Lullaby (A Watersong Novel)

by Amanda Hocking

  She reacted on instinct, doing what her body told her to do. She didn’t even realize what she was doing until she felt Sawyer’s lips pressed against hers. She’d thrown her arms around him, pressing her body as tightly as she could against the warm contours of his, and kissing him ferociously.

  The only reason she stopped kissing him was that she needed to breathe, and she felt his lips on her neck, trailing down her collarbone. Hot tingles radiated through her, reminding her of when her legs shifted into a tail, and dimly she wondered if she was transforming into something else.

  Then suddenly Alex flashed into her mind. When the hunger/lust had first taken over her, it had blocked him from her thoughts, but now she remembered him again. She loved him, and she still thought of him as her boyfriend, even if she wasn’t sure that she’d ever see him again.

  So this with Sawyer, this was cheating on him. Maybe for a second she’d lost control, and that could be forgiven. But she remembered now, and she had to get back in control before she did something with Sawyer that she’d regret forever.

  “No,” Gemma said. She started pushing against his chest, but Sawyer ignored her, still kissing the spot just above her heart. “I said no!” She pushed more forcefully then, and he went flying back, slamming hard against the railing behind him.

  “Did I do something wrong?” Sawyer asked in a daze.

  “Yes!” Gemma shouted, then shook her head. It was a struggle for her to keep from attacking him again. “No. I don’t know. But I have to get out of here.”

  “I’m sorry.” He moved toward her in some attempt at an apology, and Gemma jumped off the step, getting away from him before she gave in to her urges.

  “Where are your keys?” Gemma asked, realizing the house was far too small for her to stay away from him. Sawyer stared blankly at her, not understanding. “I need to get out of here! Where are your car keys?”

  “They’re on a hook by the garage.”

  She turned and ran toward the garage, but Sawyer followed, asking her where she was going and apologizing for upsetting her. She never answered him, though. She just grabbed the keys off the rack and dove into his convertible.

  Gemma sped off without knowing where she was going or how to get there, but the wind was in her hair, helping clear her head of the bizarre lust that had consumed her inside the house. She wasn’t sure if she was ever going back to the house, or if she could ever handle herself around Sawyer again. All she knew was that she had to get the hell away from that house as fast as she could.

  FIFTEEN

  Superstitious

  The idea had been Marcy’s, and Harper thought it was idiotic. Harper had woken up Monday morning with renewed vigor and determination to find Gemma. She’d been gone for a week already, and Harper had yet to hear anything from her.

  Before going to work this morning, she did her morning routine of making phone calls to everyone she could think of. Alex continued to scour the Internet, not just with his FindGemmaFisher pages, but searching for any news stories that might relate to the sirens at all.

  The problem was that Gemma could literally be anywhere. She could’ve swum across the Atlantic, for all Harper knew, which made it impossible to pin down any type of location. So until Harper got some kind of clue or lead, she was stuck making phone calls, searching the Web, and going about her daily life and hoping that Gemma was taking care of herself.

  It was while Harper was at work that Alex stopped by the library, and the two of them began lamenting the lack of search options for Gemma. Then Marcy came up with her brilliant idea.

  “Why don’t you ask Gemma where she’s at?” Marcy asked.

  Harper was standing at the copy machine, making flyers for the new July summer reading program. Alex was sitting in Harper’s chair at the desk, and both of them were completely caught off guard by Marcy’s question.

  “What?” Harper asked, and turned around to look at her.

  Marcy was sitting on top of the desk, even though there was a perfectly good chair next to it, and was focused on making herself a necklace out of paper clips.

  “You keep saying that Gemma could be anywhere, like Spain or Japan or Kentucky.”

  “I never said Kentucky,” Harper corrected her. “The sirens wouldn’t go to the middle of the country. They’d want to be by the ocean.”

  “Well, exactly.” Marcy bit her lip in concentration as she tried to unhook a paper clip that had gotten bent. “She could be anywhere. So the easiest way to find her is to ask her.”

  “We can’t just ask her,” Alex said. “We have no idea how to contact her. She left her cell phone behind, and I’ve been checking her Twitter and Facebook, but she hasn’t been on them.”

  Marcy rolled her eyes. “I don’t mean call her or drop her a postcard.”

  “Okay…” Harper said after Marcy went several moments without saying anything. “How do you propose we contact her?”

  “We use the spirits,” Marcy said.

  “The spirits?” Harper raised an eyebrow. “You mean like Capri Liquor Wine & Spirits?” Marcy looked up from her paper clips to glare at Harper.

  “Gemma’s not dead, though.” Alex leaned on the desk and looked up at Marcy. “She’s not a ghost, so we can’t just ask her.”

  “She isn’t,” Marcy agreed. “But that friend of yours is, and so is Bernie.”

  “My friend?” Alex questioned. “You mean Luke?”

  “Right.” Marcy finished her necklace, and she dropped it around her neck. “Both Bernie and Luke were murdered by the sirens. At least one of them has to be a restless spirit, haunted by the fact that their murderers got away with it, and I bet they’re keeping tabs on the sirens, too.”

  Harper rolled her eyes. “Oh, come on, Marcy. That’s ridiculous.”

  “You really think that Luke would know where Gemma and the other girls are hiding?” Alex asked, oblivious to Harper’s comments.

  “Probably.” Marcy nodded. “I mean, if Penn had killed you and ripped out your heart, then run off to frolic in the ocean, wouldn’t you be pissed off and stalk her?”

  “I probably would,” Alex reasoned. “So how do we go about this? How would we try contacting them?”

  “Alex!” Harper said in disbelief. “You can’t really be buying into this.”

  “Your sister is a siren,” Alex said, looking back at her. “She can turn into a mermaid. But ghosts seem unbelievable to you?”

  Harper crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back against the copier, but she didn’t say anything. Alex had made a point she couldn’t really argue with, but that didn’t mean she still didn’t think this was all stupid.

  “Do I need to get like a Ouija board or something?” Alex asked.

  Marcy scoffed loudly. “Ouija. Pfft. That’s all hokum.”

  “Okay,” Alex said. “So how do we contact the spirits?”

  “Why don’t I meet you at your house after work, and I’ll bring everything we need?” Marcy suggested.

  Even though Harper thought it was dumb, she didn’t have any better ideas, so she went along with it. Alex went home, and after work Marcy went home to get her stuff, then was going to meet them at Alex’s house.

  Harper waited outside with Alex, sitting on the front steps of his house. He wasn’t sure what to bring, if anything, so he’d grabbed the video camera he used to record storms and a pocketknife in the shape of Batman’s batarang.

  “You really think this will work?” Harper asked, watching him as he flipped the blade in and out of the pocketknife.

  “I don’t know,” Alex admitted. “But I don’t know what else to try. I’ve got to do something, and I’m running out of options.”

  “Can I ask you something?”

  Alex shrugged. “Sure.”

  “Why do…” Harper tried to choose her words carefully. “You’re really passionate about finding Gemma, and I’m glad. It’s just … it’s a little strangely intense, since you and Gemma haven’t been together that long.�
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  “Is that your question?” Alex asked, looking over at her.

  “Kinda. I just don’t fully understand why you care so much.”

  “But I’ve known her practically my whole life,” Alex pointed out. “And it’s not like I suddenly started having feelings for her the day we started dating. I mean, I’ve liked her for…” He trailed off, as if realizing he’d admitted more than he wanted to.

  “When did you start liking her?” Harper asked.

  He shifted uneasily. “I don’t know the exact date.”

  Harper had known that Alex and Gemma liked each other for a little while, possibly longer than the two of them knew themselves. Alex would be over watching a movie with Harper or doing homework with her, but as soon as Gemma came in the room, he could barely pay attention to the task at hand.

  That eventually had put a strain on her friendship with Alex. She didn’t mind so much that he liked Gemma. It just weirded her out that they’d be hanging out in her room, and Gemma would be across the hall in hers, and Alex would suddenly get up and go hover in Gemma’s doorway. It was obnoxious, so Harper had stopped hanging out with him as much.

  “I think I noticed it a few months ago,” Harper said. “You kept making eyes at her.”

  “I did not,” he said quickly. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “There’s nothing wrong with it,” Harper said. “I’m just curious about how long you’ve had a crush on my sister.”

  “I don’t know.” He sighed, and when he spoke, his voice got quieter. “Maybe years.”

  “Years?” Harper asked loudly, thinking she must’ve heard wrong.

  “I don’t know.” He lowered his eyes and looked uncomfortable. “I mean, it wasn’t like a crush. It was just I really liked her, and she always thought I was such a dork. But then in the last year or so, something changed, and she started looking at me like I was a person, and not some geeky guy running around with her older sister. And then I think … I don’t know.”

  “So you’ve been into Gemma for a really long time?” Harper asked, still trying to process what he was saying.

  “I guess so,” he admitted. “Sorry.”

  “Why are you sorry?” Harper asked.

  “Because we were friends, and I didn’t tell you?” Alex said as if he weren’t sure why he was apologizing. “I feel like I wasn’t supposed to have a crush on your sister.”

  “Honestly, I’m fine with you about it,” Harper said, smiling at him to prove it. “It’s just strange to me that I didn’t realize you did.”

  “So that’s why I’m kinda being such a freak about all of this,” he said with a sad smile. “I finally get to be with Gemma, and then she’s … gone.”

  “That would make me crazy, too.” She twirled the bottle of water in her hands, staring down at it as she asked him the next question. “So … are you in love with Gemma?”

  “I…” He ran a hand through his brown hair and hesitated to answer.

  Marcy pulled up in front of the house, honking the horn on her Gremlin loudly as she parked. She got out of the car, carrying a book bag with Captain Planet on it as she walked up to the house.

  “You cats and kittens ready to contact some spirits?” Marcy asked, but before anyone could answer, she noticed Alex’s pocketknife. “Is that a batarang? Are you planning to batarang the spirit of your dead best friend?”

  “No.” He flipped out the blade to show her. “It’s a knife.”

  “Oh, so you’re gonna stab a ghost,” Marcy said. “That’s so much better.”

  “I didn’t know what to bring. I thought we might need something to defend ourselves,” Alex said.

  “Well, we don’t,” Marcy said. “Now come on. Let’s do this thing.” Marcy turned and started walking away.

  “Where are you going?” Alex asked, jumping up.

  “Yeah, where is this thing taking place?” Harper asked as she followed Marcy and Alex away from their houses.

  “Luke’s body was found in the wooded area by the bay, right?” Marcy asked. “That’s where we’re going. His connection to the earth will be the strongest there. That’ll make him easier to contact.”

  The trees where Harper and Alex had found the bodies weren’t far from where they lived. Neither of them had been back there since they’d shown the police where to go. It wasn’t someplace where Harper ever wanted to go again, so she slowed her steps when Marcy told them that was where they were headed.

  “Are you coming, Harper?” Alex asked, glancing back over his shoulder at her. He hadn’t slowed down even slightly. Harper knew that finding the bodies had really freaked him out, too, but apparently he was braver than she’d thought.

  “Uh … yeah.” She sighed and caught up to them.

  Fortunately, when they got to the small cypress forest that ran along Anthemusa Bay, they didn’t go into it. Marcy stopped abruptly before going in and declared that it gave her bad energy, and that apparently would interfere with contacting the spirits.

  “We’ll set it up here.” Marcy motioned to a grassy patch just outside the trees. “Sit down in a circle.”

  “Shouldn’t it be nighttime or something?” Alex asked, but he still did as he was told. He sat with his legs crossed underneath him, and Harper and Marcy sat on either side of him so they formed a small circle.

  “Shouldn’t what be nighttime?” Marcy asked. She set her book bag on her lap and began rummaging through it.

  “It just feels weird to be doing a séance or whatever outside in the bright sunlight,” Alex said.

  “Yeah, I feel like we should be in a spooky room with candles and incense,” Harper agreed.

  “That’s because you guys are idiots,” Marcy told them.

  “This coming from the girl who carries voodoo stuff in a Captain Planet backpack,” Harper muttered.

  Marcy glared at her. “Nobody messes with Captain Planet. He keeps looters, plunderers, and evil spirits at bay. And I don’t practice voodoo. That’s not my thing.”

  “What is your thing?” Harper asked.

  “This.” Marcy pulled out a handful of black stones, a faded book, and a thick white candle.

  “I thought you said people who brought candles were idiots,” Alex pointed out.

  “No, I said you were idiots.”

  Marcy put the candle in the center of their circle, then carefully laid out the smooth black stones around it. When Alex reached out to touch one, Marcy slapped his hand. Then she set the backpack aside and opened the book on her lap.

  “Now what?” Harper asked when Marcy appeared to be finished laying out everything.

  “I’m going to read from this book,” Marcy explained. “The incantation is in Latin. I don’t know why. I guess the dead all speak a dead language. It’s important that you don’t interrupt me and you don’t speak. Just sit quietly until I’m finished.”

  After Harper and Alex both nodded in understanding, Marcy flipped open the book and began reading from it. Harper had no idea what most of the words meant, but every now and then she’d catch one like “necro” and “terra.”

  As soon as Marcy finished, the candle lit up. A bluish flame burned from the wick, and even though the candle was white, the wax that dripped down the sides was black.

  “How’d you do that?” Harper asked.

  “I’m magic,” Marcy said matter-of-factly, and closed the book. “So it’s all set. We should be able to talk to Luke now.”

  “Really?” Alex asked. “I can just … talk to him?”

  “Yeah. I would start by saying his name and seeing if he’s around and wants to talk.”

  “How will we know if he wants to talk?” Alex asked. “Will he just talk back?”

  “The stones will vibrate if something’s present.” Marcy motioned to the black rocks. “And then we talk to him and decide how he’s going to answer. It’s usually stuff like, Knock once for yes, twice for no.”

  “How will he be able to name a place, then?” Alex a
sked. “If we say, Where’s Gemma? it’s not like he can knock once, and we’ll go, Oh, right, Toledo.”

  “Let’s just see if he’s here, and we’ll take it from there,” Marcy suggested. “You start, Alex, since you were closest to him.”

  “Okay. Um…” He took a deep breath, then cautiously said, “Luke? Uh, Luke Benfield? It’s me, your friend Alex. Um, I wanted to know if you wanted to talk.”

  They waited a few minutes, and when there was no response, Alex tried again. Even Harper joined in, and eventually Marcy retried the incantation. But no matter what they said, they got no response.

  All afternoon the three of them tried communing with Luke. The hot sun beat down on them, and Marcy grumbled about the heat a few times, but she stuck with the séance. The stones ended up vibrating twice, but Marcy could never make any contact beyond that.

  “So that’s it?” Alex asked when Marcy began packing up her stuff. “We’re giving up?”

  “Sorry, loverboy,” Marcy said as the sun began to set. “There’s nothing more I can do. We’ll just have to go back to looking the old-fashioned way.”

  SIXTEEN

  Wanderlust

  Gemma reached a town about a half hour after leaving Sawyer’s house, but she drove around in it for a long time before she stopped. She needed to be sure that her head was clear and her hunger was under control.

  That was actually what made her finally decide to stop. She figured that eating people food would at least do something about her appetite.

  The only thing Gemma knew about what sirens were supposed to eat was what Lexi had told her back in the cabin on Bernie’s Island. Penn had wanted her to eat Alex, and Lexi had tried to convince her that eating him would be delicious.

  But Gemma wasn’t sure exactly how much truth was in that. Based on the way the sirens spoke, she assumed that they needed to feed on humans somehow, but she wasn’t sure what that meant. Maybe they just drank blood like vampires. Or maybe they swallowed an entire person whole.