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With a quick dash to our dorm door, I poked my head in to hear McKenzie talking to someone. She sounded nervous and was speaking even faster than usual, which is pretty hard to do. A voice I didn’t expect made me gasp and my stomach dropped as I realized who she was talking to. My mom.
5
Siren's Call
Katrina
“Mom?” I stuttered, glancing at McKenzie who looked just as confused as I felt. “What’re you doing here?”
My mother turned to me, a strange smoothness in her movements. She smoothed her shoulder-length hair back behind her ears with both hands. “I told you, sweetie, I wanted to come visit you and see this little coastal town of yours.”
“B…but that wasn’t supposed to be now! Did you drive here? Does Dad know you’re gone?” My panic came out in a string of questions. I was screaming inside. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—ruin my plans to rescue Milo. I had to get her back home somehow.
“He knows,” she said simply. “He actually decided to visit his family, too, so he’s gone away for a few days. It was perfect timing. Your friend here was just showing me around the dorm. These are so nice! It’s not often you get your own bedroom in a shared space like this.”
I shot McKenzie a look meant to press her for an explanation, but she just shrugged with a wide-eyed panicked gesture. My dad gone to visit family? Why didn’t he mention anything about that on the phone? It all seemed too random to believe, but I would’ve heard from him by now if he really didn’t know about Mom being here.
“Yeah, it’s really great, Mom. But listen, today is our first day of classes. You really should come back when we’re not in school.” I touched her shoulder, trying to gently usher her in the direction of the door.
“Now, Katrina, you wouldn’t be trying to get rid of me? After I came all this way just to show you how proud of you I am.” Something in her words hung in the air a bit too long. An eerie softness that reeked of familiar manipulation. Had she gone back to drinking? No, no, I didn’t believe so. It sounded different than when she was drunk. It almost reminded me of…
A rush of icy chill spread through my body as I realized just what was off about the way she spoke. It sounded way too much like Cordelia at the dinner table, or worse—myself when I was under the influence of my siren.
As my heart accelerated, I took a deep breath to calm myself and think through what this meant.
“McKenzie,” I looked at my friend, desperate for her to understand. “Do you want to go ahead and get that thing we were talking about earlier? I’ll stay here with my mom and we’ll catch up later.”
My friend nodded with certainty. “No problem.”
“Thanks,” I muttered as she disappeared out the door, hoping she would think to go find Noah and Bellamy and inform them of the hold up.
“Mom,” I said, wondering what she must’ve said to my dad for him not to mention her traveling here overnight with no questions asked. “You’re sure you told Dad you were coming here and he was cool with it?”
My mom reached for my hand. “Of course, Trina. I told him I just couldn’t wait to see you any longer. And I told him I wanted to see the ocean. And he was fine with it. Then I suggested he visit his family and he thought it was a great idea.”
Probably because he was being controlled in a trance, I thought.
“But you always hated the ocean,” I swallowed, choosing my words carefully, trying to get her to confirm the suspicions swirling in my head.
“Hated? Oh no, no…I guess I was a little scared of it, I’ll admit, but recently something’s changed.” She drew in a breath through a blissful smile before continuing. “I just can’t stop thinking about it. I even dreamed I was at the beach, just looking out at the ocean and just itching to know what it would feel like to get in. And when my only daughter lives right by the sea, well, I didn’t see a reason to wait any longer.”
Hearing my mom speaking this way about the beach gave me mental whiplash, and if I didn’t know better, I wouldn’t have been able to believe it was my mother, Grace Delmar, I was talking to. But I did know better, and I knew that something I’d secretly feared was finally happening. My mother’s siren side was awakening.
I didn’t know what to do. I was afraid to leave my mom alone in the dorm while I went to sort everything out with McKenzie and the others. Who knew what she’d do? She wasn’t herself, and I knew all too much what kind of mischief our siren side could get us into. I might come back to find her standing naked in the middle of the surf for all I knew.
“Come on.” I took her hand. “I think that’s a great idea. I think we should go visit the beach right now.”
“I thought you said you had class?” Mom asked innocently.
“I do…later…sort of. It’s fine.” I continued dragging us both through the dorm hallway and to my car. I saw Mom’s car parked outside, and shook my head, still in disbelief that she’d driven all the way here overnight. McKenzie’s car was gone, so I was hopeful that she had already made it to the docks to warn the guys.
I drove us to the marina, silently tickled by the way my mom admired the scenery outside her window like a wonderstruck child. We passed the usual cobblestone streets of old town St. Augustine and Constantine, flanked by the swaying palms waving to greet us. The morning sun glittered along the bay like liquid silver crystals, as a majestic crane spread his wings overhead searching for breakfast in the open water. I wished I could admire it longer, but I knew the gravity of the situation didn’t quite warrant us lingering to sightsee.
I didn’t know exactly what I planned to tell Mom once we got there. I wasn’t sure how I’d explain Bellamy, Noah, and the boat we were so obviously readying to take out on the water. But I hoped maybe Mom was just siren-possessed enough that a rational explanation wasn’t necessary.
Making it all up with each passing second, I leapt out of the vehicle when we parked in front of the harbor. I saw my three friends standing by the boat, Bellamy leaning against a taut rope that ran from the dock to the boat’s hull. They whipped their gazes around at me and my mother in unison, and I could tell McKenzie had already gotten the news out.
“What’s all this?” Mom asked. “Shouldn’t you all be going to class?”
