Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
Two days later, I’m sitting in bed trying to catch up on homework when Aleo bursts into the room. He does that a lot, so I’m not startled, but I am annoyed.
“Hey,” he says, way too loud. “I found something you’re gonna wanna see.”
I look around the room like he might be talking to someone else. “Me?”
“Yeah, you,” he says, rolling his eyes. “Come on. It’s that stupid symbol you’re always going on about.”
Not once have I mentioned the symbol to Aleo.
He rolls his eyes. “Look, you get drunk and talk to Jane about it all the time. I’m not deaf. Let’s go.”
Bemused, I follow him out the door, down the street, across campus. When we reach the library, I immediately perk up.
“It’s in a book?”
“Just come on,” he says, grabbing me by the wrist, dragging me through the heavy wooden doors and into the student coffee shop.
The smell of espresso and burnt milk fills the air.
I’m immediately nostalgic for the cafe on my old campus, but there’s no time to reflect.
Without slowing, Aleo leads me through rows of shelves containing old leather volumes.
Some have words on their spines in languages that I can’t hope to identify.
I haven’t spent a lot of time here. It’s grand, it’s beautiful, it smells like wood pulp and leather and coffee, and it’s exactly the kind of place I usually love to be, but it’s…
unwelcoming. Whenever I set foot inside, I’m reminded that there’s so much I don’t know, so much I missed out on entirely, and I’m so overwhelmed that I want to turn around and leave.
With Aleo by my side and a mission, I feel a little better.
We slip down a narrow stairwell and end up in the basement.
Plush green carpet cushions our steps. Study carrels, cozy and ornately carved, line the back wall.
Heavy oak tables and chairs are placed around the room, some filled with students, others supporting stacks of discarded books.
Portraits of fae I don’t recognize stare down at me from the walls. A chandelier glitters overhead.
I have the uncomfortable feeling that I don’t belong here and want to melt into the floor.
Aleo doesn’t pause. Burning with curiosity, I follow him to the other end of the library, where he finally halts. A sign above us indicates that we’re in the Historical Reference section.
Why didn’t he just check the book out or take a photo of the symbol?
When he heaves a massive tome off the shelf, I suddenly understand.
It’s leather-bound, the size of a scrapbook, with thick, yellowed pages.
It’s as mystical as it is ominous, and I’m immediately intrigued.
There’s a table nearby, and we’re quick to claim it.
“What is that?” I ask. I can’t quite make out the faded letters on the cover or the spine.
“It’s called Folk of Fear,” says Aleo. He lifts the cover carefully to reveal the end pages. “It’s about the mass genocide and semiotics.”
But I’ve barely registered his words, because I recognize the faded pattern on the inside of the cover. It’s that same fucking symbol. “Wait,” I say, his words finally processing. “It’s about genocide?”
“Yeah,” said Aleo. He looks around, bites his lip. “Shifters, mostly, but the fae were also targeted. And sometimes it was the other way around, with fae targeting humans.”
I’m about to crawl out of my skin. “What the fuck does this thing mean? Did you see it anywhere in the book?”
Aleo gives me a look. “Slow down,” he huffs, flipping to the index pages, dragging his finger down the line as he searches. Symbols of the Oppressed. Symbolism of the Impoverished. Symbolism Among Slaves. Symbols of the Underground. Symbols of the Sea.
I’m not shocked to see him turn to Symbols of the Sea.
A circle with three short lines greets us, like a rudimentary sun.
Aleo doesn’t slow for me to read the description, just keeps leafing through pages until I see it: a rough sketch of a ship caught in cresting waves.
Painted on its side is a circle containing three waves and some odd, curly lines.
“It’s for protection,” he explains. “Maritime fae used it.”
I really need to brush up on fae history. Fae are so closely associated with forests and mountains that the phrase catches me off-guard. “Protection from what, exactly?”
Aleo takes a step back so that I can lean over the page.
Popularized during the Golden Age of Piracy, the tri-wave symbol was originally one of orientation, although in modern times, it has become associated with safety among the tides.
Believed to protect the bearer from poor weather, royal navies, and traitors, it allowed for clandestine travels and relative security.
As recently as the nineteen-hundreds, it was seen in merfolk establishments along the Pacific Ocean floor. It has since declined in popularity.
I’m quick to whip out my phone and photograph the page. It’s only the third photo in my camera roll, with the first one being a blurry shot of my face when I accidentally opened the camera, and the second being a distant picture of the sea.
“Why is this all over my house?” I grumble. More importantly, why won’t it show up in an internet search?
“Dude, I don’t know,” says Aleo. “You said your mom went here, right?”
“Yeah,” I say, scowling.
“I bet she found it somewhere. Or she knew someone who used it.”
I frown. Why would Mom paint a safety sigil all over our house?
Despite her love of true crime, she never worried about robbers or kidnappers the way my friends’ parents sometimes did.
As far as I know, she had no reason to do something like that.
It might’ve made sense if we’d ever traveled on a boat, but there was no way she’d take me anywhere near the ocean.
“What the fuck,” I say. Now it’s my turn to leaf through the book, searching for anything else that might be familiar.
Popular among merfolk establishments. If, as I suspect, my father was some kind of merman, then maybe he knew about it?
But why the fuck was Mom obsessed with it?
“Was anyone in your family ever in the Navy? Or like a fisherman or something?”
I shake my head. “Not as far as I know.”
“Weird.”
The question haunts me late into the night. A reverse image search gets me nowhere. “Fae Google doesn’t exist, right?” I ask Aleo, who has just returned from the shower, his hair still dripping.
“Not really,” he says. “There are some host websites with a similar function, but they’re behind a paywall.”
“I’m guessing that’s not included in tuition,” I grumble, but then it occurs to me: there probably are academic websites and search engines that I have access to through the university.
I just need to figure out what they are.
But my ancient laptop doesn’t want to load the library’s website.
Around midnight, I give up and flop back onto the mattress.
I dream of the sea.
I’m standing at the edge of the cliff, overlooking black waves capped with white foam, listening to the sound of the water crashing against the rock.
The sea is my home. I can feel it in my bones, an echoing cry that I cannot help but respond to. I’m meant to be in that dark water on this moonless night.
I leap without question, but I don’t transform when I hit the waves. Instead, I breach the surface with so much force that my bones threaten to shatter.
I flail against the current, but it’s sucking me, down, down, down and I can’t get free—
I wake just after one a.m. Cold sweat soaks the back of my t-shirt, my boxers. My heart is racing.
There’s no good way to handle this, I decide, changing quickly and hurrying to the bathroom. I can’t forget the sensation of drowning. The agony in my lungs, the ache in my bones, the burning in the throat, the powerlessness.
What if I don’t transform whenever I’m submerged? What if it’s not automatic? What if it’s complicated?
I need to research merfolk. Shifters in general. It was stupid not to prioritize this.
Back in my room, I climb into bed and stare at the ceiling.
At four a.m., I text Duncan. I’m so tired I can barely see straight, which means that I’m in no position to talk myself out of anything.
Want to go stare at the ocean with me?
I press send and fall asleep as soon as my screen goes dark.
I do not want to go stare at the ocean with Duncan Stirling, but I can’t find a way to gracefully bow out.
All day, I think of his expression when he said, “I’ll always be there for you.” Sincere. Firm.
Who goes around saying shit like that? And why does my stomach flip whenever I think about it?
Sorry, I type. Too much homework tonight.
Then I delete it and put my phone in my pocket.
By lunchtime, I’m halfway convinced this is a good idea. Duncan is a shifter. Not the same type of shifter, obviously, but he’s got to have some insights, right?
And if I’m having nightmares about drowning, then it probably means that I’m anxious about the logistics of shifting. If I understand how to change, at least in theory, I’ll feel better. So this is a good idea.
My concussion has subsided enough for me to exercise again. My stomach aches, but I manage to go on a jog, anyway. By the time I return to my room, I’m exhausted.
It’s the weekend. Duncan is busy until late afternoon, so I spend the day with Jane in the library, finally able to access all the academic websites I should’ve known about in the first place.
She’s taken to hovering around me, watching me with wide eyes, a little too attentive.
I try to ignore her. I know I’m a mess. But I can’t fault her for looking out for me, and the truth is, I don’t like being away from her for too long.
Everything feels so much less intimidating when she’s around.
Jane is more fae than I am, better studied, and levelheaded as hell.
We balance each other out well enough. I’m probably a burden, but she always seems happy to see me, and I don’t know where I’d be without her.