“What’s starting?” Bo asks.
“The singing.”
FOUR
The moonlight makes an eerie path down to the water’s edge.
Bo hesitates beside the bonfire, resting his hands on his knees, his mouth an even, unbreakable line. He doesn’t believe any of this. But then he stands up, leaving his empty beer can in the sand, and follows me down to the shore where people are huddled together. Several girls are totally soaked, shivering, hair dripping down their backs.
“Shhh,” a girl whispers, and the group falls totally silent. Totally still.
Several seconds pass, a cool wind slides across the water, and I find myself holding my breath. Each summer it’s the same, yet I listen and wait like I’m about to hear it for the first time. The start of an orchestra, the seconds of anticipation before the curtain lifts.
And then it comes, soft and languid like a summer day, the murmuring of a song whose words are indistinguishable. Some say it’s French, others Portuguese, but no one has ever translated it because it’s not a real language. It’s something else. It curls up off the ocean and slips into our ears. It’s gentle and alluring, like a mother whispering a bedtime riddle to a child. And as if on cue, the two girls standing closest to the waterline take several staggering steps into the sea, unable to resist.
But a group of boys go in after them and drag them back out. The time for dares has passed. There will be no more coaxing girls into the harbor, no more taunts to swim all the way out then back again. The danger is suddenly stark and real.
The lulling melody coils around me, fingers sliding across my skin and down my throat, tugging at me. Begging me to respond. I close my eyes and take a step forward before I even realize what I’ve done. But a hand—solid and warm—grabs ahold of mine. “Where you going?” Bo asks in a hush as he pulls me back to his side.
I shake my head. I don’t know.
He doesn’t release my hand, but squeezes it tighter, like he’s afraid to let me go. “Is it really coming from the water?” he asks, his voice low, still facing the dark, dangerous sea, like he doesn’t believe his own ears.
I nod, drowsy suddenly. The alcohol in my body has made me weak, more susceptible to the call of their song. “Now you know why the tourists come: to hear the sisters’ song, to see if it’s real,” I say. The warmth of his palm pulses against mine, and I feel myself leaning into him, his firm shoulder an anchor keeping me from toppling over.
“How long will it last?”
“Until each of the three sisters has lured a girl into the water and taken her body.” I clench my jaw. “Day and night the ocean will sing. Sometimes it takes weeks, sometimes only a few days. All three sisters could find bodies tonight if girls keep wading out into the bay.”
“Does it scare you?” I realize we’re the last two people standing at the water’s edge—everyone else has gone back up to the safety of the bonfire, away from the tempting harbor—but his hand is still in mine, keeping me rooted to shore.
“Yes,” I admit, the word sending a shiver down to my tailbone. “I usually don’t come to the Swan party. I stay home and lock myself in my room.” When my dad was still alive, he would stay up all night sitting in a chair beside the front door to be sure I didn’t get drawn from my room—in case the urge to swim out into the sea was too great for me to resist. And now that he’s gone, I sleep with headphones on and a pillow over my head each night until the singing finally stops.
I believe that I’m stronger than most girls—that I’m not so easily fooled by the sisters’ ethereal voices. My mother used to say that we are like the Swan sisters—she and I. Misunderstood. Different. Outcasts living alone on the island, reading fortunes in the cosmos of tea leaves. But I wonder if it’s even possible to be normal in a place like Sparrow. Perhaps we all have some oddity, some strangeness we keep hidden along our edges, things we see that we can’t explain, things we wish for, things we run from.
“Some girls want to be taken,” I say in a near whisper, because it’s hard for me to imagine wanting something like that. “Like it’s a badge of honor. Others claim that they’ve been taken in summers past, but there’s no way to prove it. Most likely they just want the attention.”
The Swan sisters have always stolen the bodies of girls my age—the same age the sisters were when they died. As if they desire to relive that moment in time, even if just briefly.
Bo blows out a breath then turns and looks back up at the bonfire, where the party has resumed in full upheaval. The goal of tonight is to stay awake until sunrise, to mark the start of summer, and for all the girls to survive without being inhabited by a Swan sister. But I sense Bo’s hesitation—that maybe he’s had enough.
“I think I’ll head back to my camp and find a new place to sleep.” He releases my hand, and I rub my palms together, feeling the residual warmth. A spire of unnerving heat coils up the center of my chest into my rib cage.
“Are you still looking for work?” I ask.
His lips press flat, as if he’s contemplating the next few words, sifting them around in his mouth. “You were right about no one wanting to hire an outsider.”
“Well, maybe I was wrong about not needing any help.” I let out a breath of air. Maybe it’s because he’s an outsider like my dad, because I know this town can be cruel and unaccepting. Maybe I know he won’t last long without someone to keep him safely away from the harbor once all three sisters have found bodies and begin their revenge on the town. Or maybe it’s because it would also be a relief to have some help with the lighthouse. I know almost nothing about him, but it feels as if he’s always been here. And it might be nice having someone else on the island, someone who I can talk to—someone who isn’t fading into a slow, numbing madness. Living with my mom is like living with a shadow. “We can’t pay you much, but it’s a free place to stay and free meals.”
Dad has never officially been declared deceased, so there’s never been a life insurance check waiting for us in the mailbox. And shortly after he vanished, Mom stopped reading tea leaves, so the money stopped coming in. Thankfully, Dad had some savings. Enough that we’ve been able to survive on it these last three years—and it will probably get us through another two before we’ll need to find an alternative source of income.
Bo scratches at the back of his neck, turning his head slightly away. I know he doesn’t have any other options, but still he’s considering it.
“All right. No guarantees on how long I’ll stay.”
“Deal.”
***
