“Here’s my card,” Dean said as he handed it to Brian. “Give me a call, and we’ll set something up. But right now I’ll let you get back to the funeral. I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thank you,” Brian murmured, sounding distracted and dazed.
The funeral home director was wheeling the casket out the back doors so they could load it into the hearse, and Brian turned back to watch Bernie’s departure as Dean walked away.
“We should get going if we want to be in the procession,” Harper said.
Brian nodded and shoved the lawyer’s business card in his back pocket.
Neither of them said anything about Bernie’s will as they walked out to Brian’s truck. In fact, neither of them said anything at all as they followed the hearse out to the cemetery. They were the only car in the procession, and other than the pastor, they were the only people who watched Bernie’s coffin be lowered into the ground.
Harper was shocked that Bernie had left them the island, and she assumed her father felt the same way. But it did make sense, since he had no real family here, and Brian was one of his closest friends.
That also made her feel guilty, when she realized how little she’d seen Bernie lately. Before they went out to his island this past weekend, it had probably been months since they’d visited him.
Harper didn’t want to see them pour the dirt onto his coffin, so she turned around to head back to the truck. As she did, she spotted Daniel standing several feet away, leaning against a bald cypress tree.
Harper walked over to Daniel, but her father lingered behind a few minutes. She wasn’t sure if Brian was paying his final respects to Bernie or giving her a moment alone with Daniel.
“What are you doing here?” Harper asked.
“I read about his funeral in the paper,” Daniel said. “I thought I’d come check it out.”
“You seem a little underdressed for a funeral.”
Daniel glanced down at his outfit. He wore a flannel shirt with the sleeves rolled up over a faded Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and his jeans had a hole in the knee.
“At least I put a shirt on,” Daniel teased. Harper had once commented on the fact that he never wore a shirt, or so it seemed whenever she saw him on his boat.
“Hello again, Daniel,” Brian said, walking up behind Harper.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Mr. Fisher.” Daniel stepped away from the tree and held out his hand.
Brian shook it quickly and nodded. “Thanks,” he said. “Did you know Bernie well?”
“No, not really.” Daniel shook his head. “But I knew that Harper was close to him, so I wanted to see how she was holding up and offer my condolences.”
“That’s very thoughtful.” Brian eyed him, as if he weren’t quite sure what to make of Daniel, then turned his attention to Harper. “I really hate to do this, but I have to get back to work.”
“I can give her a ride,” Daniel offered. “If you need to get going.”
Brian’s eyes flitted over to Daniel before looking to Harper to see what she wanted to do. Her father would just be going home to change for work and then leaving right away, so it wasn’t as if he needed her to go with him. And she wasn’t really looking forward to spending another day alone in the house.
“You go ahead, Dad,” Harper said. “Daniel can take me home.”
Her father hesitated before nodding. “Okay. I’ll see you later, then.” He leaned over and kissed Harper quickly on the temple before walking away.
“So…” Harper said once her father had left. “Do you often peruse the obituaries for funerals?”
“No.” Daniel stepped away, walking among the headstones, and Harper fell in step with him. “I’ve actually been checking the paper a lot for any info on Gemma.”
“Oh, yeah,” Harper said. “I’ve been doing the same thing.”
“So you haven’t heard anything from her yet?” Daniel asked, watching Harper as she spoke.
“No. Alex has gotten a couple e-mails, but they’ve been false leads so far.” She sighed. “I have no idea where she is. And I don’t know what I’ll do if she never comes home.”
“I hate to break it to you, but … you’ll live,” Daniel said solemnly.
“Why do you make that sound like bad news?”
“Because I’m under the impression that you want to curl up and die,” he said. “Or at least that’s what you think you’re supposed to do if something happens to your sister. But the hard truth is that you won’t. Life will move on, and you’re strong and smart, so you’ll move on with it.”
Harper shook her head. “I can’t imagine that. I can’t ever give up on her.”
“Nobody’s asking you to give up,” Daniel said. “I’m just suggesting that you keep things in perspective.”
“How so?” Harper asked.
Daniel had stopped walking, so she stopped and looked up at him. The sun was shining brightly above them, and the day felt far too lovely for a funeral. He squinted in the light, then gestured to a headstone behind Harper.
“That’s my brother John’s grave,” he said.
Daniel had told her about the accident he’d been in with his brother five years before. John had died, and Daniel had been left with scars covering his back and a few on his head, hidden by his hair.
“I’m sorry,” Harper said.
“I visit him from time to time.” Daniel stared down at the headstone, sounding uncharacteristically solemn. “I loved him a lot. But he’s still dead, and I’m still here.” He looked up at Harper, his eyes resting on her. “And so are you.”
“I know.” She smiled wanly at him. “And I don’t plan on going anywhere.”
“Good.” He smiled at that. “Now come on. It’s too nice out to spend the day at a cemetery. Let’s get out of here.”
TEN
Sirensong
Since going for a swim yesterday, Gemma was reenergized. Once she got past her guilt about enjoying any part of this experience, she felt pretty good. Penn hadn’t spoken to her much after that, and that was fine by Gemma.
Penn had spent most of yesterday in her room with Sawyer, making all kinds of noises that Gemma had only thought existed in porn. Then Penn got up early this morning and declared that she and Lexi were going on another shopping trip, once again leaving Thea in charge of Gemma and Sawyer.
Gemma still didn’t feel a hundred percent, but the watersong was hardly bothering her, and her chills and night sweats had gone away. So she decided to make the most of it. She put on a bikini and went out to the balcony to lie out in the sun. It was a beautiful day, and she wanted to enjoy it.
The problem was that Gemma had never really lain about before. She was always tan, but that was because she spent so much time in the bay. It didn’t take long before she gave up; she just couldn’t lie still that long.
The balcony outside her room hung about twenty feet from the ground. The ceilings on the first floor were tall, making the balcony exceptionally high. A railing of horizontal bars—painted white, of course— ran around the side of it to keep anyone from accidentally falling over.
Gemma went over to the edge and sat down, dangling her legs over the side and resting her arms on the lowest bar. She stared out at the ocean and swung her legs back and forth.
“I see you’re feeling better,” Thea said from the balcony next to hers. Each one of the five bedrooms that faced the ocean had its own balcony, and Thea’s room was closest to Gemma’s.
“Much better,” Gemma admitted.
“It’s the ocean that does it, you know,” Thea told her. “Something about the transformation heals all your aches and pains.”
“Yeah, I figured that.”
“If you swim every day, you buy yourself some time,” Thea said. “It’ll help keep your body from completely falling apart. But eventually you will have to eat.” She paused, running a hand through her hair. “But if you want to put that off, then I’d suggest you swim as often as you can.”
�
�Thanks,” Gemma said, genuinely surprised that Thea had offered her any tips.
Thea didn’t say anything to that. She stayed outside a moment longer, then turned and went back into the house.
Gemma knew she should take Thea’s advice, but she didn’t want to just yet. She felt content. Or at least as close to content as she’d felt since coming here. She’d been in so much pain lately that just the absence of pain felt amazing.
She was about to get up and go down to swim when Sawyer wandered out to the balcony. He’d gone shirtless today, opting to walk around in drawstring pants. Not that Gemma minded all that much. Her heart might belong to Alex, but she wasn’t blind.
“Do you care if I join you?” Sawyer asked.
Gemma shrugged. “It’s your house. You can do what you want.”
“Is it my house?” Sawyer sounded perplexed as he sat down next to Gemma, dangling his own legs over the edge of the balcony.
“Yeah, it’s your house.” Gemma gave him an odd look. “At least that’s what you told me the other day.”
“Right, right.” He shook his head as if to clear it. “Of course. It’s my house.” He leaned against the railing, resting his chin on his arms. “It’s just that lately it feels more like Penn’s house.”
“Yeah, I can understand that,” she said. He sighed, and she turned to face him. “Do you even like her?”
“Penn?” Sawyer asked, then nodded quickly. “Yes. Of course I like her. I’m crazy about her. I don’t think I can live without her.”
“Why?” Gemma asked him directly.
“Because…” He furrowed his brow, seemingly finding it difficult to think of a single reason why. “I feel so restless when she’s not around, like I can’t get comfortable.”
Gemma knew that Sawyer didn’t really care about Penn, at least not to the degree that he acted. But she thought he’d at least cite Penn’s beauty or her voice as a reason for being so devoted to her.
She wondered what his absence of reasons meant. Maybe Sawyer didn’t like Penn at all. If Penn took away the siren song, he might even detest her. But Gemma would probably never know how he really felt about Penn.
“I know I love her,” Sawyer said finally. “But when I try to think of why, it’s all a blur. All I can hear is her song.”
“If you try to think, her song drowns it out?” Gemma asked.
“Yeah, kind of.” He nodded. “Sometimes it’s Lexi’s, too, but mostly it’s Penn’s. She sings to me a lot. I don’t think she likes when Lexi does.”
“Why do you say that?” Gemma asked.
“She always tells me not to listen to Lexi’s song,” he said. “And that’s really hard to do, because her song is the most beautiful I’ve ever heard.”
“Yeah, I can agree with that.”
Lexi’s song didn’t have the same power on Gemma that it once had. She still felt compelled to sing along with her, but she had no urge to do her or any of the sirens’ bidding. Still, Lexi had the loveliest singing voice Gemma had ever heard.
“Do you think…” Sawyer’s face scrunched up, as if he were in pain. “Does Penn love me?”
Gemma was shocked that he’d even asked her that question, and she didn’t know how to answer. She briefly considered lying to him, telling him the kinds of things she thought he’d want to hear, but she didn’t see the point.
“What has she told you?” Gemma asked, carefully avoiding answering directly.
“When I tell her I love her, she usually just laughs,” Sawyer said. “She doesn’t really say how she feels about me. She just yells at me a lot and tells me I’m an idiot.”
“No, Penn doesn’t love you,” Gemma told him. “She’s just using you. I don’t know if she even likes you.”
She turned toward him to watch his reaction. His blue eyes stayed locked on the view of the ocean, and he looked hurt but not surprised.
“Yeah. That’s what I thought.” When he spoke again, he sounded disappointed, but more with himself than with Penn’s lack of affection.
“She put a spell on you,” Gemma said, trying to ease his sadness. “She’s a siren, and she’s used her songs to trick you into thinking you feel a certain way about her. But you don’t.”
“No,” Sawyer said quickly. “No, that’s not true. I really love her. It’s not some spell.”
“Well, you can think what you want, but it is a spell.” She turned back to the water.
“You really think Penn’s a siren?” Sawyer asked.
“Yep.”
“Lexi and Thea, too?”
“Yep.”
He thought about it, then asked, “What’s a siren?”
“A siren is sorta like a mermaid, but they can enchant people with their voices, usually men,” Gemma said.
The explanation was longer than that, but she didn’t think Sawyer needed to know all the details. The Cliffs Notes version would do.
“Oh,” he said. “Are you a siren?”
“Yeah, I am,” Gemma said, her voice heavy with regret.
“But you’re not like the others.”
“Because I’m not as pretty?”
“No, no, you’re all pretty.” He waved off that idea. “But when I’m around you, I can actually think. You feel different.”
“I feel different?” Gemma raised an eyebrow. “You’ve never touched me.”
“No, not the way you physically feel. The way you … are, I guess,” Sawyer said. “Your presence when you walk into a room. You feel real. The other girls, they feel like dreams I made up in the night. Or sometimes they feel like nightmares.
“And I don’t know why you said you’re not as pretty,” Sawyer said. “You’re just as pretty as they are, maybe prettier when you smile.”
Gemma smiled. “Thanks.”
“If me and Penn don’t work out, do you think that we could go on a date sometime?” Sawyer asked.
“Me and you?” Gemma laughed. “No, I don’t think so.”
“Why not?” Sawyer asked. “Do you have a boyfriend?”
She kept smiling, but it became pained. Gemma had been trying not to think about Alex that much, since it wouldn’t do her any good, and it still broke her heart a little every time she did.
“Yeah,” she said thickly. “I do have a boyfriend.”
“Then why isn’t he here?” Sawyer asked. “I don’t think I could stand to be away from you if I was your boyfriend.”
“He, um…” Gemma licked her lips and looked down at the beach below her. “He had to stay back home. It’s safer for him there.”
“Oh. You mean ’cause of Penn?”
“Yeah.” She nodded once. “Because of Penn.”
“Do you love him?” Sawyer asked.
“Yeah, I love him.” Gemma laughed again, this time to keep from crying. “I love him so much.”
“Does he love you?” Sawyer asked.
Gemma thought back to the last kiss she’d shared with Alex in the cabin before she’d left with the sirens. It had felt real and true, shooting through her like electricity. Penn insisted that Alex wouldn’t be capable of loving her now that she was a siren, but Gemma knew Alex, and he couldn’t fake the way he felt about her.
“Yeah,” Gemma said finally, with tears in her eyes. “I think he does.” She sniffled. “Sorry for getting so emotional.”
“It’s okay. I probably won’t remember this conversation anyway,” Sawyer said, displaying a surprising bit of self-awareness.
Gemma wiped at her eyes and looked at him. “What do you mean?”
“I can’t seem to remember much of anything anymore.” He shook his head. “Everything’s a blur of images.”
“I’m sorry,” she said sadly. “For all of this. I’m sorry that the sirens are doing this to you. You seem like a nice guy, and you deserve better than this.”
“I don’t know. I’m not sorry. It’s kind of fun.” He smiled, but the smile seemed sad. “Four beautiful girls in my house, and I’m in love with Penn. Some things ar
e strange and my memory isn’t so great, but it’s still … fun.”
“I hope that’s true,” Gemma said.
Sawyer let out a long breath. “Me, too.”
ELEVEN
Runaway
“Where is she?” Nathalie shouted, her voice taking on a feverish pitch.
“She’s not here, Mom,” Harper said, and rubbed her forehead.
This was not at all how she imagined their weekly visit going. She’d actually considered not coming today, but her father was busy meeting with Bernie’s lawyer, Dean Stanton. Harper had even thought about hanging out with Daniel, but he was busy working on a job repairing someone’s fence.
So Harper had mistakenly thought seeing her mother at the group home would be better than spending the day alone at the house.
But things had been rough from the start. As soon as Nathalie ran out of the house to greet Harper and saw that Gemma wasn’t with her, she’d gotten agitated, demanding to know where her younger daughter was.
The really weird thing was that Gemma had skipped Saturday visits with Nathalie before. Gemma loved their mom and always wanted to see her, but with all her swim meets, sometimes skipping a visit couldn’t be helped. Sometimes she just wasn’t able to make it.
Usually, when Gemma had to go to a meet, Harper would still go see Nathalie. Brian would go watch Gemma swim, so it wasn’t like she wouldn’t have anyone cheering her on. But Brian would never visit Nathalie. He just couldn’t handle it.
When Harper visited her mom alone, she would explain where Gemma was, and Nathalie would be fine with it. Sometimes Nathalie didn’t even seem to notice.
But this time it was as if Nathalie knew something was wrong. She knew Gemma should be here, and she wasn’t. So she freaked out.
Harper and Becky, one of the staff who worked at Nathalie’s group home, managed to get her in the house before she totally lost it. But now it was only Nathalie and Harper in her bedroom, with Harper futilely attempting to contain the situation.
“No, no, no,” Nathalie repeated over and over, shaking her head rapidly.
Today Becky had done Nathalie’s hair in two long braids with a red feather woven into one. When Nathalie shook her head, Harper had to be careful to move out of the way because the braids were like whips.
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