A fable tells truths with lies.
I thought of the story of the Salt Witch, the memory of its meaning pressing at the edges of my dreams. I took in the dark waves crashing over the darker boulders that jutted from the water. My body ached to explore the cave Harris had shown me earlier, the chilled water beckoning me to swim across the dark abyss and discover the truths that lay within the cave walls.
“Follow me.”
Alder’s eyes spun with concern before I turned and sped down the small path that would take me to the seashore. I retraced the steps Harris and I had taken earlier that day until I found the boulders where we’d stopped and looked into the cave from.
Without waiting to know if he’d followed, I took advantage of the low tide and lifted myself up onto the first basalt rock. It was cool and wet to the touch, tiny tide pools with tinier creatures lit in the moonlight as I carefully edged along the base of the cliff. I moved quickly, trying to remember Harris’s warning that every step was a slippery slope—it was true, on these rocks and in my own mind. This quest for answers had turned into a dive into my own heart, and it thrilled and terrified me in equal breaths.
Just as I neared the edge of the cliff wall, I paused to perch on the base of a basalt platform and take in my surroundings. This was probably the spot the teenagers had come to party. Evidence of soot-blackened campfires ringed the center as waves crashed at the point of the platform that jutted into the sea.
“You’re a fool,” Alder barked, his fingers curling around my arm and yanking me into his body. “What, are you trying to kill usagain?”
“I need to see it.”
“See what? The origin of a crazy old ghost story?”
“I think she’s in there.”
“Who?” Alder bit out, searching my eyes for sanity, from the looks of it. He laced our fingers together tightly and then turned so we both could face the entrance of the cave. It was even bigger and more imposing than it had looked from my vantage point on the path earlier.
“Her. My great-aunt. All of them. I think their bones are in there.”
I slipped my hand into my pocket and ran my fingers over the edges of the amethyst gemstone. It felt warm to the touch, as if it hummed with an energy force all its own.
“What are you doing to me, Fable?” Alder yanked me tighter into his side as a wave crashed hard against the rocks. “And why?”
“I have to know.”
“You may never know. Especially if you kill us first.”
“This is why I’m here,” I whispered, salt mixing with the frustrated tears that trailed down my cheeks. “I need to know how she died.”
“Maybe—” Alder lifted his face to the rainy sky above us “—maybe she never died.”
“Alder…” I pulled out of his grip, the sense stronger than ever that he knew more than he let on.
“Fable, watch your step, goddammit—”
Just as he finished his curse in my name, a puddle slickened with seaweed stole my footing, and I crashed against the edge of the raw basalt platform. I caught myself before needing Alder’s assistance, denying his hand when he tried to help me out. I pushed myself off the edge, catching my foot on the lip of a formation as I braced myself on the cliff edge with my other knee.
More invisible seaweed hampered my grip, and my knee slipped again, this time causing me to slide farther toward the edge of the basalt. I made a grab for the nearest outcropping of rock, but it vibrated with tiny particles of sea life that hastened my fall down to the angry waves. Tears clung to my eyelashes as I yelped, trying in vain to search for footing before I plunged feetfirst into the chilly waters.
I screamed once before a mouthful of ocean water choked me.
I kicked my feet, flailed my arms, and swam nearer to the last place I’d seen a rock wall, before another wave battered my body and forced the rest of the sense out of my skull.
“Fable!” I heard Alder yell before I felt his heavy grip pulling me out of the tumult of the waves. I gasped, lungs screaming with the spray of the salt air as I trembled wildly in Alder’s grip.
“Why are you so determined to die on me?”
I thought of the curse as I stared up into Alder’s darkened eyes.
He could have been there to steal my soul, and I wouldn’t have cared; I felt safe in his arms. Safer than my own.
“Keep this up, and we’ll both be casualties in the books of Skye this summer.” He set me on my feet, our bodies still pressed together as we took shelter in a shallow pool of water that was protected from the growing waves by an outcropping of basalt. He wiped the wet hair off my forehead, making sure I was stable before smiling. “Harris would have mourned you the rest of his life. The one that got away.”
“Ha-ha.” I breathed, controlling my heart as I tucked myself against the rock wall at my back and Alder’s chest at my front.
