Deep Betrayal

T-shirt, kissed me, and holstered the dagger through one of his belt loops. He ran into the lake and made a shallow dive. I gasped as the last ripples disappeared, terrified that I’d seen him for the last time.
    Without a second thought, I peeled off my sweatshirt and ran in after him. Jagged rocks cut my feet. Stones turned under my weight, and I wavered like a tightrope walker before diving in. Calder must have sensed me in the water. As soon as I was swimming, he closed the space between us.
    “No, Lily,” he said, his eyes like cold fire.
    “You need my help,” I said.
    He shook his head, sending water droplets flying off his chin. “I won’t let you go into the falls. It’s too dangerous.” I started to protest, but he stopped me, saying, “If I let you help with the first part, will you promise to do what I say after that?”
    “That depends.”
    “Lily, please …,” he said, his exasperation clear.
    “What do you need me to do?”
    He sighed. “Your hearing has been awfully good lately.”
    I pushed my hair off my face. “What am I supposed to listen for?”
    “I want you to shut your eyes and listen,” he yelled in my ear. “If you keep them open, your sense of sight will dominate, and you won’t be able to hear what I need you to hear.”
    “If you think I’m going to be able to hear her over this—”
    “Not Maighdean Mara. I need you to listen for the gap. Mother always talked about a gap of sound. A gasp of air, I think. I need to hit that gap to get behind the falls”
    My eyes drifted up the nearly two-hundred-foot fall. All I could hear was a constant, roaring growl. It drowned out the higher pitched spray and muted the gulls circling overhead. If Calder thought I could hear anything more, he was overestimating my senses.
    “I don’t understand,” I said.
    “Lily, close your eyes, please.”
    He pulled me against his chest and supported me so I wouldn’t have to tread water. I wrapped my arms aroundhis neck and kissed him. He hadn’t transformed. I could feel his legs against mine. The blade hung heavily against his hip. If he was going in without me, if this was, perhaps, our last kiss, I wanted to make it worth it. He must have felt the urgency, too, because he kissed me back, more fiercely than ever before.
    When he let me go, I took a deep breath and tried not to be afraid.
    “Be still, Lily. Can you hear it? I can’t.”
    “I don’t hear anything,” I said, which was a lie. I could hear the raging growl of the falls. I could hear my heart beat in my ears. I could hear his breath, raspy in his throat. I could feel someone staring at me. I searched the shoreline, then turned around to see the lake behind us. Nothing. No one.
    “Listen,” Calder begged. “Try hard.” He turned me around so he was behind me, his warm hands encircling my waist, and I was facing the falls. I wanted to hear what he thought was there, and at the same time, so desperately did not. It was all so jumbled in my mind. If I could hear a space of silence amid the roar, it would bring me one step closer to believing. But if Maighdean Mara was real, that meant facing a monster. On the other hand, if there was no gap in the watery curtain, if there was no Maighdean Mara, the monster I needed to face was more terrifying to imagine. The ancient mermaid might kill my body, but knowing my father was a murderer would kill my soul. My heart crumpled in on itself, and I nearly sobbed at the thought.
    But then I heard it.
    Like a hiccup.
    As if Copper Falls was catching its breath, before cryingaloud itself. The sound—or rather the absence of sound—was gone before my mind registered it, but I knew it as certainly as if it had lasted a full second.
    My body must have reacted, because Calder asked, “Did you hear it?” His voice was both amazed and terrified.
    I didn’t answer him, listening for it again. I counted in my head so I could pace it. One Mississippi. Two Mississippi .… I got to twelve, and this time tried to determine its exact location. But it was too quick.
    I counted to twelve again. The third time, I picked up the source, low and to the left, behind an enormous black boulder.
    I raised one shaking hand and pointed.
    “You’re sure?” he asked, and I nodded.
    “Make sure,” he said. “I’ve got one shot at this.”
    I could see what he meant. Anything that got caught in the turbulence would be battered and beaten against the razor-sharp rocks, and the gap was so