I glared at him, my throat raw with disbelief. “No. I do notlurepeople. I cannot make peopledo things.”
“Okay,” he whispered, looking out the window. “Okay.”
“Happy to put your fears to rest,” I spat.
He nodded to himself, as though he’d anticipated my venom and already accepted it as a necessary consequence for the question he’d been forced to ask. I wondered for how long it had plagued him. If he’d asked my mother the same thing.
Rolling onto his feet, knees popping, he stopped, waiting for me to meet his eyes.
I did so begrudgingly, glaring at him.
“I’m sorry, little leaf,” he said softly. His hand twitched, and I thought he might muss my hair, like he used to do when I was a child. But he didn’t. “I don’t want you rowing out to that island at night again.”
And then he left.
I stared down at the teacup on the floor, unsure which part of our conversation his apology had been for. Sucking in my bottom lip with a quivering breath, I lashed at the cup, sending it flying across the floor. It shattered on the opposite wall. Warm liquid pooled over the floor mat, its bitter, earthen scent bleeding into the hau bark.
The pit in my stomach burned, hot and hollow.
The Naiads killed the sailors.
14
Amid my banana trees, I pressed into the garden roots, digging with my bare hands while I thought about the Naiads. It’s an odd thing, the feeling of betrayal. Wave after wave of emotion hit me, each one vying for command. I was tired. Shocked. Devastated.
Angry.
Mihaunain the stars, I was angry. At the Naiads. At myself. At the sailors. At the entire moon-forsaken island.
The burning chuck of rot in my stomach hadn’t left, and two days later it was still as putrid as it had been the morning I’d woken and realized what the Naiads had done.
I’d turn twenty-three this dry season, and I knew I had a lot to learn about life. But the older I became, the more convinced I was that hatred was the only thing that kept me sane. Anger was the only thing that loved me. Rage was the only thing that offered me peace.
Of one thing I was certain. I’d never set foot on Neris Island again.
I stabbed the earth with my fingers, shoveling it aside as heat pricked the back of my eyes, my trowel next to my leg, purposefully neglected. I craved the dirt under my nails. Soft, warm, grounding. Sweet smelling. Familiar and predictable.
Cool wind grazed the back of my neck, tugging at the baby hairs that grew at my nape. The feeling of being watched interrupted my thoughts.
I looked up to find my uncle Naheso standing under the wide fans of my breadfruit tree. He leaned against the trunk, ankles crossed as he scrutinized me. His hand wrapped over his hip, and my eyes hovered over the tendons in his wrist, twitching as he flexed his fingers into his side.
“You’re very lucky for someone who’s not a witch,” he said. Angling his feet around the ample plant, he stepped into the row I was currently seeding, draped in crops so thick no one could see us.
I leaned on one hand, eyes flitting up at him. Silhouetted against the bright sky, he crossed the breadfruit, walking toward me with a slowness that made me lean back as I watched him.
My fingers curled in the warm soil. My heart fluttered in my chest. The hairs on my arms lifted. Everything around us grew perfectly, terribly quiet. I coaxed a sudden urge for space between his body and mine and inched slowly away, until the hard trunk of a banana tree pressed into my back, stopping me dead.
“I’m not a witch,” I breathed.
“I know,” he said, coming to stand directly over me. “Neither was your mother.”
We stared at each other, neither moving. A line went taut between us, tying my gaze to his, and we froze inches from one another, hidden among the jeweled greens of my garden. I swallowed, my throat dry. His breath hit my ears, shallow and fast.
“The hole in the canoe,” I murmured, though why I chose those words, I wasn’t sure. Was it a question or a statement? Or did I just want to say them out loud, if only to see his reaction?
I cursed myself for forgetting about the stupid hole. The Naiads had taken over my thoughts since it’d sank into the sea, and I’d let them, in all my shock and rage. I’d let them distract me from what should have been at the forefront of my mind.
Naheso watched me without an ounce of surprise.
