Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 29

Chapter Twenty-Nine

Josh’s face paled, but his mom stared at me unblinking for a moment. Her hair stuck out crazily around her brown face, giving her a young, confused look. Finally, she seemed to make sense of my standing there and her eyes narrowed into a look of rage, her nostrils flaring.

“You brought her here?” Mrs. Canavan asked, pointing at me. “You brought that filth into my home?”

I stepped back, stung.

“I thought you’d be gone all day,” Josh said.

“So that makes it okay for you to bring that half-breed here?”

Now I was the one turning red with anger. “Half-breed?” I’d been called various names over the years, but never anything as insulting as “half-breed.”

Josh stepped between us, facing his mother. “Don’t call her that,” he said through clenched teeth. “She didn’t have anything to do with what happened.”

“Her kind did,” Mrs. Canavan insisted. Bits of spit flew from her mouth as she raged, stomping in circles on the other side of the kitchen and waving her hands wildly. “I will not let you make the same mistakes your father did.” She lunged forward, but Josh stopped her before she could reach me. “You hear me? Stay away from my son!”

“I’m the same thing she is, Mom,” Josh said.

Her finger shook when she pointed at him. “No, you’re not! Don’t ever say that. You are not one of them!”

Mrs. Canavan swooped away from Josh’s arms and grabbed one of the glasses we’d drank milk from earlier. I barely had time to duck before the glass came flying by my head, shattering against the wall behind me. Bits of glass sprayed across the top of my head and tangled in my hair.

“Go,” Josh said to me as he held his mother pinned against the counter, despite her kicking and screaming obscenities at me.

He didn’t have to tell me twice. I was out the door and stumbling down the stairs before I remembered to breathe. Rage and fear pulsed through my veins, fighting for control, but I bit my lip hard and tried to hold them back until I turned the corner, leaving Josh’s house behind me. Girls like Elizabeth were easy to handle, but I didn’t know how to deal with a woman like Mrs. Canavan.

My feet pounded on the darkened streets as I raced away from Josh’s house. A car blared its horn at me, nearly running me over as night settled over the village. When I reached Lake’s house, I collapsed onto the bottom step of the long staircase. I bent over, pressing my face into my knees, and let whichever emotion was stronger win control.

Hot tears fell down my cheeks, wetting my jeans. My shoulders shook with sobs until my throat hurt. More than ever before, I wanted my mom beside me. I wanted someone to hug me and tell me everything was okay, that I didn’t have to be here with people that didn’t want me around. That I had never needed anyone other than myself.

My hands reached inside my jacket, but it was empty. My camera! I had left it in Josh’s room.

My cries grew louder at this loss. I couldn’t go back there to get it, not with his mom wanting to kill me.

“Good lord, child, what are you doing crying out here in the cold?”

Through blurry tears I saw Miss Gale standing in front of me, a plastic bowl propped up on her hip and her silver hair shining in the light of the neighbor’s outdoor lamp.

I scrubbed at my eyes with the backs of my hands. “I wasn’t crying. The cold wind is making my eyes water.”

“That wind may be cold, but not cold enough to turn your face into a broken water spigot,” Miss Gale told me. She set the bowl down and then turned around to sit, groaning as she lowered herself onto the step at my side.

“Now,” Miss Gale said, planting her hands on the knees of her blue and green watercolor print pants, “what’s ailing you? And don’t try to give me no nonsense about it being ‘nothing.’ I’ve raised two teenage girls and I know when it’s nothing or something. And that—” She pointed at my tear stained face. “—is most definitely something.”

I stared down at my feet, trying to think of what to say to Miss Gale. I didn’t want to tell her about what had happened that day with Josh and why I was at his house, in his room.

“I lost my camera,” I said at last.

Miss Gale pressed her lips together as she nodded. “Okay, that’s a start. Now why is that upsetting you this much?”

“I never go anywhere without it,” I told her, wiping away a new tear. “It has all the pictures of my mom on it.”

“Where did you lose it?”

My cheeks burned. “I don’t remember,” I lied.

“Hmm,” Miss Gale said. That “hmm” sounded more like “I don’t believe you for one minute, but I’ll play along with your game anyway, crazy girl.”

“Those pictures helped me feel like she was still here,” I said.

Miss Gale slipped her arm around my back. “I know how hard it is to lose someone you love. It aches real deep inside and it doesn’t ever stop. I still miss Coral, Sailor’s mama, every day. But with time, it does get easier to live with the absence.”

I let out a long sigh. “I don’t think I can be finfolk.”

“Of course you can,” she said. “You’ve always been finfolk, even when you didn’t know it. There ain’t no point in trying to not be who you are.”

“It’s too confusing,” I said, shaking my head. “I don’t understand what’s going on around here. I don’t know why people look at me the way they do. I don’t know how to be Lake’s daughter and I’m not even sure that I want to.”

Miss Gale’s fingers traced swirling patterns up and down my back. “Did you ever think that maybe this whole thing is as hard for him as it is for you?” she asked. “I’ve known Lake since he was a little boy and he’s never been no good at sharing his feelings. He thinks he has to keep everything bottled up tight inside.” She smiled slightly. “A habit he’s passed on to the next generation, I see.”

I recoiled from her touch, hugging my arms around myself. “I’m not like him.”

Miss Gale clasped her fingers around my chin and tilted my head toward her. She studied me for a long time before she said, “Mara, I think you’re more like your daddy than you realize.”

Her words should have been comforting, but they were wasted on me. I’d already made up my mind. It was too hard to be finfolk here. It was too hard to live with the memories of my mom that haunted this place, the unknown details of her life here and the knowledge that Lake had willingly let us go.

Miss Gale stood and retrieved the bowl she’d set down earlier. “Come on,” she said. “I fixed you some of my vegetable soup for supper. You can eat it while I teach you to sing.”

I gaped at her for a moment. “I can’t sing.”

She planted her free hand on her hip. “Don’t be telling me no stories, child. Every finfolk can sing the Song. You just have to learn the melody.” She pulled me to my feet, surprisingly strong for an old woman. “I ain’t taking no for an answer. I promised your daddy I would do my part to help you be the best finfolk you could be and I’ll see to it that you are.”