Anne Brown: Deep Betrayal

“I’m sure you’re not sorry to see me go,” Maris said, but he did not react to her goading. “Oh, that’s right. Lily, you’ll have to translate for us.”

“Ask her why you can’t change back,” Calder said as he pulled me to his side.

Maris appraised us with mocking eyes. “You two were made for each other. Slow and sentimental.”

“What did she say?” Calder asked.

“She says I’ll get faster with practice.” My blood cooled at the thought of having to practice that torture. Couldn’t I just stay in the lake forever?

“If you want,” Maris said, reading even the thoughts I didn’t intend for her to hear. “You’re welcome to join me.”

“Join you?”

“No,” Calder said in response to my question, and with a flash of his silver tail, he took a defensive position between me and Maris. “I won’t allow it.”

Maris shrugged and looked past Calder to me. “I can see you’re curious about the possibilities, Lily Hancock. I’ll be back in the spring. We can see how things are then.”

“What is she saying?” Calder asked.

I wished it were daylight so I could better read her expression. I said, “Maris misses her family.”

“I don’t know what she’s playing at,” Calder said, “but tell her she doesn’t fool me.”

“Calder misses you, too,” I said.

Both Calder and Maris twitched, and she leapt into the night air, bending into a back dive. We surfaced just in time for her black tail to slap the water and send a stinging spray into our faces. We watched the telltale signs of her path—the dark shadow, the disturbed current—until she was gone.

There was a moment of silence before I asked, “So what happens next?”

Calder didn’t answer, and I knew he was wondering the same thing. Would I ever regain my legs? Could I avoid the need to hunt? But when I turned to face him, he was taking in every detail of my new body. He smiled a closed-lip smile and said, “Just when I thought you couldn’t get any more beautiful …”

He pulled me against his body and took me under the waves, our tails entwining, feathery flukes undulating under us. His kisses were deeper, sweeter than ever before. His thoughts resonated in my mind. At first they were a mere vibration, a D string, a sonnet, and then they were a ballad, and the chorus was “I love you.”

MY SCRIBBLINGS

A Mermaid’s Love Song

She is fast, but he is faster

A million bubbles flying past her

as they stream through archipelago

moonlight sets the water’s edge aglow

Down they dive their arms entwined

like a fruitful, ample vine

To their castle, pale and green ,

chasing their forbidden dreams .

—Lily Hancock, “Mermaid”

Writing a novel can make you feel a little crazy sometimes. While I was writing Deep Betrayal , Lily kept waking me up at night and telling me how things were supposed to go down. I’d say, “Really? Are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather …” This is where I get to thank all those people who told me to shut up and keep out of Lily’s way.

So here’s to you: Nina Badzin, Heather Anastasiu, Kristen Simmons, Deede Smith, Beth Djalali, the Minneapolis Writers Workshop, and Dave Meier for telling me that the opposite of love is not hate, but indifference.

Thanks to Jacqueline Flynn, Joëlle Delbourgo, Françoise Bui, Paul Samuelson, Sonia Nash, Random Buzzers, Kathleen Eddy, Holly Weinkauf, Amy Oelkers, Pamela Klinger-Horn, and Rachel Bongart and to YA book reviewers, bookstores, librarians, book clubs, and readers everywhere who love Calder and Lily as much as I do and who forgive them their mistakes.

Thanks to the Apocalypsies for all your support, guidance, Thursday-night chats, and crude jokes.

Special shout-outs to the kids in my life who have provided inspiration along the way, especially: Sammy, Matt, Sophie, Zach, Marie, Kelly, Andreas, and Sam.

Finally, my gratitude to Greg, without whose love I wouldn’t know what to write.