Surrendering (Swans Landing) by Shana Norris

thermos. “I brought you some soup.”
    The plastic bottle felt good on my cold fingers and I cupped my hands around it as I smiled gratefully at her. “Thanks,” I said.
    Mara leaned close to me, slipping her arm through my elbow. “No problem. It sucks you got one of the late shifts.”
    There were three of us at different points along the ocean side of the island, working in eight hour shifts. I had volunteered to take an overnight shift, but Lake insisted that the adults would do that. I had bitten my tongue to keep from pointing out that my eighteenth birthday had already passed and therefore, I was technically an adult.
    “When do you think they’ll come?” Mara asked. The last bits of sunlight were fading behind the foggy clouds and we couldn’t see very far into the water. But I peered into the distance as hard as I could, my eyes watching for any shape that seemed out of the ordinary.
    “I don’t know,” I answered. “I don’t think it will be much longer. Even without them knowing the exact way, they couldn’t have gotten too far behind.”
    Mara’s grip on my arm tightened. “I keep hoping they won’t come. Maybe they’ll get lost.”
    “Or eaten by sharks?” I asked, with a smirk.
    Mara laughed. “We can only hope.”
    I shared the hot soup with her, though I noticed she didn’t drink much. Mara had had an early day shift at Pirate’s Cove. I figured Lake had arranged that to put her at the least likely place for the finfolk to appear. My shift was near the lighthouse, where we all expected the finfolk to come. The light would guide them directly to our shores, but there was no way we could turn it off without risking other boats and ships running aground.
    When Mr. Richter arrived to take over the watch for me, Mara and I walked back toward her house. The streets were still quiet and empty. It felt like mid-winter, not late summer.
    “Why is it so cold and cloudy?” I asked. I slipped my arm around Mara’s shoulders and pulled her closer to me for warmth.
    “It’s been this way since winter,” Mara said. “It’s like it never really went away.”
    I looked up at the mist swirling in the sky over our heads. “It reminds me of Hether Blether,” I said. Something tickled in the back of my mind as I spoke this thought. Like I was missing something I had overlooked. But no matter how hard I searched my thoughts, I couldn’t figure out what it was.
    “What do you think these finfolk will do when they get here?” Mara asked. “Will they make us all go back to Hether Blether with them? Will they move here?”
    I shook my head. “I’m not sure exactly what Domnall wants to do. He says he wants to save the finfolk from dying out, but if he just wants more people in Hether Blether, then we could give directions to anyone who wants to get there. His coming here is not a good sign. He has no sympathy for humans.”
    We reached Mara’s door and paused on the steps, facing each other. I leaned my forehead against hers, closing my eyes and enjoying the warmth of her body.
    “I wish everything could stay like this,” she said. “Just you and me.”
    I kissed her, wrapping my arms tight around her waist and pressing her into me. I had wanted this, all those months I was gone. I wanted her, all of her.
    But then I thought of my dad and I pulled away.
    “What’s wrong?” Mara asked.
    “Nothing,” I said. I couldn’t meet her eyes and when I tried to kiss her again, she moved out of the way.
    “Don’t tell me nothing,” Mara said. “I’m the queen of ‘nothing.’ Something’s wrong. I can see it on your face.”
    I traced a crack in the wooden railing next to me with my thumb. “Do you ever wonder what makes people attracted to each other?”
    “You mean besides the prospect of sex?” Mara grinned.
    My cheeks burned hot, but I went on.
    “I mean, it all seems so fickle, doesn’t it? How can you be in love one day and want nothing to do with each other the next?”
    Mara’s