3. Chapter 3
3
BEATRICE
Even after thinking all day about what Othniel said—I mean the part about gates messing with time—I could make no sense of it. Auntie hadn’t questioned my ravenous hunger and dirty clothes, though I was sure she noticed. I would have told her everything if she’d asked, but even when I outright told her I’d been gone for hours, she brushed me off.
The next morning, I couldn’t find the rose-arbor gateway anywhere. My frustration grew as I searched for Othniel among the resort guests during each day’s activities. No one I asked knew him or even recognized his unusual name. Every morning, I searched in vain for Starfire or the pond or the unicorn fountain.
For all she’d claimed to bring me along for company, Auntie pretty much left my entertainment to the resort staff while she was all into crocheting lace, playing card games, and gossiping with the other old ladies. I suppose even grandaunts need time off now and then, but I desperately wanted to tell someone about my strange adventure and ask for answers.
On our final morning at Faraway Castle, I searched one last time. What did I find? Not Othniel. Not even a cinder sprite. Just an ordinary old iron bench hidden in a niche in the box hedge. I sat on it anyway, and since no one could hear or see me, I had a good cry.
I was just wiping my face on the shoulder of my T-shirt when a rush of magic and a beautiful musky sort of scent swept through the little alcove. Afraid to move, I rolled my eyes to look around with something between anticipation and dread. “Who’s there?” I squeaked.
“A friend.”
Those two words might have emanated from the earth beneath my feet . . . or the warm breeze ruffling my hair? I couldn’t be sure. Inside me, terror and delight vied for control. That magic I’d first sensed when we passed through Faraway Castle’s front gates? It—all of it—seemed to be here in this leafy alcove with me.
“You’ve been trying to find your way back to a secret garden.”
A thrill swept through me, and my courage returned in a rush. “Yes! Where is it?”
“That path is closed.”
My heart sank. “Closed . . . forever?”
“I know only of the past and the present, not the future.”
I wilted in despair. “Even if it’s here tomorrow, I won’t be.” Auntie was already packing our things.
“Take heart, child. Such paths reappear in their proper time and place.”
Instead of marveling over the warmth and kindness in the voice or appreciating its words of encouragement, I scowled. “You mean I have to be patient .”
But the magical presence was gone, leaving behind a sense of intermingled delight and sorrow. Which I utterly failed to appreciate. “I hate waiting.”
Arabella
Pukai was late for our final meeting.
Beatrice and I would return to Biscarosse in the morning, which meant another long drive in that rattletrap car with an overtired child. Waiting in the cave for the siren queen further soured my mood; spray from her pretentious magical waterfall kept drifting toward me.
Palau Kalah, the Lost Island, wasn’t so much lost as displaced. Before the resort first opened its doors, many years ago now, Pukai had simply lifted the little volcanic island, its lagoon, and a narrow buffer zone of surrounding tropical ocean, and swapped it with a corresponding amount of Faraway Lake. That was her magic, not mine, so I can’t explain the process properly. Suffice to say, the creatures living in both bodies of water were completely unaware when they instantaneously swam from one side of the world to the other and back again.
From her island vantage point, the merqueen could keep close tabs on our rogue mage and his pet-project resort, then quickly swim back to her underwater palace on the far side of the world. I kept a few hideouts of my own near Faraway Castle, but since I’ve never been one for spectacular power displays, mine were far less noticeable.
Pukai didn’t know it, but just being in that island cave dragged up a memory I preferred to leave far behind. Memories of sorrowful dark eyes, strong hands wrapped around mine, and . . .
Long ago, during my late teen years, my family holidayed for a month in the South Sea Islands, which were primitive and quite unspoiled. Every morning, I would sneak down to the beach to drink in the unspoiled beauty and freshness, and one day I found a boy about my age clad in a lava-lava wrap and seated on the sand alongside the largest coconut crab I’ve ever seen. All three of us were startled, but only the crab scooted off.
The boy rose, greeted me with a cheerful smile, and introduced himself in the Common Tongue as Kapono, explaining that his family lived in the area. We quickly identified each other as enchanters, and talking with him was much easier and more pleasant than I’d ever experienced with other boys.
He convinced me to join him in the crystal lagoon to swim with vividly colored fish and other creatures I’d never known existed. Kapono could name them all, and they behaved like pets, letting him stroke them and nuzzling against him.
How could any girl resist? Kapono was intelligent and kind, and even though he was quite square in build, I found his deep voice, twinkling dark eyes, and teasing grin incredibly attractive. He was fun to be around—a rare quality in my usual crowd—and a great conversationalist. We kept meeting every morning as friends, or so we claimed, but I was head over heels for him by day two, and I suspected he felt the same about me.
Little did I know—yes, this is one of those stories—that my crush was a merman, possibly the homeliest creatures on earth since they’re the opposite of mermaids, having fish heads and webbed feet and arms. As a caroven , the second highest rank of magical power, Kapono was able to take the shape of a human and live comfortably in that form. Not even I, a top-ranking sahira with fairy blood, saw through his disguise.
Our families were unaware of our innocent visits, let alone our growing attachment, but disaster loomed in the offing in the form of Kapono’s cousin, heir to a vast underwater kingdom. She followed him to the island one morning, discovered him hanging out with me and pretending to be human, and blew his cover. Right there on the beach, Princess Pukai informed me that as the eldest nephew of the Mer King, Kapono’s future had been settled at his birth—he would become a military commander and marry to strengthen a key military alliance. His wishes and dreams were immaterial.
Kapono apologized to me, his expression closed, and his bossy cousin ordered him to follow her. He obeyed but spoke into my mind in the saddest voice imaginable: I will never forget you, Bella.
Pukai hated me for years afterward, and the feeling was mutual. But life can take some strange twists and turns.
I spoke with Kapono once more, maybe fifteen years later, when he appeared at Palau Kalah sometime after Pukai had moved the island into Faraway Lake but before the resort opened. I was seated inside the main cave beside its waterfall one afternoon, studying a book of confinement spells while using a magical force field like an umbrella to keep dry, when a totally “ripped” merman with the greenish head of a moray eel popped up through one of the underwater doorways in the cave floor. I confess, my adrenaline spiked at the intimidating sight.
“Arabella,” he greeted me in the quiet yet compelling voice I remembered, then changed into his human form. His round face now displayed rugged angles and hard planes, and the twinkle had vanished from his eyes.
The last I’d heard of him from Pukai, he was betrothed to a mer-princess from the Intheway Reef. They might even be married by now.
I managed to speak on my second try. “Kapono! Wh-what are you doing here?”
“Someone told me I might find you here.” His gaze dropped briefly to the floor, then snapped back up to meet mine. “We’re headed to Yiga Basin in the morning to expel a large-scale invasion of deep-sea dago naiads.”
I blinked. “This is dangerous?” I guessed.
“They are powerful enemies to our people.”
Undoubtedly an understatement.
“Oh.” I flailed for an intelligent reply.
“I just . . . wanted to see you again.”
He caught my gaze, and my heart turned over. “You don’t expect to survive,” I said.
The world considered Colonel Kapono to be a cold fish of a merman, entirely focused on his military career. I remembered the boy with smiling eyes who loved to interact with the creatures he lived among.
“In case I never return, I want you to have this.” He held out one closed fist, palm down.
I slowly extended my hand, and he placed a pink pearl in my palm and curled my fingers over it, clasping my fist between his hands. “It glows from within, like you do.” His dark eyes held my gaze. “I have delayed all these years, but if I return from this conflict, I have no choice but to honor the betrothal.” His sorrowful gaze lowered to our hands. “I must not cast shame on my father’s name.”
Not one word came into my head. I simply stood there, staring at his scarred brown hands wrapped around my pale one. Without another word, he returned to the tidepool, glanced back to catch my gaze, then vanished into the limpid water without a ripple.
By the time Pukai stepped through the waterfall in her human form—that girl does love her dramatic entrances—my thoughts were back in present day, but my mood had drifted far south. I kept the conversation focused on the present. “He spoke to Beatrice today.”
Pukai’s eyes widened, and I’m pretty sure she gasped, because it took her an extra moment to ask, “How did she react?”
“She was frightened but recovered quickly enough to object to his answers.”
Almost imperceptibly, Pukai smirked.
“You might as well say it aloud—the child is ornery like me.” I shook my head. “But you haven’t met her father.”
“I shall happily forgo that pleasure.”
“Knock my in-laws at your leisure, Your Majesty daah- ling, but may we return to the long-lost point of this parley?”
Pukai’s lips twitched. “Which is . . .?”
“I’ve been considering your suggestion of connecting Beatrice with a family that frequents the resort, but I see no way of doing so until she reaches adolescence.” I paced the length of a subterranean tidepool and back, frowning in thought. “Beatrice is versatile in her pursuits and quite intelligent, but I have yet to discover any spark of genius in the child. Her magic is merely hembez level.”
“It allows her to converse with the Gamekeeper,” Pukai observed, “which offers some hope.”
“She makes friends easily yet somehow holds herself aloof.”
“Again, reminding me of—”
“Yes, yes,” I waved a dismissive hand. “I was never popular in school or anywhere else and never cared to be.”
“Surprise me.”
That comment deserved to be ignored. “Returning to your idea of connecting her with a family that frequents the resort, perhaps she might become a companion to an elderly peer, or a nanny to small children.”
“Not too small, or she’ll have no time to herself.”
“Good point,” I admitted.
“Since you refused to use your magic for travel—”
“The last thing I need is for her father to find out I’m a sahira.”
“—you have a long drive ahead of you tomorrow, and we’ve already established that the child won’t be returning here anytime soon. Therefore, I intend to retire for the night. If you wish to remain here, pacing and pitying yourself, I ask only that you don’t disturb the bats and nightbirds. Keep in touch, darling.”
With that, she vanished. Since the bioluminescence of the tidepools and cave walls offered no welcoming cheer whatsoever, I retired to the castle for a good night’s sleep.
And if I never again in this lifetime crochet lace or play another game of Hearts or gossip about somebody’s ex-husband’s new wife, I might eventually recover from this ghastly holiday.
Magical matchmaking isn’t for cowards.