Westerland. They have a hockey team,” Matt says, looking at Luke, “and the school’s across town.”
“Wooo, that’s a pricey place,” Carly comments.
“His dad can afford it,” Taylin laughs. “And it’s pretty amazing how much our parents will do for us in hopes that we’ll cuddle up to them,” she adds bitterly. She covers the flash of pain with a sneer. Taylin’s cell phone starts shrieking a heavy metal song. “Shit,” she glances at the screen. “Dad’s probably worried I’m off slitting my wrists again. He keeps patching me up.”
“He’s a doctor,” Matt explains.
“OMG, you’re like the poster child for troubled teens,” Carly says.
“Yeah, sucks for them,” Taylin says, ducking her eyes to her black Chuck Taylors. “I’d better get home before he calls the cops again, or he’ll try to put me on some other antidepressant.”
“He wouldn’t worry so much if he knew you couldn’t kill yourself,” Matt says. “You can’t?” I ask. “But haven’t you tried?”
“When it’s self-inflicted, the curse heals us before we die,” she says. “Part of the curse. No easy way out.” She shrugs. “I just give it a try out of desperation sometimes.”
“Come on, Jule,” Carly says. “I’m parked behind her. I’ll drive you home.” She pulls at me, but I don’t follow. Instead, I walk closer to Luke. He’s staring at me as if he expects me to run away. And he looks like he probably won’t stop me if I do. I swallow down the beginnings of panic. Not panic over the fact that Luke’s curse might make him try to kill me, but panic over the thought of leaving him.
“I’d better go before my dad wonders where I am.” My mouth says the words my heart rejects.
He nods. I’m still connected to Luke’s stare. “Don’t… don’t…” I shake my head and try to ignore the listening ears around me. I lower my voice. “Don’t disappear on me.”
The corner of Luke’s scowl turns upward into that casual-crooked grin that captures my breath and kicks my heart into a sprint. “I’m not going anywhere.”
“Westerland has–” Matt starts.
“I am battling hard enough to keep my temper in check,” Luke says as he glances at Matt, his grin gone. But then he looks quickly back to me. “I don’t have any remaining strength to stay away from Jule.”
The boulder in my gut breaks into a swarm of fluttering butterflies. Relief and concern war for top spot on my list of crazily twisted emotions. He’s not going to leave me. What if he really should leave me? I already know that the pain would be unthinkable, but would the pain be worse than death?
Luke’s hand is warm and solid as he gently squeezes mine. “We just have to figure out how to break the curse.”
He lets Carly pull me away toward her car. We leave the strange trio standing there. How could I have missed their obvious similarities before? Taylin scowls and spits on the leaves. Matt shakes his head, his eyes worried and continually shifting to Luke. Luke’s gaze locks with mine through Carly’s dirty windshield as she backs down the path. Strength emanates from him as he stands, fists at his sides.
Carly doesn’t say anything at all. I’m too…well, too something to care at the moment. What am I? Worried? No– more than worried. Scared? Yeah, probably, but not for the reason I should be. Not because I now know that the world is darker and more dangerous than what I’ve always believed. Not because I know that the fury I’ve witnessed in Luke’s eyes was real and meant for me. Not even because Matt and Taylin are convinced that Luke is going to slash me open. I’m scared because…
Carly performs a three-point turn and I can no longer see Luke. My chest aches like I’m on the bottom of a swimming pool and my air is all gone and I need to break through the surface now. I concentrate on breathing in and out but the pressure doesn’t go away. Because I’m scared. Scared that I might be falling in love with the very person I should be running from. And at the same time, scared that if I run, he won’t follow.
Carly pulls up in front of my house. Dad peeks out and waves. Carly and I sit silently for a moment as the darkness descends around her car like someone painting the world in gray.
“Well, shit,” Carly finally says, but she continues to stare out the front window. She turns to me. “So…” she sighs. “I guess I’ll pick you up tomorrow for school.”
I look at her; my eyes narrow.
“You don’t look like you want to talk about it,” Carly explains. “And to tell you the truth, I need to process.” She spins her finger at the side of her head like the sign for “crazy.” “We can figure it out tomorrow after school. You know, come up with a plan to break the curse or something.”
She talks about it so nonchalantly that I have to smile. “Thanks.” I open the door.
“You know,” she stops me, “that would have been a perfect time to ask for some iced-strawberry lip gloss.”
“And have you calling the cops?”
Carly scrunches her face at me from under her open-door light. “Okay, if you say anything about lip gloss, I’ll come running. Save the really scary stuff for the iced-strawberry variety.”
I give her a twisted grin. “Cavalry Carly.” I turn.
“Jule.” I stop and look back at my best friend. “Just… be safe. Okay?”
I nod quickly, although I have no idea how to keep that promise.
I pass through the house, telling Dad I need to do some homework before dinner.
The steps feel steep and my head aches. I sit on my bed and stare across at the dragonfly print my mom gave me. The purples and blues wash together over its wings, silver ink tracing the delicate infrastructure.
Fragile in form, resilient in spirit.
I stare at it for several minutes. You’re special, Carissima, my mom said when she gave me the print. Beautiful and delicate, yet full of spirit and resilience. Dragonflies have been around since the age of the dinosaurs. Even though they are breakable, their spirit is strong. The dragonfly is the perfect symbol of you. I argued that dragonflies don’t sing. She smiled and said, You’re so much more than singing.
My fingers seek the familiar spot on my chest and I stand up in front of my full-length framed mirror. I pull down the edge of my shirt and run my fingers over the light brown wings that blend into my skin. My birthmark. A small dragonfly sits embedded in my skin, the smudge on Luke’s two-hundred-year-old sketch. For years I tried to imagine it as a nightingale, but the four distinct, brown, teardrop wings make the vague but recognizable shape into a dragonfly.
I stare at myself in the mirror—wide, sad eyes, lashes spiked with tears, lips open on a shallow breath. The exact look from Luke’s sketchbook. A chill rattles against my spine. Has my whole life been set, then? Am I just playing a role already sketched out for me? Loved with obsessive devotion, hated with barely controlled fury? I breathe slowly, deeply as my gaze shifts from my reflection in the mirror to the dark and hazy reflection in the windowpane. Beyond, the lights of Amberly Heights spark along the street, leading to Luke’s house.
Choices. We all have choices. I have to believe that. I run my fingertips down the cool black glass. Luke has a choice not to…recreate that last picture of me lying limp over his arms as he roars in anguish. I swallow hard. And I have choices. I could stay away from Luke. If I asked him to, he’d leave. Right?
My palm lies flat against the hard pane, obscuring the reflection. I look over my fingertips to my front yard. My breath hitches as I recognize Luke, staring up at me. His hands are shoved into his jean pockets. The wind blows dark hair across his forehead and eyes. He nods and turns to walk back toward his house, as if he’s just checking to make sure I’m safely inside. As he fades into shadow the feeling of loss churns somewhere between my stomach and heart. I struggle to pull in a steady breath. Instead it comes out ragged.
Choices? Right! I lean my forehead on the window. What choices do I have? To refuse love and possibly live, or to grab hold of love…and possibly die? As I sigh and turn back to my empty room I
know that one choice has been made. I am most definitely falling in love with Lucas Whitmore. Now–to work on the living part.
12
“Happiness is like those palaces in fairy tales whose gates are guarded by dragons: we must fight in order to conquer it.”
~Alexandre Dumas
“Have a cookie,” Taylin orders Derek and Madison as they walk into the auditorium before me. She holds out what looks like chocolate chip.
“Uh, no thanks. Diet,” Madison says while Derek grabs one and takes a bite.
“Yum,” he says and looks behind at me. “You should try one. They’re good.” He sounds shocked. “Hey,” he looks at Taylin, “you didn’t put something funny in here, did you?”
Taylin rolls her eyes. “My mom likes to bake. She’s trying new recipes and I don’t want them hanging around the house.” She pats her non-existent stomach. “So I’ll be bringing them in.” She shoves one in Madison’s hand. “Eat one, Miss Skin and Bones.”
Taylin ignores my outstretched hand and gives a cookie to two people behind me. “I’ll try one,” I say, but she moves her full bag out of reach.
She lowers her voice. “Trying an experiment here. None for the Siren.”
I look at the cookies. “What’s in them?” I whisper.
She flaps her hand. “This and that, nettle powder, cinnamon, and protective herbs enhanced by some spellwork.”
“You really are a witch?”
Taylin stares at me. “What do you think Maximillian was teaching us? How to serve a proper tea?” she says with a nasally hoity-toity British accent.
“So, what is it supposed to do?”
She hands out a few more cookies and shoos me ahead of her down the dim aisle. “We can’t have everyone zoning out into little Siren-induced comas during the musical, or we’ll never get through it.”
Relief floods me. “I hope it works.”
“It will block the effects of your voice from penetrating the parietal lobes of their brains. It will register in the temporal lobe, but the perception of the auditory stimuli will be blocked.”
I stare at Taylin, looking past the black goth eyeliner and lipstick. She must have amazing grades if she bothers to do the work. “Cool,” I murmur and drop my bag near a seat in the front row. “Does it work on Luke?”
She shrugs. “I made him eat twelve on the way to class.” She grins as if remembering the scene. “We’ll see. He’s planning to go to art today. If it doesn’t work, we’ll know soon enough.” She glances at the back doors of the auditorium where Matt stands guard. I shake my head. If they fail their senior year for ditching, it will be my fault.
“Jule,” Ms. Bishop calls, “Derek, Madison, head up there.” She takes a bite of one of Taylin’s cookies. “We’ll try the falling chandelier scene.” Ms. Bishop looks at Taylin. “You’ll have that functioning by the end of the week, right Taylin?”
Taylin salutes Ms. Bishop and bites into a cookie. I take a deep breath and head up to the stage.
“Let’s start with the song ‘Point of No Return.’ Derek?” Ms. Bishop cues the music. Derek starts off singing the part of the Phantom. I watch the kids in the dim audience. Several are munching on nettle cookies.
I hear the notes that lead to my part and breathe. The first bubbles of song float out on my exhale, crystals of clear, sweet sound. I try to concentrate on the faces around me, but the song takes over as I follow the rises and falls of the stanzas until I get to the part where the Phantom joins Christine. Derek’s tenor harmonizes with my soprano right on cue. I realize my eyes are closed and I open them. Derek smiles at me as he belts out his lines. I glance out at the audience. Taylin nods with a smirk and crosses her arms. The nettle cookies work. People are moving. They still stare, but it’s not the blank-expression stare.
Then, I notice Taylin’s smirk turn into a frown, and look over to where Madison stands. Her eyes are locked, frozen with the rest of her body. I shut my lips a few lines before the end of the song, letting Derek finish it. Madison shakes her head, disoriented.
Ms. Bishop starts flapping at her. “Come on, Madame Biancaroli!” The stage manager dashes out to Madison with a script and points to her lines. Apparently, Madison never did eat the cookie.
A movement at the back of the auditorium catches my attention and my breath. But instead of a raging Luke, Matt stands in the back, his thumb raised in the universal “all’s well” signal. I feel my first smile of the day work its way across my lips.
“Excellent harmony,” Ms. Bishop calls to Derek and me. She smiles broadly and nods to me. “You have a most amazing voice, Jule. We’re lucky to have you.” The praise mixes with relief, and the sprouts of hope begin to grow inside me.
“Thanks,” I murmur.
“Let’s take a short break,” Ms. Bishop calls, “while I work with costuming.” She pushes through the heavy curtains to where half a dozen students are holding up rich fabrics and old donated prom dresses.
“Eat this,” Taylin pushes a cookie into Madison’s mouth. “You need sugar in your system.”
Madison chews the bite but doesn’t look happy. She snatches the rest of the cookie away from Taylin. “I can feed myself. I just feel a little woozy.”
Taylin tsks at her. “Not enough carbs, Holla-Back Girl.” She walks away. By the end of class, the cast has all had cookies and we make it through half the songs. Matt abandons his post once it looks like the cookies will keep Luke from morphing into the Incredible Hulk.
Taylin walks out with me.
“Everyone in drama is going to gain ten pounds by the end of the semester.”
“But it worked,” she hisses and a smile transforms her usually pinched face into something close to beautiful, even with all the crap makeup.
“Way to go, Glinda.”
“Glinda?” she asks.
“You know, Wizard of Oz, good witch Glinda?”
Taylin laughs. “Whoever said I was the good witch?”
Carly meets us at my locker. No sign of Luke. “Hey, are we still headed to your house, Jule, to,” she lowers her voice, “figure out how to break the curse?”
“Yeah, my dad’s visiting Mom after work again today. So we’ll have the place to ourselves.”
“Like we’re going to break the curse in one afternoon over cookies at Jule’s house, when we haven’t been able to do it over eleven lifetimes,” Taylin sneers, her old self back.
“They were short lives, from what Matt’s told me,” Carly says. “Plus you didn’t have the Siren with you then. Hey, where’d you get the cookies?”
Taylin holds out the bag. “Help yourself.” She smiles. Carly looks wary but takes one anyway. Taylin huffs. “They’re fine. I didn’t spit or sneeze on them.”
“So, where’s Luke?” I wonder out loud. I want to hear it from him that Taylin’s cookies worked. I shut my locker and sling my book bag over a shoulder.
“Haven’t seen him,” Carly says and the three of us walk toward the parking lot. Taylin doesn’t have any books with her. Probably doesn’t intend to do any homework. Carly takes another cookie. “Hey, why aren’t you eating any of them?” she asks Taylin, obvious suspicion in her narrowed eyes.
“They’re fine,” Taylin huffs. “They just have a spell on them to make the consumer immune to Jule’s tranceinducing songs.”
“Really? A spell? And they’re okay to eat?” Carly breaks the chocolate chip cookie in two and sniffs it.
“They taste great,” Taylin defends. She rubs her stomach a little. “Just when Jule started singing, well, it made my stomach a little funky. Maybe because of the curse.” She shrugs. “I want to see if Matt felt anything.”
“And Luke,” I say, my gaze going to the police car in the parking lot. A group of adults and kids are standing around a smashed-up car. What looks like the bright blue, glossy surface of a car roof sits on the ground with a cop crouched before it, writing in a pocket-sized notebook.
“Bloody hell,” Taylin curses in her natural Britis
h slant. “That’s Mathias’s car. What the fuck happened to it?”
I spot Matt standing near the punched-out car. His hand cradles the back of his neck like he has a doozie of a headache. He shakes his head. As we crawl through the packed crowd, I can hear his voice.
“I wasn’t feeling well, so I went to class late.” Quiet question from another cop, who writes in her own little notebook. “No! Why would I destroy my own car?” And with that Matt turns to look at what had been the hottest car at Cougar Creek. He splays rough fingers through his short hair.
As the crowd shifts I get a glimpse of the wreckage. The windshield is shattered, glass fragments scattered over the hood. The roof is gone. The back windshield and every side window have been punched out. But the weirdest part is the side panels. Large dents, the size of a big foot, stick out, as if someone had bent the metal by kicking it from the inside.
“Where’s Luke?” I whisper.
Taylin is already shaking her head. “I’m guessing the cookies didn’t work.”
“For your insurance to cover this,” the female cop says to Matt, “you need to file a police report and press charges once we identify the assailant.”
“No one saw anything,” Matt insists. He glances our way as if he, too, is looking for Luke. I shake my head.
“Weird,” the cop murmurs and scribbles more in her notebook. “The car alarm should have gone off.”
“I…I guess I didn’t lock it,” Matt says. “It was my own stupid fault. So I’m not pressing charges.”
“Your parents may disagree with your last statement,” she adds and signals to a policeman with a camera, who snaps pictures.
“There’s some vomit in the passenger’s seat,” the photographer says.
Matt rolls his eyes, his mouth open. He releases a long sigh. “That’s mine. I…ate too much for breakfast this morning. It didn’t want to stay down. I just haven’t had a chance to clean it.”
“Is that right?” the female cop pinches her mouth into a lopsided line. She writes more in her notebook.
After a few minutes Matt walks over to us. “I’ll be a little late.”
Siren's Song Page 16
