Undercurrent (20 page)

Shivering, I crept that way, hunched over, arms across my bare chest, toward the stairs. I kept one eye on Oliver the whole time, but he was too engrossed in his book to notice. When I neared the papers on the floor, I paused. I waited for the bubbling in the room to swell before reaching forward and carefully lifting from the floor as many papers as I could before the noise softened. Then I continued on, sneaking quick glances at the wooden tubs every few steps.

I didn’t recognize any of the sleeping women. The sirens I’d seen the night the harbor froze had been as beautiful as Raina and Zara. They’d been tall, with warm, bronze skin; long, thick hair; and healthy, toned figures. But some of the women here were pale, others blue. Their bodies were thin and frail. Their breathing was unnaturally slow. I thought two were actually dead and lingered to make sure, but then the water shifted as they inhaled.

Passing the last tub, I risked running the remaining distance to the stairs. I grabbed my phone and clothes and took the steps two at a time.

“Stop!”

The familiar voice exploded in my skull like a torpedo. I fell against the cold wall.

“She’s getting away!”

“There, there,” Oliver soothed. “Everything’s fine. Every-one’s here.”

My pulse thundered in my ears. When Oliver didn’t immediately come running after me, I leaned down and peered out from behind the stairwell wall.

She sat straight up in a tub near the desk, her black hair slick against her head, her silver eyes shining like fading stars and aiming right at me. She was thinner than I remembered, and her skin was bluish-white instead of golden. If I hadn’t memorized her every feature out of fear, I might not have known who she was.

But I did. And thin or not, pale or not, she was still Zara.

Oliver seemed to think she was dreaming, and though she appeared to look right at me, she must not have seen me. He stroked her hair and gently pressed on her shoulders, and soon the lights in her eyes extinguished as she closed them. She lay back without protest.

My legs ached to charge, but I restrained them as I hurried up the stairs, through the kitchen, across the living room, and out of the house. I slowed down on the porch to pull on my jeans and sweater, but the second my bare feet hit grass, I sprinted. I could’ve cried when I saw the car where I’d left it and found the keys in my jacket pocket, but there was no time for that. I jumped in and flew down the twisting driveway without looking back.

I drove for ten minutes, putting nearly as many miles between the Marchands and me, before stopping to check my phone. There were no texts, but there were four voice mails. Unfortunately, two were from Mom, one was from Dad, and the last was from Parker. Mom’s were updates about Paige and dinner, Dad’s asked me to call him when I had a chance, and Parker’s was just to say hi and that he hoped he could see me later.

As upset as I was that Simon hadn’t answered me and despite everything that had just happened, I was still pleased to hear Parker’s voice. At least he still cared. Yes, I’d messed up with Simon, but I’d apologized countless times and received no response. I’d worry that he was in trouble, that the sirens had already gotten to him, but Paige talked to Riley every day, and Riley always mentioned what he and Simon were doing that night. I’d worry that the sirens had gotten to Riley, too, but if they had, he wouldn’t still be calling Paige.

If Simon was determined to ignore me, even when I called him about something bigger than him, or me, or us, what else could I do to make it better? Especially when he wouldn’t talk to me?

Fortunately, there was one other person who needed to know what was going on, who’d agree that we had to do something before the situation got even more out of control.

“Caleb!” I yelled through the open window as I sped into the marina parking lot.

He was hacking barnacles off the bottom of a raised boat. When he saw me, he looked confused, then happy, then mad. I threw the car in park and ran toward him. He turned away and continued chopping, harder than before.

“Caleb, thank goodness,” I said breathlessly when I reached him. I held out the papers I’d taken from the basement. “You’ll never believe what I just—”

“You’re soaking wet,” he said without looking at me.

“I know, that’s part of what I have to tell you. I was just at Betty’s, and—”

“Stop, Vanessa.”

I did.

He lowered the long metal rake and looked at me. “How could you do it?” he asked quietly. “After everything you’ve both been through, after everything that happened last summer…” He lowered his gaze to his work boots. “In a million years, I never would’ve thought you’d be capable of something like that.”

The breakup. “Caleb, trust me. I didn’t want to. I had to.”

“Really.” It wasn’t a question.

“Yes.” I stepped toward him. “It’s complicated, and I’ll tell you everything eventually, I promise, but right now—”

“Quantum physics is complicated. Predicting Captain Monty’s mood swings is complicated.” He paused. “Sleeping with some prep-school loser while Simon’s running around like a madman looking for you, so worried he can’t see straight?” He shook his head. “That seems pretty simple.”

“Caleb,” I said, my face going white, my legs numb, “I don’t know what you heard, but I swear I didn’t—”

“The S.S.
Bostonian
? Ring any bells?”

I pictured the life preserver on Parker’s dad’s yacht. “Yes,” I whispered.

“Simon saw you there. In bed, with some guy. After you tried to reach him and he drove all night trying to find you. He finally found your car in the Lighthouse parking lot, and when you didn’t answer your cell, he thought you were in trouble and went up on the boat to look for you.”

“But I didn’t—We didn’t—”

“No?” He pulled out his phone, pressed a button, and held it toward me. “How about that? Does that ring any bells?”

I couldn’t answer even if I’d known what to say.

I was paralyzed by the image of me lying on top of Parker by the river. The picture was from the Prep Setters Web site, but now a new caption ran along the bottom of the photo.

Parker King teaches fellow Hawthorne senior Vanessa Sands how to live like social royalty
.

B
ACK IN
B
OSTON
the following Monday, I cut school for the first time ever. I woke up early, waited for Dad to take a shower, and broke into the locked wooden box in his office. Then, already dressed, I told Mom I had an early appointment with Ms. Mulligan and left the house before Dad came out of the bathroom. I stopped at the post office, where I smiled and cooed at a young mail sorter until he told me what I needed to know and then took two buses away from the center of the city. After asking for directions half a dozen times and getting lost about as often, I finally stood in front of a narrow, redbrick building at the easternmost edge of South Boston.

I checked the address in my hand against the rusty numbers nailed to the front door. The box number on the back of the old postcard featuring Betty’s restaurant was linked to 134 Fourth Street. Unless there was more than one, I was at the right place.

I started up the crumbling steps. At the top, I looked to the left and saw patches of blue-green water between rooftops. I breathed in the salty air and held it in my lungs before slowly releasing it. Still nervous but slightly calmer, I raised one fist and knocked. A few seconds later, the door inched open—and slammed shut.

I waited, but it didn’t reopen. I knocked again, louder. “Please,” I called through the closed door. “I know you don’t want to see me, but I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t important.”

Nothing. I knocked again, then leaned over the railing to peer in the window. Through the sheer white curtain I saw a tall figure standing in a nearly empty living room. Her back to me, she rested one hand on a fireplace mantel and the other on her chest. Her shoulders rose and immediately fell, like she was trying to catch her breath.

“Please,” I tried again, my voice cracking as I tapped on the window. “I need your help.”

She lifted her head but didn’t move toward the door. I thought she was going to stay like that, listening but ignoring me, and I looked around to see if anyone was near enough to overhear me. She didn’t have to invite me in, but I wasn’t leaving until I’d said what I’d come here to say.

“Hello, Vanessa.”

I turned back. While I’d checked for eavesdroppers, she’d opened the door.

“Willa?” I asked, not sure it was really her. I’d only seen her in the coffee shop, when she’d worn baggy pants and an over-size shirt, her hair pinned up under a baseball cap and her face partially hidden by the hat’s brim. Now she wore dark jeans, a soft silk blouse, and an ivory cashmere duster that hung down to her ankles. Her long white hair was pulled back in a loose braid. Her blue eyes popped against the soft, creamy folds of her skin. “You’re so pretty,” I said.

She smiled quickly, hesitantly. “Would you like to come in?”

She held the door open. As I walked past her, I thought she looked familiar—and not just because we’d already met. Before I could figure out where else I might’ve seen her, she motioned for me to sit down.

“Are you moving?” I asked. Besides the soft chenille sofa I sat on, the only items in the room were a matching armchair, a coffee table, and a vase of white lilies. The walls were bare, the built-in bookshelves empty.

“I like to keep things simple,” she said, sitting across from me.

“Is that why you never wanted to see me?” The question came out automatically. She pulled back like I’d slapped her. “I’m sorry, that came out wrong. I just meant—”

“Don’t apologize.” She shook her head, relaxed. “You’re entitled to every emotion you’re experiencing right now—confusion, disappointment, anger. You haven’t been told much, and I’m very sorry for that.”

I nodded, looked down at my hands in my lap. Now that I was here and we were actually talking, I was having trouble remembering everything I’d wanted to say. “But you were told about me, right?” I asked quietly. “My dad sent you regular updates?”

“He did. At my request.”

“You said you’d tell me whatever I wanted to know about my mother.”

“I did.” She leaned toward me. “What would you like to know, Vanessa?”

Who Charlotte had been, why she’d done what she’d done. Why Dad wasn’t able to resist her despite loving Mom. Why she’d left so suddenly after a year, leaving me with a family who would never understand me the way she would have. The questions spiraled and spun, making me dizzy.

“How did they meet?” I finally asked.

The folds in her skin deepened as she offered me a small smile. I could see the resemblance between her and the only photo of Charlotte I’d seen, but she appeared to be much older than Charlotte would have been now; I guessed she was in her early sixties.

“At Charlotte’s bookstore. Your father came in to browse and was very impressed by her collection of first editions. They got to talking, and he came in every few weeks after that.”

“Did she know he was married?”

“Yes.”

“And she encouraged him anyway?”

“I wouldn’t say that. She enjoyed his company, but she respected his situation.”

“Then how did they go from casual conversation to… more than that?” I asked.

She paused. “It was complicated.”

I opened my mouth to protest but then remembered Caleb’s heated comments about quantum physics and Captain Monty’s moods. “Okay,” I said.

“Vanessa,” she said softly, her eyes meeting mine, “I want to tell you the truth. At the very least, you deserve that from me. But to do so, I must also tell you about a siren’s physical limitations and requirements. That might be difficult to hear, and I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

“You won’t.” My veins ached as blood shot through them. “I can handle it.”

The corners of her mouth turned down in doubt—or sadness—but she continued anyway. “In his e-mails, your father told me about what happened last summer. He told me about Justine’s accident, and about what happened at the end of the summer, when you jumped off the cliff and ended up in the hospital.”

My face burned; I clasped my hands together to keep from fanning my skin.

“You unintentionally transformed that night, didn’t you?”

I swallowed. “I think so.”

“Then you already know how a siren’s body depends on salt water, how she grows weaker and increasingly fatigued the more time that passes without a fresh infusion.” She hesitated. “How have you been coping with that?”

“As well as can be expected, I guess. Sometimes I feel okay. Other times, I feel like I’m constantly seconds away from passing out. I take saltwater baths, I drink salt water by the gallon, but how my body reacts seems to change day to day.”

“You use table salt?”

I nodded.

“Natural salt water is a million times more effective. That’s why most sirens settle by an ocean. It makes life easier when you don’t have to travel far for a fix.”

A fix. Like salt water was to sirens what sugar, caffeine, and nicotine were to other, normal addicts.

“Unfortunately,” she continued, her voice softening, “salt water alone isn’t enough. It is for a while, especially immediately following the transformation, but its efficacy fades over time.”

“What happens then?”

She looked toward the open windows, her gaze locking on the water in the distance. “When your father first met Charlotte, she wasn’t well. Long ocean swims, which once satisfied her physical needs for days, began quelling them for mere hours. Her body was demanding that she move on to the next phase in her development, and she was resisting.”

“Why?” My chest tightened. Regardless of what she’d done, I didn’t like the idea of my biological mother being sick beyond her control. “If she wasn’t well, and if there was something she could do to feel better, why didn’t she want to do it?”

She turned her gaze toward me. “There’s a boy in your life, isn’t there?”

I sat back.

“Forgive me if that’s too personal a question, but the answer’s important.” She waited a moment, letting me process. “There is a boy, yes? Who was perhaps indifferent to you at first but is now coming around?”

She wasn’t referring to Simon. Even before we were romantically involved, he was never indifferent.

She was referring to Parker.

“How do you know about him?” I asked. “Did Dad tell you something?” And if so, how did he know?

“Of course not. Your father’s too concerned about your relationship with
him
to pay attention to your feelings for anyone else of the opposite sex. I saw you and a handsome young man talking at the Beanery one day and put two and two together.”

“I don’t know what exactly you saw,” I said quickly, the heat in my face shooting down my neck, into my chest, “but I don’t have feelings for Parker.”

“Emotionally, maybe not. At least not yet.”

I started to protest again but stopped when she reached forward and placed one hand on my knee.

“You feel better, don’t you? When he’s near you? When he says your name or touches you? No matter how thirsty or exhausted you are?”

I sank lower into the sofa, recalling Parker’s fingers on my calf in the gazebo. Lying next to him on the yacht. Standing inches apart on the diving board. His arms around me on the bench outside the hospital. I hated to admit even to myself—
especially
to myself—but I was drawn to him. And just like Willa suggested, I felt better, stronger, even strangely excited every time we were close.

“That’s your power at work, Vanessa,” she said gently. “You may not realize when you’re sending out signals, but you are. All the time. When he responds, your ability—and your body—strengthens. The more he responds, the stronger you’ll become.”

I didn’t want to become stronger. Not if it meant doing things with Parker I wanted to do only with Simon. “What about my boyfriend?” I asked, intentionally leaving out the “ex.” “I love him, and—”

“He loves you. And if he felt that way prior to your transformation, your powers have no effect on him.”

She paused, as if knowing this was the answer to a question I’d been asking myself ever since Simon and I had become more than friends. I appreciated the chance to let it sink in. Because if what she said was true, Simon loved me—he
really
loved me. He didn’t just think he did because my abilities gave him no other choice.

Not that it mattered now.

“That’s why being with Simon feels different from being with Parker,” she continued after a moment. “He might fulfill you emotionally… but that’s all he can do.”

I closed my eyes, tried to still my spinning head. “And Charlotte? When she met my dad… ?”

“She was extremely weak. She needed to do something before her body failed her completely. But she resisted because she didn’t want to do what was required. She didn’t agree with it.” Willa sighed. “Your mother, Vanessa, would have rather let her own life go than interfere with someone else’s.”

“But she went through with it,” I said.

“Yes. Unfortunately, hers wasn’t the only life at stake. There are thousands of sirens living in small coastal communities all over the world. For better or worse, the Winter Harbor settlement is quite powerful, and its members take their standing extremely seriously. When it became known that Charlotte was throwing away the power she’d been given, there were threats. To her family, friends… everyone she knew. These communities are small enough that losing even one member severely alters the future population, and the other sirens took her refusal as a personal affront. Eventually, it was either use her abilities and affect one life, or die quietly while potentially hurting dozens.”

“So Dad just happened to walk in on the wrong day at the wrong time?”

“It’s hard to believe that that was all there was to it, but yes. He did.”

Hard to believe was putting it mildly. “But how did that work? He loved my mom—Jacqueline. I know he did. Isn’t being in love the one way a man can resist a siren?”

“For most men. But your mother… and you… come from extraordinary lineage.” Willa’s voice hitched on “extraordinary.”

“What do you mean?”

She stood, walked to the open windows, and breathed deeply. “You’re descendants of a small group of sirens based in northern Canada called the Nenuphars.”

Nenuphars. I remembered the name from the entry about Charlotte’s death in Raina’s scrapbook.

“And these… Nenuphars,” I said carefully, “what makes them so special?”

She turned toward me and leaned against the wall. “There are two ways a group builds collective power. The first is for its sirens to do what we’ve been talking about—use their abilities to make men love them. The second is to harness those feelings in the form of children.”

“The more men a group hypnotizes, and the more babies they have, the stronger they are as a whole?”

“Exactly. For hundreds of years, the Nenuphars have overcome a challenging geographical landscape and limited resources to succeed at both. As far as we know, no other group facing similar conditions has survived. The next oldest community after the Nenuphars is a tiny group in Scandinavia, and they’re younger by two hundred and fifty years.”

I struggled to make sense of this. “So I’m the result of some sort of weird natural selection?”

“In a way,” Willa said. “The Nenuphars’ increasing strength has been passed on over time, making each generation stronger than the one before.”

“And this relates to Charlotte and Dad how?”

She crossed the room and joined me on the couch. “When a man is targeted by a Nenuphar, he has no defense. Love might make him indifferent at first, but it doesn’t take much to win him over. The force is too powerful.”

My head filled suddenly with an image from last summer. “The Winter Harbor sirens… they killed a lot of people. A few months ago, the night the harbor froze, they gathered on the ocean floor and lured dozens of men underwater with the intention of killing them.” Willa’s face was blank as I spoke. If I had a specific question, I would have to ask it. “When you said the Nenuphars succeeded with men… does that mean they simply made the men fall in love with them? Or did they kill them, too?”

“To date,” she said, her face remaining expressionless, “the Nenuphars have taken the lives of thirteen thousand four hundred and twelve men. At their largest, the group had eleven members.”