Siren (25 page)

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"Caleb should go in."

It took me a second to realize the car was no longer moving. I followed Simon's gaze and tried to make out where we were through the rain streaming down the windshield. "The Lighthouse?"

Caleb sat back and peered through his window. "What are we doing here?"

Simon continued to stare straight ahead. "Betty stopped talking to Oliver after they spent the night together on Chione Cliffs. The night she became pregnant with Raina."

"And ...?" I wasn't making the connection.

"According to Zara's scrapbook, she dropped each guy the second he said he loved her, and then they disappeared."

"Zara has a scrapbook?" Caleb asked. "I wouldn't have pegged her as the type."

"And now," Simon said, ignoring Caleb, "Paige is pregnant."

My stomach dropped. I'd been so intent on disbelieving everything Oliver had told us, I hadn't thought about what it might it mean if it was actually true. "Jonathan."

"Jonathan," Caleb repeated. "Jonathan Marsh? What about him?"

I looked toward the Lighthouse docks. The fancy yachts, all abandoned, bobbed like toy boats in the choppy water. "He's Paige's boyfriend."

"Betty loved Oliver," Simon said. "She wanted to protect him, which was why when they finally gave in to each other,

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she cut him off. She could've killed him--and it sounds like if she hadn't been on her own the way she was, she would've. Not because she wanted to, but because it was expected. Because they didn't want anyone else finding out what they really were."

I stared out the window, wondering how these words were coming out of Simon's mouth. Where was the scientific skepticism? The automatic insistence that such things were humanly impossible? The demand for proof?

"We have to tell Jonathan. We have to warn him about Paige before something happens." Caleb's voice was resigned.

I shook my head. "I know Paige. Even if--hypothetically speaking, in some alternate universe--Betty's a descendant of murdering mermaids, Paige hasn't been swimming in that gene pool. Or if she has, she doesn't know it. She's too nice, too good. And I've seen her with Jonathan--she's crazy about him. She would never do anything to hurt him."

Simon looked at me. "What about Zara? Or Raina?"

My face flushed. He wasn't kidding.

"What do I say?" Caleb asked. "How do you tell someone ... this?"

Simon turned toward him. "You don't. We don't want to scare him or give him reason to ask Paige anything. We don't know what she might say to Raina. The last thing we need is for
them
to be suspicious of us."

"Do you want me to just check on him? Make sure he's still standing--and hopefully not smiling?"

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"Pretty much. And see if you can find out anything about Paige, or their relationship. You worked together, right? So it shouldn't seem strange?"

Caleb half laughed, half sighed. "Right. It shouldn't seem strange at all."

He was still for a minute, and I thought he might be reconsidering the realistic plausibility of what they both seemed to think was true, but then he opened the door and jumped out of the car. I watched him fiddle with his iPod and the headphones in his ears as he sprinted through the rain.

"You're right."

I looked down at Simon's hand on mine.

"It sounds completely insane," he continued. "All of it. And under normal circumstances, I would've thanked Oliver for his time and dismissed everything he said. But these aren't normal circumstances." He leaned toward me. "Think about it. Oliver aside, think about everything you've seen. Everything you've told me."

"I've seen some strange things," I admitted. "But I don't buy it. I can't. The idea of sirens had to have been invented back when men couldn't predict or explain certain things. Like the weather--when they didn't know how the moon and the sun and the oceans all worked together to create crazy natural drama, and when some guys accidentally died as a result. Sirens were imaginary tools used to explain what man couldn't." I squeezed his fingers. "But
you
know better. You know about the weather. You can explain why these things are happening."

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"You've been with me when I've tried to understand it the last few weeks. What's been happening breaks traditional rules. It defies scientific reasoning."

"What about Justine?" I asked. "She was a
girl
. And she wasn't found smiling."

"I think she was getting in the way. I think, for whatever reason, Zara zeroed in on Caleb, and when he didn't respond the way she wanted him to, she went after the obstacle."

I stared at him, my frustration giving way to concern. As a lifelong chicken and firm believer in all that went bump in the night, I was more likely to accept illogical, irrational theories. Simon was Mr. Science Guy. He was the walking, talking Weather Channel. How was I the skeptical one?

"You know something else." I wasn't sure of it until I said it aloud. I ducked my head to get him to look at me. "Don't you? You know something I don't. That's why this makes sense to you."

He looked away.

"Simon." I squeezed his hand tighter when he tried to release mine. "Tell me. Whatever it is you think I can't handle, I can handle." I watched him as he stared at the rain.

"It was the other day," he said finally.

"The other day ... in Springfield?"

He nodded. "In the woods. When we first saw them on the rocks."

I looked down. I wasn't sure he referred to the same moment, but I had no problem recalling at least one--when he'd looked

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at Zara like he hadn't known what beautiful was until he saw her there. And when he'd seemed to forget I stood right next to him.

"At first, all I could think about was Caleb. I worried we wouldn't find him, and about the state he'd be in if we did." He paused. "And then when I saw his sweatshirt hanging on that tree, like some sort of twisted clue, all my worries and thoughts exploded in my head. I was mad. Running toward them, I thought about what I would say to her--what I would
do
to her. By the time we reached the trees, I was ready to plow through and run right at her."

I waited. "So what happened?"

"I don't know. My body was fully charged, but my head ..."

"It's okay, Simon," I said. "Your head ... what?"

"Vanessa, please understand, I couldn't control it, I didn't know what was going on ... I was only vaguely aware that it was happening." He took a shallow, shaky breath. "But when we saw them there, on the rocks, I didn't want to hurt her ... I wanted to hurt
him."

My chest tightened. "Your emotions were displaced. Everything collided at that moment, and you were overwhelmed."

"I wasn't."

He said this so seriously, so earnestly, I had no choice but to believe that
he
believed what he said. "But, why?" I asked. "Why would you want to hurt Caleb?"

His face scrunched up as he tilted his head, already apologizing for what he was about to say. "Because I was jealous."

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I sat back.

"As soon as I saw her everything else went away. The woods, the search, everything that had happened the past few weeks ..."

"Me?" I guessed, looking through the windshield.

"All I was aware of was her," he said, his voice wavering. "Vanessa, she tried. She tried to get me to react, to respond to her. And what they do--it's strong. It's not just a sound, or a song--it's nothing like the legends we read growing up."

I looked at him, my heart drumming in my ears. "What is it?"

He paused. "You know how when you're floating on your back in the lake, the water rises and falls against your ears? So that for half a second you can hear everything around you and then for the other half a second everything's muted? It almost feels like you're suspended between two worlds."

I knew exactly what he was talking about. Even before the accident, the half second that I couldn't hear everything above the water always made me nervous.

"It's kind of like that--like floating on the surface and then slowly, gently, being pulled under. You feel yourself going deeper, but you can't stop it, and it's not unpleasant, so you don't even try. You just kind of give in and let the water pull you down until you can't hear anything else."

"Did you see her? When that was happening to you?"

"Yes. But she looked different. Everything looked different--softer yet brighter. It was like we were surrounded by a

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million mirrors, and the sun's rays were ricocheting back and forth between them until the woods were filled with a white, shiny haze."

"Well," I said, attempting to sound like I was ready to help him the way a good friend should, "it's a crazy story. But I trust you, and trust that you know what you saw and heard. So if this really is what we're going on, then--"

"Vanessa."

I closed my eyes. All I'd wanted was to know what had really happened to Justine, and what she'd really been doing in the months before her death. I'd just wanted some answers so I could understand why she jumped when she did, deal with it, and move on. How had I gone from that to this?

"Vanessa," he said again, lifting a stray strand of hair away from my face and smoothing behind my ear.

"Simon ... don't. Please. It's just a lot. It's a lot, but it's okay."

"I got away. Don't you want to know how?"

I started to shake my head, but stopped when he touched my chin.

"You."

I lifted my eyes to his.

"I snapped out of the initial hold long enough to tell you to go after Caleb and to run at her because I heard you. You spoke, and I was pulled right back. And then when it was just the two of us, and she was doing everything she could to get me to come to her, to go with her, I heard you again."

"But I wasn't there. I was nowhere near you."

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"I know." He brought his face closer to mine. When he spoke again, his voice was soft. "Vanessa, what happened last night ... wasn't just about last night."

I searched his face, torn between begging him to stop and wanting him to continue.

"For as long as your family's been coming to Winter Harbor, I couldn't wait to see you every summer. We could always talk for hours about books, movies, Justine and Caleb ... or we could talk about nothing. It was always easy, always comfortable, you know?"

I nodded. I'd often thought the same thing.

"But a few years ago, something changed." He looked at me. "Do you remember what we were supposed to do the night of your accident?"

"Of course. It was Thursday. Drive-in movie and ice-cream night."

"Right," he said. "Only you couldn't make it ... because you were in the hospital."

"Where you and Caleb came with your laptop and a pile of DVDs."

He lowered his eyes. "Do you remember what movie you watched that night?"

"Sleepless in Seattle
. Caleb allowed a romantic comedy due to my fragile condition."

"And I don't remember ... because I never knew. I didn't look at the laptop once because I couldn't look away from you. You and Justine were on the bed, with the computer on

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her lap, Caleb sat in a chair next to Justine, and--"

"You were on the window seat," I said. "On the other side of the room. You said you were hot and wanted to be near the AC vent."

"I wasn't hot. I was scared. I'd never been so scared in my life."

I tried to picture him, watching me for two hours from across the room. I'd welcomed the distraction from my thoughts about what had just happened and had been too engrossed in the movie to notice. "But I was fine ... they only kept me a few days for observation."

"Vanessa ... you were in the water for thirty-four minutes. You shouldn't have made it. And that night, I realized how lost I'd be if you hadn't."

I reached up to brush away the tear that fell to his cheek. He took my hand and leaned closer. I wanted him to kiss me. I wanted to believe what he said now and that what had happened between us wasn't a mistake. For a second, I thought he would, and that I could ... but then he pressed his lips to my forehead instead.

"I'm sorry," he whispered. "I'm so sorry Zara got to me. But that's what I knew that you didn't know. That's why I believe Oliver." He pulled back to look at me. "I'm not saying that's all there is to it. It doesn't explain the weather, or why they're doing what they're doing. And I'll do everything I can to find out more, until we know enough to stop them."

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The back door flung open before I could respond, letting in a gust of wind and rain.

"What is it?" Simon's expression hardened. "What did Jonathan say?"

Caleb sat in the backseat, chest heaving. His hair was plastered to his head, his clothes clung to his skin, and water dripped down his face, but he didn't seem to notice.

"Jonathan didn't say anything. No one's seen or heard from him in three days."