Lena covered her head with her hands, but the leaves and branches pelted her all the same. “Rid! Are you okay?”
But Ridley was transfixed. She sat clutching the book with both hands, a golden light radiating from its depths onto her face.
The music was beautiful, even hypnotic. Until hypnotic became horrific.
The sopranos turned to screeching, and the operatic melodies might as well have been nails scratching against stone. The noise was deafening, growing louder by the second, until it hurt to hear.
Ridley still didn’t move. She couldn’t. It didn’t even look like she was breathing.
Beneath the tree, Lena pressed her hands over her ears, as hard as she could. “Stop it. Make it go away, Rid. Stop it now!”
Ridley froze.
She opened her mouth and closed it again, without a word.
It was as if everything she’d ever wanted was trapped right there, in those pages—but the longer she listened to them, the more certain she became that she’d never have any of it.
The sorrow was more than she could bear. Her eyes brimmed with tears as her fingers curled even more tightly around the page.
The song intensified into a howl. The breeze became a fierce wind, blowing in circles around the golden-haired little girl.
“Hold on, Rid!”
Lena crawled slowly up the tree trunk, a finger in one ear, the other tucked down against her shoulder.
She pulled her finger from her ear, yelling like what their Gramma would call a banshee. “I can’t hear you I can’t hear you I can’t hear anything and I especially can’t hear you!”
She reached up and up until her fingers were scrabbling against the gold-edged paper. With one last burst of energy, she yanked on the book as hard as she could, knocking it out of Ridley’s arms and sending it flying down and out of the tree in an explosion of bright blue sparks.
It landed, facedown in the dirt, with a thud.
Then silence.
Ridley opened her eyes to see Lena pulling herself up next to her. The girls clung to each other, trying to catch their breath, trying to slow their hammering hearts.
“What were those things?” Lena’s face was pale. “And don’t say mermaids.”
“Sirens,” breathed Ridley. Her voice was quiet, almost a whisper. “They’re called Sirens. Dark. With wings and claws and fangs. They ripped the sailors’ hearts right out of their chests.” Her eyes were stricken. “I saw them.”
Lena shook her head. “I would never, ever want to be one of those.”
“Me neither,” Ridley said. Her eyes were beginning to pool and prickle with tears.
“We won’t be.” Lena reached over, patting her cousin’s cheek. “Don’t worry, Rid. Gramma says if our hearts are good, we’ll grow up that way, too. Light as sunshine.”
“Yeah? How do you know if your heart’s any good?” The tiniest wet streak wobbled past the corner of Ridley’s eye.
“Yours is,” Lena said solemnly. “I just know it.” She drew a linty red lollipop out of her pocket and handed it to Ridley. “Promise.”
For a minute, the younger cousin almost seemed like the older one.
They traded the lollipop back and forth, up in the branches of that old oak tree, until Ridley didn’t remember the gnashing teeth or the jagged claws or the heartless sailors anymore.
Not one bit.
Promise.
When Ridley woke up, she was crying and she didn’t know why. She remembered that she’d been dreaming, but the details had already begun to fade.
“What’s wrong, Rid?” Lena was next to her, hugging her close in the morning light.
“Nothing.” She tried to think, but it felt like she was pressing on a raw nerve.
“You hate good-byes, you big ball of mush. You barely said a word last night.” Lena frowned, pulling her faded blue quilt tightly around the two of them. “Is that the only thing bothering you?”
“I told you. It’s nothing.” Rid looked around, taking in the dead campfire and the abandoned blankets. Only Ethan was still there, his face half buried in Boo’s fur. “Where is everyone?”
“Link still had packing to do. John and Liv, too. I told them not to wake you up.” Lena smiled. “Knowing you.”
Ridley was relieved.
Lena brushed a long pink strand behind Ridley’s ear. “You know, it’s not too late. Just because you didn’t finish high school with us doesn’t mean you can’t finish it at all. You could get your GED, go to night school—”
Mother of all that is holy in the world—
Rid grabbed Lena’s wrist with five dagger-like glitter nails. “Wait a minute. Are you suggesting that you think it bothers me that I haven’t graduated from Stonewall Jackson High? Have you lost what little is left of your mind?”
Lena gently detached Ridley from her arm. “You just don’t seem like yourself.”
Rid was furious. “You mean I don’t seem like a cold witch? Or I do? Because last time I checked, that’s what I was.”
“Ridley.”
“I don’t know why everyone in Gat-dung has such a hard time remembering I’m not like them. I’m not even like you. I’m a heartless Siren.”
“You are not heartless.” Lena was matter-of-fact. They could replay this conversation all Ridley wanted, but she was never going to change her position on this particular matter.
“How do you know?” Ridley sounded as miserable as she felt.
“I just know.” Lena kissed her cousin’s cheek. “Trust me.”
Truthfully, Ridley didn’t trust anybody. But if she had, her cousin would’ve been first on her list.
They sat like that, arm in arm in the silence, for a long moment.
“Promise,” Ridley whispered. She hated herself for saying the word—for cracking like that, the moment she did it—like always.
“Promise,” Lena whispered back, reaching in the pocket of her sweatshirt and pulling out a bright green lollipop.
“Green?”
“Change is good. Live a little.”
Ridley took the lollipop, waving it in her cousin’s face. “You rebel.” She stood up, awkwardly stretching her long, bare legs. “So, yeah. I gotta jet.” It was as close as Rid could come to saying good-bye to her only real friend.
“I know,” Lena said. She knew everything. What Rid was saying—and what she couldn’t. She held out a set of car keys. “I just Cast a Manifesto. It’s on the corner.”
Ridley shook her head. “You’re good.”
“I know,” shrugged Lena, her eyes twinkling.
“Say good-bye to Ethan for me. And you behave, Cuz.” Ridley smiled, in spite of everything.
“I always do. I’m the good one, remember?”
Ridley never forgot.
CHAPTER 5
&
nbsp; Sweet Child o’ Mine
A shower and a change of clothes fixed everything.
Well, a shower, a vintage pink silk kimono, a shot of hot chocolate, a final layer of Chanel Rouge Allure Incandescente—in other words, Siren Red—lipstick, and Rid’s favorite Hervé Léger bandage dress.
Siren battle clothes.
Time to do your thing, Rid thought.
As soon as the red MINI Cooper made it down the hill and across Route 9 into town, Ridley was in better spirits. The moment she saw Link, she could tell he was halfway out of his mind. For all the usual reasons, she guessed. Not to mention the Pepto-Bismol–pink housecoat that one of those reasons happened to be wearing this morning.
“Wesley Lincoln! You won’t be needin’ that garbage at Georgia College a the Redeemer.” Mrs. Lincoln stood in the driveway, trying to tear the Star Wars poster out of Link’s hand. “In fact, at Georgia Redeemer you won’t be needin’ any a that mess from your room.”
Link yanked harder on the poster, frustrated. The Beater was mostly packed, but he was supposed to have been on the road an hour ago. Ridley knew better than anyone that standing in the driveway arguing over his action figures one by one with his mother was Link’s idea of Hell. “Aww, come on, Mom. That’s my stuff. And I gotta get outta here. You want to make me late for all that good college orientin’?”
Mrs. Lincoln responded by yanking the poster up and out of Link’s reach until it tore.
“Ma!”
Ridley chose that moment for her entrance. “Mrs. Lincoln. How lovely you look! I mean, the way your housecoat matches your curlers.” Try as she might, Ridley could never manage not to irritate Link’s mom. It was pretty much her specialty. That, and getting Mrs. Lincoln to turn a particular shade of red previously reserved only for old beets and sunburned pigs.
Link looked so relieved to see her that Rid thought he was going to break down and kiss her right then and there.
But then she looked at his mother and thought again.
Mrs. Lincoln seethed. “Is that sass? Do you think I want advice on how to cover my own God-given body from a shameless half-dressed harlot like you?”