Also by Lisa Papademetriou
Siren’s Storm
THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2012 by Lisa Papademetriou
Jacket photographs copyright © 2012 by Shutterstock
All rights reserved. Published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, an imprint of Random House Children’s Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Knopf, Borzoi Books, and the colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Papademetriou, Lisa.
Fury’s fire / Lisa Papademetriou. — 1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: The sequel to Siren’s Storm finds best friends Will and Gretchen still haunted by otherworldly goings-on in their beach town on Long Island.
eISBN: 978-0-375-89935-5
[1. Supernatural—Fiction. 2. Seaside resorts—Fiction. 3. Sirens (Mythology)— Fiction. 4. Love—Fiction. 5. Long Island (N.Y.)—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P1954Fu 2012
[Fic]—dc23
2012008218
Random House Children’s Books supports the First Amendment and celebrates the right to read.
v3.1
To Nick
Acknowledgments
I wish to offer my heartfelt thanks to Ellen Wittlinger, Liza Ketchum, Nancy Werlin, and Pat Collins for their help and, more important, their example. Jessica Bacal, Nerissa Nields, Katryna Nields, Rebecca Serlin, and Heather Abel are endlessly encouraging and understanding, which is just what every writer needs and deserves. I am grateful to my editor, Michele Burke, for her suggestions and insight, and to my agent, Rosemary Stimola, for her courage and nudging. Loving thanks to my husband for his endless enthusiasm and advice to “have fun” with my writing.
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Acknowledgments
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Epilogue
Chapter One
Ice begets ice and flame begets flame;
Those that go down never rise up again.
—Sailors’ proverb
An uneasy weight hung on Gretchen’s chest as she looked around the dim room. I was dreaming something—what was it? Gretchen’s mind cast about for a train of thought but clutched at emptiness. She couldn’t remember. She knew only that she was glad to be awake.
It was that moment before sunrise when the sky has begun to turn gray and the world is filled with shadows. The room was still, but the yellow curtains near her bureau fluttered slightly, and fear skittered down her spine with quick spider steps. “Who’s there?” Gretchen asked.
There was a sound like a sigh, and Gretchen’s chest tightened in fear. Something was there. By the window. A dark presence. She could almost make out the shape of a man behind the yellow cloth.
Her voice tightened in her throat; she couldn’t scream. Someone was in her room. Gretchen’s mind reeled, searching for an answer. It was Kirk. Crazy Kirk Worstler—the sophomore who babbled incoherently about seekriegers and angels—had come to kill her. He had stolen into her room once before, to give her a painting. It was a picture of mermaids, a coded message that only he could decipher.…
“Kirk?” she whispered. Her voice sounded loud in the still and silent room.
Gretchen sat up. “Kirk?” she said again. She blinked, and the light shifted. The dimness of the gray lifted, like fog burning away in the sun. Suddenly, everything looked different, and she could see clearly.
There was nothing there.
The curtains sagged, and Gretchen understood her mistake. The folds fell at odd angles, suggesting a human form. But the presence she sensed earlier had disappeared completely.
“Dream cobwebs,” Gretchen said aloud. That’s what her father, Johnny Ellis, called it when you woke up and still had traces of your nightmares clinging to your mind. She pushed back her covers and swung her legs over the side of her bed, and something tore at her ankle.
Gretchen screamed, jumping backward as her cat, Bananas, tumbled from beneath the bedskirt. The feline rolled onto her back playfully, then sat up and curled her tail around her feet, as if nothing had happened and she had no idea why Gretchen was acting so dramatic.
“Cat—” Gretchen started.
Bananas just looked at her, then nonchalantly began to groom her paw.
“Licking my flesh from your claws?” Gretchen asked, rubbing the scratch on her foot. It wasn’t bad, really, but it did itch. As if she was offended by the question, the orange and white cat turned and strutted out the half-open door.
As the striped tail disappeared, Gretchen again glanced toward the window. It was just a dream, she told herself.
The light shone through the curtains now, and she could see the shape of the tree beyond the window. There was nothing left of the dark presence … nothing but the feeling of dread that still sat in Gretchen’s chest.
Gretchen yanked off her nightgown and pulled on a pair of red running shorts. She tugged on her sports bra and then ducked into an ancient T-shirt advertising the Old Mill, a cafe in one of the neighboring towns. When she’d lived in Manhattan, Gretchen used to run along the reservoir in Central Park. It was near her Upper East Side apartment, and Gretchen enjoyed running beside the water … and the fact that an enormous chain-link fence surrounded the reservoir. She could see it, but she couldn’t fall in. Gretchen didn’t like water.
Gretchen had never run much at the summer house. There were no sidewalks along the street by her house, so it wasn’t really convenient. But now that she and her father were going to be living here full-time, she would have to find a way. Running was what kept her head clear in the cold months. And even though it was only the end of September, the mornings were already turning chilly.
“What are you doing here?” Gretchen asked as she tramped into the kitchen. Her father was sitting at the Formica table, sipping from a cup of coffee and halfheartedly skimming the New York Times.
“I live here, remember?” Johnny said. He smiled at her, but it was a smile like a heavy weight—as if it was an effort to make it happen.
“Don’t pretend like you’re some kind of early riser.” Gretchen reached for a banana. “It’s six-thirty.”
“Couldn’t sleep.”
Gretchen frowned. “That’s not good.”
Johnny shrugged. “It happens.” He took another long pull of coffee. “I’ll feel better once everything arrives.”
He meant the things from their Manhattan apartment. Once Johnny had given up the lease, it had taken only two hours for the building manager to find a new tenant. They had been replaced in true New Yor
k City style—immediately and without mercy. “When do the movers get here?” Gretchen asked.
“Tomorrow.”
Gretchen nodded. She would feel better once her things had arrived, too. Even though she would miss living in Manhattan, she was ready to close that chapter of her life, to write The End above it instead of having the pages go on and on with no clear purpose. Besides, she thought, we need the money.
When her mother had moved out, she had kept custody of most of the funds. Yvonne was an heiress and knew about investments; Johnny had never been in charge of the finances before. So, for a few years, things went on exactly as they had before: Manhattan private school, expensive rent for the apartment, trips abroad. Then, quite suddenly, Johnny realized that they were out of money. A few bad investments and several years of living beyond their means had left them in terrible debt. As a result, they were abandoning the apartment and living in what Gretchen liked to think of as “the ancestral home”—the old farmhouse her grandfather had bought more than half a century ago, which Johnny had inherited, and which he owned free and clear.
As if he were reading her thoughts about finances, Johnny leaned onto one hip and reached for his wallet. “Listen, I wanted to give you something so you could do some back-to-school shopping.…” He riffled through the bills, which were mostly ones, and pulled out a couple of twenties. Wincing, he held them out. “I know it’s not much.”
Gretchen didn’t reach for the cash. “It’s okay, Dad, I have a job, remember?”
“You’re not keeping that job, are you?”
“Sure. Why not?”
Johnny touched the lotus tattoo on his temple. “It’s your senior year, Gretchie. You need to keep your grades up.”
“They’ll stay up.”
“That’s the most important thing.”
“I know, Dad. But I’m going to need to have a job while I’m in college, right? I might as well get used to it.”
Johnny looked like he’d been slapped. “I guess I—”
“I didn’t—I didn’t mean that in a bad way.” Gretchen stumbled over her words. “I just meant—”
Johnny dropped the bills on the table. “No, you’re right.” He shook his head. “I’m sorry, Gretchen.”
She touched his shoulder. “It’s okay, Dad.”
He put his hand over hers but did not look at her. She gave him a playful poke on the shoulder, but he just sighed. “I never worried about money,” he admitted. “I guess I thought musicians weren’t supposed to care about it.”
Gretchen nodded, but she felt her thoughts clouding. The truth—if she dared tell it to herself—was that she was furious with her father for losing all of their money, for not taking care of things. She didn’t want to live on Long Island for her senior year. She didn’t want to switch schools. She didn’t want to stay near the bay, near the bad memories.…
But she also loved her father. And one of the things that she loved about him was that he didn’t care about money and things in the way that her mother did. Johnny loved people and he loved experiences. He didn’t care about cars or jewelry or the right crowd.
She gave him a quick kiss on his tattoo. “Love you.”
He looked up at her with his deep gray eyes. “I love you, too, sugar bunny.”
Gretchen laughed and tossed the banana peel into the trash. She waved over her shoulder as she headed out the door, her sneakers crunching the gravel still wet with dew.
Gretchen loped along the patchy grass by the side of the road, starting with an easy trot. She passed the falling-down potato barn, gray in the mist, that marked the point at which the Ellis land ended and the Archer farm began. Her muscles were tight, but each pace warmed her, loosening them. A light breeze swept the clammy air over her skin.
She heard a clatter and rumble behind her. Trucks often used this route as a cut-through to the highway. Gretchen moved to the right slightly and kept running. The engine hummed, picking up speed, and the tires crunched over the asphalt as the truck bore down on her.
Gretchen screeched and slammed her shoulder into a hedgerow as the black truck sped past, spewing dirt and rocks with its oversized tires. A chunk of gravel nicked Gretchen’s calf. She cursed and inspected the scratch. She would probably have a bruise later, but it wasn’t bad. Her heart hammered in her chest as she looked after the truck, which had already disappeared into the mist. She had thought of getting the license plate thirty seconds too late.
What would I have done, anyway? she wondered. Called the police? The driver didn’t see me in the fog.
Her legs felt weak as she crossed the street. For a moment she considered going back home. But she didn’t want to. Momentum carried her forward, and she gathered speed as she ran across the Archer property. She passed the blooming squash patch, the heavy yellow flowers bowing under the weight of the gathered mist. Here and there, pale orange butternut or fat red kuri squashes peeked out from wide green leaves. The squash patch was a long, slim strip—most of the summer people were gone by the end of September, and there wasn’t much of a market for winter squash. Still, some people bought the ornamental gourds and pumpkins. And there were enough gourmet cooks and local restaurants to make the delicatas and carnival squashes worth the ground they grew in.
Gretchen ran past dormant fields and into the small copse of trees. There was little mist here, although it was dark with shade. Still, Gretchen navigated her way easily. The Archer land was as familiar to her as her own, given that her two best childhood friends, Will and Tim, had grown up here.
Through the trees and out toward the sand. The muscles in her legs strained with the change in terrain as Gretchen ran along the mix of sand and rock. Mist hung over the water, and a single dark boulder jutted up through the blanket of fog like a grasping arm. The early-morning sun struggled to break through the clouds, managing only to send down a few pale bars that disappeared before reaching the earth.
Gretchen ran farther, then stopped to rest on a rock. It had been months since she had run, and—although her body felt good—she wasn’t used to it. Part of the mist had burned off, and she could see the dark green water, smooth as glass. There was no evidence of the minnows and crabs that lived there, and Gretchen imagined them still sleeping, dreaming their watery dreams.
She pulled at her shirt, which clung to her body with a mix of sweat and fog, and picked up a small stone. It was gray, with a white line through the center, smooth and oval. Tim had taught her how to skip a rock across the water ages ago, and she held it between thumb and forefinger and skimmed it out over the water. It bounced once, twice, three times, then hurled itself forward for the final time and landed with a plop.
“Tim could do seven,” Gretchen murmured, leaning back on her elbows. She pictured handsome ten-year-old Tim, grinning as his rock danced over the water. Poor Will. He could only send a rock bursting into the water like a cannonball.
Gretchen watched the rings spreading from the point of final impact. Pretty, Gretchen thought as the fog rolled back like a slow wave. A pale disk appeared at the place where Gretchen’s rock had pierced the water. Gretchen cocked her head, watching, as a sudden wind kicked up and a ring formed around the edge of the disk. It didn’t disappear. Instead, as the wind gusted, it grew darker. The center glowed golden in the early-morning light.
Like an eye, Gretchen thought. Her body felt cold suddenly, and she was aware of her damp shirt clinging to her skin.
Mist swirled around the dark ring, twisting upward, spouting an oval wall. It gained volume and grew, like a pillar, toward the dark cloud above. The cyclone writhed, and slithered slowly toward her.
Gretchen sat perfectly still, hypnotized by the waterspout. It moved slowly at first, then more quickly. Suddenly her mind snapped back to reality, and she struggled to her feet. She stumbled backward, fell, the rock tearing into her flesh at the same point where the gravel spewed by the truck had hit her. Her hair blew around her face as the wind shrieked like a screaming ghoul.
The waterspout reached toward her, and for a moment Gretchen thought she saw a woman’s face—hideous and terrible—in the writhing core. Gleaming golden eyes glared at her with a look of intense hate as air blasted her hair like a wild, cold breath of some ferocious, devouring animal. Gretchen screamed and tried to struggle away as the waterspout moved toward her. But as it reached the edge of the water, it dissipated into the air as suddenly as it had appeared.
Gretchen froze, staring in disbelief. She was so focused on the emptiness before her that she shrieked when a hand clutched her arm.
“Easy,” said a voice.
Gretchen looked up into the face of Bertrand Archer—Will’s dad. His brow was wrinkled with concern as his warm brown eyes looked down at her. “They can’t do much once they reach land.”
“You saw it?” That was a relief. At least she hadn’t been hallucinating.
“Waterspouts—not that uncommon around here. Seen ’em a few times.”
Mr. Archer let go of her arm, and she realized she was shaking. So did he, apparently, because he caught hold of it again. For a moment he said nothing, just looked at her with eyes that were like Will’s in shape, but totally different in expression. Mr. Archer was a tall man who liked to joke and laugh with customers, but he was often awkward—almost severe—with Gretchen. “Strange weather.”
Gretchen nodded.
“Maybe it’s not a good idea to be out by the water like this. Tell you what—why don’t you come on home with me? I’m sure Evelyn’s cooked up something for breakfast.”
The thought of the Archers’ cozy yellow kitchen calmed her. “Yes, thank you.”
Mr. Archer gave a curt nod and turned. Gretchen followed him.
But she couldn’t help casting a final glance over her shoulder.
The surface of the water was smooth as glass again, hiding the dreams and intent of the creatures that lay beneath.
Chapter Two
“Run!” Will cried, urging Gretchen to her feet.