But when Gretchen turned to face Will, he barely recognized her. Her blue eyes burned red—completely red, with no whites. As Gretchen stalked toward them, the seekrieger holding Will shrieked, released her grip, and raced back into the water.
The seekriegers screeched and wailed. The water churned as they plunged below the surface. Gretchen strode into the water.
“No!” Will shouted. “Don’t go to them!” He reached for Gretchen, but she grabbed his hand in a grip that burned. Screaming, he writhed and tried to free himself from her grasp. But when he turned to flee, a body blocked his path.
“Will.” Tim looked down at him mournfully.
Will’s eyes snapped open, and he found himself in his room, beneath his familiar ancient quilt. For a moment he wondered why Guernsey—his old Labrador retriever—wasn’t curled up snoring at the end of his bed. Then Will remembered: Guernsey had been killed a few weeks ago. She had died trying to save him and Gretchen from a seekrieger—a bloodthirsty mermaid.
They had all nearly died. But then Gretchen had changed and—somehow—had set the bay on fire, killing the seekriegers. Even Asia, who—though a Siren—had been their friend.
Will’s mind swam with the memory of Gretchen that night—how her eyes had burned with red flame, how she had spoken to him in a strange voice. And then, once the seekriegers’ shrieks had died away, Gretchen had fainted, falling into the bay with a small splash. Gretchen had no memory of setting the fire. She didn’t know that she had, briefly, become someone—or something—else. And she didn’t know the truth about Asia.
These were secrets that Will was keeping.
He sighed, staring up at the ceiling, as the smell of eggs frying in a pan wafted up to him. His body was heavy; he wasn’t sure he could get out of bed, even if he wanted to. And he didn’t want to. Why should he? His brother had been killed in a boating accident the summer before. His dog was dead. And his best friend was … what?
A monster.
That word was ugly in his mind, but he couldn’t come up with anything else. Creature, perhaps. Being.
Will rolled over and pulled his quilt up to his shoulder. But his eyes were wide open—he wasn’t sleepy. A sound floated up to him dimly. It was a laugh. Gretchen’s laugh. The sound chilled him, but it also made it impossible for him to stay in bed.
Will tossed the covers aside and pressed his feet against the wide pine planks of the floor. It was cold. That wasn’t surprising, given that it was September. It could get quite chilly out on Long Island in the morning. Will yanked on a navy blue hoodie sweatshirt and staggered downstairs in his pajama bottoms.
Gretchen was facing away from him as he walked into the kitchen. She was seated at the wooden farm table, drinking coffee and eating eggs. Mr. Archer was standing beside the stove, spatula in hand.
“There you are,” he said as Will stepped through the doorway. “Go get us some wood, will you? Let’s get a fire started; it’s cold in here.” He reached over and expertly slipped the spatula under the eggs, flipping them with a flick of his wrist. Mr. Archer didn’t cook much, but eggs were his specialty.
Gretchen gave Will a smile. “Hey, sheetface.”
“Don’t call me sheetface,” Will replied automatically. This had been an in-joke with them since about sixth grade, when Gretchen had made an innocent reference to the fact that Will had creases smashed into his skin after sleeping facedown on a rumpled pillow. Tim had misheard it as profanity, and the whole thing had gotten them into trouble with their parents. “Are those eggs for me?” he asked his father.
“They could be, if you bring in that wood.”
Will slipped his feet into the heavy boots he kept by the door and yanked the hood over his head. He pulled three logs from the top of the pile in the backyard, then trudged inside and threw them into the woodstove. There were still enough orange embers—the wood would flare up in a matter of moments.
“Get that door closed behind you,” Mr. Archer told him.
“It’s not supposed to be cold,” Gretchen said as she polished off the eggs. “School doesn’t even start for another three days.”
“They got the new building done yet?” Mr. Archer asked, placing the second plate of eggs on the table.
Will shut the door and kicked off his boots. He sat down in front of the eggs and picked up a fork. “Not yet. Looks like we won’t have an auditorium until spring.”
“Government projects never finish on time.” This was Mr. Archer’s observation. He drained the rest of his coffee, then placed the mug on the counter. “I’ll see you kids later.” He strode out the door, letting in another blast of cool air.
Will looked up at Gretchen, who gave him a halfhearted smile. It was as if her cheerfulness had walked out the door with Mr. Archer. Her long blond hair was tied back in a ponytail, and wisps curled around her face. She looked disheveled in her running clothes. She was still beautiful, of course, but her usually restless body was subdued and still, and her skin seemed pale—like a piece of driftwood on the shore, bleached by sun and salt. “You okay?”
Gretchen shrugged. “Not looking forward to senior year.”
Will snorted. “God, who is?” He didn’t want to admit that he was. For the first time, Gretchen would be there. He’d have her for the whole year, not just the summer. He was surprised at the greediness of his friendship, the quickened pace of his heart when he thought about it.
“I’m not sure how I’m supposed to deal with something as … I don’t know, banal as school.” She put her fingers to her temples.
“Nice big word.” Will dipped a piece of wheat toast into the yolk, letting it ooze onto his plate.
“Yeah—which reminds me, I need to take the SAT soon.”
“Talk about banal.”
“Seriously.”
“It might be a relief, though. Give us something to do.”
Gretchen seemed to think this over. “I guess.”
“It’ll keep us off the streets.”
“Hopefully.”
Will could see her pulse throbbing at the place where the delicate skin of her neck met her collarbone. A sheen of sweat highlighted the elegant curve of her throat. But her arms rested listlessly against the table and her long fingers picked slowly, aimlessly, at her napkin. Her blue eyes, usually lit with fire, seemed almost blank. “You look tired.”
Gretchen smiled wryly. “Gee, thanks. You sure know how to make a girl feel special.”
Will ignored her sarcasm. “You okay? Been sleepwalking?”
“Not since the hospital.”
Gretchen had recovered in the hospital after that night when she had turned into that … thing. Will felt his chest tighten at the memory of Gretchen, how pale and young she had looked against the sterile white hospital sheets. He had been so scared—terrified of what might happen when she opened her eyes.
But then she woke up. And she had just been Gretchen. She hadn’t remembered anything.
“You don’t look too well yourself,” she said to him.
Will cleared his throat. “Must be a case of senioritis.”
“I hear that’s going around.”
Will nodded. The air felt heavy with all of the things he chose not to say. “It’s pretty serious,” he said.
“Mmm-hmm.”
He studied the blankness in her eyes again, and wondered suddenly if there were secrets she was keeping, too.
Another blast of cool air announced the arrival of Will’s uncle. “Hey!” Carl said as he stepped into the kitchen and tossed the newspaper onto the farm table. “Gretchen! Good to see you!” Carl leaned his beefy body to give Gretchen a warm hug. “Where’s Bert?” he asked Will.
“Out in the greenhouses, most likely,” Will said.
“You kids enjoying the scones?”
“World’s best,” Gretchen said brightly. Will smiled at her faintly, thinking how much she was like the moon—able to reflect the light cast on her by another source, but with a side always turned away, alw
ays hidden in shadow.
“Tell me about it!” Carl grabbed a currant scone from the plate on the counter, then took a bite out of it.
“Do you want some coffee?” Gretchen asked, just as if this were her house and not Will’s. “There’s still some in the pot.”
“No, thanks.” He took another bite of scone, then winked at Will. “I guess I’d better get moving.” He glanced at the paper, frowning slightly at the photo on the front page. The creases at the edges of his eyes deepened for a moment. But his expression changed so quickly that Will was hardly sure he’d seen it at all before it altered.
“I love your uncle—he’s so warm,” Gretchen observed as the door swung closed.
“He’s a good guy,” Will agreed, but he turned his eyes to look at the picture that had made his uncle frown. The front page had an article on the public beach closing for the season. The lifeguard chair sat empty, and off to the right, a lone person stood by the waves in a black T-shirt and jeans. “Your friend makes news again,” Will announced, holding up the paper for Gretchen to see.
Gretchen looked at the photo, and he was certain that she recognized the figure as easily as he had. It was Kirk Worstler, town enigma.
“He’s just going for a walk.” Gretchen stabbed at her eggs, spearing the last mouthful. “People do that in September.”
“It just seems … odd,” Will admitted. He thought about all the times he’d seen Kirk’s name in the newspaper over the summer in connection with strange actions: he’d broken into a church and played the organ, he’d set off the town alarm. “I guess everything he does seems odd to me.”
“He’s just a strange, sad kid, Will.” Gretchen looked at him from across the table, her eyes steady. “Don’t judge him.”
Will looked down at the table, still feeling her gaze. Don’t judge. But Will knew things about Kirk that Gretchen didn’t. Like that his family was connected to the Sirens—his ancestor had been rescued by Asia, but they had been tormented by hearing the Sirens’ songs ever since. This was another secret Will had kept.
Layers and layers of secrets, each like the skin of an onion. Peel one away, another is revealed. All part of the same whole.
After breakfast, Gretchen headed home to shower and change, and Will threw on his work clothes. He spent most of the day helping his father on the farm—feeding the chickens and picturesque sheep, harvesting late-season tomatoes and early squash, trimming the now-overgrown hedges at the corner of their property. In the late afternoon he took a break and borrowed his uncle Carl’s truck to pick up the lawn mower from the hardware store in town. The old riding mower broke down fairly regularly, but Will’s father was too cheap to get a new one, so he got a friend who worked at the hardware store to fix it.
Once he picked up the mower, Will decided to take a quick walk and look at the ocean. He found himself standing in the sand, watching as the sea beat its incessant rhythm against the shore. Will looked out past the waves to where the water was quiet, almost still. There was a silver flash, and a large gray and white gull dove for the fish that had just dared to break the surface. Soon a few more birds joined the other, and wide gray wings circled and dove, the gulls pecking at the school below the water. Will squinted in the afternoon light. The air was light and cool, and bore the fall smell of burning leaves. It was a beautiful day, but Will felt as if he carried his own darkness with him.
Even under the bright sky, the water was inky dark, and Will couldn’t help thinking about the lives it had claimed. His brother, Tim. Asia.
An image flashed in his mind—the first time he had seen Asia. The sky pelted the sea with rain, and the ocean raged beneath a storm, but she had walked straight into the water. Thinking he was preventing a suicide, Will had plunged in after her. But she had disappeared, the soft ropes of her black hair slipping beyond his fingers into the mysterious depths.
That was before he learned the truth about Asia—that she was a Siren, an immortal with a debt. She had to deliver someone to Calypso and her murderous band of seekriegers, who were bent on seeking bloody revenge on humanity. And the person Asia sought to deliver was Gretchen.
After centuries of living beneath the waves, Calypso could no longer fit in among humans. She could not find the Burning One herself, could not entice her to the water. Asia could.
But Asia had not been able to do it; she couldn’t deliver Gretchen. In fact, at the last moment, she had saved Gretchen from Calypso and her band. Will had never been sure why. He thought it was perhaps because Asia and Will shared a connection. Asia had lost a beloved sister. Will had lost a beloved brother. And Asia knew that Gretchen was like a sister to him. In the end, she simply wasn’t a murderer.
And so Asia went down into the sea, just as Tim had.
Will’s throat constricted as he thought of her crystalline green eyes. In a strange way, he had loved her. She knew what it was like to lose someone … to be haunted by that loss. He had been drawn to the mystery of her.
A renegade wave crept toward his foot, and Will stepped back just in time to avoid wetting his boot. He was dressed in a dirty old T-shirt and jeans that redefined filth. His hiking boots were covered in mud.
He looked out over the water again, sucking in a deep lungful of salty air. Though he knew the sea was treacherous, it still felt clean to him. He loved being here, even after all that had happened. But he had to get home. Will had to mow the front patch of lawn before the light disappeared, and—of course—his mother would pitch a fit if he wasn’t washed up in time for dinner.
Just as Will started away, something caught his eye. A movement. He turned back toward the sea. The fish must have moved on, because the gulls were nowhere in sight. The surface of the water was a fine blue line against the edge of the horizon.
And then he thought he saw it. Just for a moment—the half-moon shape of a head rising from the water. But before the face broke the surface, it disappeared again.
Will’s heart tightened, and—without thinking—he took a step forward, his boot splashing into the shallow water. The object appeared once again, and this time Will’s chest felt empty, hollow. It was a buoy. Just a buoy.
He put a hand to his forehead, feeling the smooth scar tissue that crossed his face beneath his palm. “It’s nothing,” he muttered to himself.
Then he turned and slogged through the sand back to the truck, wondering if he should have told Gretchen the truth about Asia when he had the chance. But it was so much easier not to.
His heart sank when he saw the bright orange paper peeping from beneath an ancient windshield wiper. “Oh, crap.”
Will sighed. He’d parked in a permit-only zone and had been fool enough to think that the town patrol wouldn’t check after the end of the summer season. They never wrote up his motorcycle when he parked it by the private beach. “Damn.”
His father was going to be furious now. He had warned Will a hundred times to be careful when he borrowed his uncle’s truck. A few years back, Carl had gotten a few serious traffic violations. They were still on his record, and another permit infraction could mean a suspended license. Will shook his head, already hearing the lecture his father was going to deliver when he got home. The unsaid implication was always Tim never would have let this happen, even though Will was the careful brother, the one who avoided trouble.
I’ll just have to go down to the station with Uncle Carl to get this sorted out, Will thought. He didn’t mind paying the ticket. It wasn’t that much money. He just didn’t want his uncle to suffer for his mistake.
It’s amazing how small decisions can have such huge consequences, Will mused. It was a lesson he learned over and over. The trouble was, you never knew in advance which decision would spark a backlash, or what the repercussion would be.
You never knew … until it was too late.
Chapter Three
From the Walfang Gazette
Boat Runs Aground in Fog
Heavy fog caused a local fishing boat, the Steely Joan,
to run aground, resulting in a great deal of damage to the hull. “I’ve been fishing these waters for twenty-seven years,” said Steely Joan captain John Wood, “and I’ve never seen fog conditions like this.” Local meteorologists are at a loss to explain what seems to be unusual weather for this time of year.…
“You’re looking tired,” Angel said as Gretchen reached for the platters laden with club sandwiches he had just placed in the window that separated the kitchen from the counter area at Bella’s Diner. “Why don’t you go on home?”
“Why does everyone keep saying that? I’m fine, Angel.”
“You’re pale. Like you’re gonna fall over or something.” He twitched his red mustache impatiently. “I don’t want to have to pay out workers’ compensation.”
Gretchen gave him a wry smile. “Thanks for caring,” she said. Weaving through the crowded diner, she hauled the platters over to table seventeen, a sullen mother-daughter pair. They looked almost identical, and Gretchen wondered how much of that was because of the identical expressions they wore. “Enjoy,” Gretchen said brightly, but the women didn’t even look up.
From the next table, Lisette gave Gretchen a wink with spidery fake eyelashes. The retro-punk head waitress had dyed her bangs purple and the rest of her hair black, and wore heavy navy eye shadow and diamond-studded cat’s-eye glasses. She looked more like a rock star than like a person who ran a diner with the precision of a general and the personality of a cheerful Muppet, but looks could be deceiving.
Gretchen grabbed a pitcher of ice water and refilled the glasses at table thirteen. She checked in on the group in the booth, and tore out a check for the couple finishing up at the two-top near the window. Her actions were mechanical, automatic. That was what she liked about her work—she had to keep moving, but she didn’t really have to think. Waitressing turned her into a robot, which was exactly what she wanted at that moment.
“Need a refill?” Gretchen asked, indicating the empty soda glass on the Formica table.
Kirk Worstler’s large, dark eyes were trained on the open notebook before him. It was your typical spiral-bound, college-ruled Walmart special, but Kirk was using it as a sketchbook. “No, thanks,” he whispered to the page. His arms were wrapped around the notebook in a protective posture.