Emily Windsnap and the Siren's Secret (9 page)

“Anyway,” she went on quickly, “she was one of the top sirens, and then one day she vanished — just like that. Gone without a trace. There was a group of them. She and her friends sang together sometimes, and all of them disappeared overnight.”

“For good?” I asked.

Shona nodded and swam back to me, swinging on an abandoned rope and brushing the seafloor with it as she swam. A shoal of bright blue fish rushed out from underneath, zigzagging away from us. “None of them have ever been seen again.” Her eyes sparkled. “The legend says that they went off to a magical place that’s so well hidden it’s virtually invisible! And guess what else?”

“What?”

“Miss Merlin’s done loads of research into it. Siren legends and mysteries are her favorite thing, and she knows more about them than anyone in the whole ocean! She told us the last place they were reported to have been seen.”

“And?”

Shona looked as if she were about to burst with excitement. “And it’s near here!”

I knew instantly what she was thinking. Before Shona met me, she’d never really had an adventure. Since we’d been best friends, we’d hardly had anything but!

“You want to see if we can find them?”

Shona nodded excitedly. “Look, I need to get to school. But think about it. Maybe we could look this weekend. It might distract you from everything else that’s going on.”

She had a point. And anyway, it did have an interesting ring to it — a group of sirens all vanishing into thin air overnight, never to be seen or heard from again. We could at least pretend that we were going to find them. Anything had to be better than sitting around getting more and more miserable about — well, about pretty much everything.

“You’re on,” I said with a grin. I knew Shona would manage to make me smile. She always does.

“Swishy!” She grinned back at me. “I’ll see if I can find out any more from Miss Merlin. We could go on Sunday.”

“Let’s do it!”

With that, we headed back. I had a slight twinge when we went our separate ways and she swam off to school. I don’t even know what the twinge was. A whole mix of things, I suppose. A bit sad seeing her go off on her own to school without me. A bit jealous of her still going to mermaid school and learning about things like sirens disappearing into invisible hiding places while I would soon be back to French and fractions.

And, yes, if I’m honest, there was a little bit of guilt in there, too, at the fact that I was excited about getting back to Brightport and spending the rest of the day with Aaron.

I waited for Shona to stop and wave before she rounded a corner, then I turned and swam back toward Brightport. A group of long black fish swam parallel with me, as though we were racing. Ahead, a stripy blue-and-pink fish swam across my path. Seaweed swayed below me, feathery ferns brushing the end of my tail as I swam over it. A feeling of peace washed over me. I smiled to myself as I headed home. Everything was going to be fine; I could tell.

And things were fine all week. Mom was back at the bookshop where she used to work. She’d gone in one day to say hello and it turned out one of the new assistants had just left, so they grabbed her right away and got her back on the job. That seemed to make her happier — as did the fact that Millie was around again. Millie had loads of friends in Brightport, so hadn’t had any trouble finding somewhere to stay. Mrs. Swindale, who ran one of the guesthouses on the waterfront, said she could stay there free of charge for as long as she wanted in exchange for a daily tarot reading, a couple of Reiki sessions, and a chakra cleansing or two.

Dad was busy working with Mr. Beeston, and Mom had even managed to get Aaron’s mom a part-time job helping out at the local thrift shop — which just left Aaron and me.

I showed him all my favorite parts of Brightport: the back streets where you could get lost if you didn’t know your way around, the walk along the promenade, where you could watch the sun set over the sea. We even went to look at the Rushtons’ new theme park. We only looked in from the outside, though. I didn’t want to bump into Mr. and Mrs. Rushton. After what had happened with Mandy, I couldn’t face it.

Once I’d shown Aaron the town, I decided to show him the other side of Brightport, the side I’d only known about since I’d discovered I was a mermaid — in particular, Rainbow Rocks. We swam there together. I told him that it was where I’d first met Shona, and where my mom had said good-bye to my dad when I was only a baby. That was the last time she’d seen him till last year.

“It’s very special here, isn’t it?” Aaron said, swimming slowly around the rocks. The water was so clear that you could see every pebble and every fish below us, even the ones that were virtually see-through, little stick-thin things flicking through the water like darts.

I was glad he could feel it too. Rainbow Rocks was possibly my favorite place in the world. My favorite place in Brightport, anyway.

It had been a magical week so far and I didn’t want it to end. Soon everyone would be done with school and it wouldn’t feel as though we had the whole place to ourselves anymore.

But the week would end.

And so would the wonderful, magical feeling.

Friday morning I was at home on my own when a
thud
on the front deck signified that someone had arrived. And by the way the boat rocked with their arrival, I had a good guess who it might be.

“Where is she?” Millie burst through the door, breathless and scarlet. “Where’s your mom?”

“At work,” I said. “Why?”

Millie shook her head. “Not there. Can’t find her.”

“She might have gone to the store,” I said. “Millie, what is it? Are you OK?”

Millie nodded as she caught her breath. “Oh, blast! We’ll come back for her as soon as we can. I can’t wait — I’ll have to take you on your own first. Come on!”

“Come on what?” I asked.

Millie grabbed my hand. “You’re not to say anything. We’ll bring them over as soon as your mom’s back, OK?”

I decided to overlook the fact that Millie wasn’t making sense. “OK,” I agreed, and followed her out of the boat.

Millie marched up the jetty, her cape billowing out behind her. I scampered along behind her. “Millie, are you going to tell me what this is about?” I asked when I caught up.

“You’ll see soon enough,” she replied in that mysterious way that she says most things.

We took a turn down toward the beach cottages where Aaron and his mom were staying. “Is it Aaron?” I asked. “Has something happened to him?”

“Nothing has happened to anyone. Come on. Nearly there now.” She took a sharp left turn, paced to the last cottage in the row and stopped. “This is it,” she said. Then she wiped her palms down the side of her dress, pulled a wisp of hair off her face, and swallowed hard.

She turned to me. “Ready?” Her voice had a breathless wobble in it. She was clearly nervous — but why? What was inside the cottage? What was I meant to be ready
for
?

“I guess so,” I said. Then I followed Millie up the path. She took a deep breath. And then she knocked on the door.

The door opened. A woman was standing in the doorway. She was thin and spindly, with gray hair and glasses hanging from her neck on a chain. She looked elderly, but kind of sprightly too.

A man came up behind her, same age, taller than she was, but thin and gray-haired too. They both stared at us.

“Can we help you?” the woman asked with a friendly smile. Her eyes crinkled up and turned green and shiny when she smiled. Something about her smile seemed familiar, but I couldn’t put my finger on what it was. She
couldn’t
be familiar. I’d never seen either of them before!

“I — it’s — don’t you —” Millie began. She was even more flustered than she’d been before we knocked on the door.

The man came to the front door step. “You must be the lady from the competition,” he said.

Competition? What competition?

“Come on in,” he went on. “We’re so pleased to meet you. What a wonderful surprise, winning something like this out of the blue. It’s all happened so fast; lucky we were free! And the place is lovely.”

What on earth was he talking about? Had he mixed us up with someone else? I turned to Millie.

She just gave me a quick nod and ushered me in. The man spotted me. “Ah, you’ve brought your daughter with you.” He reached down to shake my hand. “Well, come on in, both of you.”

I glared at Millie.
“Daughter?”
I mouthed. She shook her head and frowned a silent
Shhhh!
at me.

The four of us stood in the front room in an awkward circle, looking at each other.

“Well?” Millie said, grinning broadly at the couple. “Now that you can have a good look, surely you remember me?”

The two strangers stared blankly at Millie.

“This is Emily!” she said.

They turned their blank stares on me. I stared blankly back.

I’d had enough. “Millie, are you going to explain what’s going on here?”

Suddenly, Millie looked just as bewildered as the rest of us. “You won’t even acknowledge me?” she asked. Her voice cracked as she spoke. I thought she was going to cry. “Well, I knew you felt strongly about it all, but I didn’t think you’d take it
this
far!”

The couple continued to stare at her, mouths open, puzzled expressions across their faces. The woman spoke first. “Look, it was very nice of you to let us know we’d won, and we really are grateful, but I’m sure I don’t know what —”

“Hello?” a voice called from the front door. We’d left it open behind us and a second later, Aaron’s face appeared. He glanced around the room and grinned when he saw me. “Hey — I thought it was you. I was just passing,” he said. “What’re you doing here?”

Good question!

“Can I come in?” he asked, stepping into the small room before I had a chance to reply.

“This is my friend Aaron,” I said as he squeezed in next to me — not that anyone took any notice. They were all still too busy staring blankly at each other. I felt Aaron’s hand brush mine. Immediately my face got hot and my heart started hammering so loudly I was positive someone would hear it — especially while we were all standing there in this shocked silence.