Anne Brown: Deep Betrayal

I sank through the floor, through the joists, past the tangle of wires to the downstairs, and on past the basement. I dropped like a weighted line below the foundation into a watery underworld. The cold cut my skin and my lungs burned. A mermaid’s arms crushed my chest. Tighter, tighter. I called out, but no one answered. I reached for something that wasn’t there, then the sudden explosion of sound, and the mermaid’s unexpected release, the copper taste of blood in my mouth, red pooling around my face, and the tug of two arms pulling me onto the rocks, a silver ring appearing around a throat … the howling sound of voices calling my name …

I woke up with a shout. “Dad!”

Ugh . Groggy and stiff, I looked around to get my bearings. The movie was over, the lead actor’s voice replaced by a late-night talk-show host’s. I clicked off the TV and stood up. Jules slept peacefully in my bed, her hands curled under her cheek. It wasn’t nice, but I gave her a swift shove, and she rolled off the edge, hitting the floor with a satisfying thud .

“Hey!”

“You fell,” I said, crawling into the warm sheets. “Better go back to your own room. Graduation and all. Get some sleep.”

“Geez, it’s so blue,” Jules said as we walked into Humphrey Auditorium. She was right. The decorating committee had gone overboard: blue balloons, blue banners, a curtain of blue and white streamers hanging behind the stage. Add in six hundred kids in blue caps and gowns and the effect was a little overwhelming. It was the first time in a long time that I was dressed like everyone else. It made me feel a little off balance.

“I got to get to my seat,” Jules said. “Good luck.”

I nodded, exhaling slowly. “Yeah, you too.”

I found the H row and my metal folding chair with only minutes to spare. Rob Hache slapped my hand as I squeezed by him. Besides Jules, Rob was my oldest friend—ever since we tied for third grade spelling-bee champ. Sometimes he tried to cross the friendship line, but lately we’d reached a truce in that debate.

Up front, the superintendent stood at a shiny blue podium, coughing into his sleeve before making some comments about how we were all heading off into a grand adventure . It wasn’t long before the name butchering began with “Mary Margaret An … An … drze … ze … jewski.”

The superintendent continued to trudge through the alphabet, while Principal Landsem, who was handing out the diplomas, quickly began to lose his enthusiasm for the ceremony. By the time we got to the H ’s, my classmates had already deposited two hundred pennies into his palm, and the pockets of his suit coat bulged and begged for the floor.

Brian Halvorson turned and winked at me as his name was called, saying “Penny for your thoughts,” then he strode confidently across the stage. I clenched my penny tight in my fist. It might have been a boulder for how heavy it felt.

“Lily Anne Hancock.”

Principal Landsem, his mouth pinched at the corners, stood with his hand outstretched. I shifted the penny from my sweaty palm to my fingers and walked forward with an apologetic smile.

When I was halfway across the stage, an air horn blasted me out of my embarrassment. I turned toward the audience and caught, for just the briefest of seconds, a familiar dark head in the standing-room-only section. I stopped in my tracks and stared. No. Why would he be here? Now?

But I lost track of the beautiful figure ghosting through the crowd. And then I lost faith in my eyesight. Wishful thinking , I decided. Calder didn’t like crowds.

Mom and my ten-year-old sister, Sophie, screamed my name and waved blue pompons in the air. Dad sat stoically beside them, mirroring my wide-eyed expression, his face pale as paste. The sight of my family shook me out of my befuddlement. I refocused on my diploma and finished the trip across the stage.

“Congratulations, Miss Hancock,” Principal Landsem said. He handed me a black certificate case as I slipped him the penny. He added, “Although I expected a little more maturity from you.” The penny made a plinking sound as he dropped it into his pocket.

And then I was free! Thirteen years of school were over!

Jules high-fived me as I passed the B row and made my way back to my seat. I collapsed onto my folding chair and Rob reached across a couple of laps to shake my hand.

“Good going,” he whispered. His red-brown hair curled around the edges of his cap. “You didn’t wimp out.”

I rolled my eyes. As if . I’d wrestled with sea creatures. It would take more than a stupid, juvenile gag to undo me. Really, there was only one thing that could make me lose it, and that day was drawing near. Back in the Badzins’ guest room, thirty-one paper links hung from my bedpost.

The drone of names continued. I let the sounds blend like the beads of sweat that met and blossomed under my cap band. The back of my neck prickled, and I was sure I was being watched. There was no mistaking the burn. I turned in my chair, expecting to see Calder White standing there, his shockingly beautiful face mocking my exhibition. But still there was nothing.

“Elizabeth Marie Smith,

Sandra Ellen Smith,

Zachary David So-beach … Sobee-eck … Sobee-ack.”

Our beleaguered and weighted-down principal looked two inches shorter than when we started. When the superintendent finally called Yousef and Zinn, Principal Landsem slunk to the back table and emptied both pockets of our goodwill offering while the band struck up the school anthem. No one knew the words.

Caps flew into the air. I got up and walked to the back of the auditorium, toward my parents. At least, that was where I tried to go. My body bounced off my classmates as I battled against the stream of people. The blare of air horns ricocheted off the ceiling and into my ears, along with the girls’ woot-woots and the boys’ loud guffaws. I couldn’t believe I’d grown up among these faces. Everyone was a stranger.

“Lily!”

A hand clasped my arm and snagged me from the crowd. Dad pulled me against his chest and whispered something in my ear. I wrapped my arms around him, and held on tight. Having him here, intact, standing on two legs … I wasn’t prepared for the rush of relief.

He led me to a corner at the back of the gym where Mom swiveled her wheelchair in an excited dance at the bottom of the ramp. Sophie stood with one hand on a handle.

“Oooooh, Bay! Bee!” Mom cried, her hands waving in the air. “How do you feel? Tell me. How do you feel ?”

She didn’t give me the chance to put together an answer, or to beg to come home, or to even say hello.

“You look so much older,” she gushed. “Doesn’t she look all grown up, Jason?”

I glanced nervously at my dad, wondering if I could find the answer to a different question in his eyes, like “Yes, you can come home now.”

“Oh, honey,” Mom continued, “I’ve missed you, but I’m so glad you got to walk with your class. Now bend down, we’ve got a present for you.”

I knelt in front of her chair and she fixed a fine silver chain around my neck. “It’s a family heirloom from your dad’s side. The original chain was broken, so this one’s new, but the pendant … I think it must be very old. Isn’t it beautiful?”

“Grandpa gave it to me before he died,” Dad said. “He wanted you to have it.”

“A real keepsake,” Mom said as I studied the beach-glass pendant hanging from its copper fob. Softened by sand and water, the glass was the same green as Calder’s eyes, and it lay strangely hot against my chest.

“I’m glad you made it, Mom. You too, Dad.”