Free Submerging (Swans Landing) by Shana Norris Page B

turned toward the musicians and didn’t answer me.
    I could take a hint, especially one as big as what he sent me way. “Then tell me why you’re banished from Hether Blether,” I said.
    Callum shook his head. “It’s a long story.”
    “I have time.” Thin wisps of clouds hung in the purple sky. Song night was approaching quickly. Already, I could feel the pull of the water calling out to me. “Since you’re not helping me get where I need to be.”
    “It is not a nice story,” he said. “It will make you think badly of finfolk, maybe even of me as well.”
    I suppressed a shiver as the wind blew over me, lifting the ends of my hair. “Why? Did you kill someone?”
    I had meant it as a joke, expecting him to laugh and roll his eyes. But his face only tightened even further into a grimace.
    “Why do you want to find the finfolk so badly?” he asked.
    I turned away from him, letting out a sigh. “We told you,” I said. “We need to find someone.”
    “Is this someone really that important?” he asked.
    My eyes stung suddenly with tears and I let the wind whip them away before they could trickle down my cheeks. “Yes, she is.”
    “There is a good chance she never made it to Hether Blether.”
    I gritted my teeth until my jaw ached. “But there’s also a chance that she did. I have to believe that until I find out otherwise.”
    “What if she’s not? What if you came all this way and you somehow get to Hether Blether, and then this person you’re looking for is not there?”
    It was the exact question I didn’t like to think about. I had to trust that my mother had come this way. Maybe she had even once sat in the same spot where I now sat, looking out at the bay and trying to find the way home. I could see her clearly in my head, the young woman that appeared whenever I sang. She had to still exist somewhere, waiting for me to find her.
    There wasn’t a possibility that she wouldn’t be there at the end of this journey. It was the only thing that kept me going.
    “If she’s not there,” I said in a choked voice, “then I’ll keep searching. For as long as it takes, wherever I have to go. I’m not going home until I find her, so save your breath. You won’t convince me not to keep looking.” I shuffled my feet along the grass and rocks. “Haven’t you ever had someone that was so important to you, you’d do anything for them?”
    Callum turned his face away from me. “Who is she?” he asked, his voice so low I almost couldn’t hear him over the sound of the music.
    I didn’t want to trust him. He hadn’t given me any reason to let him have this secret. Except he was finfolk, probably the only pure finfolk I’d ever met, and he hadn’t told anyone else about Josh and me.
    “She’s my mother,” I said at last. “She left when I was a few months old, after my daddy died.”
    Callum shifted closer, his arm brushing mine. “How did your father die?”
    Josh played on, oblivious to our conversation. I studied his features, looking again for a face there that I had never seen.
    “He drowned.”
    I could feel Callum’s surprise even though I didn’t look at him. “Finfolk can’t drown,” he said.
    “My daddy wasn’t finfolk. Not fully. His grandma had been finfolk, so he had some of the heritage, but he couldn’t change form. He was unlucky enough to fall in love with my mama and he died trying to be with her.”
    “So you’re a half-breed,” he said.
    My lip curled at the words, the insult some people back in Swans Landing liked to spit at me.
    “Don’t call me that,” I growled through clenched teeth.
    “I’m sorry,” Callum said. “But you’re not fully finfolk. In Hether Blether, that fact matters. If you make it there, you can’t let anyone know you’re part human. Don’t tell them Josh’s last name, don’t mention your father drowning.”
    His expression was grim. His mouth was set in a tight, straight line and his eyes had turned a darker