Chapter 50
When the bell finally rings for lunch, I feel sick with nerves. I can’t stop worrying about how Rasmus will react. I feel strangely nauseous, and on the verge of tears.
I loiter at my desk for a minute or two until everyone else has left the classroom. Then, as soon as there is no one left in the hall, I hurry out into the cold, to the path that leads into the woods.
It’s been over a week since Axel disappeared. It’s almost as gray and damp today as it was that day.
I wait for Rasmus ten yards or so into the woods, where no one will be able to see us. I keep imagining Rasmus’s face when I tell him the truth.
Disgust. Horror. His overwhelming revulsion when he finds out that I’m not human. That I’m a changeling from the bottom of the sea.
Whatever will be, will be.
He’s the only person I can’t lie to.
My hands tremble as I zip up my jacket and pace in anticipation.
“Tuva?” I hear Rasmus’s voice before he appears between the trees.
He brushes a few pine needles from his jacket and looks around with a confused expression. “Why did you want to meet out here? What’s wrong with the cafeteria or library?”
I feel disjointed, like a jigsaw puzzle put together wrong.
“It’s not safe,” I murmur.
“But this is?” Rasmus leans against a tree trunk with his arms crossed over his chest. I notice he’s on edge, and then it dawns on me: He’s afraid of the fairies. He doesn’t know what Ms. Granberg and I know.
“The fairies didn’t hurt Axel,” I say, stumbling over my words. “And they weren’t trying to hurt you either. They were trying to protect you.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Ms. Granberg explained everything,” I say. “The fairies were trying to lead you away from the sea to keep you safe from them. They wanted to protect you from the sea serpents.”
“Ms. Granberg?” Rasmus asks, and I realize how confusing this all must sound. “But you were the one who said she kidnapped Axel.”
Above our heads, a pine tree makes a snapping sound. Maybe it would be better if a branch broke off and cracked my skull. Then at least I could escape this conversation.
“I was wrong about her,” I admit.
“You said it was her.” Rasmus can’t hide the accusation in his voice. The disappointment. “That she came to your room and attacked you. That’s what you said, that’s why we went to the police.”
“She did do that!” I say defensively. “She admitted it herself.”
“What? When did you talk to her?”
Rasmus kicks a branch on the ground. I can’t blame him for getting angry.
He’s been standing up for me this whole time, and I went behind his back. He should be sitting in the warmth of the cafeteria with the others—humans, like him—instead of standing out in the freezing cold. Rasmus would be better off without me and my pathetic excuses.
But I can’t stand the thought of being alone again.
“I really wish you’d been there,” I say. “Then you could have heard it all from the beginning.”
And I wouldn’t have to see this look of disappointment on his face.
“Well, tell me now instead.” His face is resolute.
I don’t feel steady on my feet. I sway, and Rasmus takes a step closer.
I want to back away, but I can’t. Instead, I bring my hands to my sides and brace myself because I know things can only get worse when he finds out the truth.
“You’re going to hate me,” I say with a failed attempt at a smile. “You’re never going to want to talk to me again.”
Rasmus frowns. “It’s too late. I’ve pretty much burned my bridges with everyone else. I’m stuck with you now, no matter what you have to say.”
I can’t help but laugh. A somewhat unhinged laugh, admittedly, but it helps to ease the tension.
My nose has started to run in the cold, and I wipe it on my jacket sleeve, then take the opportunity to wipe my eyes as well and hope he doesn’t notice.
“You’re so weird,” I mutter.
“I know. Why else would I like you?”
“Because I’m so good at tackling people?”
“That too.”
Rasmus’s tousled blond hair is darker in the damp air. His new black jacket is unbuttoned despite the cold.
A warm feeling rises in my chest. I would much rather not say another word, now that his anger has subsided. But I also feel my courage grow.
So I just say it. Straight out.
“I’m not . . . really human.”
The words hang in the air. Saying it out loud shocks me more than I thought it would. It almost takes my breath away.
A few seconds pass, and then Rasmus just nods.
“Okay,” is all he says.
“Crazy, huh?” I’m trying to sound calm and composed, like it’s no big deal, but my voice falters.
“Why wouldn’t you be human?” Rasmus asks after a moment’s pause. “What are you, if not human?”
I fumble for something to say. Where do I start?
“Remember when I told you about that accident when I was little?” I ask tentatively.
It takes all my courage to gather the hair at the nape of my neck and lift it away to reveal my throat.
“These aren’t scars. They’re gills. Or at least, they used to be gills. That baby, the one my father found washed up on the shore, was me, but I wasn’t . . . I’m not their real daughter.”
I stare at the nearest pine tree, forcing myself to stand still instead of running away.
“The merfolk left me there. For my parents to raise as their own.”
Pale daylight filters through the trees. The icy wind penetrates my jacket and makes me shiver. The ground is covered in haphazard piles of gray-brown pine needles.
Rasmus blinks a few times.
“The merfolk?”
“Yes,” I say. “That’s what Ms. Granberg called them. The merfolk. They belong to the Ancient Ones.”
I don’t mention the elves and trolls or the others. I’ll get to them later—if he’s still willing to talk to me.
Rasmus opens his mouth as if to say something, then closes it again.
“So you can breathe underwater?” he asks eventually.
I shake my head. “Not anymore. The gills have closed over. That’s why they look like scars.”
I let my hair down to hide the lines again. I think about my greenish skin and hard nails, my white-blond hair that refuses to lie flat.
“The merfolk?” repeats Rasmus.
I want him to ask questions, keep talking, do anything except look at me with that blank, indecipherable expression.
“Apparently, they can fight this evil,” I say. “I mean, we can. We have powers that can defeat the sea serpents. Ms. Granberg told me about them, the monsters that attacked me and my dad.”
Rasmus nods slowly. “You chased them away in the water. You hurt them somehow.”
“I guess so,” I say. My heart is pounding.
“I knew there was something special about you, Tuva,” says Rasmus, and his face moves into something like a smile. Not disgust. Not horror. “But I never would have guessed that you were literally magical.”
Magical. That sounds a lot better than freakish.
“I don’t know what I am,” I say, feeling myself blush.
“Magical,” he says again, and when he looks at me it’s suddenly hard to breathe.
“I get why you didn’t want to tell me,” he says. “It’s pretty massive.”
“Yup,” I say. “It sure is.”
“How does it feel?”
“I don’t know,” I say. “I have no idea—just kind of strange. I can’t really bring myself to believe it. Although it would explain a lot.”
“Like the fairies,” says Rasmus. “Why they left in the end. You used your magical powers.”
“Oh,” I mutter, rubbing my face. “I hadn’t thought of that.”
There’s so much I don’t know.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” says Rasmus. “Ms. Granberg. When did you talk to her? And why was she in your room in the middle of the night?”
“Oh, yes, do tell,” says a high-pitched, slightly nasal voice from behind a thick pine tree.
The sound of her footsteps must have been muffled by the damp moss.
How long has she been standing there?
“Now, what are the merfolk?” asks Isabelle with a snide smirk on her face.