The Mermaid's Mirror (18 page)

The longer he stayed quiet, the edgier Lena became. Finally she burst out, "How could you lie to me all these years?"

He put his hand over his eyes. "I never lied to you, Lena."

"What?!"

"I always told you we
lost
your mother. There's a difference." As Lena opened her mouth to protest, he looked up and said, "The moment she found her cloak, we lost her. Even if I'd been home, I don't know if I could have stopped her from leaving."

"Dad," said Lena. "I get it. She was under a spell. But you let me think she was dead all these years! There is
no excuse
for that."

After a long time, voice cracking, he said, "You're right. I'm sorry. I am
so sorry.
But you don't know ... you don't know how hard it was. You were four years old, and your mother was gone. You were traumatized. You even stopped talking. For months!"

"I'm not four anymore," said Lena bitterly. "I haven't been four in a long time."

When her dad put his hand over his eyes again, Lena snapped, "Stop doing that!"

He dropped his hand, which trembled. "I'm—" He stood up and paced. "Cole will be home soon. We'll have to talk later." A troubled look came over his face. "Allie. She'll be home soon, too."

Lena suddenly remembered the photo of her father, her mother, and Allie, sitting together in a restaurant. Smiling. As if they were the best of friends. "Mom knows, doesn't she?"

"Yes, she does. She was closer to Lucy than any other human besides me. She's wanted me to tell you about her for a long time. And ... Grandma Kath knows, too. She was present at your birth. We ... we weren't sure what would happen when you were born."

Lena blinked.
Oh,
she thought.
They didn't know if I would have legs or a tail.
Then a surge of fury flooded her mind.
That's really great,
she thought.
Everyone knew about my mother but me.
"Fine," she said, standing up. "If you don't have time to talk, I guess I'll read my letter." She pulled the wrinkled envelope out of her back pocket, darkly pleased to see the expression of pain that crossed her dad's face.

But he didn't try to stop her.

Carrying the comb and mirror and letter, Lena went upstairs to her room. She set the comb down on her desk, then just stood for a long moment staring at the envelope with her name on it.

It was too much. First finding her mother's death certificate saying she'd killed herself ... then finding out she wasn't dead, she was
inhuman
...it was too much. Lena's heart felt ragged and damaged. She set the letter down on her desk.

Picking up the mirror, she lay down on her bed, wrapping the sun-moon quilt around her. Stroking the satiny white moon, she gazed into the mirror again, hoping to see the mermaid.
Her mother.

But it showed only her face ... her father's blond hair and her mother's pointed chin and her own stormy eyes.

***

Time, faraway and formless, spun out while Lena lay wrapped in her quilt. The light in her room changed from the soft gray of a cloudy afternoon to the deepening shadows of evening.

I must be in shock,
she thought,
because I can't move.

She heard Allie come home, and pictured her dad breaking the news to her about Lena's discovery. The absence of normal Mom sounds from below—keys landing on the counter, closet door opening and closing, chatty conversation—s old Lena the news was being absorbed in silence.

Then Cole came home, filling the house with his high-pitched voice and happy babble. The noise was a welcome relief to Lena.

But no one came to talk to her.

After a long time, Lena mustered the energy to roll over. She pulled the quilt tighter around her and closed her eyes. But the sound of Cole's Mindbender game kept her from escaping into sleep. The murmur of her parents' voices intruded on her thoughts, and finally she sat up. She pulled out the mirror from under her pillow, but there was no magic in its reflection. She slid it back under her pillow and got out of bed, padding to the top of the stairs.

Lena paused. Part of her wanted to go back to her room ... but the larger part of her was lonely. She wanted to see Allie, and Cole. And even her dad. He'd been such a wreck earlier, she was worried about him.

Lena went down the stairs. When she walked into the family room, Cole jumped up to greet her, as he did every time they were separated for more than a couple of hours.

"Hi!" he said, throwing his arms around her.

Lena bent over his white-blond head, planting a kiss there. "Hi, bud." She mussed his hair and released him.

"Want to play with me?"

"Sure." Lena settled down on the floor next to him and picked up a controller. She glanced at her parents. They were both watching her, as if expecting some dramatic scene.

For some reason this irritated her, and she turned her attention to creating a female warrior.

"Purple hair?" Cole laughed.

"Yes. My player has purple hair, and her superpower is—" Lena scrolled through the options and clicked one. "Swimming."

Allie approached and laid a hand on Lena's hair. "Are you okay?" she asked softly.

Lena fought back the urge to answer,
I've just discovered that my mother, whom I thought was dead, is alive, and a mermaid. Sure I'm okay.
But she saw the worry in Allie's face, and said simply, "Yeah."

For dinner, Lena's dad made pancakes and eggs. Cole was overjoyed.

"Breakfast for dinner!" he crowed. "Can I have hot chocolate?"

"Sure," said Allie. Her fingers strayed to her earring, twisting it as she gazed into space.

Lena knew that Allie really must not be herself, after giving in to such a request without a second thought.

They ate their breakfast for dinner, and Cole regaled them with tales of past battles on his game. After dinner, Allie and Cole went upstairs, leaving Lena and her father alone in the kitchen. Lena began to load dishes into the dishwasher.

"Leen?"

She looked over at him.

"I'm ready to talk now."

Lena kept loading the dishwasher.
What if
I
don't feel like talking now?
she thought.
What if I want to pretend none of this is happening ... just for a little while? What if I just want to chat with my friends or watch TV or something?

But that life was over.

She still had friends and school and movies and chat, but she could not pretend she was a normal teen. A strange grief filled her over the loss of her old life.

"Okay," she said.

"Did you read the letter?" asked her dad.

She shook her head.

He studied her for a moment, then said, "I think it's time."

Lena didn't answer at first, then she said, "Can I ... read it in front of you?" She found that she didn't want to be alone with her mother's words.

"Of course. I'll wait here."

Lena retrieved the letter from her room and came back downstairs. She and her dad sat down at the kitchen table again, and Lena opened the envelope.

My darling Selena,

You are four weeks old today, and already I cannot imagine life without you.

I thought I knew what love meant before you came ... now I know that mother-love is more powerful than any other kind. The idea of being separated from you is unthinkable.

But I take up this pen today, knowing that if you are reading this, it means that we have been parted. The unthinkable has happened.

The only force that could take me away from you is as ancient as mother-love: magic. On this day in the future when you read these words, know that I would never leave you. I may have been taken from you by magic ... but please know, my precious maid, I would never go willingly.

Your loving mother

"Would never
leave
me? She's swimming around in the ocean and I'm sitting here in the house with you and Allie and Cole. She left me." Lena was surprised to feel a lump in her throat again.

"No," insisted her dad. "I
told
you ... the moment that cloak was on her body, she had no choice." He raised his voice, old loyalty flaring to life. "In fact, Lena, I'd bet my life that your mother made sure you were safe first, then walked down the street with a broken heart, not even knowing why she was crying. So let's show her some mercy, all right?"

Lena swallowed. "Okay. I'm sorry." She hesitated, then asked, "Dad? Where was the cloak?"

He stood up. Lena thought he was going to refuse to answer, but instead he headed for the sliding-glass door. "Come with me," he said, taking a flashlight from the desk drawer.

She followed him outside to the garden. It was dark. As in a fairy tale, the moon swelled above them, full and faintly yellow. Lena thought of her mother, hiding in secrecy, waiting for the full moon to transform her beautiful tail into legs.

They could hear the sound of the surf in the distance. Lena's dad turned on the flashlight, and they picked their way carefully through the obstacle course of Cole's toys in the backyard. He stopped and shone the light along the length of the fence. It was adorned with stone garden sculptures: a long-bearded god of wind, his cheeks puffed out, a smiling sun, a sleeping moon, a spouting whale, a dolphin, and a mermaid.

"Don't tell me you buried it under the sculpture of the mermaid!" exclaimed Lena.

He grinned. "No. I may not be a smart man, but even
I
am not that obvious."

She watched as he lifted the dolphin off the fence and turned it over. On the back of the dolphin sculpture, there was a hollowed-out space. It was empty.

"This is where I kept the key," he said. "I don't know how she found it." He shook his head, as if he still had trouble believing it. "I never saw her act like she was searching for the cloak, but I don't know. Maybe mermaids can't help searching for their cloaks, whether they want to or not."

Lena's knees felt weak, and she sat down on Cole's plastic picnic table. It seemed almost inevitable that events would lead her mother back to the sea. "Where was it?"

"The cloak was in the chest. I kept it hidden in the crawl space above the garage."

"What crawl space?"

He gave a half-smile. "See? No one even knows it's there. The chest was in a box that was taped shut, surrounded by other boxes, and covered with clothes. It just looked like a big pile of junk. I don't know how she found it."

Lena pictured her mother searching for the cloak—maybe not even
aware
she was doing it—then she thought of her own search to find the lock for the key. One quest had torn her mother from Lena, the other had given her back.

"Now it's my turn to ask some questions," said her dad. "You said Lucy gave you the key." He swallowed. "So you've seen her. You were...
with
her? At Magic's?"

"I was at Magic's," said Lena carefully. She didn't want to tell her dad she'd been close to drowning. "But I wasn't
with
her. I didn't know she was there at first. I was in the water, and she, um, put the key into my hand."

Her dad stared.

"I didn't know she was my mother. But I saw her once before. It was on my birthday!" she said. "And I kept looking for her after that."

"Lena," said her dad. "You
surfed
at Magic's?"

"I thought she might be there. And I was right."

Her dad shook his head, muttering, "I knew it." He pinned his gaze on her. "Now do you understand? Now do you see why I didn't want you to surf? Once you learned, how could I keep you from Magic's?"

"You couldn't," said Lena.

They sat silently for a moment.

Finally her dad said with a sigh, "I've been such an idiot. Trying to keep a half-mermaid from surfing!" Then he smiled wistfully. "How do you like it?"

Lena's face glowed. "Oh, Dad, I love it so much. When I'm out there, it's like I'm—" She sighed. "I don't think I can even describe it. I feel like I'm in church ... like I'm close to God, or something. Like the earth is so huge, but while I'm in the ocean, it feels like I'm in all the oceans on the planet, or something. How can you stand not to surf?"

He looked away, turning his eyes to the moon. "I can stand it."

"Dad," Lena said, struck by a new question. "You met at Magic's. Wouldn't she have come back to Magic's eventually? Did you look for her?"
I would have haunted Magic's every day for the rest of my life until I found her,
she thought.

Her father was silent.

"Dad," she persisted.

He made an impatient gesture with his hands. "Lena, stop."

"No," she said, raising her voice. "This is
my story.
If you won't tell me, who will?" An idea struck her. "Except Mom. She knows everything, doesn't she? I can ask her."

Her dad rounded on her. "Leave Allie alone. This is hard enough on her."

"She's my mother!" shouted Lena, and for a second, she wasn't sure which mother she meant. They were both, truly, her mothers. One gave her life, the other gave her everything else.

Her dad paced back and forth. "Please, Lena. Please trust me."

"Trust you?" She made a sound of disbelief. "Are you kidding?" She moved toward the door. "Fine. Mom will tell me."

Her dad grabbed her arm, then let go. "Wait." He stared inside the house, as if looking for answers. After a moment, without turning his gaze to Lena, he said quietly, "I was safe in the water as long as I was with her."

"What?"

"I was safe ... in the water..." He faced Lena. "...as long as I was with Lucy."

Lena looked at him in confusion.

"Your mother's parents—your
grandparents
—had found out about her plan to live on land, and they were ... not happy. That day we were headed to Lucy's village, before we ever got there, a group of mer-folk accosted us." He paused, remembering. "It was chaos. All of these voices in my head ... yelling ... threatening..."

"In your head?"

"That's how they communicate. In thoughts."

"Oh." Lena almost asked,
In English?
But she didn't want to interrupt again.