I stared at her. “So what, I’m like a vampire now?”
“No. Baobhan Sith are like vampires. You’re like a girl who sometimes turns into a seal, who carries the burden of a long-gone crime on her back, and who may, depending on how the world moves us, have to pay the price of what someone else’s ancestors did. But you’re also alive, and under the circumstances, that’s more than any of us had hoped for.”
I rubbed my face with one hand. “And Miranda knew.”
The sea witch paused. “What?”
“About Faerie. That Toby wasn’t human. All of this, she knew. She lied to me.” I dropped my hand and looked at her plaintively. “Why did she lie to me?”
For the first time, the sea witch looked genuinely uncomfortable. “Kid, that is not my tale to tell. I won’t even try to pretend that she had a good reason. I’ve known her for a long, long time—longer than seems possible some days—and I’ve basically never thought she had a good reason for a damn thing she did. But she raised you. It’s not my place to get in the middle of your family affairs.”
“You’re perfectly happy to get in the middle with me and Toby.”
“Ah, but Toby is my family.” She smirked a little at the expression on my face. “Her mother, Amandine, is my youngest sister, and I have accepted October as my niece. So when I intercede on her behalf, I’m doing it for family. When you ask me to intercede on ‘Miranda’s’ behalf, I’m intruding.”
There was a sardonic twist to the way she said Miranda’s name, like she was calling it into question even as she was speaking. I frowned. “She’s human, though. She said she was human.”
“Yes,” the sea witch agreed. “She’s as human as they come, and heir to all the follies of that brief, benighted race.”
“So how does she . . . ?”
“Kid, I can spend the whole night trying to explain the many, many ways I am not planning to answer your questions, or we can move on to the part where my daughter has decided that I was right to save you, and that means I need to at least try to help you out. October isn’t a Selkie. She can’t teach you what it means to be what you are now.”
I sat up a little straighter. “But you can?”
“Do I look like a Selkie to you? No. What you are is a watered-down version of a watered-down copy of my glory. I can’t teach you jack or shit. I can, however, take you to someone who can. Think of it as a field trip.” When she smiled, her teeth were sharp and terrible. “To the bottom of the ocean.”
“My mom—”
“If you mean Toby, she’s out doing her thing. Getting stabbed, bleeding on everything, taking responsibility for things she frankly has no business taking responsibility for and yet, miraculously, not dying. That’s basically the family business at this point. Not dying. She’s good at it. Good thing, too. I’m not sure we could make a replacement if someone broke her.” The sea witch stopped smiling. “If you mean the other one, she’s here. I’m keeping an eye on her. Right now, that means she’s sitting in my kitchen, pretending to drink my tea, while Poppy asks her invasive questions and she waits for the other shoe to drop. There is no other shoe. There’s just me, having a really shitty day.”
Slowly, I nodded. “Can she come with us?”
“You don’t want that.”
“Don’t tell me what I want.”
To my surprise, the sea witch smiled again, with fewer teeth this time. “Fair enough, I suppose, but kiddo, your other mother is not what I’d call exactly popular with the fae set. She did some things that aren’t mine to disclose to you. Just trust me when I tell you that she got a gold medal in fucking shit up. She’s not welcome where we’re going, at least not until I explain to them why she’s going to have to be.”
I crossed my arms. “Why should I go with you if Mom can’t come?”
“You know, I’d almost forgotten what it was like to deal with people who aren’t afraid of me,” she said, half-wistfully. “I should probably find this all spunky and refreshing, but honestly, it’s annoying. I have shit to do, and you’re interfering with my getting it done. Why should you come with me? Because if you don’t, you can’t go home to your precious father.”
My shock must have shown on my face. She nodded solemnly.
“There: you’re finally listening to me. Right now, kid, you might be able to pass for human—might—and that assumes you’re trying to fool someone who doesn’t know you. Your father knows you. He’ll see the webs between your fingers and the color of your eyes and flip his shit. Worse, maybe he’ll start putting a few things together, and realize that your mother was lying to him the whole time they were together. Not good.”
My hand flew to the side of my face, like I could somehow feel the color of my eyes in my fingertips. “What about my eyes?”
“Good focus. More and more, I can believe that you are your mother’s daughter. Your eyes aren’t important.”
“Says you.”
“Yes, says me, the sea witch, who is very old and very tired and very uninclined to keep putting up with your amateur dramatics.” She uncrossed her arms. “You have two choices, Gillian. You can come with me to meet the woman who’s going to make you less of a walking disaster, or you can sit up in this room until you’re ready to come with me.”
“That’s not two choices. That’s barely even one.”
“And yet those are your options. What a trial your life must be.” She looked at me with absolutely no sympathy. “You don’t like your mother very much. I can’t entirely blame you for that. My relationship with my own parents has always been a complicated thing. But believe me when I say that there is no question in my mind that you are absolutely October’s child. Stay here or come with me. Choose.”
I glared at her. She didn’t do me the courtesy of glaring back. It was impossible to shake the feeling that she could stand there, waiting, until the end of the world. Finally, I threw my hands up in disgust.
“Fine. I’ll come with you. Happy now?”
“No,” she said. Then she smiled, slim and satisfied. “But it’s a start.”
SEVEN
Going down the stairs was more of an ordeal than I had expected, mostly because they never seemed to end. After we had descended what felt like five or six stories, I gave the sea witch a sidelong, narrow-eyed look.
“Where are we?”
She looked back at me, expression almost innocent. “What in the world do you mean?”
“There’s no way we’re in San Francisco. I mean, apart from the weird ocean outside the window, which you could have done with some sort of fancy projector, or the funky sky, there aren’t any fairy tale towers this tall in the city. I’d know about it.”
“Kid, you have a lot to learn about what you think you know,” said the sea witch. “There’s a whole world you’ve never seen before, right next to the one you’re used to. We’re not in the human city of San Francisco—yet. We will be in a few more steps. Most of my residence exists in a skerry.”
“What’s a skerry?”
“A reef carved from the great churning ocean of reality, held fast by the will of the one who holds it. Our descendants—people like your mother—try to imitate them, making knowes and shallowings, but a true skerry can contain an entire world.” She smiled, wistfully this time. “My little brother, Michael, helped me open this one. He always had a flair for interior decorating. Which was sort of ironic, given that he was completely blind. Sometimes the universe has a sense of humor.”
I blinked. “You say things, and I’m sure they make sense in your head, but they don’t make much sense outside of it.”
“They will.” She touched my arm lightly. “Give it time.”
I didn’t want to. I wanted to find the magic button—there had to be a magic button, there always was in the stories—and make everything go back to the way it was supposed to be. I wanted to be human and go
home and not have to wonder how a tower could hide on a reef, or why Miranda had been keeping secrets from me for my entire life.
Miranda. I really didn’t know how to feel now that I knew she had been hiding something this big and this important. Big pieces of the story were missing, and until I had them, I wouldn’t be able to decide one way or the other. It was starting to give me a headache.
The stairs ended at a small landing and a plain wooden door. The sea witch pushed it open, revealing an ordinary hallway with a freshly-vacuumed carpet and a few framed pictures hanging on the walls. Everything smelled like clean sand and sea air. I breathed in deeply, feeling the knots of tension in my back and shoulders loosen.
“Feel better?”
I glanced at the sea witch, startled. She nodded understanding.
“You forgot I was here, didn’t you?”
I nodded, too rattled to speak. It seemed impossible for me to have forgotten someone as unsettling as she was, but for a moment . . .
“It’s normal, I promise. Selkies are tied to the sea. I’m glad you’re already going to Berkeley. Hope you weren’t thinking about grad school in Ohio, because that’s off the table now.” She stepped into the hallway and out of sight, clearly expecting me to follow her.
It wasn’t like I had much of a choice. I didn’t know where any of the other doors led, and I was pretty sure she’d be able to find me even if I did manage to get out of her sight. I tugged the door closed behind me. There was no click. I looked back at it and blinked.
The door was gone, replaced by a stretch of blank wall. I touched it cautiously. The plaster was smooth beneath my fingers, concealing nothing.
“How in the . . . ?”
“Magic,” called the sea witch. “Come on.”
The hall ended in a small, almost cozy living room. The orange woman from the top of the stairs was there, leaning against the wall, keeping a wary eye on—
“Mom!”
“Gilly!” Miranda began to stand, then froze when she saw the sea witch looking at her. “Am I not even allowed to hug my own daughter now?”
“I’m not stopping you,” the sea witch said. There was a note of hostility in her voice that had been absent before. “Honestly, I’d get my hugs in now if I were you. She may stop wanting them once she knows a little more. You can’t stop her from learning her own history.”
“That is not her history,” spat Miranda, glaring at the sea witch.
“It was always her history. You just can’t keep it away from her anymore.” The sea witch looked at her fingernails, unconcerned. “Gillian and I are going for a little drive, down to Half Moon Bay. You can come with us if you want.”
“You think you can make off with my daughter and I won’t—” Miranda stopped. “Wait. What did you say?”
“I said you could come with us.” The sea witch lowered her hand. “I hate you. I am never not going to hate you. But I’m not the child-snatcher here. I have never looked at a mother and thought, ‘Gosh, you don’t deserve your daughter as much as I do, I’d better do my best to alienate her from you in every way possible, so that even if you come home, you won’t be able to convince her that you care.’”
Miranda’s cheeks reddened. Squaring her shoulders, she rose, and said, “In that case, I will be accompanying you.”
“Dandy,” said the sea witch, and snapped her fingers. Miranda stiffened, mouth working soundlessly. “But I can’t have you getting into fights with people or saying something that makes them question what a human is doing at the clan-home. So here’s the deal. You won’t be able to talk about the things you see today with anyone who doesn’t belong to the water, and you won’t be able to talk at all while we’re in the Selkies’ home. In exchange, I won’t test that whole ‘can’t be killed’ thing you mentioned before.”
“What did you do?” I demanded, pushing past her to step in front of Miranda. Angry or not, she was still my mom. “Stop it!”
“I’d say I was sorry, kiddo, but well, there’s that whole ‘can’t lie’ thing,” said the sea witch. “Some secrets need to be kept, and she—” she pointed to Miranda, “—has a history of running her mouth when she shouldn’t.”
“You said I belonged to the water now,” I objected. “That means she should be able to talk in front of me. Why can’t she talk now?”
“Because I’m here,” said Poppy, raising one hand in a little wave. “Hello again, October’s daughter. I’m no Selkie, no, nor anything that comes from water. I’m all sky and sparkle, I am, and that means her silence applies to me as well. I can go, if you need me to.”
“No,” said the sea witch firmly. “This is your home, not hers. Stay here. If October calls, let her know that we’ve gone to Half Moon Bay, and we’ll be back when we’re back. If she doesn’t like that answer, remind her that I could turn her into an apple tree for a couple of decades. That should calm her down.”
“I think being an apple tree might be the opposite of calming,” said Poppy dubiously.
“Eh.” The sea witch shrugged. “What do I care? Come along, traitor and Daye-child. We have work to do.”
She walked out of the room. Miranda glared momentarily before following her. I glanced at Poppy, who smiled encouragingly and flashed me a thumbs-up. I didn’t know how to deal with that, and so I trailed after them, feeling more confused and out of place than ever.
The door at the end of the hallway was standing open; apparently, they hadn’t felt it was necessary to wait for me. The alley outside was dark, and when I stepped outside, I found myself under a dark San Francisco sky, surrounded by trash cans and fire escapes. I stopped dead, blinking in bewilderment at the familiarity of it all.
Suddenly, Miranda was at my elbow. “It feels like it should all be different now,” she said, taking hold of my arm and guiding me toward an ugly old car, illegally parked in front of a fire hydrant. “Your whole world has shifted, and still the stars shine, and still the rain falls, and no one around you understands why it shouldn’t be that way. They’ve stayed the same.”
“You can talk again,” I said.
“There’s no one here but us.” She made a sour face. “I hope to God that spell doesn’t think that talking about your grades or the like is talking about something forbidden, or your father’s going to think I’m having a neurological episode. Not my favorite dance to do.”
“You’re going to tell me everything,” I said. “Everything.”
“No, I’m not,” she said, and stroked my arm gently. “I’ll always have my secrets, and you’re going to have to live with that. But I’ll always love you, and I hope that will be enough.”
“This is all very sweet, but could you cut it the fuck out and get in the car?” The sea witch popped out from the driver’s seat and leaned against the roof, glaring. “We have a long way to go, and I don’t want to spend more time hanging out with a human than I absolutely have to.” She somehow made the word “human” sound like the direst insult the universe had ever known.
It was a neat trick. I didn’t have time to admire it, as Miranda let go of my arm and moved to open the passenger side door. The sea witch raised a hand.
“Uh-uh,” she said. “New Selkies ride up front. Human tagalongs ride in the back.”
“You can’t be serious,” said Miranda.
“I can’t lie,” said the sea witch. “Get in the damn car.”
We got in the damn car. There was nothing else to do. I thought briefly about getting in the back with Miranda, to show solidarity, but decided that taunting Firtha’s mother wasn’t worth it. She was the only person who could make sure I learned the things I needed to know in order to deal with what I was becoming, and also, she was utterly terrifying in ways I wasn’t sure I could fully articulate. No. Better to go along with her, at least for now.
I can always run and hide at Toby’s place, I thought, and was al
most dismayed to realize that the idea wasn’t entirely repulsive. She would protect me if I asked her to. Despite our long estrangement, maybe that was what she’d been doing all along.
The sea witch was a surprisingly calm and competent driver. She used her turn signals and allowed other people to merge ahead of us. When she caught me staring at her, she smirked.
“I got my first car three years after they went on sale to the general public,” she said. “Had to pay a Gremlin to strip the iron out of it and replace it with enchanted oak and ash and pine carved into the appropriate shapes, but I was on the road inside of a month. New frontiers. That’s what the humans are all about, and always have been. Give them something no one’s done before, and they’ll find a way to start doing it inside of the week. Honestly, changelings were inevitable. As soon as the humans figured out there was something new to fuck, they got right down to business.”
“That’s vile,” said Miranda.
“You’re one to talk,” said the sea witch.
“What does that mean?” I asked.
The sea witch smirked again, more broadly this time. “Oh, there’s a good question.” She glanced at the rearview mirror, meeting Miranda’s stricken gaze. “Should I tell her? Technically it doesn’t have anything to do with being a Selkie, so I could refuse without failing in my duty to prepare her. What do you think?”
“Please don’t,” whispered Miranda. I turned in my seat to stare at her. She refused to meet my eyes.
The sea witch continued implacably. “What will you give me?”
“I’ll behave.” Miranda slumped in her seat. “I won’t try to make trouble while we’re dealing with your family.”
“An excellent bargain: accepted,” said the sea witch. “Gillian, I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you about your stepmother’s past. It would be inappropriate for me to do so after I’ve accepted payment not to.”