Chapter 15 Wren
Fifteen
Wren
Late nights are a semi-regular thing for me. Usually I stay in my room, but I linger in the kitchen tonight. The house is
quiet except for the hum of the fridge and the faint whistle of the wind squeezing through the old windows.
Our house, like everything else in our lives, is functional and no frills. A two-story Cape Cod with low counters and wide
doorways Dad modified after my accident. The living room doubles as a workspace for McCleave’s, with old maps and binders
spilling across the worn coffee table. The kitchen is the best part of the house—bright, a little cramped, with scratched
cabinets and a scuffed-up butcher block island that still smells faintly of lemon oil from when Eryn last tried to clean it.
I’m just about to pour myself another coffee when Dad walks in, his pajama pants hanging loosely around his waist, the faded T-shirt he’s been wearing for years barely holding on to its shape.
He was clearly already in bed, his hair mussed from sleep.
He doesn’t seem surprised to find me still up.
He never does. Instead, he heads straight for the fridge, yanking it open and pulling out eggs, cheese, and vegetables that look like they’ve been in the crisper too long.
He drops everything on the counter by the stove and grabs his skillet, the one he treats like a museum piece.
“You gonna let me make you a midnight omelet?” he asks, turning the stove knob with a practiced twist. “It’s been a while.”
It has. “Senior year?”
“Sounds about right.” He cracks eggs into a bowl, adds a splash of truffle oil, and starts whisking. “I’ve been experimenting
with this stuff. Not sure how I feel about it yet. You game?”
I nod. “Sure. Thanks.”
Dad couldn’t boil water when he found himself a single dad raising a three-year-old, but he learned fast. By the time I was
old enough to remember, he could whip up anything. It’s one of the few things, apart from mermaids, that he seems to genuinely
enjoy.
His knife blurs as he chops onions and mushrooms. “How’s the new volunteer working out?”
“Lili,” I say before I can stop myself. Her name feels weird in my mouth, like I’m giving something away. Since meeting her,
I’ve gone out of my way to keep her at a distance, to remind her that this idea of rewriting history is pointless. And yet,
she keeps showing up. She ran alongside the boat the entire tour when I expected her to quit after a few photos. She spent
days helping me with the new script, trying to get me to rehearse, even though I hate performing for tourists.
Except maybe her.
She laughs when I start to get angry, argues back when I try to aim my frustration at her, helps me find answers to questions
I didn’t even think to ask.
And for better or worse, she pushes me to want more instead of just accepting things the way they are.
I should go back to calling her Tourist Girl. Pretend nothing’s changed. But it almost feels too late for that. I knew it
earlier when I said her name—not just in front of her mom, but alone in that study, when she suddenly looked afraid of the
answers she’d been chasing.
And when she hugged me, I did the thing I absolutely knew I shouldn’t have. I hugged her back. She felt soft and strong in
my arms, sweet like I could breathe her in for hours without any effort at all.
And the worst part is, I didn’t want to let her go.
Dad’s still waiting for my answer. I can’t say any of that out loud. I shouldn’t even be thinking it.
“She’s like your truffle oil,” I say instead.
He doesn’t turn around, but I can tell he’s smiling by the slight tilt of his head. “Gotta be careful with that stuff. A little
brings out the flavor, but it’s easy to overdo.”
“Same with her.” I hesitate, then settle on: “She’s not what I expected.”
Dad tosses the vegetables into the pan, and the hiss of butter fills the kitchen. “You want to find someone else?”
I shake my head. “No, it’ll be fine.” It has to be. Because after yesterday, there’s no avoiding her.
We took careful pictures of every page of the book from the McCleave’s archives and compared them to some of the entries in her dad’s notebook, and there’s no doubt left in my mind: It is Kezia’s diary.
The one that the Whaling Museum has is from earlier in her life, up through just after her marriage.
This one looks like it starts right before the war.
It’s the one she would have kept during her supposed smuggling operations.
If we can make sense of her dad’s entries and match them up with pages from Kezia’s second diary, we might actually find the
answers Lili’s looking for. I doubt they’ll be the ones she wants, but they’ll be definitive.
I don’t believe in fate. But it feels like something is pulling me farther into this, farther into her orbit, and I don’t
know how to stop it.
I do know that I should try.
“Can we talk about the mermaid tour for a minute? I had some thoughts I wanted to run by you.”
Dad scoops grated cheese into the eggs. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you about that too. Did you get those pictures for the
website?”
“Yeah, the new girl”—I shouldn’t say her name—“she took them. I was going to sort through them later.”
“Good. And you saw the reviews?”
“I did, and I kept them in mind while working on the new script.”
He slides a chipped plate in front of me, the same one I’ve used since I was a kid, and then transfers the omelet onto it.
“Let me see it once you have a working draft.”
The food looks perfect, but my appetite vanishes. “Why?” I ask, pushing the words past my teeth. “You want to check my spelling?”
Dad turns to face me, leaning back against the counter with his own plate. “I’ve thought about it, and I agree, removing you
from the tour is not the right call.”
I blink, my fork pausing halfway to my mouth. “What changed your mind?”
He doesn’t answer right away, instead shoveling food into his mouth with mechanical efficiency. When his plate is clean, he finally looks at me. “Wren, the tour is about our family. What’s the one thing I always tell guests?”
I frown. “Please don’t lick the display glass?”
He doesn’t smile. “You’re still Captain McCleave’s descendant. People recognize that. It’s a strong part of our narrative,
and I don’t want to lose that.” He leans forward slightly, his tone softening. “I thought maybe taking you off the tour would
be the answer to our problem, but I think it’s best if you stay on the boat with Tate.”
I study his face to make sure I heard him right. “Wait, really? Because that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” I tell
him about the changes I made in the new script, about reframing the historical details to coincide with more mermaid mythology.
I even offer to ask Tate for help on my delivery since, Lili’s right, it needs work.
But when I’m done, he just sets his empty plate down, slowly so it doesn’t bang. “Wren, you’re not understanding me. I want
Tate doing the bulk of the tour. You’ll still be there, you can even tell people about McCleave and how he found Nerissa and
later Nereus while they’re taking pictures during the scene.”
While they’re too distracted to listen, he means. The mermaid tour is the only thing about McCleave’s that’s felt like I’ve had any meaningful impact on. I don’t
want to just give it up, and I tell him as much.
But he shakes his head. “You read the reviews. What you’ve been doing isn’t working.”
“I know.” The kitchen feels smaller. Tighter. “And I get that there’s a problem, but I think I can fix it if you’re willing
to let me try.”
Dad finishes his coffee and lays a hand on my shoulder as he passes me. “This will work out. You might even like it better this way.”
“And if I don’t?” I say as he’s leaving the kitchen, my voice sharp now, like I can cut into him the way he just cut into
me.
He pauses. Just for a second. But it’s empty, a reflex, not a hesitation. Then he keeps walking, like I never said anything
at all.
The frustration builds in my chest, tightening around my ribs until it feels like I might choke on it. I thought maybe—just
maybe—if I actually tried this time, something would change. That if I put in the work, if I gave him a reason to listen,
he would.
But it’s the same as always.
I grip my fork so hard it digs into my palm, then drop it onto the plate with a sharp clatter. The omelet sits there, perfect
and untouched. A waste.