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Since we didn’t celebrate Thanksgiving in Switzerland, I didn’t know what it was all about. From what my friends at school had been mentioning, I learned that it involved a turkey and plenty of other food. Well, neither was very appealing to Sirens. Roisin came over for a game day, leaving our house free of anything edible. We played Rummy, Yatzy and I taught them Jassen, a typical Swiss card game. I wondered why Cathy wasn’t present. After all, she was family, too. I had thought that she was close to Roisin and Melissa.
In mid-afternoon, we took an extended walk on the beach. The sky was a mixture of gray and black, and the clouds looked heavy as if they were announcing a downpour. The wilderness of the sky blended in perfectly with the now rather gray waves, which were thrown around by the wind. It was beautiful to witness this fierce side of the ocean for once and not the calm, picture perfect, crystal-like beach.
As we walked through the sand, Roisin and I somewhat ahead of Melissa and Luke, I asked her whether she had seen Cathy lately.
“Not since you have last seen her. Why?”
“I find it a little odd that she was there when I did my baby steps. She clearly was against me existing. And since then she has disappeared completely.”
Roisin was quiet for a moment and looked ahead into the distance. When she spoke, she seemed to choose her words carefully. “She can’t see eye to eye with Luke.”
“What’s not to like about Luke?” I raised an eyebrow.
“It’s not something she doesn’t like about him; it’s more the idea of Luke as one of us, which she finds hard to accept. But we’re all family, and I’m sure that eventually, she will come around. It might just take a few decades.” She rolled her eyes. Then Roisin continued. “Before Cathy came to New York, she lived close to Vancouver with another group. She was studying medicine. Plus, she was in love with a human guy. It was going great; they were very happy. He was extremely sporty and could keep up with her energy. But one day, during a basketball game, he just collapsed; sudden cardiac arrest. There was nothing anyone could do. Medical help was too far away, AED’s weren’t hanging in every public facility then. So the only thing she knew could help him, was jamming a needle into his heart.” Roisin shut her mouth tightly.
“He didn’t survive?” I asked.
“No, he did. But when he woke up, he ripped himself free and took off to go hunting. He killed the first guy that crossed his way. Dug his teeth into the guy’s chest, after pushing Cathy out of his way. He would have attacked more if there weren’t the others from the group in Vancouver who stopped him. And by stopping, I mean they killed him. Cut his head off and the rest into pieces and then burned him.”
“Omg,” I gulped.
“And all that with a wailing Cathy next to them. Her pain must have been bigger than anything we can imagine. Most Sirens would have killed themselves, I think. The reason why Cathy didn’t was probably her stubbornness.” Roisin breathed. “She was restless for a while and moved from place to place until she ended up in New York. That city seems to have healing powers in some ways. She tried to get back to a normal routine and started getting into heart surgery. We ran into her a couple of times in the city. You feel the presence of another Siren in a crowd full of people. But she still prefers being on her own.”
I shuddered. That story explained a lot. I hadn’t really been in contact with the brutal side of us until now. Hearing her recount, I hoped it would stay with just hearing stories about it.
“But why was she in the cave then? If you actually have nothing to do with each other.” I had to ask again. It didn’t make sense.
“You ask too many questions, girl,” Roisin said. “But to answer it, we were all at a festival, and it’s a Siren’s duty to take care of a new one in the beginning.”
Annoying Roisin was the last thing I wanted, so to change the subject, I asked when she had started to dye her hair. I’ve debated a few times, whether I should go blonde for a while.
“A few years ago,” she pursed her lips. “Having the same style of short hair got a little boring after a while. I used to have nice long hair. I should have noticed that after my transformation, I never had to go to the hairdresser. First, it always looked good and second, it didn’t grow longer. But I wanted a change, and so I cut it. And guess what? My hair never grew back. Or so slowly, that I haven’t noticed it yet.”
“Well, good that you told me about this before I decided to cut my hair.” I couldn’t believe that they wouldn’t warn me of something like that.
“Oops, sorry.” She shrugged her shoulders apologetically. “I guess there are things that become so normal after a while that we forget to mention them. And it’s not like we wouldn’t have warned you if you came and said that you were going to the hairdresser.”
At that moment, the first raindrops started falling, and we hurried back to the cottage. By the time we arrived, we were soaked. We put on dry clothes. Roisin borrowed some from Melissa.
“So, who is up for another game?” Melissa asked.
“No, you have definitely won enough for today,” Roisin protested; “you haven’t lost once.”
“You’ve won, too.”
“Only because I was teamed with you during Jassen.”
“Beginner’s luck,” I said.
We retired in front of the TV. Choices were The Notebook, Jumanji or CSI. Luke didn’t have a fair chance against three women, and so our choice was settled. We were watching The Notebook, while the rain pattered against the windows.
Since it rained the entire night, we had a TV marathon. On the next day, however, the others decided that I had to see the craziness of Black Friday sales. At first, I was a bit nervous about all the people, but I didn’t have to be. I had my last shot a few days ago, and I felt completely relaxed.
“You’re not coming, Luke?” I asked.
“First of all, I already didn’t like shopping as a human guy and now, being around people is pure torture for me. So, if you don’t want for me to get discovered by the Orbiters because I kill one or two humans, it’s better I stay home.”
“You really can’t get used to the heartbeats?”
“It’s like screeching on a blackboard. I just want to kill the noise,” he said, his face in agony by the mere thought of it.
“I guess I won’t throw any parties soon then.”
Winter slowly reached the Cape. The days turned from cold to freezing. This destroyed my illusion that at a beautiful beach I’d be able to walk around in my bikini all year long. What I surely couldn’t imagine happened on the sixth of December. It was the first time that year that snowflakes started falling out of the sky like thick cotton balls. Of course, I had seen snow in Switzerland every year since I could remember. Nevertheless, here at the beach I somehow expected that we would spend Christmas BBQ-ing under a palm tree rather than in front of a fireplace. Then, I remembered something about the equator and how I am still on the northern side of the earth.
I’ve always loved the first real snow of the year. But it was indeed something special to watch how the sand dunes got covered by the white flakes.
In this weather, I quit riding the bicycle and started running everywhere.
I enjoyed being with other people whenever I went to school or work. Not that Melissa and Luke were boring, but we were living like hermits, and it didn’t get any better now in winter. The cape was pretty much abandoned.
Christmas approached, and my thoughts wandered to my family more frequently. We always celebrated Christmas with the cousins and grandparents. Our house used to be filled with a wonderful atmosphere. I wondered whether this year, they would also have happy smiles on their faces, illuminated by candlelight. It would be my first Christmas away from home, and at the moment I missed my family terribly. So, I did something rather unhealthy and created a Facebook profile after all. I typed in my parents’ names and simply stared at their profile picture. I tried to mentally make them come to life as if we were in a video chat. But, of course, nothing happened. I did the same thing with my sister; whose profile was slightly less private. The first thing I saw was a post of a picture of her and me riding a camel at the zoo. I underestimated the impact a picture of a shared memory would have on me. I sucked in some air and held my breath, trying not to start crying right away. I miss you sissy <3 hope you are well wherever you are! This was too much. Tears started streaming down my face. I missed her, too! I wanted to write her then and there but knew that I couldn’t. I was different now, neither the same person nor the same body they used to know. I believed the Sirens now when they said it was best if I stayed dead to them.
Back at school, Phe was the first who noticed my silver charm bracelet, which Melissa and Luke had given to me for Christmas. It came with two charms: a small bicycle for my American life and a little chocolate bar for my old life.
“Well, I get the bicycle but what about the chocolate bar? You don’t eat chocolate.”
“I eat European chocolate. Real Swiss and Belgian chocolate, not the imported kind. It’s so good.” I raved.
“Sorry if American chocolate isn’t good enough for you.” Sam mocked me.
“On the other hand, Europeans can’t make donuts with holes. They always tasted like plastic.” Which was true but didn’t really matter to me anymore now.