Siren's Song (39 page)

I swallow in silence, afraid to call him back with even a sigh or whimper. Fear and guilt have stolen my voice. I open my lips. It's like standing on the edge of a tall building and being so terrified of falling that you actually take a step forward and jump. One note, one line of my favorite song, and I jump to my death. The moment hangs there as Mica paws my knee. My head falls back to rest against the door. She licks my cold, clenched hand. I release my breath as I tremble and shut my lips and my eyes. In the empty blindness I wonder…how badly will it hurt?

21

“You can cage the singer but not the song.”
~Harry Belafonte

I lean against my locker watching the normal flow of people hurrying to homeroom. My chest clenches tight under my blue turtleneck, which will surely throw Madison and Lindsey into hysterics when they see it. Luckily, frost crystallized the world last night, so it's not that out of place.

My line of sight dodges and weaves through the throng. My breath hitches as I see a leather jacket round the corner. My heart drops before my brain completely processes, in that brief second, that it's only some sophomore. I know one glimpse of Luke and I'll relax. But he isn't here. His bike wasn't in the parking lot. I release a silent sigh. I've barely spoken since last night. Carly drove us this morning in unusual quietude with that itchy look on her face. Taylin's got to help her. It's torture watching Carly try to remember.

Luke doesn't show up in homeroom and I walk numbly to chemistry. My gaze flits automatically to the back, to Taylin's empty seat. Prickles raise the hairs on my arms and I slide in next to Kiara.

“No Luke?” she glances to the back.

“I guess not.”

“Maybe's he's ditching with his cousin.” Kiara raises her eyebrows but I don't take the bait.

“Maybe,” I mumble and turn to see what hoops Mr. Perkins wants us to jump through today. Hopefully he's teaching information I already know, since there is no way I can take in anything new with my mind whirling.

Where could they be? Is Matt worse? Somehow, I think Carly would have found out if that were true. She's been keeping a close watch on him. As if they were a couple, even though that's impossible with the curse sitting between them. Guilt bites down on my already-nauseous mid-section. Another example of how my death would help someone.

I wander from class to class, taking notes and hoping they make sense later when I re-read them. Carly slides in next to me in the cafeteria. “Neither one of them is here. Matt doesn't know where they are. Have you tried to call them?”

I nod, my face slack with hopelessness. “I've tried both, but neither of them is answering.” I look at Carly. “Do you think they left?”

Carly shakes her head. “No. Taylin agrees that he seems even worse when he's away from you. You know, the whole ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder' thing.” She scans the crowded cafeteria. “Maybe they're ditching to work on ways to break the curse with your blood.”

“Shhh,” I whisper and glance to see who might be listening. Thank God for taco pizza. Most kids around us seem engrossed with trying to shovel it in without dropping it all over their clothes. I lower my voice. “But why wouldn't they answer their phones?”

Carly shrugs. “Coincidence? They both forgot to charge them with all the craziness going on?”

I shake my head. “There are no coincidences.” My lips purse and I worry for a brief second how Carly will take my question. “Has Eric gone back to school?”

“Uh, he's not at home. But school's only thirty minutes away with heavy traffic.”

By the time drama comes around, I've almost walked out of Cougar Creek six times. The only thing stopping me is the fact that I don't have a car. I've called Luke's and Taylin's phones eight or nine times each, but they aren't picking up. Anger and frustration shoot agitated energy through me, making me snap at Lindsey when she giggles at my turtleneck. I almost bare my neck just to show her I don't care what she thinks. Instead, I slump down in my theatre seat. When Ms. Bishop calls me up to sing, I feel so sick I start to gag a little.

“God, Jule,” Madison yells. “Are you okay?”

I swallow down the bile that bubbled up. “No.” God, what an epic understatement.

Ms. Bishop walks over with a worried wrinkle of a frown. “You don't get stage fright.”

I let my eyes fall shut. I lean my head back, trying to relax the tension that's propping my shoulders up like a fricking scarecrow. I inhale. I exhale. “I don't feel well today.”

Ms. Bishop's voice is closer and I blink open. She's peering in my face. “You're pale. I think you're working too hard.”

Or, it could be because half my blood was drained yesterday and my boyfriend is turning into a crazed demon obsessed with spilling the blood I have left
.

“Yeah, working too hard.” I half-nod, half-shake my head.

“You're going to get burned out before the show.” Ms. Bishop frowns at me like I'm not taking care of myself. If she only knew. She turns away.

“Let's work on set cues today. I want to review all the motion blocks.” She holds her palm out toward me as if I had begun to jump up, which I hadn't. “But you, sit, and then go home after school. Rest, relax, refresh.” She smiles as if her forced hiatus will solve everything.

“Thanks.”

She bends closer to me. “You're our star, Jule. We need you to be at your best.”

I nod. No pressure there, huh? At least Ms. Bishop isn't someone who would benefit from my death. In fact, my sudden demise would mess up her musical and her chance to make State. Finally, one con against provoking Luke's demonic instincts, along with the suffering of my family and oh, yes, the pain of being ripped apart.

I droop into my seat. The rest of the cast leaves me alone. Which is good and bad. Good, because now I don't have to deal with Madison trying to peek down my collar, and bad, because now I have lots of time to think and listen to my instincts. And my instincts are screaming that something is wrong.

My fingers toy with the cool jade dragonfly. I hold it against my chest and feel it warm. I breathe slowly, in and out, and concentrate on the smoothness of the stone. Mentally I send out words, like a prayer.
Where are you? Are you okay? What's going on?

A piercing word fills my head like the sharp pulse of a migraine.
Danger!
My eyes pop open, but I don't see the stage or the class or anything except Luke's tortured look. “Luke?” I murmur. His eyes glow with unnatural light as his head lolls to the side. I blink and the image is gone. “Luke?” I breathe hard as my pulse rocket-launches.
Danger!

* * *

“What do you mean?” Carly asks as I drag her toward her car.

“I heard Luke, somehow, through the dragonfly necklace he gave me. Come on! He's in danger.”

Carly jogs to keep up. “Maybe he meant that
he
is danger, Jule,” she says and tries to put on the brakes. “Like, ‘danger, stay away from me,'” she makes her voice lower in a terrible imitation.

I shake my head, unwilling to dismiss my intuition. “I'm sure there is something going on.”

“Okay, okay,” Carly says as we slide into her car. “Where to, then? Home?”

“No. My parents think I'm at rehearsal for a while. If I go home, Mom won't let me leave.” My mind whirls around locations. “Let's start at Luke's house. His parents might know where he is.”

“Yours don't,” Carly points out. I frown, and she revs the engine. “I'm going, I'm going.”

The ten-minute drive to Luke's feels like an hour. “I have this paper on Hamlet due tomorrow,” Carly says. “I forgot about it. Mom will kill me if I don't turn it in on time.”

“It's okay, just let me off.”

“But if you think you need help…”

“I'll call you.” I pat the cell phone she loaned me. “If Luke's not here, I'll walk to the creek, and then home if no luck.”

“Hey, Mom's supposed to be gone until tonight at some rose-cutting conference,” Carly says. “Come to my place after the creek; you can re-show me what I can't remember and then we'll drive to see Matt. Although he hasn't seen Luke or Taylin today.” Her face scrunches into waves of worry. “Unless he's covering for them for some reason.”

I shake my head slowly. “Something's wrong. I just feel it.”

I jump out of her car. “Call me when you know something,” Carly yells from the window. “Stupid Hamlet,” she curses and zooms off.

I stride up to the large front door and ring the bell while shifting from foot to foot. I release my breath when an image moves through the warped glass on the other side of the door. It opens.

Carolyn Whitmore smiles at me with surprise on her face. She looks briefly beyond me and opens the door wider. “Hi Jule.”

“Um, hi, Mrs. Whitmore. Is Luke home?”

“Not yet, though I'm expecting him soon. Didn't you see him at school?”

The hairs on my neck prickle up like little porcupine quills. Should I rat him out? Say he wasn't there all day? Obviously his mom thinks he was. “Uh, I missed him coming out. Carly just dropped me off.”

“Come on in and wait for him.” She smiles. “I have some wonderful pumpkin muffins.”

I should just leave, go to the creek, but her face looks so expectant, fragile almost. My stomach growls and I remember that I was too worried earlier to eat lunch. She laughs.

“I think you need something in that tiny stomach of yours. Come in and have a muffin. He may have gone to see Matt. You can try calling him.”

I let Carolyn pull me into the large entryway. The big house is silent. Jake's probably still at school, and Oscar must be working with the team. I follow her into the sunlit kitchen. A basket of muffins sits in the middle of the counter.

“Maybe I'll have one, too,” she says and pours some milk for me. “I've been longing for one all day, but I've held out. Now I have an excuse.” She winks conspiratorially like we're having shots of whisky together instead of baked goods. I force a grin back and she accepts it.

I peel back the paper cup off the muffin. It smells really good. I take a bite. Wow, it tastes better than it smells.

“These are fantastic,” I say after I swallow and fill my mouth again.

She bites into one too. “Mmmm…they sure are. Must be why Luke wolfed down three of them before school.” She laughs a little and sits in a chair at the table while she takes another bite. “Saved me having to cook breakfast. With two growing boys and Oscar, I feel like I'm cooking all the time.”

“Yeah, my mom bakes stuff the night before, too.” I take another large bite and drink some milk. The milk tastes a little off when I swirl it in my mouth with the muffin. I rest my chin on the heel of my hand.

“I didn't even have to do that,” she smiles. “That lovely realtor brought them last night as part of her welcome basket.”

I stare at Carolyn as she gestures to the living room. “And there you are.” She laughs as if a little drunk. I try to turn toward the living room, but I can't coordinate the turn on the seat. I grip the edge of the counter as the walls of the house slide to one side.

“There you go, Carolyn,” Patricia Ashe says, and I watch Carly's mom lower Carolyn Whitmore's head to the wooden table. “You just take a little nap.”

Patricia turns to me. “Whoa, Jule.” She rushes over and helps steady me on the bar stool. She
tsks
. “You shouldn't be sitting up this high after eating some of my sleepy-time muffins.”

I try to open my mouth, but my lips won't obey. Patricia pulls me down, and I feel the thump of my butt on hard stone tile as I plop to the cold floor. “My, my, Jule, you're heavier than you look. Just stay here for a minute.” She laughs then. “Not that you could go anywhere anyway.”

My eyes want to shut, but I force them to stare into her perfectly made-up face. Her hair is in a tight bun at her nape, her clothes as impeccable as ever. The same woman as always, the woman who helped raise me, comfort me, protect me. My heart thunders. I can't tell if I'm breathing. Everything feels muted, like I'm under anesthesia. I struggle to move, but my arms and legs are leaden.

Patricia brushes my hair back from my face. “We'll have you up in a moment. You can just close your eyes and rest, sweetheart.” She runs her be-ringed, cool hand down my cheek and shakes her head. “You've certainly had a hard time of it lately. But everything is okay. I'm here for you. We all are.” She glances over my head and smiles. “She had too much, I think. Such a sweet tooth. You'll have to carry her. And let's put poor Carolyn on the couch so she doesn't look like she's passed out in a drunken stupor.

The tips of Carolyn's leather clogs bob by in my peripheral line of sight, but I'm unable to turn my head to follow them. Patricia stands up and backs away as the large form returns. I fight to jack my eyes open. Just before they shut, trapping me in helpless blackness, a face grows in front of my gaze, filling the entire space I can see. Eric Ashe, of course.

* * *

“Izz ee locked tight up in the roooo?”

“Yeah, buuuuuu, wa if ee…”

Bits of words filter through the fog clogging my ears and mind. I concentrate on breathing, slow and steady. I feel heavy, like I've been asleep a long time. I'm lying on my back on something smooth. My fingertip twitches against my leg. Vinyl, like in a doctor's office. I inhale, but I don't smell antiseptic. Instead…mold, herbs, fetid water maybe. My nose tickles, reminding me just how allergic I am to dank, musty places. I scrunch it, trying to shake off a sneeze.

The bits of sounds congeal into words, sentences. “So what are we going to do?” I recognize Eric's voice.

“We're guardians,” Patricia's cultured, calm voice sounds much more in control than her son's. “We will do what we've pledged to do, what all our ancestors have pledged to do. We protect the Siren.” Shock and horror grip me. If I wasn't already knocked flat on my back I'd probably pass out.
In and out
. No hyperventilating allowed! I need a working brain more than ever.