The Dark Shore (Atlanteans) (35 page)

“So it sounds like you have a date tonight,” Mom said as we were cleaning up.

I realized that part of me having fun with them over dinner had been a way to avoid thinking or talking about tonight. “We’re friends,” I said. “Leech will be there.” I knew how both those things sounded.

“That doesn’t make it not a date,” Emiliano added.

“I don’t know,” I said.

“I’d say have fun,” said Mom. “Just go with it.”

Just go with it
. Someone had said that to me before, and the idea had been on my mind lately, like, when did you go with it, and when did you not? Then I remembered who said it. . . .

“I’m actually going to head out now,” I said.

Outside the air was cool, the sun mercifully folded in the misty horizon. I had an hour before I was supposed to meet Seven, and so I skirted the side of the plaza to the infirmary.

“She’s not here,” a nurse informed me. “I think she went to the well. We told her she didn’t need to go there anymore but she went anyway.”

I headed back out of town, remembering another time when I’d gone looking for Lilly. That night, she’d been mad at Evan. Tonight, if she was mad at someone, it was probably me. Part of me wanted to just leave her to do her thing, to let the distance that had formed between us cement into place. But another part of me wanted to find her and at least invite her along tonight, even though she’d probably say no. Maybe I needed to try talking to her again about the kiss, too.

The twilight world was pierced by birds, making their looping spiral sounds, asking me,
Why?
Why everything. Especially when it came to Lilly and Seven. There were chirps and shrieks in reply, but I had none.

I reached the well and peered down into the deep shadows, the dark water. A last pair of older ladies were climbing out.

And there was Lilly, alone, floating on her back, wearing her teal bathing suit, her hair fanned out around her face. I asked my two guards, trailing behind me, to wait at the top. I walked quietly down the stairs and peered around the corner. She was out beyond the center, by the waterfall and the thickest clusters of vines. Her arms waved slowly, her feet sticking up, and her face, lashes and nose, lips . . . and I thought, my God, gods, Terra, everybody listening, she’s so beautiful, and then I wondered, hadn’t I already known that?

I felt a crush of memories riding on a wave of adrenaline: dawn, back in Eden, emerging from the water after being up all night together, feet swishing in the wet grass, Lilly smushing brownie in my mouth, exploring the shipwreck—How had we gotten so far from those moments? How was I standing here twenty meters from her and yet feeling a world away? Right then, more than anything, I wanted to rewind time, to figure out how the distance had started and avoid it somehow, fix the awkward moments, figure out if it had been me, and if it had, scream at myself to stop being an idiot. There didn’t need to be distance—

“What are you doing here?” Lilly called.

But there was distance. Clear as her echoing voice.

“I came to see how you were doing,” I said.

“I thought you had big plans tonight? Leech told me you guys are all going out.”

“Yeah, we . . . You could—”

“If you want to talk to me, you’re going to have to come out here. I need to stay in for a while longer.” She didn’t sound like she cared one way or another.

I thought about leaving. I hated how this felt. But I took off my shirt and climbed down the ladder. The water took frigid bites at my limbs. I dunked under, opening my eyes in the chocolate blue and spied a few of the tiny black fish blurring by. I lifted to the surface and started making my way out toward Lilly. I could feel my stupid cramp beginning to awaken, like a prodded spider about to knot up in its hole.

“How are you?” I asked as I reached her.

“Just listening to the music,” she said, still gazing up, eyes reflecting the hazy sky.

“You keep saying that. Are you ever going to tell me what you mean?”

Her mouth paused half-open, but then she just said, “It’s nothing.”

When she didn’t add anything further, I asked, “Are your gills getting better?” I noticed her bandages were gone.

“Much better,” she said.

Another pause. I didn’t know what to say next. Lilly kept staring up, her eyes flicking slightly back and forth, almost in a rhythm.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“You have to float on your back to see. Look at the waterfall.”

“Okay.” I pushed my legs out and let the back of my head dip into the cool. Just below the rough oval entrance to the well, a small trickle of water slid in a smooth sheen over a patch of moss. Then it became a little spout falling free.

“I’m watching the drops,” said Lilly. “You have to follow one at a time, and watch what happens halfway down.”

I tried to pick out a single drop. It took a second to get the focus right and then I had them. Each would appear as a little silver speck, and travel down less like it was falling than like it was sliding on a string.

Then, there was this moment, in the middle of the descent, when it seemed like the drops slowed, and you could focus on their crystal shapes. Like time had slowed for them. And they would kind of float instead of fall, little round spheres in space, and then they would speed back up in time again, blurring; and it was impossible to tell which landed where with all the other plinks on the water’s surface. “You mean how they kinda slow down along the way?” I asked.

I heard Lilly sigh. “Yeah,” she said quietly. “That’s the very coolest part.”

I wondered why she sounded sad. But I probably knew. Because we saw the same detail. And I thought,
man
, because that was so Lilly. She would notice the time-warp drops. She would show me. We would see it together.

I picked out another drop. Followed it down. Watched it defy time and hover gracefully, before joining the infinite pool.

I turned to Lilly. “Look, I know you saw that kiss yesterday, but I—”

“Save it, O. I get it. I know how Seven is. It’s not hard to see her sinking her claws in. And I get that you guys are connected by deeper things.”

“Well, yeah,” I said. “But also, I’ve been feeling all this distance between you and me and wondering—”

“I heard you the other night.”

“What?” I said, but I knew, I knew completely and utterly what she meant the second she said it, like somewhere deep inside my guilt at having uttered that word in Lilly’s room two nights ago had been coiled, ready to strike. “You mean,” I said slowly, “when I told Seven I’d thought about you not coming along.”

“Yeah,” said Lilly. “And you know what? You’re right.”

“Wait, Lilly—”

“No, Owen, it makes sense. Besides just the basic fact that there’s not enough room in the ship for four of us, or, side note, that I can’t stand
her
, Seven’s made it pretty clear how she feels about me. But the bottom line is you can’t have someone along who’s not part of the team and you can’t keep having to save me. That’s not the role I want to play.”

“What are you saying?” I asked, hating hearing this, hating most of all that I’d already thought it.

“I’m saying that I’m not going with you,” Lilly said quietly.

“But . . .” I felt like only now that I was actually considering this, did I realize how much I didn’t want it. “You wanted to help. For your family, for the kids in Eden. That’s why you came along.”

“I’ll find my own way.”

“Lilly . . .” I felt a knot forming inside. “But I need y—”

“Stop.” Lilly righted herself, and finally looked at me directly. Her eyes were huge and dazzling as ever, the fading light reflected in rims of tears. “I’m glad you came here tonight because I wanted to say thank you. You got me here alive, across deserts and mountains, when you should have left me behind. I never thanked you for that.”

“Come on, you don’t have to—”

“
Thank
you,” said Lilly. “There. Now, look. You go have your night with your Atlanteans. And tomorrow, you’ll get ready to go and then you’ll fly off and you won’t have to worry about me, and you’ll get this done.”

I wanted to argue with her. And yet, I knew there was no arguing with her. “Of course I’m going to think about you.”

“Try not to.”

“Why are you saying this? Why are you doing this?”

“Because it’s best for the mission. For everyone, including me. I need some time to figure out my next move, anyway, and I don’t want to do that in the shadow of the Three.”

“Lilly, no . . .”

She leaned forward and kissed me softly. “In case there’s not a chance to do that later. For luck. Now, go, and I’m serious—don’t worry about me.”

I didn’t know what to say, and I hated that feeling like I’d known this was coming, in a way, ever since Gambler’s Falls, when we’d first heard about Seven, maybe even since Lilly admitted that she’d lied about seeing the siren . . .

“Okay,” I said, and I wondered again how something like we’d had could have faded.

But, no, this didn’t totally make sense. I thought about the strange way she’d been acting lately, and a suspicion formed in my mind. “Is there anything you’re not telling me?” Because there had to be something. Something that explained this.

Lilly nodded. “So much,” she said, and she kind of hitched, a smile and a cry at once. “So much, Owen. I’ll tell you later. After. When you come back, maybe.”

“
If
we come back. Lilly, I don’t want to do this without you.”

Lilly nodded. “I know, but there’s what we want and there’s how things are. So, I want you to go. This is . . . this is me letting you go. It’s what’s best. It’s what we both need.”

“Can’t I at least say good-bye to you when I leave, I—”

“That’s the part I don’t want!” Lilly’s voice tightened with frustration. “I’m saying this now so that we can be past all that.”

“But why?” I said uselessly.

“Because I don’t know if I could survive it. And because we both need to get on with what we need to do. The fate of the world does not have time for our little heartache.”

“It should,” I said. “I . . .” My heart was pounding. Looking at her, I felt my breaths dashing in and out, my arteries vibrating and everything rushing out of control. This was it, then. How could this really be it? And how was I ever going to survive, knowing I’d somehow screwed this up?

Lilly lay back in the water. “Go, please.”

“I . . .” I felt my cramp knotting tighter, almost like an alarm going off. Our time was up. “Okay, but maybe, like you said, when it’s over . . .”

“Worry about it after you save the world,” said Lilly.

I didn’t know what to do. There, beneath the gentle splashing of the drops into the well, the hollow seashell echo around the walls, the darting swallow chirps, within the cool pressure of the water, and its lightly sugared taste . . .

I felt myself sinking like a stone inside, dropping into the depths as Lilly, now a few meters away, resumed her position floating, staring upward.

I wanted to do something. I wanted to say something. But . . .

“See ya,” I said quietly, and I turned and swam away.

“See ya,” she called after me. “And, Owen . . .” I turned around, feeling my heart jump with what she might say next, hoping it would undo what had just happened. “You can use my towel.”

“Um, thanks.” I climbed up the ladder, dried off, and grabbed my shirt. I took a last look back, to the girl floating in the water, Lilly, my Lilly . . .

And I did as she wanted. I left.

At the top of the well, I looked back down. The water was completely in shadow now, but I could still see the flicker of fish beneath the surface, a perfect place, like a fantasy I’d once had, a place for Lilly and me.

Only, I had just left that place, maybe forever. And I saw now that the water was empty. Lilly had left, too. As if she’d never been.

I WALKED BACK TO THE FOUNTAIN IN A DAZE. SEVEN and Leech were waiting. Leech’s bandages had been replaced with a black eye patch, and Seven was . . . well, shimmering.

“Hey, flyboy,” she said, with that tone like she knew exactly how good she looked. She wore a sheer, skintight dress that was a kind of midnight green, or possibly blue, yet it sparkled as if the fabric was woven with some kind of diamond thread or metal. There was a strap over her right shoulder, and then the neckline swooped down low and under her left arm, leaving that shoulder bare. The dress slid down over her hips to not very far down her legs. She wore high bronze boots that reached over her knees. Under her left arm there was a series of horizontal openings, like a very orderly creature had clawed her there. These stretched around from her spine to her stomach. Her hair was up, piled in some kind of vortex on her head. Her eyes and lips were painted in dark green, too, and all of her skin seemed to be dusted with a crystal powder that gave her an ethereal glow.

“I’m not really dressed for the part,” I said, because I was just in my usual shorts, damp from swimming, and T-shirt.

“Nah,” said Seven, “that’s your look, plus you’re a god. You can wear whatever you want.”