When did Lysi expect me? Did she still expect me at all? She could have abandoned the tower days ago. Or maybe she left it up for a reason.

She must have thought I was horrible, not showing up to meet her after what Papa did. She must have thought I didn’t care whether she was alive or dead.

I glanced desperately towards the front door. She needed to know I was sorry, and that I never wanted Papa to hurt her.

The only problem was that I was still grounded. Going anywhere would be impossible, never mind the beach.

The trouble I would be in . . .

I wandered to my room and leaned on the windowsill, hoping to spot Charlotte. Her web was gone, blown away by wind and rain.

I stared, instead, into the empty woods until the front door opened and Mama called my name.

“Help me unload these,” she said, passing me one of two bags of groceries. “Then we’re going to Elaila’s to give her this pound cake in condolence.”

I placed the milk and butter in the fridge, recalling the news coverage and wondering how much all of this cost, and if it put Mama and Papa’s bank account under stress.

Mama set the pound cake on the counter. I gazed at it with a watering mouth. “Can’t we keep it for us?”

She smiled down at me. “I’ll get a treat for us next time, all right?”

It took only a minute to unload the groceries, and then Mama made me carry the pound cake to Elaila’s house.

“Did you finish the garden?” she said as we crossed the dead-end dirt road.

“Yes.”

“After this, you can help me cook dinner, and then I won’t make you do any more chores today.”

I sighed gratefully.

Elaila opened the door wearing a hole-filled nightgown that was frayed in more places than not. Her hair was piled on top of her head in the remains of a ponytail, greasy locks falling loose on all sides.

“Hi, honey,” said Mama. “Is this a bad time?”

Elaila shook her head. Her normally youthful face was swollen and blotchy, and her red nose made her look like she was suffering from a cold.

“Come in,” she said thickly.

“We brought you a cake,” said Mama, pushing me forwards.

I handed the cake to Elaila and tried to smile. She took it and beckoned us inside without looking at me.

“That’s nice,” she said. “Should I make tea and . . . and . . . ? Here, let me get some plates.”

“No, that’s all right,” said Mama. “We won’t stay long.”

Elaila set the cake on top of a pile of unopened mail and flyers on the counter, then turned to face us with swollen eyes.

“Look at me,” she said, sounding disgusted. “I’m a widow to an unfaithful jerk.”

“Now, honey,” said Mama, stepping over a pile of coats and shoes and guiding her to the kitchen table by her shoulders.

“I haven’t slept since the Homecoming. It’s bad enough losing a husband, but . . .” She lifted a hand to her mouth, and when no more words came, she waved it dismissively.

I cleared dirty clothes off a kitchen chair for her while Mama rubbed her back. “You have every right to grieve, Elaila.”

“I’d be proud of him if I found out he went down fighting,” she said, collapsing into the chair I pushed behind her. “But by the sounds of it, he went down . . . smooching!”

“I was quite surprised,” said Mama overtop her sobs.

I stood rooted behind them, dumbfounded. Did Elaila think her husband dove willingly into the ocean with a mermaid? Did she think he betrayed their marriage that easily?

She went on, her voice growing steadily higher. “Thirteen years old, we started going out. I never thought he’d betray me.”

“He didn’t betray you, Elaila,” I said, unable to keep quiet any longer.

Mama and Elaila turned to me with wide eyes.

“I know Sam loved you. He would never betray you.”

Elaila gazed out the window with a trembling lip. “That’s a sweet thought, Meela.”

“He did love you,” I said. “Their allure is more complicated than that. Mermaids can hypnotise even the most loyal men, if they want to.”

“Hypnotise?” said Mama.

“Yes.” I stepped closer. “Men don’t stand a chance against mermaids. They fall under a trance.”

Elaila raised her eyebrows at me. “What makes you think . . .”

She and Mama made the briefest eye contact, but then Mama stood and put an arm around me. “Now, Meela, that’s enough. Elaila doesn’t need you intruding on her personal life.”

“But—”

“Thank you for inviting us inside,” she said to Elaila, who stared at us in wordless confusion. At least her tears had dried up.

Elaila saw us out the door, and Mama waited until we reached the end of the driveway before saying anything.

“What do you think you’re doing, making up stories like that?” she whispered, grabbing me by the elbow as we walked. “You’ll terrify people to death if you start talking about mermaids that way. As if you know them—as if they’re people!”

“But she needs to know—”

She jerked my elbow. “Stop it, Meela!”

I looked at her in alarm. Her eyes were wide and her breathing shallow, as if she was about to have an asthma attack.

“Sorry,” I whispered.

She let go and her expression softened. “You can’t say things about mermaids that other people don’t know. They’ll wonder where you got it from.”

“I didn’t mean . . . I’m sorry,” I said weakly. I didn’t want to disappoint Mama any more than I already had.

A voice broke through the clearing. “Hana!”

Tanuu’s mama was running towards us, Tanuu trailing shortly behind.

She stopped abruptly when she saw me and put a hand to her chest. “Oh, thank heavens, Meela.”

Tanuu stopped, too, and his expression changed from strained to shocked to relieved.

Mama turned to face them. “What is it?”

They strode closer. Sweat glistened on their faces.

“A demon,” said Tanuu’s mama between strained breaths. “A demon just snatched a child off the beach.”

Mama swayed, and my hands flew towards her as though to hold her upright.

“Gone completely?” said Mama.

Tanuu’s mama nodded, her mouth tightening.

“A friend of my pop’s seen it happen,” said Tanuu after a moment, when no one else was able to speak. “He thought the girl on the beach was Meela. Must’ve looked just like her.”

His eyes flicked over me. I felt strangely blank.

“Who was it, then?” I said.

Tanuu’s brow pinched and he shrugged.

“I’m just glad you’re all right,” said his mama, and suddenly she had her arms around my head and my face pressed into her chest. I had to turn my head so I could breathe.

When she let me go, Mama still looked like she was about to fall over.

“Let’s go inside and make you some tea,” I said, and this time it was me grabbing Mama by the elbow.

She looked down at me as if coming out of a trance and opened her mouth. No sound came out at first, but then she managed, “Yes. Yes, let’s do that.” She looked at Tanuu and his mama. “Won’t you come inside with us?”

Tanuu’s mama must have also thought Mama was going to faint, because she said, “Yes, that’d be a good idea.”

I led the way inside, dreading spending time alone with Tanuu while our mamas drank tea. Annith and I usually pretended we were deer living in the woods, or witches brewing potions inside a hollow stump, or giants and all the pinecones were tiny horses we kept as pets. Tanuu wouldn’t like those games. He would think I was a baby, or stupid, or boring.

To my horror, Mama put a hand to my cheek when I sat her down at the kitchen table and said, “Why don’t you two run off and play while us mothers have a minute to chat?”

I hoped Mama would read my expression, but she either ignored it or didn’t see it, because she forced a tight-lipped smile and patted me on the bum to push me away.

Tanuu and I walked outside in silence.

“Well, what do you want to do?” I said.

He crossed his arms and shrugged, taking in the patch of grass we called a backyard. Suddenly, he seemed a lot more timid than when we were at school.

“We could . . .” I began, but then didn’t know what to suggest, so I trailed off and turned my gaze towards the ocean.

“That a cliff?” said Tanuu. He was looking at the ocean as well.

“Not a big one.”

We walked over and I pushed a few branches of Ravendust out of the way so we could peer at the rocky beach below.

“If you lay down, you can get closer to the edge without your knees wobbling.”

We did so, and slithered up to the edge so our faces and arms were suspended in the air, far above the rocks. The waves crashed against the shoreline and the seagulls cried.

“I’m happy it wasn’t you.”

I stared at him. “What wasn’t me?”

“The girl that got . . . the mermaid. I’m happy it wasn’t you.”

“Oh,” I said. “Well—me too.”

I noticed how close together we were and my face grew hot. But I didn’t shuffle away because I thought that would be even more embarrassing.

“I wonder who it was,” I said, turning back to the sea.

He didn’t say anything. I tried to think of a girl I knew who looked just like me, but plenty of girls on the island might look like me from afar.

We would find out who it was soon enough, and I shuddered to think one of my schoolmates was gone forever.

“Heard you’re grounded,” said Tanuu after a while.

I didn’t look at him. “So?”

“Is it true?”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“From Haden, who heard it from Annith.”

I sighed. “Yeah.”

“Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but Dani deserved it. Getting socked in the face. Whatever you was arguing about. She’s not very nice.”

I gawked at him, but his earnest expression made me laugh.

“I thought all boys liked her,” I said.

He made a face. “Not me. Not any of my friends.”

We made eye contact, and I turned to the water again. I still felt his dark brown eyes on the side of my face.

“Four-leaf clover,” I said, and plucked it from the grass.

“Is not. That’s just three leaves and one of ‘em ripped.”

“No, it’s real!” I held it up to his face so he could see it more closely.

He studied it for a minute, then seemed to deem it real. “Better make a wish, then.”

I twirled it between my fingers, thinking of Lysi.

Tannu cleared his throat after a moment, and he hesitated so much before speaking that it made me look at him sharply.

“I was thinking . . . If you weren’t grounded, I was gonna see if . . .”

He stopped, like his throat had sealed up. My heart jumped, because I thought I knew what he was going to ask me.

Tanuu’s throat came unstuck abruptly, and his words flooded out. “I was gonna see if you wanna go to the movies.”

My stomach flipped over. He’d said exactly what I was afraid of.

“Oh,” I said, because that was the only word that would come out.

He seemed to be waiting for me to say more, but after a minute, he said, “You’re grounded though. So, I guess it don’t matter.”

“Right.”

“But would you go with me? If you weren’t?”

I buried my face in my arms. “I don’t want to be your girlfriend, Tanuu.”

“Why not?” His voice changed from smooth to whiny.

“Because we’re only ten!”

“So? I think you’re pretty! I like you!”

My face burned even hotter and I sat up to put distance between us.

The front door popped open behind us.

“Tanuu,” shouted his mama, “let’s go.”

Tanuu stood. He looked down at me, smiling despite the cold rejection. “Maybe you can come over one day this summer. Even if it’s not a date.”

“Maybe,” I said, averting my eyes from his snowy-white teeth. As we walked to the house, I supposed it was nice to have company after being grounded for so long—but I didn’t admit this to him.

He stopped before we reached the door. “What’d you wish for? On the clover?”

I looked down. “I can’t tell you. Wishes are supposed to be a secret.”

He scrutinised me for a moment, then seemed to realise I wasn’t going to tell him and kept walking.

“Stay away from the ocean,” he said, smiling grimly over his shoulder. “Don’t want you going missing for real.”

I nodded once.

He and his mama walked down my driveway and back onto the dirt road, leaving me to wonder why so many people thought they could tell me what to do.