Tempest Rising (8 page)

I’d felt that darkness twice before: That long-ago night when I was ten and had come face-to-face with a creature I couldn’t hope to comprehend. And last week, when I’d fallen off my surfboard and nearly drowned.

That I was feeling it again now, when so much was on the line, made me wary—even in my sleep. The fact that Kona was somehow wrapped up in it—even in my subconscious—only made me more nervous.

I woke up at the same point in the dream every time, with my heart pounding too fast and inexplicable tears sliding down my cheeks. It was frightening as hell. Before this week started, I could count on one hand the number of times I’d cried since my mother left us, but these days it was like I had sprung a leak.

I hadn’t had any more freaky incidences—while I was still freezing all the time, my tail hadn’t come back. And nothing new had occurred. If it weren’t for the gills that refused to go away, I could almost convince myself that everything that had happened recently was just part and parcel of my recurring nightmare.

But the gills
were
there, and anticipating something else happening—something worse—was like waiting for the other shoe to drop at any time. Was there any wonder, then, that I wasn’t sleeping much? Or that I was walking around jumping at shadows?

“Hey, Tempest,” my dad called. “Mark’s here. He wants to know if you’re going out with them today.”

A week ago, Mark wouldn’t even have had to ask—I would have been waiting outside for him, board in hand. But the tension between us still hadn’t played out—neither of us had been willing to back down—and we hadn’t spent much time together the last few days. Still, he’d stopped by every morning for the last five days, even though I’d turned him away each time.

My body longed for the ocean, but for once my brain was firmly in control. And there was no way I was going back in that water and risking becoming a mermaid once and for all.

“Tempest?” my dad called again.

“Tell him I’m sick.”

The door opened. “
Are
you sick?” My dad’s face was concerned as he looked me over.

“No.”

“Oh.” There was a long pause, followed by an even longer throat clearing. “Did you two have a fight?”

“No.” Seeing as how Mark and I had avoided each other altogether for the last few days, fighting with him again hadn’t really been an option.

“Did something else happen, then?”

My eyes shot to his. “What do you mean?”

“I don’t know. You’ve been acting kind of strange lately and you look exhausted. I thought maybe …”

“Maybe what?”

“I know we haven’t talked about this. That’s my fault. But your birthday’s in a few days and your mom’s letter—”

“I don’t want to think about that stupid letter.” I climbed out of bed and smoothed the sheet and comforter back into place.

I didn’t usually make my bed, so the fact that I was doing it today probably wasn’t lost on my dad. But then, he’d never been as easy to fool as most of my friends’ parents were. It probably came from all those years hanging out on the pro-surfing circuit, partying and chasing girls.

He always told me he’d never really been into the life, but I’d seen the old surfer magazines and looked through the scrapbooks my mom had kept from before I was born. In each of them, he was always right in the thick of things—usually with my mom. The weird thing, though, was how happy he looked in the pictures. How happy they both looked.

“I know you don’t want to think about it, sweetheart. But we don’t have a choice. Things are going to change soon. You can’t hide forever.”

“Nothing’s going to change,” I answered. I already mentioned that I was the queen of denial, didn’t I?

He watched me for a minute, then crossed the room and pulled me in close for a hug. It was one of those strong, all-powerful hugs I remembered from my early childhood—the kind that smelled of salt water and Tommy cologne and made me feel incredibly safe.

Like a child, I clung to him for a second, trying to hang on to everything that I had right now. Trying to remind myself once and for all why I was going to resist the lure of the sea. Here on land I had my family and Mark and Brianne and Mickey and Logan. I had school and surfing, parties and painting. Art school and studying abroad.

What exactly did I have waiting for me out there anyway? A mother who hadn’t cared enough to stick around—or to come back and help me through a transition I so totally didn’t want to make?

Randomly, Kona’s face rose in front of my eyes—intense and beautiful and full of an ancient knowledge I couldn’t hope to understand. I hadn’t seen him since he’d all but disappeared during the thunderstorm, but then it wasn’t like I’d exactly been looking for him. I’d been avoiding the beach like I would a particularly nasty bit of flotsam.

That hadn’t kept me from thinking about him, though, even when I was awake. The night before last I’d even looked up the origin of his name on one of those baby sites. I had been right—it was Hawaiian, and it meant “island wind” or “storm.”

The name—and its meaning—seemed to fit him perfectly. Maybe too well. Like a powerful storm, he had disrupted my life from the moment I first saw him. His presence was an all-encompassing thing, until I felt almost like I was moving back and forth at his whim.

“Tempest. You can’t hide from this.”

My dad obviously didn’t know me as well as he thought he did—if my transition was the thousand-pound purple gorilla in the room, then I was more than okay with pretending bananas didn’t exist. “I won’t be mermaid, Dad.”

“How do you know that? You love the water—you have the most natural affinity for it that I’ve ever seen. You might very well have your mother’s genes—”

“If I do, then that’s all I have from her and genes aren’t enough. You know what she said. I get to choose and I will
never
choose to be like her.”

“Sweetheart.” He tucked a strand of hair behind my ear. “You see everything in black and white. You always have. But life isn’t like that.”

I stood up, made a beeline for my closet. I couldn’t stand to listen to him, didn’t want to hear any more. It wasn’t like I didn’t know the lecture by heart—every time my mom came up I got the shades-of-gray speech. If I had to listen to it today, I just might lose my mind.

How could he be so understanding? She’d run out on him and my brothers and me like we were nothing more than a temporary family. One that stood in for the real thing while she experimented with life on land. In my book that was unforgivable, and I absolutely, positively would not become like her.

I refused to ever be that selfish.

Besides, how was my dad going to manage on his own? Working together we could barely keep up with Moku and his problems. How much worse would his disorders get—how much worse would
he
get—if I disappeared from his life as suddenly and completely as my mother had?

Yanking my favorite swimsuit off a shelf, I slammed into the bathroom. “Tell Mark I’ll be out in five minutes.” Anything was better than sitting here listening to my dad fumble for answers—let the ocean do its worst. I was strong enough to take it.

It was more like ten minutes by the time I had finally collected my board and made my way to the driveway, where Mark was waiting. He looked as good as ever, his shaggy blond hair almost obscuring his dark brown eyes from view. His midnight blue wet suit was rolled down so that it rode deliciously low on his hips, and if things had been better between us I would have gone straight for a lip-lock. As it was, I settled for a nod and an escort to the water.

He didn’t say anything as we walked, just strolled along beside me as if we had all the time in the world. I didn’t speak either, more because I didn’t know how to reach out to him than because I didn’t have anything to say. The problem wasn’t that there was nothing to say, it was that there was too much and I didn’t have a clue where to begin.

“I’m glad you came.” The words were low, uncertain, and I could almost pretend I’d imagined them if not for the fact that he was staring at me with a million times more intensity than an early-morning dawn patrol.

“Me too. I’ve missed it.”

“I’ve missed you.”

My heart—and my resolve—melted. “Mark …”

“You don’t have to say it back.” But his smile was pained, the look in his eyes intense.

“I did miss you—a lot.”

“So why’d you stay away?”

“I don’t know. I’ve just been really busy.” The lie stuck in my throat.

The look he shot me told me my lying skills hadn’t improved in the last few days. “I totally understand if you’re nervous about getting out there again. That spin would have shaken up any of us, Tempe.”

“I’m not afraid of drowning.” That at least was the truth. “I just haven’t had a lot of time.”

“That never stopped you before.”

Exasperation curled through me. “I didn’t come out here to get the third degree, Mark.”

“You’ve avoided me for almost a week and now you jump down my throat when I try to talk to you? What’s that about?”

“Nothing. I just want to surf, okay?”

His jaw clenched and I thought for sure we were in for a doozy of a fight—Mark and I weren’t on-again, off-again for nothing—but he managed to swallow whatever objection he had. “Well, let’s do it then.”

I nodded, then braced myself before looking out to sea for the first time since leaving my house. Dawn was just beginning to streak through the inky darkness; its fingers of red and orange wound through the night sky like fancy ribbons. Everything inside me strained toward the water, and I yearned to paddle farther out than I’d ever been before. To just sink below the surface and get lost for all time.

That wasn’t going to happen, though. I refused to let it, refused to want it no matter how my treacherous body seemed to feel. I would take this slow, and when it was time to head back to shore, I would do so.

“Hey, there’s my girl.” Logan slung a wet arm across my shoulders and I realized how late Mark and I were. The guys had already done at least one run.

“Actually, she’s
my
girl.” Mark’s voice was teasing, but the look in his eyes was anything but.

“How’s the water?” I ignored Mark, leaning into my friend with a grin. Being around Logan was like that—no matter how grumpy, sad, or pissed off you were, when he was around it was almost impossible not to smile. Even the discomfort of his arm against my sensitive skin was worth it.

“Dude, it’s going off! Best conditions I’ve seen all week.”

“Excellent.”

“So, where you been?” He nudged me closer to the shallows.

“Busy.”

“Too busy to surf?” He clutched his chest in mock horror. “Blasphemy, I say. Blasphemy!” His Australian accent made the word sound hilarious and I started to giggle. I couldn’t help myself.

“I know,” I answered, striving for deadpan. “It was a nightmare.”

“I bet. Being landlocked is my personal idea of hell, you know.” He glanced down. “New swimsuit?”

“It’s the same one I wear almost every day.”

“Then maybe it’s you? Something looks different.”

I glanced down in a hurry, horror-stricken at the idea of yet another change creeping up on me before I could prepare for it.

“She looks fine to me.” This came from Mark, who rubbed a hand over my lower back in soothing circles as he eased me away from Logan.

Typical Mark. That was just one more reason we kept coming back to each other, despite the arguments and accusations. No matter how upset he was with me, he always had my back. And I always had his.

“It’s probably the lack of ocean water,” I joked. “Four days without it and I’m all dried out.”

“So, does that mean you’re ready to do this thing?”

“Absolutely.”

“Last one in is a Barney!” Logan started toward the ocean at a dead run.

Mark and I took off after him, and by the time I reached the water I was laughing like a crazy woman. I couldn’t help it—it just felt so good to be out there, doing what I loved, that I couldn’t believe I’d let fear keep me away for the better part of a week.

The others joined in, and as we paddled out together it was like I’d never left.

“Yo, Scooter, what happened to you out there? Too busy worrying about your looks to catch a wave?” Bach called.

“You dropped in on me—it was back off or run you over.”

“The day you can run me over, bro—”

“Shoulder hop me again and I’ll show you what I can do.”

“Oooh, I’m scared.”

“You should be. I—”

“Are you two done yet?” This from Logan.

“Almost. Why?” Bach glanced back at him.

“Because you’re about to get worked.”

“What?” His head spun forward. “Oh crap!”

The wave crashed over him, spinning him surfboard over heels, and then we were all ducking through it or going over it—waiting on the monster wave we’d been watching from way back.

“Hey, Tempest, you ready?” Mark called.