Sirens appeal to the spirit, not to the flesh.
—Jane Ellen Harrison
When I wake up, the first thing that happens is I roll onto my side and throw up all over the sand. I pull off my boots to check my feet and ankles, and they’re completely covered in scales now, bright, thick, bottle-green scales. My hair is nearly white.
I get up and stagger to the edge of the shore, and I start yelling at the ocean. I know it’s crazy, but I can’t stop. “I hate you!” I start screaming, and throwing rocks into the waves, as if I could hurt them. As if my fury could change anything. “I hate you!”
When I’m too cold and tired to yell at the ocean anymore, I sit back on the sand. I pick up one last pebble and hurl it away down the beach.
Jason waits a few minutes before coming to sit with me. Normally, I would die of embarrassment that he witnessed that whole display, but right now I don’t even care. I’m sure he’s terrified. I’m shocked he’s even still here.
“It’s like I told you before,” he says. “You’re not a monster. You’re a guardian.”
I sniff, and look at him through my hair. “It’s the same thing.”
He reaches out and wraps his fingers around my ankle.
“What are you doing?”
“I want to see your scales.”
“No! Stop. It’s gross. You don’t want to see.”
“Wait a second.” He touches my foot.
“I said stop!” I move a few feet away from him and sit down again with my arms wrapped around my legs and my head down. “I can’t believe you did that.”
“Lolly, I was just kidding around. I’m sorry.”
I look down at my bare feet. A week ago, Lula painted my toenails bright green to match the scales. It seemed cool at the time, but now it looks totally ridiculous. I try to curl my toes into the sand. “Just stop talking, please.”
“Listen, I don’t . . . I don’t think it’s gross. Really.” Jason walks over and sits next to me. “You know, if you could just stop causing shipwrecks, you’d be fine. You wouldn’t hurt anybody and nobody would want to hurt you.”
“But I don’t think I can. I mean, you heard her. I can’t control it. She can’t even control it really. I’m a monster—a mystery of the deep. I might as well be a giant squid.”
“Well, I love giant squids. They can withstand an enormous amount of pressure, you know. They can survive in some of the most hostile environments on the planet.”
“Okay, you admire giant squids. But you wouldn’t want to be best friends with one.”
“Who knows?” Jason reaches up and touches the scar on his shoulder. His shirt is all torn and spattered with blood, but that doesn’t seem to bother him now.
“It’s already fading,” I tell him. “Don’t worry. You can barely see it.”
“I don’t care about that.” He gets to his feet and grabs a nearby stick. “Come on! We have to stop my stepfather and save your sisters. That’s all that matters.”
“But I’m a siren now,” I tell him. “Like, officially.”
“I know. So what?”
This strange tiredness is settling over my body. A heaviness. I don’t think I could do a cartwheel now if my life depended on it. I think about my sisters and how, since they became sirens, they don’t really play outside or run around or anything. I used to get mad at them for it. “Jason, I don’t know if sirens do this sort of thing.”
“What sort of thing?”
“Well, what if she’s lying about the symbol? What if she’s lying about everything? What if she just wants to hurt us?”
Jason breaks the stick in half and hands me a piece. “We have a common enemy. She was right about that. Now, I know what we can do. The festival starts in six hours, and he’ll have the crown with him there. We can steal it during the parade and bring it to the fort first thing the next morning. I’ll sail us there myself.”
“But we’re still wearing pajamas. And you’re covered in blood.”
“We’ll stop at my house and change.”
“But what if your stepdad’s there?”
“He told us he’d be away all night before the festival, putting the finishing touches on his knarr. Come on!” He takes his end of the stick and taps it against mine. “This is our chance. Finally. And who cares if you’re a siren? You can still decide what you want to do.”
“I think that’s easy for you to say.” I hold up my part of the stick, which is pronged like a wishbone, and look at him through the forked end. “What are we doing with these?”
“We’re not doing anything with them. Come on, now you’re just being annoying.”
“Okay. Fine.” I get up slowly from the sand.
“Are you ready?” he asks.
“Ready.” I take the stick and point it in the direction of his house. “Let’s go.”
We get back to Jason’s house and scan the premises for signs of his stepdad. His truck is nowhere to be found, and his boots and coat are missing from the front hallway, so we determine that the coast is clear. Then Jason sneaks up to his room to change while I wait in the kitchen and try to think of a lie about why I’m there. A flyer for the festival is sitting on the counter, and because I don’t know what else to do with myself, I pick it up and start reading through the schedule of events.
*THE ANNUAL SALT AND STARS
FOLK FESTIVAL*
SPONSORED BY BISHOP’S FISH AND VIKING INDUSTRIES
DAY ONE
4 P.M.: GRAND HIGH PARADE AND SUNRISE COUNTY PUBLIC SCHOOL ASSEMBLY
6 P.M.: SUNSET CONCERT
DAY TWO
9 A.M.: PANCAKE BREAKFAST (HOSTED BY THE STARBRIDGE DINER)
6 P.M.: FIREWORKS DISPLAY
“Lolly, honey?” Alice enters the kitchen wearing slippers and a pink silk bathrobe. Without makeup on, she looks like a faded watercolor version of herself. “What are you doing here, sweetheart?”
“Oh, Jason and I are going to walk to school together this morning. We have an early dress rehearsal.”
“You let your sisters do that to your hair?” She bustles around the kitchen, tossing a few slices of bread into the toaster and flipping the switch on the coffeepot.
I tap my fingers on the counter. “Um, yes.”
She shakes her head. “You girls. I remember when Lily tried to give Jason a haircut. Do you remember that? He was practically bald.”
“I remember,” I tell her.
“You know, you look a little . . . tired. Are you feeling okay? Can I get you anything?”
“I’ll take some coffee.”
She raises one eyebrow. “Aren’t you a little young for coffee?” But she puts a napkin and a mug in the shape of a moose head down on the counter in front of me. “I guess you kids start everything early these days.”
“I guess so.”
“I’ll just drink it black.”
As soon as we walk through the front doors of the school, Coach Bouchard grabs us and pushes us toward the gym, where about eighty middle and elementary school students dressed as indigenous fish, foliage, and animals are warming up on wind instruments and practicing dance routines. A second-grade girl wearing a giant jellyfish hat with streamers is standing in the middle of the room sobbing, and a school of third-grade goldfish is trying to console her. Meanwhile, an eighth-grade moose narrowly misses stabbing me with her antlers. “Move, seventh grader!”
“Attention, people!” In deference to his authority as official festival choreographer, the school has outfitted Coach Bouchard with a new megaphone. “Attention!”
We cover our ears against the squeal of feedback.
“Find your costumes!”
I trudge to the pile marked 7TH-GRADE SHELLFISH and start sifting through antennae, while Jason looks for the sign saying 8TH-GRADE FOLIAGE. I grab my costume, and then I look up and notice Emma flipping through a rack of mermaid tails, which are actually just long, sparkly skirts so the mermaids can still perform their gymnastics routines. “Oh,” she says. “It’s you.”
“Yeah,” I tell her. “It’s me.”
“You look awful. What’s wrong with your hair?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you bleach it? That’s really bad for you, you know. You could lose all your hair that way. I mean, it looks almost white—”
“Emma, we’ve never really liked each other.”
“Well, that’s true. What’s your point?”
“Okay, um . . . I want to know if I can ask for your help with something.”
“With what?”
“Well, as a mermaid, you have special access to the grand high float.”
“Of course I do.” She tosses her ponytail. “That’s only natural.”
“Right. And as a snail, I don’t have any access at all.”
“That’s the circle of life, Lolly.”
I’m tempted to argue with her, but it’s difficult to debate social justice in the mermaid kingdom when you’re wearing antennae. “Okay, so what I’m wondering is if you can pour something into the Viking’s goblet. And make sure he drinks it.”
She wrinkles her nose. “Why would I do that?”
Jason comes up behind us. “Because he’s my stepdad,” he says. “And we’re playing a trick on him. Like, a prank.”
“Oh!” Emma tosses her hair again. Her eyes light up at the mere sight of Jason, and her voice goes up about three octaves. “I love pranks. Is this your idea, Jay?”
“Um, yeah.”
“That’s so cool.”
“Okay, so you’ll do it?”
“Sure. Give me the drink.”
I hand it to her, and she holds it up to her face. “What’s in there? It looks like nail polish.”
“It’s a long story,” Jason says. “Just make sure he drinks it.”
She salutes him. “Will do! Now, if you’ll excuse me.” She loops her mermaid tail over one arm. “I have to go to my dressing room.”
At three forty-five, grades one through seven are lined up in the hallway, awaiting our cue. I tried hiding when Nurse Claire came through to do everybody’s makeup, but she caught me, so now I’m wearing my full snail regalia: brown stockings, a puffy white tutu, antennae, the giant cardboard shell, green glitter eyeliner, and blue mascara. With moments to go before the big opening number, I climb the radiator and pull myself into a crouching position on the windowsill. Outside, it’s a beautiful fall day, clear and cold with the sun just starting to set, but I can’t feel anything except worried and a little sick. I can’t stop thinking about my sisters frozen in the motel and what we’re about to do to Mr. Bergstrom.
And what if it doesn’t work?
And what if it does?
At last, I see the parade winding its way up the main road. At Mr. Bergstrom’s insistence, each float is lined with flaming torches, and from this distance, the entire thing looks like one long dragon of fire. The Sunrise County Middle School marching band leads the way, and Mr. Bergstrom follows close behind, riding his float shaped like a Viking ship. Middle school mermaids flip and cartwheel around him while he sits atop his throne, wearing his crown and waving his flaming torch in the air. From my lookout, I can see that one rogue pinecone, Jason, has already broken free of the eighth-grade group and is edging closer to the float.
As the parade reaches the main doors of the school, Jason’s stepdad hands his torch to one of the mermaids for safekeeping. Then he reaches for his goblet. According to the script, he’s supposed to say, “Hand me my drink, for I am ready to carouse!”
Emma hands him his goblet.
I slip my arms out of my shell and stay curled in a ball with my antennae pressed to the glass and my fingers crossed.
Within seconds, Mr. Bergstrom stops shouting his lines and shuts his eyes. And then, just like that, he topples over. He falls off his plywood throne and lands in a heap on the glittery, felt-covered floor, and his crown goes rolling right off his head.
At first, everyone is silent. Stunned. The marching band stops playing, and the dancers stop dancing, and everyone stares in disbelief.
Finally, someone asks, “Is this part of the show?”
And then everything happens at once. Everyone starts rushing around, talking over each other and shouting for help.
“Call an ambulance!”
“Help him!”
“What’s happening?”
“Looks like a heart attack!”
“Extinguish the torches!”
In the midst of the commotion, Jason grabs the fallen crown from the edge of the float. “I’m his stepson,” he tells the crowd. “I’ll keep this safe.” People stand aside to let him pass, and then he takes off, running to our meeting place behind the school. An ambulance sounds in the distance, and I hop down from my perch on the windowsill and race into the hallway, shoving crowds of little kids in fish costumes out of my way.
Emma comes bursting in through the front doors and barrels right into me. “What did you do?” she hisses. “Did we just, like, kill him?”
I pull her into the corner. “No,” I tell her. “Calm down. It’s—”
“Don’t tell me it’s a long story!”
“It’ll be fine,” I tell her. “He’s not— We didn’t kill him. Just don’t say anything, okay?”
“What would I say? You think I want to get blamed for this?”
We hear another squeal of feedback and then Coach Bouchard’s voice comes over the megaphone. “He’s all right, ladies and gentlemen! Everyone remain calm. I’m hearing now that he’s conscious and stable and they’ll be taking him to Sunrise County General for observation.”
“See?”
Emma shakes her head. “You know, you and Jason can have each other. You’re both, like, too weird to deal with.”
“Fine,” I tell her.
“Fine,” she says.
Jason and I meet at the old basketball court behind the Dumpsters, where nobody ever goes. The asphalt is uneven and the hoops are threaded with rusty steel chains.
“Are you sure we can’t just go to the island now?” I ask him.
“It’ll be dark soon, and we won’t be able to find the island or Fort O’Malley.” Jason is still hugging the crown to his chest. “I’ll keep this,” he tells me. “And we’ll go first thing in the morning, okay? As soon as it’s light.”
“Okay.” I nod. “I’ll meet you back at the dock in the morning.”
He shifts the crown to his hip. “Don’t you think I should go home with you?”
“To my house?”
“Yeah. I mean, just to make sure you’re safe there by yourself.”
I look at the cracks in the pavement. “No,” I tell him. “I mean, I’ll be fine.” Also, I’m afraid you might want to kiss me again and I won’t know how, and then you’ll change your mind about liking me. Or maybe, now that I’m an undead zombie monster, you won’t try to kiss me at all and that would be even worse.
Jason kicks at some loose gravel with his sneaker. “Okay,” he says. “Then I guess I’ll see you in the morning.”
“I’ll see you in the morning,” I tell him. “Definitely.”
We look at each other for a second, and it’s like one of those weird moments where you know you’re making an important choice. Like you can almost feel yourself as an adult looking back and thinking about that moment and the choice you made. But you don’t know yet if it was the right one or the wrong one.
By the time I climb the driveway and put my key in the lock, it’s nearly dark. The second I walk in the door, I realize I can’t remember the last time I was alone in our house. Everything looks different. There are all kinds of strange shadows lurking everywhere, and the floorboards creak under my feet. The radiators all start hissing at once, and it’s pretty much the scariest sound I’ve ever heard. I can’t even bring myself to go upstairs and change out of my snail costume. Instead, I lock the front door and run down to the basement to grab Dad’s pistol from its hiding place behind the dryer. Even loaded with blanks, it scares me, and I don’t like touching it, but not having it feels worse. I slide it into my schoolbag and hurry back into the living room, where I leap onto the couch and pull a knit afghan up over my shoulders and face so only my eyes are peeking out.
The wind picks up and the weather vane on the roof starts to creak. I remember what Jason’s mom said about us. They’re so vulnerable up there in that house. At the time, I didn’t understand what she meant. But now the loneliness is overwhelming. There’s nobody to notice if I disappear. I could just vanish into thin air.
I stay awake for a long time, terror crawling like cold spiders down my scalp. For some reason, I keep thinking about this time after my mom died, the first time I went into her room alone and saw her glasses sitting there folded on the night table. I thought, She’s gone, but her glasses are still here. It was like a terrible arithmetic I couldn’t wrap my mind around. Mom’s glasses minus Mom equals what?
I think about maybe calling Jason and telling him I was wrong after all, that I should have let him come over. But now it’s practically the middle of the night. And what if his mom answers? What if Mr. Bergstrom answers? Instead, I reach into my schoolbag and pull out Hannah’s diary and one of Lula’s old sweatshirts. I pull the sweatshirt on right over my costume, clasp my arms around my knees, and curl up as tight as I can with the book propped open on the pillow next to me.
June 23rd, 1705
My mind is racked with terrible dreams. It’s been nearly six months since the Morgana sailed from Bishop’s Harbor, and still no word from Rebecca. She is such a sweet child, innocent of the events that brought her into the world. I sent her away from this village to keep her safe, yet I fear I put her life in danger. Perhaps the Morgana was lost at sea. Perhaps the captain never brought her ashore. Either way, I shall have no rest until I find her again. Neither will any of the sea captains or fishermen in this town. Rebecca is the only good thing I ever had in my life, and her memory, the ghost of her, is always in my thoughts. It may drive me mad. I fear it already has. But if it takes an eternity, I will never stop searching for her. And they will suffer for what they have done. Once, I learned a dark magic to protect myself. Now, again, I shall use it.
I wake hours later to the sound of car wheels crunching up the driveway. It’s still pretty dark out, and I watch as the reflection from a pair of headlights travels slowly across the ceiling. My first thought, automatically, is: Mom. She’s home, as if I fell asleep on the couch waiting up for her. But then I come more fully awake and the reality of everything comes crashing back around me. It can’t be her; it’s somebody else. Afraid all over again, I curl my fingers through the holes in the blanket.
Outside, a car door opens and slams and footsteps shuffle across the gravel and up the front steps. “Lorelei!”
It’s Mr. Bergstrom out there on the porch again, calling me and ringing the bell, tapping on the window. He’s wearing his work gloves, and he has a crowbar slung over his shoulder. “I see you in there, young lady. I see you.”
He starts digging at the lock with the crowbar, and I grab my schoolbag and slip my arms through the strap just as he bursts into the entryway. He looks like a giant, standing here in our house, backlit beside our collection of framed school photos and Lara’s spelling bee certificate. The door is hanging half off its hinges, and there’s cold air blowing through the living room, scattering papers across the floor.
“You’re not allowed to just come in here!” I try to make my voice sound brave. I point at him the way I once saw Ms. Cross point at some older boys she found smoking behind the school. “This is my house! I live here. You can’t just come in.”
But Mr. Bergstrom ignores me, waving the crowbar around like a conductor of the world’s most violent and ridiculous orchestra, and I realize that yes, he can come in. I’m alone here, and I’m a lot smaller than him, and there’s actually nothing I can do to stop him.
Mr. Bergstrom takes his crowbar and starts smashing things. He smashes the lamp on the coffee table, and a framed article about my dad’s first album, and the vase my mom used to keep filled with flowers. He smashes a glass cabinet full of my grandparents’ dishes and trinkets from their old house. In less than a minute, our entire living room is destroyed. I want to scream, but I’m too scared now. I can’t make my voice work.
Mr. Bergstrom drops the crowbar and starts walking toward me. “You’re coming with me now.” He keeps coming closer, so I have to keep backing up, until I’m pressed flat against the wall with nowhere else to go. His enormous frame is looming in front of me, and I have to crane my neck to see his face. “Get your shoes on,” he says.
We drive a while in silence, me sitting in the back behind the passenger seat. Mr. Bergstrom keeps looking at me over his shoulder, and, every time, he nearly swerves off the road.
“I know you’re a nice girl,” he says. “This isn’t about that. But you’re still a predator, just like all the others. And me, my sons, my crew, and every other sailor in our harbor, we’re all at risk. Am I right?” He meets my eyes in the rearview mirror and smiles like we have a secret together.
“No,” I say. “I don’t want to hurt anybody.”
“Well, that wasn’t exactly my question.” The smile disappears from his face, and he rolls down the window and spits. “That’s the problem with your kind. You twist things, and you lie. You pretend, and you make promises. And then what happens? You hurt and kill us. Destroy our property. Now, when something like this happens, you only have yourself to blame. You and your sisters and all the others just like you.”
I look out the window. All the trees are bare, and the dawn sky is as thick and white as cotton. There’s nobody else on the road. Everything is empty and quiet, and I watch the highway drift beneath our wheels.
“Do you know where we’re going?”
I nod. “To the marina. You’re going to trap me in a net and cast a spell on me, just like you did my sisters.”
“It doesn’t hurt,” he explains. “The spell, I mean. You won’t feel a thing.”
I shift in my seat and clutch the bag closer to my chest. “How do you know?”
The marina finally comes into view, boats bobbing on the water. Some are already strung with red and green Christmas lights. Out on the main road, I see a flash of bright blue through the trees, and I know it’s Jason coming to meet me.
I glance at Mr. Bergstrom, but he doesn’t notice. He comes around the car and grabs my arm. “Let’s go.”
It’s much colder on the water. We board one of the fishing boats at the back of the marina, an older vessel streaked with rust and swaying slightly in the waves. The winches, spooled with sinister green nets, are taller than I am. “I’ll be right back.” Mr. Bergstrom lets go of me, and my feet skid on the slippery surface of the deck. He disappears into the wheelhouse, and I take the pistol out of my bag. It startles me a little, just the coldness and the sight of it out in the world. I’m not even sure what to say to announce its presence. Surprise?
I feel the wind pick up, blowing wisps of platinum hair across my face.
“Um, excuse me?” I clear my throat. “Mr. Bergstrom?”
“What?”
“Look. Look at this.”
“What now?” Mr. Bergstrom turns. He sees the pistol and lifts his hands in the air. He sort of laughs and sort of snorts. “What do you think you’re going to do with that?”
I fire the gun. It kicks back and knocks against my face, and for a few seconds, I can’t even see straight. I bring my fingers to my forehead and feel warm, sticky blood in my hair. Mr. Bergstrom is ducking on the deck, and I drop the gun and fumble for the railing, swing my legs over the ladder, and climb until I can feel the dock again beneath my feet.