Burned

2 EMILY’S LITTLE MERMAID

The road leading up to the Newark shipyards was a nondescript two-lane highway with generic-looking office complexes, gas stations, and seedy bars. But when Emily Fields and her father took a sharp left and pulled onto the waterfront, the sky opened up, the scent of salt hung heavy in the air, and the enormous Celebrity cruise ship rose before her like a giant, many-tiered wedding cake.

“Whoa,” Emily breathed. The ship stretched several city blocks, and there were more circular portholes on each level than she could count. Emily had read in the Eco Cruise brochure that the vessel contained a theater, a casino, a gym with nineteen treadmills, a yoga studio, a hair salon and spa, thirteen restaurants, eleven lounges, a rock-climbing wall, and a wave pool.

Mr. Fields pulled into an available parking space near a big tent with a banner that read PASSENGERS, CHECK IN HERE! There was a line of thirty or so kids with suitcases and duffels. After he cut the engine, he sat staring straight ahead. Seagulls circled the sky. Two girls squealed excitedly when they saw each other.

Emily cleared her throat awkwardly. “Thanks for the ride.”

Mr. Fields turned abruptly and looked at her hard. His eyes were iron-cold, and two curved lines accentuated his mouth like parentheses.

“Dad …” Emily’s stomach started to hurt. “Can we talk about this?”

Mr. Fields set his jaw and faced front. Then he turned up the radio. They’d been listening to a New York news station for the second half of the drive; now a reporter was droning on about someone nicknamed the Preppy Thief who’d escaped from a New Jersey holding cell that morning. “Ms. Katherine DeLong might be armed and dangerous,” the reporter was saying. “And now, on to weather …”

Emily twisted the volume down again. “Dad?”

But her father didn’t pay any attention. Emily’s jaw wobbled. Last week, she’d broken down and told her parents that she’d secretly had a baby girl over the summer and had given her up for adoption shortly after she was born. She’d omitted a few of the more sordid details, like accepting money from Gayle Riggs, a wealthy woman who’d wanted the baby, and then changing her mind and returning the payment, which A had intercepted. But she’d told them a lot. How she’d hid in her sister Carolyn’s dorm room in Philadelphia during the third trimester. How she had seen an ob-gyn in the city and had a scheduled C-section at Jefferson Hospital.

Emily’s mom hadn’t blinked through the whole story. After Emily had finished, Mrs. Fields took a long sip of her tea and thanked Emily for being honest. She even asked Emily if she was okay.

The clouds had parted in Emily’s mind. Her mom was being normal—cool, even! “I’m holding up,” she’d answered. “The baby is with a really great family—I saw them the other day. They named her Violet. She’s seven months now.”

Then a muscle in Mrs. Fields’s cheek twitched. “Seven months?”

“Yep,” Emily said. “She smiles. And waves. They’re wonderful parents.”

And then, like a light switch abruptly flipped on, reality hit Emily’s mom at full force. She blindly groped for her husband’s hand as though she were on a sinking ice floe. After letting out a squeak, she leapt up and ran to the bathroom.

Mr. Fields sat, stunned, for a moment. Then he turned to Emily. “Did you say your sister knew about this, too?”

“Yes, but please don’t be mad at her,” Emily said in a small voice.

Since that day, Emily’s mom had barely come out of her bedroom. Mr. Fields handled the chores, making dinner, signing Emily’s permission slips, and doing the laundry. Every time Emily tried to broach the subject with him, her dad shut her down. And forget about talking to her mom: Whenever Emily even got near her parents’ bedroom, her father appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, like a rabid, protective guard dog, shooing her away.

Emily had no idea what to do. She would have preferred her parents send her to reform school or to live with her über-religious relatives in Iowa, like they’d done when they were mad at her in the past. Maybe she shouldn’t have told her parents about the baby, but she didn’t want them to find out from someone else—like New A. The Rosewood PD knew, too, as well as Isaac, the baby’s father, and Mr. Clark, Gayle’s husband.

Amazingly, the news about the baby hadn’t made its way around Rosewood Day, but it didn’t matter—Emily still felt like a pariah. Add in the fact that she’d witnessed a murder two weeks prior and that the police were now investigating Tabitha’s death, and most days she could barely hold it together. She was also more certain than ever that A was Real Ali—that she’d survived the fire in the Poconos and was out to get them once and for all. Real Ali had framed Kelsey Pierce, driving Emily to almost kill her at Floating Man Quarry. Then she’d thrown suspicion on Gayle, shooting her when she got in the way. Emily shivered. What would she do next?

A loud horn on the boat roused her from her thoughts. “Well, I guess I should go,” Emily said softly, glancing at her dad again. “Thanks for, um, still letting me go on this.”

Mr. Fields took a sip from his water bottle. “Thank the teacher who nominated you for the scholarship. And Father Fleming. I still don’t think you should go.”

Emily fiddled with the University of North Carolina ball cap in her lap. Her parents didn’t have money to send their kids on frivolous class trips, but she’d won a scholarship through her botany class. After her parents had found out about the baby, Mr. Fields had gone to Father Fleming, their priest, to ask if they should still let her attend. Father Fleming had said they should—it would give them time to process what had happened and figure out their feelings.

There was nothing left for Emily to do but open the door, grab her bags, and start toward the check-in tent. She hadn’t walked but three steps when her dad gunned the engine and took off down the road, not even staying to see the boat off as most parents were. She blinked back tears, trying hard not to cry.

As she joined the line, a twentysomething guy wearing a pair of red, star-shaped sunglasses bounded up to her. “I’m on to you!” he said, wagging a finger.

Tabitha’s face flashed in Emily’s mind. “W-what?” she croaked.

“You’re totally a secret Cirque du Soleil fan!” The guy stuck out his hand. “The name’s Jeremy. I’m your cruise director this week. How would you like to be a guest in tonight’s kickoff Cirque du Soleil performance in the theater? The show’s theme is Mother Earth, in honor of this being an Eco Cruise and all.”

Several kids nearby stopped and smirked. “I think I’ll pass,” Emily mumbled, scurrying forward.

She flashed her passport to the check-in girl and was given a key to her cabin, a meal card and daily menu, and a map of the boat. Last but not least, she received a pamphlet that listed the various classes, activities, seminars, group meetings, and volunteer opportunities for the week—students were required to participate in one for-credit class and volunteer in the ship’s “community,” helping to clean, cook, plan events, or take care of the ship’s enormous endangered-fish aquarium, and so on. The volunteer spots were on a first-come, first-serve basis; Emily had already signed up for lifeguard duty at the main pool. She still didn’t know which class she’d take, though, so she scanned the list quickly. There was Exploring the Reefs Responsibly, Hunt for Sunken (Eco)Treasure, Clean Up the Tide Pools in a Kayak. She decided on a course called Caribbean Bird-Watching.

She boarded an elevator that would take her to her room. A calypso band played loudly on an upper deck, the bass thudding through the walls. A few girls were talking about a great bar in St. Martin they’d heard about. Two guys chattered about kiteboarding in Puerto Rico. Everyone was dressed in shorts and flip-flops, even though it was forty-five degrees outside.

Emily envied their carefree excitement—she couldn’t even coax the corners of her lips to bend into a smile. All she could think about was her mother’s vacant eyes, her dad’s punishing scowl, the hatred in their hearts. The FBI agent on the news this morning. Gayle’s dead body. Tabitha’s face just as she realized she was falling. A lurking in the darkness, laughing, ready to hurt her for real.

She thought about Ali, too—Real Ali and Their Ali. All this time, Emily had been hiding a secret: In the Poconos, the girls had escaped the house just before it blew up, with Real Ali still inside. What the others didn’t know, however, was that Emily had left the cabin door open so that Real Ali could escape, too. She’d told everyone she’d closed it tight. And when the cops didn’t find her body, Emily was positive Real Ali had gotten out and was still alive.

For many, many months, Emily had hoped that Real Ali would come to her senses and apologize to all of them for being A. Emily would be the first one to forgive her, of course. After all, she’d loved Ali—both Alis. She’d kissed both of them, Their Ali in her tree house in seventh grade, and Real Ali last year.

But that was before Real Ali messed with her daughter. Some of the notes from A threatened Violet’s life. It was then that she realized Real Ali was beyond the pale. Real Ali didn’t care for Emily at all, and she certainly had no intention of trying to make things right. She was just … evil. Almost immediately, the hope and love Emily had felt withered away, leaving a huge hole in her heart.

The elevator dinged, and an automated voice announced that they were on the Sunshine deck. A bunch of kids marched down the long, garishly carpeted hall to find their rooms. Not wanting to get stuck behind them, Emily turned toward the sliding-glass door that led to a small patio overlooking the water instead. She stepped through it and let the chilly sea air fill her lungs.

Gulls called overhead. Traffic swished in the distance. The waves had foamy white tops, and a lifeboat bobbed seven decks below. Then Emily heard a cough and jumped. A girl with olive skin and long, chestnut-colored hair stood at the far end of the balcony. She wore dark sunglasses, a white eyelet dress, and ballet flats with pink-and-white grosgrain ribbon trim.

Emily didn’t speak at first. The girl was so ethereal and quiet that she thought she might be a ghost.

But then the girl turned and smiled. “Hey.”

“Oh!” Emily said, stepping back. “Y-you scared me. I wasn’t sure you were real.”

The corners of the girl’s mouth turned up. “Do you often see people that aren’t real?”

“Never anyone like you,” Emily blurted, and then clamped her mouth shut. Why had she just said that?

The girl raised her eyebrows, taking her sunglasses off. And then she strolled over. Up close, Emily could see the dimples on her cheeks. Her arresting green eyes sparkled, and she smelled so fragrantly of jasmine perfume that Emily felt a little light-headed.

“Maybe I am a ghost,” the girl whispered. “Or a mermaid. We are at sea, after all.”

Then she touched the tip of Emily’s nose, turned around, and disappeared through the sliding door. Emily remained in a cloud of jasmine, her mouth hanging open, the tip of her nose tingling. She wasn’t sure what had just happened, but she definitely liked it. For one fleeting second, the ghost—or mermaid, or whatever she was—had made her forget absolutely everything wrong with her life.