Dreams Underfoot: A Newford Collection (51 page)

Where did you learn sign language?
she asked him at one point.

My cousin’s deaf,
he replied, his hands growing more deft, re-membering old patterns, the longer they spoke.
Our parents were pretty close and we all saw a lot of each other, so everybody
in
the
family learned.

They had dinner at Kathryn’s Cafe. Afterwards, they went to the Owlnight, another of Newford’s folk clubs, but this one was on the Butler University campus itself, in the Student Center. Garve Mac-Cauley was doing a solo act, just guitar and gravely voice, mostly his own material.

You’re much better,
Katrina signed to Matt after the first few songs. “Just different,” he said.

Katrina only smiled and shook her head.

After the last set, he took her back to Upper Foxville and left her at Lucia’s door with a chaste kiss.

Thursday evening they took in a play at the Standish, a small concert hall that divided its evenings between repertory theatre and music concerts. Katrina was entranced. She’d never seen live actors before, but then there was so much she didn’t know about this new world in which she found herself and still more that she hadn’t experienced in his company.

It was just past eleven by the time they got back to the apartment. Lucia had gone out, so they could have the place to themselves but when Katrina invited Matt in, he begged off. His confused mumble of an explanation made little sense. All Katrina knew was that the days were slipping away. Saturday night, the lake witch’s deadline, was blurring all too close, all too fast.

When he bent to kiss her on the forehead as he had the night before, she lifted her head so that their lips met. The kiss lasted a long time, a tangle of tongues. She pressed in close to him, hands stroking his back, but he pulled away with a confused panic fluttering in his eyes.

Why do I frighten you? she wanted to ask, but she had already guessed that it wasn’t just her. It was any close relationship. Respon-sibility frightened him and perhaps more to the point, he just didn’t love her. Maybe he would, given time, but by then it would be too late. Days went by quickly; hours were simply a rush, one tumbling into the other.

She gave him a sad smile and let him go, listened to his footsteps in the stairwell, then slowly went into the apartment and closed the door behind her. Each step she took, as it always did since she stepped onto the land, was like small knives cutting through her feet. She remembered the freedom of the waves, of movement without pain, but she had turned her back on scales and water. For better or worse, she belonged on the land now.

But that night her dreams were of foam. It gathered against the craggy shore near her home as the wind drove the lake water onto the rocks. Her sisters swam nearby, weeping.

Late Friday afternoon, Amy and Lucia were sitting on a bench in Fitzhenry Park, watching the traffic go by on Palm Street. They’d been to the Y to swim laps and they each nursed a coffee now, bought from one of the vendors in the little parade of carts that set up along the sidewalk first thing every morning. The sky was over-cast, with the scent of rain in the air, but for all the weather report’s warnings, it had held off all day.

“So how’s Katrina doing?” Amy asked.

An expression that was more puzzlement than a frown touched Lucia’s features. She took a sip of her coffee then set it down on the bench between them and took out her cigarettes.

“Well, they started off rocky on Sunday,” she said. “He left her crying.”

“God, so soon?”

“It’s not as bad as it sounds,” Lucia said.

She got her cigarette lit and blew out a wreath of smoke. Amy coughed.

“Sorry,” Lucia said. She moved the cigarette away.

“It’s not the smoke,” Amy told her, lifting a hand to rub her throat. “I’ve had a tickle in my throat all day. I just hope I’m not coming down with something.” She took a sip of her coffee and wished she had a throat lozenge. “So what did happen?” she asked.

“He didn’t show up for a couple of days, didn’t call—well, I guess he wouldn’t want to speak to me, would he?—but then he’s been real nice ever since he did show up on Wednesday. Took her to see your friend MacCauley over at the Owlnight, the next night they went to that production of Lizzie’s play that’s running at the Stan-dish and earlier today they were out just mooching around town, I guess.”

“He really needs someone,” Amy said.

“I suppose. But knowing your history with him, I don’t know if I wish him on Katrina.”

“But at least they’re doing things. He’s
talking
to her.”

“Yeah, but then he told her today that he’s going to be away this weekend.”

“That’s right. He canceled Saturday morning band practice be-cause he’s got a gig at that little bar in Hartnett’s Point. What’s the problem with that? That’s his job. She must know that.”

Lucia shrugged. “I just think he should’ve taken her with him when he left this afternoon.”

Amy sighed in sympathy. “Matt’s not big on bringing his current belle to a gig. I remember how it used to really piss me off when we were going together.”

“Well, she’s heartbroken that he didn’t ask her to come along. I told her she should just go anyway—show up and meet him there; I even offered to lend her the money for the bus—but she thinks he’d get mad.”

“I don’t know. He seemed to like her dancing when we played at Feeney’s last weekend.” Amy paused. “Of course he’ll just be doing songs on his own. There won’t be anything for her to dance to.”

“She likes his songs, too,” Lucia said.

Amy thought of the intensity with which Katrina had listened to Matt’s singing that night at Feeney’s and she knew exactly why Matt hadn’t asked Katrina along to the gig.

“Maybe she likes them too much,” she said. “Matt puts a lot into his music, and you know how bloody brilliant he is, but he’s pretty humble about it all at the same time. He probably thinks it’d freak him too much having her sitting there just kind of—” her shoulders lifted and fell “—I don’t know, swallowing the songs.”

“Well, I wish he’d given it a try all the same. I’ve got to help Sharon with some set decorations, so Katrina’s going to be on her own all night, just moping about the apartment. I asked her to come along, but she didn’t want to go out.”

“I could drop by your place,” Amy said.

Lucia grinned. “I thought you’d never offer.”

Amy punched her lightly on the arm. “You set me up!”

“Has she still got it or what?” Lucia asked, blowing on her fingernails.

Amy laughed and they went through a quick little flurry of slapping at each other’s hands until they were too giddy to continue. They both leaned back on the park bench.

“I bet I’ll have a better time,” Amy said after a moment. “I’ve helped Sharon before. If she’s got anything organized at all, it’ll only be because someone else did it.”

Lucia nodded glumly. “Don’t I know it.”

Amy went home to change and have a bite to eat before she took the subway north to Upper Foxville. Looking in the mirror as she put on her makeup, she saw that she was looking awfully pale.

Thinking about feeling sick made her throat tickle again and she coughed. She stopped for some lozenges at a drug store that was on her way. They helped her throat, but she felt a little light-headed now.

She should just go home, she thought, but she’d promised Lucia and she couldn’t help but be sympathetic towards Katrina. She’d just stay a little while, that was all.

It was just going on nightfall when she reached Lucia’s street. She paused at the corner, as she saw a small familiar figure step from the stoop of Lucia’s building and head off the other way down the street.

She almost called Katrina by name, but something stopped her. Curiosity got the better of her and she kept still, following along behind instead.

It was easy to keep track of her—Katrina’s cloud of gold hair caught the light of every streetlamp she passed under and seemed to reflect a burnished glow up into the night. She led Amy down to MacNeil Street, turning west once she reached it. Her stride was both purposeful and wearied, but always graceful.

Poor kid, Amy thought.

More than once she started to hurry to catch up with Katrina, but then her curiosity would rise to the fore and she’d tell herself to be patient just a little longer. Since Katrina didn’t know anyone in Newford—according to Lucia she didn’t even know the city—Amy couldn’t figure out where Katrina might be going.

Where MacNeil ended at Lee Street, Katrina crossed over and went down to the bank of the Kickaha River. She followed the riverbank southward, pausing only when she came near the Gracie Street Bridge. There the fenced-off ruins of the old L & B sawmill reared up in the darkness, drowning the riverbank with its shadow. It took up enough room that a person walking along the river by its chain-link fence would be almost invisible from any of the more peopled areas roundabout. Even across the river there were only empty warehouses.

Amy started to hurry again, struck by the sudden fear that Katrina meant to do herself harm. The river ran quicker here, rapiding over a descending shelf of broken stone slabs from where an old railway bridge had collapsed a few years ago. The city had cleared a channel through the debris, but that just made the river run more quickly through the narrower course. More than one person had drowned on this stretch of water—and not always by accident.

Matt’s not worth it, she wanted to tell Katrina. Nobody’s worth it.

Before she could reach Katrina, she came to an abrupt halt again. She stifled a cough that reared up in her throat and leaned against a fence post, suddenly dizzy. But it wasn’t the escalating onset of a flu bug that had made her stop. Rather it was what she had spied, bobbing in the swift-moving water.

The light was bad, just a diffused glow from the streets a block or so over, but it was enough for her to make out four white shapes in the dark water. They each seemed as slender and graceful as Katrina, with the same spun gold hair, except theirs was cut short to their skulls, highlighting the fox-like shape of their features. They proba-bly had, Amy thought, the same blue eyes, too.

What were they
doing
there?

Another wave of dizziness came over her. She slid down the side of the fence pole until she was crouched on the ground. She remem-bered thinking that this way she wouldn’t have as far to fall if she fainted. Clutching the pole for support, she looked back to the river.

Katrina had moved closer to the shore and was holding her arms out to the women. As their shapes moved closer, Amy’s heartbeat drummed into overtime for she realized that they had no legs. They were propelling themselves through the water with scaled fish tails. There was no mistaking the shape of them as the long tail fins broke the surface of the water.

Mermaids, Amy thought, no longer able to breathe. They were mermaids.

It wasn’t possible.
How
could it be possible?

And what did it make Katrina?

The sight of them blurred. For a moment she was looking through a veil, then it was like looking through a double-paned window at an angle, images all duplicated and laid over each other.

She blinked hard. She started to lift her hand to rub at her eyes, but she was suddenly so weak it was all she could do to just crouch beside the pole and not tumble over into the weeds.

The women in the river drew closer as Katrina stepped to the very edge of the water. Katrina lifted her hair, then let it drop in a clouding fall. She pointed at the women.

“Cut away and gone,” one of the women said.

“All gone.”

“We gave it to Maraghreen.”

“For you, sister.”

“We traded, gold for silver.”

Amy pressed her face against the pole as the mermaids spoke. Through her dizziness, their voices seemed preternaturally en-hanced. They chorused, one beginning where another ended, words molten, bell-like, sweet as honey, and so very, very pure.

“She gave us this.”

The foremost of the women in the river reached up out of the water. Something glimmered silver and bright in her hand. A knife. “Pierce his heart.”

“Bathe in his blood.”

“Your legs will grow together once more.”

“You’ll come back to us.”

“Oh, sister.”

Katrina went down on her knees at the water’s edge. She took the knife from the mermaid’s hand and laid it gingerly on her lap. “He doesn’t love you.”

“He will never love you.”

The women all drew close. They reached out of the water, stroking Katrina’s arms and her face with gentling hands.

“You must do it—before the first dawn light follows tomorrow night.”

“Or foam you’ll be.”

“Sister, please.”

“Return to those who love you.”

Katrina bowed her head, making no response. One by one the women dove into the river deeps and were gone. From her hiding place, Amy tried to rise she knew Katrina would be coming back soon, coming back this way, and she didn’t want to be caught—but she couldn’t manage it, even with the help of the pole beside her. Then Katrina stepped away from the river and walked towards her, the knife held gingerly in one hand.

As their gazes met, another wave of dizziness rose in Amy, this one a tsunami, and in its wake she felt the ground tremble underfoot, but it was only herself, tumbling into the dirt and weeds. She closed her eyes and let the darkness take her away.

It was late afternoon when Amy awoke on the sofa in Lucia’s loft. Her surroundings and the wrong angle of the afternoon light left her disoriented and confused, but no longer feeling sick. It must have been one of those 24-hour viruses, she thought as she swung her legs to the floor, then leaned back against the sofa’s cushions.