The Accidental Siren (27 page)

I hugged Mara before bed when nobody was
looking. Normally, Mara pulled away first. But that night, she
didn’t let go.

“I love you,” I whispered. She was my
girlfriend now, and it seemed like the right thing to say.

“I love you too, James.”

* * *

Three hours later, as the castle settled in
with its nighttime clicks and groans,
I heard it
. From the
bathroom it came, cold, unfamiliar, foreboding... yet so wistful I
had to press my body to the locked door to hear every word.

“Through many dangers, toils and snares

I have already come.

‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus
far–”

The melody was superlative but Mara
paused–unsatisfied–and cleared her throat. She hummed a quick
scale, coughed again, then finished the verse:

“And grace will lead me home.”

10. OLIVIA

I was six when I overheard Mom and Livy
murmuring about race in the adjacent bedroom. Back then, a broken
sliding door was the only barrier between the bathroom and my
sister’s privacy. I watched them through a crack in the frame. I
listened to every word.

“The kids at school call me black,” Livy
said. I could see her sitting calmly on the foot of her bed; “calm”
being a rare adjective for my seven-year-old sis. Her feet dangled
beside Mom’s chunky legs and her hands were folded in her lap.

“Well that’s a silly thing to say,” Mom
replied. “Your race is African, and your skin is a beautiful brown
color.”

Livy held up her arm and inspected it.

Mom held her arm out beside Livy’s. “And you
know what?”

“What?”

“People call me white.” She found a coloring
book on the nightstand, opened to a blank page, and placed her arm
against the crease. “The paper’s white, not my skin. My skin is
beige!”

Livy smiled.

“We’re all different colors, sweetie. And
we’re all beautiful in different ways.”

* * *

Punishment: day six.

T-minus five days until the Fairytale
premiere.

Mara would always be my paradoxical muse; a
wishing-well of inspiration with heads-up pennies to spare. When
she stands beside you, your soul lifts and creativity flows. When
she’s actually yours–when your arms are wrapped around her neck and
your life is no longer dedicated to
winning
her but to
keeping
her–the well begins to run dry.

Questions about our editing progress were
constant: “When can we see it?” “How far are you?” “Why doesn’t it
look like a
real
movie?” And the questions didn’t just come
from family. The panel of judges for the Lakeshore Celebration Art
Contest called Mom every two days to request my submission.

I tossed the tennis ball at the wall above
Whit’s head–THUNK–and caught it on the return. “I wrote her a note
in secret code last night and left it under her pillow.” I threw
the ball again. THUNK. “The other day, we snuggled and watched a
David the Gnome
marathon on Nickelodeon.” Whit’s eyes
followed the ball. THUNK. “This morning, I wrote her a poem about
Dorothy. She liked it so much she hugged me.” THUNK.

“
James!”
Livy shouted from the
kitchen.
“Knock it off!”

I caught the ball, fell backwards on my bed,
and tossed it toward the spinning blades of the ceiling fan.

“Glad you’ve been workin’ so hard,” Whit
said.

“If I wasn’t grounded, I’d never get anything
done!”

He held down the fast-forward button and
zipped through the completed Red Room scene. Dad was both
terrifying and comical in his red robe and latex mask. Watching him
hobble through the room at super-human speed added another layer to
the absurdity.

“Did you bring the caffeine?” I asked.

“Crap,” Whit said. “Totally forgot.”

“Darnit. How are we gonna stay awake?” I
threw the ball again. The green fuzz came an inch from striking the
fan.

Whit reached beneath his chair and tossed me
another bag of homemade powder. “This’ll keep us motivated,” he
said.

I tossed the candy on my nightstand. “No
sugar, beetle-dick. Four pounds left till my goal.”

“Whatever.”

I threw the ball again, too far, and it
smacked the ceiling fan, flew across the room, and slammed into a
Lego castle on my shelves.
CRASH!
Bricks flew
everywhere.

The bedroom door opened and Mom stood in the
frame. “James Parker,” she said, hands on her hips. “Give me the
ball.”

“It helps me concentrate!” I said. “Do you
know how tedious it is to edit on a thirteen-inch screen?”

She tilted her head and looked to Whit. “Keep
an eye on my son tonight, Mr. Whitney. He’s grounded from having
fun.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Whit said. “I’ll keep him in
line.”

Mom stepped inside and kissed us on the
foreheads.

“G’night,” I said.

“’Night Mrs. Parker,” echoed Whit.

“Sleep tight, kiddos.”

The moment the brass latch clicked into
place, Whit’s brow tightened and his lips curled.

“What is it?” I asked and sat up.

“Does Ryan Brosh still come around?”

“About every day,” I replied. “Chattin’ up my
girlfriend whenever Livy turns her back. Why?”

“Wanna make sure he stays away for good?”

* * *

Mara’s sunburn had already dissolved into a
perfect, basted tan. Striped pajama pants covered the gashes on her
legs. Her left eye was still crimson. “What is it?” she whispered
as I led her through the bathroom by her wrist.

I turned on the shower, jerked the curtain
loudly so Livy would hear the rattle, then stepped in my room and
closed the door behind us. “I dunno yet,” I said and nodded to
Whit. “This butt-mop wouldn’t say a word till you were here.”

Whit watched Mara as she straddled the desk
chair backwards. His smooth cheeks and shit-eating grin reflected
the static from the TV. “If I had a dime every time I saw somebody
as pretty as you,” he said, “I’d have ten cents.”

“Ha!” Mara scoffed. “If I had a dime every
time that line worked on a girl, I’d be broke!”

“Knock it off, lover boy,” I said. “Show us
the tape before Livy gets suspicious.”

Whit held an eight-millimeter cassette above
his head. “If you tell your sister about this, it will destroy her.
Promise me... this stays between us.”

“Promise,” we said in unison.

The camera whirred and the tape slid inside.
Whit pushed play.

“It’s just a picture of the woods,” Mara
said.

“Shh.” Whit said, then turned the volume up a
notch.
“Listen.”

The shot was canted and still. “Must’ve left
the camera on,” I said.

Whit turned up the volume again. Behind the
background noise... there were voices.

Mara swiveled in the chair and leaned
forward. “I hear ‘em. Is that Ryan?”

“And some of his high-school buddies,” Whit
said.

I knelt beside Mara. Through the background
hiss, I recognized the silken voice of Ryan Brosh.
“Heck
no!”
said the jock.
“–only one girl–”

“–
bullshit!”
said a friend.
“She’s–
like a– Am I right?”

“
No, dude– not like that at all!”

“Are they talking about me?” Mara asked.

Whit pointed to the screen. “Shh.”

“
Did you– Truth or Dare?”

“
Heck no! What are–”

The words turned back into gibberish. Whit
leaned closer to the screen. “Here it comes...” he said.

“–
date her?”
asked the friend.

“
Psh!”
said Ryan.

“
But why not?”

And then, as clear as my father’s polished
spectacles,
“’Cause I don’t date niggers.”

Mara bowed her head against the chair.

Whit stopped the tape and ejected it.

My nails dug themselves into the palm of my
hand. “Nobody talks about Livy like that.”

“You can’t say a word to your sister,” Whit
said, then stowed the tape beneath his chair for safe keeping.

“I’m going to kill him,” I said.

“We need to let it play out,” he replied.
“Mara? Back me up here, hon.”

She peered at me over the back of the chair.
“Don’t tell her, James.”

I released a ribbon of air from my lips and
nodded. Then I punched the wall as hard as I could.

* * *

It was nighttime and the castle was asleep. I
studied the footage with Whit at my side, forcing my eyes open,
watching the repetition of shots and scenes, staring at the Evil
Prince–hating him, damning him–then pausing every few minutes on a
closeup of Mara’s face. Together, we added my Folli sound effects
and battled the claustrophobia of another summer night locked
between the castle walls.

Suddenly, Dad’s voice exploded from Livy’s
bedroom.
“Son of a–”
He howled and withheld the
expletive.

“What now?” I muttered.

Whit was already peering through the crack in
the door. The parlor light turned on and he winced.

“
Egg-sucking dogs!”
Dad exclaimed and
something crashed.

I pushed Whit out of the way and opened my
door. Livy and Mara were standing by the piano. Mom was squeezing
her robe at the chest and blinking in the bright light. Before we
could address one another or ask what the heck was going on, Dad
emerged from Livy’s room like Donkey Kong preparing to throw a
barrel. “Boys! Go to your room! Beth, watch the girls.” He stormed
to the stairs and growled,
“This ends tonight.”

For a split second, I caught Mara’s glance
and felt her gloom. Then Mom swept the girls up like a duck with
her ducklings, lead them to her room beneath her wing, then shooed
me to bed with a swipe of her hand.

I leapt to my bed and dove to the window.

Whit closed the door and rolled to my side.
“Whaddya see?”

“Holy mother of Hannah,” I whispered.

“James! What’s out there?”

“
Fire,”
I said.

Scrawled in forest floor beneath my window
was a single word ten feet wide in flaming cursive:
“SING.”

The front door opened and slammed. Foliage
shook and two shadows hobbled away. They were old. They were
women.

“The church ladies,” I said. “They wrote
‘sing’ in the ground with gasoline or something!”

“Holy shnikies...” Whit said.

I watched as Dad rounded the castle corner.
He was hunched, searching the clearing like a raptor on the prowl.
He froze beneath our windows. (I swear he sniffed the air.)

A metallic glimmer drew my attention to his
right hand.

“Shit!” I said. “Dad’s got a–”

The gun fired before I could finish my
sentence. The window pane trembled. Whit coiled and covered his
ears. A kid fell out of the tree, two feet away from the flaming
letters.

Whit squealed, “What happened?” then saw the
horror etched in the creases of my face.

The next two seconds lasted two hours as my
father stared at the fallen child with frozen panic. Then the boy
leapt up, hid his face from the lunatic with the gun, and barreled
full-force into the brush.

Dad sighed, fell against a tree, and watched
the fire with a hopeless stare.

“Did he kill somebody?” Whit asked.

I shook my head, inhaled hard, and watched
the flames dance in my father’s glasses.

* * *

“Maybe they’re high-schoolers,” I said while
scooping heaps of sugar into my mouth with a candy stick. “Some of
Ryan’s friends?”

“Ryan’s friends never heard Mara sing,” Whit
replied.

“Maybe they’re tryin’ to catch a glimpse. We
already know she’s the prettiest girl in the world.”

“Duh. But that’s not the reason they’re
outside her window or everybody who’s ever laid eyes on her would
be with ‘em.”

“Then why are they here?”

“You want me to rationalize super-human
powers?”

“I wanna know who they are!” I sucked
leftover dust from the cellophane wrapper like a fiend, then ate
the stick whole.

“Maybe A.J. told the boys from Ms. Grisham’s
house. You said he knows all about their blue bandanas, and we know
for a fact that he’s been out there too.”

“Age didn’t even tell
Danny
about
Mara,” I said between chomps. “He wants to keep her a secret as
much as we do. No... it’s not the zombies from the Grisham
house.”

Whit groaned. “Do you think your dad scared
them off for good?”

I opened the second bag of candy, licked my
pinky, and swirled it around inside. “Doubt it.”

* * *

T-minus four days until the Fairytale
premiere.

My parents, the Greenfields, Livy and Ryan
Brosh livened up the dining-room table with an energetic game of
Monopoly.

Ryan was the canon token. His blonde hair was
such an exquisite mess that I imagined he spent hours in the mirror
with gel and a brush. He wore a light-pink polo that betrayed both
William Shakespeare and Larry Bird, and bared his brilliant blue
eyes whenever Mara looked his way.

My sister was the battleship token. Mrs.
Greenfield was the dog, a tribute to her Alaskan Malamute named
Snickers with different colored eyes. Mr. Greenfield was the hat
and his wife made a joke about his bald head. Dad picked the shoe
for no other reason than there wasn’t a skyscraper or an eagle, and
Mom picked the car instead of the iron or thimble because, “I do
enough housework when I’m
not
playing games!”

Mara and I were forced spectators, bound to
my parents’ peripherals and expected to participate in every
conversation. We knelt side-by-side on the living-room couch,
elbows on the backrest, watching the battle for Boardwalk and
Railroads while playing a secret game of footsie where no one could
see.