Papa wheels in closer to Slate, birch box propped open on his lap.
Slate takes one step, then another, then extends his arm slowly, as though his elbow isn’t quite cooperating. He shakes so hard that I wonder if it’s from the rush of adrenaline or from the freezing temperature of the water. His lips are purple, and the oval of skin peeking from his hood is as white as Nolwenn’s meringues, except at the bottom right where the skin is marbled and dark like his lips. A fresh bruise? Slowly, he positions his hand over the box, so close his knuckles graze the propped lid. Several seconds later, metal clangs against the leaden lining.
Papa shuts the box. For a long moment, we stare at it as though expecting the piece to leap out or start rattling, but all is still.
“Bravo,Roland.” Papa’s congratulatory words cloud in front of him, remaining suspended before dispersing.
I exhale a puff of frozen air, and then I’m circling the well toward them. Slate must see me coming from the corner of his eyes, because he turns. His shape blurs as new tears rise. I lunge toward him and hook my arms around his neck before muffling my sob against his spongy wetsuit. He stiffens, but I don’t care. I want him to feel how relieved I am that he’s alive. How proud I am that he defeated the monster and won the challenge.
Hesitantly, his arms curl around my back and press me into him, and then his chin perches on the top of my head. “The Little Mermaid, huh?”
I laugh, but since I’m midsob, it comes out sounding like a honk from a lunatic goose.
“I think I’m officially creeped out for life by sirens and wells.” His voice rumbles softly in the cold air. “Not that I was much of a fan of either before.”
His body isn’t shaking anymore, but he must be freezing. I release his neck, my fingers coming back slick with blood. I gape at them, then at him. From up close, his jaw is swollen and dotted in tiny holes trickling blood.
“I could’ve used some nail clippers down there. She had one hell of a set of claws.Yeesh.” He shudders. “That iron pick was a good call, Adrien.”
Nail clippers?She sliced the back of his neck with her nails? Did she also plant them inside his jaw?
My mind snags on something else. Something silly—the pronoun Slate just used.She . . .My heart tumbles like a tossed coin.
Something clanks against the floor—his weight belt—and I stare at it, because it’s easier than letting him see how conflicted I feel.
“Cadence?” Slate speaks my name slowly, as though confused by my mood swing.
“Turn around. I want to see whatshedid to your neck.” I hate how testy I sound.
A frown gusts over Slate’s face, but he indulges me. As he pivots, he peels his hood off, then drops it to the floor. It slaps the stone like a dead fish. The skin on the back of his neck is puckered and leaking blood.
Gaëlle whispers, “Oh,mon Dieu.”
“That’s going to need stitches, Roland,” Adrien says.
“I’ll call Sylvie.” Papa’s already wheeling himself in the direction of our house. “Let’s all get to the house.”
I stare at Slate’s neck, at his sharp Adam’s apple now.
It bobs. “Cadence? Are you okay?”
I swallow and scrub my cheeks with my numb hands. “I wasn’t in a well with a monster, so yes, I’m fine.” Even to my ears, I don’t sound fine. I sound mad.
I turn sharply and start toward Papa’s wheelchair, grabbing onto the handles and jerking him faster across the square. The wheelchair motor whirrs, and the jostling leaf clinks and clanks.
Papa tilts his head. “What’s going on with you,ma chérie?”
“Just emotional.”
“I can see that. But why?”
“Because this is all so insane.”
It’s the truth.
A piece of it.
The other piece of truth I’m not sharing with my father is that I’m jealous. Which is all types of crazy, because I don’t know Slate.
