Shining Sea (28 page)

AEGIS

“You have to come to Cliff House,” Mia insists. “It’s the only way to keep you safe.”

“Oh, really? And how are you planning on keeping all the other people in Rock Hook safe? Did your brother tell you what he did?”

After bringing me home, Dad reluctantly left for Bangor. When Mia showed up, I was down in the keeper’s cottage sitting in front of the picture window staring at the sea, watching the waves churn up tangles of seaweed and toss them along the shore. Emerald and titian, olive and black—the colors tumble in the broken waves.

“This isn’t about Bo. It’s about your safety.”

“Right, because a bunch of Sirens should definitely be able to help me with that. And since when do you care?”

“Band,” she says calmly.

“What?”

“
Band
of Sirens. Look, I know you’re freaking about Bo. But you shouldn’t be alone. We know Nick is—”

“You’re all so desperate to convince me Nick’s alive, that he wants to kill me. But why should I even believe you? How do I know—”
You’re not lying and the killer isn’t one of you?

Close to tears, I break off, unable to think straight, not about this. Is it Mia, is she spinning out some silent Siren Song? Some Signal?
Or am I still under Bo’s spell?

“Arion, come with me. Like we planned. Forgive Bo.” She shrugs. “Couples fight.”

“This wasn’t a fight, this was your brother almost killing someone!”

“But he didn’t. He didn’t kill anyone. Calm down! We’ve been through this with Jordan. Bo will be okay. We’ll help him. The rest of it . . . is normal. Lovers argue. Get jealous.”

“Wait a minute,
Bo
will be okay? What about Alyssa? And do you really think Bo’s not here right now because
I’m jealous
?”

“There’s a northeaster on the way. You’ll be stuck here.”

“Good. Fine. I want to be stuck.” I lift my chin.
And I want to know why you’re here and he’s not.

God, how can I even
want
to see him?

But Emily Dickinson explained how, in one of her letters. We read it in English class:

“The heart wants what it wants.”

After biting down hard on my lip for a second so I won’t cry, I tell Mia to go.

She gives me a thin smile. Says, “I tried.” And leaves.

Dad warned me about the weather. I wish I’d gone with him. But I feel painfully tethered to Rock Hook. I continue to bite back tears, abandoning the cottage now.

The wind slams the door at my back.

LIGHTS OUT

Taking the steps two at a time, I reach the drive and hurry across the pebbles.

A burst of jagged music, a whirl of motion—

My scream cuts the air—

Jordan uncurls from a crouch and makes his way to standing, his white wings vanishing impossibly beneath smooth shoulder blades. His midnight gaze slants down at me. My hands fly to my chest—

“Is that where you keep it? Is that where your
humanness
lives, the ‘essence’ Bo covets, even more than your breath?”

Jordan’s voice circles around me, the tug of it so hard I think it might pull me apart. I imagine him searching through the pieces until he finds what he wants.

“Heard Bo got hungry. Guess whoever he hit up didn’t have a voice like yours to distract him.” Jordan’s lips push into a sort of pout, as if considering something. But he merely says, “Whoa—did you see that avalanche?” and saunters over to the edge of the bluff. He raises his voice above the wind, and its beauty covers me like a blanket as he shouts over his shoulder, “It’s going to be an epic storm. Oh man—check those perfect barrels, it’s reeling out there.”

For a moment all I can do is follow his gaze, watching the waves tear at each other. The surf conditions don’t look good to me; the curls look like claws. Look like they’d crush anyone who tried to catch them.

In the boldest tone I can summon I say, “Why are you here, Jordan?”

He turns and looks at me. I wait for his sharp smile, but it doesn’t come. Maybe he’s still trying to figure out what his brother sees in me. Or maybe he’s just seeing a meal.

“You should have gone with Mia.” His eyes are black now, abysmal.

“You—should leave.”

But he doesn’t. He cocks his head, as if he’s listening. “I’m not sure where Bo is right now, but he’d want you protected. Come with me to Cliff House.”

“Why, so you can guard me from someone who’s supposedly more horrible than he is?” But even as I say the words, to my dismay, I walk toward Jordan.

His percussive laugh is a dismissive thing. “You know, I ought to just put you out of your misery. But I told Cord I’d behave.” His brows pull together. “Mia’s Calling. I have to go.” He rakes me with one last look. “Sure I can’t change your mind? Of course, I could if I wanted to. But hell, as far as I’m concerned, Bo’s better off without you. Have fun with Nick when he comes. And he
will
come.” In a stunningly fast whirl of white, he transforms, leaping from the edge of the windswept bluff and into the salt air.

I’ve never seen Bo turn the same miracle, not really. The times I’ve been with him when he’s Risen, I’ve been too close to truly see him. I’ve been in his arms.

I want to be there now. But I’m finally starting to understand. Wanting Bo is a lie.

A smattering of raindrops hits my face. Jordan is a speck in the sky. And there’s something else—something not in the sky, something missing from the sky.

The flash of the lighthouse beam.

Hurrying inside, I climb the steps of the tower then scale the ladder to the lantern room. Sure enough, the light is dead. But it isn’t the bulb, sitting like a sooty jewel in the crown of the prismatic lens. The electricity is out.

There might be boaters who need the bright beacon this afternoon.
Why hasn’t the emergency generator kicked on?

But maybe this isn’t an emergency—maybe it just feels like one to me. My own personal emergency.

The moon is going to be full tonight, but even a Hunter’s Moon won’t be enough to help a boat in trouble, and it’ll make the high tide even higher. A Blood Moon—the other name for a full October moon—that doesn’t sound like it can help anyone either.

Now, in my bedroom, I stand in the center of the floor, feeling unmoored. Like the space is too big. The chances of a signal are zero, but I dig out my cell anyway.

There are messages, lots of them. Text bubbles stretch down the screen.

S
ARAH
H
ISANO
:
Alyssa’s at Maine Medical!

B
OBBY
F
ARLEY
:
Holyshit

S
ARAH
H
ISANO
:
They flew her from emergency center on mainland she’s not waking up

B
OBBY
F
ARLEY
:
Sheila coma?

S
ARAH
H
ISANO
:
Yes coma

P
ETER
H
ILL
:
Heard from my dad she has something weird

S
ARAH
H
ISANO
:
Hypoxia

M
ARY
G
ARRAHY
:
HYPOXEMIA

B
OBBY
F
ARLEY
:
Wtf is that

K
EVIN
E
ATON
:
Official name: high altitude pulmonary edema.

M
ARY
G
ARRAHY
:
It’s serious. Oxygen deprivation can cause brain damage.

P
ETER
H
ILL
:
Doesn’t make sense rock hook is at sea level

S
ARAH
H
ISANO
:
So? Sea level?

K
EVIN
E
ATON
:
She passed out at school. How did she wind up with something like altitude sickness?

Mr. Premed is super smart. His question . . . could create a lot more questions.

Impatiently, I text Mary—

I need to talk to you.

But the text doesn’t go through, and besides, the group message is an hour old. I need to go back down to the keeper’s house, see if the electricity’s working, call Mary from there.

And say what?

I close my eyes.

“She’s not really a flirt,” Mary told me one day on the patio at school as we watched Alyssa wriggling on some senior boy’s lap. She said Alyssa barely knew him.

“O-kay,” I said as Alyssa and the boy stood up and exchanged a hip-grinding kiss. “So, then, do you Mainers have a special word for what she’s doing?”

“
I
don’t use words like that,” Mary said in mock shock. But then her expression became solemn. “I worry about her. I don’t get it. Why so
many
guys?”

I hadn’t replied. Hadn’t really cared what Alyssa did, or why.

But now she’s in a hospital in Portland.

Not only do I care, I’m the only one who knows what really happened to her.

DISSENT

I sit motionless on the edge of my bed.

Alyssa. What had she seen in Bo’s eyes? Had she felt the tidal pull of him the way I do? Had she been
lured
?
Have I?

In my mind, I see them, his body curving over hers, the two of them fitted to each other.

Humming softly, I try to push the sickening pictures away. And fail.

Bo . . .

The promise of light on the water, the yearning I feel when the late-afternoon sun slants through my bedroom window. When warm spring air blows gently on my skin.

That’s not sickness. That’s possibility. That’s—Bo.

Please don’t be true, please don’t be true . . .
The words become an endless loop. But I can’t make a deal with God on this one, because it
is
true. The boy I’m in love with is . . . inhuman.

Of course I’d known. But there’s “knowing,” and there’s
knowing
.

Had Bo
known
what it would be like to suck the breath from Alyssa’s body?

I realize I believe he had.

Jumping up, I begin to pace—

The door swings open—

Bo and I stare at each other.

His hair is wild, his beautiful, otherworldly face haunted. Hunted. My immediate thought is,
Shouldn’t he look healthier after nearly sucking the life out of someone?

He takes a step toward me—

I take a step back.

“I see,” he says.

“I—I didn’t hear you. On the stairs.”

“Of course not.” He looks at me strangely.

No, of course not. He never makes a sound on the stairs, always seems to float just above them. His watery walk has fascinated me from the second I saw him. But right now? He seems more fire than water.

“Where have you been?” I blurt. “What are you going to do? The police, they were on their way to the school when I left.”

“School.” His laugh is a footnote. “What a weird place. I didn’t mean to hang around. I just wanted to check out the radio station. And then . . .” His eyes are caliginous whirlpools. He turns and closes the door. Legs trembling, I sink down on the desk chair.

Bo purses his lips, glances at the bed. Normally we would both be on it.

“The police won’t be a problem.” He sits down in the armchair across from me. “They wouldn’t recognize a clue to this kind of . . . crime if they found one. And that girl—”

“Alyssa.” The fact that he doesn’t know her name disgusts me.

“Alyssa.” He shakes his head. “She won’t remember. At least, I’m pretty sure she won’t. If she does, she’ll be scared. Confused. She’ll think she’s crazy. So she’ll make something up.”

“Confused like me? Do you think I’ll make something up? Some excuse to forgive you?”

“Arion, I’m so sorry.” He looks at me intently, as if he’s listening to something.

I know he is. He’s listening to the parts of me that no one else can hear.
But can he hear how afraid I am? Why I am talking about forgiveness? He tried to kill someone!

Tears well in my eyes, which is understandable, unlike the words that burst from my lips now. “Why her?
Why not me?”

“What the—how can you ask that?”

“She threw herself at you, I saw it, but
you
—Was her ‘essence’ so irresistible?”

Bo shakes his head, his expression baffled.

“It wasn’t her ‘sweet cloud of life,’ then? Her ‘honey mist’—isn’t that how you described the breath to me once?
My
breath? You couldn’t resist her body.”
Before I can say more, I walk to the window, press my forehead to the cool glass. I know perfectly well what I saw today. He didn’t want her body. But the truth—I can’t seem to hold it in my head. He almost killed Alyssa. And yet, I—I—

Can feel only
jealousy
.

He stands now and comes over to me, puts his hand on my shoulder—

The floodgates open. The current runs between us, a racing, pulsing thing. I desperately want to touch him too, want to kiss him.

But I shout, “Don’t touch me!” and jerk out of his reach. I do this, when what I really want to do is throw myself at him, like Alyssa had.

This crazy desire to be with him, even after what he’s done, and the misplaced jealousy—

Suddenly I understand.

“Your Siren Song—turn it off! Make it stop!”

“Arion, no, please. I didn’t want to do it!”

“You didn’t want to do what, kiss her? Feel her body against yours?” Crossing quickly to the door, not knowing where I’m going, I do know I’m being idiotic. Maybe if Bo were someone else, another boy, a
human
boy, these accusations would fit. But I know that what Bo did wasn’t about lust—it was about
hunger
.
Need.
Only, again—it’s like I can’t keep that idea in my head, can only feel the sharp pangs of jealousy.

I burst into tears, trying to focus on reality.
I saw what he did!

What he did. The slippery eel thought of it slithers to the far reaches of my mind.

It could be me next time.
The idea lands hard inside me, then lifts off again—vanishing.

“You wanted her, you can’t tell me you didn’t, I saw the whole thing!” I bring my fingers to my lips, as if I could touch my words, as if, even after I’ve said them, I can catch them, mold and shape them into what I really want to say.
You nearly killed her!

And then, finally, Bo’s music quiets. His voice, too, is deadly quiet, as he asks me, “What is it that you want to say so badly, Arion?”

I feel his Siren spell slipping off of me, sliding over my skin almost, as if it’s nothing but water, and I’m stepping out of a pool.

Before I speak, I will him to disappear, to leave and never come back. Then I take a breath. He doesn’t flinch.

“If I hadn’t stopped you—you would have
killed
her.” But even as I regain control over my voice, my words, I lose it.

And that’s when I say it.

“You’re an animal.”

The words ring out against the white walls. Time skids to a standstill.

Bo’s eyes brighten.

The tears won’t fall, though. Sirens. They can’t cry.

He lifts his chin.

“Fine. I would have killed her. Is that what you want to hear? You stopped me, and I’m glad. I’m
grateful
. But yes, I would have killed her. And I would have enjoyed it.”

I gasp. He looks at my mouth.

Then he gazes into my eyes, and for a split second, there’s this moment, I can almost see it, something glimmering at the edge of my vision, something waiting, offstage, a moment of clarity, in which we can still step toward each other and save what we have—

But what we have isn’t real.

For a heartbeat, as if remnants of his Siren Song still linger in me, I want him anyway.

And that sickens me—I’m sick.

“You knew, Ari.” His voice is shaking. “You’ve always known.
I told you what I am.
”

“You told me, but—” What is
knowing
? Is there a brain in your gut? Because that’s where I feel this, the truth of it.

“Like I said, I would have enjoyed killing her, would’ve been into it. Killing you—would bring me even more pleasure. Does that make you feel better?”

A choking sound escapes my lips. The ephemeral moment where anything can possibly be fixed between us, ever, evaporates.

“I’m not who you thought I was, am I?” His voice drops lower. “But you’re right, you
are
confused. Lines are crossing for you. Music, friendship, sex . . . and what you know of Sirens. But
if you were a Siren
, you’d understand.”

He walks toward me.
“If you were a Siren.”
The words peal with warning.

“No!” I explode. But it isn’t just the idea that he wants to Deepen me, that he thinks he can make that choice for me—against my will—that he can
take
my other choices
away
—

There is also this: fear. I feel it fully now. Finally.

“If you were a Siren.”

The words echo in my head, as if the inside of my skull is a cavernous room. And other words reverberate as well—

“Music, friendship, sex.”
And I hear his music now, ramping up again
.
Feel the pull of him, through my fear.

And I want to grab him—want to kiss him. Want to lie down on the bed, let his pull take me like a riptide. I want his tongue in my mouth—want to fill myself with him, feel him in the dark void that’s already forming at the thought of losing him, a chasm that’s already beginning to split me in two. My body trembles with energy I can’t control, but instead of crying out,
I
do
understand, I love you more than anything, I want you, don’t ever leave,
I fight the feelings, and scream, “Get out! Get out, get
out
!” and start to shove him toward the door before his Song can overtake me.

“Wait! Arion, listen—” A burst of music seems to emanate from him, permeating me—

“No! That’s not fair! I
won’t
listen! To your music
or
your threats! Just
go
!”

I watch my hands on his chest, my fists, pushing, pushing, pushing him away—

His ocean eyes fill with sharp light. “Is this really what you want?”

“Yes! And
you
want something else!
Someone
else!
Get out!
”

I’m wrong, and I know it. He doesn’t want Alyssa,
not that way
. But does it matter? Even with the river of induced jealousy coursing through me, even with Bo’s Song in my ears—

I know he would have killed her if I hadn’t been there. Know it in my gut, in my heart.

We’re done.

I squeeze my eyes closed—and my throat burns, wears itself raw as I shriek,
“Get out,”
over and over again, even after he’s gone.