Chapter 6
Sadira
We arrived at the cottage in Belas Shores with the usual hectic frenzy of servants rushing about to prepare the dwelling for use—opening windows for fresh air, removing dust cloths from the furniture, lighting fires in the hearths for warmth, and hauling in trunks of our clothing.
My mother informed me in passing that Nan had been released from service after I’d returned to school last fall.
No one had told me. She wasn’t needed anymore, she said.
And no, she wasn’t aware if Nan had found new employ.
I tried to take it matter-of-factly, since that was expected of me.
It meant I was too grown to need a minder now, after all, being thirteen this year.
But I was already fighting a pounding heart and clammy hands not knowing if Lorn would be here, and I had to step into an out of the way storage room to regain my composure.
While I’d often resented what Nan had represented as my carer—rules and chores and authority—I’d still been rather attached to her as a person.
Nan was the one who’d rocked me to sleep as a small child, the one who’d comforted me in the middle of the night when I’d awoken with night terrors, the one who’d quietly sewn my buttons back on when I tripped and tore them off.
Sure, she’d let me know I needed to treat my clothes more carefully, and she’d always corrected me when she thought I’d stepped out of line, but her hand was gentle and her tone was measured.
She’d dutifully protected me from the judgement or wrath of my parents whenever she could, correcting my errors privately and with subtlety.
To my parents, she was simply an employee like any other.
She was a cog in the wheel that was no longer needed.
But to me, her absence from the cottage was a wound—a piece of my childhood that was gone and would never return.
Grieving would be childish and unbecoming, so I shed the silent tears I’d perfected at boarding school and took my deep breaths in the privacy of the dusty storage room.
Then I climbed out the window in the back and ran for the beach.
I was still quietly afraid that he was gone, that I would spend every day here with a hollow pit in my stomach wondering what had happened to cause him to not come back.
So I’d tried to convince myself to delay the inevitable and forgo verifying my fears, but I couldn’t do it.
I swallowed down my dread and dodged past the eyes of the small handful of servants airing linens outside.
The sandy path to the cove was shorter than I remembered as I flew down it, moving so fast that my feet barely touched the earth.
The weeds were more overgrown along the sides, and the sun was warmer where it broke through the trees, but the beach itself was baked into my memory in a way that didn’t make sense for such a mercurial place made of shifting sands.
I stood on the shore, breathing in its familiar salt air and searching for any sign of him, but there was nothing but the greyish cast of springtime waves.
There would be no way for him to know I was here now, I reminded myself.
On a whim, I paced to the bushes that hid our chest and crawled beneath them, finding that either they had grown or I had, because I had to fight with some of the branches to fit beneath them this year.
I wrestled with the latch—the damp winter air had stiffened it, but I managed to find a rock nearby to strike it with and loosen it.
The lid had such heft that it was always difficult to push back and the scent of old leather was strong, but I opened it to reveal…
sea glass. The chest was full of all kinds of treasures— interesting bottles, an enormous conch shell, and several stunningly shaped pieces of driftwood.
But every object was nestled in layers upon layers of beautiful sea glass, and trailing throughout, as if in a purposeful pattern, were more pieces of my favorite purple sea glass than I’d ever imagined in my life.
Hot tears spilled over and made tracks down my cheeks as I knelt in the sand before his artful display.
Lorn lived.
He was fine.
And he hadn’t forgotten about me.
I pushed my way out of our hiding place and stumbled down the sand, tearing at the buttons of my dress and stripping down to my underclothes as I kicked off my shoes in my hurry to get to the water.
It was cold, but I barely even noticed as I splashed my way deeper into the waves and, after heaving as deep a breath as I could take, plunged beneath the surface.
Humming until I depleted my air and surfacing for more again and again, I made it through several cycles of the song before I was shaking so badly from the cold that I was starting to despair.
I might have to return home and try again tomorrow, I thought, just before something big struck me hard enough to force the last of the air from my lungs and drive me backward toward the shore.
Strong arms wrapped around me and hoisted me into the air, hauling me up onto the beach, as a beaming Lorn landed on top of me in an uncoordinated tackle before pushing himself up onto his arms and displaying every one of his dagger-like teeth in a gleeful smile.
Water flushed out of his gills before he clamped them shut and then heaved a long, wet sounding breath, grimacing as he croaked out, “You here! You came!”
Lying there—shivering in the cold waves, overwhelmed with both immense relief and all the fears rushing to the surface that I’d carried and suppressed for the entire school year—all I could do was stare up at his joyful expression and burst into body-wracking sobs.
He was clearly confused by my reaction, but I couldn’t get the words out to explain how I felt, so I simply clutched at him when he tried to let me go until he sat up and pulled me against him and began to rock me in the soaking surf, humming Nan’s song—my song—with his cheek pressed against my wet hair.
After a long moment, I was able to quiet my crying, finally releasing my grip on him to scrub at my puffy eyes. He chafed his hand against my arm.
“Cold,” he said. “You shake. Your face leak because cold?” he asked, his voice scratchy and lower than I remembered it from last year.
My laugh at his oddly phrased question sounded strange in my own ears.
Lorn released me immediately when I pulled away and then hauled myself out of the water, pointing at him accusingly as I stumbled to the clothes I’d left strewn down the beach.
“Don’t move. Don’t you go anywhere.” I was half concerned that I would turn my back and he would disappear, but he simply stared at me with a bemused expression and made a show of settling into the sand as I struggled into my clothes and tried to ignore my wet skin.
It would be worth the damp clothes to be warm again.
“Where did you go?” I demanded as I stomped back to him, suddenly furious that I’d spent so many months with my stomach in knots every time I thought of him.
How many nights had I lain awake in bed worrying?
How many meals had I skipped because I had no appetite? “I was so worried about you all year!”
“You—” he started, his mouth dropping open in outrage. “You worry about me? I worry about you! I—” he cut off, grimacing as he stopped to clutch his throat and swallowed repeatedly.
My heart clenched painfully. I had to try something.
I dropped to a crouch in front of him on the sand, my expression clearing.
“Is it okay if I touch your neck?” I asked, lifting my hand toward him slowly and watching his face for his reaction.
“I promise to be careful of your gills,” I added when he flinched away from me.
He’d done the same thing the day I’d met him, I remembered, when I’d thought he had injuries.
I hesitated to do this at all, just as I had last summer.
Knowing the reactions that my parents would have made me cringe, but my teachers had encouraged me to practice this year and I’d made a little progress.
My confidence in my healing abilities still wasn’t great, or even good, but it had grown a little bit now that I had a little practice—though it truly wasn’t much.
Lorn narrowed his eyes at me in confusion, or perhaps suspicion, but he relented with a nod, so I reached forward to lay the tips of my fingers on the front of his throat, careful to avoid his delicate gills.
I had very little understanding of what I should look for as I closed my eyes—his anatomy wasn’t like mine—but I tried to focus on pushing my energy into him, ignoring the prickling feeling that ran up my arms as I did.
Just like every time a teacher had brought me a student with a small cut or a bruised knee and encouraged me to try, I found a small knot of what I imagined to be discomfort, or maybe pain, and teased it apart in my mind.
As soon as I found it, the prickling sensation in my body turned into more of a buzzing.
The instant I felt it slip apart, I removed my hand, the buzzing feeling instantly vanishing, and he swallowed, testing his throat.
And then immediately started in on me again.
“I search for you,” he very nearly growled. “I even climb out on the sand and look, but too young to change still.” He sent an angry look at his beautiful tail and swallowed hard again.
I replaced my hand on his throat and delivered a bit more of my magic, shaking off the odd feeling it gave me, but this was already beginning to drain me.
Maybe if I left my hand where it was and delivered it in smaller drips it wouldn’t be so hard?
I nodded for him to continue without removing my hand this time.