Part 25 (2/2)
”I remember seeing your picture right after, you know, the storm. In, you know, the papers.”
I forgot I was a local celebrity. ”What's your name?”
”Cindy.”
”This is my cousin Kurt.”
Kurt waves at them, tucking his hair behind his ear. His body tenses as he fights the urge to bow. Layla catches it too, because she's smiling at him.
”It's so weird seeing you without your uniform,” Cindy says, pointing down at me.
”Actually,” I go, ”the real uniform is under here.” And even as I say it, I want to bite my lip. I can feel Layla's eyes burning holes into the side of my face. Why do I even say things? Why, Tristan? Why?
Cindy giggles. ”OhmiG.o.d, you're so funny!”
”He's hilarious,” Layla says flatly. ”Aren't you supposed to be looking for something?”
She's jealous. Of course she's jealous. She gives me all this c.r.a.p about how I make her feel this way, but if I accidentally flirt with someone else, I'm the bad guy.
”Duty calls,” I say, leaving the other lifeguards with question-mark faces and Layla trying her best to not smile at me.
Inside, the steady ba.s.s of a hip-hop song makes everyone bob their heads without even realizing they're doing it. Up the beige carpeted steps, there's a line for the bathroom. I don't even bother trying to wait. A door is cracked open to my left. The room is all white and light blues, from the walls to the duvet. The wind blows through the balcony window, the temperature having dropped quite a bit since this afternoon. I know Maddy isn't here. I know I need to be looking for her. But I have sand in places sand shouldn't be.
I rummage through my backpack for underwear, but I forgot to pack it. Great. Fine. I don't need underwear. I'm a merman, after all. As I step out of my shorts to take my Speedo off, I catch the light scent of smoke, something sweet like burning flower petals.
The curtains blow open more, and this time someone steps forward from the window. I stumble to get my cargo shorts on and end up slipping on the soft carpet.
”Very smooth,” her pretty voice murmurs from where she stands. Gwen's white-blond hair is weighed down with salt water and sand. She puffs rings of purple smoke past her pink lips.
”What the h.e.l.l, man?” I finish pulling my shorts on, trying to mask the embarra.s.sment creeping its way up my torso. Not that I have anything to be embarra.s.sed about, but still.
”I'm no man, Tristan,” she says, tracing the shape of her silhouette. She's in a bikini that looks like it's all made of crochet and pink sequin, like if it moved at all, you could see the little bits that she's hiding. She hooks her thumb on the sheer silver-and-gold wrap thing around her hips. ”In case you can't tell yet.”
”It's just something to say.”
”You seem jumpy. Come, have a smoke.”
I don't know why I look at the door, as if someone is going to come and tell me not to do what I'm about to do. I'm not doing anything wrong. I pull my backpack on and follow her through the curtain. Form here we can see everyone in the backyard, on the boardwalk, and on the bit of the beach that's in front of the house.
”You missed the sunset,” she says. ”It was exceptionally beautiful today.”
”Yeah?” I reply, just for something to say.
”It's my favorite time of day.”
”The end of it?”
”The beginning of night.”
”What are you doing here, Gwen?” I don't know why I keep asking her that. I like having her around, I've decided. She's not like everyone else around me.
”I have nowhere else to go.” There's something raw about the way she says it. The automatic light above the balcony goes off. ”I spent all day swimming. Went to court for a bit to see if they had news of Elias.”
At the mention of his name I look away. Down by the pool a guy picks up a girl and throws her into the water. Her top comes off with the force of it, but she just holds her hands in the air and woo-hoos.
”No news?”
She shakes her head.
”Don't take this the wrong way, but you don't seem so upset.”
I tuck a bit of hair behind her ear, and when I do, I see something I would never notice unless I was this close to her. Right over the razor-thin slits where her gills would be is a long scar that runs from the opening of her ear down to her clavicle. It nearly blends into her, so it looks like a thick vein of extra skin. It must've hurt like h.e.l.l.
It startles both of us. That I would touch her so absentmindedly. That I would even notice.
”That was an accident,” she says.
”Someone accidentally tried to cut you open?” I don't know why, but I'm suddenly angry for her. I don't want to ask if it was Elias, if this is the real reason she doesn't care that he might be missing. That he'd never be around to do this again.
”Would you be able to do it?” she starts. ”If you were forced to marry a man and pretend that you cared about his every whim, his every mood, every desire-And if I didn't do as he asked, fixed things to his liking with my magic-”
”Actually I don't think I'd ever be forced to marry a man.”
She punches me lightly, but at least it makes her smile.
”Elias swam into our palace with sea-horse loads of gold. Somehow he knew of me. He wanted me. And my father gave me away without even saying good-bye. My lady-in-waiting came in to pack for me and told me where we were going. That's why I'm not at court. I'd be expected to sit around waiting for his return. Dead or alive.”
The sharpness of her words is startling. It really is a different world. ”I don't get why you have to hide your powers. Everyone knows Thalia can talk to her sea horse.”
Gwen forces a laugh. ”It's not that I'm hiding. I don't believe we should be forced to reveal all parts of ourselves. After all, there was once a time when we all had magics. But like anything else, when you suppress it long enough, you forget it. If you really wanted to, you could make yourself forget anything.”
I don't think that's true. There's nothing that would make me forget my parents or Layla. But I don't say as much. Instead I say, ”Show me something.”
She tilts her head to the side and looks at me with those gray eyes. She takes a long puff and blows the purple smoke out slowly. Her fingers reach up to the swirling smoke, where they take the shapes of a mermaid and a merman. They swim around each other; they have faces and arms, and lips, which they aren't shy about using. They run their hands against each other so hard that I think they'll go right through the smoke. She twirls her fingers again, and they're pulled apart. Their faces contort, their arms reach for one another. They look up at Gwen with ghoulish faces. And then the smoke goes out, and the only thing that lingers is the smell of burning flowers.
”What the-” I start. ”And Elias knows you can do that?” Knew. Elias knew.
Something dark pa.s.ses over her eyes. ”Magic isn't bad. But it's considered dangerous. The Sea King always worries we can't be trusted with it.”
”Can you?” I adjust the weight of my backpack. I can feel the thin hum of the sword. ”Be trusted with it?”
She doesn't say anything. I think of how quickly she used it to help Layla win. It's not her fault Elias attacked me, but if she hadn't done it, everything might be different now. We stay in this silence, staring over the railing. Right below us the lifeguard girls and Layla are watching Kurt talk to Thalia. If he would look up, he'd see me and Gwen watching them.
The giggles from below drift up. Cindy is loud-whispering to the other girls, ”OhmiG.o.d, he's so totally hot. Why are all of his cousins so totally hot?”
Gwen rolls her eyes. We lean closer and hold on to the metal bars. It looks like we're in a little prison.
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