Deep Betrayal

back. Calder likes prisms, too.” She looked up, seeing for the first time the way I stared at her.
    “Don’t be mad!” she said, looking away quickly. “I didn’t mean anything by it.”
    Calder asked, “What do you know, Sophie?” His tone was serious but nonthreatening.
    She shrugged. “I watch. People think I’m too little to notice stuff, but I know.”
    Sophie spoke only to Calder now. “You and my dad disappear. You’re gone for a long time. When you come back, your hair is wet. When I hug Dad, he’s cold. Once when you came back—you weren’t here, Lily—you found my prism and dangled it over your head. I know what you are. I know Dad is the same.”
    “That’s enough,” Calder said, and Sophie shut up, her cheeks flushing scarlet.
    I leaned forward, touching her arm. How long had she known? Why hadn’t she come to me? She must have so many questions.
    Sophie reached over the side of the boat and tickled a silver fish. “I watch you, too, Lily.”
    Okay. Now you can shut up .
    “I know what you’ve been doing with the stopwatch.”
    Calder’s expression went from sad to anxious.
    “I tried to copy you,” Sophie said, “but I couldn’t do it. Besides, it’s too cold for me. I guess I can only see the colors. She says it’s because I’m a ‘Half.’ ”
    “She? Who’s ‘she’?” I asked. “What colors?”
    Sophie swallowed hard. “I can see the prisms in people. That’s why I wanted to do the science project. When you’re happy, you look so pretty, Lily—like raspberry ice cream—but right now you don’t look so good. Are you okay?”
    I turned to Calder, but Sophie’s question did nothing to shake the rigid set of his jaw.
    Sophie was still talking. “But you don’t look as bad as Gabrielle’s big brother. It makes me sick to look at him.”
    “What have you been doing with the stopwatch?” Calder asked me.
    This was not the way I wanted to tell him. Sophie realized a little too late that he didn’t have a clue. She shot me an apologetic look before turning her attention back to the fish circling the boat.
    “I’ve been experimenting to see how long I can go without air. My best time so far is four minutes, thirty-two seconds,” I said sheepishly.
    “No tail,” he said, but it was a question, and the anxiety in his eyes needled me. Why didn’t he want that for me?
    Oh . I could read it there on his face. He was worried that if I was a mermaid, I would fall into their mental funk. Well, that was silly. Why would I need to look for energy in other lives when I was perfectly happy myself? Calder and I would still be enough for each other, wouldn’t we? Even ifhis worry was justified, we could keep each other from hunting. Couldn’t we? I was sure of it.
    “No tail.” Sophie sighed, reaching over the side of the boat and stroking a whitefish.
    Calder exhaled and, bracing himself, asked, “Anything else I should know?”
    I stared at my feet. “You and Dad aren’t the only ones I can hear in the lake.”
    Later that night, after the sun set, Sophie crept into my room and slid under the covers with me. I dropped my book to the floor and wrapped my arm around her. Her skin was cool through her thin nightgown. She tucked her head under my chin, and I could feel the moisture on her cheeks against my chest.
    I was about to fall asleep, when she spoke. “Do you think we should tell Mom the truth about Dad?”
    “I don’t think that’s a good idea.”
    Sophie pulled out of my arms. “If she didn’t cry so much, if she wasn’t so sad, it wouldn’t hurt Dad so much to look at her. Then he could come home.”
    “I get your logic, Soph, but how does knowing the truth make her cry less?”
    “Wouldn’t knowing the truth be better than thinking he’s left us?”
    “He has left us.”
    “No, he hasn’t. He’s probably swimming out in front of the house right now, probably waiting for your light to go out. I think he wants to come in. But he can’t.”
    “No one’s locked the door,” I said.
    She shook her head, and her eyes glistened in the dim light. “It gives me a tummyache to look at Mom. It’s almost as bad as looking at Jack Pettit. I bet it’s worse for Dad. I think it would be better if Mom knew the truth. I wasn’t scared when I figured it out.”
    “And why is that, Sophie?”
    She shrugged, her shoulders nudging the pillow. “I guess no one told me I was supposed to be.”
    “I’ve been pretty dumb about things,” I said,