Wake (Watersong Novels) (17 page)

“If one of us leaves, she will die, and we have to replace her,” Penn explained. “We only have until the current moon is full to fill her role.”

“I’m Aglaope’s replacement.” Gemma swallowed hard as the realization struck her. “What if I don’t want to be?”

“You have no choice. You are already a siren. If you try to leave instead of joining us, you will die, and we will simply replace you.”

“How?” Gemma asked. “How did I turn? That flask?”

“Yes. It was a … mixture of a few things.” Penn chose her words carefully.

“A mixture of what?” Gemma asked.

Penn shook her head. “It’s nothing to concern yourself with now. You wouldn’t even understand what they were. In time, it’ll all be explained to you.”

“Why?” Gemma asked, a new tremor to her voice. “Why me? Why did you want
me
to join you?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Penn asked. “You’re beautiful, you love the water, and you’re fearless. Aglaope was too afraid, and we needed someone different.”

“She wasn’t afraid,” Thea countered. “She was considerate.”

“It doesn’t matter what she was,” Penn said sharply. “She’s gone, and we have Gemma now.”

“So … you expect me to just join you, leave everything I’ve ever known, and spend my life singing and swimming?” Gemma asked.

“That doesn’t sound so terrible, does it?” Penn asked.

“It really is wonderful,” Lexi chimed in. “Once you get used to it. It’s a million times better than anything a mortal life could give you.”

“But what if I…” Gemma trailed off and lowered her eyes, thinking of Harper, her parents, Alex. She lifted her head, meeting Penn’s eyes. “I don’t want this.”

“Then you will die,” Penn said. She shrugged as if she couldn’t care less, but her voice was hard and her eyes burned. “If that’s what you wish, then so be it.”

“Penn.” Lexi sighed and gave Gemma a softer smile. “It’s a lot to take in, I know, and you don’t have to decide today. Once you have some time to think, you’ll realize that this is the best thing that could have ever happened to you.”

“But it’s a curse,” Gemma said. “Demeter turned you into sirens to punish you.”

“Did it really feel like a punishment?” Penn asked slyly. “When you were out in the water, wasn’t that the best you ever felt?”

“Yeah, but…”

“Demeter was an idiot, and she failed.” Abruptly, Penn stood up. “She thought she was giving a penalty, but she set us free. Now her daughter is long since dead, Demeter’s all but forgotten, and here we are—as beautiful and powerful as ever, thriving under her ‘curse.’

“Now, if you’ll excuse me, I think I’ve made my point,” Penn said. “Join us or don’t. Live or die. It’s up to you, and frankly, I don’t care which.”

“Wait.” Gemma stood up, her mind racing, but Penn ignored her. “Penn, wait. I still have so many questions.”

Penn pulled her dress up over head and dove into the water. Thea followed a few steps behind and jumped into the waves after her.

Lexi stayed behind a moment. She went over to Gemma and placed a hand on her arm.

“Go see your friends and family,” Lexi told her. “Put your life in order. Say good-bye to the things you need to say good-bye to. Then come join us. You’ll never regret it.”

After Lexi went into the cove, swimming off into the night with the other two sirens, Gemma considered chasing after them. As fast as she was now, she could probably catch up to them. But to what end? Penn hadn’t answered all her questions yet, but Gemma had enough to think about.

She knew Penn and Thea had told the truth, but she didn’t necessarily believe it was the whole truth. They’d definitely left something out, and they hadn’t told her what became of Aglaope, just that Gemma was needed to replace her.

The curse of the siren that Demeter had supposedly bestowed upon them—it didn’t make any sense. Nothing she’d done to them sounded
that
bad. They were granted immortality, eternal beauty, and they could swim and breathe as fish whenever they wanted.

That sounded like a dream come true for Gemma.

She went to the mouth of the cove and sat down at the water’s edge, her legs in the water up to her knees. Her skin fluttered, tingling as scales sprang intermittently from her flesh. Her toes spread out, becoming sheer fins that glided through the water.

Her body wasn’t submerged enough in the bay, so she didn’t completely transform. Her legs remained legs, only with a few scales, but her feet were more flippers than feet. Gemma swung her legs back and forth, relishing the way the cold water felt running over her scales and flippers.

She closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, and her heart swelled with the pure joy of the moment.

But as amazing as this felt, as unbelievable and impossibly perfect as it all seemed, would it still be worth it? Giving up everything she knew and loved? Leaving behind her sister, her father, Alex?

With her eyes still closed, Gemma slid into the water, still wearing the dress the sirens had given her. She didn’t try swimming at all—she just allowed herself to sink, floating down toward the bottom of the bay.

Gemma felt her legs changing, her appendages fusing to form a single tail. It wasn’t until she could breathe in the water that she opened her eyes, staring out at the darkness around her.

Just before she hit the bottom, she flipped her tail and began swimming toward the shore. Since she didn’t seem to have much of a choice right now, she decided to take Lexi’s advice. She’d go home and figure things out from there.

She didn’t want people to see her, so she swam to the far end of the bay that was covered in rocks. Because of the tail, she had to pull herself up onto the rocks on her belly, scraping her skin and arms. Once she was far enough out of the sea, she waited and watched with amazement as her scales once again turned back to skin.

Thankfully, she’d kept on the dress, so she didn’t have to go home in the nude. She walked the several blocks to her house. Calling Harper or Alex for a ride would’ve been an option, but Gemma wanted time to clear her head. It was probably almost midnight by now, so she had the streets to herself.

Instead of going straight home, she cut through the alley into Alex’s backyard. She snuck as close to his house as she could, afraid that Harper would catch sight of her if she looked out the window. She nearly pressed herself against his house as she knocked on the back door, hoping Alex was still awake.

Her heart pounded in her chest as she waited. She wanted to see him, and yet a part of her was afraid to.

Thea’s words hung in her head, the true curse of the siren. No man would ever really be able to love her. Gemma remembered the forceful way Alex had kissed her the other day with the dazed look in his eyes. That wasn’t the Alex she was falling for. That was a boy under the spell of a siren, a boy who was incapable of really loving her.

Gemma continued to wait outside Alex’s house. She’d nearly decided to go home when the door opened.

“Gemma!” Alex sounded both surprised and relieved.

“Shh!” She held her finger up to her mouth, quieting him before Harper or her father heard.

“What are you doing?” Alex asked. “Are you all right? You’re soaking wet.”

Gemma glanced down at her dress. It had started to dry on her walk home, but she’d walked fast, so she hadn’t given it much time.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“You look cold. Do you need a coat or something?” Alex started to move back inside the house to get something to warm her, but she grabbed his arm to stop him.

“No, Alex, listen. I just need to ask you something.” Gemma glanced around, as if she expected Harper to be lurking around a corner. “Can we talk for a minute?”

“Yeah, sure, of course.” He stepped closer to her and put his hands on her arms, feeling strong and warm against her bare skin. “What’s going on? You look frantic.”

“I’ve just had the most amazing, terrible night of my life,” Gemma admitted, and she was surprised when she felt tears stinging her eyes.

“Why? What happened?” Alex’s brown eyes filled with concern.

His worried expression made him look older, more like the man he would someday become, and Gemma’s heart ached when she realized that she would probably never see that. Already he was almost painfully handsome, made even more attractive by how oblivious he was to it.

He was much taller than she was, almost towering above her, and his muscled frame only made her feel safer. It was his eyes—a deep mahogany that conveyed so much warmth and kindness—that let her know he’d never do anything to hurt her.

“It doesn’t matter.” She shook her head. “I needed to know … do you like me?”

“Do I like you?” His worry changed to bemused relief, and he smiled crookedly at her. “Come on, Gemma, I think you know the answer to that.”

“No, Alex, I’m serious. I need to know.”

“Yeah.” He brushed back a damp lock from her forehead, and his eyes were solemn. “I like you. A lot, actually.”

“Why?” Her voice cracked when she asked that, and she almost wished she hadn’t said anything.

His admission had made her stomach swirl with butterflies and her heart soar, but then both her heart and her stomach clenched with fear. She wasn’t certain that Alex would know
why
he liked her.

If he was under the spell of the siren, he’d only know that he lusted after her, with no discernible reason for it.

“Why?” Alex laughed at that. “What do you mean, why?”

“It’s important to me,” she insisted, and something in her expression convinced him how grave this was.

“Um, because.” He shrugged, finding it hard to find the words. “You’re so … so pretty.” Her heart dropped at that, but he went on, “And you have a wicked sense of humor. You’re sweet, and you’re smart. And impossibly driven. I’ve never met anybody as determined as you. Anything you want, you’ll get. You are way, way too cool for me, and you still let me hold your hand, even when we’re in public.”

“You like me for me?” Gemma asked, staring up at him.

“Yeah, of course. Why else would I like you?” Alex asked. “What? Did I say something wrong? You look like you’re going to cry.”

“No, you said everything just right.” She smiled up at him, tears swimming in her eyes.

She stood on her tiptoes and kissed him. Tentatively, he wrapped his arms around her, and as she kissed him more deeply, he lifted her off the ground. Her arms were around his neck, and she was practically clinging to him.

“Gemma!” Harper shouted from her bedroom window, and Gemma’s heart sank when she realized they’d been spotted.

Alex put her back on the ground, but they were slow to untangle from each other. His forehead rested against hers, and she kept her hand on the back of his neck, burying her fingers in his hair.

“Promise me you’ll remember this,” Gemma whispered.

“What?” Alex asked, confused.

“Me, as I am right now. The real me.”

“How could I ever forget you?”

Before Alex could ask anything else, Gemma left, running over to her house without looking back.

SIXTEEN

The Dirty Gull

Harper chewed her lip and stared at
The Dirty Gull
. Her father’s crumpled lunch sack in her hand, she’d been pacing the dock in front of Daniel’s boat for the past few minutes. This had never happened before, and she didn’t know what to do.

Nearly every time she took her father his lunch, Daniel would inevitably be outside in some capacity so she’d run into him. Every other time it had happened, she’d tried to avoid him, but now that she actually wanted to see him, he wasn’t out here.

He didn’t exactly have a front door, so she couldn’t knock, and it seemed too dramatic to stand on the dock shouting his name. Harper supposed she could climb onto the boat, but that seemed awfully presumptuous.

In truth, she didn’t even really know
why
she wanted to see him. Part of it was because everything was so messed up with Gemma, and Harper couldn’t talk to her or Alex about it. Those were the people she usually went to with her problems, since Marcy wasn’t exactly known for her listening skills.

That sounded so horrible. Harper wanted to see Daniel because she had nobody else to dump her problems on.

But then Harper realized that wasn’t exactly true, either. She didn’t want to vent to Daniel. That was just an excuse. She wanted to see him just because … she wanted to see him.

Her stomach twisted in knots, and she decided to simply move on. She needed to bring her dad his lunch, and she didn’t have time for Daniel. It’d be better if she just left.

“So that’s it, then?” Daniel asked as soon as Harper started walking away.

“What?” She stopped short and turned back to his boat, but she didn’t see him. She spun around, thinking he must be on the dock, but he wasn’t anywhere. Confused, she turned to his boat again. “Daniel?”

“Harper.” He stepped out from the cabin’s shadowy doorway and onto the deck. “I’ve been standing there watching you go ’round and ’round on the deck, and after all the debate, you’re just going to leave?”

“I…” Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment when she realized that Daniel must’ve been standing just inside the door, where she couldn’t see him but he could see her. “If you saw me, why didn’t you say anything?”

“It was too much fun watching you.” He grinned broadly and leaned against the railing, resting his elbows on the bar. “You were like a little windup toy.”

“Nobody has windup toys anymore,” Harper argued lamely.

“So. What brings you out here?” Daniel propped his chin up on his hand.

“I was bringing my dad his lunch.” She held up the crumpled brown paper sack.

As she waited, she had been unrolling and rerolling the bag about a dozen times. By now the sandwich at the bottom had to be completely smashed.

“Yes, I can see that. I hope he didn’t have anything in there that he might actually want, because it all has to look like baby food at this point.”

“Oh.” Harper looked down at the bag and sighed. “I’m sure it’s fine. He eats anything.”

“Or maybe he can just get something at the dock,” Daniel suggested. “They have a hot dog stand right by the boats. Your dad can get a lunch for under three dollars when he forgets his lunch.” He paused and tilted his head. “But you already knew that, didn’t you?”