“You don’t hate Elizabeth?” Just making sure I get all the facts in order.
“What do I care for her?”
Hello, isn’t it obvious? “She and Dad—Tiernan . . .” Do I really need to elaborate?
“Tiernan? I promise you that man was not worth a single tear, let alone years’ worth.”
Okay, um. Now I’m lost. “I thought you—”
“Love is a fool’s dream. I dared to believe in that dream once.” Her eyes hold a fierceness behind them. “I was never so foolish again. I used men, yes. I used your father to get you. I wanted a daughter and oh, I got one.” She looks me up and down. “I thought perhaps you would become my shining star. That you would grow to be the remedy I required.”
My hands find their comfort zone on my hips. “Oh yeah, and what remedy is that?”
“You will see.” Then she vanishes.
As quickly as she arrived, my mother is gone.
“I can’t get over how bright it is.” Tide holds tight to my right hand. “I mean blinding, right?”
I squeeze his hand and laugh. Weird. Still can’t hear my own voice between Reflections, but theirs come through loud and clear. Is it the same for them? Are we even speaking or merely thinking to each other? Whatever the case, my heart wants to burst because Tide and Khloe and Stormy are just fine. I have no idea where my mother went or what she’s up to. But we are all going to be okay.
“Where do you think the light comes from?” Khloe holds tight to my other hand. She’s linked to Stormy on her left. My sister still hasn’t shared what freaked her out when I Masked into the Physic Dennielle. I hate to push her, but I have to know.
“Hey, Khlo?”
“Yeah?”
I squeeze her hand three times. She squeezes back the same amount. I’m not sure when we started doing the silent “I love you” squeezes. She’s never had an issue expressing herself, but words are difficult for me when they’re real. Snark-free, as the case may be. She’s understood this since the moment we met.
“You want to know why I had a meltdown?” She reads my mind as always.
Another squeeze to her hand. “Basically, kind of, totally, yeah.” I release a soundless laugh, though I know she hears me.
She huffs. “You can’t just turn into someone’s mom like that and expect them not to be a little weirded out.”
Shock radiates through me and I stumble forward, out of the Fairy Fountain light and into the day. I’m drenched from head to toe, on my hands and knees in soft sand.
Khloe joins me rather than helping me rise. She looks down at the tan grains, draws circles in them with her fingers. “When my mom died it was like, not real, you know? I never got to tell her good-bye. She was just gone, and my dad took me, and that was . . . it.”
Oh, ouch. Crud, don’t cry. Don’t do it. “Khlo . . . I don’t know what to say.”
She bites her lower lip, so much like our other sister. “Can I ask a favor?”
I place a hand on her shoulder. Tug on one of her still-tight braids. “Anything.”
“Could you . . . ?” She peers at me beneath her long, dark lashes, which, unlike mine, will never need mascara. “I just want a hug. Even if it’s not really her. Even if I’m just pretending.”
The other two have joined us. They stand back and to the side of the waterfall we passed through. The stones around the fall’s pool bear the same blue writing, which I now see are years’ worth of laments from my mother herself. The Fountains were her world, the elements her pages.
Tide and Stormy look on. Tide gives a little nod of encouragement as if to say, “Go ahead. It’s okay.” Stormy seems to smile in agreement.
I take a deep breath. Close my eyes. And find my way back to Dennielle’s form. My hands the Physic’s once more, I draw her daughter in.
Khloe inhales and snuggles against my shoulder. “Mama,” she whispers.
And I can’t take it. I begin to sob.
She joins me and our forms quake as one. When she lifts her head, her eyes glisten. I wipe her tears with her mother’s fingertips. Then I kiss her forehead in the way I imagine a mother should.
“Where does the light come from?” she asks again.
“Where else?” Dennielle says. “The Verity.” The answer comes easily, as if I’ve known it all along. What else could allow travel between any and every Reflection?
Khloe smiles at last, her sadness melting into joy. She looks more childlike than ever, a five-year-old waiting for her mother’s story. “I’m all right now. You can go.” One more hug and then she’s up, the original Khloe once more.
I rise as well, becoming myself again as I do. Dusting the sand off my clothes, I take in our new surroundings. We need to find El. I have no idea if this is the right Reflection, but I feel it is. I trust the Verity brought us to the Sixth where Ky and the others wait. The Fairy Queen has been after El all along, waiting for what she would become. Still don’t know what she meant by that. But I have a sinking feeling we’re going to find out too soon.
Fairy Fountain Falls, as I’ve dubbed it, hides in a hidden cove off the shore of a private beach. I’ve never visited the Sixth, but this certainly isn’t anywhere in the other Reflections I’ve visited. The bay around us is shaped like a crescent moon. The water greener than any ocean I’ve seen. Definitely not the Fourth Reflection ocean. The ground is different as well. In the Fourth the sand is glittering with mirrorglass pebbles. Here the sand is barren, not a shell or shard of seaglass to be found. No wonder it’s so soft.
“Where to?” Tide comes up beside me and shakes the water out of his hair like a dog. He leans in, speaks for my ears alone. “I’m proud of you, by the way. That was something, what you did for Khloe. Really something.”
That’s it. I’m not going one step farther until I take care of this. I turn toward him, my face closer to his than it’s ever been. Ever.
Tide’s scared, I’m-innocent expression makes him all the more adorable. “I didn’t do it.” He puts his hands up.
“No. But I’m going to.” I grab him. And kiss him. It’s fast and not at all the romantic first kiss I would have liked. But it’s there. Here. And now I can’t deny how I feel. Not even if I tried.
And I won’t. Not anymore. Never again.
Stormy whistles.
“Whoa.” Tide slicks back his black hair only for it to fall in his eyes again. “That was—”
Khloe giggles. “It’s about time.”
Tide looks at her, and they exchange some kind of glance that says I’m out of the loop. Stormy slings an arm around my sister, and they share a look too. Am I really the odd girl out?
“What?” I place my hands on my hips.
“Oh, nothing,” Tide says. “It’s just that—”
“Just that what?” Spit it out, someone, please.
“That was horrible.” He strokes his chin. A hair couldn’t grow there if he tried. “I mean, really, truly awful.”