The Siren

She beamed, fluffing her hair with a hand. “I found this,” she said, bringing something over to me.

It was another short dress, but it had a thin layer of tulle from the waist down. And, yes, it was covered with sequins, but it was closer to my style than anything else she’d shown me.

I smiled. “Thanks. This is the one.”

Elizabeth threw her arms around me. “I’m so happy you’re coming! The only thing better than being the two prettiest girls in the room is being the three prettiest!”

The bouncer was under Elizabeth’s spell from the moment he saw her coming, and I had the feeling that even if our fake IDs hadn’t said we were twenty-one, we would have been walking through the door without Xs on our hands anyway.

I cringed away from the blaring bass, already second-guessing my choice to come. Perhaps sensing that, Miaka looped her arm through mine, pulling me to the bar. She typed out our drink orders on her phone, and we carried our glasses carefully through the crowd.

This is supposed to be fun, I told myself. Just try. This makes life better for your sisters. It could do the same for you.

“How can you think in here?” I whispered into Elizabeth’s ear.

She placed her lips next to my ear and answered, “The point is not to think.”

“Relax,” Miaka signed. “This is no different than walking down a crowded street.”

And I tried; I did. I had two drinks, hoping to take the edge off my nerves. I danced with Miaka, which was fun until we garnered so many admirers intent on pressing themselves against us that it lost all its charm. I even tried just focusing on the music, something that should come naturally to a siren, but the way it blasted through the speakers turned it all into noise.

I watched the strange way some people moved toward Elizabeth as if she were a magnet on the dance floor. It was no surprise that she could hook someone without a word. We truly were the most beautiful girls in the room, and when Elizabeth turned her full attention on a boy, he was helpless. First, she picked one who was eventually pulled away by his friends to hit up another bar. Even without her song, he put up a little fight to stay until they wrestled him out the door. Her second choice had more to drink than she realized, and he passed out at their table.

But after two miserable hours, she came walking by again, an obviously drunk guy on her arm. “Don’t wait up,” she signed, disappearing with him out the door.

I turned to Miaka, eyes pleading. She grinned and nodded, and with that we headed home.

“You tried,” she signed as we walked down the sidewalk. “I thought we’d lose you before we got in.”

“You nearly did,” I confessed. “Now I know for sure: the club scene is not for me.”

“Do you think you’d come to a house party or something? We get invited to lots if we walk across campus at the right time.”

My signs were hesitant. “Baby steps.”

Clicking down the row of clubs in our heels garnered whistles from some and applause from others. I subconsciously placed a hand over my cleavage, though it really did no good. Miaka grinned to herself, standing a little taller as she walked, and I wondered if part of the charm of this lifestyle for my sisters was simply being seen. Most days, we kept to ourselves, and during our singing, the picture we painted was nothing but a lie. At least, like this, someone saw us live. Though, for me, it felt less like being seen and more like being viewed.

When we got to the house, I didn’t bother to take off Elizabeth’s dress before running out the back door and hopping into the water.

Kahlen! The Ocean surged around me, welcoming and calm.

You wouldn’t believe the night I just had.

Tell me everything. I drew up a mental picture of Her resting Her chin on Her hand, hanging on my every word.

Miaka and Elizabeth like going to clubs, these places where people drink and dance. They’ve been telling me to get out more, so I finally went with them.

I can’t imagine you doing that.

Neither could I. Which is why I was uncomfortable the entire time. I’m so happy to be back here. You’re nice and quiet.

Her waters stirred in something close to laughter. We don’t have to talk at all if you don’t want to. I’m happy just to hold you.

I sank down, resting on the sandy Ocean floor, legs crossed and arms behind my head. I watched the trails of boats crisscrossing and fading along the surface above me. Fish swam by in schools, not spooked by the girl on the ground.

So, about six months? I asked, my stomach twisting.

Yes, barring some natural disaster or man-made sinking. I can’t predict those things.

I know.

Don’t start worrying about that yet. I can tell you’re still hurting from the last time. She wrapped me in sympathy.

I lifted my arms as if I was stroking Her, though of course my tiny body was unable to truly embrace Hers. I feel like I never have enough time to get over a singing before the next one comes. I have nightmares, and I’m a nervous wreck during the weeks leading up to it. My chest felt hollow with misery. I’m afraid I’ll always remember how it feels.

You won’t. In all My years, I’ve never had a freed siren come back to Me demanding that I fix her memories.

Do You hear from them at all?

Not intentionally. I feel people when they’re in Me. It’s how I find new girls. It’s how I listen for anyone who might suspect the true nature of My needs. Sometimes a former siren will go for a swim or stick her legs off a dock. I can get a peek at their lives, and no one has remembered Me yet.

I’ll remember You, I promised.

I could feel Her embracing me. For all eternity, I’ll never forget you. I love you.

And I love You.

You can rest here tonight, if you like. I’ll make sure no one finds you.

Can I just stay down here forever? I don’t want to worry about hurting people unintentionally. Or disappointing my sisters. Aisling has her cottage, so maybe I could build a little house down here out of driftwood.

She ran a current down my back gently. Sleep. You’ll feel differently in the morning. Your sisters would be lost without you. Trust Me, they think it all the time.

Really?

Really.

Thank You.

Rest. You’re safe.

5

I held the baby close to me, trying to get her to stop crying.

“Shh,” I urged, hoping my voice would somehow comfort her instead of cause her more pain.

“It’s okay,” I whispered as she thrashed in my arms. The streams of tears from her eyes grew denser and faster, until water was pouring from her. Then her cries became gargles as water flooded from her mouth as well.

I shook in horror watching her drown from the inside out.

I jerked awake, forgetting I was underwater and feeling as if I were drowning as well. I screamed in spite of myself.

You’re safe, Kahlen! You’re safe!

I clutched my hands around my throat and chest, terrified until I understood who was speaking to me and that what She said was true.

I’m sorry. I had a nightmare.

I know.

I sighed. Of course She knew.

Go to your sisters. As much as I love having you with Me, you need to be on land. You need sunlight.

I nodded. You’re right. I’ll visit again soon.

I pushed myself toward the surface, trying to conceal how deeply I wanted to be free from Her watery hold now. It was hard to balance that with how desperately I had wanted to hide in Her only hours ago.

I climbed onto the floating dock just in time to see the sun break through the clouds. I stood there, trying to unknot my feelings. Fear, hope, worry, compassion … there was so much going on in my heart, I felt paralyzed. Aisling wanted me to get out of my routine. Elizabeth and Miaka wanted me to get out of my comfort zone. I sensed none of that could happen until I could get out of the mess I was inside.

I walked up the stairs and back into the house. Elizabeth was home, still clad in her little black dress, her shoes left sloppily by the door. She was laughing with Miaka, drinking a coffee she’d bought on the way home, buzzing from the night before.

They both turned to the sight of me walking through the doorway, and Elizabeth’s face immediately fell.

“Please don’t tell me you got in the water in that dress!”

I looked down at the droplets pooling on the floor. “Umm, yeah, I did.”

“It’s dry-clean only!”

“Sorry. I’ll replace it.”

“What’s wrong?” Miaka asked, seeing past everything else to my misery.

“Just more bad dreams,” I confessed, peeling off the dress. I needed something softer, warmer. “I’m okay. I think I’m going to curl up with a book.”

“We’re here if you want to talk,” Miaka offered.

“Thanks. I’ll be fine.”

I walked back to my room, not wanting to hear Elizabeth relive her latest conquest. Though I really had no desire to get back into water, I kind of wanted to wash the sea salt smell off my skin. As much as I could anyway.

“Why does she even bother sleeping?” I heard Elizabeth ask quietly. “You’d think by now she’d stop trying. We don’t need it.”

I paused, waiting to hear Miaka’s response. “She must have a really wonderful dream often enough to make the bad ones worth it.”

I closed the door all the way, hung Elizabeth’s dress out my window, and let the spray of the shower cloud out everything else.

I flipped through my scrapbooks, searching. Finally, on a page for a sinking that was maybe twelve years old, I found the face of the baby in my dream. The Ocean assured me that I wouldn’t remember any of this, so why did the faces linger with me now? Elizabeth would say it was because I insisted on documenting it all, but I knew that wasn’t it. At least, not completely.

I’d made a rule for myself not to look at people’s faces while the sinkings happened, but I failed more than I cared to admit. It was hard to ignore the people calling out for us to save them. Sometimes I’d see someone and then never find a public record of them. No obituary or blog or anything. I knew those faces as well as I knew the ones in my books.

Sometimes I wondered if I was broken, which worried me as much as any of our singings. If I could remember the tens of thousands of people I’d killed, how would I possibly survive my life after being a siren?

I looked down at the picture of the baby, a girl named Norah, and cried over the life she never got to live.

Even though I knew the next singing was still nearly six months away, I dreaded it like it was coming tomorrow. It felt as if my very soul was being chipped away at every time it happened. Eighty long years gone. Twenty more to go. And each day felt as if it were never-ending.

Monday morning, I got out of the house as fast as I could. I grabbed one of Miaka’s many sketchbooks and shoved it into my bag along with some pencils. I’d dabbled in painting and drawing ever since Miaka came home with her first canvas, and while I would never be the artist she was, the idea of occupying my hands for a while sounded good.

I made my way to campus, taking the quietest roads I could find, and crossed onto the main area near the fountain and library just as people were making their way to class. Part of me felt bad for being so hard on Elizabeth and Miaka. They blended in at bars and clubs. I blended in at the library. Maybe their way of handling things didn’t work for me, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t valid.

I settled under a tree and pulled out the sketch pad, thinking I’d draw some of the outfits I saw. I loved seeing how fashion changed over time, and though I preferred a more classic style, it was fun to see how a headband or the height of a shoe or the cut of a neckline would bring back something I’d come across twenty years before.

I’d seen this as a problem for my fair share of people, though. I’d watched some get stuck in the eighties, doing unthinkable things to their hair, or wearing bell-bottoms when it wasn’t the best idea. Maybe staying in a favorite era was like a security blanket, something you could keep when everything else changed. I fanned out my circle skirt and figured that was true.

Then, unexpectedly, someone settled in next to me under the shade of my tree.

“Okay, so I was thinking you were a culinary student, but this has me considering art instead.”

It was the boy from the library, Akinli.

“I’m undecided, personally. You’re not judging me, are you?”

I smiled and shook my head. I liked that he just started speaking as if we were already in the middle of a conversation.

“Good. I’ve been considering a few things. Like finance sounds like a smart way to go, but I’m about as bad with money as I am at cooking.”

I smiled, scribbling in the corner of my page. But isn’t that why people study? To get better?

“That’s a good argument, but I think you’re overestimating my skills.”

He grinned back at me, and I remembered how normal he’d made me feel the first time we’d met. Here, once again, he wasn’t bothered by my silence. And I suddenly realized what made me feel so uncomfortable about Elizabeth’s exploits. The people she attracted were drawn to the same thing everyone else was: our glowing skin, dreamy eyes, and air of secrecy. But this boy? He seemed to see more than that. He saw me not just as a mysterious beauty, but as a girl he wanted to know.

He didn’t stare at me. He spoke to me.

“So did you make that epic cake this weekend or what?”

I shook my head. I went to my first club, I wrote, pleased with how normal that confession seemed.

“And?”

Not really my thing.

“Yeah, I was a designated driver on Friday, and I seriously can’t stand the stench of bars. It’s like there’s an old-cigarette smell clinging to the walls even though you can’t smoke in them anymore.” Akinli scrunched up his nose in disgust. “Plus, even though I like the guys on my hall, I don’t like them enough to be okay with cleaning puke off two of them. I think my days as a chauffeur are officially over.”

I made a face and shook my head. I understood that babysitter feeling a little too well.

“Any classes left today?”

Nope!

“See, I’m totally jealous. I thought afternoon classes would mean sleeping in, which was a brilliant plan on my part because I’m in a serious relationship with sleep.”

Me too.

“Well, I think I’d let the relationship suffer a little if it meant I could do more in the afternoons. Look at you. You’re free to sit in the sun and creepily draw pictures of people you don’t even know. How great is that?”

I smirked. I often thought of myself as kind of creepy. This was the first time it sounded like a good thing.

It’s the clothes! I argued, pointing to the pages.

“Uh-huh. Whatever you say. But don’t mind me. I’m just jealous. I can’t draw at all. The only thing I know how to make is a frog. I learned how in the first grade, and I never forgot. The key is starting with a football shape,” he said, his voice full of mock expertise. “If you get that wrong, the whole thing goes downhill.”

Can’t cook. Can’t draw. What can you do?

“Excellent question. Um … I can fish. Family thing, much like the terrible, terrible first name. I can text in complete sentences. Oh, yeah, it’s a skill.” He smiled, proud of his accomplishments. “And, thanks to my mom being a competitive dancer as a teen, I know how to do the Lindy hop and the jitterbug.”

I sat bolt upright, and Akinli rolled his eyes.

“I swear, if you tell me you can jitterbug, I’m going to … I don’t even know. Set something on fire. No one can dance like that.”

I pursed my lips and dusted off my shoulder, a thing I’d seen Elizabeth do when she was bragging.

As if he was accepting a challenge, he shrugged off his backpack and stood, holding out a hand for me.

I took it and positioned myself in front of him as he shook his head, grinning.

“All right, we’ll take this slow. Five, six, seven, eight.”

In unison, we rock stepped and triple stepped, falling into the rhythm in our head. After a minute, he got brave and swung me around, lining me up for those peppy kicks I loved so much.

People walked by, pointing and laughing, but it was one of those moments when I knew we weren’t being mocked; we were being envied.

We stepped on each other’s toes more than once, and after he accidentally knocked his head into my shoulder, he threw his hands up.

“Unbelievable,” he said, almost as if he was complaining. “I can’t wait to tell my mom this. She’s gonna think I’m lying. All those years dancing in the kitchen thinking I was special, and then I run across a master.”

We sat back down under the tree, and I started collecting my things. That was a pretty little moment, and I was almost afraid another minute in his presence would break it.

“So you didn’t make that cake yet?”

I shook my head.

“Well, since you’re swearing off clubs, and I’m swearing off driving for drunks, and there’s really not an appropriate venue downtown to show off our dance skills, why don’t we make it this weekend?”

I raised an eyebrow.

“Look, I know what I said about being a bad cook, but I think you could keep me from ruining it.”

Now who’s overestimating skills?

He laughed. “No, seriously, I think it’d be fun. If all else fails, I’ve got some Easy Mac in my room, so we’ll at least have something to eat.”

I shrugged, dubious but tempted. Elizabeth could regularly go to a stranger’s apartment, be as intimate as two people could be, and live to tell the tale. So, maybe I could bake in a dorm kitchen without murdering someone?

“You seem nervous. You got a boyfriend?”

He said the last as if he was only belatedly realizing the obvious.

I wrote NO in big letters on the paper.

He chuckled again. “Okay.” He took the pen from my hand, scribbling onto a sticky note. “Here’s my number. If you decide you want to come over, text me.”

I nodded and took his number, and his whole face lit up. He checked his phone.

“All right, now I’m running late.” He pushed himself up to his feet. “Catch you later, Kahlen.” He pointed at me. “See? I remembered.”

I fought my smile, not wanting him to know how much the small gesture made my day.

I waved as he left, feeling almost giddy when, just before he went around a building, he looked over his shoulder at me.

A foreign, sparkling feeling was rising in my chest. I’d been nineteen long enough to observe other boys this age. I knew that romances were many and fleeting and that this attention couldn’t last. Still, it was a magical feeling, and I was grateful once again for this boy I barely knew.

I felt like I understood Elizabeth on a new level. She craved a physical connection, and she achieved it as best she could. Miaka spent hours typing to people on her computer or phone, wanting to connect intellectually. That was what made them feel alive. Me? I’d been slaving away for the Ocean, hoping that at the end of it all, I’d find a romantic connection in my future life.

Truth was, there was no way to be sure I could get it. But as I sat there under the tree, something became clear. I wasn’t worried. I wasn’t sad. I wasn’t even thinking that far into the future, because all I could think of was each minute with Akinli as it happened. Maybe the key for me to move forward wasn’t to eliminate everything I was feeling; maybe all I needed to do was focus on the one feeling that made all the others seem small.

I pulled out my phone, laughing at how useless this thing was for me. I did research on it or distracted myself with it more than anything. Under my contacts were three numbers, and Aisling’s wasn’t even current.

I typed in the new one, fingers hesitating.

Akinli? It’s Kahlen. If you’re still up for it, I’d love to make some cake this weekend.

I let out a long breath and pressed Send. I gathered my things to head home, brushing the grass off the back of my skirt.

Before I could make it to the edge of campus, my phone buzzed.

I’ve got pans!

6

I lived for four days in a secret world of absolute bliss. I didn’t sleep at all, because, for the first time in a long time, being awake was so much better. I spent hours looking up recipes, trying to find one that was a little above what a novice might make but wouldn’t be too complicated for a dorm kitchen.

I could feel the weight of my sisters’ stares as I hummed to myself. They didn’t question the sudden lift in my mood, perhaps knowing I would remain close lipped. But when my giddiness didn’t fade after a few days, I began to wonder how one boy was having such an effect on me.

I told myself that it was completely normal to think wonderful thoughts about someone whose last name I didn’t even know. People had crushes on actors and musicians and celebrities they had absolutely no chance of meeting in real life. At least I’d planted my affections on someone who actually knew me.

I continually anticipated the next moment we’d be together, trying to keep the whole thing playful and light. I’d text, You provide the oven and utensils, and I’ll bring all the ingredients?

He’d reply, I will also bring my stomach. Because cake > actual food. Deal!

How do you feel about cream cheese frosting? I’d ask.

It doesn’t get enough respect, if I’m being honest, he’d say.

The days before our baking date were full of tiny notes like that, leaving me with an hour-long buzz from a single sentence. What made it better was that I didn’t always have to start a conversation. By Wednesday, Akinli’s questions were a little bit deeper and came to me unprompted.

So how long have you been cooking?

Feels like forever.

Did your mom teach you?

Actually, it’s something I kind of picked up on my own.

Smiley faces. He sent several. From anyone else, they’d seem ridiculous, but I felt pretty confident that if he typed one in, he was actually smiling.

Thursday we went most of the day without talking, which I really didn’t mind. I was in the middle of telling myself that I was making too much of this. Chances were that we’d have this one date, and he’d struggle so much with communicating that he wouldn’t want to see me again anyway. And that would be for the best. After all, what kind of future could we possibly have?

This was what I was telling myself when, around ten that night, he sent me a picture of his very confused face with the words WHY MATH WHY? underneath. I lay in my bed laughing uncontrollably. First, he was just so, so, so cute! Second, he sent me a picture! I had a picture of a boy that he took just for me, and it felt bigger than anything I’d experienced in the last century.

There was a quick knock at my door, but Elizabeth and Miaka opened it before I could answer.

“You all right in here?” Elizabeth asked, perching a hand on her hip.

I took a deep breath and stopped giggling. “Yeah, I’m fine.”

Miaka looked around the room. My TV was off, and there wasn’t a book in my hand. “What’s so funny?”

I picked up my phone. “Just something I saw.”

“Can we see?” Elizabeth asked, reaching out.

I knew, if anything, they’d probably be happy I’d met someone. I just couldn’t help but want to keep him to myself a little bit longer.

“Not sure you’d get it,” I lied.

They shared a look, then eyed me suspiciously.

“Okay … we’ll just go then.” Miaka’s gaze lingered on me before the door closed behind them.

I tightened my lips, trying not to laugh out of the pure joy of having a secret, then pulled up Akinli’s picture again, smiling at his comically drooping eyebrows.