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After the movie on the beach was over, Jackson and I walked over to The Pie Pantry. The scent of coffee filled my nostrils; it was a scent that I used to love, but now it just smelled disgusting and made me feel sick to my stomach. We sat down at one of the booths and placed our order. Jackson ordered pecan, and I opted for chocolate mousse, hoping that the flavor would taste as good as ice cream did.
“So, what do you want to be when you grow up?” Jackson asked from across the table, running his hands over a napkin.
I raised an eyebrow at him. “You make it sound like we’re still little kids or something.”
He shrugged his shoulders and ran a hand through his black hair, which he had spiked in the front with gel today. “We sort of are. So, what do you want to be?”
“I don’t really know,” I replied with a shrug.
“Oh, come on. You’ve got to be passionate about something,” Jackson insisted.
The waitress set our pie down on the table, and I grabbed my fork, taking a bite of the chocolate filling. It wasn’t quite as good as ice cream, but also not the worst thing I’d eaten since I’d become a siren. “I’ve always wanted to be a nurse or a doctor. Or possibly an EMT. Someone who helps save lives.”
“I expected you to say that you wanted to be a teacher or a lawyer,” Jackson replied, shoveling a piece of his pecan pie into his mouth. “What makes you want to be a life-saver?”
Before I could stop the words from coming out, I blurted, “Because when I was a kid, I let my little sister, Scarlett, drown. I wasn’t able to save her, so I always figured that if I could help save other people, I would somehow be able to forgive myself.” I could feel my cheeks reddening because I wasn’t sure if I’d done the right thing by telling Jackson about my sister. He was the first person I’d ever told. It was too late now, though. The cat was already out of the bag.
“Wow,” Jackson murmured. He studied my face, his intense blue eyes piercing through mine. I noticed that they were only about a shade darker than Gabby’s eyes. “That’s not what I was expecting you to say. I’m sorry to hear that you have such a dark past.”
I didn’t know how to respond to him. I had never considered my past to be all that dark, but I supposed that it really was. I wondered what Jackson would say if he knew about my present—that it was possibly even darker than my past. “Thanks. It happened a long time ago.” I shrugged. “I don’t tell many people about it, so keep it on the down low, okay?”
Jackson nodded. “I won’t tell anyone. I keep to myself a lot . . . if you haven’t already noticed.”
I nodded, even though I hadn’t actually picked up on that yet. “So, what do you want to do with your life?” I asked, playing with my fork.
“I like the ocean a lot,” Jackson replied. “And I love animals. It would be cool to do something with marine biology and maybe work at an aquarium or something.”
Hearing him talk about an aquarium reminded me of Tyler and the text message he’d sent me earlier. I felt a twinge of guilt for not giving him the chance to explain anything to me, but I wasn’t about to let it ruin my night.
“I love the ocean, too,” I told him. I left out the part that I had always been terrified of it. The truth was, I wasn’t anymore. I was afraid of what I was capable of doing to other people, but I wasn’t afraid of the water anymore. It was now a part of me and, even though it drew me to it, I knew that it would never hurt me.
“Now I understand why you became a Junior Lifeguard this year,” Jackson said.
I nodded, knowing that he was referring to me wanting to save lives.
“That’s cool, though.” Jackson speared a lone pecan into his mouth before meeting my eyes. “I always knew that there was something deep about you. I knew you weren’t the type of girl who would just want to work under the air conditioning at Scoops for the summer like all of the other girls in this town.”
I laughed, remembering how I had wanted to work at Scoops at the beginning of the summer. I wasn’t about to tell Jackson that, though. For some reason, I liked that he thought that I was deeper than girls like Carrie, who pranced around in their skimpy waitress outfits all day receiving flirtatious comments from beachgoers. “They’re not all bad,” I replied. “Carrie’s cool.”
“Eh. She’s okay. Not as cool as you, though.”
I felt my cheeks redden in a blush. “So, what made your family move back to Ocean Grove?” I asked, hoping to change the subject to one that wouldn’t involve him trying to flatter me . . . or whatever he had been trying to do.
“My dad’s job.” Jackson hesitated before going on to explain, “He does investigative work. An old case that he worked on years ago brought him back here.”
“I see,” I replied. “That must be hard for you. Having to leave your old school for your father’s job.”
“I’m glad we did, though,” Jackson replied, staring at me intently. Again, I felt my cheeks reddening. “So, what do your parents do?” he asked.
“My dad died when I was a kid. And my mom’s in an institution.” I had never admitted that to anyone, but for some reason, I felt comfortable talking about it to Jackson. I’d always thought I’d felt comfortable talking to Tyler, but . . . I’d never opened to up to him the way I was with Jackson. I thought that talking to him had been so easy, but surprisingly, talking about my past came so much easier with Jackson.
“So, who do you live with, then?” Jackson asked, interrupting my thoughts.
“My Gram,” I replied. “She’s a pretty cool grandmother, really. I’m lucky I have her. It just gets lonely sometimes because I’m an only child—since my sister died, that is.” I looked down at the table, trying to hide the guilt I felt about lying to him.
“I can’t imagine what that must be like,” Jackson said. “I have five sisters.”
“Five?” I asked, surprised. For some reason, I had assumed that Nora was his only sibling. When he nodded in response, I asked, “What are their names?”
“Well, you’ve met Nora already. There’s also Kiersten, Abby, Carson, and Phoebe.” Jackson finished up his remaining bits of pie. “Let’s just say, dating has never been simple for me.” When I rose my eyebrows at him, unsure what dating had anything to do with his sisters’ names, he explained, “My sisters can be pretty intimidating if they don’t like someone.”
“They sound like fun,” I murmured sarcastically, scraping the last of my chocolate mousse off of the pie crust. I thought about Nora the day had tried to fire both of us. She didn’t seem particularly intimidating to me, but maybe she had been trying to be. I did think she had been a little harsh on Jackson for suspending him, though. It just seemed unfair to let sibling rivalry carry into the workplace.
Jackson shrugged. “My sisters aren’t bad. They just want what’s best for me. You know . . .” He hesitated. “Never mind, I probably shouldn’t bring this up. It’s sort of weird.”
“No, go ahead,” I replied, genuinely curious about what he felt he had to hold back from me.
“Nora thinks you’re what’s best for me,” Jackson replied. He met my eyes briefly before quickly changing the subject. “Are you done? I’ll go pay the tab.”
I nodded, letting his words absorb in his mind. His sister had almost fired me, but she thought I was good for him? It didn’t really make any sense. Had Gram’s friend Beatrice really talked me up so much that Nora suddenly thought I was some sort of goody two shoes?
If only she knew I was a siren.
When Jackson came back, and we walked out of The Pie Pantry, he wrapped his arm around my shoulder. I felt butterflies swirl around my stomach. My skin felt warm against his cold hand. “It’s a nice night to take a walk on the beach,” he commented.
“It is,” I agreed, turning to look up at him. “Let’s do it.”
We began walking towards the pier. For some reason, the beach was much less crowded than it usually was this time of night. I only spotted a few people walking down the sandy shore, flip flops in hand.
As we neared the pier and sat down on a set of beach chairs, I heard the sound of something ringing. It was the same noise that I’d heard the night at the lighthouse when I was with Tyler, and then later in my dream.
Glancing around to see if I could determine where it was coming from, I spotted her.
Her long hair was flowing behind her back, blowing gently in the wind, its cornflower blonde color a stark contrast to the long, white ruffled dress that she wore. It reminded me of a dress that one might wear to a wedding . . . if they were trying to upstage the bride.
Angelica was staring up into the night sky, the light from the half-moon casting a radiating light around her that felt almost too bright for me to look at. My eyes quickly adjusted, and when she spun around, as though she were a drunken ballerina, her dress twirling with her, I noticed something. Something strange.
It looked like Angelica was wearing wings. They were close in color to the dress that she was wearing; they reminded me of the wings of a swan. Actually, despite her blonde hair, Angelica reminded me of a swan in general.
I stared at her for a long while, completely captivated by her beauty. I wasn’t sure why she was wearing a pair of wings when it wasn’t even Halloween, but it didn’t matter—I had never seen someone dance quite as gracefully as she was right now.
Angelica glanced down at me from the sandy hill that she stood upon and, for a moment, her silvery eyes locked with mine. There was a cold, menacing look in them, and I began to panic. Was she mad because I was out late at night on the beach with a guy?
And that was when I remembered that he was with me. What if Angelica was out here because she was getting ready to lure someone out to the ocean? What if she was giving me such a cold look because she didn’t know what she was doing—or who I even was—through the trance that she was in? If it was anything like I had experienced the other night, everything was probably so blurry for her that she couldn’t even see me clearly. Maybe she was just trying to make out who I was.
I decided that I had to get Jackson home, even though I wasn’t really sure if he’d be safe from Angelica in his own bed, but it had to be safer than he was right now, on the beach. I broke my gaze with her. “I’m feeling tired,” I said, turning to him. “Walk me home?”
“Of course,” Jackson replied, standing up. He held out his arm for me. Knowing that there was a chance that Angelica could be watching, I realized that I didn’t care. I linked my arm with Jackson’s as we made the trip back to Gram’s house. Once we were there, I said, “Be safe.”
“I will be,” Jackson laughed. “I don’t think I have anything worry about.”
“I’ve heard that there are a lot of muggings late at night lately,” I lied. “Just go straight home. Promise?”
Jackson agreed. “I’ll text you when I get there.”
Ten minutes after he left my house, I got his text message and I breathed a sigh of relief.
That night, I knew I didn’t have to worry about luring anyone myself. I was happy. There also wasn’t a full moon—so what was Angelica doing on the beach with that strange look in her eyes?