Page 82 of Between Salt and Serenades
“Are our incoming guests not reason enough?” I asked with a lifted brow. Tousling the velvety sheets until they were smooth, I erased any history of our presence. I pulled two dresses from the wooden armoire, handing one to Breena and taking the other into our bathing chamber.
Breena called out from the other room, “They are! But can’t a girl have a sleepy morning in bed with her mate?”
“She can, but the sun will be setting in a few hours,” I chuckled. “We can hardly call it morning.”
“Are you two almost ready?” Zellia called out again, pounding on the door this time. I popped my head out of the sun-lit bathing chamber to see Breena lacing up her bodice. One loop, two loops, and finished.
“Yes! Come in!” I called, stepping back out into the bedchamber. I smoothed my hands over the pink dress I wore and beckoned my sister in. She used the tip of her toe to openthe door, but I could barely see her face. She hid behind a small wooden box with rusted hinges.
“You did not!” I said, rushing over to her to grab my box of sea glass. I set it on the ground, my dress pooling around me as I sat in front of it. Breena and Zellia’s gazes were trained on me as I ran my fingers along the wood grain. “I can’t believe you brought this back with you.”
“You’ve had more than enough time away from that little box and everything within it,” Zellia said, joining me on the floor. “All these pieces of glass, of Dad, they’re yours. You should be the one to keep them.”
I threw my arms around Zellia, pulling her into my chest, my heart so full of love that I could barely stand it.
“Okay, okay,” she laughed, shaking me off. “You’re welcome!”
Zellia glanced over at Breena as she pointed her thumb at me. “You know you’re responsible for this, right?”
“Oh, I take full responsibility for your sister’s mushy heart. It’s my greatest achievement,” Breena said with her hand over her chest. She peered over to me with a puffed-out bottom lip, and I simply shook my head at her.
“I’m ignoring both of you!” I said, hiding my smile. Zellia just laughed and played with the shell around her neck, back in its rightful place thanks to our grandfather. I was pleased to see her wearing it. While the jewelry used to represent everything I wasn’t and couldn’t be, now all I saw in it was our familial love, and how could I ever take that for granted again?
“Hello?” an older gentleman’s voice called out. “Where are my ladies of honor?”
The three of us rushed down the wooden steps softened by carpet in a warm moss green. We entered the front hall where, one at a time, we all greeted our grandfather. Breena and I welcomed him, and he set down a few platters of food on ourkitchen table. I breathed in the delicious, savory scents, and my mouth watered as he uncovered his dishes.
The man knows how to cook,I thought to myself as I snuck a freshly baked roll drizzled with oil and flaked sea salt. The salt made my tongue tingle as I licked my lips free of it.
My grandfather ushered Zellia and I to sit before the rest of our guests arrived. He held our hands as he said, “Listen, I don’t know how to tell you this, but we need to redo both of your pendants.”
“Redo them?” I asked, my palm flattening over the glass droplet resting on my chest. “Why?”
“Well…” Our grandfather released our hands to dig around in his sweater pocket. “They’re in need of an upgrade.”
When he held out his fist and uncurled his aged fingers, one by one, he revealed a porous red stone in his hand. My mouth fell open as I stared down at the object sitting in the middle of his palm. “Is that…”
“What we think it is?” Zellia finished for me.
A spark of hope ignited in my chest as he nodded his head. “It sure is. Took me a bit to find that elusive little rock.”
Bloodstone.
“This must have cost you a fortune!” Plucking the stone from his hand, Zellia and Breena leaned in closer to me, staring at the unassuming rock. I traced its ridges and lines with my eyes in quiet astonishment, knowing what I held would change our lives forever.
Our grandfather chuckled and said, “What good is coin if you have no one special to spend it on?”
“I’ll cancel this whole gathering and go to your shop if it means putting bloodstone inside this pendant. I’d redo this glass piece a million times!” I held up my droplet-shaped pendant between my thumb and pointer finger. My grandfather simply laughed and told us not to cancel our plans. He said there wouldbe time tomorrow, that tonight was for celebrating. I had no doubt I could get in the celebratory mood with a bloodstone in my hand.
I fiddled with the stone while staring through the cottage windows to the icy sea crashing below. While I’d visited home a few times in the past few months, sirens like me, like Zellia, weren't meant to make the trip from land to sea so frequently. With this bloodstone, I could jump into the sea right now, swim with my selkie in our natural forms with nothing but peace. I could visit Maisie and the other hybrids in the caves and swim in their pools. It was only months ago I felt as though I had the entire world at my fingertips, but that feeling was nothing compared to the freedom I had now.
Breena stood behind me, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. She leaned in close to my ear and whispered, “Dearest siren, I believe you and I have a date with the sea.”
“I come bearing gifts,” Rory said as he entered his father’s cottage with his mother in tow. Both he and Evina glanced around the front hall, as if it had been the first time they’d graced it, but we all knew otherwise. Breena and I managed to restore all that made this cottage so special, every cozy nook and stained-glass window. We may have had to strip some of the crumbling stone, replace rotten wooden beams and the flooring, but we hoped Rory still recognized its familiar character.
A proud smile crossed Rory’s face as his gaze crept across each stone, each painting, every lit candle. My chest swelled, feeling as though we did his father’s home justice and, in doing so, healed just a little piece of our human friend’s heart. Isupposed both of our fathers now lived within these warm, loved walls.
He took me and Breena in for a bear hug, each of us tucked under his arms, trays still in each of his hands. He whispered his gratitude into our hair, and I wept like a baby into his shoulder.
