Page 9 of Crashing Tides

I brood about this for a few days until something occurs to me. Something so obvious that I’m embarrassed I didn’t think of it sooner.

Is my magic tied to water? Is that why Mom was so neurotic about water? Because she didn’t want me accidentally casting spells?

But when I stand in the shower and try to lift a bar of soap using only my mind, nothing happens. Naked and frustrated, I draw a bath for the first time in my life.

It’s nicer than I expected, sinking into the warmth, basking against the porcelain, which isn’t nearly as cold and unpleasant against my back as I thought it might be.

I let my eyes drift shut, prop my feet on the edge of the tub, and just sort of imagine the bar of soap lifting from its tray, rising higher and higher over the bath water, then to the edge of the tub, where my neatly folded towel and a napping Jolene await…

The phone rings.

Mom was the one the last few people on the planet with a landline, and the ringer is shrill and frantic. The sound sets my teeth on edge.

I startle, splash. Reach for my towel, remember Jolene, and sigh. Nude and dripping, I make my way down the hall to Mom’s room. Caller ID flashes across the phone screen. It’s probably nobody I know, but I usually answer just in case it’s one of Mom’s old friends, someone who doesn’t know she’s dead yet.

But it’s just dial tone.

I slosh my way back to the bathroom, reach down to drain the tub (my concentration is shot now), and find myself staring at the bar of soap, completely submerged in water.

Did it fall in after I got out? Or was that the splash I heard when the phone rang? Is it possible…?

And if it is possible, am I going to have to perform all my spells from the bathtub?

Is that a bad look?

It’s probably a bad look.

For the second time in my life, I go to a swimming pool.

Then I stand there like an idiot.

No wonder Mom never brought me here. The smell of chlorine is the only perk. The lifeguard is an annoyed-looking teenager, most of the swimmers are screaming children, and while I’ve definitely attracted the notice of some moms in lounge chairs, I’m a lot more worried about whether the water—let alone the concrete I’m standing on barefoot—is actually sanitary.

I got a staph infection once, and ended up at an urgent care at three o’clock in the morning, the boil on my back about to burst. Jeremy held my hand and struggled to contain his laughter. “It’s like the size of an egg, babe! How’d you let it get this bad?”

I didn’t know how to tell him that I was just really, really good at ignoring problems until they got entirely out of control. Growing up, there really wasn’t an easy way to deal with my mom, so I just… pretended nothing was wrong.

Anyway, Jeremy held my hand while I threw up from the pain and cried, and then the doctor drained the worst of the boil and gave me some antibiotics. I was right back lifting weights two days later. The damn thing came back twice more before the doctor convinced me that I was going to become antibiotic resistant and maybe get sepsis if I went straight back to weightlifting, so I spent two miserable weeks jogging every day instead.

After a few minutes, I convince myself that the chlorine has definitely made the water safe, and wade into the shallow end of the pool. The water presses in on me, cold against my skin. Each step is met with resistance.

It’s a foreign, almost alien sensation. And yet, something clicks into place. I am where I should be, purrs a part of my hindbrain that I didn’t know existed. As I sink lower into the water, a screeching whistle pierces the air. The children let out groans of despair. I’m out of the water before I even know what happened, back pressed to the railing, heart racing. The women on lawn chairs look at me like there’s something wrong with me, and maybe there is.

The lifeguard leans forward, shouts, “Adult swim!”

Oh.

This isn’t working out. The moms (and one dad) are ogling me. One is laughing. Another looks concerned. Another is definitely interested in my abs.

I have never felt more like a fish out of water. I am an adult. I could climb right back into that pool, into the water that calls to me, and be just fine.

But twenty-two years of warnings echoed through my mind as I walked into the building, stepped into the locker room. My heart is pounding, and I have an almost irresistible urge to leap back into the pool—the deep end, this time—and dive under, to stay below until the air bursts free from my lungs in a torrent of bubbles, and I’m forced to inhale⁠—

—and the lifeguard probably wouldn’t like that.

I don’t trust myself not to do anything stupid or dangerous, so I head for the locker room.

Maybe I’m a water witch. Is that a thing? I decide to look it up once I finish rinsing the chlorine from my skin, after I’ve changed back into my clothes.