Tides Page 14

  She tried to cry in a seal voice, but her human mouth couldn’t make the sounds. She was still plunging her arms into the rocks, searching for her skin, when Noah reached her.

  “Mara—oh my God, Mara, what’s wrong?” He climbed down into the water with her. He grasped her arms and drew her toward him.

  Mara stared at him, then down at her hands. The webs between her fingers were torn from the rocks, some split down to her knuckles and pulsing blood.

  She pushed at the fear screaming inside her. It wasn’t just Ronan—the whole pod was rent with horror and pain. It was coming from Appledore.

  Mara flinched. All at once, she knew what had happened.

  She clenched her bloody fists, yanked her arms away from Noah’s grasp, and dove into the water.

  “Mara!” Noah’s calls grew faint, blending into the rush of waves.

  Lo’s dress sagged heavy on her as she swam. She kicked off the high-heeled shoes and tore a few strips off the skirt before giving up. She’d move faster if she thought only of swimming.

  But swimming was painfully slow in this form, without a seal’s flexible spine or powerful flippers to help her. In her humanskin the water was cold, so cold.

  Her link pulled her toward Appledore, and she told herself to keep moving, struggling with her long and useless human limbs.

  Her feet touched bottom and she ran, spray swirling and splashing around her. Lo’s headband fell over her eyes, and she pushed it back. Her chest heaved, unused to such a constant need for oxygen.

  She thought she’d find the whole pod on the shore, but Ronan stood there alone. He wrung his sealskin in his hands and paced the rocks like a trapped beast.

  “Mara!” he hissed, running to her through the shallows. “What took you so long?”

  “I—” She gasped, willing her breath to slow. “I tried to come quickly. I—”

  He cut her off. “It doesn’t matter.” His gaze jumped past her, out to the open ocean. “It’s too late now.”

  “Oh, Goddess—please, Ronan, just tell me.”

  “It’s Lir.” Ronan met her eyes. The guilt in his link hit her like a rogue wave. “He’s gone.”

  “Gone?” The panic Mara had felt before vanished. Everything inside her grew empty and blank. Even the air seemed grayer, drier. Her skin turned cold.

  She thought of the other younglings. For their sake, she managed to collect herself enough to speak, enough to act. “And the others?”

  “Maebh has them, out by Whale Rock. We haven’t told them everything yet, but of course they know he’s gone.” Ronan’s shoulders convulsed. Thin tracks of salt shone on his cheekbones. “I can’t believe I let it happen again.”

  “It wasn’t you.” Was it Maebh’s fault, for insisting she go with Noah and Lo to the dance? Was it her own, for agreeing? She couldn’t tell now. She tried to send Ronan comfort, but all she could find in herself was that suffocating blankness. She had no comfort to give.

  She tried to think of something that would stop him from drowning in his guilt and panic, something that could occupy him and help the younglings. “Go hunting. Find something for them to eat. They’re hungry, and probably even more frightened than—well, than we are. They need you. I’ll stay here and look for answers. Just because Aine—” The name caught like a barb in her throat and she could not speak. She took a deep breath and tried again. “I’ll stay here. Go to the younglings, Ronan.”

  She felt him wanting to protest. She straightened herself to her fullest height and stared him down with all the authority of an Elder.

  A growl rumbled in his throat. She kept looking into his eyes.

  He lowered his head and nodded.

  She felt almost triumphant for a moment. Then she remembered why they were doing this, and she hated herself for taking pleasure in besting Ronan.

  “You’re right,” he said. They both knew the younglings’ safety was the most important thing to him.

  He wrapped his sealskin over his shoulders and waded into deeper water.

  Mara watched him swim away. She reached out with her mind, searching for the pod. The Elder was easy to find, and the younglings’ links surrounded hers like a faint halo. They were all frightened, of course, the little ones overwhelmed with exhaustion and hunger. The guilt flowing through Maebh was like the pressure of another ocean.

  Mara pushed the doors of her link closed, knowing she couldn’t think with the pain of her pod filling her senses.

  It seemed impossible that another of their number was gone.

  No, she told herself, not gone. Taken. This was a kidnapping, just like Aine’s.

  Mara’s jaw tightened. She wished she could be both seal and human when she found Lir’s captor, so she could wring his neck and sink her sharp teeth into it at the same time.

  She waded through the shallows, flaring her nostrils to sniff out Lir’s scent. She could smell every member of her pod, their excitement during the ceremony, the rank scent of their adrenaline and fear when they realized Lir was gone.

  A faint smell of rot slithered up from the pools between the rocks. The tide was at its lowest now, and the corpses of trapped fish and mollusks were exposed to the air. It was a richly sour smell, so close to the scent of food that for a moment Mara found it appealing.

  Her stomach turned. Behind the rising smell of decay in the water, she caught Lir’s scent. It was faint, much fainter than the scents of the other younglings. She frowned and concentrated only on Lir, wondering why she could smell only a vague hint of him.

  Then she knew—it was because he hadn’t been afraid. Whoever had kidnapped him must have taken his skin quickly, so Lir would have been immediately under his thrall.

  Mara clambered over the loose rocks at the shoreline, following the youngling’s trail. It wove around a few boulders, but was otherwise straight. It led to a large, spindly bush behind the ledge.

  Another smell, stronger than Lir’s, lurked there. Mara knelt down and touched her fingers to the ground, then raised them to her nose. This scent was human—and familiar, though she couldn’t tell why.

  She smelled fish, dead, but not rotten like the fish in the tide pools. Scents specific to humans flooded her nose: plastic, chemicals, and air grown stale in closed rooms. There was a trace of fresh wood, too, the wood on the new pier at the other end of Appledore.

  Mara’s blood flinched in her veins. She knew why the smell was familiar. Noah’s scent was younger, cleaner, but these trappings—the fresh wood, the echoes of the Center—were always on him.

  “Goddess.” Mara sank down on the rocks.

  She’d told Noah everything—how could she have been so stupid? She’d described the ceremony, how it could only happen at Midsummer . . . She’d even told him how Aine had been stolen. He knew about the power a stolen sealskin bestowed on its thief.

  Lo’s soaked, muck-stained dress draped cold over her skin. She grabbed at its heavy folds, wanting to tear it off so she could return to her sealskin and her pod.

  Then she stiffened in horror. She’d left her skin on White, near Gemm’s cottage. Noah would know where to look for it.

  She sprang up and ran into the water. She crashed into the waves, kicking against them as if they were assaulting her. She opened her pod links wide, letting their pain pour in and drown out her sole, unbearable thought: if Noah wanted to take her skin, she was already too late.

  twenty-seven

  SEARCH

  LO felt a rough hand on her shoulder. She turned and saw Noah, his face pale and stricken.

  “We’re leaving.” He spoke between deep, ragged breaths. “We’re leaving now.”

  “What?” Lo pried his hand off her. He’d never grabbed her hard like that before, and she knew he didn’t mean for it to hurt. But it did, and she was angry. “Noah, I’m sorry Mara left. But I want to stay.”

  He glared at her.

  “I’m having a good time.” She looked around the semidark tent, at the faces of the people she hardly knew but
had somehow managed to dance with. She realized, saying it, that it was true. “I want to stay.”

  Noah made a sound in his throat that was almost a growl. “You don’t understand. We’re leaving.”

  “But . . .” Lo looked back at her brother, and she felt her anger dissipate against her will. His eyes were wide and restless, his gaze darting around the tent, and his pants were drenched to the knees with seawater. “Oh, all right.”

  He took her arm again, only a little more gently this time, and led her out of the tent.

  Outside, she pulled him to a stop. “Tell me what happened.”

  Noah shook his head. His whole body seemed to sink under some weight. “Mara’s gone.” He took a breath. “She ki—We were outside, and I was trying to get her to tell me why she was upset, and she was starting to tell me, but then . . .” He raked his hands back through his hair and groaned. “It was as if an electric shock hit her, or something. She ran down to the water, and she was digging through the rocks. Then her hands started bleeding, and when she couldn’t find her skin, she dove into the water and swam away, and it’s so dark—God, I have no idea where she went. We have to go look for her.”

  Lo touched his arm. “Okay. But if you don’t know where she went, and it’s so dark, it won’t do any good just trolling the ocean for her, right?”

  Noah’s eyes, which had been almost welling over with tears, now dried and flashed. “Christ, Lo, I can’t just sit around and do nothing—”

  “No. That’s not what I’m saying.” She just wanted him to calm down. Seeing him on the edge of panic like this was almost physically painful. She was ashamed to admit to herself that a few months ago she wouldn’t have cared about his distress . . . but things were different now, and she wanted to help him. “I meant that we should go back to Gemm’s, since that’s where Mara’s skin is. I bet she just went back there.”

  Noah closed his eyes. He laughed. “Yeah, except that actually makes sense.” He ran his hands through his hair again. “I’m such an idiot.” He opened his eyes and smiled. “Thanks, Lo.”

  Lo shook her head. “Let’s just go.”

  She started toward the pier. Noah ran ahead. Lo tried to catch up, but considering his long legs and varsity training, she knew it was impossible. He already had the Minke’s engine sputtering by the time she clambered, gasping, into the passenger seat.

  They sped across Gosport Harbor. The wind hit her face hard and cold. Every time they crossed a wave, the boat bounced high enough to lift her off her seat.

  The engine moaned and coughed, but Noah pushed the throttle farther. Lo wanted to tell him it would stall, but she didn’t think he’d be able to hear her, he was so focused and angry and terrified. Somehow they made it to White before the engine died.

  “Tie her off, will you?” Noah said. He pulled off his dress shirt and jumped, still in his pants and white tee, into the black water. He swam a few lengths until his feet found bottom, and he ran the rest of the way, plunging through the shallows, his clothes wrapped dripping around him.

  Lo waited for him to wade ashore before she took the wheel. She wasn’t sure how well she could steer in the dark, but it was easier than she thought. She felt a growing bubble of pride in her chest as she guided the Minke safely to the dock and made it fast.

  She jumped onto the beach and ran to the house, her chest still heaving from her first dash to the boat.

  Inside, Gemm paced the kitchen floor. She heard Noah cursing in their bedroom upstairs.

  “Are you okay, Gemm? Do you know what happened?”

  Her grandmother shook her head and wrapped her green bathrobe tighter around her waist. Lo knew that bathrobe—she’d seen Maebh wearing it on her first morning here. Even in the midst of all this confusion, seeing it again made her smile.

  “I was asleep,” Gemm said, “and then it was as if I’d had a nightmare. I screamed and sat right up in bed, and my heart was just pounding away. I tried to remember the dream, but nothing came. It was as if I’d heard Maebh calling to me, and I couldn’t reach her.”

  She pulled Lo into a hug and stroked her hair, as if the granddaughter, not the grandmother, needed comforting. “I’d only felt that once before, years ago. It was what made me leave your grandfather—well, that was part of it—and come back home to White. And tonight I felt it again, but Maebh hasn’t come to me, and I don’t know what to do. And now Noah’s here, and he’s in a panic about Mara . . . and I can’t help but think that everything is just coming apart.”

  “Don’t worry, Gemm,” Lo said, wishing she could tell herself the same thing. “I’m sure one of them will come and explain soon.”

  She led her grandmother to the couch and sat her down. She put the kettle on the stove. Gemm was fond of saying that hot tea helped with any kind of crisis, and Lo thought they could both use some right now.

  Noah crashed out of the bedroom and down the stairs. “Where is it? Damn it, where’s her skin?”

  “Her what?” Gemm’s voice was startled, even horrified. “Noah—what on earth do you want with Mara’s sealskin?”

  “No, I—” He stopped, glancing around the room. He ran his hands frantically through his hair. “It’s not like that, Gemm. I’m trying to find her. She’s looking for her skin. If I look for it too—” He shook his head, his chest heaving. “Lo, you were with her when she got dressed. You have to know.”

  “Noah.” Lo wished she knew how to calm him down. “She came ashore on this island, so it has to be somewhere. But I have no idea where she left it.”

  He stared past her, his eyes empty. He turned and rushed to the bathroom, letting its door slam behind him. Lo heard the crash of a medicine cabinet’s worth of toiletries hitting the floor.

  “Come on, Noah,” she called. “She didn’t leave it in the freaking bathroom.” She was getting mad again. He’d dragged her away from Star just so she could stand around while he trashed the cottage? She imagined what their bedroom must look like: clothes and sheets tossed everywhere, drawers pulled out of the bureaus. “Noah, stop it! Just stop. You can’t help her, okay?”

  Noah emerged, his chest heaving, his shirt damp with seawater and sweat. “I have to,” he said. “Maybe I’m being stupid, but I can’t just— If you’d seen her face, Lo. I have to do something.”

  “I know.” Lo looked out the window. “Maybe . . . Do you think she might have left it outside?” She pointed toward the lighthouse, but Noah was already at the door, outside before she’d even finished her sentence.

  A gush of harsh wind pushed its way inside. Lo shivered. She moved to close the door, but she couldn’t help watching as Noah ran toward the cliffs. She pictured him slipping down them, breaking a bone on the rocks and flailing in the sea with no one to save him—and then she knew she couldn’t wait inside while he searched for the skin.

  “I’m going to help him, Gemm,” she said. She rushed after her brother. The kettle screeched behind her.

  She reached the cliffs in time to watch Noah scramble down the last bit of near-vertical rock into the sharp, crashing waves at the bottom. There was a sudden drop into deep water not far from where he stood, and Lo shouted at him to remember it.

  Noah looked up at Lo and nodded. He seemed to yell something back to her, but the waves crashed against the cliffs and Lo couldn’t hear him.

  She saw a shape in the water, heading in from the open ocean and straight toward Noah. It was dark and slick, and at first Lo thought it was a shark. Then it found footing and rose out of the water.

  Mara stalked toward Noah, her body draped with something dirty and wet that must once have been Lo’s dress. Even from the top of the cliffs, Lo could see the livid anger on her face.

  Mara sprang through the water and tackled Noah, battering him against the rocks. Lo screamed, too far away to help.

  twenty-eight

  SINKING

  NOAH choked on the seawater and spit that rammed into his windpipe. Mara slammed him against the cliff again. She was sayin
g something, but he could barely hear. He coughed and pushed back at her.

  Her eyes widened, her mouth opened, and she backed away from him into deeper water. She began to shiver. Lo’s pearl headband hung from her hair like a broken crown.

  “You don’t have it.”

  “No.”

  She shuddered. “Thank the Goddess.” She looked up at him, her eyes moving over his arms and chest.

  Noah stayed still, splayed against the rocks. He didn’t want to move until he could be sure she wouldn’t tackle him again. For someone at least six inches shorter than he was, she’d hit him with incredible—inhuman—force.

  She moved forward slowly, but Noah could tell she was ready to strike again if she needed to. The problem was, he still didn’t know what had provoked her in the first place. Yes, he thought, staying still is definitely my best option.

  “Mara,” he said, slowly and carefully, “please tell me what’s happened. I thought—” He pushed away the memory of what he’d felt when they kissed. “I thought we understood each other, but then you ran off like that, and I didn’t know if you were hurt or . . . Please, just tell me.”

  She growled and reached toward him, stopping just before her hand connected with his throat. “As if you don’t know.”

  “What? I—”

  “Stop.” Her voice was cold, harsh, and he could hear it starting to break. He saw water speckling her face, but he didn’t know whether it was tears or spray.

  “Just stop pretending, Noah. I know what you did. I know why you’re looking for it.” She sucked in air through her teeth. “I’m only grateful you haven’t found it yet.” She stalked past him to a dark, hidden hole in the cliffs, plunged her hand into it, and retrieved her damp, shining skin.

  He peeled himself away from the rocks and took a cautious step toward her, the girl he’d held in his arms less than two hours ago.