Siren Sisters

by Dana Langer

  “Wait, you’re going sailing—together?”

  Jason clears his throat. “She’s on my team.”

  “You have a team?”

  “Yes, we have a team. And we’re going to win the regatta too.”

  “You know . . . Jason doesn’t even like sailing.” I can feel myself losing my temper. It happens to me all the time lately, like the world starts speeding up and all I can feel is how mad I am, and then I blurt out the first thing that comes into my head. “He gets seasick!”

  Jason’s eyes grow huge and his face turns pink. “Lolly, stop!”

  “Well, I just thought she should know.”

  Jason pulls his arm away from Emma and retreats to the safety of the boys’ bathroom.

  Emma rolls her eyes. “Nice work,” she says. “You know, we’re not little kids anymore. Just because you and Jay were best friends in elementary school doesn’t mean you are here.”

  “Whatever.” I say it as if it doesn’t bother me at all, as if I couldn’t care less about their budding friendship and their winning team. I sound pretty convincing, too. I mean, if I overheard myself, I’d probably be intimidated. Maybe. But still, as I turn and walk away down the hall, my stomach hurts.

  She called him Jay. I can’t stop thinking about the new nickname. When did that start? Do other people call him that? How did I not know about this? I pause in front of a shoe store on Main Street and pretend to become absorbed in a display of high-heeled shoes. Instead, I stare at my reflection in the display window, at the silvery streaks growing brighter and brighter and the dark hollows under my eyes. A woman in a long flowered dress strolls past, strumming a painted guitar, and I watch her reflection too. Another singer rehearsing for the festival. She’s playing an old French folk song, one of our mom’s favorites, which just makes me feel even worse. Mom used to say that’s the problem with living in a town full of folksingers: somebody’s always singing the blues.

  Five o’clock rolls around and there’s no sign of Jason. I wait by the kitchen door for a few minutes, standing on tiptoe, searching for the flash of his blue raincoat against the orange maple leaves. But he’s nowhere to be seen.

  Lara comes up behind me and pats my shoulder. “How’s the arm?”

  “It hurts a little.”

  “How long do you have to wear the sling?”

  “Nurse Claire said probably till tomorrow. You know, just to be safe.”

  Lara nods. “No visitor today?”

  I shake my head. “No. Guess not.”

  “Think you can still carry a few sodas for me?”

  “Sure.”

  “Take these up to the register, then.” She slips three dripping cans of soda into my hands. “Ms. Cross is here for her order.”

  Ms. Cross comes to the diner almost every evening on her way home from work, and every night she orders two Diet Cokes and two turkey sandwiches on whole wheat bread, and she always leaves a tip even though she takes them to go. I haven’t figured out yet who the other sandwich is for.

  I balance the cans against each other, which is a trick my sisters taught me for carrying multiple beverages without a tray, and hurry out of the kitchen. A few tables from the front, I skid to a stop. Jason’s stepfather, Mr. Bergstrom, is sitting at the counter on the other side of the frosted glass divider, talking to Emma’s dad and holding an upside-down ketchup bottle over an order of fries. The two of them are bulky in knit caps, jackets, and layers of flannel shirts, perched like seagulls on their stools.

  I wouldn’t call us mortal enemies exactly, but Jason’s stepfather and I don’t get along. Not since the afternoon he discovered a secret stockpile of junk food I’d created in Jason’s bedroom. Mr. Bergstrom has this thing against store-bought snacks and he doesn’t allow them in his house. And when he married Jason’s mom, he decided that Jason wasn’t going to be allowed to have store-bought snacks anymore either. As he explained, “You’re not living in a trailer anymore, and you’re not going to eat like you are. Your mother will be providing us with home-cooked meals now instead of all that junk.”

  Jason probably would have gone along with the snack embargo, the way he goes along with most things. Only, I decided it wasn’t fair. I mean, Jason is a very picky eater, and store-bought snacks are some of the few foods he likes. So I started getting Lara to buy them for us: sleeves of cookies, and brightly colored bags of chips, and treats in shiny blue foil. And soon, Jason had an entire drawer filled with secret emergency snacks.

  Everything was working out fine until one afternoon when Mr. Bergstrom opened the door to Jason’s room and caught us opening the secret snack drawer.

  We thought maybe he would yell at us or throw things. We’d seen what he was like when he was angry at his own kids. But he didn’t. Instead, he just went and got a garbage bag, and then he scooped up all of our snacks and sent me home with them like a disgraced Santa Claus. And then he called Lara and told her that he hoped I’d learned my lesson because if I broke any more of his rules, I’d be banned from their home faster than a sleeve of cookies.

  “This is nothing to do with the safety of the port, Tom,” he’s saying now, whacking the ketchup bottle with his palm. “Starbridge Cove is still a fine place to dock a ship and has been since the seventeenth century. There’s history here.”

  “Of course, Erik. Nobody’s denying that. And nobody wants to see this town succeed more than I do. But I have a business to run as well, and I cannot afford another wreck like this morning. You know how it is. The repairs cost a fortune. I’ll just take my business down to Portland if I have to.”

  “Listen to me.” Mr. Bergstrom puts the ketchup bottle down. “There was a problem this morning. I’ll admit that. There is a problem out there right now. But I know what it is, and I will take care of it. Trust me.”

  “Well, I’d like to. I sure would.” Mr. Bishop clears his throat and sprinkles salt on his own fries. “Money is at issue here, though, and I—”

  Mr. Bergstrom looks as if he’d like to upend the fries all over Mr. Bishop’s lap. “Tom, I don’t want to see any more harm come to your fleet. That’s your livelihood, just the way the harbor at Starbridge Cove is mine. But how can you be so sure that if you take that step, if you take your business down to Portland, your fleet will still be safe? The coastline in this state is nothing if not rocky. Unpredictable. There’s no telling what could happen at any time.”

  Mr. Bishop brings a fry to his mouth as if he means to take a bite, then thinks better of it and puts it back in the basket. “Are you threatening me?”

  “My family’s owned this port for generations. Now, I’ve acknowledged there’s a bit of a problem out there right now, and I intend to take care of it. Let me do my job.”

  “You think it’s sirens, don’t you? You believe the old stories.”

  “Don’t you?” Mr. Bergstrom leans forward, and the glare from the neon sign through the window casts an ugly green glow on his face. His left eye is swollen and bruised. “You know it as well as I do. There have always been certain . . . forces in our midst.”

  “Even if that were true, you think you can find them? And stop them?”

  “I know I can.”

  “How?”

  “There is a certain type of young lady we’re looking for, a group of them, a group of girls with special musical abilities.”

  “My daughter just performed a solo in the choir last Sunday.” Mr. Bishop starts eating again and speaks with his mouth full of fries. “That doesn’t make her a siren.”

  “The sirens of Starbridge Cove are not singing in any church choir, I assure you.” Mr. Bergstrom lowers his voice and leans closer to Mr. Bishop. “Look, you know what I mean when I say that we are a certain type of community here. A close-knit community. When we talk about sirens, we’re not talking about girls like your daughter. These are outsiders, girls who lurk in the shadows. They’re sneaking around out there, watching us. They’re casting spells and composing songs. Little anarchists, plotting our de
mise. These are girls with the power to read your mind and craft a song, a lie, that speaks to the deepest, most secret wishes of your heart. Now, as I said, my family’s been dealing with these monsters for decades. From time to time, a group of them crops up and tries to cause trouble. It’s never lasted, though. We know how to handle them.”

  Before I can stop it, one of the cans of soda slips from my fingers and explodes against the floor. It makes a sound like a gunshot. By the front door, Ms. Cross actually screams and covers her head with her hands.

  “Lolly!” Lily rushes over with a roll of paper towels. She kneels and starts blotting the spill. “What is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing!”

  Mr. Bergstrom and Mr. Bishop both stand up partway and peer at us over the divider.

  “I was just bringing these to the front,” I explain.

  “Well, stop standing there staring into space.”

  Lara comes over and swats at Lily with her apron. “Go get more soda, Lily.”

  “But she—”

  “Just go! Lolly, what’s wrong now?”

  “I need to talk to you.” I grab Lara’s hand and pull her into the bathroom.

  In the bathroom, under the fluorescent lights, Lara looks a lot older than eighteen. “We’re right in the middle of the dinner rush, Lolly. Lula’s gonna kill me if I leave her out there alone.”

  “But there’s something really bad happening.”

  She checks her watch. “You have seven seconds.”

  “Mr. Bergstrom is here, and I just heard him saying that he knows all about sirens. He says he’s hunted them before and he knows that they’re back. He’s getting ready to hunt them again.”

  Lara folds her arms across her chest and leans against the wall. She shuts her eyes for a second, and I bet she feels like she could just fall asleep right there against the cool green tiles. I know I could. Then she opens her eyes again and puts her hand on my head. “It’ll be okay,” she says. “The Sea Witch is stronger than he is. We are stronger than he is. He’s always acting like a fool. You know that. He’s all talk.”

  “I don’t like him, Lara. He’s really mean to Jason and—”

  “That’s not our business, Lolly. Now stop worrying, okay? Like I just said, he’s all talk. Look, your shift is almost over. Why don’t you go home and do some homework?”

  “I don’t want to be home alone. Can I go to Jason’s?”

  “Okay, sure. But stay out of trouble, all right? And stop antagonizing his dad. I don’t want any more angry phone calls from him about you.”

  “Stepdad,” I remind her.

  “Right,” she says. “Look, Mr. Bergstrom’s a jerk, but just because something’s unfair doesn’t mean you have to be the one to fix it. It’s okay to let go of things some of the time, Lolly. Stop trying to right all the wrongs, and just do your algebra homework.”

  Back in the kitchen, I untie my apron and slip my arm out of the sling. I toss them both over the coatrack and slide a bag of potato chips into the pocket of my rain jacket because, despite what Mr. Bergstrom thinks, I have not learned my lesson.

  Halfway to Jason’s house, when I can no longer see the lights from the town, I wander down toward the water. It’s getting dark out, and the wind off the water is cold. I pull my fingers into my sleeves and let the waves creep up to the toes of my boots. A little farther on, I stop to investigate a washed-up fish skeleton and pick up a seashell shaped like a star. I think my mom would have liked to see it. She and I had a whole seashell collection, and we did all these art projects with them, like taking a hot glue gun and sticking them onto mugs and plates. That’s the reason none of our kitchen stuff matches. It drives Lily crazy, but Mom and I liked it that way.

  Overhead, seagulls float, calling to each other and dive-bombing the ocean. The outdoor stage is already set up, and I can hear the Ukrainian folk music troupe, Baba Yaga, rehearsing. I can’t understand exactly what the song’s about because they sing mostly in Ukrainian, but Dad says all folk music is really the music of the oppressed, music that expresses secret things, like subversive political statements and plans to overthrow the ruling class.

  The lead singer of Baba Yaga stands about seven feet tall. He sings with his eyes closed while stomping his feet and playing an accordion, and the music cartwheels and flips from his body. It bends and splits and arabesques through the air. To me, folk music sounds just the way gymnastics feels, and I can’t help it: I throw myself forward into a cartwheel, planting my palms in the firm wet sand, and I let the feeling of flying take over. Just for a second, arms and legs outstretched, I completely forget where I am. Who I am. It’s like my entire body is mine again and I could come right side up and find that I’m just a normal girl, and my mom is still here, and Jason isn’t mad at me, and nothing is lost.

  Then my arm starts to hurt, and I let myself fall onto the sand. The lead singer of Baba Yaga is watching, smiling at me. He gives me a wave and an enthusiastic thumbs-up, and I lift my hair out of my eyes and wave back.

  I keep walking until the shoreline curves and the beach starts looking a lot cleaner and the houses start getting a lot bigger. This is the part of town where Emma Bishop lives. And now Jason lives here too. At Jason’s house, all of the walls are windows, and nearly every window has a view of the sea. The house is surrounded by a walkway made entirely of crushed shells and smooth white pebbles, like a moat.

  Once upon a time, Jason’s mom was a waitress at the diner, which is how he and I met. But now she doesn’t have to work. Now she spends most of her time lying in a lounge chair on the widow’s walk that circles the third floor of the house. In summer, she sips cold drinks and reads magazines up there, and she always has her nails painted bright red and wears a bathing suit and sunglasses that match. After Labor Day, she trades her summer accessories for a monogrammed mug of tea and a fashionable plaid shawl, which she alternates wearing as a scarf, a blanket, and a cape, and which is made of the softest material I’ve ever felt in my life. Tonight, she has it draped over her shoulders, and she gathers it in one hand and waves when she sees me approaching, my footsteps crunching up the walkway. Her long, penny-colored hair comes loose and whips across her face.

  I wave back. “Hi, Alice!”

  I like Jason’s mom. She is like a princess in a fairy tale.

  Inside the house, the air-conditioning is still blasting, as usual. No matter how hot it is outside, that house is always freezing cold. And then it takes Jason’s stepdad about a month longer than the rest of the town to shut it down for winter. Jason even complained about it once, but Alice explained that because of his hunting trophies, Mr. Bergstrom is very sensitive about humidity. And very insensitive to the needs of everybody else, in my opinion.

  I rub the goose bumps on my arms and head down the hall. Jason’s three stepbrothers are playing video games in the living room, shouting and pushing each other.

  I walk up the massive winding staircase to Jason’s room and lean in the doorway. His room is neat, as always. His bed is made, his books are arranged in alphabetical order, and his walls are covered in nautical maps and posters from old marine biology textbooks, all displayed as precisely as if his bedroom were an art gallery. Jason has always kept his stuff like that, even when he and his mom were living in their tiny trailer and sleeping on a pullout couch.

  Jason is sitting on the floor with a book and a strand of rope in his fingers. He’s bent forward in concentration, so his hair, the color of rust and grown too long, falls over his eyes. He’s needed a haircut for a while, but nobody around there ever seems to notice. His radio is on as usual, playing WCOD, the folk rock station.

  “What are you doing?” I ask.

  He looks up at me. “Practicing. I need to be able to tie these sailor’s knots for the race.” He shuts the book and pushes it aside. “What happened to your arm? Why did you have it in a sling before?”

  “Oh,” I tell him. “I fell. But it’s okay now.”

  He nods and looks bac
k down at his rope.

  “So you made it, then? You qualified?”

  “Yeah. We made it.”

  I pull the door shut and slide his desk chair in front of it, just in case. Then I take a seat next to him on the floor and drop the bag of chips into his lap. “Sorry I was sort of mean before.”

  He smiles and pushes the chips under his bed. “That’s okay.”

  “I just don’t understand why you’re changing.”

  “I’m not changing.” He runs his hands through his hair and it falls right back in his face. “I’m getting better.”

  “Yeah, but you get seasick. You can’t help that.”

  He shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe I don’t really get seasick. Maybe that’s not the real reason I don’t like being on the water.”

  “Then what’s the real reason?” I glance at him, but he’s already looking the other way. I remember when we were little, Jason always had this extreme quietness about him, especially at school. He’d barely ever talk, and he’d sort of follow me around everywhere. He always seemed pretty content, though, just as long as he knew that his shoes were lined up, and his shirts were hanging the right way, and I was someplace nearby. I was like his protector.

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore. It’s just time to stop acting like a little kid. I’m almost fourteen years old. I should be able to sail as well as anybody else. I shouldn’t be scared anymore. Right?”

  No! I feel like stamping my feet and shouting. I want you to stay right here where it’s safe. On dry land.

  But of course, I can’t say any of that. So I just pick up a ballpoint pen from the floor and start drawing snail shells on the soles of my boots. “Fine.”

  Jason changes the subject. “Did you hear there was another accident at the marina last night? Actually, it was early this morning.”

  I put down the pen. “No, I don’t think so. What happened?”

  “My stepdad went down to help out and I guess he got hit in the head or something. Half his face is all banged up.”