Surface

by Jody Morse

  I felt my eyes widen. Was my sister really an immortal . . . and me, too? “So when did I die?”

  “A few nights ago,” Scarlett replied.

  “How do you know? If I’m still here, how can you tell?”

  “We just can,” Jasmine told me. She and Scarlett exchanged a look that I couldn’t identify.

  My sister then looked at me, and said, “You sang with us earlier.”

  Still not wanting to believe that what they were saying was true, I said, “Are you all crazy?”

  “Do you really think I would waste my time lying to you?” Jasmine asked, rolling her eyes.

  “Calm down, Jas. Let’s just prove it to her,” Scarlett said.

  Jasmine took one look at me before standing up. She broke into a sprint and leaped off the edge of the cliff that the lighthouse sat on. I ran to the edge, in panic, and watched as she fell about twenty feet. I gasped when I heard the loud splash as her body hit the water.

  “She’s crazy! She’s not going to live through that!” I said, louder than I meant to. I could feel myself panicking. If Jasmine died, would we somehow be held responsible? We had just watched her jump to her death.

  Scarlett turned to me, her lips twisted into a tight smile. “That’s the point. If she were a mortal, there’s no way she could survive that jump. Did you see those rocks down there?”

  From my place at the edge of the cliff, I watched as Jasmine’s head surfaced to the top of the water, her body being knocked over by a wave. “See?” she screamed. “I’m alive!”

  “M-maybe she’s just lucky,” I forced myself to say, knowing that I sounded incredibly unconvincing. “It doesn’t necessarily prove anything.”

  Scarlett raised an eyebrow at me. “Why don’t you jump in after her then?”

  I quickly shook my head. “No, way! I’m not that stupid.”

  “I didn’t think you would. You never were that adventurous,” Scarlett said with a laugh. I tried to ignore the hurtful emotions her words had provoked within me as she went on to say, “But I do have another idea. Come on!”

  She raced to the other side of the lighthouse. I ran after my sister, Gabby tagging close behind.

  I watched as my sister began climbing gracefully down the steep rocks that led to the ocean. “Come on!” she yelled, motioning for us to follow her.

  I carefully stepped onto the boulder-sized rocks, trying to keep up with her but knowing that it was useless. She was already halfway there. The rocks beneath my feet were slick, and I tried my hardest not to lose my balance.

  Once we were closer to the water, Scarlett jumped in. I waited for her to come back up.

  Moments passed, and I still didn’t see my sister in the water.

  I began to panic, memories of her drowning that day in the bay flooding my mind. I was about to jump in to look for her when I saw her head bob out of the water just as a wave passed. She emerged from the ocean with a wide grin on her face.

  “Come on in!” Scarlett called, a melodic ring to her voice. “The water’s warm!”

  I hesitated. I had a feeling that something was going to happen once I was in the water, but I didn’t know what. Deciding to risk it anyway, mostly because I didn’t want to look like I wasn’t adventurous like she thought, I slid out of my flip flops and jumped into the waves with my clothes still on.

  Almost as soon as I hit the water, I felt Scarlett’s hands come down around my knees, pulling me under. A second pair of hands—which I assumed belonged to Gabby—pushed my head down.

  I struggled against the hands holding me in place. While I knew that something was going to happen, I hadn’t expected this: for my sister to drown me. Was she pissed that I hadn’t done anything to try to save her the day we all thought she’d drowned? Was this her payback?

  Reaching above my head, I grabbed a tangle of hair and pulled, hard, my other hand reaching up to swipe at her face with my long fingernails. At the same time, I kicked my legs out hard in Scarlett’s direction. Through the water, I could see Gabby’s expression had remained unchanged. I hadn’t caused her any pain.

  My legs and arms flailed in panic as Scarlett and Gabby pulled me deeper into the depths of the ocean.

  This was it. I was going to drown.

  I opened my eyes and stared up at the frothy bubbles of the water above me, the waves crashing over us. If I had to die, at least my last view was a beautiful one.

  I held my breath as I waited for my oxygen supply to run out and my lungs to fill with water, but it didn’t happen. It must have taken a much longer time to drown than I ever would have thought. Or maybe it just felt longer to wait for your own death to occur.

  After a few moments, I realized that something was definitely . . . wrong. I would never be able to hold my breath for this long underwater. I didn’t feel any pain or like I was beginning to feel lightheaded and ready to pass out from not breathing for so long.

  In fact, I felt perfectly fine.

  I opened my mouth to allow the water to pour into it. I fully expected the salt water to be the last thing I tasted before I drowned, but nothing happened. If the water had flooded into my mouth, I couldn’t feel it; it was as though I was a part of the ocean.

  Through the dark blankets of water that surrounded us, I saw the smile that crossed my sister’s face at my realization of what I had just discovered. She released my knees, and Gabby followed suit, releasing me from her own grasp. They both made their way up to the surface. Glancing up, I saw their legs treading the water above me.

  As if to prove to myself what I already knew, that I could breathe underwater for as long as I wanted, I stayed under for a moment longer before following them.

  Once I emerged from the water, I yelled, “Oh, my God! You’re right!”

  Scarlett laughed sarcastically. “Thanks for putting so much trust in me.”

  I hesitated. “Just because I’m an immortal doesn’t mean I’m a siren.”

  “Oh, whatever, Felly. Stop being so damn stubborn! You’re a siren. Just like the rest of us,” Scarlett shot back at me.

  I pulled myself out of the water and onto the rocks, and I immediately noticed something strange. The water was always so much warmer than the air at night, usually leaving me feeling cold the second I stepped out of the ocean. Today, I didn’t notice any difference, though. Noting that my clothes were dry, I decided that the fact that I was still warm probably had something to do with my newfound ability to absorb and repel water.

  “So, I can’t die. At least not by water. I guess I believe you about that now,” I said quietly, even though I was still having a hard time coming to terms with it. I looked over at Scarlett and Gabby, who were both bobbing in the water in front of me. From the corner of my eye, I noticed Jasmine swimming towards us as I asked, “What else does being a siren mean? How’s it any different from a mermaid?”

  “Do you see a tail on any of us?” Jasmine asked with raised eyebrows.

  “Oh.” I laughed at my own stupidity.

  “Thank you, Captain Obvious,” Scarlett snapped, and I noticed a strange look cross Jasmine’s face. I got the sense that there was a lot of tension between the two of them—and it definitely wasn’t something that had just developed overnight.

  Scarlett turned back to me and said, “There’s one thing that you need to know about us. We drive men to death with our song.”

  Chapter 16

  “What?” I asked with a laugh. “You’re kidding, right? You want me to believe that I can kill someone just by singing? That’s ridiculous. I’m around people all the time and nothing bad has happened.” Well, not all time, but definitely enough to know that I didn’t kill them all. Now that I thought about it, though, I realized I hadn’t really ever sung in front of anyone, except for my reflection in the bathroom mirror.

  “Not just someone. Men. They die with smiles on their faces, captivated by our song. And you probably haven’t killed any of those guys because you only just became a siren a few nights ago,”
Scarlett explained with an eye roll, as if everyone should know how sirens kill people. “Our song only drives them to death at night, usually during the full moon. Unless we’re in a bad mood.”

  I stared back at her with wide eyes.

  “And then, it’s really bad. When one of Gabby’s boyfriends dumped her, she killed like six guys,” Jasmine chimed in. “You just haven’t had the chance to kill anyone yet, but once you do, they’ll drop like flies.”

  “It’s true,” Gabby said solemnly. Her side swept bangs fell over one eye, but I was pretty sure that I noticed a look of guilt. “When we sing, men are drawn to us. It’s like we hypnotize them.” She paused and, meeting my eyes, added, “Our song always ends in death.”

  “How do they die?” I asked. I was beginning to feel sick to my stomach. Just the thought that I could possibly be responsible for someone’s death made me feel like a monster. Then again, for all I knew, I really was one.

  None of the girls answered me right away. Gabby watched her hands floating on top of the water, and Jasmine looked at Scarlett, as though she were waiting for her to answer. My sister just stared ahead; at first, I thought she was looking at me, but she was actually looking past me, off into the distance.

  Finally, Scarlett said, “Most of them drown before they even reach us. It’s like they almost forget how to swim or something and stumble over themselves. If they do get to us without drowning on their own, we . . .” She paused and took a long breath. “We drown them.”

  My jaw dropped, and the look on her face told me that she knew what I was thinking—that she and her friends really were monsters.

  “And you’re okay with that? With drowning them on purpose?” I managed to ask Scarlett after a moment, my voice merely a whisper. “You’re able to live with yourself knowing that you just . . . kill these guys?” I shuddered. My sister—who might not share my looks, but still shared my DNA—was a cold-hearted murderer.

  “It’s not like she asked for this,” Jasmine spoke up, tossing her straight, chin-length ebony-colored hair as she shook her head with attitude. “None of us did. We don’t try to kill people. Yeah, we may drag them under the water and drown them, but . . . it’s not like we have a choice. It just happens. There’s nothing we can do to prevent it—even when we’re in a bad mood. It’s like we go into a trance and our body thinks for itself.”

  I looked down at my hands. If Scarlett and her friends were telling the truth—if I was really a siren—it meant that I was capable of killing someone with my own two hands. Well, and my voice—and I wouldn’t be able to stop it.

  “I have more questions,” I said, meeting my sister’s eyes.

  She smiled sweetly, her white teeth gleaming in the moonlight. “Of course you do, Felly. This is very confusing for you, I’m sure. It’s not every day that you find out you died and became a siren.”

  “How did I become like this?” I asked, blurting out the first question that came to mind.

  Scarlett glanced over at Gabby and then at Jasmine with a look in her eyes that I couldn’t identify, before turning back to me. “That’s a long story. It’s too much to explain to you right now. Let’s meet up tomorrow night and talk about it.”

  I nodded. Even though I wanted to scream at her about how I deserved answers to whatever questions I had right now, I knew that it was probably better for me to let this all sink in. I was in shock, to say the very least.

  “Meet us at Scoops at seven, unless that’s a problem for you,” Jasmine commanded, her eyes narrowing at me.

  “That’s fine,” I replied, despite how much Jasmine was getting on my nerves. She seemed to have a major attitude problem, especially towards me. “Is there a way I can get in touch with you? A phone number or something?”

  Scarlett shook her head, her copper-auburn hair moving in the water. “Yes, but I won’t give you my number right now. My iPhone broke, so I’m borrowing Angelica’s. We’re sort of sharing it at the moment.”

  “Angelica?” I asked curiously.

  “She’s our guardian,” Gabby replied quietly. “She’s sort of like our mom in a way.”

  “Oh.” I looked down at my bare legs, unsure of what to say. I didn’t want to seem too nosy. Now that I had found my sister, I didn’t want to scare her away by prying about her life. But how could she live with this new woman who she and her friends obviously thought of us as a mother when our own mother was in a mental health facility.

  “How is Mom, by the way?” Scarlett asked as though she had read my mind.

  I shrugged. “I haven’t spoken to her in years.”

  “What? Why?” The look that crossed Scarlett’s face told me that she was genuinely surprised by this revelation.

  “She’s not my mother anymore,” I replied curtly. I stood up and slid into the flip flops that had been waiting for me on the rocks since I’d jumped into the ocean after Scarlett. “I’ll see you tomorrow at seven, then?”

  Scarlett nodded. I thought I noticed a sad look in her eyes, but it quickly passed. “Yeah, see you then.”

  “Don’t be late,” Jasmine warned in a stern voice.

  “Same goes for you,” I snapped back. I didn’t know who Jasmine was or how Scarlett had even met her, but one thing was for damn sure: I didn’t like the girl. Not one bit. And while she may think she can boss one sister around, she certainly wouldn’t be able to boss the other.

  As I walked away from the lighthouse, I pinched myself again . . . and it hurt. I definitely wasn’t dreaming.

  *

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Gram said as I walked through the front door. She was sitting on the couch, a Danielle Steel novel in hand.

  Maybe because I practically did, I wanted to say, but I knew better. “Something like that.”

  “What happened?” Gram asked, looking up at me.

  I sat down on the couch next to her. “Just had a weird day, I guess,” I replied—not that weird could even begin to describe it.

  “For you and me both. I went to see your mom today,” Gram said, pushing down her reading glasses. “She seemed well.”

  “Oh.” I stared down at the tiled floor, the same way I normally did when Gram talked about Mom. It had never been awkward talking to my grandmother. She had never been like most grandmothers, probably because she had taken on a motherly role with me. We talked about boys and periods and even sex, sometimes. When it came to talking about my mom, though, it was always awkward.

  “She asked about you this time,” Gram said quietly.

  I looked at her, meeting her hazel eyes. “Really?” I asked.

  Gram nodded, her eyes searching my face. “She asked how you were. She didn’t even ask about your sister.” My grandmother sniffed, the same way she always sniffed whenever she talked about Scarlett. Deep down, I didn’t think that it was because she was mourning her death; I think it was because she was mourning the daughter she had lost as a result of it. At least Scarlett was gone—or so she thought. But it had been hard for both of us to know that my mother was alive and physically well—that it was just her state of mind that wasn’t intact.

  “Well, what did you tell her?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “I said you were doing well . . . and that you missed her. I hope that’s okay.”

  “It’s fine,” I replied with a nod. Smiling, I couldn’t help but wonder if maybe my mother was doing better—if she had finally decided to let Scarlett go, along with the resentment that she felt towards me.

  “Maybe you could see her sometime soon,” Gram suggested. “It might help things.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” I murmured, deciding not to get my hopes up. Even if I did see my mom, it wouldn’t change the fact that she had missed out on most of my childhood and teen years. Feeling exhausted from the shock of the night’s events, I stood up. “I think I’m going to go to bed. Goodnight, Gram.”

  “Goodnight, Bumblebee,” my grandmother replied, planting a kiss on my forehead.

  As I lay in bed,
I wasn’t sure how good the night really had gone. Sure, I had my sister back, but my whole life had just changed.

  *

  The next day was slow and uneventful. Jackson wasn’t at work; a brunette girl was sitting in his lifeguard chair instead. I sort of missed him, and without a visit from Tyler, my day was mostly boring.

  When six forty five rolled around, I walked into Scoops. I knew I was early, but I didn’t want to risk the chance of missing Scarlett and her friends.

  “Hey, Felicia!” Carrie’s voice called from behind me as she skated over to the booth that I had sat down at. “Wow, you look amazing!”

  “Thanks?” I raised my eyebrows. I was wearing no makeup and I had on a pair of blue jean cut off shorts that were baggier than what I normally wore with a plain black tank top. My hair wasn’t a total mess, but it definitely wasn’t one of my best hair days either.

  “No, seriously,” Carrie went on. “Your skin is glowing!”

  At that moment, the door swung open, and a breeze blew into the room with it. My sister walked into the ice cream parlor, her copper-auburn hair pulled into a high ponytail. She was wearing a pink sundress that looked amazing against her sun-kissed skin.

  She was followed by Gabby, who looked equally as stunning. Her dark hair cascaded over her shoulders in ringlets. The burgundy strapless dress she wore hugged her slim body in all of the right places, accentuating her curves.

  Jasmine came into the ice cream parlor last. Her short ebony hair was straight again, and she wore a forest green halter top with denim shorts that revealed her long legs.

  It felt like there was a glowing light that radiated around the three girls, illuminating their beauty. How hadn’t I noticed how gorgeous they all were the other times I’d seen them? Had it been too dark to tell, or had I just been in so much shock over what was happening to notice that they all looked like celebrities?

  Either way, a glance around the ice cream parlor told me that I wasn’t alone in thinking that Scarlett, Gabby, and Jasmine were some of the most beautiful girls I had ever seen. Almost everyone’s eyes were glued to them as they strolled across the checkerboard tiled floor. Even Carrie’s eyes widened as Gabby and Jasmine plopped down in the booth across from me and Scarlett took a seat next to me.