Waking Storms (14 page)

“Yes.” Was it wrong to admit that?

“Then do you hate me for making you do that? You ... you know I had to, right? If we let him live...”

“I don’t hate you,” Luce insisted. Dana was crying harder now. She buried her face in her arms. “Dana, you were right! I don’t hate you at all.” Luce could barely keep going. It was monstrous to lie to her sobbing friend this way. “You forced me to do the right thing, Dana, okay?
Please
don’t blame yourself for that!”

Dana looked up, her eyes blurred by tears, and pulled Luce into a long hug.

Luce came back from accompanying Dana almost as far as the tribe’s cave that afternoon. The fog had pulled back, and a sluggish, clammy rain had started falling; the fresh water felt slick and repugnant wherever it touched her skin, and Luce realized, a human wouldn’t like it any more than she did. Dana’s nervousness had gotten to her, and Luce hugged the coast much more closely than usual. More than once when she surfaced, dim scythelike shapes were faintly visible through the silvery strands of rain: almost certainly the dorsal fins of orcas. Luce began to wonder if they were shadowing her, just waiting for her to drift a bit farther out. She hadn’t bothered exploring the coast much recently, and there were bends and shelves of splitting stratified rock that she’d forgotten. At one point she noticed a shallow cave, not much more than a deep dent in the cliff with a peaked overhang of rock reaching into space above it. It was squeezed between low points of rock capped by wind-thrashed spruce. Erosion had ripped the ground partly away from beneath the spruce trees, and a snarl of bare roots protruded overhead, clawing at the empty air. A fallen tree spanned the shallow water, its bark worn away and its stripped branches as pale and smooth as a skeleton.

Luce kept thinking of Dana. Mermaids never talked about their human lives, so Luce had been surprised that afternoon to hear her murmuring, between her sobs, about her early childhood. Dana and Jenna had still lived with their mother then, and Dana had told how their mother had sewn matching purple velvet dresses for their sixth birthday, how she’d sung them songs in a language Dana didn’t know so that the words seemed to melt into the music. Luce had listened in silence, stroking Dana’s hair, until she’d finally calmed down.

Back in her own cave she fidgeted. She tried singing for a while, but the fluid beauty of her song didn’t absorb her attention the way it always had before. She raised a wave with one thrumming, endless note and sent it winging in circles through the shadows, but somehow her heart wasn’t in it and after a minute she let the wave collapse with a disconsolate splash. Evening seemed so far away, and with the weather so dismal Dorian probably wouldn’t show up anyway. Knowing that didn’t stop the twisting sensation in her chest every time she thought of him. She gave up trying to practice and sprawled on the stones, gazing at Dorian’s drawings. Dana had smoothed them all out, and they lay in a row just above the tide line. The paper was warped and buckled from its long submersion in the sea, crisped by dried salt, but other than that, the drawings were undamaged. The images were so beautiful, so dimensional; Luce especially admired the way Dorian had drawn dozens of broad curving strokes that followed the contours of each wave. It gave an amazing sense of depth, and it added to the surprising effect of her own pale face breaking through. It was impressive that he’d captured her so well from memory, too, as if her face had burned its way into him and these drawings were the scar...

Luce kissed the paper, soft and slow, glad that no one was there to see her do it. After she’d stared at the pictures for another hour she dug a shallow pit in the loose pebbles of the shore, as far above the tide line as she could reach, and carefully tucked the folded jacket and the drawings inside. Then she covered everything with a flat stone. There was no guarantee, after all, that Anais or one of her followers wouldn’t find the cave sometime.

***

Before she went to look for Dorian, Luce tied wide leaves of brown seaweed across her breasts in a kind of improvised bikini top so that she wouldn’t have to feel self-conscious around him. Then she started wondering if the seaweed looked ridiculous. It felt a little foolish to be worrying about that, though, when she was almost certain he wouldn’t be there.

As she’d expected, the beach was gray, dull, and empty, the failing daylight the color of slate. Rain slashed down like millions of tiny silvery fish, then burst into gray stars on the rocks. For an instant Luce had the strange idea that the endless rain might somehow erase her from the world, as if she were no more substantial than one of those hurtling drops. She tried to stifle her disappointment. Wouldn’t it be unfair to expect Dorian to come out in this weather? But on the other hand,
she’d
come out, and it wasn’t like Dorian was the one who had to worry about getting snapped in half by an orca either. Her tail swung out of the water in a sullen flip, sending up a high cascade of water. She turned to leave.

“Luce!” Hard steps came rattling down the beach. “Hey, wait! Oh, I almost didn’t see you.” He had a new jacket, Luce saw, a navy blue one this time, and he was holding a flag-sized slab of tattered tarp up over his head. His eyes were wide and darkly golden, and for the first time Luce saw something hesitant in his expression, as if it had only occurred to him now that she might be some kind of mirage. He glanced at the bikini and smiled strangely. “‘Sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown...’” Luce didn’t know what to say to that. She was somehow too sad to respond, but he didn’t seem to notice. “So. How’s the being mythological going?”

It was uncomfortable to hear him sound so clownish, so awkward. He seemed to be trying to hide a spasm of embarrassment, and Luce noticed, he didn’t splash out to hug her the way he had the day before.

“I don’t feel any more
mythological
than ever,” Luce snapped. It came out more sharply than she’d intended; for some reason she was annoyed with him, even as he stood bedraggled and gawky under his dripping tarp. The slope of the beach was steep, and since Luce was sprawled stomach-down against the shore his face seemed much too far above hers. “Just grossed out by all this stupid rain.” Why was that what she said when there were so many more important things she wanted to tell him?

“Water
bothers you?”

“Rain is
fresh
water. It’s different.” Suddenly she had an idea. “Dorian? Can you swipe that rowboat again?”

“Want to take another crack at me?” Dorian was almost sneering, and Luce stared at him, too hurt to react at all. He saw the shocked look on her face, and for a moment they just gazed at each other, his ochre eyes wary and hard.

Luce tensed with the urge to turn away, and suddenly the tightness in Dorian’s face unraveled and he fell to his knees, leaning over so far that he lost his balance and one hand splashed down into the water. “Oh, Luce, I don’t actually mean it! I’ve been freaking out all day. I keep thinking the same shit over and over, and none of it makes any sense.” He reached to touch her face, and Luce stiffened but didn’t pull away. Dorian’s eyes went wide and bright, almost desperate-looking. “I’m really, really glad you came. I’ve been going crazy waiting to see you all day! Don’t get mad at me.”

“Don’t say stuff like that to me anymore, then!” The words burst out of her, raspy and wild, even as it occurred to her that she couldn’t really justify her fury. He might truly be worried that she’d try to kill him again. “Dorian, I’m
sorry
I ... helped sink your ship. I can’t take it back, though. So if you hate me just don’t talk to me anymore!”

Her face burned even through the streaks of slippery rain, and Dorian caught her wrist and held it tightly. She’d known that he would, really. In her heart she’d known perfectly well how dismayed he would be at the thought that she might disappear from his life.

“I
need
to keep talking to you, though! Luce, I really ... I need it more than anything. Like, you’re the one who isn’t supposed to be real, right? But you just make it seem like everything else is fake instead.” From something in his voice Luce could tell he’d thought those words over and over, maybe even whispered them to himself in private. His face was much closer to hers now, and the tarp was slipping back from his shoulders. Rain twisted in long streams from the tips of his trailing hair.

“It’s only humans who go around thinking they’re
supposed
to be realer than everything else,” Luce said. The words were still angry, but her tone was softening, and in spite of herself she reached to stroke the rain from his face.

“So, where do you want to go?” Dorian asked.

Luce looked into his eyes, disoriented. He was so close she could feel the faint cloud of warmth that breathed from his skin.

“You said to get the boat, right? Doesn’t that mean you want to go somewhere? I can probably get away with borrowing it whenever we want. It belongs to my—to the people I’m staying with, and they never use it.”

“Oh.” His cheeks were bright from the cold, his breath misty and scented with coffee. He had such a beautiful mouth, Luce thought, especially when he smiled the way he was right now. “I was just going to take you somewhere out of the rain.”

Suddenly his lips were on hers, hovering so lightly that it was barely a kiss. Why couldn’t he just make up his mind how he felt about her, once and for all?

“I’ll meet you.” Then he was up and running again, the tarp flapping above his head, flinging loose streamers of water. Everything about him seemed so quick, so fluid, at least by human standards.

Luce was possessed by a sudden impulse, and she slashed deep underwater. There might be humans around the dock at this time of day, even in the rain, so she swept along in the low green regions where the light graded away and she could hide in the dimness. She didn’t start to slip closer to the surface until she sighted the gray blot of the rowboat just above her. Too many boats jostled overhead, and she could hear faint human voices; she wished Dorian would hurry. After several minutes his steps came urgently pounding along the planks, beats of vibration transmitting through the water and around Luce’s skin. She had trouble stifling a laugh as he caught the rope and the rowboat jarred closer to the dock; of course he never suspected that she was lurking just below.

Dorian thudded down into the boat, off-balance and out of breath, and untied the rope, absently letting it slide down into the sea. He started carefully turning around to settle in without tipping over. The next second the boat was whipping away from the dock so quickly that he almost tumbled backwards off the seat. Luce heard him yelp with surprise and laughed loudly enough for him to hear her. The rope was in her hand and her tail spiraled out, driving her through gray-green shade, through long pale streaks of bubbles, past pollock and the glassy reddish blots of jellyfish, and Luce noticed with sudden delight a sea otter that briefly tried to keep pace with her then danced away.

Behind her, Dorian whooped. They were going faster than any motorboat now, and Luce drove her tail harder, smiling at Dorian’s breathless laughter. He must be watching the cliffs jumbling by, the trees blurring blue-green, while his hands clenched hard on the boat’s rim. She rolled onto her back and streaked up to the surface just long enough to grin into his halffrightened, half-thrilled face, water slicing around her shoulders like a trailing dress. Then she vaulted herself up in a backwards arc, her long tail breaching and twisting in the air, brash with silvery lights. She just had time to hear Dorian crying out before she was under the waves and racing on again.

Just before they reached the shallow cave Luce began to slow, sending pulses of water backwards with her tail to counter the boat’s momentum. At least here they’d have some shelter from the wind, the rain. Stands of rock broke the waves so that the sea only flicked gently at the stones. Water dripped from the tangled roots overhead, and a curtain of rain cut off the world beyond. Dorian clambered out of the rowboat and flopped onto the shore while Luce tied the rope to a spiky branch of the fallen spruce tree. “Jesus, you scared me!” The words gasped out, but he was smiling at her.

“It kind of serves you right.” Swimming so quickly had streaked the tension out of her, though. Dorian stretched out near the edge of the water, and she swam close to him and let him slide his hands into her hair. After a moment she rested her head on the beach, her face inches away from his.

“If I keep kissing you all the time we’re never going to talk.” His voice was warm and already going throaty. “But it’s hard not to.”

“I don’t even
want
to kiss you now.” Luce was surprised to hear herself say it, especially in such a strong tone.

“Because I said
one
stupid thing? And it might not even have been that stupid, anyway. Luce, I mean, how am I supposed to
know
—”

“No. Because it’s too hard for me that you’re always changing how you feel about me.” His fingers were still curling back and forth across her cheeks, brushing against her neck. Almost against her will she found herself leaning into his touch. The warmth of each caress washed through her skin.

“That’s not
true.”
He sounded so serious that Luce let her hand drift up to touch him back. “Luce, I mean ... I’ve been getting freaked out because it
doesn’t
change. I’m way too into you, and it doesn’t ever stop. You don’t know that? And I hardly even know you. I don’t even know what you
are,
really.”

“You hate what I am.”
Even though you’re one of us,
Luce thought.
You just don’t know it.
“You think we’re all evil, and you’re
still
talking about going to the FBI, even though that would make them start coming after us—”

“Most of you
are
evil! You said your friend Dana is one of the nicest ones, and
she
tried to get you to kill me.” Dorian halfway laughed. “You can’t say that’s not—some pretty warped shit.”