Siren

by Tricia Rayburn

  “Who does she talk about?” I ask.

  “Me, actually. Her feelings were apparently real—or at least she believed they were. She didn’t even want to use her powers … or whatever you want to call them … but when I didn’t give in right away, she thought she didn’t have a choice.” He glanced at his notebook. “Besides me, there’s a whole lot of women: Betty, Raina, Brigitte, Marie, Eugenie, Isabelle, Josephine, Dominique, Sabine.”

  “Dominique and Sabine were at the meeting last night,” I said. “They’re on the Northern Lights Festival committee.”

  Caleb wrote that down. “There’s also a ton about Paige. I haven’t gotten very far, but her name appears more than anyone’s. Jonathan’s mentioned, too.”

  “What was Zara writing in there yesterday?” I asked. “During the meeting?”

  Caleb flipped forward a few pages. “It looks like some kind of roster. It’s a list of everyone who was there, and some more people I’ve never heard of. Men, though—not women.”

  “Raina asked everyone to give the names of ten people they’d be personally responsible for bringing to the festival. She said it was up to them to bring the community together during these dark times.”

  Caleb looked at Simon. “We should call the police.”

  “And say what?” Simon said. “That we’re pretty sure a large group of mermaid murderesses plans to destroy the whole town during the first annual Lighthouse Marina Resort and Spa Northern Lights Festival?”

  “Yes,” Caleb said.

  “We have no proof,” Simon said. “I’m not saying they’re not up to something, but we can’t do anything until we know for sure what it is.”

  A cell phone buzzed. Caleb snatched his from the table, and then dropped it again.

  “Be right back,” Simon said, opening his phone and heading for the living room.

  As Caleb returned to the journal, I got up, poured a glass of orange juice, and sat back down. I slid last week’s Herald across the table toward me and pretended to read.

  “You know you have nothing to worry about,” Caleb said without looking up.

  I bit my lip and turned the page. I wasn’t worried. Curious, maybe. But not worried.

  “Justine always said you two would be perfect together,” he said a minute later.

  I stared at a headline without seeing it. She did? When? And why didn’t she say so to me? “I miss her,” I said softly.

  He paused. “I know. Me, too.”

  “Good news,” Simon said, coming back into the kitchen. “Beaker’s ready to roll.”

  “Beaker?” I said.

  “Dr. Beakman, my professor and advisor. After I ran into him at Bates the other day and told him about my weather research here, he decided to come up to try to do some of his own. He’s staying with a friend on the other side of town.”

  “The guy won a Nobel Prize about a million years ago,” Caleb said. “Something about molecular fusion.”

  “He won a Nobel Prize and teaches lowerclassmen at Bates?” I asked.

  “After working at the Institiute for Advanced Study at Princeton for twenty years. We’re like his preretirement.” Simon unfolded a large map and spread it across the table.

  “Are you going to tell him what we know?” Caleb asked. “About the Marchands?”

  “No. I’m going to tell him what we know about the victims.” Simon’s finger traced a thin line broken up by red dots on the map. “Here’s where their bodies were found. All onshore, near water.”

  “Pretty close together,” I said.

  “Very close together. There are twenty miles of coastline running alongside Winter Harbor, but all of the victims were found within a mile of one another. According to police reports, the ones found farther south were submerged longer. Considering tides and currents, this suggests a common northern origin.”

  “Chione Cliffs,” I said, my eyes fixed on Justine’s red dot.

  “The same current always follows the storms we’ve been having,” Simon said. “It’s strongest right outside the pool at the base of the cliff, heads south, and fades about a mile and a half down the coast.”

  “So you’re saying they all died in the same place?” Caleb asked. “At the base of the cliff?”

  “I’m not positive … but yes. That’s my theory.”

  “And Oliver said that Betty loved to swim there because the water was so deep,” I reminded them. “Maybe there was another reason.”

  “Right,” Simon said. “Anyway, Beaker said to come over anytime, so we should go now. The festival’s in forty-eight hours, so if the Marchands do have something planned, we don’t have much time.”

  “Actually,” I said, my heart beating faster, “I think I’ll hang back with Mom. She’s been pretty rattled since I told her about Justine not applying to college, so I should probably spend some time with her to keep her calm.”

  Simon turned to me. “Vanessa, we should stay together.”

  “I’ll be on the porch,” Caleb said after a pause. He gathered Zara’s journal, his notebook, and his iPod from the table, and headed outside.

  I looked down at the map, strangely nervous. “I’m sorry, I just—”

  “Is this about last night?” he asked, his voice concerned. “We didn’t get to talk after, and to be honest, I don’t even know what happened. One minute I’m running through the school, looking for Caleb and Mark, and the next I’m in the car pushing Zara away from me.”

  “It’s not about last night,” I said, still unable to look at him. “You know how my mom gets. I just want to make sure I stay long enough to finish what we started.”

  The silence that followed was thick, as if filled with everything we’d say if only we knew how. When he finally spoke, he sounded hurt.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m so sorry for whatever I said or did. But please know that that wasn’t me. I couldn’t hurt you, Vanessa.”

  “I know.” I wanted to ask why he couldn’t snap out of her trance by thinking of me and hearing my voice, the way he had in the woods, but I didn’t.

  Stepping toward me, he placed one hand against my neck and gently lifted my face until our eyes met. My heart raced, but my body relaxed. The second his lips pressed against mine, last night started to fade like a bad dream.

  Until he reached for my hips. And his fingers tightened around me. And I saw his hands on her pink skirt.

  I pulled away. “You should go.”

  His arms hung in the air, still reaching for me. “Vanessa, what—”

  “We don’t have much time. Like you said. And my mom’s probably up and wondering where I am.” I backed toward the door, my fingers to my lips. “But please text me your teacher’s address so I know where you are. And call when you get there.”

  “Later, Vanessa!” Caleb yelled after me as I hurried down the porch steps.

  Back in my house, I stood to the side of the kitchen door and peered through the small space between the curtain and glass. I held my breath as Simon and Caleb climbed in the Subaru and started down the driveway. When the car turned onto the street and disappeared from view, I scribbled a note to Mom, who still slept, and went outside.

  I stood on the Marchands’ porch holding a laundry basket of disposable diapers, pacifiers, and onesies that I’d picked up at the drugstore in town. It was a little early for an impromptu baby shower for Paige, but it was the only excuse for returning to their house I could come up with.

  I checked my phone, reassured by Simon’s texts. He and Caleb were with his old teacher. They were safe. I debated texting him back to say where I was, just in case, but then slid the phone back in my jeans. He’d leave and come after me, and we didn’t have time for that. He needed to do what he needed to do, and so did I.

  I rang the doorbell and waited.

  Nothing. No one answered, and no footsteps hurried toward the door. I tried to peer in the windows near the door, but they were covered by thick blue drapes. I walked back to the edge of the porch and saw
Raina’s and Zara’s cars parked nearby.

  I rang and knocked again. When there was still no response, I took the knob and slowly turned it.

  The living room was dark. It had started to rain on my way over, and the lingering daylight was blocked out by the heavy drapes pulled across the tall windows. The only light came from the wall of lit sconces lining the stairwell.

  Stepping into the room, I grabbed a onesie from the laundry basket and held it over my mouth and nose. The air was thick with the smell of salt. And seaweed. And something unpleasant that made me think of empty crab shells, rotting jellyfish, and sick whales washed up on the beach.

  As the air wrapped around me, pulling on my clothes and crawling against my skin, I hurried toward the stairs. The smell grew stronger the farther I climbed, and by the time I reached the landing, my head throbbed and stomach turned.

  I continued down the hallway. I didn’t slow down until I neared Paige’s closed door and heard muffled noises coming from the other side.

  Keeping the onesie to my face, I placed the laundry basket on the floor and leaned toward the door. I listened without breathing, unable to decipher the noise I was hearing. Its pitch rose and fell as its volume grew louder and softer. It seemed to be coming from more than one source, but didn’t exactly sound like music, or people talking.

  I tapped on the door. When no one answered, I cracked open the door and peered inside.

  The curtains were drawn here, too, and the air was even thicker with salt. The blankets Paige had been bundled up in the last time I saw her were piled on the floor by the bed. The strange sounds came from the bathroom and grew louder.

  I walked across the room, careful to stay to the side of the bathroom doorway and out of sight of whoever was in there. When I was close enough to peek inside, I kept my chest pressed against the adjacent wall and craned my neck until my left eye had an unobstructed view.

  The bathroom was filled with gray, salty steam. Small clouds of light came from candles placed throughout the room—on the sink, the floor, the glass shelves hanging on the wall. One corner of the room, the one with the bathtub, glowed brighter than the others, even though it was the only corner not illuminated by candlelight.

  Raina and Zara sat on the edge of the tub, their backs to me. Raina held a thin, ivory hand in her lap. The hand shook, as if the body it was attached to was immersed in an electrified pool of water.

  I wanted to look away but couldn’t. My gaze traveled from the ivory hand, along a smooth, bare arm, toward Paige’s face.

  She lay naked in the tub. Her body shook so hard, her head knocked against the tile wall and water splashed onto the floor. Strange, inhuman noises flew from her lips. Her belly poked out above the surface of the water, already swollen with the life inside.

  Despite all that, she’d never looked more beautiful.

  Her creamy skin glistened, and her face was flushed. Her wet hair was almost black, and trailed across her bare shoulders, onto her chest. Her silver-blue eyes burned white and seemed to be frozen open, shining a cool, ethereal light across the room. She didn’t look like herself—she barely looked human—but she was the kind of stunning that makes all the surrounding darkness disappear.

  My eyes locked on hers, which were raised up, toward the ceiling. I felt my body being pulled toward her, wanting to be near her, and I grabbed the edge of the doorway to hold myself back. My head pulsated, but I wasn’t aware of the pain.

  I snapped out of it when my phone vibrated in the pocket of my jeans. I took one more look at Paige, feeling almost like I’d never seen her before, and then backed away from the bathroom doorway.

  Outside the bedroom, I grabbed the laundry basket and read Simon’s text as I dashed down the hallway.

  C was right about the festival. Z wrote all about it. Call me when you can.

  I closed the phone, torn between fleeing the house and trying to find out what could help stop everything from the one person who might know for sure.

  Deciding a few more minutes really wasn’t much to risk at this point, I flew past the stairs and headed for Betty’s bedroom. I paused outside the door and glanced down the hallway. Paige’s bedroom door was still closed. Temporarily reassured, I knocked lightly on Betty’s door before going inside.

  “Betty?” I whispered, closing the door behind me. “I’m sorry to bother you, but—”

  I stopped when I saw the empty chaise lounge. The fireplace, which had burned brightly each time I’d been in the room, was dark. Here, just as in the living room and Paige’s room, the curtains were pulled tightly across the windows.

  The room was so dark I almost didn’t see her. She was lying in the bed on the other side of the room, her tiny body still. Despite her supersensory abilities, she either hadn’t heard me enter the room or was too tired to respond.

  “Betty?” I whispered again, walking toward her.

  She looked like she’d aged decades in a matter of days. Her thick, gray hair had thinned, leaving loose clumps on the pillow around her head. The folds of her skin had deepened, and the skin itself had dried to a brownish gray; large flakes were scattered across her blanket and purple bathrobe like confetti. If her chest didn’t struggle to rise every few seconds, I would’ve thought she was dead.

  I sank into a stuffed chair pulled up next to the bed. I shifted when I landed on something hard and saw that the chair’s last occupant had either been reading to Betty to distract her from the pain—or to worsen it.

  There were a dozen copies of the Winter Harbor Herald—recent ones, featuring Paul Carsons, Charles Spinnaker, and other victims, as well as older ones dating as far back as 1985. I recognized some of those from the day Simon and I had looked through back issues at the library.

  Underneath the stack of newspapers was another book—a scrapbook. It looked similar to Zara’s—though it was thicker and obviously older, given its faded cloth cover and yellowing lace.

  I lifted it to my lap and glanced at the bedroom door. When it remained closed, I opened the scrapbook, which was divided into sections, each chronicling the pursuits and accomplishments of a different siren. The group extended far beyond the Marchand family—and Winter Harbor. I flipped through decades of women, all striking, and all with the same silver-blue eyes that somehow shone just as brightly in black-and-white photos as they did in more recent, color photos. They ranged in age, with the youngest looking not much older than Paige. The book didn’t contain physical mementos like Zara’s did, but it tracked progress through photos and newspaper clippings, some of which came from other Maine towns, and as far away as Canada.

  Knowing I could sit there for hours, I flipped faster. I’d just grabbed a thick stack of pages to fast-forward several years when five gray fingers reached for the book.

  I stared at Betty’s hand. Small flakes of skin drifted onto the open page.

  I looked up when a puff of rancid, salty air shot toward my face. She’d turned her head, and her eyes were small slits as she faced me. Through their narrow openings, I could see the clouds had grown darker.

  “What, Betty?” I asked quietly. “What is it?”

  She opened her brittle lips to speak, but nothing came out except more nauseating air. It smelled like the inside of her body was failing, just like the outside.

  She told me … she spent so much time swimming not just because she liked to, but because she needed to.

  I inhaled sharply as I recalled Oliver’s words.

  She physically needed to immerse herself in salt water several times a day … if she didn’t, eventually, she wouldn’t be able to breathe.

  I looked at Betty, at her dry skin and thin hair. She was dying. She was dying because she couldn’t breathe.

  I placed the scrapbook on the bed next to her and ran for the bathroom. I turned on the bathtub and threw open closets and cabinets, looking for something to fill with water. I yanked towels from shelves and tossed them into the tub. The smell of salt and fish made me gag, but I worked throu
gh it. I rolled up my sleeves and pushed the towels deeper, holding them underwater until they were saturated.

  Her eyes were closed again by the time I returned. I held the wet towels to my chest, hardly feeling the cold saltwater soak through. I gently took the edge of the blanket tucked under her chin, pulled the blanket away, and let it fall to the floor. The purple velvet robe seemed too big on her now. I loosened its belt and pulled it open.

  Betty’s frail limbs stuck out of her favorite purple swimsuit.

  Her ribs lifted the swimsuit as she tried to inhale. I draped the wet towels across her entire body, starting at her feet and working toward her chest. Reaching her shoulders, I slid the robe down her arms and covered her to the top of her neck. When only her face remained exposed, I sank back to the chair and waited.

  Her color started to return first. Her cheeks went from ash, to white, to light pink. Her wrinkles smoothed, and her lips grew fuller. After a few minutes, her chest managed to rise for a complete second before falling again.

  As she slowly regained strength, I picked up the scrapbook and turned to the back. Obituaries were displayed like wedding photos, and I flipped past those for Charles Spinnaker, Aaron Newberg, William O’Dell, Donald Jeffries, and Tom Connelly. When I reached the group of four who had made that morning’s Herald headlines, I turned back a few pages. Raina’s scrapbook was thorough, but two recent victims were missing. I wasn’t surprised that Justine wasn’t included—she was Zara’s target, after all—but I was surprised that one of the men was noticeably absent. His story was in one of the papers I’d just moved, and he was the first one found after Justine. I had no idea how this twisted form of scrapbooking worked, but assumed that the first of a string of targets warranted extra attention—maybe a few pages or glitter or stickers or something.

  But Paul Carsons didn’t get glitter. He didn’t get anything.

  I flipped all the way to the back, my stomach clenching at the sight of the empty white pages awaiting their subjects. Perhaps Raina hadn’t decided how to memorialize Paul Carsons. Maybe she was still collecting articles and photos and would make a separate book just for him. Maybe—