Chapter 10: Below the Surface

I ran down the stairs in Kyros's shirt with my dress in my hand.

Stavros was on the doorstep, white to the lips.

"She got out of my sister's house in her nightdress," he said.

"The door was bolted.

I followed her wet footprints all the way to the quay."

"Where is she now?"

"In the harbor."

We ran.

Kyros ran beside me with his coat half on, barefoot on the stones.

The town was asleep, and the quay was empty.

At the end of it, where the steps went down to the water, my daughter was standing in the harbor.

The water was up to her waist, and it was glowing.

It was a soft, pale blue light.

It moved under the surface in slow rings that spread from her small body to the harbor wall.

Her eyes were shut.

She was singing.

It was not a song I knew.

It was the tongue I had heard in my chest, low and strange.

It came out of my nine-year-old daughter in perfect tune.

"Zoe!"

She did not turn.

I went down the steps and into the harbor.

The water around my legs went flat and still, as it always did.

It did not drag at me.

It parted and let me wade out to her.

I took her by both shoulders and turned her toward me.

"Zoe, wake up. Mama's here."

Her eyes stayed closed.

"It's calling me," she said, and she smiled. "It's so happy."

"Wake up."

"It said I could come home."

Behind me, Kyros went down the steps and into the water.

He lifted his bare hand, and I saw him reach for the tide-ring that was no longer on it.

Nothing answered him.

The glow went on spreading.

"Kyros," I said. "Can you stop it?"

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