Deep Betrayal

shoulders.
    I pulled at the back of Sophie’s pj’s, trying to get her to retreat, but she must have been transfixed, because she refused to move.
    “What do you want?” I asked, not wanting the answer because there was nothing I was willing to give her. “Are you here to kill us?” My body buzzed with a dark, prickly heat.
    Pavati grimaced as she sensed my mood, and she looked away without a word. Sophie made an apologetic sound.
    “Then what?” I asked, thankful that the sight of my terror repulsed her. Right now, it was my only weapon.
    “Girl talk,” said Pavati through gritted teeth. She serpentined through the water in front of our dock, back and forth, in a fluid motion.
    I took another step toward the house, pulling Sophie with me. Sophie tried to pry my fingers away.
    Pavati closed her eyes and turned away from me in disgust. Sophie groaned, too, as Pavati said, “Would you please relax, Lily Hancock? You look disgusting. Deep breaths.”
    She squinted at me again, then slammed her eyes shut like the doors to a vault. “God, I must have really scared you. I told you. I’m just here to talk. Your sister is hardly afraid.”
    Sophie whispered, “Please, Lily. Just relax. It’s okay. Pavati is my friend.”
    Pavati looked over her shoulder at me and turned around with a thin smile as my anxiety turned to a less repellant aura of confusion. “Why are you here?” I asked. “What do you want with Sophie?”
    Pavati stopped swimming and laid her arms flat on the top of the water. “Based on what I’ve known about your sister, and based on what I saw of your talents last week, you two might be exactly what Maris needs.”
    “I don’t follow. Why are you here?”
    She sighed as if I were being unbelievably obtuse. “Mermaids need family, Lily Hancock. We’ve lost fifty percent of ours. Looks like you’re our key to gaining our brother back.”
    “That’s not what we were—” Sophie said, but Pavati cut her off with a look.
    “I don’t have any influence over Calder that way. He’s pretty stub—”
    “I mean our other brother,” Pavati said quickly.
    I set my jaw and ground my teeth. If she thought I was going to turn over my father, she must have short-term memory loss.
    “Easy, girl,” said Pavati. “Let me put it this way. Yourskills as Halfs have me wondering about him. You say he isn’t hunting. I’ll take you at your word.”
    I swallowed hard, wishing I could just as easily accept that as the truth.
    Pavati continued, “But is he … normal?”
    “Define ‘normal.’ ”
    “Once Maris explained the truth to me about your father, I naturally assumed, since he never came back to the lake … all those years … that he wouldn’t be able to make the change.”
    I stared at her without speaking.
    “But Calder suggested that wasn’t the case. My next assumption was that delaying his natural development would have had some debilitating effects. Perhaps he is a little impaired?”
    “He’s fine.”
    “Is he sane?”
    “Sane enough.”
    “His brain hasn’t been addled by malice?” When I didn’t respond she started ticking things off on her fingers. “He isn’t unnaturally sadistic, melancholy, morbid, masochistic, neurotic—”
    I held up my hand and stopped her list in its tracks. “ Unnatural is an interesting word. He’s just going through some … growing pains right now.”
    She sighed knowingly. “Maris said she always assumed he’d be a freak.”
    “I don’t believe you,” I said.
    “What part?”
    “I don’t believe any of what you’re saying. You’re nothere because Maris wants to bring Dad—or Calder, for that matter—back into the family.”
    “Why would you say that?” asked Pavati, her voice a velvety seduction.
    “If that were true, you wouldn’t have been so hard for them to find. Calder wouldn’t have had to use me, my friends …”
    “You’ve got that backward,” said Pavati. “I think you mean if Calder hadn’t left the family, we would have been easy for him to find. And vice versa. And I promise—”
    “Promises! What about your promise to Jack? What about the promise you made this spring?” I asked, and Sophie drew in a quick breath behind me. “Did you really go see him two weeks ago? Jack said you did, but Calder had a hard time believing it.”
    Pavati tipped her head to the side like a seagull examining an apple fritter. “Jack saw me? He knows I came?”
    “He said you came, but then you ran