8. Chapter 8
Ithought I might feel better about being with Dad in the hospital, but every time I looked up from my hands and saw him in the hospital bed, a fresh wave of despair enveloped me. He had never looked so fragile, lying in a hospital gown with an oxygen mask over his face and hooked up to an IV. The bolder his veins seemed to discolour, the paler he appeared.
Security had taken up shop outside the door of Dad’s private room to discourage any Arrowood-haters to visit and do any harm. Sandra had jumped at the chance to return to the hospital, and even though all she could do was sit in a chair on the other side of his bed, she had no intention of returning home either.
“How long will it take?” I asked after hours of silence and mournful texts to Ben and my friends.
“What?” Sandra chewed her nails.
“This illness. How long will it take?”
Sandra stopped chewing and lowered her hand, inspecting her cuticles. “He’s got a few weeks, I’d expect.”
I snorted. “And yet you sound so casual about it.”
“Casual?” Sandra snapped. “He’s my brother, Maeve. There’s nothing casual about this situation. He’s not supposed to die first, that was always... going to be me.”
I massaged my jaw with one hand. It actually sounded like she had thought about this long before the sickness struck the island. Sandra had a good five years on Dad, which didn’t seem like a lot to me, but apparently it did to her.
“I would have thought, considering Izzy was the one who caused all this, that-.“
“Be. Quiet.” Sandra’s expression darkened as she rounded on me. “Do you not think that I know this is my fault? That if I had parented her better or... been someone she felt she could talk to, that we might never have had to go through this?”
A little guilt blossomed to life in my core, and my anger gave way to humility.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “That wasn’t fair. I’m just angry.”
“Aren’t we all?” Sandra buried her face in her hands and massaged her cheeks with her thumbs. “Did you see Izzy?”
The thought of our meeting made me want to throw something even more. “Yes, I did.”
“And you won’t share these secrets of yours with the class?”
“Nope.” I would have hesitated even if we hadn’t had a strained relationship lately. Without Dad, the family would kick me out of the house in a heartbeat if they learned everything I hid from them.
But a few choice moments from my visit with Isadora surfaced. Her talk of ‘unlimited phoenix eggs’ had me puzzled and intrigued in equal measure. She had sounded so certain that Freddie’s mysterious backup plans held weight, and somehow the merfolk knew the method to achieve them.
Even if we had unlimited phoenix eggs, nothing could have persuaded me to use one to break the curse on the Everhart family. Even if doing so saved Ben, the phoenix would unleash plenty more rage upon the island with another insult like that. But the idea was worth exploring, especially if Isadora thought blackmailing me into unravelling that thread would lead somewhere.
The niggling wouldn’t go away, and with Dad’s life imminently on the line, I had more reasons to explore this than not.
“I’m taking the car,” I said, getting up. “Stay with Dad.”
“Where are you going?”
“Nowhere.” I headed for the door.
Sandra snorted. “More secrets?”
I opened the door and hesitated, only to shoot her a stony glare and say, “If you knew what my secrets had done to protect this family, maybe you’d have more understanding. Or maybe, as usual, that’s too much to ask of any of you.”
***
I had no patience to take the usual route to the merfolk island, Magdora, which usually involved me using their visitor’s boat to access the island. But that day, for the first time, I would come to them as a one of them; as a mermaid.
I drove to the nearest beach on the south coast of the island, parked, and took off my underwear and shoes in the car before heading down to the shore in nothing more than my dress and bra. The waves struck my shins with an aggression I was happy to match, and I dove into the water headfirst, inviting my tail into existence. I fought the current, slicing through it with ease. All the anger and despair pumped me with adrenaline that my mermaid was all too happy to utilise. The ocean swelled as if it too had an inner rage that it wished to unleash.
The swim to Magdora took me a fraction of the time taking the car would have, and soon I swam among other merfolk also enjoying the dynamic swell of the sea. They rode its hefty waves and threw themselves into the strong currents, speeding past me as I powered my way to the island shore. But I didn’t even have to surface to find who I was searching for.
Janeira swam among the members of her coven, twisting and twirling as if to shed her problems. But when she caught sight of me, she stopped her carefree frolicking and swam over to me. We surfaced, the waves raising us up as the ocean swelled.
“You’re a beautiful mermaid, Maeve,” she said. “I’m happy to see you finally embracing it.”
“Thank you.” I had hesitated to appear in my mermaid form among the merfolk in the beginning, because of Janeira’s insistence that I join them. But with the island’s end nearing, what did I have to worry about? “Janeira, I have to talk to you about something privately.”
“Privately, as always?” Janeira looked up at the sky, or at least the barrier that shielded us from the outside world. “I don’t know how far you expect your secrets to travel in this bubble.”
“Please?”
“If we must. Follow me.”
Janeira dove into the water and I followed her. She took us around the back of the island where nothing but seaweed accompanied us, and we surfaced again.
“I’m surprised you have any urgent matters left, considering how near the land folk are to the end,” Janeira said, floating on her back.
“The land folk?” What made her think the merfolk were going to survive all this? “Do you know something I don’t?”
“It looks like it.” Janeira waved her arms back and forth in the water. “Not one of the merfolk has come down with this mysterious illness and our food supplies are plentiful.”
“How?”
She rolled her eyes but kept her smile. “Maeve, you really must come and learn from us more often. We have food sources that land dwellers can’t access-seaweed, algae, and many underwater creatures. The phoenix clearly has no qualms with us.”
I forgot to rise with the next wave, and it slapped me in the face.
The curses hadn’t touched the merfolk? They were just going to ride it out and wait for the land dwellers to die? Did that mean that if we didn’t find a solution to the phoenix’s curses that I could outlive all my friends and family?
No. Unacceptable.
“Janeira, you know what my cousin did to cause these curses, don’t you?” I asked.
“It’s well known.”
“Then you know she used a phoenix egg in a potion?”
“I do indeed.”
“She was told that she could access limitless phoenix eggs if the spell she cast went wrong,” I said. “And that the merfolk knew how to get them.”
Janeira flipped upright, her face suddenly more hardened. “Did she say how?”
“No, but I need you to tell me how.”
“Maeve, what in the deepest abyss would you need with phoenix eggs?” she asked. “Don’t tell me you intend to use one to-?”
“I don’t intend to harm any egg or creature.” I rose with the next wave, a slight tingle racing up my spine as it lifted me up and down. “But...my dad is sick and...he doesn’t have long left. I want to know if there’s a way I can undo all this.”
Janeira jutted her chin out at me. “Without harming a phoenix egg?”
“For the last time, yes.” What didn’t she understand about that?
“Because if you were to do something stupid with a phoenix egg, Maeve, you might drag the merfolk into this mess. Do you understand I can’t risk that?”
“Of course I do. Janeira, if this is about trust, I promise you I won’t put any of the merfolk in danger. But please, I need to save the people I care about on land. Surely you’d prefer that Dusk didn’t perish this way?”
Janeira swam in a little closer, her tail brushing mine. “It won’t do you any good to know, anyway, Maeve.”
“Why?”
“Because no matter what your cousin told you, there is no way we know of to harness the power you’re seeking.”
“It doesn’t matter. I need you to tell me, anyway.”
Janeira scooped up some seawater and ran it over her hair. “I can’t just tell you. I need to show you. Come.”
With that, she dove into the water, and I followed at a high speed. She led me around the entire south coast of the island and round toward the eastern shores. The whole time we swam, I tried not to humour any hope I had. If Janeira was right, and Isadora’s idea had no basis in reality, I had to prepare myself for it.
Janeira dove us deep down along the craggy underwater cliffs to a crevice in the rocks and right inside. In the pitch blackness of the cave, my eyes took a little time to adjust, but when they finally did, the shadowy outline of a sunken ship dominated my vision.
I looked up to see only rock surrounding the ship in its entirety, and there was no way a vessel so large could have made it through the gap we had swum through. How had this ship gotten inside this cave intact?
The closer we got, the more I could identify the vessel. It still had sails, a mast, and openings along the edges for cannons to emerge. This ship couldn’t have been any younger than three hundred years old.
Janeira swam up to a porthole and beckoned me over. I followed and peered in through the glass. To my horror, a gnarled, grisly face stared back at me through the window.