That, and Penn always dictated where they went. Penn couldn’t stand the call of the watersong, so she refused to go anywhere that caused her the slightest bit of pain. Thea had thought that with Penn gone, she’d finally be able to explore all the places that had been blocked off to her.

But as it turned out, Thea didn’t do so well against the watersong, either. She didn’t go very far, and she always seemed to end up back in the ocean.

Still, the last two days of her life couldn’t be called bad. In fact, they were some of the very best she’d had in a very long time. Without all of Penn’s demands and threats and constant tantrums, everything had felt so much nicer.

Though Thea wished that Aggie had been there to share it with her, and even Ligea. She had loved them, and she still missed them. Penn had all but forbidden her to talk about them anymore, and Thea wondered once again why she’d listened.

It wasn’t that she was scared of Penn, but Thea felt intrinsically that she’d failed her. Since the day Penn was born, she had felt unloved and abandoned, and she had been by her parents. Thea had always tried to make up for that, but all she’d ever done was make things worse.

The horrible truth was that the curse was her fault. If she’d yelled at Penn that day, the day they’d left Persephone alone, or if Thea had simply let Penn go off without her, then none of this would have happened. So she’d spent nearly her entire existence trying to make it up to Penn for allowing her to be cursed in the first place.

The real kicker at the end of all of this is that Demeter’s curse centered around their love of swimming, but Penn had never even cared for it that much. She’d been smitten with Poseidon, that was all. It had been Thea who loved the water, and, somehow, she loved it still today.

She waded out into the water, relishing the way her legs fluttered for the last time as they turned into a tail. The sky was lightening above her, so she swam out on her back, floating out farther into the ocean.

Her thoughts went back to her sisters, and all the fun they’d had when they were young, before all this madness with Demeter. Penn had claimed that everything had been a horrible struggle. Things were hard, but what Thea remembered most was how much she had loved them all.

She missed them terribly, and though she hoped she would see them again, she doubted she would. With everything she’d seen, Thea wasn’t completely sure she believed that there was a heaven, but even if there was, she most certainly wouldn’t be going there.

As she felt the rays of the sun warming her skin through the water, Thea closed her eyes. The tingling started first in her fingers, and she was relieved that it didn’t hurt. It actually felt good, like a whole new transformation, as her body slowly dissolved into ash.

Soon, there was nothing. The dust was lost in the sea. And Thea was gone.

SIXTY-TWO

Severed

The panic was so intense, Harper sat up straight in bed. She was covered in a cold sweat, and she put a hand to her heart. Something inside her had been severed.

“No,” she whispered.

Daniel, still groggy with sleep, sat up slowly. “What? What’s going on?”

“Something’s wrong. Something’s happened to Gemma.”

“What are you talking about?” he asked.

She pressed her hand more firmly to her chest, as if that would make the feeling change. “I can feel it. Something’s wrong.”

“Call her,” Daniel suggested.

She reached over and grabbed the phone, but Gemma never answered. That was about what she’d expected, though.

Harper dove out of bed and grabbed her jeans off the floor. “I have to go.”

“Go where?” He got out of bed much more slowly than she did, though it was clear he was trying to move fast. “Harper. Wait.”

She folded her arms across her chest, hugging herself as Daniel hurried to put on his jeans and a T-shirt.

“I can’t feel her,” Harper told him plaintively.

“What?”

“It’s like she’s not there anymore.”

Daniel pursed his lips, but he didn’t say anything. Something about that frightened her, that he didn’t try to comfort her or convince her that everything would be okay. Instead, he just picked up the pace, and when they went down the path to his boat, they were both running.

His boat took a minute to start, but this seemed to aggravate Daniel as much as it did Harper. He kicked it and cursed under his breath, then The Dirty Gull finally chugged into life.

The ride across the bay had never seemed to take so long. The early-morning sun was blinding as it reflected off the water, but Harper kept her eyes fixed on the shore.

When Daniel docked the boat, she jumped off. She started to run toward the parking lot for her car, but then she stopped and changed her mind.

“This way.” She pointed toward the beach just as Daniel reached her.

“What? Why?”

“We need to go this way,” she insisted, and started jogging down the path to the beach.

“How do you know if you can’t feel her?” Daniel asked as he ran after her.

“There’s something, but it’s not the same.”

On the beach, her feet slipped in the sand, but she didn’t let that slow her down. She could see a lone figure, sitting in the sand far away from them. As she got closer, she started to realize that the figure was Alex, and that he was totally alone, staring out at the waves.

“Alex!” Harper shouted, and by the time she reached him, she was screaming. “Alex! Where’s Gemma?” He got to his feet, looking confused, and she grabbed him by his T-shirt. “Where is she?”