Watersong03 - Tidal Read online

  “That’s how it was written,” Harper said. “It’s a dead language.”

  “How do you know it?” Gemma asked.

  “I don’t know it. Like, I have no idea what any of this is saying. I kind of recognize some of the symbols.” Harper ran her hand along the page. “I took an elective last year, Advanced Languages of the World. I thought the Latin part would help me with medical terminology.”

  “So then … that doesn’t say anything about sirens?” Marcy asked.

  “Probably not, but this is really old,” Harper said and carefully put the book back on the shelf. “You can’t just go pick that up at a garage sale or any old used book store.”

  “I told you this wasn’t any old used book store,” Marcy said.

  “Many of the books I get come from private dealers who wish to remain anonymous,” came a voice from behind them, and Harper whirled around to see a petite woman walking down the aisle toward them.

  She looked to be in her mid-twenties, with black hair kept in a short pixie cut, which suited her, since she reminded Harper of a pixie. Her dark brown eyes appeared almost too large for her face, especially considering how delicate her features were. Her clothes were pastel and chiffon, looking much less goth than Harper had imagined the owner of this establishment would look.

  “Hey, Lydia,” Marcy said, her voice the same monotone it always was, so Harper couldn’t really tell how happy she was to see her friend. “These are the people I was telling you about, Harper and Gemma.”

  “You must be the siren,” Lydia said, instantly focusing her attention on Gemma.

  TEN

  Cherry Lane

  “Um…” Gemma appeared unsure how to reply to that and looked embarrassed. “Yeah, I guess. I am.”

  “Cool.” Lydia smiled widely. “I’ve never met a siren before.”

  “Well, here I am.” Gemma shrugged.

  Lydia bit her lip and her eyes sparkled. “You wouldn’t want to sing for me, would you?”

  “No, that’s not a good idea,” Harper answered quickly.

  “Yeah, it’s not really safe,” Gemma agreed. “It can get out of hand.”

  “I understand. I know it’s extremely dangerous.” Lydia waved her hand. “I shouldn’t have asked anyway. You’d think I’d have learned my lesson after the werewolf.”

  She pulled back her shirt to reveal her slender shoulder. A red scar in the shape of a large dog bite wrapped around it. Harper was content to look at it from where she stood, but both Gemma and Marcy leaned in to get a better look.

  “Cool,” Marcy said.

  “So does that mean you’re a werewolf now?” Gemma asked after Lydia had pulled her shirt back up.

  “Yeah, I’m all, like, rawr.” Lydia made her hands into fake claws and pretended to growl, but she started laughing almost instantly, a light tinkling sound that reminded Harper of wind chimes. “No, no, that’s not how werewolves work. It’s a whole different process.”

  “Really?” Gemma asked. “How does one become a werewolf?”

  “Well, it’s, like—” Lydia started to explain, but then she saw Harper’s annoyed expression and stopped. “Sorry. You guys didn’t come here to talk about werewolves, did you?”

  “I didn’t come here for that, but I kinda want to talk about it now that you brought it up,” Gemma said, her tone getting a touch sulky because she knew Harper didn’t approve of that as a conversation topic.

  “You’re not missing much,” Marcy said. “Werewolves are boring.”

  Lydia leaned forward and lowered her voice, like she was telling them a secret. “They kinda are.”

  “See?” Marcy asked.

  “Anyway, you’re sick of being a siren and want to break the curse. Did I get that right?” Lydia asked. “Or did one of you want to become a siren?”

  “No, no, no,” Harper said and waved her hands. “No more sirens. None.”

  “Yeah, we definitely want to break the curse,” Gemma said. “And not have more sirens. In fact, if we can find a way to kill the sirens that already exist, that’d be great.”

  “You don’t know how to kill the sirens?” Lydia raised an eyebrow. “So you don’t know how you can die?”

  “I know some ways,” Gemma said. “But I don’t know how I can be murdered.”

  Lydia crossed her arms over her chest and leaned back, studying Gemma. She did it for so long that Gemma became uncomfortable and began to squirm.

  “That leaves you vulnerable to attack, doesn’t it?” Lydia asked.

  “Yeah, it does,” Gemma said.

  “We hadn’t thought of that before, but thank you for putting it in my head now,” Harper muttered.

  “Do you know how to kill sirens?” Gemma asked.

  “Unfortunately, no, I don’t.” Lydia looked genuinely sad and shook her head. “If I’m being honest with you now, I don’t know very much about sirens at all.”

  “Well, what do you know?” Gemma asked.

  “That you can sing the most captivating song and enchant sailors, but I’m assuming it extends to all people and not just those that operate ships,” Lydia said.

  “That’s accurate,” Harper said. She leaned against the bookcase, watching Lydia as she talked.

  “And that sirens can transform into either mermaids or birds, depending on what I read.”

  “Both, actually,” Gemma said.

  Lydia’s eyes widened. “You can do both? Wow.” She laughed again and clapped her hands together. “That’s amazing. That has to be so exciting.”

  “It does have its downsides, though,” Gemma said, refusing to get caught up in Lydia’s exuberance.

  “Oh, you mean the cannibal part?” Lydia wrinkled her nose. “That would be disgusting.”

  Harper looked over at her sister, and Gemma swallowed hard and lowered her eyes. Based on the fact that the sirens had torn apart Bernie McAllister and Alex’s friend Luke, Harper had figured that the sirens were eating at least some of them.

  Plus, she’d read about the cannibalism in the mythology books. Gemma hadn’t mentioned it, though, so Harper never brought it up. She didn’t think Gemma had hurt anybody. Gemma would do whatever she needed to do to survive, but not at the expense of somebody else.

  “Yeah, that would be the part I’m avoiding,” Gemma said quietly.

  “I don’t mean to be mean, but if you don’t know that much about sirens, how can you help us?” Harper asked.

  “I don’t know how much I can personally help you, but I might be able to direct you towards some information,” Lydia said.

  “Where?” Harper asked.

  “Well. Okay.” Lydia held her hands up. “Let me explain first. Back in the day, there were all these powerful, magical beings that roamed the earth freely.

  “The population of regular mortals—like you and me”—Lydia gestured between herself and Harper—“expanded more rapidly than that of these other beings. I’m guessing it’s for the same reason that ants multiply at much faster rates than blue whales. We were small and expendable, bottom of the food chain. We died all the time.

  “Many of these other beings were immortal—or at least appeared that way to humans,” Lydia went on. “In fact, your average human began naming these more powerful beings, and oftentimes those names included terms like ‘gods’ or ‘goddesses.’”

  Lydia waved her hands. “Anyway, humans had a way of annoying these so-called deities. So the gods and goddesses would do things like trick them or curse them. But in order to make a curse real and take effect, the terms of the curse have to be written down.”

  “The terms of a curse?” Gemma asked.

  “Yeah, kinda like when you lease a car or click the box ‘yes’ to agree to the terms of service on iTunes,” Lydia explained. “In order for it to be valid, there has to be a contract.”

  “So you’re saying that somewhere, the specifics of the siren curse are written?” Gemma asked.

  “Right, it would have everything spelled out,” Ly
dia said. “Like what a siren can and can’t do, how to kill a siren, and how to break the curse. You know what? I’ll show you one.”

  Lydia slid in between Gemma and Harper and went farther down the aisle. In lieu of a ladder, Lydia apparently preferred to climb up the bookcase, using the shelves as rungs.

  “Do you need help?” Harper offered, since she was at least half a foot taller than Lydia.

  “Don’t worry,” Lydia replied cheerfully. “I got it.”

  Lydia grabbed something from the top shelf, then dropped to the floor. She held up a thin, battered book. The cover had completely fallen off, and it was held together by a rubber band wrapped around it.

  “This is the one for Dracul, and it lays out the vampire curse,” Lydia said as she took off the rubber band and opened it.

  Harper leaned over to get a look. The pages were falling out, and the lettering had faded so much it was all but illegible. It was written in a cursive that Harper didn’t understand but there were a few pictures alongside it, showing a stake through the heart.

  “I can’t read it,” Gemma said.

  “Of course you can’t. It’s in Romanian,” Lydia said. “But vampires aren’t your problem, are they?”

  “No,” Gemma said, sounding somewhat dejected.

  “Good. Then you don’t need to read it,” Lydia said and flipped through the book.

  “Who wrote this?” Harper asked and pointed to the faded pages.

  “This exact one here, I don’t know.” Lydia shook her head. “But the original curse was crafted by Horace, I think, because this Vlad dude really pissed him off, apparently.”

  “So this tells you how to break the curse?” Harper asked.

  “Well, no.” Lydia closed the book and turned around to face Harper, Gemma, and Marcy. “There is no way to break the vampire’s curse, except by killing them.”

  “Wait, wait. But you said in order for the curse to work, it has to be written down somewhere?” Harper asked.

  Lydia nodded. “Right.”

  “Then why don’t vampires just destroy this book?” Harper asked. “There would be no more curse.”

  “Okay, first of all, every vampire over about a hundred years old would turn to dust if the curse was suddenly lifted,” Lydia explained. “The curse extended their natural life, and without the curse, they should all be dead many years over.

  “And second, if you destroy this book, it won’t matter, because there’s at least a dozen more books out there just like it,” she finished.

  Harper considered this, then asked, “What if you destroyed all the books?”

  “You can’t,” Lydia said. “You could probably destroy most of them, but the original one, the one that Horace wrote the curse on, he would put it on something indestructible, because he wouldn’t want his curse to go away that easily.”

  “Something indestructible?” Gemma asked. “Like what? A stone tablet?”

  “No. Stone can still be shattered, crushed up into powder,” Lydia said. “It would be anything that he’s given indestructible properties.”

  “So … magic paper?” Harper asked.

  Lydia shot her a look. “If you want to oversimplify, then yes, magic paper.”

  “Why isn’t that written on magic paper?” Gemma pointed to the vampire book Lydia was holding.

  “It doesn’t need to be, because the original is kept somewhere safe,” Lydia said. “When you look at more common curses, like vampires and zombies, or like really common, more basic spells, like turning someone into a toad—”

  “Okay, yeah, we’ll say everyone knows that,” Harper muttered.

  “It’s in about a thousand grimoires,” Lydia said. “Somewhere there is a master grimoire, and all the spells and curses are written down on ‘magic paper.’ But the more specific the curse, the fewer copies there are.”

  “So when talking about something like a siren, how many copies do you think there are?” Harper asked.

  “Considering there can never be more than four sirens in existence at any given time?” Lydia asked. “I’d guess there’s only one copy.”

  Gemma sighed. “And you wouldn’t happen to have it, would you?”

  “No, I don’t. But I can make a guess who does.” Lydia smiled brightly. “Them.”

  “You think the sirens have it?” Harper asked.

  “Of course. My understanding is that the sirens are relatively hard to kill. They wouldn’t want the instructions on how to destroy them just floating around. I’m sure the head siren has it.”

  “But they’re partially aquatic,” Gemma pointed out. “They move through the water. How could they carry paper with them without it being destroyed?”

  “It’s ‘magic paper,’ remember?” Lydia said. “It’s been granted properties that make it indestructible—meaning it can’t be destroyed, not by water or fire or nuclear holocaust.”

  “Have you seen Penn with any kind of book?” Harper asked Gemma.

  “No, I don’t think so.” Gemma furrowed her brow. “When I moved with them before, Lexi carried a large bag with her, but I never saw what was inside it.”

  “It’s probably not a book,” Lydia said. “I mean, the sirens are from Greece? Talking the second or third century? I’m thinking you’re looking for a scroll, probably made from papyrus.”

  “So what you’re saying is that we need to find a scroll made of magic papyrus, written in ancient Greek, that may or may not be in the possession of a bloodthirsty siren that does not want us to find it?” Harper asked dryly.

  “I never said bloodthirsty. Are they bloodthirsty?” This seemed to excite Lydia, for some reason. “Wow. That’s crazy. I always thought sirens would be nice.”

  “They’re not,” Harper said.

  “Even if we do find it, there might not be a way to break the curse,” Gemma pointed out. “Like the vampire curse, there’s no way out except death.”

  “That’s true. That is a possibility,” Lydia said.

  “What if we destroyed the scroll? Would that undo the curse?” Harper asked.

  “Theoretically, yes,” Lydia said cautiously. “But you won’t be able to.”

  “I can try,” Harper insisted.

  “Yes, you can try,” Lydia agreed with some reluctance. “But many people have tried over the last … well, since the beginning of time. And almost nobody ever has.”

  “Almost nobody,” Harper said. “So somebody has?”

  “There’re always exceptions to the rule,” Lydia said. “But I have no idea how they did it, or how you can destroy this one.”

  “Is there anything more you can tell us about the sirens?” Gemma asked.

  “Not offhand, no. But I’ll keep my eyes open for anything,” Lydia said.

  “Thanks, Lydia,” Marcy said. “You’ve been a big help.”

  “Yes, thank you very much.” Harper smiled gratefully at her. “We really appreciate it.”

  “No problem.” She smiled. “Stop by anytime. Any of you.”

  “Thanks,” Gemma said, but she sounded much more deflated than she had before they arrived.

  “Oh, hey, Marcy,” Lydia said as she walked them to the door. “If your uncle gets any more pictures of the Loch Ness Monster, be sure to send them my way.”

  “I will,” Marcy promised, and then they stepped outside.

  After the darkness of the shop, the sunlight felt almost too bright. The heat was also a bit shocking. Harper hadn’t realized how cold it had been inside the bookstore until she felt the warmth outside.

  “How do you know Lydia?” Harper asked Marcy.

  Marcy shrugged. “I just know people.”

  Once they were in the car, Harper let out a long breath. She wasn’t exactly sure how she felt after that visit, but at least they had a course of action. They were looking for something specific. They could find it. They could solve the curse. Ending this whole siren business felt like a real possibility for the first time in a while.

  “That went pret
ty good, I think,” Harper said.

  “I guess,” Gemma said from the backseat, but she sounded awfully sullen.

  “Is something the matter?” Harper turned around to look at her.

  “No, everything’s fine. The watersong is getting to me, I think,” Gemma said, but she just stared vacantly out the window.

  ELEVEN

  1741, Marseilles

  In the mansion in the south of France, Thea lay in bed long after her handmaidens had come in and opened her curtains. Sunlight spilled in through the large windows of her bedroom, but she lay curled among the blankets.

  “Thea?” Aggie asked, and without waiting for a response, she threw open the large bedroom doors, causing them to slam against the wall.

  Thea ignored her sister and pulled the covers over her head, burying herself.

  “Thea, you’ve been in bed all day, and you stayed in bed all day the day before that, and the day before that,” Aggie said.

  The bed moved as Aggie climbed into it, crawling over to where Thea lay in the center, and she pulled back the covers. Aggie stared down at her, her warm chestnut eyes filled with concern, and she sighed loudly.

  Aggie was fully dressed in a luscious pink gown adorned with lace and fabric shaped into flowers. Despite her attire, she hadn’t put on a wig, so her long brown waves cascaded down to her shoulders.

  “Are you sick?” Aggie asked.

  “Of course I’m not sick,” Thea said with a voice like silk. She rolled onto her back so she could stare up at the ceiling instead of at her sister. “We’re incapable of falling ill.”

  “Then why are you lying in bed all day?” Aggie asked. “There must be something the matter with you.”

  Thea didn’t have a very good answer for that. For the past five weeks they’d been living with a duke in the south of France. Everyone assumed that Thea and the other three sirens were his courtesans, and they let them think that. It was easier than explaining what they really were.

  Since they’d come here, Thea had slowly begun to lose interest in all the things she used to love doing. Even swimming with her sisters was losing its appeal. The only thing she really wanted to do anymore was lie in her bed.