by Dana Langer
“Fine.” I fold my arms across my chest and look at her through my hair. “Ew.”
“Lolly.” She looks at me, and her expression softens. “I know it’s all a bit confusing right now, but you’ll see. Things will settle down soon. You’ll grow into your full siren self, and then you’ll feel much better.”
“I don’t want to feel better,” I tell her. “I don’t want to be a siren.”
“Here.” The Sea Witch gets to her feet and starts rifling through drawers and shelves. “I want you to have something. Close your eyes.”
She returns to the table and presses a small, smooth object into my hand. I open my eyes. One side is a small mirror and the other side is an intricate carving of a ship with a giant sea monster clinging to its belly. “This is scrimshaw,” she tells me. “It was carved from whale ivory in the eighteenth century. Consider it a birthday gift.”
“Why are you giving it to me?”
“Because I want you to see yourself the way I do. Strong. Powerful. You shouldn’t be so afraid all the time. Besides, those commercial fishing boats are a menace. The entire shipping industry is, really. It’s a brutal, violent, destructive line of work, and it’s always been that way. The captain of a ship goes out to conquer and steal. He tears apart the ocean floor. Spills oil in the harbor. I’m ashamed to admit my own family committed some terrible atrocities in the name of industry and the glory of the high seas. That’s why I ran away in the first place, you know. That’s why I left Barbados when I was still just a child and came to this wretched gray land. I couldn’t live with the guilt.”
I look up at her, thinking about what Ms. Cross told me.
“Anyway,” she continues, “I could tell you of a time when the waters of Maine were teeming with fresh, healthy fish. You couldn’t skim a rock off the water without hitting one. Now the local fishermen cut their nets open and it’s nothing but stingrays and tin cans. Wrecking those wretched things—it’s something to be proud of, really.”
“But sometimes you hurt other people too. Local fishermen and sailors who aren’t tearing apart the ocean floor.”
“Well, yes.” She wraps her shawl tighter around her shoulders, and a series of thin silver bracelets clang together on her wrists. “As I told you last night, this sort of magic is . . . It’s difficult to control.”
I hold up the mirrored side and look at my reflection. “I didn’t know you were from Barbados.”
“Yes,” she says. “From a mansion overlooking the Caribbean Sea. From palm trees and warm wind. From a landscape I will never forget, and like nothing you have anywhere near these dark, bitter waters.”
“Why don’t you go back, then?”
She sets her cup down on the table and curls her fingers around it. “Our way of life was . . . It was unsustainable. My family did horrible things to make money, to have the life they did. As soon as I was old enough to understand, I knew I wanted no part of it. I left to escape the terrible shame of what they were doing. Little did I know what sort of people I was to encounter here.”
She takes another sip of tea. “Suffice it to say that this is not a town that takes kindly to outsiders. It never was.”
“Do you . . . do you have a name?”
“Not that you need to concern yourself with, dear.”
Her freckled hands around the teacup look as old and gnarled as driftwood. Centuries older than the rest of her, as if they’ve lived a different life. They’re shaking a little and covered in scars, and I notice for the first time that three of her fingertips are bent at right angles like tiny arrowheads, broken bones that never healed.
“What happened to you?”
“I believe I’d like to be alone now.” She lets go of the cup and blows out the candle. “Run along, please. And tell your dear sisters that the next time they try to change the terms of our agreement, I will chop off their pretty fingers and wear them around my throat. Do you understand?” Her hands go to her neck, and the wolf pads over to the open window and howls at the sky.
I nod and hurry to the door.
Chapter
4
Upon hearing him, the sirens threw themselves into the sea . . . for they were fated to die whenever a man did not fall under their spell.
—Jorge Luis Borges
That night, my last night as a half-human girl, she calls for us again. The humid air hums with electricity, and we climb from our beds and head for the beach, raincoats and boots thrown hastily over our pajamas. It’s just like the journal says we will. We have no choice.
A crescent moon peeks out from behind the clouds, and we pick our way cautiously among the rocks, holding hands and weaving, skidding on pebbles. In the distance lies the ship we are meant to destroy. As usual, it’s some kind of commercial fishing boat, but a small one, and the wheelhouse is decorated in twinkling white lights.
My sisters begin their song, and I attempt to sing along with them, my voice still broken and unnatural, but improving. Their song is as lovely and alluring as ever, but somehow, the boat continues on its path.
My sisters sing louder, straining, reaching toward the water. They take deep breaths and scream the melody. They stand on the balls of their feet.
The boat passes calmly beneath us.
“Come on!” Lara waves. “Let’s get closer.”
She leads us down the hillside to the shore. We are slipping in mud, holding on to each other, and I glance over my shoulder, certain something is especially wrong about tonight. Something is different.
We reach the ocean, and they splash right in with all of their clothes still on. Waves lap at their legs and then their waists, and their nightgowns billow around them like jellyfish.
I stay on the sand.
The trawler draws near, slicing like a shark fin across the wavering reflection of moonlight on the water.
This time is different.
Someone on the ship is playing his own music, a violin concerto in a minor key with double-stops so forceful and strange, you can feel them in your bones. He’s playing into a speaker too, so the haunting sound is amplified across the sea.
My sisters are still singing their desperate song, wading deeper and deeper until the water reaches their shoulders.
“Wait!” I start waving my arms and screaming. “Lara! Lula! Lily!”
But this time they are the blind ones. In this state, they can’t understand the danger they are in. They can’t imagine not getting their way.
There is a creaking, groaning sound, the sound of chains unfurling on a massive spool, and a net is lowered. Normally, these nets trawl the seabed, dredging thousands of pounds of cod, flounder, and haddock from the ocean. But this net is not going to catch anything like that. This net is going to catch my sisters.
From the shore, I scream their names, but I can only watch as the net hauls all three of them, clinging to each other, from the waves.
I chase the boat all the way back down the shoreline, back to the marina, and I hide behind a stack of lobster traps. The boat docks slowly, and Mr. Bergstrom emerges, making his way down the wooden gangplank. He is carrying Lara, and she is unconscious, her bare arms dangling ghostly white in the moonlight. Two other fishermen follow behind, each holding another of my sisters, also unconscious. While I watch, they take them to the old storage shed at the end of the dock, and then they all disappear inside.
I pull off my rain boots so I won’t fall again, and run as fast as I can, barefoot, down the street.
I barely know where I’m going, but somehow I wind up at Jason’s house, watching my own ghostly reflection in one of the wall-size windows. The entire place is alarmed, but I know which room is his. I take a handful of broken shells from the walk and toss them at his window. Jason has nightmares, and he never sleeps very deeply. Sure enough, moments later he appears. He glances back over his shoulder and holds up one finger to let me know he’ll be right down. Then he disappears from view. I study myself in the window. I look like a mess. I’m still carry
ing my boots, and my freakish two-tone hair hangs in wet, stringy waves down my back. All of my clothing—the nightgown, the moth-eaten wool sweater—is soaking wet and smells like a musty old closet.
Jason re-emerges wearing slippers and a navy sweatshirt with matching plaid pajama pants. Even when he’s sleeping, he likes his clothes coordinated. “Why are you all wet, Lolly? What happened to your hair?”
“Is your stepdad home?”
He shakes his head. “No, he went with his buddies on a fishing trip. Are you okay? What’s going on?”
“Just come here!” I motion for him to follow me behind the enormous oak tree in their side yard.
“You know I’m mad at you, right?” he says, crunching behind me through the piles of unraked leaves. The air smells like pine trees and smoke from their neighbor’s wood-burning stove.
“No, I don’t know that. Why?” We stop in the shadows under the tree, by the crumbling stone wall.
“Because you ran away,” he says. “You ran away from me at the dance. Why did you do that?”
“Jason, sit down. There’s something I have to tell you.”
He leans against the wall and folds his arms across his chest. It’s clear out now, and the moon is burning over the ocean like a strange bright scar. It feels as if the temperature is dropping every second, but maybe it’s just me, radiating the cold.
Jason’s looking at me, and his breath is leaving little puffs of smoke in the air. “Okay. Tell me.”
“It’s going to sound a bit crazy.”
“Just tell me, Lolly! What’s going on?”
“You know the old stories about how there are sirens in the harbor?”
“Like, the creatures that lure ships onto rocks?”
“Yes. Like, the monsters.”
“Of course. Everyone knows those stories. Sailors used them to explain these eerie cries they’d hear at night and why there were so many shipwrecks around here. It wasn’t really monsters singing, though. It was just the wind through the caves. It’s been proven.”
“Well, not exactly.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I know for sure that the stories are true. There are sirens in Starbridge Cove. There always were.”
He looks at me. “How do you know?”
“Because my sisters and I . . . we’re living under this spell. My sisters are already sirens, and it’s going to happen to me too, tomorrow, when the sun rises on my thirteenth birthday. I don’t want it to happen, but I can’t find a way to stop it.”
At first he doesn’t say anything at all, and I think, This is it. This is the actual end of our friendship. Next year he’ll go off to his fancy prep school and turn as mean and dull as his stepbrothers. He’ll start sailing and hunting and wearing camouflage baseball caps, and he’ll forget all about me.
But then he steps away from the wall and grabs both my hands. “This is incredible.”
“Incredible?” My feet slip a little in the grass. “Jason, you’re scared of mayonnaise. You don’t think this is weird?”
“No,” he says, and he’s still standing there, staring at me like I’m some kind of spirit bear or the biggest giant squid in the universe. “I think it’s magical. Lolly, this could change everything.”
“But we’re in trouble!” I pull my hands out of his grasp and put them on his shoulders so he’ll have to pay attention. “There’s more I need to explain. You don’t understand the whole thing yet.”
Wind howls through the branches of the oak tree, knocking them together, and Jason shivers and pulls his fingers into his sleeves. “What else is there to understand? What kind of trouble?”
“It’s your stepdad. He’s been trapping sirens for years—kidnapping them. He has my sisters now, and maybe some other girls too. I think he’s keeping them in the storage shed at the marina.”
“Well, we have to do something!” Jason starts looking around the empty yard, like maybe there’s someone there who can help us. But of course, there’s not. We’re all alone out here. “What do we do? Should we call the police?”
“Your stepdad says he basically owns the police. And besides, it’s too late for that. When you’re a monster, the police can’t help you.”
Jason kicks at the leaves and his slipper flies off. “I hate him.”
“I know.”
“You don’t, though. You don’t know what it’s been like living here—the way he treats us.”
I look back over my shoulder at the house with its glimmering white walls and darkened windows. “I’ve seen how he can get.”
“He treats my mom like she’s just another possession of his, like he owns her. Some nights it gets so bad that she leaves. She goes and sits alone on the beach and cries. I only know because I follow her sometimes.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I’m going to take care of it. As soon as I turn fifteen, I’m going to get a job on a fishing boat. That’s why learning to sail is so important. I have to get used to being out on the water. I have to get us out of here and make my own money so we never have to rely on some creepy guy like him again. So he’ll be out of our lives for good.”
I reach out and push his hair back from his face, and he gives me a look like maybe that was a weird thing to do.
“You need a haircut,” I tell him.
“I know,” he says. “I need new shoes, too. He owns four hotels and the entire marina and he makes us walk around with holes in our shoes.” Jason shakes his head like he’s clearing away some bad memory and puts his arm around my shoulder. “It’s okay, Lolly. We’ll save your sisters. We’ll get them back.”
“Aren’t you scared? I mean, it’s okay if you are. I kind of am.”
“I’m not scared,” he says. “You know, not all sirens are monsters.”
I look up at him. “What?”
“I mean, my stepdad has this book of Norse fairy tales that he’s always making us read, and there are these creatures called ‘havfrue.’ They’re not monsters in the usual sense of the word.”
“Well, what are they, then?”
“They’re like guardians—guardians of the ocean, specifically. I watched a whole documentary about it. Maybe you’re one of them.”
I think about that for a minute. “Maybe. So you’re going to help me, then?”
“Of course I am.” He bends to retrieve his slipper and slides his foot back inside. “Lolly, you’re my best friend.”
Really, it’s kind of awful that someone as nice and color-coordinated as Jason has to have a best friend like me. Probably, I should just leave him alone. Stop getting him into trouble all the time. If I was a good friend, that’s what I’d do.
But then, it’s just like the Sea Witch said: Sirens make terrible friends.
“Go back inside and get your stepdad’s keys to the storage shed,” I tell him. “I’ll wait for you here.”
The storage shed is a place we’ve been a million times before, a ramshackle wooden structure with a corrugated tin roof where local families keep boats and fishing equipment, and where we used to build secret forts and play hide-and-seek. It’s always locked at night, but now we have his stepdad’s keys. Jason unlocks the door and pulls it open, and we aim our flashlights and beam them around the inside. It smells like salted fish in there, and even the air feels slimy. Rusted hooks and buoys hang from the ceiling, and stacks of lobster traps and a tangled mess of nets are piled in the corner. We can hear a faint squeaking sound and liquid dripping on the concrete floor.
“They’re not here anymore,” Jason whispers.
I look at the ground for a moment, trying to remember. “Wait!” I go into the shed and kneel down, running my hands over the cold floor in the darkness. My fingers brush against puddles and sand and cobwebs, and I try not to think about what else. “There’s a basement. Remember? Lula hid down there once for hide-and-seek and she got stuck—remember? The door was so heavy, she couldn’t get it open again.”
�
�Yeah. But where was it?”
Finally, my fingers brush against a steel ring. “Here!” I grab hold and pull, but the door won’t budge. Jason rushes over to help, and we pull together until the door finally starts to lift. “It’s heavy! Be careful.”
Jason goes around to the other side to push, while I keep pulling at the ring, and we finally get the trapdoor all the way open and propped against the wall.
I look at him. “Ready?”
He nods. “I’ll go first.”
The steps are steep, nearly vertical, and we have to turn off our flashlights so we can grip the railing with both hands. We lower ourselves into the dank cellar and Jason feels around the walls for a light switch. At last, a dim bulb flickers on above our heads. We hear a faint squeaking sound and the scampering of tiny rodent feet. The nets are still there, wet and tangled, and Lara’s locket is lying on the floor, but there is nobody else in the basement. I grab the necklace and slip it on. “What if we can’t find them?”
“Come on!” Jason starts climbing back up the ladder. “I have an idea where he might have taken them.”
By the time we arrive at our next destination, we’re both exhausted and very cold. A red neon sign reads: ARGONAUT MOTEL AND CONDOMINIUMS, and below that: NO VACANCY.
“My stepdad owns this place.”
“I know. I remember when they started working on the renovations last year.”
“He comes here sometimes when he and my mom are fighting.”
The motel is only two stories tall, arranged in a half-moon shape around the parking lot. On the second floor, a plastic tarp starts blowing in the breeze. The rooms up there are still under construction, and they have balconies and sliding glass doors, some of which have been left slightly open. Jason motions for me to follow him and keep quiet.
