Emerge (20 page)

When the bell rings and we walk out of the classroom, I grab Clay’s arm with a trembling hand and pull him away from the crowds of students making their daily exodus through the double doors. I set my jaw and tell myself I have to do it. If I don’t, she will.

“Nautilus, what—”

I try to force myself to stop shaking. I lean up and, before I can talk myself out of it, I hum Clay’s song in his ear.

I can only manage a few bars before I choke on a sob, disgusted with myself.

But it’s enough. His worry lines smooth out, his face a blank canvas. I swallow. Now’s not the time for me to give into my emotions. I place my hands on either side of Clay’s face and look directly in his eyes.

“Clay, I need you to do something for me. I wouldn’t ask, but it’s important.”

“Anything,” he says, his voice a creepy monotone. It almost throws me, but I stand firm.

“I need you to … ” To what? If I tell him not to go to Melusine’s, she’ll just try this same stunt again tomorrow. “ … to go to Melusine’s house, but no matter what she does, tell her it’s over. Even if she sings to you.”

Talking to him when he’s like this is like talking to a zombie. I’m so scared he won’t understand. “Clay, are you listening?”

“Yes. I’ll go to Melusine’s house and tell her it’s over.”

“Even if she sings to you.”

“Even if she sings to me.”

“As soon as you leave, you should come straight to my house and tell me how it went. Okay?”

“Okay.”

I lower my hands and give Clay permission to go when he asks. I watch his retreating back and feel worse with every step he takes. Yesterday, when I sang to Clay, I hadn’t planned it or even thought it through—I had just wanted to save him. Sirening him yesterday had been an impulse. This, this was a choice.

I’m still questioning that choice hours later.

“What whirlpool are you spinning in?” Lazuli asks as she moves her carved ivory dolphin forward three spaces and clips it to the board. She’s beating me. Everyone is—even Em, who despite her skill in nearly every other area, fails miserably at
Spillu
.

I usually love to play. The board is beautiful, a family heirloom with spaces alternating between mother of pearl and the weathered wood of a sunken pirate ship. It’s one of the only pieces in our home that’s made from both Mer and human materials, not one or the other. The game requires focusing and thinking a step ahead of your opponent. But tonight, I have an opponent more real than my sisters. And all my thoughts are on Clay, who’s with her right now.

“I win!” Amy declares as she clips her onyx sea lion to the winning square. She stands and does a victory dance around the patio. Her stance is wobbly, but she stays upright and everyone applauds.

“Go, Aims! You’re gonna be hitting the mosh pit with me any day now,” Lapis says.

“I highly doubt that,” my mother calls from the pool.

“Dancing is so much more fun now that I have feet,” Amy says. My father abandons the shrimp grilling on the barbecue and spins her around the sunken outdoor fireplace.

They laugh, but their merriment sounds muted to me. Distant. Clay still hasn’t come. What if it didn’t work? The
konklilis
said if a person had been sirened once, humming the song would reinstate the spell … but what if it wasn’t enough? What if Melusine was able to regain control? She could be making him do anything right now.

I have to suppress a shudder. I should have taken him into a classroom or something and sung the whole song, just to be safe. But it was all I could do to get through a few hummed lines. Even doing that to him made me feel dirty. Now, I wish I’d had the nerve to do it all the way. What if my squeamishness is the reason Clay’s not safe tonight?

“How ’bout a dance, angelfish?” my father asks, offering his hand.

Before his words register, the security system buzzes. Someone’s at the front gate.

I pop up like a flying silver carp. “I’ll get it. It’s for me. A book. I left a book at Clay’s last week and I need it.”

My mother hurries to lift herself from the pool. “Aurelia,” she says sharply, “you should have mentioned that human boy was coming over. I’m in no state to—”

“He’s not coming in. He’s just dropping off a book. Promise!” I’m already heading toward the front door.

As soon as I’m outside, I run. The serenity of the warm evening with its light, jasmine-scented breeze is at odds with the anxiety roiling inside me. When I reach Clay, he could be back under Melusine’s power. Maybe she sent him here to rub her victory in my face. Maybe she sent him here to hurt me.

I stop in my tracks. The truth sinks in as a stitch blooms painfully in my side. This could be a trap. Clay’s stronger than me, much stronger. If Melusine commanded him to strangle me to death, I couldn’t do anything to stop him. I picture myself gasping for breath as I die under his squeezing hands. Hands that just yesterday held mine as we strolled together.

The darkness of the long driveway stretches out before me. I’m the one who ordered him to come talk to me. If he is still under my power, he’ll wait out here all night if I don’t go to him. My legs reach a decision before my brain does, and I run toward the gate again. The gate! That’s what I’ll do. I’ll keep the gate between us. Once I talk to Clay, I’ll know if—

But Clay isn’t there.

I should have checked the security camera. I’d waited for Clay for hours, and I wanted so badly to know he was okay. So, when I heard the buzz at the gate, I just assumed … But it’s not Clay.

It’s Melusine.

For one heart-stopping moment, I’m sure it’s her.

Then I get closer. While this girl also has a thin figure and shiny dark hair, she’s shorter and younger than Melusine.

“Staskia?” Amy talks about her antics incessantly, but it’s been a while since I’ve actually seen her best friend. Defined cheekbones have replaced the baby fat, but the freckles and bright eyes are the same.

“Hey, Lia! Is Aims around?”

“Sure. C’mon in.” I unlock the gate and usher her in, my heart rate returning to normal. I peer behind her into the darkness, hoping for a glimpse of Clay. No one’s there.

“Why’re you using this entrance?” I ask. Other Mer almost always swim to our house through the underwater tunnels.

“Practice,” she answers, lifting one leg a few inches and shaking it. An ankle bracelet jingles there, and several toe-rings decorate her flip-flop clad feet. I went through a toe-ring phase, too. I’d been so excited to have toes that all I’d wanted to do was show them off. “I was hoping Amy and I could take Barnacle out and practice walking.”

“She’ll love that,” I say. “Congrats on your legs, by the way. Amy told me the whole story.”

“Thanks! It was only mildly mortifying. You coming?” she asks as she starts up the driveway.

Something rustles near one of the brugmansia trees that line our outside wall.

“You go ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”

She walks up the winding path with slow, deliberate steps. Only once she’s out of sight do I risk whispering into the darkness. “Clay? Are you there?”

He steps into the pool of light near the gate. The dark shadows under his eyes make him look haggard. “I didn’t know if I was supposed to interrupt,” he says.

His voice lacks the zombie quality it gets right after he’s been sung to, but he sounds so confused that he must still be under the effects of sireny. At least that means he’s probably too out of it to wonder about the conversation he may have just overheard. The question is, whose sireny is he under—mine or Melusine’s?

I locked the gate after letting Staskia in, and I keep it locked now. I don’t want to think that Clay might be here to hurt me, but I have to.

“Clay,” I keep my voice calm, “did you go to Mel’s?”

“Yes. I just left.”

He looks so worn out. All I want to do is reach forward and comfort him. But I can’t. Not yet. It might not be safe.

“How do you feel?” Maybe asking him questions about himself will bring him back, like it did yesterday.

“Like my thoughts are … ” he concentrates, “muddled.” Then he locks eyes with me. “Like I want to touch you.” He moves his hand through the bars of the gate and takes mine. I should pull away. What if it’s a trap? But I don’t. It may just be a spell making him want to touch me, but what if he really needs the physical comfort? He’s been through enough—I can’t deny him. And I don’t want to.

I let him bring my hand to his chest, the bars of the gate pressing against my own. I can feel his heart beating under my palm. Steady. Rhythmic.

“What happened at Mel’s?”

“I told her we were over. Then I came here. Wait … ” He looks away, trying to piece together his thoughts. “Why did I come here? You asked me to, right?”

“Yeah. I thought you might need moral support,” I say, in case he remembers this conversation later. But he’s lost in thought again, trying to make his way through the fog.

“She kept me there for hours. She kept apologizing over and over. She even tried singing me her favorite song. It’s strange, I used to love that song. Every time she sang it, I’d think about how perfect she was for me, and how much I loved her. But I don’t love her. I don’t.” His tone is vehement. “This time when she sang, all I could think about … was you.”

It worked. My humming worked. Melusine tried to siren Clay back, and she failed. He came back to
me
.

He takes my hand, still clasped in his, and rests his cheek against it. He looks so tired. I thought that if I could just get Clay through this night, I’d be overjoyed. But I don’t feel joyful. I don’t feel victorious or powerful or even relieved. All I feel is guilty.

And I’m about to feel worse.

I lean forward, the metal bars cold against my face. If I don’t do this, he’ll be defenseless soon. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. Then, I sing.

She breezes through the halls like nothing’s changed. It makes my insides churn.

She can’t hurt Clay, she can’t hurt Clay, she can’t hurt Clay,
I repeat to myself like a mantra. In the parking lot first thing this morning, I hummed into Clay’s ear the second I saw him to make sure he’d be safe from her.

But I have no idea if
I’m
safe. Violent spells died out long ago, but then again, so did siren songs. As I walk from class to class, a constant sense of foreboding plagues me. I expect her to corner me any second.

By lunch, she still hasn’t spoken a word to me—or to Clay. In fact, she seems to be ignoring both of us. I want to find this comforting, like she’s acknowledging defeat and giving up. I want to, and I almost do. Then, right after the bell rings, something sends me reeling.

Melusine stands out in the courtyard, the sun shining off her ebony tresses. She lets out a girlish giggle as she strokes the arm of the person next to her. Jake. He’s a member of the water polo team, and he’s ridiculously attractive. From the way Melusine squeezes his arm muscle over the sleeve of his team jacket, it’s clear she thinks so, too.

I nearly collapse under the weight of my own stupidity. How could I be this dumb? I’ve been so busy worrying about Melusine re-sirening Clay that the obvious possibility never occurred to me. Instead of trying to get Clay back, she can just siren another unsuspecting victim to replace him. And it looks like that victim will be Jake. She takes a step closer to him, molding her body against the side of his, and he smiles, completely oblivious to the danger he’s in. Then, she glances over her shoulder, meets my eyes, and winks.