“I’m here. Ready for the long night ahead.”
“I’m sorry about earlier,” she continued, her voice tired, her eyes sleepy half-moons. “I just don’t know what to do anymore. So much has changed, and I can’t fix any of it.”
“I know,” I said. Then Ivy closed her eyes.
I sat beside the window with Mom’s book on my lap.
Silver foil glinted off the light from the lamp.
And I cracked the book open.
“No siren did ever charm the ear of the listener as the listening ear has charmed the soul of the siren.”
—Henry Taylor
I closedthe book and held it close to my chest.
I wasn’t ready.
Not yet.
CHAPTER 9
STONE
age twenty-four
Portsmouth, New Hampshire
Year of 1864
I missed the forest,trees, mountains, and tribal culture that had dominated eighteen years of my life. A pungent smell of fish suffocated me when I only desired pine and fresh mountain air.
Before the break of dawn, the three of us would board a ship called theSorceress of the Sea.This ship would take me back to a town where Mother had said my curse could be broken. I no longer cared what would happen to me, but Mother had only become more relentless over the years.
She would walk about the small basement where we lived, rambling about things in a foreign language all hours of the night. Odd behavior possessed her. Strange dreams, too. At one point, she was certain sinister things were being whispered into her ears.
The dark magic Celia had taught her brought a sort of insanity. As though it were a thing with a soul of its own that had come between us. Or had this insanity arisen because I’d brought her back from the dead?
Six years ago, after Mother died, I confessed to her that I had brought her back to life. She hadn’t left me much of a choice since she remembered watching us from above on that awful night.
Shortly after her resurrection, we’d left behind our last tribe and, for a while, drifted on our own. It was hard during winter when it was only us, but we had suffered far worse.
A year later, Mother crossed paths with the woman who called herself Celia. She was a stubby old woman with thinning gray hair, deceivingly soft brown eyes, and a wrinkled face.
I didn’t trust her.
I could never identify my reasons for not trusting her, but Mother felt utterly at ease with this woman who practiced magic. She had a charm about her that Mother latched on to. I had reminded Mother repeatedly, as she reminded me, that we did not need anyone but each other and were better off on our own.
Mother assumed my reason for not trusting Celia was because I was envious she had someone when I didn’t. Her hypocrisy had only stunned me to silence. Furthermore, she could have been right, so I never spoke of my insecurities regarding Celia again.
After learning about our situation, and my curse, Celia promised Mother she could guide us to the town of Weeping Hollow. Not long after, the three of us had traveled east until we reached the coast’s fishing ports.
The witch had her own reason for needing to escape New Hampshire and find the ghostly town, but it was a reason I knew nothing about.
“It doesn’t matter,”Mother once said.“As long as we can get to Weeping Hollow, everything will be all right.”
Because of Celia, a flame of hope ignited in Mother’s eyes. She was confident all the pieces were falling into place, believing I would soon be free of my curse to live a normal life. Though, at what expense? This thought never left my mind, no matter how many miles we had traveled to get to the coast. This was the first time I had seen Mother with such hope in her eyes. Who was I to strip it away after all she had been through?
