Deep Betrayal

prehistoric bird. When his fingers met the boulder’s surface, he jerked his hand back and studied his fingers. He touched the boulder again, caressing it along its humped back. Then his shoulders slumped.
    Calder let his hands gently follow the smooth surface, investigating all sides. He pressed both hands against it and pushed. It was as big as my twin bed, so I was surprised by how easily it rolled. Calder treated it gently, respectfully, letting it rest on its side. It was so light, so delicate, I wondered why it didn’t float.
    Calder spread his arms wide, slid them under the boulder, and carried it to the surface. I followed him, quickly retracing the trail we’d taken down. When I emerged from the water, I sucked greedily at the air, taking my first breaths since leaving the boat. I didn’t even want to think about how long it had been.
    Calder dropped the dagger onto the floor of the boat androlled the boulder gently onto the swim deck. But it was no boulder. The boat barely acknowledged the extra weight.
    Calder watched my face closely as I drew my finger over its porous surface. After only a few seconds of examination, I began to see the line of an arm, the curve of a knee, the turn of a face, although the features were long since lost. It was more human than animal, but more stone than human. Looking at it now, in this fetal position, curled like a sleeping giant, I knew it was ridiculous to think she could have ever been responsible for the attacks. Even in her dark stony corpse, I knew she was a peaceful thing.
    “It’s her?” I whispered, afraid my voice would wake it.
    “Yes.”
    “Is she asleep?”
    “No,” Calder said, and there was a deep mourning in his voice that was beyond even what I was feeling. “Maighdean Mara isn’t the killer. She didn’t leave the cave to fend for herself. She left the cave to die.”
    “What killed her?” I asked.
    “We all did,” Calder said, and tears welled in his eyes. “Neglect.”
    “We need to put her back,” I said. “She belongs in the lake.”
    I rolled her off the swim deck and into Calder’s arms. He returned her to her resting place while I climbed into the boat and retrieved Dr. Coyote’s pennies. I dropped them one by one into the water and watched as they chased Maighdean Mara all the way to the bottom.

34
DEFEAT
    I t was a quiet three hours back to Bayfield. There would be another attack, another body. What did it matter if it was someone I didn’t know? Whoever it was, it would be someone else’s best friend or neighbor, sister or brother. It was only a matter of time. All I knew for sure was that we were back to where we started, and I had run out of good options. There was no one left to blame.
    My fingers rubbed nervously at the beach glass around my neck. It heated at my touch and gave me comfort. I’d wanted to ask Calder about it since our confrontationwith Maris and Pavati on Oak Island, and even more so since he told me the story of Maighdean Mara’s three daughters, but I’d been afraid he might make me give the pendant back to Maris, and it was my last connection to Dad.
    Still, now, in the silence, seemed as good a time as any for the inevitable. “What do you know about my pendant?”
    Calder glanced down at it and furrowed his brow. He looked at the water in front of us and said, “I never saw it in real life until you and I were on our way back up here, but I’ve seen it plenty of times in Maris’s memories. It was our mother’s. She was a direct descendant of Maighdean Mara’s daughter, Namid. I don’t know how you came to have it.”
    “I told you. It was a graduation present. Dad said Grandpa gave it to him, to give to me.”
    “Yes, but how is it that Tom Hancock had it?”
    I didn’t know the answer to that. “I think your mother is in the glass,” I said.
    “She’s not in the glass. I know where she is.”
    “I don’t mean literally, I mean … I think she’s with me, somehow. If I’m afraid, she calms me. She’s what drew me to the water … the day Maris attacked. I knew it was wrong, but I couldn’t help myself. She made me go in.”
    “You think my mother set up an ambush?”
    “That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying—if I had to guess—I think she’s glad we’re home. When she called me into the lake, I think she was calling me all the way home.”
    Calder pulled me in front of him, wrapping his warmarms around me as he steered the boat. The early-evening air was