“Yeah, we missed the first bus back, so we had to take a later one, which is why I was grounded for the month.”
“How did you convince your friend to come back?”
“Nothing I said would change her mind, until I told her Charlie wouldn’t be the same without her in his life. He always was her weak spot.”
Winona smiled sadly and fidgeted with the item she had pulled from the trunk.
“When your mother chose your father over her heritage, she gave up everything that reminded her of us. I’ve kept it all, if you’re interested in learning a bit more about your mother.”
Mina peeked at the opened trunk and the indiscernible items inside. “I would like that.”
Winona smiled, the corners of her lips quivering slightly. “I think she’d like that too.” She handed Mina the bundle she had in her hands.
The cloth held something hard, and Mina slowly unwrapped it to find a lovely gold seashell on a small chain. “It’s beautiful.”
“It’s yours,” Winona offered. “Anything you want out of your mother’s trunk is yours.”
“I don’t know what to say.”
“Then don’t say anything.” Winona stood up and moved away from the trunk, giving Mina space to peruse her mother’s items. It was mostly clothes of blues and greens decorated with shells, some books, a delicate white netted top. There were a few other trinkets, but then Mina found a piece of parchment tucked inside a book cover.
She pulled it out and saw her father’s likeness carefully drawn in coal. He’d been very young at the time—before he grew out his mustache—possibly in his early twenties. Studying her mother’s love for her father, forbidden but blooming all the same, felt like an invasion of privacy. Mina carefully tucked the picture back into the book and placed it in the bottom of the trunk.
“Tell me about her, before, when she was a siren,” she said.
“Oh, she was a handful—stubborn and one of the strongest in her gifts. I can see that her bloodline passed on to each of you. So it’s not just your father’s curse you were born with, but your mother’s gifts as well.”
“But why would she hide it—from my father, from me?”
“Your father, James, hated the Fae, because they killed his brother. When your mother saved his life, he didn’t know she was a siren. But they fell in love so deeply, he willingly shared his secret, his curse. When Sara learned how much he hated the Fae, she chose to keep her identity a secret. But Ternan told you all of that already—about her deal with the sprite and all.”
“Wait. A sprite, you say?”
“Yes. One of the most powerful nixies of all. She was once employed at the castle as one of the Queen’s own handmaidens, before she was banished.”
“I bet you I know what she was banished for,” Mina breathed out excitedly. Her heart was racing. She’d once asked the Godmothers, and no one knew where this sprite had disappeared to. “You don’t happen to know where I can find her, do you?”
Ternan’s expression soured. “Now why would you want to stir up trouble with her?”
“Because I think she can help me.”
“Nay, she can’t help anyone but herself. She’s a conniving, deceitful—”
“Ternan,” Winona gently warned. “You cannot let what happened with our daughter cloud your judgment.”
“Wait…what bargain did they make? I thought Ternan said my mom got help from a sea witch.”
Winona closed her eyes and whispered softly to herself. When she opened her eyes, there were tears in the corners. “Ternan spoke the truth when he called her a sea witch earlier. Sprites are entities of water like us, and they go by many names—depending on their choices. Water sprites, nixies—or the deplorable one—sea witch.”
“It’s true, they can’t be trusted,” Winona said.
“And now both of our daughters are dead,” Ternan growled angrily.
“I’ll soon be dead, if I don’t find another way to stop what’s about to happen,” Mina said.
“We could protect you. We could help you,” her grandmother said.