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Maybe this would be my next big dream. Maybe I could become a baker and make someone else’s day special on the off chance I never got one myself.
“You having a party?”
I looked up to see a scruffy, blond-haired boy pushing a cart full of books. He had a flimsy name tag I couldn’t read and was wearing the standard college boy uniform of khaki pants and a button-up shirt with his sleeves cuffed around his elbows. No one tried anymore.
I held back my sigh. It was unavoidable, this part of the sentence. We were meant to draw people in, and men were particularly susceptible.
I looked down again without answering, hoping he’d take the hint. I hadn’t chosen to sit at the back of the top floor because I felt like socializing.
“You look stressed. You could probably use a party.”
I couldn’t suppress my smirk. He had no idea. Unfortunately, he took that little smile as an invitation to continue.
He ran his hand through his hair, the modern-day equivalent of “Good day, miss,” and pointed at the books. “My mom says the secret to making good baked stuff is to use a warm bowl. Not that I’d know. I can hardly make cereal without burning it.”
His grin suggested that this was only too true, and I was slightly charmed as he bashfully tucked a hand into his pocket.
It was a pity, really. I knew he meant no harm, and I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. But I was about to resort to the rudest move I had and simply walk away when he pulled that same hand back out and extended it to me.
“I’m Akinli, by the way,” he said, waiting for me to respond. I gawked at him, not used to people pressing past my silence. “I know it’s weird.” He’d misread my confusion. “Family name. Kind of. It was a last name on my mom’s side of the family.”
He kept his palm outstretched, waiting. Typically my response would be to flee. But Elizabeth and Miaka managed to interact with others. For goodness’ sakes, Elizabeth cycled through lovers regularly without ever saying a word. And there was something about this boy that seemed … different. Maybe it was how his lips lifted into a smile without him seeming to even think about it, or the way his voice rolled warmly out of him like clouds, but I felt certain snubbing him would end up hurting my feelings more than his, and that I’d regret it.
Cautiously, as if I might break us both, I took his hand, hoping he wouldn’t notice how cool my skin was.
“And you are?” he prompted.
I sighed, sure this would end the conversation despite my kindest intentions. I signed my name, and his eyes widened.
“Oh, wow. So have you been reading my lips this whole time?”
I shook my head.
“You can hear?”
I nodded.
“But you can’t speak … Umm, okay.” He started patting at his pockets as I tried to fight the dread creeping down my spine. We didn’t have many rules, but the ones we did have were absolute. Stay silent in the presence of others, until it was time to sing. When the time came to sing, do it without hesitation. When we weren’t singing, do nothing to expose our secret. Walking down the street was one thing, and so was sitting under a tree. But this? An attempt at an actual conversation? It landed me in a very dangerous realm.
“Here we go,” he announced, pulling out a pen. “I don’t have any paper, so you’ll have to write on my hand.”
I stared at his skin, debating. Which name should I use? The one on the driver’s license Miaka bought me online? The one I’d used to rent our current beach house? The one I’d used in the last town we’d stayed in? I had a hundred names to choose from.
Perhaps foolishly, I chose to tell him the truth.
“Kahlen?” he read off his skin.
I nodded, surprised by how freeing it felt to have one human on the planet know my birth name.
“That’s pretty. Nice to meet you.”
I gave him a thin smile, still uncomfortable. I didn’t know how to do small talk.
“That’s really cool that you’re going to a traditional school even though you use sign language. I thought I was brave just getting out of state.” He laughed at himself.
Even with how uneasy I was feeling, I admired his effort to keep the conversation going. It was more than most people would do in his situation. He pointed at the books again. “So, uh, if you ever have that party and need some help with your cake, I swear I could get my act together long enough not to ruin everything.”
I raised one eyebrow at him.
“I’m serious!” He laughed like I’d told a joke. “Anyway, good luck with that. See you around.”
He waved sheepishly, then continued pushing his cart down the aisle. I watched him go. I knew I’d remember his hair, a mess that looked windswept even in stillness, and the kindness in his eyes. And I’d hate myself for holding on to those details if he ever crossed my path on one of those dark days, like the days when Kerry or Warner had encountered me.
Still, I was grateful. I couldn’t recall the last time I’d felt so human.
3
“What do you want to do tonight?” Elizabeth asked, flopping onto the couch. Outside the window behind her, the sky was fading from blue to pink to orange, and I mentally ticked off one more day of the thousands I had left. “I actually don’t feel like going to a club.”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” I threw my arms up. “Are you sick?” I teased.
“Ha-ha,” she retorted. “I’m just in the mood for something different.”
Miaka looked up from our shared laptop. “Where is it daytime? We could go to a museum.”
Elizabeth shook her head. “I will never understand how you are so into such quiet buildings. As if we aren’t silent enough.”
“Pssh!” I gave her a pointed look. “You, silent?”
Elizabeth stuck out her tongue at me and hopped over to Miaka. “What are you looking at?”
“Skydiving.”
“Oh, wow! Now that’s more like it!”
“Don’t get any big ideas. For now I’m just researching. I’ve been wondering what would happen with our adrenaline levels if we did something like this,” Miaka said, taking notes on a pad beside the computer. “Like, if we’d get an above-average spike.”
I chuckled. “Miaka, is this an adventure or a science experiment?”
“A little bit of both. I’ve read that adrenaline rushes can alter your perception, making things look blurry or causing a moment to look frozen. I think it’d be interesting to do something like this, see what I see, then try to capture it in art.”
I smiled. “I admit, it’s creative. But there has to be a better way to get a rush than jumping out of a plane.”
“Even if things went wrong, we’d survive, right?” Miaka questioned, and they both turned to me as if I was an authority figure on the topic.
“I think so. Either way, you can count me out for that particular adventure.”
“Scared?” Elizabeth made wiggly ghost fingers at me.
“No,” I protested. “Simply not interested.”
“She’s afraid she’ll get in trouble,” Miaka guessed. “That the Ocean wouldn’t like it.”
“As if She would ever get upset with you,” Elizabeth said, a tinge of bitterness in her voice. “She adores you.”
“She cares for all of us.” I tucked my hands in my lap.
“Then She wouldn’t mind if you went skydiving.”
“What if you’re terrified and start screaming?” I proposed. “What would that do?”
Elizabeth, who was preparing to pounce on my worry, backed down. “Fair point.”
“I have twenty years to go,” I said quietly. “If I mess up now, it’d make the last eighty years a waste. You know the stories about sirens who went wrong as well as I do. Miaka, you saw what happened to Ifama.”
Miaka shuddered. The Ocean had saved Ifama as she was drowning off the coast of South Africa in the fifties, and she had agreed to serve in exchange for being able to live. For the short season she was with us, she kept her distance, staying alone in her room, appearing to be in prayer most of the time. Later we wondered if her coldness was part of a plan to remain unattached to us. When she had to sing for the first time, she stood on the water, chin in the air, and refused. The Ocean pulled her under so fast, it was as if she’d never been there at all.
It was a warning to us all. We must sing, and we must keep the secret. It was a short list of commandments.
“And what about Catarina?” I continued. “Or Beth? Or Molly? What about the slew of girls in our position who failed?”
These girls’ stories were the cautionary tales that were passed down from one siren to the next. Beth had used her voice to make three girls who had teased her jump into a well. This was in the late 1600s when the idea of witches wasn’t that far-fetched. She’d put an entire town in an uproar, and the Ocean had silenced her to keep our secret. Catarina was another who had refused to sing and was taken. The strange thing about her was that she’d already been a siren for thirty years at that point. I nearly made myself crazy wondering about what could have made her give up on the promise of freedom that far in.
Molly’s story was different—and more disturbing. Her life as a siren had brought on some kind of mental breakdown. Four years in, she’d murdered a household of people in the night, including an infant, in an outburst she hadn’t realized she’d had until she was standing over an elderly woman who was facedown in a bathtub. From what I had heard, the Ocean tried to soothe her, but when she had a similar episode a few months later, the Ocean took her life. Molly was proof that there was grace when the Ocean knew your intentions, but she also showed that there was only so much room for that mercy.
These were the stories we carried, the guardrails that kept us in line. Forsaking the rules meant forsaking your life.
Exposing our secret would mean being taken away, maybe experimented on. When they couldn’t destroy us, and if we couldn’t escape, that could be a literal eternity of silent imprisonment. And if anyone guessed that the Ocean was purposefully consuming some of the people She also helped sustain, it wouldn’t take the humans very long to figure out how to get their water without ever touching Her. If no one went into the water … how would we all live?
Obedience was imperative.
“I worry about you two,” I confessed, crossing the room to hug them. “Honestly, I’m jealous sometimes of how well you’ve both … assimilated. But I wonder how much longer you can do that without making a mistake.”
“You don’t have to worry,” Miaka assured me. “This is what sirens have done throughout history, and we just happen to be the best at it so far. Even Aisling lives on the outskirts of a town. Human contact helps to keep us sane. You don’t have to seclude yourself to make it through this life.”
I nodded. “I know. But I don’t want to push my limits, or the Ocean’s.”
Elizabeth didn’t need to say anything. I could hear her judgment without words.
“Why don’t we go see Aisling?” Miaka suggested. “We’ve never really asked her about how she copes.”
“Because she’s never here,” Elizabeth replied, irritation in her voice.
We hadn’t seen our fourth sister since the last time we sang, and it had been well over two years since she’d lived with us.
“That might be a good idea. Just a short trip,” I added, mainly for Elizabeth, who had never really warmed to Aisling. She was too reclusive for Elizabeth’s taste.
Elizabeth nodded. “Sure. Nothing else going on anyway.”
We headed out the back door where a small wooden staircase led down to a floating dock. A handful of the other houses had Jet Skis or personal paddleboats secured to theirs, but ours was empty. The sun was low enough that no one would see as we slipped into the water.
Her currents stirred in greeting, and an almost tickling feeling wrapped around my body as we sank in. I relaxed in the warmth of Her embrace, already calmer.
Can you tell Aisling we’re coming? I asked.
Of course.
Wheee! Elizabeth sang as we dived deep into the water and set off. The speed stripped away her flimsy clothes, and she spread out her arms, hair dancing behind her, as she waited for her siren’s dress.
When we moved like this, every earthly thing we wore fell away. The Ocean opened Her veins, releasing thousands of particles of salt that affixed themselves to our bodies, creating long, delicate flowing gowns. They were gorgeous, coming out in every shade of Her—the purple of a patch of coral that human eyes had never passed, the green of kelp growing toward the light, the gold of burning sand at sunrise—and were never exactly the same thing twice. It was almost painful to watch them fall apart, one grain at a time, rarely lasting more than a few days after we left Her.
You seem sad. Her words came only to my ears.
I’ve been having more nightmares, I admitted.
You don’t have to sleep. You’ll be fine without it, you know that.
I smiled. I do. But I like sleep. It’s soothing. I’d just like to have it without the dreams is all.
She couldn’t take away my dreams, but She always comforted me as best She could. Sometimes She took me to islands or showed me the prettiest parts of Herself, so easily hidden from humans. Sometimes She knew that caring for me meant letting me be apart from Her. I never wanted to be away from Her for too long, though. She was the only mother I had, now.
Part mother, part warden, part employer … it was a hard relationship to explain.
Aisling swam out to greet us, her own dress partially formed and floating in strands around her.
What a surprise! she greeted, squeezing Miaka’s hand. Follow me.
We trailed behind her, skirting around the plates of land as they pushed themselves above the water into continents. Our sense of geography was a bit specialized, knowing that some places were surrounded by rocks, others by sand, others by sheer cliffs. There were other things we knew by heart as well, like the places we’d found each other or the locations of ships we’d taken down, a peculiar knowledge of unmapped ghost towns on the Ocean’s floor.
We tailed Aisling as she went to a slightly uneven coast, pulling herself upright as soon as the water was shallow enough.
“Don’t worry,” she said, taking in our nerves when she brazenly exited onto land. “We’re all alone out here.”
“I thought you lived near a town,” Elizabeth said, hopping across the rounded rocks as we crossed the shore.
Aisling shrugged. “Distance is relative.” She led us to an aging cottage just beyond the tree line. It was picturesque, settled underneath some heavy branches, and I imagined those limbs cooling the space in the summer and protecting her from snow in the winter. In front was a small garden bursting with flowers and berries, and the way everything flourished made me feel that, while the rest of us were connected solely to water, Aisling had drawn strength from all the elements.
“This place is so small!” Miaka commented on entering. It was one room, barely the size of the living room in our beach house. There wasn’t much in the way of furniture, just a small bed and a bench along one side of a table.
“I think it’s cozy,” Aisling remarked, placing a kettle on an ancient stove. “It’s nice of you to come. I picked some fresh berries today and was making a pie. Give me forty-five minutes, and we should have a magnificent dessert!”
“Expecting company?” Elizabeth asked. “Or just incredibly bored?”
We didn’t have many reasons to cook. We didn’t need food, and Elizabeth especially could go for months before the craving for a particular taste hit her.
Aisling smiled as she finished lining the bottom of her pan. “Yes, the king should be dropping by any moment.”
“Ah, the king likes pie?” Miaka joked back.
“Everyone likes pie!” she teased, and sighed. “I was a little bored today, to tell you the truth. So I’m very happy for your visit.”
I stood beside Aisling as she poured the filling. “You know, you can always come stay with us.”
“Oh, I like the quiet.”
“You just told us you were bored,” Miaka said, her artist’s eyes exploring the room.
“One day out of a hundred,” Aisling said, dismissing us. “But I know I should spend more time with you all these days. I’ll try.”
“You okay?” I asked. “You seem keyed up.”
Aisling plastered a smile on her face. “I’m great. Just happy to see you all. What’s the occasion?”
“Can you please tell Kahlen to calm down?” Elizabeth asked, sitting on the lone bed looking as if she owned the place. “She’s moping again. Dabbling with the scrapbooks, afraid her world will end if so much as the shadow of a human crosses her path.”
Aisling and I shared a look, and she grinned. “What’s really going on?”
“Nothing,” I swore. “We’re just comparing coping mechanisms. I feel safer when we’re more anonymous. The fewer people we interact with, the better.”
“And yet you insist on living in big cities,” Elizabeth grumbled.
I rolled my eyes. “So we blend in easier.”
Miaka walked over, placing a tiny hand on Aisling’s shoulder. “I think what Elizabeth means is, since you’re the oldest, you might have some wisdom to pass on.”
Aisling took off her apron, and we all sat together, crowding on the bench and the bed. “Well, let’s be honest. The Ocean doesn’t need more than one of us at a time. She could do Her work with a single siren. But She makes sure there are at least two at all times so we won’t be alone.”
“And we have the Ocean,” I added.
“Which is weird. She’s hard to understand.” Elizabeth toyed with the salty sparkles of her dress.
“She’s not a person,” I pointed out. “Of course She’s hard to understand.”
“Back to the matter at hand: Aisling, don’t you think it’s possible to interact with humans without consequence?” Elizabeth pressed.
Aisling smiled to herself, her eyes fixed on a blank space in the air. “Definitely. In fact, I think seeing lives that actually change and have seasons has added to my life even though I can’t change myself. It’s about knowing your limits, I think.” She drew her gaze back to Elizabeth. “It seems to me Kahlen knows hers, so maybe we should respect them.”
“Well, it seems to me like she’s miserable and would be much happier if she stepped out into the real world every once in a while.” Elizabeth grinned, a snippy smile that wasn’t asking for a fight but let us all know she still thought she knew best.
“Along the same lines,” Miaka said, straightening up. “Skydiving. Would you do it, Aisling?”
Aisling laughed nervously. “I don’t like heights, so probably not.”
Miaka nodded. “I admit, the falling would be weird. But I want to see the world from above.”
“You’ve seen wars, watched countries disappear and re-form. You have experienced more seasons of fashion than most people can remember. We walked the Great Wall, you rode an elephant … For goodness’ sakes, Elizabeth took us to see the Beatles!” I reminded her. “Do you really need anything more?”
Miaka beamed. “I want to see everything.”
We passed the rest of our visit talking about paintings Miaka had made, books I had read, movies Elizabeth had seen. Aisling really meant it when she said she enjoyed watching the lives around her, and she told us how the best baker in town was finally closing her shop and how there was a boom recently in people hired as dog walkers. It was all a bunch of nothing to me, but everything to these strangers who were living it.
“I wish I had a talent like you, Miaka,” Aisling lamented after hearing her theories on adrenaline and art. “I feel like I don’t have anything to say. Right now, my life is very still.”
“You really are welcome to stay with us,” I offered again.
She leaned into me, our heads touching. “I know. It just seems like life is very fast these days. I won’t have this quiet much longer. I think I’ll miss it.”
“Fast?” I questioned. “What are you doing that makes the years pass any faster than a crawl?”
“I agree with Aisling, actually. Everything is fast,” Elizabeth commented. “There’s not enough time to do everything I want. But I love it!”
After a few hours, Elizabeth got antsy, so I politely said it was time to get home. Aisling held me back as Miaka and Elizabeth headed toward the water.
“I can’t tell you what to do, but I know how much our work haunts you. If the way you’ve been living for eighty years isn’t making you feel better, maybe it’s time to try something different.”
“But what if I mess up?”
She squeezed my hand. “You’re too good to mess up. And if you did, you are the most likely to be pardoned. She loves you. You know that.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
“Any time. I’ll come visit soon.”
She trotted back into the house, and I considered her advice while I watched her through the window as she began the process of making another pie.
I smiled to myself. Aisling had nothing to lose or gain by telling me to change my habits, which made me trust her. So I held my feelings and worries and questions in my heart, considering if maybe there was a way for me to make my final stretch of this life any easier.
4
I spent the majority of the following evening letting Miaka curl my hair. I didn’t understand the way my sisters lived their lives, and I wasn’t sure it was wise, but I’d never really tried to walk a mile in their heels. Tonight, I would.
“What do you think of this one?” Elizabeth held up another dress. Basically, everything she showed me looked like a short tube of fabric, only in a different color.
“I don’t know. It’s not quite my style.”
She cocked her head. “That’s kind of the point. You can’t go to a club looking like a fifties housewife.”
I wrinkled my nose. “It’s a bit … revealing, don’t you think?”
Miaka chuckled as Elizabeth widened her eyes in frustration. “Yes. Very. Just put it on, okay?” She tossed the dress at me, and it landed in a heap on my lap. “I’m going to get dressed,” she called, rushing out of the room.
I held back a sigh. After all, I was trying to be enthusiastic. Maybe tonight would usher in a new beginning in my life.
“We should do your hair like this more often,” Miaka said, prompting me to turn to the mirror.
I gasped. “It’s so full!”
“A few hours of dancing will deflate it.”
I leaned in, studying my face. I’d gotten used to the natural beauty that came with being a siren. Miaka’s artful strokes of eyeliner and lipstick magnified it by ten. I could see why boys practically formed a line for Elizabeth’s attention.
“Thanks. You did great.”
She shrugged. “Any time.” Then she leaned in toward the mirror to do her own face.
“So what do we do when we get there?” I asked. “I don’t know how to act in a crowded room.”
“There’s not a step-by-step program on how to go out and have a good time, Kahlen. We’ll probably get a drink and scope out the crowd. Elizabeth will be looking for someone for sure, but you and I can just dance with each other.”
“I gave up understanding how young people dance about thirty years ago. The Electric Slide was the final nail in the coffin for me.”
“But dancing’s so fun!”
I shook my head. “No. The jitterbug was fun. But actually having rhythm and holding your partner’s hand isn’t popular anymore.”
Miaka pulled the mascara wand away from her face, trying not to poke her eye while she laughed. “I swear, if you try to whip out the jitterbug tonight, Elizabeth will kill you.”
“Good luck with that,” I muttered. “Anyway, all I’m trying to say is that I might not be on the dance floor too much.”
Miaka’s gaze met mine in the mirror. “I’m happy you’re going somewhere that isn’t a library or a park, but I’m not sure it’s really taking a chance if you just sit there.”
“Ta-da!” Elizabeth sang, bursting into the room. Her dress was black and short, and she was wearing the shoes she referred to as “stripper heels.” “So?”