32. Chapter 32
My breath shuddered on its way in as pain lanced my skin, and blood splattered onto the roots of the Tree of Life. Ben threw himself onto me and Kira, pinning us both to the ground. Face up, I caught sight of the phoenix over Ben’s shoulder and braced myself as it spread its wings once more.
But it hesitated, cocking its head toward the spattering of blood nearby. With a gentle caw, it leaned down and blinked at it. Then, with a twitch of its tail feathers, it hopped back into the hollow.
I scrambled into a sitting position, pressing myself to Ben and Kira. One second the phoenix wanted to gouge our eyes out and the next...?
The phoenix lifted its head and bellowed a shriek that sent shockwaves rocketing past us and into the forest. Before our eyes, the purple hues of the bioluminescent forest melted away, the trees returning to their glorious white and aquamarine tinged luminescence. The new light bathed us in warmth, and even the icy touch of the ground melted away to its natural light, springy texture.
“By Sagittarius’ gigantic...” Kira slapped a hand over her own mouth before she could finish her sentence.
The phoenix hopped toward us, and Ben and I flinched, but Kira scrambled between us and offered her hand. The bird extended her foot and placed it in Kira’s hand, a gentle light pooling in her palm. I squeezed an arm around Ben’s waist, my nerves still getting the better of me. But before long, the phoenix removed its foot and hopped back to the hollow to curl up with its egg.
“She knows what you did,” Kira muttered, gazing at the phoenix as she tended to her unborn offspring. “Your feud caused the death of her baby, but you both risked your lives for someone else. It was...enough for her.”
“Enough for her to undo the phoenix’s curses?” Ben asked hopefully.
“And some.” Kira looked around at the newly restored canopy. “She undid the curse that Isadora cast on your family using her egg, too.”
“Holy crap.” I fell onto my back, marvelling at the beautiful foliage. No matter what happened to Ben’s other family members now, he was safe. One of the many weights that had dragged me down for weeks lifted off the load.
But I sat straight back up again and placed a hand on Kira’s shoulder. “Dad and Ali.”
“Oh, shoot.” Kira scrambled to her feet and grabbed an arm each of Ben and I, half dragging us up with her. “You go see your dad. I’ll get to Ali.”
“I’ve got to see if my grandfather’s all right, too,” Ben said. “We need to get to the hospital.”
My heart in my throat, we ran together out of the clearing. If the phoenix had lifted the curses...did that mean they would all be okay?
***
Getting a lift to the hospital took a great deal longer than it had to get us to the forest. Not a single taxi was operational, probably because everyone had realised that the force field had disappeared. The skies had returned to its natural blue, and not a single cloud dared interrupt it.
Ben jogged down the road with me in his arms, Adrian and Bronwyn running ahead as they tried to flag down passing cars. Eventually, one stopped for us and we piled in, requesting a drop off at the hospital.
When we got out of the car in the hospital car park, the sight had several tears tearing down my cheeks. Tens, if not hundreds, of people flocked out through the hospital doors, arms wrapped around family members, joking and laughing.
I whirled around into Ben’s arms, seized him by the collar, and dragged him into a kiss.
“I love you, and we are going to celebrate like crazy later, but I’ve got to find my dad, okay?” I said and kissed him again.
Ben gaped, blinking so fast that I wondered if he had something in his eye. But I couldn’t wait any longer and dashed through the crowd in search of Dad.
Several people stood on my bare feet as I made my way into the hospital, and I tried to stand on my tiptoes to see better. But I didn’t see him. Was he still sick? Had the phoenix made some sort of caveat to punish our families for what we had done?
Before long, the crowd thinned, and I jogged down the corridor toward what had been Dad’s room. I threw open the door and looked at his empty, unmade bed.
“Maeve?”
My gaze shot across the room to where Dad stood, letting Sandra button his shirt up as he adjusted his collar.
“Dad!” I barrelled toward him and all but tackled him into a hug. “I’m so glad you’re okay.”
“I’m feeling much better now.” Dad chortled into the top of my head. “What happened? Do you know?”
“It’s a really long story,” I said. “Can we go home and I’ll tell you everything?”
“That’s the best idea I’ve heard all day.”
Wrapping an arm around me and Sandra, Dad walked us toward the door. While nothing could mar my elation in that moment, a voice at the back of my head reminded me that even though our nightmare was over, we still had a lot to talk about.
***
Back at home, I put Dad straight to bed and brought him up a cup of tea.
“You know I’m all right now? I feel as good as new,” Dad said, taking the cup and saucer from me.
“It won’t hurt you to rest a bit more,” I said, as I sat down on the edge of the bed. “And... I need to talk to you about something.”
“Is it about all this?” Dad gestured to the window. “Are you going to tell me you fixed all this?”
A smile played at the corner of my mouth. “How did you know?”
“Well, for one thing, I don’t think I’d ever seen you so furious.” He sipped his tea. “When you get angry, you get productive. I still remember the weekend that idiot boyfriend of yours dumped you in high school and you cleared out and organised the entire supply closet at the scuba centre.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” I said, clasping my hands together. “But Dad... there are some really important things I need to tell you and... I should have told you a while ago, but... I was unsure.”
“About what?”
“About how you’d react and about whether Mum would want you to know.”
Dad sat up a little taller in bed, his brow creasing. “What do you mean, Maeve?”
I took a deep breath, squeezing my hands tighter. “Dad... Mum was a mermaid.”
A moment of silence hung between us, in which I heard a few fireworks going off in the distance. There were going to be plenty of hangovers in the morning.
Dad snorted and shook his head as he sipped his tea again, spilling a little down his front. “Maeve, I think I’d have known if your mum was a mermaid. She would have told me.”
“She wanted to,” I said. “But she didn’t want your dad to know, so she kept it a secret until he died and...she worried how you’d react after keeping it quiet for so long and that you might not trust her.”
“Maeve, if Mum was a mermaid, that would make you a mermaid and I don’t think that’s something you would have kept from me either... is it?” He suddenly sounded unsure. Good. I was finally getting through to him.
“Dad, I’ve been sleeping in the pool for months now.”
“In the-. What? In the pool? Is that why you always have wet hair when the arrow...?”
“Yup.” I tapped the floor with my foot, wincing. Someone had stepped on it a little too hard at the hospital. I’d be feeling that for a few days at least. “And I didn’t want to tell you because I wanted to know why Mum hadn’t told you first. Just in case I was missing something. But really, she just loved you a lot.”
Dad stared into his tea, his eyes glazed over. That was already a lot to take in, but I couldn’t stop. I was in confession mode.
“There’s something else,” I added, my shoulders tensing. This was going to be painful.
“More than that?” Dad looked up from his tea. “Are you about to tell me you’ve married into a family of nomadic clowns?”
“For the last time, you need to write a book,” I said. “And no, it’s much worse than that. Or at least you might think so.”
“All the parenting books warned me about this,” Dad said, running a hand over his face. “Go on. What is it?”
The breath I inhaled took a lot longer to finish than I expected, and even then I held it for a long moment.
“I’ve been seeing Ben Everhart,” I murmured.
Dad blinked at me. “Seeing Ben Everhart? You can’t surely mean...?”
I chewed my lip, staring at the duvet as I waited for the news to sink in. Sure, I risked getting kicked out of the house after revealing that info, but it wasn’t worth keeping it from him anymore. How could I continue to live my life with Ben when my entire family was in the dark about our relationship? Keeping Ben a secret helped nothing, and it only created a bigger divide between me and Dad. Mum had already made the mistake of keeping a big secret from him. I had to trust him.
“When did this start?” Dad asked, quietly.
“A few months ago. We accidentally went on a few dates together at that anonymous dating agency, and we had already collaborated on solving Tyler’s murder, so... I don’t know, we just fell for each other. He’s actually been helping me stay in touch with my mermaid side.”
“Doesn’t he surf?” Dad sipped his tea again.
“Exactly. He enjoys the water almost as much as me.”
Another silence enveloped us, and my foot tapped the floor of its own accord at a high speed, despite the aching.
“Actually... that’s how we broke all the phoenix’s curses,” I said. “We were trying to protect each other and, according to Kira, that was enough for the phoenix to decide to lift its magic.”
Dad downed his tea like it was a shot of vodka. In hindsight, I probably should have dropped a little whiskey in there. He slammed his teacup and saucer down on the bedside table, and I flinched.
“Does he treat you right?” he asked, his tone dipping much lower.
“Very well indeed.”
“No diseases?”
“Dad!”
“It’s important information, Maeve!”
“No, no freaking diseases! By Scorpio’s grace,” I said, grabbing a fistful of my hair. “Listen, I know this is a lot but... he’s a good guy, Dad. And he’s actually done a lot on his end to make sure that the feud doesn’t escalate.”
“Like what?”
“Like not telling his entire family about his power for his whole life because he was worried someone might try to make him use it against us,” I said.
“What... really?” Dad folded his hands on his stomach. “That’s awfully noble of him.”
And it turns out he wasn’t even the first Everhart to do so. We also had Esther to thank.
Footsteps thundered on the landing, and I jerked my head toward the door. Gods, if someone had overhead me telling Dad about Ben and summoned the rest of the family...
But Sandra burst through the door, breathless and with her ponytail falling apart.
“You’ve got to get down here, now!” she said, her eyes sparkling with joy.