The Siren

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.”