Until the Tide Returns

Because it was my first Christmas with the family I didn’t know along with Landon and my grandparents who I hadn’t celebrated a holiday with since I was five everyone wanted me to spend time with them in some way. It was decided that everyone would come over Christmas Eve and sleep at Perry’s, his house was large enough to accommodate 19 house guests. I had gone to bed before ‘Santa’ arrived and when I peered over the guard rail down to the sea of presents surrounding the tree I was slightly intimidated.

If I thought there were a lot of presents before it was nothing compared to what I saw now. Over the past 7 years or so Christmas was never that big of a deal for me and Dad. We ordered a precooked meal from the grocery store and exchanged a few presents. I usually got books I had wanted or more paint supplies and gave Dad something towards whatever his hobby at the time had been. I understood that there were twenty people celebrating Christmas morning together, but that didn’t make the scene beneath me any less overwhelming. Apparently my newly introduced family did Christmas big. The over the top kind that I only ever saw on TV or in the movies, or read about in my books.

“Did Santa come?” I turn and look at Lily. She’s trying to reign in her excitement.

“He did. Should we go downstairs and look?”

“I’m supposed to wait for Mommy and Daddy before I open anything.” I can tell she wants to run down there.

“Well, I saw some things for you that Santa didn’t wrap, should we go see what they are?” She nods and rubs her eye with her tiny fist. She lifts her arms signaling for me to carry her. I scoop her up and carry her down. She’s gotten a Barbie Jeep filled with Barbie’s in their boxes, in the drivers seat is a very large Elmo dressed in an Ariel costume complete with a wig. Beside that is a wood crate filled Color Wonder art supplies. Everything else that lays around unwrapped is clearly not meant for Lily so I don’t pay too much attention. I look around for a clock, it’s 6 am, and we are the only two awake. “Is Ariel your favorite princess?” I ask her.

“Yep, she’s really pretty and she can talk to fish.” I smile.

“Do you want me to get Elmo out of the Jeep for you?” It is surrounded by presents and she has no clear path to it. “You could try on your costume.”

“Ok.” I pull Elmo out and take the costume off of him. “You know what?” She asks as I slip the costume over her head.

“What?”

“When I go swimming I pretend I’m a mermaid. Do you think there are any in the ocean?” I can’t tell her what I know, that all the mermaids were killed.

“Maybe.” I put the wig on her and smile, she’s adorable. I should have brought my camera downstairs with me. She turns and looks around at all of the presents.

“What did Santa bring you?” I look at the various things that haven’t been wrapped and I have no way of determining who they’re for other than someone older than Lily. Except for the robotic R2D2, that is clearly meant for Landon.

“I don’t know.” I shrug. She walks over and looks over everything carefully, she checks the name tags on the unopened stuff causing me to smile, she can’t read yet.

“Hey, this stocking has a mermaid on it too.” She reaches forward and grabs a blue stocking decorated with a mermaid with black hair and blue sequined eyes on it. “She looks like you.” She hugs the stocking to her and brings it over to me. I see a jar of Nutella peeking out of the top. “Is it yours?” I know it is before she gives it to me but I find something to check anyway. There’s a small box that has a nametag on it.

“It is mine.” I smile at her. I don’t remember the last time I had a stocking. “Should we see if there’s candy in it?” She nods excitedly and I pull out two Kisses, I unwrap the first one and give it to her and pop the second one in my mouth. She pulls the wig off of her head and hands it to me. “Don’t you want to wear it?”

“It’s your turn, we share.” I know it will be too small for me but I lower my head anyway and let her put it on me. “How do I look?”

“Silly.” She giggles. I laugh and take the wig and put it back on her just as we hear barely contained laughter and a rush down the stairs. I turn expecting to see Landon and Loraine and am surprised to see that it’s Evie and Perry.

“Merry Christmas.” I say with a raised brow.

“Mommy! Look what Santa brought me!” She swishes in her costume to show it off.

“You look so pretty sweetie!”

“Ariel? What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be with King Triton?” Perry asks.

“It’s me!” She laughs.

“Lily? I didn’t even recognize you.”

“Honey, why don’t you go upstairs and wake everyone up so we can see what Santa brought?” Lily wastes no time following her mothers instructions and begins to repeatedly shout ‘wake up!’ as she climbs the stairs. While Lily is in the process of getting everyone up Perry and Evie go retrieve large empty trash bins and bring them inside. “Paper.” Evie explains. A few minutes later everyone is downstairs sitting on either furniture or the floor.

“This is insane.” I whisper to my dad. He chuckles and nods in agreement.

“How are we going to do this?” Gram asks. I unwrap another piece of candy and pop it into my mouth.

“Mark and Evie can be in charge of Lily and helping her open her gifts. I guess we’ll just dig in and start handing them out. Start here and work our way towards the back.” Perry shrugs. “Unless someone else has a better idea?” No one could come up with one so that’s how it started. First with the gifts from Santa and then to the ones we got each other.

I was surrounded by unopened gifts when Calvin called my name. “This one is for you.” I looked over. There was a huge box that came up to my waist and was just as wide. He had to be kidding. I already had so much that I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do with. Dad helped me move some stuff out of the way so I could make my way over. I looked at the tag to see who it was from. Mom. This was the only time I had ever received a Christmas gift from her, and she wasn’t here. I had a feeling she was watching, but it was still odd. I ripped the paper off of the top and pulled apart the flaps of the box. “What is it?” Calvin asks from his seat.

“It’s,” I pause, swallow, “my number three’s.” And suddenly I’m pissed. She knew enough about me to know the third thing on my Christmas list every year and yet she couldn’t even bother with the top two things that never changed? I let go of the flaps and leave the room as quickly as I can. It was all there. Everything that I had asked Santa’s Elves to make me. Everything that had been number three on my list my entire life. 18 different items. But none of it I wanted as badly as I had the first to things: a mother, and to be normal.

Dad finds me a few minutes later, I’m laying in the bed I slept in last night. “What was that about?”

“Nothing.” I grumble.

“Beckett.”

“Just leave it alone.”

“Beckett Jane, it’s Christmas, not time for you to act like… I don’t even know what. But you need to get yourself out of this bed and go downstairs where everyone is worried about you. I don’t know what was in the box but it doesn’t give you the right to come up here and-”

“Dad.” I cut him off. “You should go look in that box, rethink whatever idea you currently have about me, and then maybe, maybe we’ll talk. Until then, I’m going to sit up and here and be pissed and upset and angry at the world until I calm down.”

“Fine, you want to act like a spoiled brat be my guest.” He leaves the room and I close my eyes as I concentrate on my breathing. I know I shouldn’t be hiding up here, but I can’t go down there. Everyone will ask what’s wrong and I can’t deal with that. It’s been hard enough the past few days being constantly reminded that Landon and I still haven’t figured out how to get my memory back and that Gram had no idea what I meant when I told her Landon and I lived before. And on top of that no one will tell me why that song is the reason my memory is gone.

“Mind if I come in?” Frank, Landon’s grandfather, is standing in the doorway holding a large but flimsy gift in his hands. I sit up and scoot back against the head board. “I’ve known Christina a long time, my wife, God rest her, was her protector, and my daughter was your mothers. I got to know both your mother and your grandmother fairly well. They’ve been telling me about your memory problems and about the vision you had. I suspect it’s been causing you a great deal of stress.” I nod. “Well, maybe I can help with that.” He set the present in front of me. “I’ve been working on this for quite some time now, it was more of a hobby than anything and I finally finished it about a week ago.”

“What is it?”

“Well for one, I hope that it will give you some much needed answers, and it may unfortunately throw in a question or two. You and Landon should open it together.” He pats my shoulder and leaves. I pick the present up. It’s light and the way it flops around is like it’s a thin sheet. It’s about two feet long and wide. I look at the tag on it. To: Landon and Beckett - Grandpa Frank.

“Hey.” I look up. Landon is leaning in the doorway his hands stuffed in the pockets of his pajama pants. They’re black with little white dots all over them to represent snow.

“Your grandpa brought me a present.” I say. “It’s for both of us.”

“Oh?” He walks over.

“Apparently it’s supposed to answer some questions for us. Or make more. I’m not entirely sure.” He sits on the bed but doesn’t say anything. I can tell from his expression what he wants to ask. “Every year for Christmas there would be two things at the top of my list. A mom and to be normal. The third thing would always be whatever toy or whatever that I wanted the most.”

“It was all of your three’s?” I nod. “I get it then, why your so upset. She got you everything you wanted except what you wanted. Needed.” I slide the gift from Frank onto my lap.

“Can we open this now?”

“Go for it.” I pull the paper off and he takes it and wads it into a tight ball. It’s a thin yet sturdy off white fabric. Something black is printed on the other side. I unfold it and spread it across our laps. “Whoa. Where did he…?”

“He said he had been working on it for a long time and just finished it last week.” The family tree in my lap is extensive. Landon and I are at the bottom, my side charts the Keepers and their daughters, occasionally the name of the father is attached. Landon’s though, is a full history. At the top, the very top, there are four names listed. Two of which have royal titles. “He traced it back to the beginning. That must be the apprentice, the first protector. Lydia.”

“Beckett, look. The first Keeper, Annaris, she and the king had another child, a son.” I don’t really see what the importance of that is. Then I see what Landon see’s. The son, Leon, married the apprentices daughter, though I don’t know what that means or why it would be anything special I just know that it’s important.

“You have Keeper blood.”

“No, it was too long ago for it to still run in my family. But there has to be a connection between us and Leon. Up until I was born every protector had been female, and it can’t be coincidence that something is changing because of us. He was the first Keepers son and his daughter was a protector.”

“Do you think my mom knows about this? She’s been saying we make each other stronger.”

“I think she knew something, but I don’t think she could have known about this. Did my grandpa say anything that would help?” I replay his words in my head and shake my head.

“He found the connection but I don’t think he understood it. And if he did he didn’t say anything, he just said it would give us a few answers and cause more questions. There’s no way Gram’s known about this either, she would have said something.” I carefully fold the cloth up and clutch it to me climbing off of the bed. Wordlessly Landon figures out what I am doing and then we are both running out of the room and down the staircase.

“Gram!” We both shout. Everyone stops and turns to face us.

“Last time the two of you looked like that you had a vision. What’s wrong now?”

“Um…” I have no idea how to explain it so I unfold the family tree and hood it up. Landon points to the connection between the Keepers and the protectors.

“We have a feeling this is important.” He says. The only person in the room who realizes whatever significance this holds besides Gram is Phoebe.

“How did….?” She trails off bewildered.

“Grandpa made it.” Landon tells her.

“Dad?”

“Frank?”

“I just finished it last week, I had been going through the journals when I finally found the connection.”

“Journals?” Gram interest has suddenly intensified.

“We’ve all kept them, it’s how I was able to give Maya the spell.”

“Spell?” Gram asks again.

“Giving Beckett away nearly killed her, you all know that.” I didn’t. “I was going through all of the journals from the old Keepers and found one that mentioned Annaris visiting her daughter in her dreams.”

“Like she used to do when she wanted to tell me something?” Landon asks. Phoebe nods.

“She didn’t realize at first that she could do that, when I showed her she was excited. She began visiting Beckett every night while she was asleep.”

“What?” No she hadn’t. I would have remembered.

“When you were a baby,” Dad says paling slightly and sitting down, “just after you learned to talk, you would always say ‘Mama’ whenever the wind blew. I could never figure out why, we just always assumed it was because you knew your mother was missing from your life.”

“She wanted you to have a normal life Beckett, and you wouldn’t have that always thinking the wind was your mother. So she asked me to look through the books for a specific kind of spell. We used to go through them when we were bored, tried to use some of them on Perry and Calvin so she knew what to ask for. I found the one she wanted. It was a memory spell. This way she could still visit you but just before you woke she would sing it, like a lullaby, and erase the memory of your dream. It was designed to work for whatever state you were in. If a mortal happened to see a Keeper do something they could use it and avoid being revealed. So as long as it was only heard in your dreams you wouldn’t lose any of your real memories.”

“And this is the song I sang?” Perry speaks up.

“Yes.”

“Oh God, Beckett, I…. I can’t even begin to tell you how sorry I am.”

“In all fairness Maya probably should have told you what she was doing so you wouldn’t have screwed up so bad.” Phoebe says.

“Let me get this straight. My mother hasn’t been absent from my life, she just chose to make me forget about it?”

“I just wanted you to have a chance at a normal life dearest daughter.”

“Yeah, I know I’ve been told this about a million times. But that doesn’t make it any better, and what’s worse is you’ve known this entire time why I’m a selective amnesiac and you didn’t tell me? Anything else you’ve been hiding? I mean I know you could tell Landon and I how to get my memory back but you won’t do that either. Anything else you know the answer to and refuse to share?” A phone starts ringing. Gram answers it and hands it to me.

“I want to tell you the answers honey, I really do, but I can’t. There are things you have to figure out on your own.”

“Look, I don’t care if you knew about the family tree thing, or if you know how my kid isn’t going to be killed be around me, at this point I just want my memory back since I can’t remember the majority of the past few months. If you could just tell Landon how to fix me it would be greatly appreciated.”

“I want to, you have no idea how badly I wish I could just give you the answers, but if you don’t figure it out on your own then-”

“Mommy come on!” What was that? I pull the phone away from my ear and stare at it looking for some sign of malfunction. I see none and place it back to my ear.

“What was that?”

“Beckett, I’m sorry, but I have to go.” The line goes dead. Everyone is eying me carefully and I know there is only one person in this room who will tell me the truth and not try to sugar coat it.

“Lily?” She gets up and climbs out from the piles of presents surrounding her and comes over to me. “Does Aunt Maya have any kids, besides me?”

“Connor, he’s 8 and kind of mean sometimes. And Willa, she’s 13.”

“And does Aunt Maya have a husband?”

“Uncle Eric, he’s silly.”

“When’s the last time you saw them?”

“Willa’s birthday, it was before you forgot.”

“Do they ever ask about me?”

“Beckett-” Will starts. I hold up a hand to stop him and wait for my small cousin to answer.

“Aunt Maya and Mommy and Grandma said we have to keep you a secret, until your birthday.” I kiss her cheek.

“Thank you Lily.” I stand up and hand the family tree that I’ve been holding over to Loraine. I turn to Landon and my dad. “Did you know?”

“She told me when I went to meet with her after you first got her. We both agreed you should wait to find out until you were 18.” Dad says. I pull my lips in and nod.

“Landon?” All he can do is nod sadly. “And here I thought you were the only one who would never keep a secret from me. Funny how wrong someone can be isn’t it?”