“Thanks for the help, lady.”
“Don’t you get smart with me.” She wags a finger in my face. “I
haven’t lived as long as I have by fighting battles.” The oracle is
pulling on a small wooden box with gold handles on either side. From
here it looks just like a treasure chest I had when I was in my pirate
phase. I used to keep baseball cards and food and a plastic sword in
it. This one is solid wood. There isn’t a lock that I can see.
“This,” she says, “opens to my touch.” She grazes her fingers
along the lid, like tickling the back of a cat. The lid pops open.
Part of me is expecting smoke and sparklers. Something a little
more dramatic than this. Except it really is amazing on its own. It’s
the bottom of the trident scepter. A piece of long, pointed glass that
glows when I hold my hand closer to it. I grab the gold handle of the
chest, and the lid swings closed. It’s much heavier than it looks.
“Solid quartz,” she says, “from the depths of the earth.”
It’s the same feeling I get when I hold the dagger. Like it
belongs to me. I can feel a current, something more ancient than my
blade, older than the ground we stand on and the trees that surround
us. Still, it doesn’t look like it could do much damage.
“It has power on its own,” says the oracle. “But it is still
incomplete.”
“I thought you could only read the bones of the sea,” I say.
She chuckles. “Your emotions are plain on your face. You must work
on that. Some of us play poker on the nights of the quarter moons. You
should come. Learn something.”
“I think I will.”
She runs her fingers on the chest again, and this time it doesn’t
open. “You won this with your strength. A king must be strong.” She
holds the Venus pearl toward me. “You won this with your heart.”
“But-you’ve been missing it for years.”
She nods and the soft folds of her face upturn into a big smile,
until even her eyes are smiling slits. “Some things have so much more
power when given willingly.”
I hold out my palm and she lets the pearl drop into my hand.
A gagging noise comes from Elias. And this time it’s because he’s
breaking apart. Poof , into nothing.
“I think he’s been dead for days,” Gwen says.
The oracle shakes her head. “And now you have more to worry about
than putting pieces back together.”
“Yeah, thanks.”
“You’re welcome to stay here,” she says, which emits squeals from
the little fairy girls. “But I’d think you’d want to get a move on.”
She looks up to the sky, and I wonder what she sees.
I unzip my backpack, and the chest hardly fits. I pull the dagger
out of Elias’s back. It comes away dripping black. I dip it in the
shallow pond to clean it.
“Let’s go, girls,” the oracle says. She takes one last look at
Elias’s form. “The squirrels can have him. Won’t take long for him to
dissipate. Our kind, we don’t leave many traces behind in this world.”
After rinsing and repeating about three times, I don’t smell like
rotting fish anymore.
At least I smell like rotting fish washed in my mom’s lavender and
honey shampoo. I trade my muddy backpack for a gym bag that has enough
room for the treasure box, a change of clothes for the girls, clean
shorts for me and Kurt, a bag of trinkets my mom thought might come in
handy, a loaf of bread, peanut butter, jelly, beef jerky, and some
regular old junk food.
“I think you forgot I’m the one carrying this thing,” I tell her,
opening the trunk door to the car.
Dad’s still in the driver’s seat. The sound of the Beach Boys hits
me right in the gut, familiar and distant all at once.
“I’m not going. I can’t keep saying good-bye to you,” my mom says,
pulling a sheer scarf around her shoulders. Her red hair falls like
flaming waves around her, and the turquoise of her eyes glistens in
the light of the street.
“I’ll be fine. I’ve got good company.”
Gwen sort of curtseys at my mom. She’s wearing one of Mom’s long
blue dresses.
My mom nods back at her but doesn’t say much else. She kisses my
forehead. “Don’t forget, you have school on Monday.”
“I know, I know,” I say, taking on her tone: “ I didn’t become a
human in this country just so you could drop out of high school .”
She turns on her sandaled heel and marches back upstairs, where
she’s going to curl up on the couch, pull out one of her fairy-tale
books, and wait for my dad to come back home.
•••
Dad leans against the Mustang in the Coney Island parking lot. I
grab the gym bag and hoist it over my shoulder.
“I don’t have to tell you-”
“Be careful, and don’t take candy from strange mermaids.”
Dad shakes his head. “No, if you break another cell phone, I’m
cutting you off.”
“I can’t-you guys-I’m trying to save our skins and that’s the
thanks I get.”
Dad laughs, a real chuckle like I haven’t heard in a long time.
•••
Arion’s ship bobs in the steady water. Layla stands talking to
him. I can see her from here. My stomach tightens in that nervous way
before you see the person you’ve been thinking about for days, the
person whose face you see right before you think you’re going to die.
Because that’s what it was like. Before the wave hit, before the
merrows attacked each time, before Elias had a death grip around my
windpipe, I saw her face.
Kurt stands at the deck, waiting for us. He holds out his hand,
and I look at it for a second too long before realizing that he’s
trying to take my bag.
“Are you angry with me?” His violet eyes scan my face for any
lies. His mouth is tight. “For letting-”
“My mom packed some beef jerky and a clean pair of shorts.” I give
him my best smile, because I know that I need Kurt on my side. I hand
him the bag, but first I take out the piece of the trident. I don’t
want to let it out of my sight. “Where’s Thalia?”
“Below deck, sleeping.” I don’t know if the tension across his
forehead is because we both know there’s nothing we can do to help
Thalia feel any better, or because he notices Gwen standing behind me.
They nod at each other without saying a word, and we gather around the
ship’s captain.
“Lady East,” Arion says, bowing to Gwen.
“Not anymore, I think,” she says.
Arion looks confused, and I offer, “I’ll give you all the riveting
details later.”
“I see you’ve acquired the quartz scepter. I’ve sent word to
Toliss. Soon everyone will know you are not to be trifled with.”
“Oh, thanks.” Really, you shouldn’t have.
“Where to, Tristan?” Arion steadies his arms, ready to steer us in
any direction.
Layla folds her chin on her hands and stares out at now-dark Coney
Island. The rides have probably been turned off for hours. The only
light comes from the sliver of moon that hits the deck and from the
oil lamps that are hung around the ship.
“The Florida Keys,” I say. It’s an amazing feeling, this is. It’s
different from being captain of the swim team or just a good
lifeguard. It’s having people look to me for real answers. The sudden
shift of the boat takes a second to adjust to.
“The Florida Keys it is.”
I hold on to the hilt of the trident.
Layla laughs. “It’s like a giant rock candy.”
“I wouldn’t try to put my mouth on it,” I say. I can feel the glow
of it down to my bones. We step back, surprised, as it shoots sparks
of light.
I look to Arion, who laughs the way he does at my clumsy humanity.
“Don’t worry, sire,” he tells me. “It is always good to have a little