I was glad for the reason to look away when Betty moaned softly.
“Betty,” I said, hugging the book to my chest as I leaned toward her, “it’s Vanessa. Was there something you wanted me to know?”
Her head turned toward me. When she spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. “Nineteen … ninety … three.” Her fingers slid out from under a towel and grazed the top of the scrapbook.
I turned the pages quickly, skipping over entire decades of death and seduction. When I reached 1993, my eyes froze on a picture of a smiling, long-haired woman in a long red skirt and white peasant blouse. I couldn’t recall ever meeting her, but she looked strangely familiar.
“Charlotte Bleu,” I read the photo’s caption out loud. “Thirty-four, originally of the Canadian Nenuphars, died during childbirth on November seventeenth, 1993.”
I stared at the date before making my eyes move down the page. When they reached the photo in the bottom right corner, the one of Charlotte clinging to some happy, unsuspecting man, I slammed the book shut and threw it to the floor. My heart thundered in my chest as I looked at it lying there, half expecting it to open by itself, flip open to 1993, and force me to see it again.
I had no idea who Charlotte Bleu was. But there was no mistaking the slouched frame or frizzy hair of the happy, unsuspecting man with her.
Big Poppa.
CHAPTER 22
I COULDN’T HEAR anything. I couldn’t hear the rain pelting the roof, or the wipers sliding across the windshield. I couldn’t hear the tires flying across pavement, or the wind rushing past. I couldn’t hear the radio, or the cell phone buzzing on the passenger seat. I couldn’t hear my heart drumming in my ears, or my breath coming in short, fast gasps. I couldn’t hear any of the millions of thoughts and questions spiraling through my head.
I couldn’t hear anything, because I was listening for Justine.
The phone buzzed again, but I ignored it. I didn’t know how long I’d been driving, but I knew it was either Mom or Simon on the other end, wanting to know if I was okay. And I couldn’t tell them I wasn’t. If what I’d just seen was true, if Big Poppa wasn’t who I’d always thought he was, if I wasn’t who I’d always thought I was, then I’d never be okay again—and neither would they.
“Say it,” I whispered, clutching the steering wheel so tightly my fingernails dug into my palms. “Say it.”
But she wouldn’t. She wouldn’t tell me what I wanted—what I needed—to hear.
I punched the gas. The illuminated doors and windows of Winter Harbor’s shops and restaurants glowed dimly through the darkness, and I drove faster, not wanting to see the charcoal sky swallow what little light remained. I didn’t think about where to go, or which direction to head in. As soon as I’d landed in the driver’s seat and started the car, my hands and feet had moved on their own.
“Please,” I begged quietly as the car turned onto Burton Drive. “It’s not true. Tell me it’s not true.”
I waited in the driveway, watching the lake house go in and out of focus as the wipers shoved aside the water. When Justine remained silent, I turned off the car and climbed out. I walked across the front yard, along the side of the house, and down the backyard. The rain fell so hard my hair and clothes clung to my skin, but I didn’t feel it. The only thing I managed to note was that the BMW was missing, which meant Mom was out.
My hands were on the red rowboat before I realized where my feet had led me. I dragged it from the shed and across the slick grass. Reaching the lake’s edge, I shoved it into the water. I followed behind it as I pushed it out, not feeling the coldness soak through my sneakers, grab my ankles, and travel up my legs. This was the deepest I’d gone in any water in two years, and I didn’t know what I was doing there now when I should’ve been driving away from Winter Harbor, away from the coast, the lakes, and the ocean, away from the truth that I didn’t want to believe but couldn’t deny.
When the water reached my thighs I waded to the side of the boat and pulled myself in. I rowed slowly at first, but once my hands got a good grip on the oars, I pushed the water forward like it was air. I steered the boat away from shore, not looking at our house or the Carmichaels’ house as I moved farther out onto the lake. Justine had always preferred floating just above the water’s deepest point; that was where we’d been when Big Poppa had taken the picture she’d hung on the center of her bulletin board.
Nearing the center of the lake, I stopped rowing. I pulled the oars into the boat, peeled off my drenched sweatshirt, and rolled up the cuffs of my jeans. My skin was already chilled, but I could feel the drops growing cooler and the air temperature dropping. I was the only person out, but I sat there in my tank top, cuffed jeans, and flip-flops like it was a sunny summer day.
I tilted my head toward the sky, welcoming the frigid rain streaming across my face.
“I’m sorry,” I said. Not hearing myself over the rain slamming into the water, I tried again, louder. “I’m sorry! Okay? I’m sorry that you’re there and I’m here and that we can’t be together, but I still need you. I still need you to tell me that this isn’t happening, that I can just pretend everything will be fine.”
I was shouting, but she didn’t seem to hear me. Or maybe she did and just didn’t know what to say. Maybe she’d been watching and listening when I saw the photo of Big Poppa with Charlotte Bleu, and maybe she thought it’d been for nothing. Maybe she thought that she’d wasted a lifetime watching out for and protecting me, and was relieved that she didn’t have to anymore, since we weren’t really the sisters we’d always thought we were.
“Please,” I said, only slightly aware of the warmth on my face as tears joined the rain. “Please, Justine. I can’t do this by myself. I’m not strong like you. I thought I was—for just a few days I thought I could be—but I was wrong.”
After Simon and I had been together, I’d actually started to believe I was strong. I’d started to believe that I was capable of more than I’d always thought. I didn’t have to be afraid of the dark. I could stand up to Mom. I could even go in the water again and not fear going below the surface, where the light turned black, voices faded to whispers … and I was more comfortable than I was on land.
“Justine,” I said, lowering my head. “Please.”
How could I pretend now? I didn’t want to believe that Big Poppa—my Big Poppa—could do such a thing, but it explained everything. It explained why Mom and I looked and acted nothing alike, and why she cared about things like fancy dresses and garden parties while I preferred jeans and books. It explained Paige’s and my natural, almost instantaneous connection, and it had to have something to do with the blinding pain I felt every time I was near Zara. It explained why Simon thought he felt what he did for me, since someone so smart would never be attracted to someone with so many issues. It explained why I could hear Justine after she died. And if what Mom had said about Justine needing to fight to draw attention away from me and toward her was true, it explained that, too.
And it explained what happened, what I hadn’t wanted to think about but couldn’t forget, the day the other sirens sounded two years ago.
The sky darkened as clouds dropped toward the water. My body took over again and I moved without thinking, slowly sliding from the narrow rowboat bench and lowering to my knees. I rested both hands on the edge of the boat and leaned forward, looking to the water only inches below. The surface rippled and popped from the rain, but I could still see them as if the sun shone brightly overhead, and the water was as smooth as ice.
My eyes. To me, they’d always looked not quite green, and not quite blue. Now, either because I hadn’t paid close enough attention or because circumstances made me see them differently, they shone silver.
I leaned closer to my shifting reflection. I reached down with one hand, and then the other. I closed my eyes as my fingertips dipped below the surface, and my tears fell faster as the water covered my knuckles, my palms, my wrists.
“I’m sorry,” I whi
spered as the water reached my elbows, my biceps, my shoulders. “I’m so sorry.”
“Vanessa!”
I froze.
“Vanessa!”
I sat up and squinted through the rain. Another boat came toward me—fast, like it raced an invisible clock. I turned back and grabbed the oars from the bottom of the boat.
“Stay there!”
I was too startled to handle the slick wood. I dropped the oars in and out of the water, my arms moving faster than they had when I was rowing out. But thanks to the Bates crew team, I moved five feet for their every ten. Soon, they were pulling up next to me.
“Stop!” I brought in the oars and scrambled toward the back of the boat. “Just stay there. Please.”
“It’s okay, Vanessa.” Caleb reached over the side of their boat for mine. “You’re okay.”
I reached into the water behind me, trying to paddle out of his hold even as the boat bobbed up and down. “Don’t come in here, Caleb.” Fresh tears stung my eyes. “Please … just stay where you are.”
I cried out when two strong arms circled my waist and pulled me back. I grabbed Simon’s hands and tried to pry his fingers from my body. “Simon,” I whimpered. “Please. Let me go.”
He pulled me so close my back pressed against his chest. I closed my eyes, desperately wanting to give into my body’s urge to melt next to his and accept the warmth and safety of his arms, and hating that I couldn’t.
“She was scared.”
I looked up. Caleb held on to the edge of my boat with both hands so that it knocked against theirs.
“Justine,” he continued, speaking loudly to be heard over the rain. “That’s why she didn’t apply to Dartmouth. That’s why she didn’t apply anywhere else. She was too scared.”
I shook my head.
“Before I say anything else,” Caleb said, “you need to know that she loved you. She loved you more than anything or anyone, and she would’ve done anything for you—including letting you believe she was fearless so that you’d continue to depend on her. She didn’t want me to tell you any of this … but you need to know. You deserve to know. It will help you understand.”
I wasn’t sure how to feel now that I was finally about to find out what I’d wanted to when I came back to Winter Harbor. “What was she so afraid of?” I finally asked.
He looked at Simon, who nodded. “The day you had your accident … do you remember why you went in the ocean?”
“She dared me.” Just like my body had been operating on its own, the words were out before I could think about saying them aloud.
“Justine dared you,” he repeated, like he wanted me to really think about that.
“The accident was my fault,” I said quickly, my heart racing. “It was a joke. She was kidding. She never really thought I’d go in.”
“She might’ve said it jokingly, but part of her wasn’t kidding.”
I tried to sit up, but Simon’s arms pulled me back. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Justine looked out for me. She protected me. She would never have pushed me into a dangerous situation.”
“Vanessa,” Caleb said gently, “what I’m telling you now she told me herself.”
His eyes were steady on mine, and I reminded myself that she’d loved him. In the months—and possibly the years—leading to her death, she’d confided in him more than she’d confided in anyone. “Go ahead.”
Caleb lowered his eyes and took a deep breath. “Justine loved you, but she was also very, very jealous of you.”
I bit my lip to keep from protesting. He was the second person to tell me that Justine envied me, and if I was to believe anyone, it should be him. Plus, this information was easier to accept knowing what I now did about who … what … I really was.
“For as long as she could remember, everyone wanted to know you. Relatives, neighbors, teachers, classmates. You were completely unaware, and that’s why she never mentioned it to you, but it drove her crazy. In order to deal, she did whatever she could for attention. She played sports. She joined a thousand clubs. She got straight A’s. She tried to be everyone’s friend. When she was old enough, she dated a lot of guys.”
I lifted my eyes to his and frowned.
“Yes, I knew about them. And I knew why. I didn’t care for me—I know she didn’t feel for them what she felt for me—but I did care for her. I hated that she felt she had to go to such extremes just to feel … important.”
Justine didn’t have to kiss a thousand guys or skydive out of airplanes to be important. She just was.
“She did what she did not to make you feel bad, but to make her feel better. Like I said, she would’ve done anything for you. She never wanted to hurt you.”
“So then what part of her wasn’t kidding the day of the accident?” I asked.
He paused. “Do you remember whose idea it was to have a picnic on the beach?”
“No,” I said honestly. “I don’t remember much about that day,” I added, not as honestly.
“According to Justine, she wanted to go to the movies. You wanted to have a picnic. As soon as you suggested the idea, your mom made sandwiches and your dad packed board games. And when Justine pushed the movie, they ignored her.”
“If they did, it wasn’t preferential treatment,” I said. “Justine was always closer to Mom than I was … and Dad was crazy about her, too.”
“In any case, she wasn’t happy about it. She knew it wasn’t your fault, but she was resentful. When she dared you to go swimming, she knew how dangerous it was … which was why she couldn’t forgive herself when you took the dare and disappeared.”
“But I came back,” I insisted, like I could still convince her that it wasn’t her fault. “I was pulled under, but I was fine.”
“Vanessa … you were under for thirty-four minutes before divers reached you.”
I leaned back.
“It’s a miracle you made it out alive.”
That was one way of putting it.
“It stayed with her,” Caleb continued, “the fact that you almost drowned because of one moment of weakness on her part. She kicked her outgoing, adventurous, protective, over-achieving behavior into high gear. She still did it for attention—which she needed more than ever after the accident—but she also did it to be the best sister, daughter, student, and friend she could be. She always blamed herself for almost taking you away from everyone who adored you.”
I tried to imagine Justine doing everything she did out of guilt and for the purpose of pleasing other people. “So when it came time to apply to colleges …?”
“Dartmouth,” he said. “Harvard, Yale, Brown. All the Ivies, all for your mom.”
“And the personal essay?” I said.
“She couldn’t do it. After working so hard for so long to impress people, she had no idea who she was, or what she wanted to do.”
I tilted my head and looked at him. “With one exception?” I guessed.
His gaze dropped to the water.
“She wanted to be with you.” It wasn’t a question.
He nodded and looked up. “And I wanted to be with her. More than anything.”
I didn’t try to pull away when Simon took my hand.
“But old habits are hard to break, and she knew your mom would’ve flipped if she suddenly said she was putting off college to hang out with some Winter Harbor local.”
“She was lucky to have you, Caleb.”
“I don’t know … but I was trying to be better. I didn’t want to lose her, so I did everything I could to make your mom happy. I left Monty’s for the Lighthouse,” he said, glancing at Simon, “so that I could make more money and keep company with CEOs instead of fishermen. That was probably one of the hardest things I’d ever done—it was so hard I couldn’t even tell Monty in person. I knew he’d try to talk me out of it, and I didn’t want him to.” He paused before continuing. “Eventually, when school started again, I started studying more and even took the SATs, which I nev
er intended to do.”
“What about lunch with the Lighthouse people?” Simon asked. “Mark said you met with them to try to talk them out of invading town.”
“That was before I started working there, when I still thought Justine and I might be able to live here together one day. You know I love this place. I was fighting to keep things the way they were.” He sighed. “Anyway, as graduation got closer, she started looking into other options.”
“Options?” I repeated.
“For September. She had to go somewhere, and she obviously wasn’t going to school. She looked into California, Washington, Oregon, Vancouver. She thought we needed to go far away so that she couldn’t just drive back to Boston whenever she felt guilty.”
“So putting thousands of miles between us was easier than just telling the truth about you and college?” I asked.
He looked at me like I should get it. “She was afraid.”
I should get it. I was used to being that scared. I knew there probably weren’t monsters hiding in the shadows when I went to sleep, but that hadn’t kept me from worrying they’d attack as soon as the lights went out. And running away supported Justine’s belief that the best way to deal with your fear of something was to pretend it wasn’t happening. She couldn’t be afraid of disappointing us if she pretended like we no longer existed.
“She made me promise not to tell anyone,” he said. “She thought people would think we were crazy, or doing the wrong thing, and she didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want anything to change our minds.”
“But if she had a plan,” I said, fast-forwarding to a few weeks ago, “why’d she jump off Chione Cliffs in the middle of the night?”
“I didn’t know at first,” Caleb said. “She was pretty fired up after that dinner, when your mom was talking about school and responsibility, and she found out that other people knew about me.”
I was glad rain still fell when my face started to burn. No wonder she’d been so mad—after she’d spent so many years trying to protect me, I’d revealed her biggest secret.
Siren Page 22
