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I stared back at Angelica. From the way she wore her makeup and her clothes, it was easy to see that she was trying to dress older; she had on a pencil skirt and a suit jacket with a silk camisole, and she was sporting a sultry shade of red lipstick.
Somehow, I could tell that underneath it all, the woman wasn’t nearly as old as she was trying to present herself as. Physically, her body had to be about twenty-five—at the most. My guess was that she was probably even younger than that when she had been turned, though.
“And you must be Felicia,” Angelica continued. Her voice soothed my unease.
I glanced away from her, breaking our gaze for the first time since she’d come into the room. “Yes, I am.”
“Splendid! I have been anxious to meet you,” she said.
“I’ve been looking forward to it, too,” I lied. I hadn’t really been anxious to meet her; if anything, I had felt just the opposite. But it seemed like the polite thing to say, and for some reason, I knew it was best to stay on Angelica’s good side.
A long silence passed between the three of us. It was finally broken when Angelica said, “So, has Gabrielle showed you the pool?”
I shook my head. “No, no one told me you have a pool.”
“Of course we have a pool. We are sirens, aren’t we?” Angelica stared at me with a horrified look on her face.
Gabby turned to her. “We haven’t explained the whole water thing to her yet.”
“Water thing?” I asked, feeling out of the loop.
“All sirens need to be around water frequently. And not just any water—it has to be salt water. It’s an important source of nutrients and vitamins for us—nutrients and vitamins that humans don’t need. You may have noticed by now that the water you normally drink doesn’t taste right anymore,” Angelica explained.
I nodded; I wasn’t even able to drink water by itself any more, usually choosing tea or soda instead because it was far less repulsive.
The woman stared at me intently, studying my face. I shifted on my heels, feeling uncomfortable about the way she just stared at me.
“That’s because your body needs salt water, even to drink,” Angela went on. “We can drink and eat other things without harming ourselves, but it won’t taste right.”
Gabby turned to me. “We can’t live far away from the beach. That’s just not healthy for us.”
From behind her, Angelica nodded, still eyeing me. “This is true. Living away from the beach would make us feel ill. We must stay within a certain radius from the ocean at all times. And since our home isn’t located directly on the beach, we have a salt water swimming pool to use when we need to replenish our salt water levels.” She paused before hesitantly adding, “Our need for salt water increases during the full moon.”
Great. So, not only would I end up killing guys around the time of the full moon, but I would also need to be around salt water more during that time. I supposed that was why most guys drowned on their way to find a singing siren; it was like a curse to need salt water around the time we should probably stay away from the ocean the most.
Angelica pointed to a room at the end of the hallway. “The bathroom’s that way. I’ve laid out several bathing suits for you to choose from. We’re all going for a swim.”
I glanced over at Gabby, ready to protest, but she said, “I’ll change into my bathing suit in my bedroom.” She scampered off, and Angelica started back down the stairs, probably to change into her own swimsuit.
Once I was in the bathroom and had closed the door behind me, I found that four bathing suits had been laid out: a pink sequined string bikini, a sporty-looking zebra print bikini, a purple strapless bikini top with a short frilly matching skirt, and a bright orange fringe bikini with string bottoms that I knew would never look good on me.
All of the bathing suits were brand new with the tags still on. I wondered if they kept these suits for when they had guests, or if Angelica knew all along that I would be coming here.
I didn’t even feel comfortable wearing a bathing suit in front of that woman. Hopefully, Jasmine wasn’t planning to go swimming, too, but even if she was, I knew what to expect from her. She might make a snide comment about my body out of pure bitchiness. But at least she didn’t look at me as though she were sizing me up like Angelica did for whatever reason.
None of the bathing suits were something I would feel comfortable wearing, but I opted for the least revealing.
Once I had changed into the zebra print bikini, I glanced at myself in the mirror. My eyes looked lighter than usual. Deciding that it was probably because of my summer tan, I opened the bathroom door to find Gabby waiting for me on the other side. She was wearing a yellow bikini that hugged her curves. When she saw the bathing suit I had changed into, she wrinkled her nose. “That was my least favorite suit. I tried to talk Scarlett out of picking it out for you, but she insisted.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Scarlett chose these bathing suits?”
“Only that one,” Gabby replied, leading me down the stairs. “Angelica chose the rest.”
I smiled. It made me happy that my sister had known that I wouldn’t feel comfortable in any of the bikinis that Angelica had picked out for me. It also made me wonder if I appeared that unconfident to Scarlett that a less revealing bathing suit had seemed like a necessity.
Once we went outside, we found that Angelica and Scarlett were already in the pool. Scarlett was gliding across the water, and Angelica was lying on a pool float.
As I descended the cement steps into the pool, Scarlett glanced over at me. “Felly!” she squealed. “I’m so glad you came.”
I smiled, happy that my sister finally seemed excited to see me. “Why wouldn’t I?”
Once I was in the water, I stretched out my legs and arms. I hadn’t noticed any tension in my body before, but it suddenly felt like the water was helping me to release all of the stress within my body.
“She thought you might be intimidated to meet me,” Angelica answered, pushing her float closer to me. As she got closer, I saw that she was wearing a monokini, and it was really low cut. It looked to me like she was trying to flaunt her curves, though I didn’t understand why, since it was only us girls in the pool. I began wondering if she was one of those sirens like Scarlett mentioned—the type that holds their sexuality over men.
“We’re glad you’re here, though,” Gabby said as she climbed into the pool after me. “You’re all I’ve heard about since I became a siren.”
I decided not to ask what they’d said about me. Scarlett had made it clear that she’d talked about me quite a bit to her sisters since she’d became a siren. “Where’s Jasmine?” I asked.
For a moment, no one spoke. Finally, Scarlett said, “She said she didn’t want to come in the pool if you were going to be in it.”
“Oh.” I ran my hands through the salt water, allowing it to be absorbed into my skin. For the first time, I noticed that I could smell the salt; the scent was intoxicating.
“She doesn’t hate you, just so you know,” Angelica spoke up in a soothing voice. I met her silvery eyes. “She’s just not happy about you becoming a siren.”
“Why?” I asked. “She, Scarlett, and Gabby are sirens. Why’s it so different for me to become one? We all had fathers who were killed by one.”
“It’s very complicated,” Angelica began. “It all has to do with Phorcys.” When I stared back at her in confusion, she explained, “He’s a God. God of the sea, to be exact.”
“There are Gods?” I asked incredulously.
Angelica nodded. “There are. They live and walk this Earth. They’re immortals, just like us.”
“Wow,” I whispered. I hadn’t considered the possibility that there could be Gods, but I had also never considered the possibility that there were sirens—or that I could one day become one—before, either. “So, what does this Phorcys guy have to do with Jasmine not liking me?”
“It all goes back hundreds of years,” Angelica explained, her voice softening. I tried to break my gaze from her, but I couldn’t; her irises were the palest shade of silver I had ever seen, and they captivated me. “When I first became a siren, in 1792, Phorcys became rather obsessed with me.” She paused, her eyes clouding over with the memory that she was about to reveal. “I was a young siren, and this was back before we lived in civilization with humans. Phorcys lived at the ocean. He’s similar to a mermaid; his tail can be seen when he’s in the water.
“Needless to say, we were bound to cross paths, eventually—and when we did, he became completely enchanted by me. It baffled me why Phorcys was one of the only men who was able to live in harmony with me without being lured by my song. I would soon learn it was because he wasn’t a man at all, but a God.” She climbed off her pool float and sunk down into the water.
Angelica began tiptoeing across the pool, running her hand through the water with her back turned to us. “We had a relationship, Phorcys and I. It was wonderful while it lasted, but then it all came crashing down.” She took a deep breath. “One night, after our relationship was over and he had already moved onto another woman, I lured someone with my song. Her name was Evynne. It was the first time I had ever lured a woman before, so I was confused—but when I felt her slipping away, I did what I could to save her. I kissed her and turned her.
“It was a mistake,” Angelica continued, turning back to face us. “Evynne was the woman who Phorcys was in love with before he met his wife, Ceto—and now, she was a siren. As it turns out, she was interested in both men and women. Anyway, to make matters worse, Evynne was carrying his unborn child. Their relationship did not work out in the end because Phorcys was unable to watch another woman who he loved—a woman who reminded him of me—lure men and women to their deaths with her song. Contrary to what Greek mythology may say, Phorcys is a kind, wonderful man. Or, he was at least.”
“And what happened after that?” I whispered, knowing there had to be more to the story. The look on her face had turned cold, and her voice had turned distant. I felt sympathy for her. I couldn’t imagine what it would be like to fall in love with a man only to have him push you away just because of who you were.
“After their son, Adonis, who he shared with Evynne, was born, Phorcys avoided me for many years. About a hundred, to be exact,” Angelica replied, tossing her long blonde hair over her shoulder. “I knew that he always held a grudge for what had happened, but I believe that somewhere, deep down inside, he knew that it wasn’t my fault. He didn’t see me as a monster, like some might. He understood that the song was beyond my control. But Ceto didn’t.
“When Gabrielle was changed, Phorcys and Ceto came to see me. They told me that the sirens were overpopulating their sea and they wanted to put an end to it. In the past fifty years, they’ve given birth to these children who they’ve turned into monsters. They call them the Phorcydes.” Angelica glanced over at me, and I thought I noticed a nervous look pass through her eyes. “Jasmine doesn’t hate you, but she is afraid that all Hell is about to break loose for us because you were turned. Phorcys and Ceto threatened that they would wage a war against sirens if I—or any of my children—were to create another siren again.”