Page 37 of Enchantment of Silver and Sea
It was a reality that I had heard was almost unbearably difficult for the mothers, whose visits were scheduled and supervised closely by assigned caretakers. I still remembered Irene’s wistful recollection of the day she and my parents got to bring me home.
After seeing the conditions that the Strangers lived in, that this baby lived in, I couldn’t bring myself to say any of that to Cecil or Rubi.
“It’s late,” Xiomara spoke up suddenly. Where Rubi’s voice was warm spring sunshine, hers was a cool summer storm. “What’s the plan for tomorrow?”
All eyes turned to me.
I swallowed. “According to everything I read, the Leviathan tends to hover around the coast this time of year. Which I think you all already know and were hoping for. But it has never been spotted before late afternoon or after sunset. We have a shortwindow of time if you want to lure it to shore.” I paused. “Then again, there also aren’t many accounts of people going out on the water after dark. I guess we can’t really say for certain that it’s not still out there at night.”
“So…what? We go to the beach in the afternoon and wait around for it to show up?” Xiomara’s arms were crossed in front of her.
“We don’t have to wait around.” I meant for my response to be reassuring, but Xiomara’s cheek rounded as she pressed her tongue against it. Had I said something wrong? “We can summon the Leviathan to us while it’s close to shore. We just need to chum the waters, so to speak.”
“That, we can do!” Cecil clapped his hands together. “What are we hunting?”
“We need the blood of a creature that has magic.”
Nya circled behind me and grabbed Kieran’s arm, lifting it in the air. “Hunt’s over.”
Kieran sneered at Nya, then turned to me. “We just need blood, right?”
I considered. “I mean…yeah, that should be fine. The stories I read didn’t specify that entrails had to be included, and they also didn’t say that the creature had to be dead.”
“Well, sounds like you’re up, Kieran!” Cecil crowed. “We’ll lure it in, give it a sound beating and a nice de-scaling, then be on our way. Hopefully those scales are all they’re rumored to be. I’ll spread the word, and we can head out tomorrow morning.”
At the finality in his tone, everyone moved to part ways.
“Come on.” Nya motioned for me to follow her to a house on the opposite side of the fire. “I hope all those years of living alone haven’t made you territorial, because there are ten of us that share this house.”
When I saw that Kieran was headed in the opposite direction, I gave him a small wave. “Goodnight.”
“Goodnight,” he replied sweetly, waggling his fingers at me. Apparently, there was nothing I did that he didn’t find amusing.
I sighed inwardly. Then I followed Nya across the square of dirt that had once been someone’s front yard and into the house.
CHAPTER EIGHT
“Are you okay?”
Nya’s voice carried from across the room.
I blinked away the last remnants of the dream world. The room came into focus. The cracked walls, the carpet stiff with layers of residue. Nya was pulling a shirt over her head. Through the glassless window behind her, I could see that the sun was rising, casting the small bedroom in a dim glow.
“Yeah, sorry,” I said, even though I didn’t know what exactly I was apologizing for. I didn’t remember sitting up. I didn’t remember opening my eyes. But here I was. And if I had screamed or even called out at the end of my nightmare…how humiliating.
Nya gave me a smile that had an undercurrent of sympathy to it. But didn’t put me out of my misery by telling me what she had witnessed.
Well, at least I wasn’t waking in a full panic this time. Small victories.
I stood and began making the bed. The mattress was thin and sat directly on the floor, and the blankets reeked of mildew.But it was somewhere to sleep, and Nya had insisted on letting me have the mattress to myself.
I had tried to tell her that wasn’t necessary, especially as I noticed most everyone else who lived in the house shared beds. Including Nya’s roommate and bedmate, Wren, who Nya explained had gone to sleep in another room while I was visiting, to allow me some privacy.
But Nya was adamant, and I had gotten the feeling it had less to do with ensuring my comfort, and more to do with the fact that she didn’t know me well enough to trust me fully. When she had settled into her sleeping bag across the room, I had caught her slipping a knife under her pillow.
Once the bed looked as presentable as I could make it, I dug in my bag and pulled out my outfit for the day, a forest green V-neck and jean shorts.
“I know you brought a few changes of clothes with you,” Nya said as she loaded a few things into her backpack. Although she was trying to be discreet, I noticed yet again that one of those things was the knife. “But did you bring a bathing suit?”
