Forever (20 page)

“Turn!
Port, port!” Winona hollered to the first mate on the helm. He spun the wheel,
trying to keep the ship from crashing.

Everyone
held their breath.

The boat
cleared the monolith and sailed toward the open gate.

Another
wave came up from behind and spilled over the railings, making the ship rock
and reel. Nix lost his grip on the rope. Mina and Ever grabbed his hands as the
ship tilted to the side, buffeted by another wave across the deck.

The wave
partially swallowed them for a heartbeat, and when it passed, they looked around.

Nix was
gone.

Ever
fought against the ropes that tied her to the mast and screamed in despair.
“Nix!” she howled as they left the Fae plane behind them.

Chapter 27

When they
passed through the gate, a relative silence followed.

Ever’s
loud wail of sorrow cut through the wind like a sword. “No, no, no!”

Mina’s
fingers worked tirelessly at the knot, but she couldn’t get the rope undone.
One of the sirens rushed over to untie them. The rope fell to the deck with a
thud, and Ever ran to the railing and looked over.

“You
stupid nixie!” Her fist pounded the railing. “You always think of others first.
For once, why couldn’t you be selfish and save yourself?” She collapsed to her
knees, bawling.

Mina
gently wrapped her hands around Ever’s shoulders, surprised when she turned,
and buried her head in Mina’s shoulder.

“Oh Nix,
I’m so sorry for all the names I called you,” Ever confessed. “For putting salt
in the Pixy Stix when you kept stealing them. For telling you cartoons were
real.”

“What do
you mean—they’re not real?” Nix shouted from the other side of the ship.

They
turned to see Nix’s head as he peeked over the side rail. He hauled himself up,
swung his legs over, and hopped onto the deck. Then he used his hands to flick
the water out of his hair.

Ever ran
across the deck and threw herself into his arms. “Don’t you ever do anything
that stupid and dangerous again, do you hear me?”

Nix
blushed at Ever’s show of affection. “O-oh. O-okay. I don’t think I’ll b-be
dragged through a gate off the side of a siren ship again.”

“Good,
you big lug.” Ever reached up to circle her arms around his neck and kissed him
on the lips.

Nix was
only momentarily taken aback before he returned the kiss with fervor.

“Well,
I’ve got to hand it to them. They
are
a cute couple.” Winona smiled sweetly.

“They
deserve each other, and I mean that in the best way possible.” Mina grinned.
The joy she felt was slowly replaced by shock as she realized where they’d come
out of the portal. Of all the places for them to appear in the human plane.
“You’ve got to be kidding me! We just passed under the Golden Gate Bridge?”

“I’ve
always thought that was such a horrid name. It’s not even gold,” Winona said
dryly.

Behind
them, the iron and steel bridge looked almost black against the rising sun. She
was still nowhere near home, but what could she expect from a natural Fae gate?

“We’ll
attract too much attention in this ship. And, um, you’ll all probably attract
attention too.” Mina blurted out as she looked at her kin. Their crazy hair
styles, unique tattoos, and the pearlescent scales that lay just beneath the
skin, reflecting the light, would definitely make them stand out.

Winona
whistled loudly and made a series of high pitched notes. Four male sirens
scrambled up the masts. Mina watched as their hands glowed, and they began to
weave a glamour over their ship. It instantly changed in appearance to mimic a
smaller-masted vessel they’d just passed. The siren figurehead disappeared. The
rough Fae wood morphed into a painted blue with white stripes. Even the
colorful sails became stark white. Honestly, the ship lost much of its beauty.

The young
siren with the dreadlocks came up to her wearing boat shoes, a polo, and white
shorts. The crew suddenly looked like they were competing in a regatta. Mina
tried to stifle her laugh.

“What?”
Dreadlocks asked. “Is this not right?”

“No, it’s
fine. It’s just not what I was expecting,” she answered.

He held
out his hand. “I’m Kino.”

Mina
shook Kino’s hand. “Nice to meet you. I’m Mina.”

“Oh, you
don’t have to introduce yourself. We all know who you are. Your grandparents
weren’t the only ones waiting a long time for you.”

“What?”

“Ternan
and Winona are not just any sirens. They pretty much rule the sea, which means
one day? All of this will be yours. On both planes.”

“Uh, no
thank you. The last few encounters I’ve had with the ocean or water have not
ended well.”

Kino
grinned. “That’s because you thought you were human. Now that you know you’re
part-siren, it will call to you like a lover. One day, you’ll answer.”

“Nope,
I’ll let it go to voicemail.” She held up her hand to her ear. “Please leave a
message after the beep.”

Kino
laughed. “Well, I guess that’s one way to avoid responsibility.”

“This
isn’t my responsibility. It never was. I already have too much on my plate with
a cursed prince hunting me down. I’m not ready for more.”

Kino bent
over, gripping his stomach in laughter. “Oh, if you weren’t already taken, I’d
try to win your hand.”

“What do
you mean?” She freaked. How could he come to the conclusion that she was taken?

“It’s
written on your face. You’re in love with someone. And I hope he loves you in
return, because princess, if he don’t, Kino’s going to show him what happens
when you mess with family.”

“Uh…”

Ternan
stepped up as they reached the pier. The sirens, all completely camouflaged,
began to secure their ship to the posts. Her grandfather wore a deep blue
jacket and captain’s hat. Of course his costume wasn’t complete without the old
wooden pipe he was shoving—was that seaweed?—into. He might as well
have stepped out of an ad for a seafood restaurant.

But she
wasn’t going to be the one to correct the king of the sea. Thankfully Winona’s
attire was more toned down. She wore white shorts, a blue tank top, and boat
shoes, and her hair was all brown and tamed into a simple braid.

“What
now?” Mina asked.

“You to
tell us where to find your brother,” Winona answered. “We can wait for another
dream, or you can try your Fae intuition.”

“I don’t
know how trustworthy that is,” Mina answered.

When they
were docked and the gangplank secured, Kino escorted Mina, Ever, and Nix off
the ship, and they set off on a quest for a payphone.

“They’re
going to be harder to find than I thought,” Ever grumbled. “Now, I’m kicking
myself for having broken my phone. Sorry, Mina.”

“Don’t
be, now you get a taste of what my life is like.”

They had
to walk among the shops of the pier. Kino tried to play it cool, but he was
just as excited as Nix was at the musical stairs, the street performers, and
the mirror maze.

Mina
cringed at the mirror-maze memories that flooded her—and this maze was
even larger. “Okay, does anyone have any spare change?” she asked.

Ever
looked sheepish, and Kino looked confused.

Nix was
the one who produced quarters out of his pants pocket. Of course nixies were
hoarders, so it was no surprise that he also pulled out a bunch of rocks and
bottle caps.

Mina
inserted two quarters into the payphone and dialed Nan’s cell. It went right to
voicemail. Feeling rushed, she tried to spout off all of the directions she
could. She’d been rehearsing them in her mind on the way over.

“Nan,
it’s me. He’s coming after you, but it will be okay. I’ve got friends, and
they’re here to help. They can protect Charlie. We just have to find you. I
need you to meet me at the place we ran away to when we were fourteen. I’ll be
there twice a day waiting for you at your lucky time and—”

Beep
.

Her voice
message was cut off.

“What
kind of message was that?” Kino asked. “That didn’t sound very clear.”

“It’s
perfectly clear when your best friend is a movie buff. She once convinced me to
run away and find an old fortune teller machine, so it could magically
transform us into adults.”

“What
magic is this?” Kina sounded skeptical.

“It’s the
magic of Twentieth Century Fox and
Big,
a movie from the 1980s.”

The only
thing she could do was wait, and it was going to be the hardest wait she’d ever
had to endure. Kino begged to stay and wander the pier, but Mina didn’t want to
be anywhere near a local landmark in case Teague was watching her through her
mirror.

Nix was
just as bad as Kino, watching all of the people along the pier in fascination.

But then
Kino saw the aquarium. “Did you see what they’ve done? They’re holding that
octopus captive. We must rescue him and free all of the sea creatures. How do
your kind live like this, enslaving the sea’s most beautiful and smartest of
creatures?” He ranted and seemed sort of unstable the whole walk back to the
ship.

Mina let
Ever try and explain to the siren how an aquarium works.

“Money?
This is all about profit? It’s even worse than I thought,” Kino grumbled.

“Oh,
brother.” Ever shook her head and strictly forbid him from going to the
aquarium or even mentioning to anyone else what he’d seen. “We are here to lay
low until we can find Charlie. We are not here to cause a scene. Do you got
that?” She jabbed her finger into Kino’s chest.

He didn’t
look happy, but he shrugged. When they got back to the boat, he immediately
disappeared below decks and ignored them.

“Well, it
didn’t take long for you to make enemies,” Nix commented. “I thought I’d be the
one to get on the bad side of the sirens.”

“He
couldn’t see the big picture,” Ever said. “He has to remember this isn’t his
world, and the rules are different here. If he wants to stay, he needs to shape
up or ship out.”

“Oh, I
see what you did there!” Nix started to laugh, and Ever just glared at him
until he fell into silence. But that didn’t last either. His shoulders
continued to shake, and a loud snort slipped through.

Mina
walked to the captain’s chambers and knocked politely on the door.

“Come
in,” her grandfather called.

She
carefully pushed open the wood door and entered.

Ternan
bent over a map he had picked up from a visitor center, marking it with little
green colored pebbles.

Winona
carefully settled something she was holding into a trunk and picked up a little
cloth-covered bundle. “Any luck?”

“No, I
left a message. Hopefully she’ll get it and meet me here.” She walked over and
sat on a small stool near Winona.

“Does
your friend know this area?”

“Yes,
she’d come out here during the summer for drama camps. Once in the middle of
her parents’ divorce, Nan decided to run away and come here. She bought a bus
ticket, and I came with her—only to convince her to come back—but I
was grounded for a month.”

“You
should have been grounded longer. Your mother was soft.”

Mina
nodded her head in affirmation. “Probably, but I gave her a heads up what I was
doing, that I wasn’t letting Nan go by herself. And if we weren’t back in
twelve hours, she was going to come and get me.”

“Smart. I
take it you both made it back.”

“Yeah, we
missed the first bus back, so we had to take a later one, which is why I was
grounded for the month.”

“How did
you convince your friend to come back?”

“Nothing
I said would change her mind, until I told her Charlie wouldn’t be the same
without her in his life. He always was her weak spot.”

Winona
smiled sadly and fidgeted with the item she had pulled from the trunk.

“When
your mother chose your father over her heritage, she gave up everything that
reminded her of us. I’ve kept it all, if you’re interested in learning a bit
more about your mother.”

Mina
peeked at the opened trunk and the indiscernible items inside. “I would like
that.”

Winona
smiled, the corners of her lips quivering slightly. “I think she’d like that
too.” She handed Mina the bundle she had in her hands.

The cloth
held something hard, and Mina slowly unwrapped it to find a lovely gold
seashell on a small chain. “It’s beautiful.”

“It’s
yours,” Winona offered. “Anything you want out of your mother’s trunk is
yours.”

“I don’t
know what to say.”

“Then
don’t say anything.” Winona stood up and moved away from the trunk, giving Mina
space to peruse her mother’s items. It was mostly clothes of blues and greens
decorated with shells, some books, a delicate white netted top. There were a
few other trinkets, but then Mina found a piece of parchment tucked inside a
book cover.

She
pulled it out and saw her father’s likeness carefully drawn in coal. He’d been
very young at the time—before he grew out his mustache—possibly in
his early twenties. Studying her mother’s love for her father, forbidden but
blooming all the same, felt like an invasion of privacy. Mina carefully tucked
the picture back into the book and placed it in the bottom of the trunk.

“Tell me
about her, before, when she was a siren,” she said.

“Oh, she
was a handful—stubborn and one of the strongest in her gifts. I can see
that her bloodline passed on to each of you. So it’s not just your father’s
curse you were born with, but your mother’s gifts as well.”