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“Bellamy and Noah aren’t students.” I rushed to explain, but then I realized that made the situation seem even more suspicious.
“Right,” McKenzie chimed, stepping over to us defensively. “They’re our teachers.”
“They are?” I sputtered, but then quickly composed myself. “I mean—they are. Yes.”
“Professor…Bell. He teaches our Cultural Arts class. And Noah is his TA.” McKenzie lied proudly. She gestured to the two. Bellamy stood looking stunned, and Noah appeared hesitant for a moment, but then I saw his face muscles relax.
“Yeah…I mean yes.” He nodded with a grunt to clear his throat. “We’re just readying everything for this semester’s cross-cultural trip.”
“Oh?” My mom raised an eyebrow, but she still seemed so out of it that I hoped it just might’ve somehow been making sense to her. “I don’t think you mentioned this. How exciting.” She spoke clearly, but with a dullness in her voice. I noticed her gaze was focused on the lapping water below. It was calling her.
“Yes, I’m sorry I didn’t tell you and Dad. Really, it was sort of a last-minute decision.” My eyes nervously darted to McKenzie, who urged me to continue making up something. “It was a sudden opportunity that I just couldn’t turn down. The option to study in Cuba for a few weeks. We can get extra credits for foreign language and some other art stuff.”
My mom nodded. “I don’t blame you, sweetie…” She stepped closer to Bellamy, who was still reeling from being introduced as a professor. “This must be your first time leading the class trip? You’re so young.”
“I’m old enough,” Bellamy said coolly. I stifled a laugh that threatened to bubble up at any moment, knowing Bellamy’s true age. But I quickly regained my composure. My mom suddenly seemed to have snapped back to a mostly normal version of herself as well. Just for a moment.
“Then you don’t mean to tell me you’re taking a group of students across the ocean by boat? Do they just let people sail into Cuba?”
Bellamy’s face drained of color, and he glanced to either side with a tilt of his jaw as if thinking of some response on the spot. Mom was right. We’d done the research. We wouldn’t technically be allowed to make port in Cuba in a private yacht. Only commercial cruise ships could sail in legally. But since when did legality matter when a pirate was our captain?
"I assure you, Miss Delmar,” Bellamy said suddenly, his crisp, sure gaze meeting mine. “I have it under control. This is a very exclusive opportunity for students.”
“Right, in fact, do you think you could show me that...thing...again with all the information about the trip...Professor? Taking a step forward, I urged Bellamy to respond in some way that would get us closer to speak with each other more privately. I didn’t expect Bellamy to play the part so well, but I guess it made sense. He’d always been the one snooping around in the city and on campus during his nights as a ghost. He was a pro at blending in by now.
“Certainly. It’s with my things. Come here and I’ll see if I can find it for you.” He motioned for me to come closer. I told Mom to wait with McKenzie for just a moment. She seemed too fixated on the water to notice otherwise.
With our backs to McKenzie and my mom as we stepped aside and pretended to search a lockbox by the boat, my whispers erupted frantically. “What are we gonna do? I don’t know how to get rid of her! She’s in siren mode and came here because she wanted to be near the water.”
“So, just take her with us,” Bellamy shrugged.
“What!?” I nearly screamed through my hoarse low tone.
“Your mom is part siren. She’s going to figure that out one way or another. The safest way for that to happen is for you to be with her through it.”
“Okay but she’s still my mom. I can’t just take her on an expedition across the ocean when I’m supposed to be in school without her asking questions,” I grumbled
“I never said we keep her conscious through it.” Bellamy glanced over his shoulder with confidence. “I’ve done it plenty of times.”
“Oh my gosh, no!” I pressed a hand to my face and dragged it downward. “You can’t be serious. We can’t just—’’ I paused at a sudden wide-eyed expression on Bellamy’s face that looked like an idea had just sprung into his head. “What are you thinking?”.
“Can you use your siren song on her?” The corners of his lips curled ever so slightly. “To make her sleep through it or forget the trip altogether?”
I swallowed, thinking about the idea before I replied. “I…I don’t know if my song works on another siren. Cordelia couldn’t really control me like everyone else, but she did make me feel sort of…hypnotized…but that was before I knew how to use my own siren powers.” My thoughts flickered back to dinner with Cordelia in her resort. She’d sung the lullaby to me, and some strange wave of entrancement was certainly threatening to break its way through then. But by the time she sang to Milo and me on Valdez’s ship, I was immune. So, I wondered if my mom was still too underdeveloped as a siren to resist another’s song.
“One way to find out, love” Bellamy uttered.
“But…I don’t want to control people. Especially not my own mom. It feels so…wrong.” My words escaped in a sigh. The thought of this task weighed heavy on my conscience. I didn’t want to be another Cordelia. “I don’t want to have power over others. I shouldn’t.”
“But you do,” Bellamy stated firmly. “And it’s saved our asses more times than I’d like to admit. And right now, your reluctance to use that power might be the only thing that stands between you and getting Milo back.”
I looked down beneath dark lashes, then back towards my mom by the edge of the dock, who was muttering something to a nervous-looking McKenzie. “You’re right,” I said. “I hate it, but I have to try.”
Bellamy reassured me with a solid nod and a flick of those ice-blue eyes. “Good lass. Then let’s get on with it.”
“I’ll try.” I breathed in, pulling humid, briny air into my lungs. “But no promises it’s going to work.”
We both turned around, pretending to walk back as casually as possible, as if we hadn’t just discussed the best method for putting my mom into an unconscious trance. As we neared her and McKenzie, I noticed my mom leaning down, fingers outstretched toward the water, and my feet began to race back faster. “Mom!” I yelled. She couldn’t touch the water. I couldn’t let her feed that hungry siren in the slightest. And I had to put our plan into motion quickly, before my mom discovered a new side of herself that might just make her able to resist it.
