My mouth goes dry. “I thought we agreed no gifts,” I say. I refuse to take anything but the gas money I so desperately need.
“This isn’t from me,” she says, placing it on the counter.
When I see the handwriting on the top, my mouth goes dry.
“It’s from your mother. She gave it to me before . . .” Her voice trails off, and then she clears her throat. “She wanted me to give it to you.”
I frown. “You’ve kept this for six years?”
“I was afraid it would upset you too much to have her old things. But you’re an adult now. If you want to see them, they’re yours.”
“Oh.” I stare at the package.
She puts a hand on mine. “I’ll finish up this soup. Why don’t you go to your room and open it in private?”
This time I don’t resist. I take the package and retreat to my room, closing the door behind me with a quiet click.
Six years, my grandmother has kept this.
I perch at the edge of my bed, on top of my mom’s old flowery comforter. It seems like a lifetime ago that I lived with her in a rental house on the other side of town.
I stare at the box for several long seconds. I’m afraid to discover what’s inside. What if it’s something stupid, like a jewelry box or stuffed teddy bear?
What I need is answers, something that tells me what I’m supposed to do, how I’m supposed to fix the lives I’ve ruined.
I reach out and tear the paper off. My heart beats louder in my ears. The box is heavy as I rip open the lid and reach in. My fingers find a scrap of paper, and I pull it out, unfolding it as I take in a long breath.
For my daughter, on her sixteenth birthday.
My only regret is not being here for you today when you need me. I hope this will help you understand what is to come.
I don’t realize I’m crying until a dark splotch appears on the paper. It was supposed to be for my sixteenth birthday. The day everything changed. Did my grandmother know that and forget? Or did my mother not make it clear?
I read the note again.
My mom knew. She knew she was going to leave me, and she wrote this note, four years before I was supposed to read it.
Did she write it before or after she killed Greg?
I reach in and touch something hard and leathery, and as I pull it out, I realize it’s a book. A very old book.
My fingers trail over the dry, fading surface as I pull it onto my lap, the dust covering my jeans. It must be ancient. As I lift open the cover, the spine cracks.
The first aged, yellowed page is nearly blank, except for three words written in stark, perfect calligraphy:
For the cursed.
I take in a jagged breath of air, then slide my finger over the page and flip it over.
January 7, 1750
William doesn’t belong with Julia. Their betrothal is a business arrangement, nothing more. Now that he is in love with me, he wants to marry me, and not her. He has promised me he will end their engagement.
I suppose she does not care much what he wants, for it is William’s title she is after, and she will fight for that if he tries to jilt her. I hope he remains strong.
Tonight, when he dared dance with me at the Harksbury ball, I saw it in her eyes. I knew before the song was over that I had committed a sin. Afterward, I stood by, humiliated, as he lied to soothe her. He told her he was only being polite. Told her no one had asked me to dance and so, as a gentleman, he had asked me.
A pity dance.
And yet still she seethed, and I knew something had shifted between us.
She will do anything to have him, anything to become a duchess. That is why we must elope. Will has asked me to wait one month, and then he will be mine, and only mine.
Charlotte
January 18, 1750
I am terrified. Julia knows. She knows everything. She found me packing my bags, and she confronted me. She thinks just because I am her paid companion that she can control everything about me, but she cannot decide who I will love.
She told me I was a fool to believe him. She told me he compromised her and is duty bound to marry her. Her words left a dull ache in my chest. She must be lying. It is I who has been compromised. But I am little more than a servant. He cannot be forced to marry me. For the first time, I am not sure I have done the right thing these last months.
But I must trust in him. He loves me. He will honor all of his whispered promises. There is nothing I can do but believe in it for it is too late to go back and undo the things I have done.
Charlotte
February 7, 1750
Will was supposed to arrive last night to take me away. I sat on an overturned bucket behind the stables for three hours, shivering against the cold, and yet he did not arrive. I had to beg a groom to saddle a horse so that I could go to his estate. And yet it was useless because they said he has gone hunting up north with friends. How could he do such a thing at a time like this?
I was forced to go back home, but Julia soon discovered where I had gone. She came at me in a rage, and if not for her father’s valet, I might very well have been injured. Her father dismissed me not an hour later without references.
This afternoon, I stood on the stoop awaiting the carriage that would take me away from the only home I have known these last two years, when Julia positively flew up the drive on horseback, her hair undone and streaming behind her. I had never seen her so unkempt, and the look in her eyes was enough to put my stomach in knots.
She leapt from her horse and threw something at me. Some shimmery, dusty powder, which sent me into a coughing fit. It still burns in my lungs as I write this, miles away at a shabby inn.
It was a gypsy curse, she claimed. Her eyes were wide and frightening as she told me I would be as lonely and miserable as she was then. That I would pay for trying to steal her betrothed. I tried to tell her it was he who pursued me, but she would have none of it.
I have little to my name, but so long as Will keeps his promises to me, all will be right.
Charlotte
February 15, 1750
I have been unable to find Will. He has been away from his home for more than a week. I have rented a small room over a tavern, as it was all I could afford. I am but a few miles from Will’s home, just down the coast, near the Exmoor Cliffs. I had originally planned to travel inland, but I could not bear to leave the sea behind. Odd, as I had always loathed the smell of the salt in the air.
Charlotte
The lump in my throat grows. This is it. This is how it all started. Two hundred and fifty years ago. My fingers tremble as they slide across the curled yellow paper. I flip the page.
March 21, 1750
I found myself in the sea last night, swimming for no reason at all. I am lucky I did not drown for I have never learned how to swim. I want to go home, but I do not have a home anymore, and I must remember that.
I think I may be with child, and I do not know what to do. I have sent two letters for Will, but he has not answered. I suspect Julia is somehow intercepting my correspondence.
Charlotte
March 30, 1750
I cannot stay here any longer as I am nearly out of funds and I will be thrown out on the street soon. I must travel south to find my cousin and pray that she will take me in.
But I will not leave just yet. I cannot bear to go without seeing Will again. I am going to Varmoth Manor one last time in the hopes that he has returned.
I must know if he will truly marry Julia as the papers say.
Charlotte
April 2, 1750
He is dead. I’ve done something terrible. I do not understand what has happened to me, but I must flee.
Julia did something to me. I should have known by the crazed look of her she was desperate, that she’d done something so much worse than I had believed.
I must find her immediately. Before I am hanged for murder. I am but a servant and he a duke. They will not rest until they uncover the
truth.
Until they uncover me.
Charlotte
I flip the page, but there are no more entries in Charlotte’s dark, angled cursive. I flip back and forth a few times, trying to figure out what happened.
The next dates are from late 1766. These entries are written in a different handwriting, lighter, curlier than Charlotte’s. I turn back to her entries and do the math.
Sixteen years. There’s a sixteen year gap. I hold my breath as my eyes scan the first entry.
It’s Charlotte’s daughter. Will’s daughter. Cursed to the same fate. My chest tightens and I stop midsentence. I flip several pages, until I spot a new script. This time, it’s eighteen years later. A new girl. Same story. She recaps the last couple of years on the first page. She tells about the first one she killed.
I flip back a few pages. Why did Charlotte stop writing? Did she die, or simply pass the book along to her daughter?
My fingers flip faster and faster as the writing changes again and again and again. I can’t bear to read the stories, not today. I expect they’ll all be painfully familiar.
Just as I am about to slam the book shut, I glimpse the final set of entries.
My mother’s handwriting stares back at me.
The entry isn’t dated on top, like the others, but rather scribbled to the side, as if done in haste. It’s over sixteen years old. I wasn’t even two yet when she wrote it.
I jerk back. It’s the year my father left us. It’s hard to breathe over the lump in my throat as I take in the words on the page.
I told him the truth. I thought that he loved me, that he would stay. If not for me, then for Lexi. But he couldn’t stand the sight of me once he learned what I am. He was gone within hours, while she still slept. He never even told her good-bye.
I blink. My father. She’s talking about my father.
I’ll never show someone my true nature again. This is pain like I’ve never felt. Rejection.
I grind my teeth hard in a desperate attempt to keep the tears at bay. The page is ripped on three of the four edges, as if it had once been longer, but this is all she was willing to save. All she was willing to share for all eternity, with the other girls who would eventually read the book.
I flip the page.
I’ve done the one thing I thought I’d never do .
I’ve killed.
I didn’t know Greg had followed me. I didn’t know he was there, in the shadows, as I stepped into the ocean.
It doesn’t matter how it happened, all that matters is he’s gone. And I’m the one who killed him. It was nearly impossible to let go of his hand, even after it grew cold. I left him there at the edge of the tides for someone else to find.
This pain hurts more than anything I could have imagined, far more than mere rejection. It is impossible to live with.
I want to be there for Lexi, but I can’t go on. I’m no stronger than the others who came before me. I’ll never be happy because I’ll always be a siren.
Lexi, when you read this, please know that my only regret is leaving you.
I sob, a great, choking thing that racks my shoulders. Collapsing into a ball, I push the book off me. It hits the floor with a loud thunk.
I suppose I knew all along my mother killed herself, but seeing it like this, so black and white, is devastating. It was her decision to tie that cinder block to her feet, to leap from the pier.
And hers is the same pain that I live with every day.
What if I’d had this book two years ago? Would I have gone swimming with Steven? I’d like to think no. Never. But I’m not sure if that’s true.
For two hundred and fifty years, every generation gave birth to another girl like me. And every girl lured another man to his death. It was inevitable, my killing Steven.
I know what I am now, what I’ll always be—a siren.
I clutch my knees to my chest and sob even harder, hoping my grandmother can’t hear me.
Chapter Six
I walk through the double doors at school, tightening my grip on the straps of my plain black backpack. I’m only a few feet into the hall when it all goes bad. My foot hits something and I fly across the entry. I scramble to stop myself, but all I can do is throw my arms up and brace for impact. My elbows skin on the ugly brown carpet, burn with pain.
I realize belatedly what tripped me: a foot in my path. Someone did it on purpose.
I end up sprawled out, facedown, my backpack thrown forward. I pick up my head. Everyone is staring. Physically, though, I’m okay.
My binder doesn’t fare so well. My assignments and notes are all scattered, strewn across the floor.
I look up again at a sea of my former friends. Sienna, Nikki, Kristi, half of Steven’s former football teammates. Two years ago, they would have had my back if someone had done this to me. It would have been them to help me to my feet, to collect my things.
Instead, they just stand there, smirking. Some even laugh and whisper.
But I won’t let them see that they’re getting to me. I rip my gaze away and take in long, calming breaths. I focus on my anger. On the asshole who must have tripped me.
But it doesn’t matter how hard I try to hide it: they do get under my skin. Not because of their taunts, so much. But because they know the truth, that I’m responsible for Steven’s death. Everything they do to me just reminds me of what I did to him.
I grit my teeth as people begin to turn away, the entertainment officially over. They tread on my binder, shredding my trig homework and leaving dirty footprints in their wake. I snatch up what remains of my homework and shove it into my binder.
Suddenly, a hand appears in front of me, holding a stack of my chemistry notes. My eyes trail from the hand, up to the arm, then shoulder, then neck . . . until I’m staring up at Cole’s face. He looks concerned. “I think these belong to you.”
I look up at him, forcing all emotion from my own face. I stifle a thank you as I stand up, rip the papers from his hands, and shove them inside my bag. For a split second, I let my gaze linger on his.
Then I spin around and stalk off.
Several hours later, I sit in English class, fidgeting in my seat. Sienna and Cole sit too close for comfort. Everyone does.
I wish they would all simply forget my existence. I wish I could forget them, too, but it’s impossible to forget my former life. I ache for the friends I once had, because I know that I can never have them again.
I have to deny myself friends. It’s the only way I’ll stay alive. The only way they’ll stay alive.
And it’s not like they want me back anyway. At Steven’s funeral, Cole tried to talk to me, but I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone. And then seconds later, Sienna showed up, told me I had no right to be there, and, in a final display of emotion, slapped me.
Cole grabbed her by the waist and hauled her away, screaming; and by the next time I saw her at school, she’d withdrawn, created a cool, detached image that fools everyone. Everyone but me.
Mrs. Jensen hands back my graded homework for the first two weeks, jolting me from my trip down memory lane. I look at the marks.
A
A
A
I smile a little as I slide the graded essays into the back pocket of my mostly reassembled binder. If the rest of life could just be as easy as homework. It’s almost as effortless as swimming.
Mrs. Jensen returns to the front, dusting her hands off on her jeans. “So now that that’s done, let’s get right into our first big project.”
A few students groan, but I perk up. Even though I don’t look forward to school, I like my classes. Someday, I’m going to be a doctor or a research scientist. I’ll find the cure for cancer or something. I’ll give back to this world the things I’ve taken.
I’ll go away for college, somewhere far away and big enough that I can be anonymous, blend into the student body. Sure, I’ll have to find somewhere else to swim, but I’ll worry about that when I come to it.
&nbs
p; “Your first project will be done in groups.”
Murmurs spread throughout the room as students attempt to snag partners. My heart sinks, even as I try to remind myself this is part of working toward something bigger than the curse. Maybe I can work with that new guy, Erik something-or-other. Maybe he hasn’t heard the rumors about me yet, even though we’ve already had weeks of classes.
Mrs. Jensen clears her throat to silence the rumblings. “Before you get too excited, I will be assigning groups of three. So let’s see. . . .” Mrs. Jensen begins dividing the room up. As she reaches our corner of the room, the horrible, inevitable truth dawns: I’m going to end up with Sienna and Cole.
No. This can’t happen. I can’t talk to her. I can’t talk to him.
Just as I expected, she names the three of us off and then turns back to the board, as if she hasn’t just drastically altered the course of the universe, or at the very least, sparked off the third world war. I grip the edges of my table and struggle to breathe.
“For your project, I’d like you to read and discuss a novel. You may choose any book you’d like, but you’ll need to submit your selection for approval by tomorrow. Your assignment will be to complete an interpretive project for the class, which must include both a paper and a presentation. There are three of you, so I expect some good results.”
The class begins shuffling their desks around. I wait a few moments longer than I should and then grab the edges of mine and spin around, until I’m staring at Sienna’s hostile face. I glance at Cole. His sweet, unassuming smile catches me off guard. How can he look so relaxed when he knows what it’s like between Sienna and me?
“I’m thinking fantasy,” I say through gritted teeth. “Maybe one of Eva Stonewall’s novels.”
“Do you even know how weird you are sometimes? You look like you swallowed denture glue.”
“What’s that? I couldn’t hear you because your prepster shirt is so loud,” I say. Her eyes flutter momentarily as she glances down at the bright pink and yellow V-neck she’s wearing. She glares at me.
Cole glances between us but ignores our verbal smack down. “Those are girlie books. How about something by Carl Levison?”
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