Ripple

Chapter Five

I swam all night, but my stomach still churns as I walk into the doors at school, zipping up my fleece jacket as though somehow it will protect me from what’s to come. Getting through today will be a gauntlet.

We’re two weeks into the school year, now, which means one thing: it’s my birthday. It should be a happy day. For any other person in this school, it would be. But my birthday will forever mark the anniversary of Steven’s death; and no one is going to let me forget it. The police may have cleared my name, but to everyone else, I was found guilty. Forever and always, the one who stole Steven from their lives.

I tip my chin up, square my shoulders, and try to walk to my locker as if I don’t notice the watchful eyes of my classmates.

An underclassman, oblivious to the tension in the hall, walks by me, his eyes sweeping over me in an appreciative, almost lustful way before he catches my glare and turns away.

A group of people, Sienna and her boyfriend Patrick, plus Nikki and Kristi, stand together not far from my locker. They lounge around a big bay window, officially reserved for seniors. Unofficially, it’s for top tier seniors, and that means it belongs to them. Why did I have to be cursed with a locker so close to their stomping grounds?

I turn to my locker, concentrating on keeping my hand from shaking so much they’ll see it. I screw up the combination the first time and have to start over. I can feel their eyes on my back, watching me. My chest tightens and it seems harder to breathe.

Finally, I hit the last digit and pop the door open.

Sand spills out in a wave, piling up at my feet. My books, my papers, everything is filled with grit.

I whirl around, wondering which of my classmates is to blame. Sienna’s closer than before, her hand on her hip. She’s wearing a kneelength black skirt and one of Steven’s old T-shirts, the one he used to wear at least once a week. I haven’t seen that shirt since last year. Since my seventeenth birthday. I wonder what else of his she’s kept.

My chest rises and falls rapidly, and I’m so close to losing it I want to just leave everything like this and run.

“Happy birthday,” she says, her voice trembling.

I blink.

There’s no anger to her words.

I clench my hands, desperate to hold it together. “How long are you going to do this?”

She tilts her head to the side and the light streaming in from their window catches the tears shimmering in her eyes. “Until I get my brother back.”

She spins around and walks away. I want to scream at her that I want him back as much as she does, that I never wanted to kill him and she doesn’t have to keep doing this to me, but I swallow the words.

One by one, the crowd disperses. I turn back to my locker, slam it shut, and stalk off in the opposite direction.

Happy birthday to me.

When I walk in the door at home, my gram is in her recliner, but her eyes are shut, and the steady sawing of her snoring fills the living room. I pause in the faded hardwood entry and watch her, my hands still gripping my heavy backpack.

Her gray hair is rumpled, her matching pink sweats and sweatshirt a little wrinkled, but she’s never looked more serene. I wish I could look that peaceful. Every limb, every muscle is relaxed.

I turn away and go to the kitchen, flinging open a few cupboards. Dinner. It will occupy my hands and my mind. I survey the options for a long moment, my arms crossed. I’m not in the mood to cook anything elaborate. I only want to get the meal over with, smile in a convincing way, and retreat to my room to wait out the hours until dusk. I grab beans, corn, some dry noodles, and stewed tomatoes. I’ll throw it all together with a little bit of frozen vegetables and call it soup. Gram loves soup.

I fill a pot with water and set it on the stove, twisting the dial to high. As I pull a ladle out of the drawer, a flash of pink catches my eye. I smile as big as I can manage at my grandmother as she shuffles toward me, hoping to hide the strain of my day at school.

“Lexi, honey, I didn’t hear you come in.”

“You were sleeping, Gram.”

She frowns. “You shouldn’t have to cook dinner on your birthday.”

“I know, but I like cooking.” I dump the noodles into the pot and then turn back to look at her. “It’s okay, really. You can sit down. It’ll be ready in twenty minutes.”

She shuffles away from me down the hall, her slippers swishing on the hardwood. I watch her until the bright pink disappears.

I twist back around and reach for the can opener, humming to myself as I open up the tomatoes and dump them into the pot. Everything about school sucks, but I find comfort in the normalcy of being at home. It’s so different from my intense, supernatural problems. When I’m here, I don’t have to watch my back.

I find the Italian seasoning jar in the cupboard and pour a bunch in. Then I lean a hip against the counter as I watch the soup come to a boil.

The shuffling returns. My grandmother’s face is hidden by a big box wrapped in plain brown paper. Her wrinkled, veiny hands grip it tightly.

My mouth goes dry. “I thought we agreed no gifts,” I say. I refuse to take anything but the gas money I so desperately need.

“This isn’t from me,” she says, placing it on the counter.

When I see the handwriting on the top, my mouth goes dry.

“It’s from your mother. She gave it to me before . . .” Her voice trails off, and then she clears her throat. “She wanted me to give it to you.”

I frown. “You’ve kept this for six years?”

“I was afraid it would upset you too much to have her old things. But you’re an adult now. If you want to see them, they’re yours.”

“Oh.” I stare at the package.

She puts a hand on mine. “I’ll finish up this soup. Why don’t you go to your room and open it in private?”

This time I don’t resist. I take the package and retreat to my room, closing the door behind me with a quiet click.

Six years, my grandmother has kept this.

I perch at the edge of my bed, on top of my mom’s old flowery comforter. It seems like a lifetime ago that I lived with her in a rental house on the other side of town.

I stare at the box for several long seconds. I’m afraid to discover what’s inside. What if it’s something stupid, like a jewelry box or stuffed teddy bear?

What I need is answers, something that tells me what I’m supposed to do, how I’m supposed to fix the lives I’ve ruined.

I reach out and tear the paper off. My heart beats louder in my ears. The box is heavy as I rip open the lid and reach in. My fingers find a scrap of paper, and I pull it out, unfolding it as I take in a long breath.

For my daughter, on her sixteenth birthday.

My only regret is not being here for you today when you need me. I hope this will help you understand what is to come.

I don’t realize I’m crying until a dark splotch appears on the paper. It was supposed to be for my sixteenth birthday. The day everything changed. Did my grandmother know that and forget? Or did my mother not make it clear?

I read the note again.

My mom knew. She knew she was going to leave me, and she wrote this note, four years before I was supposed to read it.

Did she write it before or after she killed Greg?

I reach in and touch something hard and leathery, and as I pull it out, I realize it’s a book. A very old book.

My fingers trail over the dry, fading surface as I pull it onto my lap, the dust covering my jeans. It must be ancient. As I lift open the cover, the spine cracks.

The first aged, yellowed page is nearly blank, except for three words written in stark, perfect calligraphy:

For the cursed.

I take in a jagged breath of air, then slide my finger over the page and flip it over.

January 7, 1750

William doesn’t belong with Julia. Their betrothal is a business arrangement, nothing more. Now that he is in love with me, he wants to marry me, and not her. He has promised me he will end their engagement.

I suppose she does not care much what he wants, for it is William’s title she is after, and she will fight for that if he tries to jilt her. I hope he remains strong.

Tonight, when he dared dance with me at the Harksbury ball, I saw it in her eyes. I knew before the song was over that I had committed a sin. Afterward, I stood by, humiliated, as he lied to soothe her. He told her he was only being polite. Told her no one had asked me to dance and so, as a gentleman, he had asked me.

A pity dance.

And yet still she seethed, and I knew something had shifted between us.

She will do anything to have him, anything to become a duchess. That is why we must elope. Will has asked me to wait one month, and then he will be mine, and only mine.

Charlotte

January 18, 1750

I am terrified. Julia knows. She knows everything. She found me packing my bags, and she confronted me. She thinks just because I am her paid companion that she can control everything about me, but she cannot decide who I will love.

She told me I was a fool to believe him. She told me he compromised her and is duty bound to marry her. Her words left a dull ache in my chest. She must be lying. It is I who has been compromised. But I am little more than a servant. He cannot be forced to marry me. For the first time, I am not sure I have done the right thing these last months.

But I must trust in him. He loves me. He will honor all of his whispered promises. There is nothing I can do but believe in it for it is too late to go back and undo the things I have done.

Charlotte

February 7, 1750

Will was supposed to arrive last night to take me away. I sat on an overturned bucket behind the stables for three hours, shivering against the cold, and yet he did not arrive. I had to beg a groom to saddle a horse so that I could go to his estate. And yet it was useless because they said he has gone hunting up north with friends. How could he do such a thing at a time like this?

I was forced to go back home, but Julia soon discovered where I had gone. She came at me in a rage, and if not for her father’s valet, I might very well have been injured. Her father dismissed me not an hour later without references.

This afternoon, I stood on the stoop awaiting the carriage that would take me away from the only home I have known these last two years, when Julia positively flew up the drive on horseback, her hair undone and streaming behind her. I had never seen her so unkempt, and the look in her eyes was enough to put my stomach in knots.

She leapt from her horse and threw something at me. Some shimmery, dusty powder, which sent me into a coughing fit. It still burns in my lungs as I write this, miles away at a shabby inn.

It was a gypsy curse, she claimed. Her eyes were wide and frightening as she told me I would be as lonely and miserable as she was then. That I would pay for trying to steal her betrothed. I tried to tell her it was he who pursued me, but she would have none of it.

I have little to my name, but so long as Will keeps his promises to me, all will be right.

Charlotte

February 15, 1750

I have been unable to find Will. He has been away from his home for more than a week. I have rented a small room over a tavern, as it was all I could afford. I am but a few miles from Will’s home, just down the coast, near the Exmoor Cliffs. I had originally planned to travel inland, but I could not bear to leave the sea behind. Odd, as I had always loathed the smell of the salt in the air.

Charlotte

The lump in my throat grows. This is it. This is how it all started. Two hundred and fifty years ago. My fingers tremble as they slide across the curled yellow paper. I flip the page.

March 21, 1750

I found myself in the sea last night, swimming for no reason at all. I am lucky I did not drown for I have never learned how to swim. I want to go home, but I do not have a home anymore, and I must remember that.

I think I may be with child, and I do not know what to do. I have sent two letters for Will, but he has not answered. I suspect Julia is somehow intercepting my correspondence.

Charlotte

March 30, 1750

I cannot stay here any longer as I am nearly out of funds and I will be thrown out on the street soon. I must travel south to find my cousin and pray that she will take me in.

But I will not leave just yet. I cannot bear to go without seeing Will again. I am going to Varmoth Manor one last time in the hopes that he has returned.

I must know if he will truly marry Julia as the papers say.

Charlotte

April 2, 1750

He is dead. I’ve done something terrible. I do not understand what has happened to me, but I must flee.

Julia did something to me. I should have known by the crazed look of her she was desperate, that she’d done something so much worse than I had believed.

I must find her immediately. Before I am hanged for murder. I am but a servant and he a duke. They will not rest until they uncover the truth.

Until they uncover me.

Charlotte

I flip the page, but there are no more entries in Charlotte’s dark, angled cursive. I flip back and forth a few times, trying to figure out what happened.

The next dates are from late 1766. These entries are written in a different handwriting, lighter, curlier than Charlotte’s. I turn back to her entries and do the math.

Sixteen years. There’s a sixteen year gap. I hold my breath as my eyes scan the first entry.

It’s Charlotte’s daughter. Will’s daughter. Cursed to the same fate. My chest tightens and I stop midsentence. I flip several pages, until I spot a new script. This time, it’s eighteen years later. A new girl. Same story. She recaps the last couple of years on the first page. She tells about the first one she killed.

I flip back a few pages. Why did Charlotte stop writing? Did she die, or simply pass the book along to her daughter?

My fingers flip faster and faster as the writing changes again and again and again. I can’t bear to read the stories, not today. I expect they’ll all be painfully familiar.

Just as I am about to slam the book shut, I glimpse the final set of entries.

My mother’s handwriting stares back at me.

The entry isn’t dated on top, like the others, but rather scribbled to the side, as if done in haste. It’s over sixteen years old. I wasn’t even two yet when she wrote it.

I jerk back. It’s the year my father left us. It’s hard to breathe over the lump in my throat as I take in the words on the page.

I told him the truth. I thought that he loved me, that he would stay. If not for me, then for Lexi. But he couldn’t stand the sight of me once he learned what I am. He was gone within hours, while she still slept. He never even told her good-bye.

I blink. My father. She’s talking about my father.

I’ll never show someone my true nature again. This is pain like I’ve never felt. Rejection.

I grind my teeth hard in a desperate attempt to keep the tears at bay. The page is ripped on three of the four edges, as if it had once been longer, but this is all she was willing to save. All she was willing to share for all eternity, with the other girls who would eventually read the book.

I flip the page.

I’ve done the one thing I thought I’d never do .

I’ve killed.

I didn’t know Greg had followed me. I didn’t know he was there, in the shadows, as I stepped into the ocean.

It doesn’t matter how it happened, all that matters is he’s gone. And I’m the one who killed him. It was nearly impossible to let go of his hand, even after it grew cold. I left him there at the edge of the tides for someone else to find.

This pain hurts more than anything I could have imagined, far more than mere rejection. It is impossible to live with.

I want to be there for Lexi, but I can’t go on. I’m no stronger than the others who came before me. I’ll never be happy because I’ll always be a siren.

Lexi, when you read this, please know that my only regret is leaving you.

I sob, a great, choking thing that racks my shoulders. Collapsing into a ball, I push the book off me. It hits the floor with a loud thunk.

I suppose I knew all along my mother killed herself, but seeing it like this, so black and white, is devastating. It was her decision to tie that cinder block to her feet, to leap from the pier.

And hers is the same pain that I live with every day.

What if I’d had this book two years ago? Would I have gone swimming with Steven? I’d like to think no. Never. But I’m not sure if that’s true.

For two hundred and fifty years, every generation gave birth to another girl like me. And every girl lured another man to his death. It was inevitable, my killing Steven.

I know what I am now, what I’ll always be—a siren.

I clutch my knees to my chest and sob even harder, hoping my grandmother can’t hear me.