Waveborn

38

Cass met the others back at the docks, carrying the sheaf of printed pages folded in her hand like a shield. She felt-empty.

Maybe when you wished for something for so long and so hard, it could only be a disappointment.

The others didn't notice. They loaded the boat and pushed off, full of talk about some friends they ran into in the grocery store and who was coming to the party and whether so-and-so would manage to sneak booze past Jason's grandfather who was, apparently, chaperoning the event. They were noisy enough to make up for Cass's silence. She settled at the front of the boat where she could hug her knees to her chest and watch the water; even as her thoughts played and replayed what she'd read, her eyes searched for a familiar fin, or a head of pale red hair. She couldn't help it. It was that intermittent feedback thing: she'd been rewarded by glimpses of orcas and Selena just often enough that every time her eyes caught the water she started searching for them.

She shivered, wishing she would see Selena. Then she'd know her sister wasn't hurting anyone else.

"You cold?" Jason called. The wind of their movement ripped away his voice so that Cass only realized he'd spoken to her a beat afterward, when her brain fit the pieces of his words into a pattern and translated.

She shook her head.

They were moving quickly, jouncing and bumping across the waves. Ahead, she could just make out the ferry, on its way to Canada. A broad "V" marked the water behind it.

"Come on back." Jason gave Reis a shove and patted the spot beside him on the bench. Reis and Evie scooted forward, spinning their legs out of the way so she could pass.

She didn't really want to join them, but if she made a big deal of it everyone would want to know what was wrong and she didn't want to get into that, either; so she clambered over the groceries and squeezed past the others and settled gingerly on the seat beside Jason. She couldn't relax. Jason was the only guy in the world who had ever kissed her. She couldn't exist this close to him without every sense coming alive, without becoming hyper-aware of his breathing, of the way he sat and the tilt of his head-and he didn't even remember kissing her. It hurt. After reading articles about murder and death all evening, she didn't have space for more hurt.

"I was thinking about 'Marionettes.' You remember that song?" Jason asked. He didn't wait for her answer. "I wondered how you'd feel about trying something different between the verses, kind of using your voice as an instrument-singing without words."

He went on to demonstrate, trying to sing two parts at once until it finally made her laugh. Memories and confusion still hunched at the back of her mind, ready to pounce, but the distraction was a relief.

He flashed a grin. "Fine. Laugh at me. But try it, okay?"

"Sure." Sigh. It was hard to stay mad at Jason. Even if he was the epitome of confusion.

He started singing the fiddle line-do-do-do-do bum-pa bum-pa-and after a second Reis joined him, drumming on the metal bench seat, while Evie sang harmony. Cass joined with a hum that grew quickly to something full-throated and wordless. It was fun, singing like this, belting counter-rhythms to the waves and the engine's cycling whine. Found music. That's what this should be called, because only a bit of it came from the four of them. The rest sprang from water, metal, and wind.

"Sweet," Jason crowed. "Let's go again!"

Her voice mixed easily with theirs. She sounded so...unremarkable, so normal, that it seemed outrageous to think something about her voice had made the others believe her earlier. Selena could do the mind-bending thing, but she'd had years to practice. In Cass's case, it was more likely that the others had realized they were overreacting. They had to know she wasn't the kind of girl who would tell someone to jump off a cliff. Not if she thought they'd do it, anyway.