Children of the Sea 01 - Sea Witch

disappointment.
     
    He was coming later . Because it was raining . She sneered at her image in the mirror. As if a little rain would make him melt.
     
    “Don’t you like it?” Lucy asked beside her.
     
    “It” was the dress Lucy had pulled from her closet for Margred to try on.
     
    Margred smoothed the blue material over her thighs, inspecting her reflection in the glass above the bedroom dresser. She had washed the blood and sand out of her hair last night. Her face was pale, her eyes looked bruised, and the swollen purple bump on her head was bisected by a line of ugly stitches.
     
    Still, if she must wear clothing, this garment was certainly more flattering than the oversized shirt she had worn all morning.
     
    She offered the girl a smile. “It fits. The other—those jeans—made me look like a haggis.”
     
    Lucy picked up the discarded jeans from the floor and folded them.
    “That’s because I’m tall and skinny and you’re, um . . . you’re—”
     
    104
    Margred narrowed her eyes. “Short and fat?” she inquired sweetly.
     
    Lucy exhaled on a laugh. “No! God, no. It’s just that you have, you know, a figure. Curves. Anyway, you look great in that dress. A lot better than I do.”
     
    Very likely. On the hanger, the simple sleeveless dress had resembled a sack. It probably hung from Lucy’s angular shoulders the same way.
     
    Margred eyed her consideringly. “You are attractive. You look . . .
    strong.”
     
    This time, Lucy’s laughter bubbled out. “Yeah, that’s what I always wanted to hear. I ran track in college,” she volunteered.
     
    “Ah,” Margred said, as if she had the faintest idea what the girl was talking about.
     
    She turned back to the mirror. The blue fabric poured over her curves like water over rocks. Only the elastic cutting into her hip spoiled the flowing line. Reaching under the skirt, she tugged the panties down her legs.
     
    “Much better,” she pronounced.
     
    Lucy goggled. “Yes, but—”
     
    “What?”
     
    “Don’t you feel a little, um . . .”
     
    “Comfortable?”
     
    “Naked.”
     
    Margred looked in the mirror again. She didn’t see the problem. All the parts that humans kept covered were covered. “No.”
     
    “Well . . .” Lucy’s grin transformed her face. “Caleb’s going to swallow his tongue when he sees you.”
     
    Margred tossed her head and then winced. “If he ever gets here.”
     
    105
    She was not accustomed to waiting, for Caleb or any other man. She was not used to depending on others for clothes, for food, for transportation.
     
    For survival.
     
    “It’s not like you could go to the beach now anyway,” Lucy pointed out in a reasonable tone that made Margred’s hackles rise. “Not in this rain.”
     
    “I do not mind the rain.”
     
    Water was her element. She could turn the current and control the waves. She could warm the surface of the sea to create fog or cool the air to make the rain fall. She could . . . The possibility bloomed and quivered inside her like a pink sea coral.
     
    She could make it stop raining.
     
    Or not.
     
    What else had she lost, along with her pelt?
     
    Her head throbbed.
     
    “Are you all right?” Lucy asked.
     
    “I . . . yes,” she said slowly. Maybe .
     
    Tentatively, she sought the glimmer deep within her, sinking down through levels of awareness like a shell tumbling to the ocean floor, gold to blue to green to gray. Her breathing slowed. Pressure built in her chest.
    Maybe there . . .
     
    Or there, a buried gleam gone too quickly to identify. She opened her eyes to find Lucy staring at her with worried gray-green eyes.
     
    Caleb’s eyes , Margred thought. Her breath hitched. “I need to be outside.”
     
    “I don’t think so,” Lucy said. “It’s raining. And your head—”
     
    “My head is fine,” Margred said firmly.
     
    106
    Her pulse pounded behind her eyeballs. She dismissed the pain. Her head was probably going to hurt a lot worse before she was done.
     
    She descended the narrow stairs, one hand on the banister for balance.
     
    Lucy trailed behind her, complaining. “My brother told me to take care of you.”
     
    “Your brother is not here.”
     
    That was the problem. Part of the problem.
     
    One she intended to remedy.
     
    Margred had never been much of a weather shaper, any more than she was a magic handler. Why bother? As she had told Lucy, she did not mind a little rain. And messing with the water cycle was