Siren's Song

by Heather McCollum

  Luke is already on his feet in one fluid movement, like liquid steel. He folds the blanket, and I switch off the lights and grab the empty water bottles. Luke catches my hand as I step toward the door. He reels me in to his chest. The threat of time dulls in the distance as he claims me again for a quick kiss. I half-stumble the rest of the way out the door. His hold on my wrist saves my neck. The hint of a chuckle behind me makes me blush. He whispers something toward the door, and I hear a soft click as the lock tumbles back into place. He grabs my hand and we walk down the pebbled path under the crisp white shine of the moon.

  “Not a bad date, all in all,” he says. He swings our arms playfully between us. “Half an hour alone under a blanket in the dark with the love of my eleven lives.” I smile at his teasing tone and thrill inside at his casual use of the “L” word. “And no one got killed,” he finishes, and my smile dims.

  I huff. “Always a good night when my blood’s not spilled,” I say and he laughs softly in the silent night.

  We stand along the pitch-dark road in front of the heavy chain that blocks the RV storage center’s driveway. Luke holds me with my back against his chest and rests his chin on my head.

  “So…” I say as I try not to turn in his arms to hug him. With my luck, my parents will come around the corner to catch us making out and Luke’s eyes glowing. They’d never let me near him again. “Tell me about your lives.”

  “Hmmm…not much to tell.”

  “Doubt that. So far, I know you’ve been married, you’ve scared a woman senseless, and you have some medical training. You’re by far more interesting than me.”

  “I disagree,” he says and rubs his hand down my arms, trying to warm me. “Where were you born?”

  “Virginia. Upper-middle class, living on a cul-de-sac in a two-story house.” I pause only long enough to take a breath. “What did you do the first time you remembered the curse?”

  “Thought I was crazy. I stopped talking about the dreams and bloody memories because my parents started to whisper that I might be possessed by the devil. I started to believe them, too. But then Taylin and Mathias showed up. We had to accept that our memories were true.”

  “What did you do?”

  “We stayed as close as possible, trying to figure out what had been done to us. We felt, well, different, but we weren’t sure why. Even our feelings of closeness in our original lives were muted. We were numb to all forms of attraction– to people, to animals, to each other. We hung out together because we were familiar, but we didn’t care like we used to. We struggled through our teenage years, and then Taylin slit her wrist. That’s when we found out it wasn’t that easy to die. So she became reckless and died falling off a horse. Mathias came down with some disease, and I was hung when I joined up with rebels against the crown.”

  My hand moves automatically to my neck and I swallow. “I can’t imagine dying like that.”

  “It’s not my favorite way to go.” He squeezes my arms gently and rocks a little side to side. Headlights come around the corner, but the car doesn’t slow.

  “So you moved to North Carolina when you were young?” he asks.

  “Uh, yeah, sort of. I was twelve, so five years ago.”

  “Why?”

  I shrug a little. “Dad got a job down here, and Mom was ready to give up being stalked ‘cause of her voice.”

  “She’s a Siren, too.” Luke becomes as still as the night around us.

  “I guess. Her voice enthralls people like mine. Not as strongly as mine, now that you’re around. But she was so popular on the opera circuit that people sent flowers all the time, with notes about loving her and stuff. I think that might be the real reason we moved.” I half-turn to Luke. “You can’t be…like, after two Sirens at once, can you?”

  “I don’t think so. That night I met your mom I didn’t feel the curse try to surface.”

  “She wasn’t singing.”

  “Even your speaking voice makes it aware.” He shakes his head. “I didn’t feel that. Anyway, the Siren is supposed to be someone who is perfect for us, which makes me think it would be someone around the same age.”

  “So, if you die and come back, I might not be your Siren anymore. You won’t love me.”

  Silence sits there. I feel Luke brush the top of my head with a kiss. “I’m not dying. We’re going to break Maximillian’s curse.”

  I brush his chin softly with my nod. A car comes around the corner and Luke drops his arms. It slows, and I recognize my dad’s sedan.

  I glance at Luke. “We’re not done with my history lesson.”

  “It gets a bit boring after a while. I’m born. I remember. The three of us get together. One of us dies. The other two follow. Repeat.”

  Dad’s door opens at the same time as the passenger door. Dad rushes up to me and grabs me away from Luke. Luke stands there with his hands stuffed in his jeans pockets. “Are you okay?” Dad asks and peers down my length as if he’ll see my clothes slashed or on inside-out.

  “I’m fine, Dad.” I give him a little smile and look at Mom. I think she’s been crying. “I’m so sorry you were worried.”

  Mom envelops me. “Worried is an understatement, Julietta. When Eric came over,” her eyes move to Luke and she lowers her voice, “he said Luke forced you to go with him, kidnapped you.”

  Anger flares inside me. “Eric is the one who almost kidnapped me. He’s a liar.” Mom’s eyes are wide, worried. “What you remembered before is true. He made you forget when you got home.”

  Confusion and barely controlled panic crumples her face. “I’m sorry, Mom.” I hug her. “Luke is trying to help me and I’m trying to help him. I know it’s confusing.”

  “Eric just said he’s trying to protect you,” she whispers against my head. Her hug feels more like a death grip.

  I huff. “In his warped mind, he is. But it doesn’t excuse the fact that he’s dangerous and determined to get rid of Luke, no matter what.” I feel Mom shift so she can see Luke standing alone.

  She pulls away slightly, but keeps one arm fastened around my shoulders. “Your parents are worried, too.”

  “I called them. Thank you for picking me up.”

  “Well, it would be pretty ridiculous for both of us to drive out here to the middle of nowhere,” Dad mutters. “Let’s get in the car. Luke, you ride up front with me. Isabella’s not going to let go of Julietta for a good long while.”

  Dad gives Luke and then me a suspicious look. “And by the way, there are no bus stops near here. Just something to contemplate on the ride home.”

  Yep, good old Dad. Nothing gets by him, unless Mom’s in a mental hospital. What would he do if I told him the truth? Would they give him a yellow badge or red badge to be able to visit me?

  I slide into the warm, dark car next to Mom and she pulls me into her side. Dad swerves onto the road headed home. The silence sits thick inside the walls of the sedan, like stagnant smoke, making it hard to breathe. I concentrate on the back of Luke’s head as he stares straight ahead.

  “Did Carly come over with Eric?” I ask Mom. I see Luke turn our way.

  “No,” Mom answers, “but she called, which worried us more since she always knows where you are.”

  “Did she seem…okay?”

  Mom thinks for a moment. “It was a bit stressful at the time. She seemed a little confused and mad. Like she should know where you were but couldn’t remember.”

  I stiffen.

  “What’s going on with the two of them, Carly and Eric?” Mom asks.

  And here it is. The big question that I knew one day they’d ask. But am I ready to spill the can of proverbial beans all over the place? There’ll be calls to the police, restraining orders, investigations into Eric’s background, my background. The lump of paper sits hard in my back pocket.

  I suck in a deep breath. “Eric has a crush on me and he’s lied to Carly about it. I think he’s confusing her.”

  “I’ll talk to Richard,” Dad says, as if t
hat will solve everything. “Eric’s too old for you. He needs to find a girl at State to obsess about.”

  Silence ensues and I watch the lights of passing cars, wondering what Luke is thinking about. We pull up in front of the Whitmore’s lit-up house.

  “Thank you,” Luke says. Dad just nods. The front door flies open, and Carolyn Whitmore runs across the damp grass. Oscar stands in the doorway and raises one hand to my dad. Dad responds in kind, as if they are two tired fathers dealing with insane teenagers. Wouldn’t that be great, if we were just two hormone-engulfed, normal, crazy teenagers?

  Luke bows his head so he can see me in the back. “See you.” When, I’m not sure. It’s the weekend, and my dad looks very much like a warden in a maximum-security lockdown.

  “Yeah. Thanks.” For so much, I finish in my head. Thanks for saving me from Eric. Thanks for not killing me. Thanks for loving me. Thanks for the craziest, best night of my life. “See ya.”

  I escape to my room after scratching Mica on the head and listening to Dad rant for a few minutes about the dangers of going off alone with a boy. Mom watches me as if she’s trying to break through a barrier in her memory. Instinctively, she probably believes me, not about the bus, but about Eric being dangerous. She just can’t figure out why she believes me.

  I turn off the lights and push my window curtain aside. My breath hitches as I stare down at a figure near the lilac tree. He raises his hand and I breathe. Luke. He circles his finger in the air as if to say he’s going to walk the perimeter. He jogs off into the dark. I shake my head. How long is he going to guard the house, guard me? Would Eric really try something tonight?

  I dig the folded family tree out of my jeans pocket and trace the line with my gaze once again. It still stretches, like a long barbed wire, from me to Maximillian. My heart thumps wildly. I didn’t know I was related to Luke’s greatest enemy. I didn’t know that I am the key to their freedom. I didn’t know that by spilling my blood I could save three tortured souls and an unknown number of unloved parents in the future. I swallow against the guilt.

  But now I do.

  20

  “The soul would have no rainbow if the eyes had no tears.”

  ~Native American Saying

  My Saturday is like a mind-numbing, boring movie that I can’t get up and walk out of. Dad won’t let me leave the house. Mom just stares at me like I’m going to be sucked away from her if she blinks. Each hour is made up of ridiculously long minutes. Three minutes to use the bathroom, including washing my hands. Two minutes to brush my teeth. Ten minutes to eat my cereal because I chew and count to one hundred with every bite. I try to watch a movie, but instead I get up and pace the house, checking out each window for both my stalker and my savior.

  Carly stops by briefly on her way to see Matt at the hospital. “Really?” she says when I give her a rundown of what happened. “I remember the alcove, sort of,” she says, her face pinched tight as if she can squeeze the memory out. “It’s hazy.” She stares at me and shakes her head. “Eric wiped my memory? It just sounds way too motivated and illegal for my straight-laced, passive brother.”

  I purse my lips. I’m getting tired of re-convincing Carly. At least this time, she’s not mad. She has that same look Mom gets, as if the memories are sitting right there on the tip of her brain and she just can’t see them. Like an itch that you can’t reach, it must be frustrating. If Luke hadn’t shown up, I might have the same itchy look on my face.

  In the evening, Dad stops by my room. “I talked to Richard. He’ll be speaking with Eric about staying away from you.”

  “Thanks,” I mumble, though I’m pretty sure Eric won’t care what his dad says. Not if his skewed idea of protecting me is because of some sacred oath he took as a guardian. And if Richard Ashe is in on it, it won’t matter, anyway.

  “And I want you home right after school Monday,” Dad continues.

  “We have after-school rehearsal for the musical Monday, Wednesday, and Friday next week, and then every day the following week.”

  Dad huffs, his face turning red. He stares over my head for a long second. Apparently even the seconds are sluggish this weekend. “You haven’t told Mom yet that I’m in it, have you?” He shakes his head, looking tired. “I can,” I volunteer, “today.”

  “She’s so delicate still, and after the other night–”

  “I think she’s stronger than you think, Dad,” I say past the heat infusing my face. He hasn’t questioned me further about Friday. I wonder how long that will last.

  “I’ll tell her while you’re at school Monday. Come home right after practice.”

  When he leaves I check the windows again, scratch Mica’s belly and try to lose myself in one of my favorite books. The heroine’s predicament is uncannily similar to mine and I know there is a happy ending. I’ve read it five times. But when I try to imagine my own happy ending, it seems rather impossible. After all, the book is only fiction and I’m living in a real-life drama with no way out. When I check the clock, only fifteen minutes have passed. I flop back on my bed and throw my arm over my eyes in a dramatic huff.

  “Is the book that bad? So many people are enthralled by it.”

  I gasp and surge upward, almost falling off the bed. Luke stands in the shadows near my closet. “God, Luke! You scared the hell out of me!” I whisper-yell and eye the shut door.

  He crosses to me, the repentance on his face at war with a grin. “I’m sorry.” He follows my gaze. “They’re downstairs watching TV.”

  I sit on the edge of the bed. “How did you get in here?”

  His grin increases and I remember before he can say anything. He moves his fingers and I feel a tickle at the back of my neck. “Locks, clasps, all easy to open.” My necklace falls down my shirt, catching in the lip of my bra. I fish it out.

  “Showoff,” I say, and set it on my dresser. “What are you doing here? I mean, not that I don’t want you here…” I shake my head nervously. Can my parents hear me talking? “Because believe me, today certainly needs some excitement. Not that I’m expecting,” I realize I’m floundering and lower my hand that is flopping in the air, “further excitement…” I trail off, prop my knuckles on the bed and stare at Luke’s silent amusement. “What are you doing here?”

  He chuckles and walks over to me. “I had some time to think today when I wasn’t running around your property.”

  “You were?”

  “Just in case Ashe decided to show his face.” He shakes his head. “No sign of him.”

  “My dad talked to his dad about leaving me alone.” I hold up a hand before Luke can form the first word. “I know; it won’t stop Eric if he’s convinced about his justifications. I’m just saying, maybe he’s sitting low today.”

  “I had time to think,” Luke reminds me about the initial topic. “I need a way for you to call me without singing to get my attention. I want to know where you are.”

  “You going to tag me like a biologist on the Discovery Channel?”

  He laughs, and I hold my finger to my lips to quiet him. He steps forward and I suddenly feel shy. It must be the broad, comfy bed sitting right behind me. My blush doesn’t stop him. He pulls out a small velvet pouch and grabs my hand. He dumps cool silver into my palm. “For you. A little prettier than one of those ear tags they use on moose.”

  I catch the clasp and hold it up. A delicate chain ends in a silver dragonfly inlaid with a green stone, with small veins running through it. “It’s beautiful.”

  “It’s not as beautiful as your birthmark, but it reminds me of you.”

  My hand moves across my heart where my birthmark sits. Has he seen it? Of course he has, in his dreams.

  “Thank you,” I say and go to the mirror to fasten it around my neck. He glides up behind me without a sound. I shiver slightly as he moves my hair away from my nape, his fingers tickling along my warm skin there as he fastens it the old-fashioned way, without magic. For a long moment Luke stands like a shadow over my shoulder in th
e full-length mirror. Our eyes meet in the reflection and the world feels suddenly just like an illusion, like we truly have stepped into the looking glass, past reality into dreams and nightmares. The whisper of his breath against my hair is the only thing that feels real.

  “You smell so good here,” he says, and I feel his nose brush the skin at the back of my neck. “Warm, some type of berry, and then a bit of coconut lotion all mixed in with that special aroma that is all you.”

  I close my eyes at his words. He’s barely touching me, but my heart rattles a frantic beat and my pulse starts to thrum with sensations. The blush I felt in my cheeks has spread like fire across and down my body. I am super-sensitive to his touch, to the sound of his inhale, the sound of my exhale, the smell of his leather jacket and faint under-scent of pine soap. My body relaxes back into him and his arms envelop me, hugging me back into his chest.

  And then…he curses softly and drops his hold around me. I blink my eyes open and turn toward him.

  “I’m sorry,” I say automatically. Luke’s eyes glow softly, as if the light shines up through dark blue waters.

  “For what? Being all too delicious?” His voice comes gruff past his lopsided grin.

  “Uh…yeah.”

  The grin hardens into a grimace. “I’m going. It was dangerous to come here.” He glances around my room. “This place is all you. Your smell, your personality.” He spots the dragonfly picture my mom gave me. “Fragile in form, resilient in spirit,” he quotes. Luke nods gravely and looks at me. His eyes shift to the dragonfly lying on my chest. “The jade has protective powers. I had Taylin help strengthen them with me. If your heart starts to pound,” a slightly sinister grin curls his lips, “like now, I will come running, but hopefully not out of control.”

  I nod, still staring at his eyes. “Will it tell you where I am?”

  “It has a binding spell. I will always know where you are…if you wear it.” He pauses. “You can always take it off if –”

  “I’ll wear it always,” I cut in.

  He gives one curt nod and turns. “I’ll be watching.” He glances back quickly, and in the flat darkness of the hall his eyes shine a warning from within. “I love you.” Before I can return a word, he merges with the shadows. I go to the window and pull back the curtain.