Tara, Niko, and I huddled around the dining room table, our eyelids drooping down and snapping back up every few seconds. Staying up to catch Molly coming in the house had seemed like a good idea in the daylight hours, but with every tick of the clock, I grew closer to giving up. I'd take a permanent tail if it meant a soft pillow and a good night's sleep right now.

"This feel likes we're trying to catch Santa Claus," I whispered.

"Never did that,"Niko said. Dark circles surrounded her eyes, mostly makeup from where she'd rubbed her face trying to stay awake.

"What?"

The girl shrugged before taking a sip of coffee. We were about to finish our third pot, and with no sign of Molly, there was a good chance a fourth would be made.

"It's a human holiday. We only really know about it because of tourists."

"That's disappointing," I said, adding it to the list of reasons why being a mermaid was going to suck. Christmas was my favorite holiday.

"We have our own holidays," Tara said. "Though we can't celebrate them the way they're supposed to be celebrated since most of our men are stuck on dry land. The best is EvenTide. It's celebrated on the winter solstice. You feast and dance through the night, and when the longest night of the year ends, we swim out to greet the dawn, celebrating the end of the darkness."

Niko's smile was full of dreams as Tara talked. "My great-grandmother told stories of the years they could celebrate beneath the ocean waves. They would coat their tails in a substance that would make them glow, and swim to a nearby sea cave. She said it would look like swirls of light in the black as everyone danced."

I let my thoughts wander, imagining my friends dancing beneath the ocean, their glittering tails glowing in the dark. What was already beautiful became breathtaking, and for a moment, I felt a keen longing to experience that world. It was part of me no matter how I denied it, but I pushed the dangerous emotion away. As long as I had no choice in the matter, I wanted no part of it. I couldn't want a part of it.

"Tell me again why we didn't just go to bed and get up when Molly arrives?"

Tara's irritated voice pulled me out of my reveries. "Because, I don't know when she gets here, but I bet it's super early. She's always gone when I get up, and breakfast is made. The house is clean. She has to have been here for hours. I think she's avoiding me. Heck, I honestly thought she was someone my dad made up until you said her name this morning."

"What are the chances she actually knows something helpful?" Niko asked, looking at me, then Tara when I shrugged.

"I'd say pretty good. From what I know, Molly has served the Hallorans for generations. She arrived with Ian and Fiona. Was possibly a nanny to Jamie."

The very idea of meeting a woman who'd lived with every generation of my family was both awe inspiring and weird. But I was intrigued. What stories could she tell? What things had she seen?

"Shhh," I hissed, my ears picking up the soft creaking of the front door. Dylan was asleep upstairs. This had to be Molly.

The three of us went silent, holding our breath as whoever was at the door took her time putting down her belongings. Shuffling steps, the flick of a switch, and the room flooded with light. If it wasn't for the nearly black hair and eyes, I might've thought the woman standing in the doorway was Branna Goode. She took one look at us and fled.

"Well if that doesn't scream guilty, I don't know what does," Tara said, jumping to her feet and chasing after her.

Niko and I followed, barreling out the door. Gravel crunched beneath my boots, but we didn't stay on the driveway for long as Molly took a sharp turning, heading toward the ocean. If she reached the water, only Niko and Tara could continue the pursuit.

"Hurry," I gasped, doing my best to not trip over the rocks and roots.

"I'm made for swimming," Niko huffed, "not running."

"Well, you're going to be doing both if we don't catch her!"

I could hear the ocean's roar now, and the grass beneath my feet was thinning as sand choked the blades. Molly was just a few yards from the sea, and around her body I could see the shimmer I now recognized as the beginning of a transformation.

Another figure darted out of the dark and collided into Molly. They went tumbling across the sand and sea glass. Her arms flailed, her hand making contact with her assailants face, but it was no use.

"A little help here."

"Kieran," I said, bending over when I reached his side and putting my hands on my thighs. Tara and Niko grabbed Molly by her arms, pulling her to her feet as Kieran rolled off her.

"I thought you were waiting near the house," Tara accused. "How did she get so far?"

He scrubbed the back of his head, tugging on his curls before muttering, "I had to take a piss. I didn't think she'd come out the house like she had a rocket attached."

"Let me go," Molly growled, thrashing between the girls holding her. "No good will come of this."

"Because there's already so much good going around?" I snapped, marching across the sand until I was standing in front of her. "Care to share why you're so determined to avoid me?"

"Maybe I just don't like you."

"You've never met me. Not to mention, it's curious that you're the sister of the only woman on the Island who has tried to help me."

"What my daft sister does is of no consequence to me," she said with a sniff, but I didn't miss the panic growing in her expression. "I'm going to tell yer father about this."

Everyone but Molly snorted with laughter at the same time, and it only made me giggle harder. "Please do tell my father. I'm sure he'll ground me or something."

"What do you want from me?"

"I want answers."

Molly rolled her eyes. "What kind of answers?"

"What really happened between Lorelei and Jamie?"

"I can't tell you anything you don't already know. He saved her from drowning. She seduced him. Got pregnant. He realized his mistake, and she killed him for it."

"That's not true, and you know it."

We all jumped at the sound of a new voice, but Molly's expression went from irritated to terrified as her sister stepped out of the shadows. Branna Goode was no less imposing outside of a classroom than she was in one, and I was thankful her focus was on Molly.

"Aren't you tired of lying? Of the guilt?"

Molly shook her head. "That's the difference between the two of us. I know what we did was right, and if you hadn't meddled, we wouldn't be in this predicament to begin with."

"Me?" Branna shouted, her crystal eyes burning. "You only agreed because of your jealousy. It had nothing to do with righteousness."

"Hey, um..." I spoke up, tired of this back and forth with no explanation. "Care to fill the rest of us in?"

Branna looked at me then at her sister. "Yes, let's do that."

"Think of Leslie," Molly hissed, twisting in her confines. "Lorelei will kill her."

"All the more reason for you to cooperate. It's time for you to destroy the monster you helped create."

The sisters stared at one another, neither looking like they would back down, but just as I began to lose hope, Molly let out a mournful wail before sinking to her knees. Tara and Niko had to bend over to keep from being thrown forward.

I sat on the ground, crossing my legs before reaching up to grab Kieran's hand to draw him down beside me. Within a few minutes, we were all sitting in the sand in a circle with Molly in the center. Her dark hair fell over her face as she stared at her lap, not speaking until the first hint of dawn brightened the sky.

"What do you want to know?"

"We need a way to stop Lorelei without giving into the terms of the curse," I admitted, hoping I wasn't ruining everything. "Agnes says curses always have two ways to be broken. You can either fulfill the terms of the curse, or you can fix what was broken. But to do that, we have to understand the true motivation behind Lorelei's pain."

Branna looked skeptical. "We already know what drove her to kill Jamie. She lost her child, and then she lost Jamie. Outside of bringing back Cordelia, I don't know how we can fix that. We certainly can't raise Jamie from the dead."

"Well, we could... sort of."

"Molly, no."

Molly pouted. "Have it yer way."

I ignored them both. "I think we need to understand what happened with Jamie. Why he chose Niamh over Lorelei. I'm not sure where we'll go from there, but it's a start."

Skepticism turned to smugness. "Molly, care to take the lead on that one?"

"No."

Her head snapped back from the force of her sister's slap. "Try again."

"Why don't you just tell us," Kieran demanded, his lips pressed into a firm line as he glared at the older women. "This is getting ridiculous."

"Because I've been waiting centuries for this moment."

"News flash," I said, "we don't have centuries left for answers."

"Jamie didn't choose Niamh over Lorelei at all," Branna admitted after a pause. "There are a lot of rumors about what Molly did for the Hallorans. That she was a housekeeper. A nanny. Truth is, she's a Master of Potions, just like I am."

"I'm better than you."

"Would you like to tell the story?" Glares were exchanged. "I didn't think so. Ian tolerated Jamie and Lorelei's love affair until the news came that Niamh was being offered up as a way to link our people to the Finfolk. It was a step closer to the throne he'd coveted for a very long time."

"He should've been the king," Molly said.

Niko gasped. "This is starting to make sense. You had a thing for Ian Halloran."

"That's neither here nor there."

"Oh but it is," Branna said, leaning forward. "It's why you hid Cordelia away without hesitation, and it's why you brewed a love potion for Jamie. One that would strip away his desire for Lorelei and focus it solely on Niamh. You are the one responsible for this damned curse."