shunned, set up, betrayed, and now left alone to die, brokenhearted. I begged anyone, anything who would listen, to rewind time, to put things back the way they were before. I’d do anything.

But who was I kidding? There was no response, and I sank deeper.

It had been twelve hours since Hancock pulled Lily from the water. Twelve hours since I’d witnessed his glowing eyes and the silver ring around his throat. Eleven hours since I’d reasoned out the truth. Tom Hancock hadn’t promised to sacrifice his son in exchange for his own life. He’d promised to return Mother’s son— their son—to her at the end of his first year.

Jason Hancock was my brother. It explained his yearning to return to the lake all these years. It explained his inability to break his promise to his father. It answered everything except why Mother had allowed us to grow up with a lie. What did she think we would do? She couldn’t have wanted us to kill her son. But Maris … Maris should have known the truth. These questions would have to wait for later. My mind was too tired, my heart too sick to think it through.

I was now lying in the thickest part of the forest, covered in a blanket of wet and decomposing leaves, preserving myself from the heat of the sun. I breathed in the smell of last year’s rot and let the little gray beetles climb over my body.

This was my penance for being such a worthless hero. There was no point to any of it. Why couldn’t Tallulah have just talked to me? Told me how she felt? I could have made her see reason. It didn’t have to end this way.

Each time I closed my eyes, the dreams returned: Hancock plunging into the water. Hancock pulling Lily from my fingertips. Hancock pumping her chest and blowing saving air into her lungs.

I heard myself pleading from the water, “Please, Lily, Please.” I measured each heavy second, counted along with Hancock as he pushed blood around her body, exhaled with him as he blew oxygen into her wasted lungs.

The sound of Lily coughing and sputtering against her father’s knee was the only reprieve from this nightmare, but it plunged me into the next:

Me, dragging Tallulah into the depths of the lake, searching for a place to hide her body, digging a hole under a sunken pallet. Me, wedging her into the chasm and repositioning the pallet over her, closing my eyes to the shameful burial. Me, tucking in her arm, which—even in death—reached for me. Me, squeezing her hand before letting her fingers slip away.

Then Lily’s head jerked back, and I was awake again, gasping— Lily! This continued for three days. Hour sixty-one. A new record.

From the cool shadows of the forest, I watched her bedroom window. There was no movement. No flip of the lights. No brushing against the curtains. I wanted to go to town to see if there was any talk. I doubted Hancock would have told anyone the truth, but even a lie would be worth knowing.

But I couldn’t have made it to town even if I’d tried. My body grew weaker with each minute of my self-imposed exile from the water. My skin pulled tight across my cheeks. My tendons thinned and turned brittle. My muscles cramped and sent stabbing pain from my thighs to my toes.