LURE

by Stephanie Jenkins

  Please don’t look at me like that. Please stop making me want to tell you things you don’t need to know. “My curfew is 11, we better get going.”

  Two things happened then: he leaned in to kiss me, lowering his eyelids. My internal panic alarm immediately went off; I darted out of the way. I expected him to straighten, glare at me, then flounce back to his family’s McMansion, but that didn’t happen. Instead, he lost his balance. I reached out to grab his shoulder, and my fingertips grazed the soft cotton fabric on the back of his shirt.

  Frozen, I watched as he fell over the edge into the water. He didn’t have a chance against the current and went under.

  “Help me, Charlotte,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Wyatt’s voice, and others I could not identify, called out to me from the sea. My body became numb and heavy. The sensation was 100 times worse than my foot or hand falling asleep. “Charlotte, help me. Please.”

  “I don’t know how!” I cried. I really didn’t. My fear of the ocean was about as useful as the zero reception bars on my phone. Not like my wimpy declaration would benefit me, either. The voices lured me to the sea, and I was centimeters away from falling in. My whole body ached, as if thousands of sharp knives cut me at once. I sank to my knees, wheezing and digging my fingernails into the rocks. Struggling was unbearable. I gave up control, and as I tumbled after Wyatt, the pain stopped.

  Seawater slammed into my face. I flailed and kicked, deciding that it would be better to fight the current rather than be its slave again. Drowning felt wrong this time. Funny to say that, but it was definitely off. Too calm. No pressure.

  “Open your eyes,” the voices whispered.

  For once, I listened.

  No burning. Last time, I wanted to claw my eyes out of my head, but my vision was clear, like I was standing on the surface. I stopped holding my breath to gasp, and nothing happened. I was floating and breathing underwater.

  Trippy.

  Wyatt’s slack body descended into murkier depths. Snatching his hand, I drew him to me. “Get me out of here.” His lips didn‘t move, and his skin, usually dark from time spent worshiping the sun, was a colorless gray. If I couldn’t hear his feeble heartbeat, I would have believed he was already gone.

  My arms locked around his waist. Recoiling was probably a better option, though. He was talking to me underwater. While unconscious.

  “I’m ready,” someone else said.

  Water came together in front of me to form a tall, skinny man. He looked like a normal person. You know, if normal people were made solely of water. When I tried to maneuver around, he hovered in front of me, arms outstretched. “I’m ready,” he repeated. Witnessing him wave his hands around like a cheerleader on caffeine pills was both comical and startling.

  Twelve others formed behind him—four men, three women, and five kids.

  “He’ll die. You guys can wait,” I said mechanically. What does that even mean? Apparently, they understood because all thirteen nodded then disappeared.

  My illusions had taken on a whole new level of bizarre.

  Wyatt’s lips and fingers were dull blue when we broke free to the surface. I pulled him into the sand, climbed on top of him, one leg on either side of his waist, and tried to remember how to do CPR. I lowered my mouth to his and exhaled long breaths.

  That CPR class I skipped out on would be helpful right about now.

  I kept blowing against his lips, hoping he would come to. His face remained motionless.

  Oh God, I’ve killed him.

  But then his chest heaved, and he coughed. I tried to push away to let him take those first wonderful breaths. He crushed me to him, moved his lips beneath mine, breathed soft air against the corner of my mouth. Urgent fingertips buried into my skin and massaged small circles by my hair. I kissed him back, promising myself I only did it because he almost died. He was warm and soft and, luckily, alive. When I eased away, his pale lips lifted in a grim smile. “I’ve died,” he whispered, closing his eyes.

  “Not funny at all.” I stood and paced in front of his feet. I kept my eyes glued to him. His breathing came out in choppy gasps that shook his chest.

  “You saved me.”

  “I—” But I couldn’t figure out what to say. I could swim now. He had talked to me underwater. And somehow, I’d discovered a colony of “water people.”

  I was nuts.

  Absolutely insane.

  But he was alive; that was enough to encourage me to question my sanity at a later time. He struggled to sit up. I knelt and pushed him back down. “Don’t you dare move, I’m going to get help,” I said.

  He shot straight up and shook his head. Wincing, he clutched at either side of his forehead. “Don’t. Remember that sign on the gate? My dad would shit a brick if I got into trouble.”

  I offered him my hand. When our skin touched, he convulsed and looked as if he might throw up. He leaned against me as we walked to his house. “Do you want me to call someone to come get me?”

  “I’m not a baby. I picked you up, I’ll take you home.”

  We trudged along in silence, and I noticed a muscle ticking in his cheek. Wyatt was a moody boy. First, he kissed me and now he ignored me. We reached his back deck. He slumped down on the steps, cupping his face with both hands. “You sure I don’t need to get your parents?”

  I already knew the answer. Wyatt Anderson was too good to ask for help. I sat next to him, running my hand over his knee. He accepted my closeness at first but after a couple minutes, he started to tremble violently. I moved away from him and pressed my back to the iron rail. He couldn’t even stomach my touch. If I were him, I would be freaked out, too.

  After a few minutes of inhaling deeply and mumbling to himself, he lifted his head. “Thanks . . . for whatever you did.” He disappeared through the back door and returned with an armful of clothes and towels.

  “We have to stop doing this, people will talk,” I said, attempting to make him smile.

  He did, but it didn’t extend to his eyes. “Guess we do.” I was dying to know what the tremor in his voice meant. Had he witnessed what I saw underwater? Coming right out and asking him would be too risky, even stupid. If he hadn’t, he would only question my sanity. Judging by his hesitant expression, though, he was already doing that.

  “Turn around,” I ordered. I changed fast into the sweatshirt and gym shorts he’d shoved in my direction. He was fully dressed and staring at me when I faced him again. If he was ogling my body, he wasn’t that freaked out.

  “You look different,” he said, as we walked to his truck. I fought the urge to check my appearance in the mirror. It would suck to find something else wrong with me, like fins or scales. We exchanged very few words on the ride to my house. He fidgeted with the sun visor, played with radio buttons—anything to avoid talking to me. But once we were in my driveway, he stared into my eyes. “What were the words you said to me on the beach?”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ezisa. You kept chanting it.” He blinked a few times. “At least, I thought you did.”

  I reached out to touch his temple; he flinched, muttering something jumbled. “You bumped your head. I don’t know what Ezisa means.” As soon as I said it, my insides turned to ice.

  When the weird, foreign word rolled off my tongue, the translation was clear:

  Live.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  My dream was about Mr. Sidney, my trigonometry teacher. Gross, right?

  He assembled with the thirteen “water people“, and his body was liquid, too. One of the children, a girl who was no more than seven, placed her small, sheer hand in mine. Mr. Sidney stood on my other side, but I paid attention to the kid tapping impatiently on my hand. “What happened?” I asked.

  “My step-mom said I was a mistake . . .”

  A platform rose up from the depths of the sea. Everyone stepped onto it. At first, I thought the lift was made of glass, but when I knelt down to rub my palm across it, I
realized that like everything else in my dreams, it was water. I tapped my foot on the center of the platform. It jolted, then zoomed down an illuminated and blinding path.

  We stopped moving twenty feet above a whirlpool. Gold and crimson melded into each other, forming an incredible light show that made me blink. Like an underwater aurora borealis. The girl beside me tugged on my wrist and motioned for me to bend down. She cupped her hand over her mouth, and whispered. “Thank you. The other girl couldn’t take us because” —she sighed tremulously, her lips frozen in place— “she said we were your job now.”

  The other girl? I started to ask her what she was talking about, but she and the other kids clasped hands and jumped off the platform into the vortex beneath us. The rest of the water people followed suit, except for Mr. Sidney. He faced me, giving me a shocking glimpse of my own reflection. I had the curse of never being able to tan, but my skin was as gold as the sea spiraling below us. Silver eyes stared back at me.

  “You want answers?” my teacher asked, inching toward me. Of course I did. It wasn’t every day the faculty of Gloucester High infiltrated my dreams. I nodded. “Ask the one who made you.” He let himself be pulled into the spinning array of colors, and I watched him disappear, utterly confused by his final words.

  ***

  I wasn’t shocked to wake up on the beach—strange seemed to define my life now—but I didn’t expect to be so close to The Lighthouse or to see an enormous moving van parked in front of the adjoining cottage. Before I could sneak past the truck, I heard a familiar voice admonish a mover in a sweet tone.

  “Be careful with that, please? It’s extremely old,” said Lorelei.

  Oh no, not her. Anybody but her.

  I stepped around the truck and bumped into her yellow convertible. Ugh, why would she park so close to the moving truck? Her eyes landed on me standing in wet pajamas and she scurried over. As if fully clothed morning swims were normal, she smiled. “Char, I’m so glad to see you again!” Half of her hair was pulled back, but it didn’t stop the wind from ruffling it. She looked angelic standing in the sunlight.

  I lifted my hand and waved sheepishly. At least I wasn’t dressed in only underwear this time. “How’s it going?”

  “Excellent, and you? Taking a stroll?”

  Do I look like I’m taking a stroll? “Um, no. I mean, yes. I’m going home.” Maybe I’d walk to Golden Boy’s house. If I was lucky, he might drive me across town. I hadn’t talked to him in a couple days, so he probably had steel bars covering his windows to keep me, the freak, out. Asking him for help was still worth a try. Lorelei pursed her lips sympathetically and motioned to the keeper’s cottage. “I’ll grab my bag and take you.”

  I had always wondered what the inside looked like, so when I gazed at my barren surroundings and a cold draft hit me, my disappointment was epic. The floors and walls were made of stone. Judging by the plethora of trash on the floor, the place was a squatter’s paradise. I expected it to look romantic, like the fairytales Mom read when I was a kid. Instead, it was filthy and depressing.

  I turned in a slow circle. “It’s kind of . . . crappy.” Her face fell, and I added, “Sorry, just being honest.”

  “It won’t look like this when I’m done with it! I’m restoring the place.”

  “Where are your parents?” I blurted. And where the hell would you get the money to restore this dump?

  Her eyes darted to the floor. “I’m emancipated.” She grabbed her oversized yellow leather bag from the mantle and slung it over her shoulder. “I should get you home. Cammy must be worried sick!”

  Cammy? What exactly did he say to make her believe he cared about what happened to me? She hummed as we walked outside, and I could not resist mimicking her graceful, fluttery movements. Don’t think I mastered it because one of the movers, a boy who went to my school, snickered. He stifled his laughter when I gave him the finger.

  The movers stared at her like lovesick idiots, but she paid them no mind. She opened a box. A moment later, a buttercup print towel flew in my direction. Lorelei was certainly obsessed with all things yellow.

  It was hard to start a conversation with her while she drove. I focused my attention on the dashboard, trying to locate a speck of dust or dirt, but it was spotless. She asked me about summer school. I responded politely. When she questioned me about what else was going on in my life, I evaded her and mentally counted my weird heartbeat. One . . . two . . . three . . . four . . . five . . . six . . . seven.

  She insisted on ushering me into the house, and we found my dad pacing the small living room. He scowled at me but smiled graciously at her. “Thank God! I’ve been worried sick!”

  “I hope you don’t mind, Mr. Brewer, but Charlotte and I went for a morning jog,” she said. The lie slipped out so easily and sounded so convincing, Dad’s lame smile looked like it might break his face.

  “I don’t mind at all. I just wish Charlotte would have told me where she was going.” He turned to me and said, “I‘m glad you’re making new friends, Char.”

  I wanted to tell Dad I would never take a run with Lorelei, but I kept my mouth closed. I flashed a fake smile—one that rivaled Dad’s overpowering grin. “Going to my room now,” I said. Cam stopped me in the hall. He placed his hands on my shoulders and shook me. Good thing I was use to his excitement episodes or I would have been dizzy.

  “Lori’s here? I heard her voice!”

  “Talking to Dad,” I muttered, pointing to the living room. “And don’t run, you’ll look more desperate.” I caught my reflection in the hallway mirror. I looked like my normal, pale self. Dark gray eyes glared at me, not the silver ones from my dream. That’s why they’re called dreams, stupid. I tuned in to Cam and Lorelei’s conversation just in time to hear him invite her to dinner. When she accepted, I almost vomited.

  Damn sleepwalking.

  ***

  Lorelei didn’t touch her food, but even if I were ravenous, I would have gnawed off a finger first. Cam’s steak was charred and the suspicious veggies in the tossed salad had been in the fridge for a few weeks. I sipped water, half-listening as they talked about her renovation plans. For someone I first dismissed as an airhead, she knew her stuff.

  The front bell rang, and I catapulted from my seat to answer it. I hoped it was a door to door vacuum salesman. Agreeing to watch someone clean the living room for an hour would be the perfect solution to avoiding Lorelei. Sadly, the person standing on the front porch wasn’t toting a cumbersome hybrid cleaning machine.

  Wyatt wore his typical attire of cargo shorts and a polo shirt. I could smell him from where I stood. I bit my bottom lip but then quickly remembered that I hadn’t heard from him since the incident at The Lighthouse. “What do you want?” I asked, rolling my eyes. The guy had a bad habit of showing up just when I thought I’d never see him again.

  His smile was off. Tonight, it was an expression that bordered a nervous frown. Don’t get me wrong, he looked good when he stared me down with self-assured eyes, but I immediately preferred humble Wyatt. He spiked his wet hair with long fingers. “Wanted to see what you’re doing tonight.”

  “And you couldn’t call to ask me that?” I opened the door wide and motioned for him to come in.

  He slid down on the recliner by the door. “Thought you might be too mad to answer.” I crossed my arms over my chest, and he flushed. “Cute house.”

  “Cute?” I sat across from him at the piano bench, tucked one leg under me, and slumped against the keys. They made a hideous creaking noise. “Not everyone lives in a McMansion.”

  He grinned, and I was disappointed to see the vulnerability disappear. “At least I know you’re not pissed,” he said. I started to tell him he did not know a thing about me, but Cam and Lorelei wandered into the living room.

  “What’s up, man?” Cam said. My brother will strike up conversation with anything that nods and mumbles ‘m’kay’ every few seconds, so I wasn’t surprised when he and Wyatt did some idiot guy handshake
and introduced themselves.

  Wyatt peeked past Cam at Lorelei. Since men acted like belligerent apes when she was around, he was bound to fall for her. “I’m Lori, a friend of the family,” she said. Great, she was already referring to herself as a family friend.

  Before I know it, she’ll call me “bestie” and invite me over to her shack for spa night.

  I inspected the sole of my tennis shoe. “If you want to go out, we better do it now before my dad comes home from work.” Golden Boy shook his head, and my brother grinned at the prospect of having the house to himself and Lorelei.

  The last time I went to St. Peter’s Fiesta was the summer after ninth grade, but when I was younger, my family never missed it. Multicolored lights and streamers decorated downtown and all around us, the crowd munched on shrimp kabobs and waved Italian flags. “Doesn’t exactly look vegan friendly,” I joked as we ducked under a low hanging string of lights.

  “I’ll get you a wheatgrass smoothie.”

  I laughed. “That sounds gross.”

  Wyatt motioned for me to sit down in a free spot in the grass, and after I did, I faced him, hugging my knees. “You’ve come here before?”

  “With my mom.”

  “Oh, she busy this year?”

  Coming right out and saying Mom killed herself last year would just be weird, not to mention an instant conversation fail. I opted for the watered-down explanation of her death. “She drowned last summer.”

  His face changed colors. “I’m so sorry!” It wasn’t like I’d been warm and sharing with him, so I shrugged.

  “Don’t be, you didn’t know.” I said.

  “Goose!”

  We looked up to see Matt walking toward us with a petite mixed girl. I knew almost everyone at Gloucester High, but I had never seen her. With her delicate features and shoulder-length, curly hair that even I was envious of, she was too gorgeous not to notice. She chewed on a purple coffee stirrer that matched her nails.

  “Goose?” Golden Boy asked.

  I smiled up at them. “Not doing homework tonight, Robbins?”