175634.fb2 Sirens Storm - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 12

Sirens Storm - читать онлайн бесплатно полную версию книги . Страница 12

Chapter Ten

Seekrieger Chantey (Traditional)

Death is like a river,

And rivers are our home.

Home, home!

Yes, death is like the river

Styx, flowing over bone.

We flow just like the water,

And fall just like a wave.

Wave, wave! Yes, we flow like water,

And bring you to your grave.

As slowly dripping water

Can wear away a stone,

Stone, stone!

Seekriegers wait a thousand years,

And take men, one by one.

When Gretchen stepped outside that night, there was a figure on her doorstep. She took a quick step backward in surprise and fear-for a moment, she didn’t recognize the broad, square shoulders, the shaggy, shoulder-length hair streaked with blond. She realized who it was a moment before he turned to look at her. In profile, she could see the boy he used to be-the long, straight nose, peeling slightly with the usual summer burn, the fine, high slant of a cheekbone, the familiar denim blue of his eye. And then she saw his full face, which had grown chiseled and taut over the past year, and the familiar scar that tore from forehead to cheekbone. Gretchen realized that Will was taller than she was, even though he was standing a step below her.

He held her eyes for a moment, and Gretchen dared to imagine that he was thinking the same thoughts she was. And then he opened his lips and said, “What do you know about mermaids?”

The question was so unexpected-so far from her own thoughts-that it rocketed her back to the present with the speed and weight of a falling meteor. It crashed into her mind, and she laughed. “Da seaweed is always greenah,” Gretchen sang in a Jamaican accent, just like the spunky crab in the Disney movie, “in somebody else’s lake. You t’ink about goin’ up dere, but-”

“I’m serious.” Will’s face was unusually stony, and the words withered on Gretchen’s lips.

“You’re serious?” she repeated. She wanted to add, About mermaids? but Will’s expression was grave.

“Have you ever heard any local stories?”

“Local? No.” She shook her head. “No…”

“You just thought of something.” Will stepped up to the porch. He looked down at her. “What?”

“Stop reading my mind.” A flash of annoyance shot through Gretchen.

“It’s not your mind I can read-it’s your face.” He put a warm hand on her shoulder. “Please tell me.”

“Well, they aren’t exactly mermaid tales. But I was just remembering the stories Sally used to tell.” Sally had been Gretchen’s nanny when she was young. She was a local woman whose family had lived in Walfang for generations.

“Sally.” Will nodded, remembering. “Is that why you were always afraid of the bay?”

Gretchen shrugged. “Probably.”

“Okay. So tell me.”

“She just never wanted me to go down to the water, that’s all. She claimed the sea witch could get me.”

“What sea witch?”

“She would drag children to her undersea cave. Sally used to say that the witch could control the weather and waves, and she’d get angry and irritable when the days got shorter, at the end of the summer. Anyway, I always thought she was just making it up to scare me, so that we wouldn’t have to go down to the beach. Sally never liked going to the beach over here. She’d never take me swimming in the bay.” Gretchen remembered how Sally’s wrinkled face would set into a firm mask of resistance at the mention of the bay. She would drive twenty minutes to take Gretchen to the public beach, but she would not take her down to water that was only a five-minute walk away. Sally had dark skin and a heart-shaped face with pronounced cheekbones. Her eyes were almond shaped and dark under thick brows. But she had frosted blond hair streaked with gray, which she wore in a long braid down her back. She had been adamant about the dangers from the witch. “Deadly Sea Woman,” Sally had called her.

Will seemed to absorb this. “Can I talk to her?”

“I think she moved away. To live with her daughter in Georgia, or someplace. I have no idea where she is.”

“Can I borrow your computer?”

“Sure.”

They walked into the living room, where Johnny was plucking a melody on his guitar. It was almost as old as he was-Johnny always composed on the very first guitar he’d ever owned. He never used it for concerts, but he considered it his “creative machine.”

Will waved and Johnny nodded, but he didn’t put down the guitar or give any other acknowledgment that he’d seen Will. He simply went on, playing the melody in his head, filling the house with eerie music. A strange look crossed Will’s face then, and Gretchen wished that she could read his expression as easily as he seemed to read hers.

Gretchen led the way up to her room. It was just the usual chaos-rumpled white quilt halfheartedly straightened across the bed, books and magazines everywhere, a sketchbook open on the floor revealing a study of a wing with hyperarticulated feathers and musculature. And beside it, a painting. Maybe he won’t notice, Gretchen thought.

“Where did you get that?” Will asked instantly.

Gretchen felt her face turn red. “It appeared.”

“It appeared?”

“Seriously, Will, it just turned up on my bed yesterday.”

“You have to call the police.”

“Won’t the Miller think I stole it?”

Will thought a moment. “I’ll call Angus,” he said. “His uncle Barry can get this sorted out.”

Gretchen nodded. “Would you?” She cast a wary glance at the painting. “The thing gives me the creeps. Who would leave it here? And why?”

“Maybe it’s some sort of message,” Will said slowly.

Gretchen grimaced. “Next time, they can just shoot me a text.”

“I’ll call Angus later,” Will promised. Gretchen flopped onto the bed and watched as Will settled into the chair and the screen leaped to life.

Immediately the chat she’d been having online with her mother appeared. Will’s hand paused over the mouse, and she knew that he’d spotted it. But he didn’t mention it. Instead, he started typing into a search engine. He came up with several pages on sea witches and Long Island.

“What are you finding?”

Will scanned a page. “Not much more than what you told me,” he admitted. “Sea Woman,” he added, half to himself. “She was a giant.” He shrugged. “Not too helpful.”

Gretchen tucked her legs beneath her and leaned against a pillow. “Why do you want to know all of this?”

Will turned to look at her. “How’s your sleepwalking?”

“It’s okay. I mean, I’m still doing it. Dad has to lock me in at night, which is really annoying. But yesterday I woke up curled up at the foot of the door, so I guess it’s a good idea.” She gave a little laugh.

“How do you get out?”

“I call Dad on his cell phone. Wake him up, usually. Then he sets me free.”

“What would you do if there was a fire?”

“Die, I guess.”

“At least you have a plan.”

“I could climb out the window.” There was a maple tree that grew close to the house. The branches were near enough to the window that Gretchen could climb down it if she needed to. In fact, she had done that once or twice. Not that she’d ever had much need to sneak out of the house with her father as her primary caretaker. Gretchen could simply stroll out the front door whenever she felt like it. But when her mother had been living with them, it was a different story.

Guitar notes wafted up to them. It was a sad melody, slow and strangely familiar. Gretchen hummed along, her eyes half closed.

After a moment, she became aware that Will was watching her. “What?”

“You know the tune?”

“I guess.”

“Isn’t Johnny making it up?”

Gretchen realized that she had no explanation for this. “Maybe it sounds like something else.”

“Maybe,” Will said. But he had a look on his face that Gretchen knew well. It was the same look he wore when he had something to say but wasn’t saying it. “Maybe, but maybe not-right?”

“Stop reading my mind.”

“It’s your face I’m reading.”

Will smiled a dry little smile and stood up. “I’ve got to get going.”

“Where?”

“Downtown.”

“Just wait a few minutes,” Gretchen said as she slid her feet into a pair of flip-flops. “I’ll come with you.”

Will didn’t really want her with him. He needed to talk to Asia, not Gretchen. But how was he supposed to say no? He was starting to worry about Gretchen. The sleepwalking wasn’t a good sign. And he didn’t know what to make of the correspondence he’d seen between Gretchen and her mother. Gretchen’s mother lived in France and they didn’t talk much. Will remembered her. She was petite, almost child-sized, with blond hair and very fine features. She was slender and had an elegant bearing. She never wore fancy clothes or even makeup, but a beautiful smell always hung around her, which Will realized now must have been expensive perfume. She was not a warm person, and Will had always been half afraid of her, even though she had never spoken a sharp word to him.

One summer, Gretchen and Johnny had come out during August. Yvonne wasn’t with them. When Will asked where Gretchen’s mother was, she replied in the sagacious way of an eleven-year-old, “She doesn’t live with us anymore.” As if she were a stray cat that had moved on. Gretchen had hardly ever mentioned Yvonne after that. Sometimes Will even forgot that Gretchen had a mother at all.

“Why are we here?” Gretchen asked as she parked the Gremlin in front of the upscale vintage store that sold ostrich leather boots for $300 and hand-beaded gowns for close to $1,000. For used clothes! Will couldn’t believe it the first time he’d gone in there. The prices had appalled him. It was closed now, the usual porch display gathered up and dragged inside to keep thieves from stealing the valuable cast-offs.

“We’re here because I need to talk to somebody.”

“Somebody specific? Or just anybody?”

“Somebody specific.”

“Somebody we might find at a diner?”

Will looked at her sharply. Gretchen had turned to face him. She was leaning back against the car door in an elaborately casual pose, as if she were seated in a comfortable easy chair. Yet her body looked tense.

“What makes you say that?” Will asked.

“I don’t know. But I’m right-right?”

“Yeah, I need to talk to Asia.”

“Why?”

Will sighed. “I’m not really sure yet.” He yanked the door handle and stepped out onto the brick walkway. Gretchen scrambled after him, and they started up the street toward the diner. When they turned the corner, they found a very weird scene. There was a crowd clustered in front of Sebastian’s, an upscale bar. For a moment Will assumed that everyone was there for the club scene, but then he realized that they weren’t gathered outside the door. They were gathered near the curb. And they were looking up-into a large purple-leafed maple at the curb, illuminated in an eerie glow by the light of a street lamp.

“Oh, Jesus,” Gretchen breathed. “It’s that crazy kid.”

A branch shook, and Will spotted Kirk clinging to the trunk with one arm and gesturing wildly with the other. “We’re all born angels!” Kirk cried as they stepped forward. “But we lose the wings. We lose the wings, and how can we fly when we don’t know our own depths?” Suddenly his eyes lit on Gretchen. “Did you get the picture? Did you see it?”

Will looked at Gretchen, who was standing stock-still.

“Did you see the truth in it? You can hear them, too. I know you’re one who can hear them as well as I can.” Kirk’s eyes were wild, and for a moment Will feared that he might leap out of the tree, like an animal. He put a protective arm around Gretchen, and Kirk let out a scream. “Don’t touch her!”

A siren wailed as Will steered Gretchen away from the scene. A police car pulled up, casting red and blue shadows across faces. A uniformed officer stepped out of the car, along with Kirk’s sister, Adelaide. She was a stern-faced young woman with the perfectly coiffed hair of a professional stylist. Adelaide looked like she wanted to apologize to everyone personally and then go home and quietly die of shame. Will cast a sympathetic look over his shoulder. Kirk was shouting something else about angels now, and his voice had reached a fevered pitch. Will felt as if something had crawled into his stomach and was hastily constructing a nest there. He felt sick and shaky. What’s happening to that kid?

Will could feel Gretchen trembling beneath his arm. “What was he talking about?” Will asked.

“I have no idea,” Gretchen said. She had always been the world’s worst liar, but Will didn’t press her. “I’m going in here,” she announced suddenly as they neared a candy store. “I need some chocolate.” She took the top step and looked back over her shoulder, long blond hair flying. “You coming?”

“I’ll wait out here,” Will said.

Gretchen disappeared inside, and Will leaned against the glass. He folded his arms across his chest and settled in for a long wait. Gretchen could be a bit of a candy freak, and she liked to get one each of many different kinds. She always took her time selecting things, and it drove Will crazy. Besides, candy on an empty stomach would make him sick. He was already feeling pretty borderline.

And that was when he spotted her. Asia was across the street, watching Adelaide coax Kirk down from the tree. He stepped forward to say her name, but she noticed him then. She turned and began walking away.

“Hey,” Will called as he jogged after her. “Hey!”

Asia stopped, but she didn’t turn around. Will caught up to her. He looked deeply into her eyes for a long moment. She cocked her head.

“What are you looking for?” Asia asked.

“What are you?”

She scoffed. “What do you think I am?” Her voice was a challenge.

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out.”

Asia pushed past him. He hesitated. That conversation hadn’t gone according to plan. He knew that he wasn’t handling this situation properly, but he had no idea how he was supposed to be handling it. He wasn’t even sure what the situation was. “Asia, wait.” Will reached out and grabbed her arm, and it sent a shock wave up his arm. He cried out in pain.

Asia stood stock-still as Will gaped at her.

“I’m sorry,” she said at last. She reached out for him, but he drew back from her touch. “It won’t hurt,” she promised, and she gave his arm a brisk massage. Slowly it came back to life.

“What the hell was that?”

“It’s just something I can do… when I feel threatened. I don’t always do it on purpose.”

“Like an electric eel or something?”

Asia sighed. “Will, I have a great deal to explain to you,” she said.

“Um, yeah,” Will agreed. “Look, I know you’re a mermaid… seekrieger… thing, so why don’t you just tell me what’s going on? All I want is a little clarity.”

She laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“Nothing’s funny,” she said at last. “Nothing.”

Will waited as she stared at the stars overhead.

“I have a story to tell you,” Asia said at last. Her voice was like a thin vapor, a fine mist dissolving on the air. “It’s a long story.”

“Will it clear anything up? Or will it just leave my head feeling like it’s going to explode?”

“Both, maybe,” Asia admitted.

Will touched her hair, brushing it away from her face. It trailed over his fingers like black ink.

“Just tell me.”

“Yes, but not here,” she said. “Then where?”

“Meet me at the library tomorrow morning.”

“I can’t. I have to go to work.”

“Then meet me there tomorrow evening. Six?”

“Okay, but you’ll be there, right? I don’t want you ditching me.”

Laughter sparkled in her eyes. “You haven’t figured it out yet?”

“What?”

“I’m not like you humans, Will. I can’t lie. That’s why I don’t talk very much.” She stood and brushed the sand from her long maroon dress. “You’ll hear the truth, but I can’t promise that you’ll like it.”

The next morning, Will and his father ate breakfast in their usual tense silence. When Mr. Archer was finished, he took his plate to the sink and headed toward the door. He nearly ran into Angus, who was on his way up the steps. “Hey, Mr. Archer.”

Will’s father nodded at him and kept walking.

“Wow, your dad’s cheery this morning,” Angus said as he scrambled inside and stuffed his long legs under the table in the seat next to Will’s. “Dude, are you going to finish that?” He pointed to Will’s scone.

“Yes.”

Unfazed, Angus plucked the remnants of Will’s father’s toast from his plate and started smearing pear jam on it. “Your mom makes the best stuff.”

“Why are you here?”

“What’s wrong with everyone this morning?” Angus demanded. “What happened to ‘Hey, Angus, great to see you’?”

“Great to see you. Why are you here?”

“Something freaky happened. I kind of wanted to tell Gretchen, but I’m not sure how.”

“What?”

“You remember Jason Detenber?”

“That asshole,” Will said.

“Don’t say that too loud,” Angus advised.

“Why not?”

“He’s dead.”

“What?” Will felt sick. His throat constricted, making it hard to breathe.

“Well, he’s disappeared,” Angus admitted. “My guess is he’s fish food.”

“What makes you say that?”

“Remember that white jacket he had? I saw it at the police station. Only it wasn’t too white anymore, if you know what I mean.” He lifted his eyebrows meaningfully at Will. “It was in an evidence bag. But nobody was saying anything. Not anything. I mean, guys who can’t help talking were suddenly like clams. They didn’t even want to say hi to me. I think my uncle scared them silent. But Jason’s family is rich. The truth is going to have to come out, sooner or later.”

The image of Jason and Asia on the bridge flashed into Will’s mind. The way he had moved toward her threateningly. The way she’d twisted backward and flipped into the water. Jason’s horror. Asia’s watchful face, her eyes upturned from the water. Had she marked Jason for death at that very moment? Had he sealed his own fate, like the sailors in the journal?

But Will didn’t say any of this to Angus.

“Gretchen’s gonna freak,” Angus noted.

“Yeah,” Will agreed.

“You wanna tell her?” Angus asked hopefully.

The knot in Will’s stomach tightened at the thought of facing Gretchen with news like that. “No, I really don’t,” he admitted.

“But you will,” Angus said.

“Do I have a choice?”

“You’re a good man,” Angus told him.

“Not really.”

Angus sighed. “Okay. I mean, maybe he’s okay. It’s not like anyone really knows what happened, right?”

Just one person, Will thought. But what he said was, “Right.”

“Oh, hey-and guess who’s in rehab?” Angus tipped back in his chair, stretching his long legs under the table.

“Is this person a celebrity?”

“Just a local one. Kirk Worstler.”

“Seriously? Where’d they get the money?”

“Word is Adelaide finally called the grandparents. They’ve got him locked up in some fancy place in Hampton Bays.” Angus stood up and helped himself to some fresh coffee.

“Listen, speaking of Kirk, it seems that he left a gift in Gretchen’s room.” Will explained about the painting.

“Oh, shit. Okay, I’ll call Uncle Barry. He’ll get it taken care of.” Angus shook his head. “That poor kid. I’ll bet the Miller won’t even press charges.”

“Thanks, man. I owe you.”

Angus held out his fist for a pound. “We gotta stick together.”

“Sure.”

“Sure? Just-you know, ‘sure’? Man, how about some enthusiasm?”

Will managed a smile. “We gotta stick together,” he said.

When Johnny came to the door, he told Will that Gretchen was upstairs in her room and said Will should head on up. Will took the steps slowly, dreading the moment when he would have to deliver the news. But when he pushed her door open gently, he saw that the room was empty. The normal chaos was unusually tidy-the bed was made and the large painting was spread out over it. Will stared down at the image of the fierce bird-women on the rocks in the distance. Their expression made his heart splutter, starting and stopping in frantic motion. He completely understood why it gave Gretchen the creeps. He wondered what Kirk had been thinking when he left it for her. He was glad the kid was finally in rehab. For Kirk’s own safety-and everyone else’s.

A movement caught Will’s eye, and he looked out of Gretchen’s window. There was the green bluff, and beyond it, the blue-gray sea. A figure in green stood at the edge of the bluff, long blond hair sweeping down her back. Gretchen was looking out to sea like a sailor’s wife, waiting for her husband’s safe return.

Will hurried down the stairs and out the door. His legs ached as he climbed the bluff. A lonely seagull cried overhead. Finally Gretchen came into view, and Will slowed as he got near her. He didn’t want to frighten her.

Gretchen didn’t turn around. “Jason’s dead,” she said. Her voice was heavy, and it was weary.

“How did you-?”

“Do you think that there’s anything to what Kirk was saying?” Gretchen asked. She gazed out at the distant horizon, a faraway look on her face. “About angels?”

“I don’t know,” Will admitted.

“I wonder what it’s like.”

“What?”

“Being dead.”

Will shrugged. “It’s like being asleep.”

“Sleep without dreams.” A gentle breeze lifted a lock of her hair. She had added colorful strands to the blond. With the blue and green streaks, she looked like a storybook mermaid.

“Yeah.”

“How do you know?” Gretchen asked.

“I don’t. It’s just what I think.”

“I don’t think that’s what it’s like,” Gretchen said. She seemed on the verge of saying something else, as if the words were like bits of mist assembling into clouds in her mind. There was a long beat of silence as Will waited for her to go on. “Sometimes I think I can hear them,” she said at last.

“Dead people?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Will studied her profile, noticing the dark circles under her eyes, how pale her skin seemed beneath the light kiss of sun across her nose. He’d always thought of her as walking sunshine, but now the light within her seemed dim. Very dim. “Have you been sleeping?” he asked her.

She laughed, and the sound was brittle on the wind. “Stupid,” she muttered.

“What?”

“Forget it.”

“No, wait-what did I say? What was stupid?”

“Not you, me,” Gretchen snapped. “I should have known.”

“Known what?”

“Known that if I told you the truth, you’d think I was nuts.” Gretchen narrowed her eyes at him.

“I don’t think you’re nuts,” Will told her. He reached out and pressed her hand. Her skin was soft beneath his own.

She looked down at their intertwined fingers. Her hair hung over her face, half obscuring it.

“I’m just afraid,” Will said.

Gretchen’s eyes met his. It was strange to see that gaze, at once so familiar and so unfamiliar. There were flecks of green in those blue eyes. It was as if you could see the whole world in Gretchen’s irises. Will wondered if he’d ever noticed that before.

He didn’t remember.

She placed her cheek against his chest, as if she was listening to the beat of his heart. Will placed an awkward arm around her shoulder, wondering what to say, what to do. “I’m afraid, too,” Gretchen told him.

“Jason might be okay. Just because they haven’t found a body-”

“They never found Tim’s body.”

Will was rocked with the truth of this. He was speechless.

Gretchen pulled back to look up into his face. “I-I’m sorry,” she sputtered. “I don’t know what’s wrong with-”

“No-” He held up his hand. “It’s true. Sometimes, I think part of me is still waiting for him to come back.”

“We could wait forever.”

“I know.”

They stood there like that for a while, both staring out over the water, flat as a blank page. “It’s so strange,” Gretchen said after a moment. “I was sleepwalking again last night. Here. At the edge of the water. Do you think that means something?”

“Out here? I thought Johnny was locking you in.”

“I must have climbed down the maple tree,” Gretchen said.

“So what are you going to do? Nail the window shut?” Will was kidding, but Gretchen didn’t laugh.

She shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“Gretchen,” Will said slowly, “who told you about Jason?”

“Asia did.”

“She did? She called?”

“She came by.”

“Is she still here?”

Gretchen’s eyes filled with tears, which mystified Will. “I-I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I just need to ask her-”

Gretchen shook her head. “It’s okay.” She ran her fingers along the rims of her eyes, then wiped the tears on her loose green jersey dress. “Sorry. I’m just… everything is making me cry today.” Tears welled in her eyes again, and Will pulled her into a hug.

“We’re going to get through this,” Will said.

Gretchen nodded her head against his chest. “I know,” she said. “I just wish I knew what was on the other side.”