Page 158 of Dare
Air gusted from my lungs. Jeryn had joined the clan. Of course, he didn’t feel the way he used to.
“It’s just …” I touched my neck. “Being trapped by the vines, so soon after ridding myself of that collar. I hate to think of others suffering like me when they don’t deserve it.”
“Do you trust me?” When I nodded, he gathered me to him. “Then tell me. What did you do?”
What did I do to get caught? What did I do to condemn myself and my parents? What brought me to the tower? Why had Summer painted a collar around my neck?
He’d told me about his past, but I hadn’t shared mine. I hadn’t been ready. Now I wanted nothing more than for him to know me entirely.
Safe in his arms, I told him about growing up as a drifter. How I would climb the mast of our tidefarer to stroke the clouds. How I’d once slammed an iron pail across a shark’s face because it wanted to steal my favorite sand net. How I had danced on hot coals and through sandstorms.
I described Papa, who threaded his hair into tight braids across his head, wore a looped ring in his eyebrow, and was short and plump. He was all hugs and booming laughter, with a voice as deep as a boar’s.
I described Mama, the tall and tranquil one of our family, who narrated folktales every night when I didn’t want to sleep.
They called me their flaming girl, the greatest treasure they’d discovered together. Though sometimes I burned too hotly. That’s what they used to say whenever I raged or did something without thinking.
When this happened, Mama would caress my hands and whisper for me to be calm and careful. I tried, yet I often got upset about unkind words or hurtful actions from strangers.
While passing through a canal thoroughfare, another sand drifter had once called Mama a harsh name, so I smashed the handle of the man’s oar against his boat. And in a swamp, I splashed a bucket of sludge at a swindler for cheating my parents out of coins. These things, I did before Mama and Papa could stop me.
And I did one other thing too.
Because of my turbulent whims, Mama and Papa didn’t bring me to the markets with them. Instead, one of them would always stay behind with me. But one day, we docked ashore by the castle, with a heavy trunk of wares to sell, too weighty for a person to cart alone. Even though it had built-in wheels, the chest would need both Mama and Papa to transport it. They’d had to leave me there, making me promise to stay put in the tidefarer while they set off for the lower town.
Mama had whispered, “Be soft and be good. No wandering or engaging with strangers. Remember.”
“I will,” I had vowed. “I’ll remember.”
Our tidefarer was moored out of sight, surrounded by trees. I’d been ensconced in the boat and gazing at the beach when a group of children appeared. Despite their fancy clothes, they seemed to love the shore as much as I did, because they played in the sand, throwing damp balls at each other and giggling.
Children like me, I had thought! They weren’t sand drifters, because they looked too regal for that. I guessed they were nobles, but I didn’t care, because that didn’t make us different. Not if we all loved the shore.
What could happen?
I sprinted out of the tidefarer. When I approached them beside a grove, they stopped chortling and gaped with wide eyes. I didn’t know what to do or say, and I hadn’t thought to bring my sand net to impress them.
One of the girls ran her gaze over my clothes and exclaimed that I was a sand drifter. Then a boy prompted me, asking if I had treasure on my boat. Nodding, I dashed aboard and returned with a clear seashell, as translucent as a piece of glass, a rare find that my parents had forgotten to take with them.
The boy snatched it from me, and the children gathered around to peer at the charm, but they grew uneasy when the male packed my shell into his pocket. I reached for it, but he wouldn’t give it back, and the fire in me simmered. That shell belonged to my family.
“Want it back?” the noble boy asked.
I didn’t trust the question, so I stood there, anger creeping up on me as the sun hit my back. Its bright glare made the children squint, like they couldn’t see me well. And maybe they truly couldn’t, because none of them defended or helped me.
If I wanted the shell back, I had to take it back. That’s what the noble said, right before he wadded up a clump of wet sand and lobbed it my way like a grenade.
The ball smacked my shoulder and broke apart, spraying into a million flecks. I froze in surprise, long enough that another ball launched and shattered against my neck, the impact pulling tears from my eyes. That he turned this beautiful setting into a backdrop for cruelty set the fire roaring. I cannoned after the spoiled brat, dodging the sandy balls he pitched at me. He had no right to the seashell and no right to violate the beach.
A moment later, I landed on top of him, and I was punching his noble face into the coast, blood spraying from a gash on his lip. But that wasn’t the problem. The problem was, we’d rolled across the ground—and the ground was sinking. It grabbed and sucked us down. At first, it was enchanting, so I let the bloody boy go and gawked at the spectacle.
It was a new discovery, the quicksand. I’d only ever heard of its existence.
One of the children screeched. A girl seized her skirt and bolted into the trees, with the rest of them following her.
Because I wasn’t moving, the quicksand didn’t consume me as fast as it did the boy, who screamed and thrashed. Reflexively, I snatched onto a tree root and managed to haul myself out of the mess, then I crawled to the edge and watched the boy flounder and spit curses at me. It would serve this boy right if the sand took him, so I stared until he was up to his neck and had begun to whimper.
The fear in his eyes stabbed my conscience, made me feel wrong about scaring him, even though there wasn’t any real danger. It was only sand, and I was going to pull him out anyway, because he was just a boy. A fiendish boy but also a child like me.