The Mermaid's Mirror by L. K. Madigan

Author:L. K. Madigan
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Fiction:Young Adult
ISBN: 9780547504889
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Published: 2010-01-02T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 27

Lena let the paper fall from her fingers.

After a long, airless moment, she lay down on the floor, pulling her knees to her chest.

Here was the truth that her father had been unable to tell her. Here was a piece of paper that explained years of "I'm not ready."

Suicide by drowning.

Lena closed her eyes, willing herself not to cry even as her heart cracked deep inside. Her mother had been dead for a dozen years. Yet the stab of pain Lena felt at this new knowledge melted the years away, and that chamber in her heart where she stored her mother's loss opened wide, stacking new grief upon the old.

"Why?" she whispered. "Was being my mom so awful?"

She could feel the ache of tears behind her eyes, and she took deep breaths to help her focus on not crying. She bit down hard on her lower lip. Finally she opened her eyes and sat up. Forty-five minutes had passed since her father had left. She still hadn't found the lock for this key. If she didn't find it today, she felt certain that she could never bring herself to look through her parents' room again.

Lena put the files back in the metal box, in the exact order she'd found them. She placed the metal box on the shelf. She put all the shoeboxes back where they belonged, then closed the sliding doors and put the chair back in the corner. While she worked, she kept her mind carefully blank.

Almost an hour now. Her father would be finished with the shopping and on his way to the sushi restaurant.

Lena looked around the room again. She pushed open the door to their bathroom, but it seemed too small a room to hold any secrets. She knew that her mom hid the few pieces of expensive jewelry she owned in a tissue box, but Lena was not interested in those.

Standing in the middle of the room, Lena closed her eyes and clutched the key hard in her fist, as if she could squeeze an answer out of it. Where do you belong? she thought angrily. I need to know.

When she opened her eyes, the room seemed brighter than before. The sun had moved out from behind the clouds. But one corner of the room remained in shadow. Lena cocked her head, studying the antique chair in the corner. Why was it there? No one ever sat in it. There was no light nearby, so it wasn't a good place to read. It was hard and uncomfortable, and usually had piles of clothes on top of it.

Lena moved to the corner and picked up the chair. It was solid wood, but spindly, so she was able to move it out of the corner easily. She examined the wall behind the chair. It looked smooth and unblemished. She knelt on the carpet, feeling for bumps or irregularities, but there were none. She put her fingers to the edge of the carpet and tugged, but it was tacked down securely.

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