All the commotion had alerted Becky, and both she and Harper tried to talk Nathalie down, but it was no use. Within only a few minutes, Nathalie had destroyed the room, and now she collapsed amid the mess.

Her knees were underneath her, her head slumped against the floor. Harper knelt next to her. Cautiously, she put her hand on her mother’s back and slowly began to rub it.

“It’s going to be okay,” Harper told her softly.

Nathalie peered up at her and brushed her hair from her eyes. “Harper?”

Harper smiled down at her and tried to blink back the tears in her own eyes. “Yeah, Mom, it’s me.”

“I don’t feel very well. I think I should go lie down.”

“That sounds like a very good idea,” Harper agreed.

After Harper helped Nathalie to her room, she covered her up and made sure she was comfortable. Becky came in with pills and a glass of water, and Nathalie took them without argument. Her outburst seemed to have exhausted her.

Harper bent down, kissed her mom on the cheek, and started to leave. “I love you, Mom. I’ll see you later.”

“Harper.” Nathalie looked back at her, and Harper paused in the doorway. “Remember to wash it away. Promise me that you’ll remember.”

“I will, Mom.”

She closed the bedroom door behind her, then went straight to the bathroom. Leaning against the sink, Harper began to sob. As quietly as she could, she let herself once again mourn her mother. On days like this, it felt like she’d lost Nathalie all over again.

When she’d cried long enough, Harper splashed cold water on her face, washing away the salt and smeared eyeliner. Then she dug in her purse and reapplied her makeup until she once again looked like a normal college girl and not someone whose life was falling apart.

TWENTY-FOUR

Blood & Water

The scroll lay on the kitchen table, weighted down with coffee grounds and a two-liter bottle of cola to keep from rolling up. Any fluid that Gemma could find in the fridge, she’d tried on it, before moving on to cleaning supplies. Now chicken broth and bleach sat puddled together on the papyrus, and the iridescent ink glowed dully through the liquid, taunting her.

With her arms crossed over her chest, Gemma bounced on the balls of her feet, as if that would somehow knock an idea free, and she’d realize how to break the stupid curse.

She kept thinking back to the night she had become a siren, certain that there must be some sort of clue there. Gemma had been in the bay, enjoying a night swim, and the sirens had been dancing around a fire in the cove.

This was before Gemma knew what they really were, and Lexi sang to her, calling to her. When she swam toward them, the siren song blocked out all fear and reason, and her body moved on its own.

When Gemma reached the shore, Lexi held out her hand and pulled her to her feet.

Penn had been dancing with a shawl around her. It was made of some kind of gauzy gold material, and she placed it over Gemma’s shoulders. “Here. To keep you warm.”

Then Lexi had put an arm around her, and at her touch the hairs on the back of Gemma’s neck stood up. Instinctively, Gemma pulled away, but then Lexi began singing again, and the siren song trapped her there.

“Come join us.” Penn had kept her eyes on Gemma and stepped backwards, toward the fire.

Lexi reached into the front of her dress and pulled out a small copper flask. “Let’s have a drink.”

“Sorry, I don’t drink.”

“Gemma,” Lexi said, her voice a song again. She held out the flask, but Gemma hesitated. “Drink.”

Then Gemma didn’t seem to have a choice. She couldn’t even consider refusing. Her hands moved on their own, taking the flask from Lexi, unscrewing the top, and putting it to her lips. It seemed involuntary, like breathing.

The liquid was thick, and it tasted bitter and salty on her tongue. It burned going down her throat. It felt too heavy and hot to swallow, and she gagged.

Much later, Penn would tell her what the liquid had really been made of—blood of a siren, blood of a mortal, and blood of the sea. When Gemma had found out, she’d nearly thrown up.

The cove had seemed to pitch to the side after she’d managed to swallow the mixture, and Gemma grabbed on to Lexi to keep from falling. Everything was swayed. She tried to stand up and nearly tipped forward into the fire, but Penn caught her, and then the world faded to black.

After she’d passed out, Penn had wrapped her in the shawl completely and then tossed her into the ocean. If the curse worked, Gemma would awaken as a siren the next morning. And if it didn’t, she would drown.

Fortunately—or unfortunately, depending on how she looked at it—the curse had worked, and Gemma had woken up on the rocky shore a siren.

“What am I missing?” Gemma whispered to herself now in her kitchen. “There has to be something that made the curse that will also help break it.” Then it hit her. “Blood.”

The instant she said it, she was reminded of a text that Harper had sent her on Monday after she’d visited with her professor. He hadn’t been able to translate much of the scroll, and he wasn’t certain about what little he had. But a phrase he’d guessed at stood out.

“The blood can’t become water,” she recited, repeating what Harper had messaged her.

When she’d woken up this morning, Gemma had run down to the bay and filled up a jar with saltwater from the ocean. She’d tried it on the scroll, and other than glowing a little, nothing much had happened, and the mason jar sat on the kitchen table, still half full of seawater.