Voices of the Sea (2 page)

“Do they have red hair too?” she asked, picturing two tiny clones of their father. The thought provided a temporary reprieve from the image of the dead girl.

James’ breath remained shallow as he spoke, “Only one. The other is blond like his mother.” As James described his child’s blond hair, the picture of blond, red-streaked hair against pale green ice plant consumed her again, and Lora began to cry silent tears. James showed her a family picture he kept in his wallet, probably to distract her.

Movement from the road caught her eye and Lora saw two police cars approaching. They parked, and several men emerged from the vehicles, hurrying toward her and James, hands on their holsters.

One gentleman reached them first, but he did not wear a police uniform; his brown suit had frayed pockets and she could see his shoes were old and scuffed. He did not extend his hand, but instead surveyed them with an expression so deadpan, Lora had a difficult time discerning his emotions. “I’m Eric Stone,” he said, “a detective with the Pacific Grove police department. Which one of you made the call?”

James raised his hand, an uncertain gesture, as if he were a little boy in class who’d been called upon to answer a difficult question.

“Come with me,” the detective said. He moved Lora and James up the path to where it met the road, away from the dead girl. Lora glanced behind her to see the other officers descend upon the body like circling birds. Shivering, she turned back to Detective Stone, who pulled out a pad and pencil and regarded them with dark, tiny eyes.

“Who found the girl first?” he asked in a deep voice, heavy with years of smoking.

“I did,” Lora said. Her voice cracked as she spoke. She worried it made her sound as though she were guilty of something, so she cleared her throat and tried for a second time. “I did.” This time she sounded more confident.

The detective frowned at his pen, then tapped it against his pad of paper. He moved his mouth back and forth in a chewing motion while he furrowed his brow. “And what were you doing out here so early in the morning?” he asked.

Her mind searched for the right answer. She obviously couldn’t tell him she lived the secret life of a Siren who had been unable to resist the call of the ocean
. I’m sure you understand, Detective Stone. I couldn’t ignore the beautiful music this morning. Care for me to sing a tune for you?
Lora tried her best to control her voice. “I went for a bike ride and decided to take a walk on the beach before school,” she said. Her voice quaked at the lie.

“Mmph,” the detective mumbled. He saw through the lie for sure.

“She’s telling the truth, detective,” said James, much to Lora’s relief. “I went jogging on the beach and saw her away from the water, up on the path. That’s when she found the . . . the body.” His voice caught when he said “body,” and Lora couldn’t stop herself from shuddering as well. His story confirmed her song’s magic had enchanted James. He had no memory of her singing.

The detective asked question after question, to which Lora gave monotone answers, emotionally drained from the morning. Eventually, he separated her from James, and opened the back seat of his police car so she could sit down. Lora peeked inside the car, but decided instead to lean against the trunk while she waited for the entire horrible experience to end. Sensing her anguish, the ocean let out a slow song of sorrow, causing Lora to close her eyes to keep from singing along. She needed to keep control, but found the task difficult. The deepest part of her wanted to unleash itself from its cage, to run wild across the sand and plunge into the ocean, weeping. Part of her innocence had died with the slain woman.

“Miss Reines?”

Lora shook her head and turned back to the detective, who squinted his eyes with a concerned expression. “Have you?”

“Have I what?” she asked, pushing the ocean’s song from her mind, trying her best to concentrate on the detective’s words.

He sighed in annoyance. “Have you called your parents yet? I think one of them needs to be here while we talk.”

“No,” she said. “It’s just me and my dad. My mother is dead.” Those words still gave her a hollow feeling in the center of her heart, even after so many years had passed. “I’ll call him now.”

Instead, she pulled her phone from her back jean pocket and sent him a text message, hoping to avoid a fight. Her father’s anger would border on wrath. Lora shouldn’t have left the house. She should have instead suppressed the desire to be next to the ocean, like so many other members of her clan seemed able to do, but she couldn’t. She could no more ignore the ocean than she could her own soul; too bad her father didn’t have those same longings.

The detective, who continued to watch her, frowned. “You aren’t going to call him?” he asked, gesturing toward the phone. “If you were my daughter, I’d want more than a text message.”

Lora hesitated at first, but then shook her head. “No,” she said, placing the phone back in her pocket, and rubbing her temple with the palm of her hand. “He’d just start yelling.”

The detective shrugged his shoulders and turned away, walking back toward the crime scene. Lora continued to rub her forehead, trying to stave off the headache which threatened to torment her. How did this happen? All she wanted to do was sing with the sea before school, and now? Well, now a member of her clan lay dead, and she had been the one to find her.

Victoria. The woman’s face finally became clear in her mind. Victoria Thanos lay beneath the memory of blood stained clothing and blond hair.

Lora whispered the name through trembling lips, releasing it into the air so it could travel to the sea. If the detective asked her if she and Victoria were acquainted, Lora had a conditioned response ready.
Yes. We attended the same church.
Everyone in her clan told the same lie when asked how they knew one another.

Victoria was, or had been, several years older than Lora and still lived with her parents in a small cottage on the beach. Though they didn’t speak beyond clan meetings, Lora remembered her voice, her face, her essence.

Twenty minutes passed and Lora watched while the detective and other police officers continued to mill about the scene. She heard the ocean singing a death ballad for its fallen sister. Though she hadn’t recognized it as such before, she became completely in tune with its grieving now. For the first time in her life, Lora wished she could escape the music which tormented her, but she couldn’t leave. The detective kept one eye on her they whole time.

As Lora waited, still leaning against a police car, she saw Victoria’s parents apprehensively approach the scene. She gazed at them as they passed, memorizing the grief on their faces, which stood starkly against their aged wrinkles and soft skin. Neither noticed her. Mrs. Thanos sank to the sandy path, her tears falling into her daughter’s green death-bed. Victoria’s father stood behind her mother. Neither parent could tear their eyes away from their dead child. Sirens themselves, they did not once glance at the sea, though Lora was certain it called to them as it did her; even in this moment, where death surrounded her, the ocean wanted her near.

“Loralei!”

Lora turned to see her father beyond the orange police tape which stopped curious people from tampering with evidence. He wore faded jeans and a windbreaker, which surprised her because he had to go to work. His graying hair plastered itself to his head, wet from the moisture. As he tried to cross the barrier, a police officer stopped him, shoving him backwards.

“Dad!” she called back, and the relief on his face comforted her. She’d told him not to worry in her text message, but didn’t want to go into too much detail. He would be understandably upset, and not only over her gruesome find.

The officer next to Lora gave his okay with a brisk nod and curt motion of the hand, allowing her father to pass through. He ran, feet pounding on the path, and for a moment Lora remembered her own hurry to pass this point only an hour earlier, her hunger to join the ocean’s song, a longing she’d been unable to fulfill.

He hugged her, fright more than relief spurring the rough movement, and Lora felt a rogue tear drop from her face onto his shoulder. She wiped her nose on his blue windbreaker as if she were a young child.

“Are you all right?” he asked in a tired voice. His arms moved to her shoulders and he held her away to stare into her eyes. Outwardly, he appeared calm, but the tension in his grip indicated otherwise.

“I told you I was all right in my text.”

Her father sighed. “You made a poor decision this morning.”

Lora clenched her teeth. “Answering the call is not a poor decision,” she said in a low voice, pulling away from him. “And I didn’t tell you because I knew you would . . .”

“I’d what?” he said in a threatening tone.

“You’d do this! Completely overreact,” she said, and several onlookers turned away from the carnage to stare at her. “Just because you’ve decided to ignore who you are doesn’t mean I should,” she continued, whispering angrily. Lora’s control waned, but she didn’t care. She’d been through so much already this morning, and she couldn’t take much more.

Her father took a step toward her and leaned forward so only she could hear. “We’ll discuss your decision-making at home,” he said, then glanced over her shoulder. His eyes moved to stare at the dead woman’s parents, who still sat on the sandy path. “Wait here,” he murmured, moving her to the side as he strode toward the grieving couple.

The clouds above were thick and the wind increased, whipping the windbreaker around his torso. His hair appeared disheveled, but not from the wind, and with long legs, he covered the distance quickly to place a hand on the father’s shoulder. She noticed he leaned in close, whispering in the bereft man’s ear. Detective Stone, who’d been traveling back and forth between Victoria’s body and her anguished parents, approached, and Lora watched as her father talked to him. When their conversation ended, they made their way toward her, both staring at her with a grim expression.

“I think we’ve asked you all the questions we can for now,” Detective Stone said, placing his large hand on her shoulder. “You can go home with your father.” His hand felt heavy, and she sighed in relief when he removed it. The detective shook her father’s hand. “Robert, we’ll be in touch soon.”

Her father thanked him while the ocean crashed behind them, singing in low octaves, almost like the lingering sound of a drum. The tune made Lora’s pulse quicken, along with the anger she harbored at her father’s inability to understand her, anger toward his own self-hatred. Didn’t her father notice the song as she did? His hardened demeanor surrounded him at all times. Long ago he’d changed, become fearful, and chosen to ignore the sea’s invitations. And now he wanted her to do the same.

Her father moved slowly, staring ahead with weary brown eyes, carrying her bicycle. “The Detective has agreed to let you leave, for now. Consider yourself lucky he didn’t suspect your connection with Victoria,” he said, and she followed him like a broken toy, her head bent, consumed in her own preoccupations. Lora helped him put the bicycle in the back of his SUV before trudging to the passenger seat. Just before he got into the car, she thought she saw him glance back at the ocean.

Chapter Three

H
er father barely spoke to her on the way home. Lora glumly stared out of the rain-splattered window, for the clouds had opened and unleashed their sorrow onto Pacific Grove minutes after they left the crime scene. She pulled her damp, brown hair into a messy ponytail and glanced in the rear-view mirror. Although her cheeks were a bit pink from their tryst with the cold air outside, the rest of her face was a milky white. She frowned. Lack of sun had made her skin even paler than usual.

Her father broke the silence. “The detective mentioned he’d contact you soon,” he said, more of a statement than a question.

“Yes,” she answered, and reluctantly glanced his way. Her father didn’t appear pleased. No doubt his main concern revolved around keeping the Clan a secret. It would be ridiculous to think the police would link the mutilation with the legends of Sirens from centuries ago, but her father would worry regardless. His nature demanded it.

He drove home using main roads, avoiding the neighborhood streets she had so enjoyed earlier in the morning. A growing sense of foreboding crept over Lora, and she regarded each stranger they passed as a potential threat. Every unfamiliar face seemed ominous, the pleasant expressions of the morning gone, and Lora stiffened when a car passenger or pedestrian made eye-contact with her.

A Siren killer stalked the streets of Pacific Grove. The killer had viciously cut out Victoria’s vocal chords. The signs were unmistakable. Devin, her grandmother, might be the only person who would understand, who might actually listen to her.

Tearing herself from window-gazing, Lora glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. Nine-thirty. School started two hours ago.

She hadn’t planned on stumbling upon a dead body. How could she have guessed the beach would be dangerous, especially when her song usually protected her from people with ill intentions?

The call of the ocean resurfaced, too delicious to ignore, and Lora welcomed it, for it was her truest companion, her closest link to her ancestors. Lora could never reject the sea. Her father should understand this. He was a Siren, too.

“I need to go to school,” Lora said as the car pulled into the driveway. She huffed out and slammed the door. “I have a test in history.” A lie, but a necessary one.

Her father trudged up the short brick staircase to the front door and paused, his hand on the doorknob. The raindrops hit his jacket with small splats and the water weighed down his dark hair like paste. Sculpted cypress on either side of the steps dripped water, like weeping widows, and her father’s shoulders slumped. “If you think it’s a good idea,” he said. “But you will come directly home after school.”

“But I’m supposed to see Devin!”

Her father’s face darkened. “Devin will understand. I don’t think I need to explain why. We need to protect you now more than ever.”

“No,” she said, her voice hard. “You don’t.”

He opened the door, his back still to her, and shut it behind him, leaving Lora behind in the rain. His gesture and indifference wounded her. But she didn’t want him to see her disappointment, so she straightened her shoulders and strode up the steps to the front door. She hurried inside long enough to grab her backpack, which lay on a small wooden stool in the foyer. Lora couldn’t see her father, so she paused long enough to glance at her mother’s picture on the wall, the first thing she saw each day when she entered the house. Usually it gave her comfort, but her mother’s expression appeared sad today. Lora paused at the door to glance back at her mother’s face and wondered if the turmoil in her family caused the sorrow emanating from the photograph.

It took Lora two tries before her car started, its usual purr replaced with a tortured clunking sound, and she said a quick prayer to the ocean goddess to help her car reach the destination without breaking down. Asking her father for a ride would, quite frankly, be unbearable at this point. She would rather sprint two miles in the snow before asking him for help.

Besides, Lora didn’t plan on going to school like she’d told him. She planned on visiting Devin.

Though it sputtered once at the stop sign and threatened to challenge her dignity, Lora and the car made it to Devin’s cottage within minutes. School had already started, but Lora didn’t care. There were more important issues in her life than learning how to find the square root of a number.

Devin’s house remained the only home on a lonely stretch of beach, surrounded with perfectly placed sand dunes covered with ice plant. The home had no driveway. Lora had to park on the street and climb up a dune path lined with thick hempen rope. She then walked down the other side to the cottage nestled within the sandy dunes.

Lora heard Devin singing. The melody floated through her open window and spilled onto the sand surrounding the cottage. The ocean sang also, keeping harmony with the Guardian’s voice, and Lora breathed deeply before joining in. She removed her shoes as she hummed along with the forlorn tune, feeling the sand stick to her toes. Devin wouldn’t mind; her floors were usually sandy.

The door to the cottage stood open, so Lora slipped inside without knocking. Devin was aware she had arrived; she always knew, somehow.

She found Devin sitting on the floor, petting Penelope, a husky mix of some kind who had long white fur and huge paws. Penelope raised her head as Lora entered, wagging her tail in greeting before relaxing once again to enjoy Devin’s attentions.

“We’ve just returned from a stroll on the beach,” Devin said. “Penelope didn’t want to swim today. I think she sensed the loss.”

“So you heard?” Lora asked, kneeling down to stroke Penelope’s huge head. Devin gave her a sad smile.

“I felt her death early this morning, before the sun rose.” She became quiet. Of course, Lora realized. As Guardian, Devin’s abilities connected her to the entire clan. Devin sensed when they breathed, when they celebrated, when they suffered. Although she didn’t completely understand what the connection entailed, Lora hoped she might sense those things as well someday.

Lora knew the other clan members considered her unique. They often kept their distance, treating her with reverence and respect, even calling her “little Guardian” when she was a small child. Back then, the duties of a Guardian were foreign to her, but now the responsibilities on her shoulders were, at times, almost overwhelming. Lora wondered how Devin always appeared so calm. The Pacific Grove Sirens were her responsibility, and only a handful of Siren clans were left in the world, yet she treated each day as if it were a gift rather than a burden. Lora realized she would be in charge of keeping her clan safe one day, a contract which haunted her every moment. She would never be as good as Devin.

Devin used her nails to scratch Penelope’s stomach before gracefully rising to her feet. Her long gray hair fell down her back like water, and her feet were barefoot on the sandy floor. “Would you like something to drink? Tea, maybe?” Lora shook her head, and Devin removed only one mug from a hook attached to the white kitchen cabinets. “You found her?” she asked, causing Lora to shiver.

“Yes,” she whispered, driving back the horrific image. Her voice caught in her throat, and she started to cry. Devin stepped forward and enveloped Lora in her lithe arms, murmuring soft, unintelligible words. She smelled of sandalwood. “I answered the call this morning,” Lora said, her tone contrite. “I couldn’t help it.” Expecting a lecture, Lora held her breath and stepped back from the Guardian, her face downcast. “The call is so strong.” She stole a glance at Devin, surprised to see her smiling. Devin brushed a strand of hair away from Lora’s face. “Of course it is, Loralei, particularly for you. You will someday be Guardian, so the feelings within you are much stronger. They grow stronger now because you are so close to your transformation. You only await your counterpart.” Devin’s words were like a cleansing pool rushing over Lora’s body.

“So, not everyone else feels as I do?” she asked, her voice hesitant. “The other Sirens don’t feel the incredible longing I have whenever I hear the ocean?” Lora could not hide the relief in her voice. “All this time I was convinced my dad and Will, and even Fiona, were just ignoring the call! How come you never told me?”

Devin laughed, a musical sound, as she cupped Lora’s face in her hands. “You never asked, my dear. And all you have to do is ask.” Penelope, who had risen, followed Devin around the kitchen to receive an affectionate pat on the head. “Now,” she said, turning back to her tea, “we do have a very serious problem to discuss.”

Lora’s stomach felt heavy. For a moment, she’d been so happy, so relieved to realize her obsessions were perfectly normal, or as normal as someone who must one day protect their clan could be, that she’d forgotten about Victoria’s dead, bloodied body lying among the ice plant.

Devin grasped Lora’s hands and led her to a wooden table in the middle of the kitchen. “I want you to tell me everything,” she said, her voice almost a whisper. “Every last detail.”

As it turned out, telling everything to Devin took a little over a half hour. Lora arrived at school to find a full student parking lot, with only a few available parking spaces. She parked next to Will’s car, because he usually parked at the back of the lot even when there were plenty of empty spaces near the front. Pulling her hood over her head to keep out the light rain, Lora hurried toward the stucco building. The dome-shaped library sat directly in front of her, and she could see the book stacks through the windows extending to the ceiling.

A small class of perhaps fifteen students sat at round tables inside the library. These students had no knowledge of the magic surrounding Pacific Grove. The humans in her town lived among one of the oldest mythological creatures still in existence, and their ignorance annoyed her. If her people weren’t forced to keep their identity a secret, then perhaps Sirens wouldn’t be hunted anymore. People might admire them; they might treat them like magical wonders. Lora was proud of her legacy; someday she would be the next Guardian and, despite the massive responsibility, Lora wanted their secret to be revealed to the world. The Clan would disagree, of course.

Shifting her backpack, Lora pursed her lips and hurried down the outside corridor, past the blue lockers and red banners. She checked in with the main office and spoke to the secretary. “Your dad already called you in late,” she said, clipping large stacks of papers together. “He is such a nice man.”

“Yeah,” Lora muttered as she left the stuffy office, returning to the cool outside corridor. “He’s so understanding.” She breathed in, filling her lungs with fresh air as she moved toward her English classroom. Far away she heard the hum of the ocean, which filled her with longing she almost couldn’t ignore. In an effort to escape its call, she hurried down the hall until she reached the classroom and jerked open the door.

The room fell silent. Everyone stared at her abrupt arrival. Lora gave a brief, embarrassed grimace before she slipped into her desk next to the long-paned window, making brief eye-contact with Will. They’d been best friends since they were twelve, despite their differences. His concerned expression didn’t alleviate her nerves.

Ms. Phillips, who had paused upon her entrance, continued the lecture.

Through the window, the heavy clouds continued to descend, creating a creeping green fog moving among the cypress and eucalyptus plants lining the school like tall giants. Lora imagined the fog surrounding the dead girl and shivered. Victoria would never commune with the sea again, or sing, or feel the pull of her Siren ancestors. Lora’s throat tightened and she rested her head in her hands. She could clearly hear each sound in the room: the click of the chalk on the board, the quiet coughs of the boy who sat in front of her, the scratching of pencils on lined paper. Will sat behind her, and his presence gave her comfort. He no doubt sensed her anxiety, and she wondered how long she could avoid talking about the horrific events of the morning.

Lora raised her head to see her teacher drawing a timeline on the board. They were studying
The Odyssey
, and Ms. Phillips detailed Odysseus’ journey. Lora had memorized the story long ago, for her ancestors were a part of it. Odysseus, of course, survived the Siren’s song. He instructed his crew to plug their ears with bees’ wax, and the crew tied Odysseus to the mast so he could endure the pleasure of the Siren’s song without the deadly consequences. He was only one of two men in history, in fact, to pass a Siren and survive.

Bored, she turned away.

Her eyes scanned over the desks around her and rested on a picture of a ghastly woman with wild green hair, wrinkled skin and a body like a chicken. She recognized immediately what it represented, because her teacher had described this very creature only two days ago. The description was completely incorrect, of course. None of her teachers ever bothered to do their own research on the subject. They usually took Homer’s word for it.

The picture lay on Luke Pellum’s desk. Luke, a skinny boy who lacked maturity for an eighteen year old, wrapped his long fingers around his pencil. With swift strokes, he sketched and shaded the ocean around the creature. Underneath, he wrote
Siren
in thick letters. Offended, Lora clenched her teeth.

“You know,” she whispered, leaning toward Luke and glancing at her teacher to ensure she wasn’t heard, “that’s a good likeness of your girlfriend. How’d you get so talented?”

Luke smirked and crossed out the word
Siren
. He replaced it with
Loralei
.

Luke had made an innocent mistake, for he had no way of realizing he guessed correctly, but she couldn’t stop the heat from rising to her cheeks. Fuming, Lora closed her eyes. Deep down she understood her indignation bordered on ridiculous. Luke was nothing more than a naïve boy. But she wanted to sing, and fought back the urge, even though it held strong: stronger than when she’d been seaside this morning. From across the neighborhoods and tiny shore motels, Lora felt the ocean churning, brewing a melody. It entered her blood, heating it, fueling its fire.

Lora couldn’t stop the quiet hum from emerging. She didn’t want to stop it, even though her lack of restraint disappointed her clan already. And her father. And Will. Regardless, the tune simmered in her mouth and the song swelled from deep within her soul. It remained as much a part of her as her eyes, or her limbs. Even through her tight lips, the single note’s irresistible melody drew Luke in like an unsuspecting sailor. She couldn’t see the change, but the magic permeated the air around him. Luckily, girls occupied the other seats around her, so Luke was her only victim.