Free Submerging (Swans Landing) by Shana Norris Page A

fists and buried them in my lap.
    “You should join them,” said a voice behind me.
    I didn’t look up, but I recognized the lilting brogue. “I don’t play,” I said.
    “Liar.” Callum eased himself onto another stone near mine, stretching his legs out in front of him. “I see the way you look at them. Let’s see if I can guess what you play.” He tapped his chin as he grinned. “The bagpipes? You have enough hot air for it.”
    I shot him a glare before turning my back to him.
    “No,” he said, “I imagine you to be something with a bit more life to it. Something wee and feisty. Like...the fiddle.”
    I stiffened, but I didn’t acknowledge his guess.
    “Looks like your brother fits right in.”
    “Only because he’s good at being something he’s not,” I said.
    “Maybe he isn’t pretending. Maybe that is exactly who he is.”
    I sneered. “He can walk around on land and pretend to be human all he wants. But if they knew who he really was, they’d never accept him.”
    “You think so?” Callum asked.
    “Finfolk don’t belong in the human world,” I said. “Once we get to Hether Blether, he’ll realize that.”
    Callum’s face was half-hidden in shadows, but I could make out the grim line of his mouth. “You might want to wait until you reach Hether Blether before deciding that. Things might not be as you imagine.”
    I laughed. “They can’t possibly be any worse than Swans Landing. You don’t know what I’ve been through, what humans have put me through.”
    “And you don’t know what finfolk have put me through,” he said solemnly.
    We stared at each other for a long moment, until the band began to play again and their music drifted toward us. The rain earlier in the day had lifted to reveal slightly cloudy skies. People passed by, strolling leisurely as they enjoyed the evening. The wind was chilly, but it felt refreshing in my lungs.
    “What are you doing here?” I asked.
    Callum shrugged. “I had nothing else to do.”
    “So you thought you’d come harass me.”
    He laughed. “Don’t think so highly of yourself. I often come to listen to the music. They know a lot of old songs, ones that have been passed down through the generations.” When I didn’t say anything, he added, “Ones that aren’t entirely human in origin.”
    I understood what he meant. The musicians had played a song earlier that had almost sounded like the music of breaking waves in the ocean. The humans might not know what the song was, believing it to be an old folk song, but any finfolk knew where it had really come from.
    “Do you miss your home?” I asked.
    “Do you miss yours?”
    I thought about home, which made me think about Dylan. My chest ached as I pictured him. He had been my best friend for as long as I could remember. Everything I knew about Swans Landing was wrapped up in Dylan Waverly.
    But I didn’t want to tell Callum about Dylan. I didn’t want to try to explain what he was to me, or what he might have been if things had turned out differently.
    “I miss my grandma,” I said. “I worry about whether she’s okay.”
    “What about the rest of your family?”
    I stiffened. “I don’t want to talk about my family.”
    Callum nodded to where Josh was listening to an old man talk, his eyes wide with interest. “What about your brother?”
    “What about him?”
    “If you find Hether Blether, are you prepared for the fact that you’ll be taking him into danger?” Callum asked.
    A chill swept its way up my spine. “What is so bad about Hether Blether?”
    Callum sighed. “More than you know.”
    I remembered the way he’d looked in the rain, his pale skin wet and shining, his hair darkened by the water. I wondered again what he looked like in his finfolk form.
    He turned to me, looking into my eyes. There was something there, something I couldn’t figure out. I opened my mouth, licking my dry lips.
    “What happened to your leg?”
    Callum’s body visibly stiffened. He