Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 18

Chapter Eighteen

Dylan wasn’t in class the next morning. Neither was Sailor. When my English teacher called Sailor’s name and didn’t get an answer, she surveyed the room. Her eyes fell on Sailor’s empty desk and next to it, Dylan’s. She made a mark in her grade book and skipped over calling out Dylan’s name just before mine.

The halls of Swans Landing School seemed quieter than usual that day, as if a mandatory hush had fallen over the area. By lunchtime, there was still no sign of Dylan or Sailor. Eating alone in a room full of people either ignoring me or whispering as they looked in my direction was enough to make me lose any appetite I might have had, so instead I headed to the library.

I tried to blend into the walls as I made my way through the school. Remaining ignored was the best way to survive around here.

“Oof,” I said as I nearly tripped over a small figure when I rounded the corner toward the library.

Claire, the scrawny girl from my gym class, knelt on the floor, gathering up scattered papers. She pushed her glasses back up her nose, looking at me and then quickly ducking her head again. “Sorry,” she said in a small voice.

“It was my fault. I didn’t see you there.” I knelt to retrieve some papers from under my foot and handed them back to her. “You okay?” I asked.

She nodded, not meeting my gaze. “I just...dropped some things.”

I raised an eyebrow. “You dropped them or someone else made you drop them?”

She didn’t answer as she straightened her papers and stuffed them into the cover of her math book.

“You don’t have to let other people be mean to you,” I told her.

Claire stood, hugging her book to her chest and ducking her head. “Thanks for the help,” she whispered before hurrying past me and disappearing down the hall.

I frowned as I watched her retreating back. I hated to see someone get walked all over by other people.

The library felt like my safe haven. It was the only place in school I could enjoy the quiet and be left alone. I wandered the stacks, running my fingers over the dusty and worn spines. I had intended to work on my paper about the history behind The Crucible for English class, but I couldn’t stop thinking about the events of the night before in the dark forest at Pirate’s Cove to even focus on Puritan New England.

Reliving that kiss had kept me up all night. My eyes felt dry and raw and I moved in a haze of sleep deprivation.

I found the copy of Fae and Other Creatures where I’d left it, wedged between books about the Civil War. It was a very thin book and the cover was faded and worn, the tops of the pages coated with dust. I doubted anyone had even looked at it since I’d stuffed it back on the shelf last week.

I found an empty corner with an old stuffed chair and a plastic ficus behind which I could hide. People’s heads were barely visible as they walked past the aisles, but I would be out of sight of most eyes. I sat down, bundled up in my scarf and jacket, and kicked my feet up over an armrest as I flipped back through the pages to the chapter on the water creatures.

Tales of finfolk originated in the Orkney Islands off the coast of what is now Scotland. Legends from this area describe beings that are fully amphibious and can move between land and water at will. They appear entirely human in their land-forms, walking on two legs with ease and are able to breed with humans. It is believed that even a doctor would have a hard time distinguishing a finfolk from an ordinary human. They have lungs, not gills, and can breathe oxygen from the water as if breathing air.