I wiped my watering eyes and peered down the alley to the blinking taco sign. It sat atop a skinny yellow hut covered in painted cacti, sombreros, and donkeys. On the pavement in front of the hut were dozens of plastic chairs—no tables—filled with couples and college kids wearing jeans and fleeces, eating the biggest tacos I’d ever seen and drinking beer. Strings of colorful lights crisscrossed overhead, and tinny mariachi music blared from an old cassette player on the ground by the order window.
“Actually,” I said, “I think I’m a little underdressed.”
He laughed, which only made me start giggling again. I couldn’t even catch my breath to protest when he laced his fingers through mine and led me down the alley.
But then, I wasn’t sure if that was because I was laughing, or because his skin against mine sent a hot shock up my arm.
Either way, I went along with it. We got our food and found two empty chairs in the middle of the festivities. Sitting there with Parker, surrounded by strangers, eating messy tacos, yelling over the music and noise about TV, movies, and nothing important, I felt different. Happy.
Normal.
I didn’t want it to end. And apparently, neither did Parker.
“Not to brag or anything,” he said, after we’d finished eating, “but I have a pretty sweet entertainment center at home.”
“Yeah?”
He nodded, grinned. “Loews has nothing on King.”
Loews. The theater. He wanted me to come over and watch movies. Most likely on a couch. Next to each other. In a dark room.
“It’s pretty late.” I hated the words when they made his smile falter. “I should probably get home.”
He raised both hands as if surrendering, then reached one toward me as he stood. I took it without hesitating.
I was going home instead of to his house. What was the harm in holding his hand along the way?
As we walked, Parker and I took turns singing—badly—our favorite cheesy movie songs of all time. (Mine: “Danger Zone” from Top Gun. His: “[Everything I Do] I Do It for You” from
Robin Hood
.) Halfway home, I was laughing so hard I had to stop and ask him to be quiet until I calmed down enough to keep walking. The delay extended our time together by thirty seconds, which made me happy.
“Now I understand,” I said when we reached my block.
“What’s that?”
“The Parker King phenomenon.”
“I’m sorry—I have a phenomenon?” He sounded pleased.
“You know you do.” I stopped walking in front of a brownstone a few down from ours and faced him. “It’s your magical ability to turn every single girl you meet into a puddle of sweet, messy goo.”
He made a face. “Can’t I, like, turn them into angels? Or rainbows? Or something prettier than goo?”
I smiled up at him as he stepped closer.
“If you understand this phenomenon,” he said, his voice softening, “does that mean you’ve experienced it?”
Now my smile faltered. “Maybe,” I said, knowing I shouldn’t. Even though it was true.
Especially
because it was true.
My heart fought to break free of my chest as he lifted my hand, touched my sleeve, and gently plucked off the dried wax.
“Good as new,” he said.
He was talking about the jacket. Logically, inside my head, I knew he was talking about the jacket. But every other part of me interpreted this statement another way.
“Parker,” I whispered, watching his lips come closer.
He kissed me in response. His lips were warm, and salty, and careful. They pressed gently against mine, like he was afraid I’d pull away.
Which is what I should’ve done. I should’ve pulled away and run down the block and inside my house. Instead, I kissed him back, softly at first, but then harder. When our lips parted and the tip of his tongue touched mine, I inhaled sharply, like I’d been punched.
Except it didn’t hurt. It felt good. Amazing. My legs steadied, my arms grew firmer. My heart still thundered, but it sounded different in my ears—strong instead of weak, excited instead of scared.
And the taste. I knew the salt on his lips lingered from dinner, but there was more to it than that. It was fresh, and invigorating, the way I’d imagined a glass of ocean water would taste after drinking tap water for weeks. Each kiss only made me want more.
“Get a room!” someone yelled from across the street.
Remembering we stood in full view in the middle of the public sidewalk, I took the lapels of Parker’s coat and, still kissing him, gently pulled him onto the narrow strip of grass between two brownstones.
“Vanessa,” he breathed, leaning against me so that I leaned against the building.
I was aware of his fingers by my neck, unbuttoning my jacket.
“Come with me.”
“Where?” My eyelids slid closed as his lips trailed across my clavicle, my bare shoulder.
“Anywhere.” He brought his mouth back to mine. “Away from here. Across oceans.”
“On your boat,” I said, vaguely recalling his post–high school plan.
“Yes.” He smiled against my lips. “You and me. On my boat.”
I could see it. The two of us. Nothing but blue sky and water for hundreds of miles. We could just disappear, together. No one would have to know. No one would get hurt.
“Okay,” I whispered.
For a brief second, he stilled. “Really?”
I nodded, kissed him, pulled him closer.
In the distance, an engine growled, tires squealed.
“And your boyfriend?” Parker asked. “You guys are definitely done?”
My boyfriend. Simon.
My eyes snapped open. I squirmed out of Parker’s grasp and dashed out onto the sidewalk.
Just in time to see a green Subaru with Maine license plates reach the end of the street and fly around the corner.
T
HE NEXT MORNING
, I checked on Paige, who was still sleeping—just as she’d been when I got home the night before—made small talk with Mom and Dad over breakfast, and then, instead of walking to school, caught the bus to South Boston. Willa wasn’t expecting me and I didn’t have her phone number to call before coming over, but I had to go somewhere. Facing Parker today was impossible—especially because part of me ached to see him again, to pick up where we’d left off before I’d disappeared into the house without so much as saying good-bye—and I didn’t think she’d mind my stopping by unannounced.
I didn’t consider that she might not be home.
I stood on the front stoop, shivering in the cool morning mist and knocking on the door. I waited several seconds and tried again. When the door remained closed, I leaned over the iron railing and tapped on the window. Through the sheer curtain, I saw that the living room was empty.
Guessing she must be out for a swim, I sat on the top step to wait. I took my phone from my backpack and, for the thousandth time since seeing Simon drive away the night before, checked for messages.
“Morning, sunshine.”
I glanced up. A middle-aged man smiled at me through the open window of a Department of Sanitation truck parked across the street.
“What’s a pretty thing like you doing in this part of town?”
I looked down, held the phone to my ear, and pretended to be listening to someone on the other end.
“Need a ride?” the man’s coworker asked. He tossed a fat garbage bag into the back of the truck and stepped into the street, toward me.
Afraid my voice would entice them further, I shook my head and hurried down the steps. A cracked wooden gate divided Willa’s tiny front lawn from the back, and I pushed against it, relieved when it gave with little resistance. I closed the gate and lugged a heavy wrought-iron table in front of it, just in case.
Willa’s back lawn was actually a patio. Like the house’s interior, it was neat and simple, with an outdoor dining set and a few ceramic pots of wilting marigolds. A narrow wooden stair-case led up to the back door.
As I sat in one of the chairs, my head throbbed once, then stopped. A few seconds later, it did it again. It didn’t hurt, but there was definite pressure, like a bulging vein pushed against my forehead.
It’s just stress…. You’re freaking out, and your body’s reacting…
.
Trying to relax, I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. The throbbing came stronger, faster. I opened my eyes and dug through my backpack for a water bottle. I was taking a long swig when I noticed cream-colored curtains floating out from three open windows on the second floor. The material lifted and dropped as if caught on a sharp, shifting wind—only there wasn’t any wind. There wasn’t even a breeze. The cool air was completely still.
Even stranger, each time the curtains rose, my head pulsated. When they drifted back toward the windowsill, the pressure faded.
I jumped out of the chair and dashed up the steps. The back door was locked, but the window next to it was cracked open. I hoisted myself onto the railing, shoved the old window until it slid up another few inches, and reached in with one hand. I was too far away to grab the knob, but using the tips of my pointer and middle fingers, I managed to flick the lock. I hopped off the railing and threw open the door from the outside.
I’d only been in Willa’s living room but I found the stairs easily, in the back of a tiny, immaculate kitchen. I paused on the landing, afraid of what I’d find on the second floor, but then the throbbing intensified and I kept moving. If Willa was in some kind of trouble, if the sirens had come for her after discovering she was communicating with me, I had to do what-ever I could to help.
Even if that meant confronting Raina and Zara.
By the time I cleared the last step, the pressure in my head was constant. It built as I ran down the hall and checked two empty rooms, until it felt like my head was gripped between the tightening prongs of a very large wrench. The feeling was uncomfortable but not painful—not even when I reached the last room at the end of the hall and another force swelled inside my head, pushing against the pressure outside.
Thin wisps of cold vapor streamed out from beneath the closed door. Leaning closer, I held my breath and listened… but all I could hear were the curtains snapping against the windows and walls. I raised my hand to knock, but then decided against it.
I took the knob—and my hand flew from the brass to my mouth to stop me from crying out. At first I thought the metal was scalding hot, but when I tried again, tapping it first to numb my skin to the temperature, I realized it was cold. Like ice.
I twisted the knob and pushed. The door didn’t budge. I tried again, pressing against it with my shoulder, and it inched open before closing again. Feeling stronger than I had in months, I shoved against it with all my weight. The door gave, and I fell into the room, landing hard on my knees.
My eyes closed automatically. I crouched there, waiting for Raina and Zara, bracing for pain.
But it didn’t come. The pressure in my head remained, but that was all.
I opened my eyes tentatively, just in case they were simply waiting for me to see them before they attacked, and then scram-bled to my feet when they weren’t there. Besides me, there was only one other person in the room.
Willa. She sat in an ivory claw-footed bathtub, her back straight, shoulders squared. She faced the open windows opposite the door and didn’t see me. I walked toward her slowly, through a cold, gray fog. As I neared the tub I saw that it was filled with blue-green water… and that the water was bubbling, bursting, as if an enormous fire roared beneath the floor-boards. It splashed over the sides of the tub, and I jumped back when some hit my leg. But the water, like the swirling steam it created, was cold. A few degrees cooler and Willa would’ve been stuck in a block of ice.
As it was, she already seemed to be frozen. She didn’t move once as I rounded the tub and stood before her.
Her long white hair hung loose around her shoulders, which looked bony instead of soft, the way they usually did; they jutted out, stretching the thin material of her nightgown. Her arms seemed thinner, her skin grayer. Two days ago her face was lined with soft, shallow creases, but now it sagged. Her wrinkled forehead, eyelids, cheeks, and mouth drooped as if the tub was a vacuum trying to suck her down.
She looked old. Sick. Tired. The only signs of life came from her lips, which twitched erratically, as if silently mumbling an indecipherable chant… and from her eyes. They were largely hidden by the folds of her skin, but I could still tell that they were silver, and bright, and shifting back and forth without blinking.
I stood there, shaking from fear and cold, not knowing what to do. She didn’t appear to be in pain, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t. What if this was some sort of hypnosis? What if the Winter Harbor sirens had figured out how to control her the way they were controlling Betty? What if it was a trap designed to lure me closer? Maybe she was a trigger that, once set off, would alert the sirens to my presence.
I stepped closer, opened my mouth. I was about to say her name when the pressure in my head suddenly gave. I looked at Willa but saw Raina. Zara. Gray water. A red rowboat. An oar lined with shiny stickers. A girl with empty eyes, a slack mouth, drifting on her back toward a blurred horizon.
“Is that me?” I whispered. “Am I—”
“Vanessa.”
The images vanished.
“What are you doing here?” Willa demanded. Her frail body was visible through her wet nightgown, and she tried to shield herself with her arms and stand at the same time.
My eyes focused to see that hers were now bluish-green, not silver. The air was clear, the water in the tub still. The curtains hung, unmoving, before the windows.
“You shouldn’t be here.” She reached for a robe on the floor by the tub. “Wait for me downstairs.
Now
,” she added when I didn’t move right away.
I went. Five minutes later, she joined me in the living room. She’d changed into jeans and a sweater and her hair was wrapped in a towel. She’d put on makeup, but her face still looked like it had aged ten years in two days.
“Why aren’t you in school?” she asked, moving through the room slowly, like her joints ached. She sat down across from me.
“I made out with Parker last night.”
She looked at me. I could tell that wasn’t the answer she was expecting, and it definitely wasn’t the one I’d planned to give. But if I was honest with her, maybe she’d return the favor.
“The boy in my life,” I reminded her. “The one who’s not my boyfriend.”
“I see. And how did that happen?”
“I asked him out. On a date.”
She frowned. “Because there was no one else to have dinner with?”
“Because I wanted him to like me. Even more than he already did.”
“Vanessa, this isn’t a game. I thought you knew that.”
“I did. I do.” I leaned toward her. “I want to be strong. I want to be able to help when the time comes.”
She held my gaze but didn’t answer.
“It’s coming, isn’t it?” I asked. “That’s what you were doing. You were trying to listen, to find out what they’re planning?”
“What I was doing doesn’t concern you.”
I leaned closer. “But I saw them. I saw Raina and Zara. I saw a red rowboat—
my
red rowboat.”
Her gray skin paled. “What are you talking about?”
“Upstairs. I was about to say your name to make sure you were okay, but before I could, all of these pictures flashed through my head. Right after that, you woke up, or snapped out of it, or whatever.” I paused. “Whatever that was, whatever I saw… it was part of their plan, wasn’t it?”
Her lips turned in as she searched my face. “Yes,” she said finally. “But it’s not going to get that far. They’ll be stopped long before then.”
“How?”
“That’s not for you to know.”
“But if I can help—”
“You can’t,” she snapped, standing up. “You’re a target, but this isn’t your fight, Vanessa. It’s bigger than you. And they might be weak individually, but they still have strength in numbers.”
I stood, too. “But what are you going to do? You’re just one person, and no offense, but I think I might be able to swim a little farther.” I felt guilty the second the words left my mouth, but that didn’t make them untrue.
“You needn’t worry about me being alone. I’m not as active in the community as I once was, but I still have connections. I just need some time.”
“What if we don’t have time?” I asked. “Do you know when they plan to act?”
“Not before I’m ready for them.”
I stepped toward her. “Willa, please. My family, my friends, everyone I care about… they’re a mess. Because of me. Because of who I am. My sister spent her whole life trying to stand apart from me, and it killed her. My mom raised someone else’s child because my dad asked her to, and he’s been living two lives ever since. Paige lost her family and boyfriend because we made the harbor freeze. Parker thinks that he’s in love with me, that he wants to sail around the world with me, and I’m just using him.”
“Are you?”
The question burned. I shook my head to clear it. “And Simon… all he’s done is care about me, and all I’ve done is hurt him.” I blinked quickly when my eyes filled with tears. “If there’s any way I can help fix what I’ve broken, or at least stop things from getting worse, I want to. I need to. I think I’ll be able to handle the rest of it—the salt water and attention, the flirting and lying—if I can just help stop the sirens from hurting anyone else again.”
She was silent, and for a moment I thought she was seriously considering the request. But then she placed her thin, bony hands on my shoulders and looked me in the eye.
“I’m sorry you’re hurting,” she said quietly. “I’m sorry your family’s hurting. But I promise you, Vanessa, the best thing you can do—the
only
thing you can do—is to go to school. Go home. Live your life the best you can, and eventually, this will all be behind you.”
She didn’t get it. At this point she was the only person in the world who could actually understand what I was going through… and she didn’t.
With tears rolling down my face, I brushed past her and headed for the front door.
“One last thing, Vanessa.”
I stopped, one hand on the door.
You were right. I was wrong. We can do this together
.
“Whatever you do, don’t try to listen. To me or anyone else. If you do, it’s over. Do you understand?”
I didn’t. What was over? Our relationship? Wasn’t that as good as over anyway? And how could knowing what the sirens planned do anything other than make us better prepared, and give us an advantage?
“Yes,” I said anyway, opening the door and letting it slam shut behind me.
I walked for hours after that. I walked along the water’s edge, through South Boston, into the center of the city, across the Longfellow Bridge, and into Cambridge. I walked until my feet were so tired I couldn’t feel them, and until the sky turned from blue to pink as the sun began to set. Eventually, I grew thirsty and stopped into a deli for a bottle of water and a handful of salt packets. I sat on an empty bench in Harvard Square, surrounded by college kids talking, studying, and doing other things normal kids did, and drank.
I didn’t try to listen. But sometime later, as I was staring at nothing across the square, a girl with long brown hair and blue eyes wandered into my view and stayed there, browsing magazines at the newsstand.
She wasn’t Zara. But the longer I looked at her the fuzzier my vision grew, until her hair looked black instead of brown, her eyes silver instead of blue. My head swelled then cleared, and I saw Zara leaning against a green Subaru with Maine license plates. Under a streetlight, before a boy whose face was hidden by shadows.
Not terribly loyal, but cute…
Which was what Zara had said about Simon last summer, the night she’d tried to mesmerize him and nearly succeeded.