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Chapter Two

There are a lot of things I don’t know about my mother. I don’t know her real name because she didn’t want me to find out. I don’t know what she looks like because I haven’t seen her since I was two, and all I can remember is long blonde hair and a face which blurs up when I try to picture it. I don’t know what she does for a living or where she lives but every time I ask Tina she avoids the subject or tells me that my mother is a dangerous woman. Most importantly, I still don’t know why she left me. That last one stings a bit.

When I left Rose’s house to go home on Friday night, I got back to Anna and she stood up from the lounge in her medical scrubs, eyed me over and without having to ask how my day was, spoke.

“Wanna talk about it?”

I told her no, even though I did, and I slumped off to my room, shutting the door behind me and lazily flopping down on my bed. Some days I just wish I hadn’t got out of bed, but I’ve got a whole weekend to get over this one bad day.

On Saturday, Anna and I head down to the library because that’s what we do every week. It’s become a weekly challenge that each of us will pick a book, read it and then return it by the next week. If one of us doesn’t get the deadline we have to buy the other lunch, which only really affects me when I lose because otherwise Anna buys me lunch. Anna runs off to find the sequel to the book she accidentally stumbled upon last week, that is, if stumbled upon means that she saw a handsome guy her age reading it and she decided to read it in the hopes that he would notice her. I am more concerned about what Tina said so I head over to the mythology section, and then, just because I am a beacon for coincidence, I see Hunter Phillips, and he sees me, so it’s too late for me to just pretend I was walking for another aisle and didn’t notice him.

“Hey,” I greet, my voice trembling with nerves.

“Hey, listen,” he begins, and I can tell he’s about to say something else I don’t want to hear. “About what I said yesterday – I didn’t know you were well…”

“I’m not gay,” I tell him, bluntly finishing the word he was trying to dodge his way around, but it seems to only upset him more.

“Oh,” he mumbles.

“I just have this thing where I’m not allowed to date.”

“Oh, don’t your parents…,”

“It’s my rule, not Anna’s.” I tell him. He looks so broken and torn now, especially compared to how he was yesterday. I wonder how long he had been thinking of asking me out. He goes to wipe back that loose section of his fringe and I notice a large burn mark on his left thumb, turning his olive skin to a brighter pink. “What happened to your thumb?” I ask, and he sighs a bit before answering, clutching his thumb with his other hand as if he can still feel it.

“I was cooking yesterday,” he laughs nervously, “I’m not very good though.”

“Cook food, not self,” I joke and he laughs. I’m worried now because nobody ever likes my jokes.

“What brings you out here today?” he asks, and I explain about Anna and I. He says he thinks that it’s cute, which just makes me think of telling him to stop liking me if he knew what was good for him.

“What brings you here then?” I return, but he tells me he’s only here for homework for his Ancient History class, which is why he’s researching Greek mythology. How coincidental I think, that I’m here for the exact same book he is.

After I’ve finished scouring through the other Greek mythology books which Hunter didn’t already take with him, I’m finding that Sirens were hardly important figures of Greek mythology, but from what I have read, they’re part bird. Dear God, how I hope I don’t end up with feathers. I head back over to Anna in the fiction section, grab the first interesting book title I can see which could easily be knocked over in a week and I notice Anna is there, pulling out her flirty laugh and smile after having put on lipstick at some point at the same tall, dark and handsome I saw her flirting with last week.

Anna herself is not unattractive. She has a strikingly beautiful face line with mesmerising blue eyes, but she never dresses herself up. Her thin frame stays hidden under her medical scrubs unless she’s getting dressed to go out somewhere. When she does dress up however, she wears long pants, to hide the fact that she can hardly be bothered to shave her legs, a secret only she and I keep. Her face stays plain, save for the freckles and when she’s feeling flirty, lipstick.

Upon seeing me, she pulls a face that says “I know we have to go but just give me one more minute.” Anna may be twenty-four years older than me but she’s more of a teenager than me sometimes. Which reminds me, Anna has a fortieth birthday coming up next month and I haven’t organised anything. I wouldn’t know who to invite, because aside from Rose’s mum, her co-workers and me, she doesn’t have a very big social circle. I don’t know whether I should even ask tall, dark and handsome or whether Anna would kill me for telling him how old she is. Also, while I’m happy that Anna is finally flirting with someone, there is nothing I am more worried about than adding another person to my tally, especially if it means taking another important person from Anna.

Sunday is mine and Anna’s lazy day, where she doesn’t have to work and she gets to sleep into twelve after having worked until three a.m. the night before, and I get to sit around reading or playing games on my Wii or I can go over to Rose’s house. I feel like bringing back Anna’s good mood, so I cook up some pancakes, leave them on a plate covered by a tea towel out on the kitchen bench and leave a note that says ‘Gone to Rose’s, text me if I need to come home.’ I know she won’t text me unless there’s an emergency, but I always write it because it feels more right.

I get to Rose’s and Toby answers the door, with Neve jumping all over his feet. I sign hello to Toby and he smiles and signs it back. I don’t know much about sign language but I learned how to say hello and how to sign the alphabet. Rose, obviously, can sign fluently, but I try not to get too close to Toby. I’m hoping his deafness is enough to keep me from inflicting my curse on him. I hear Rose calling out asking who’s at the door, before walking out and seeing me, and hurrying over to me, arms extended for a hug. It’s about eleven a.m. and Rose is still in her pyjamas, but she hasn’t been sleeping, because she wakes up when Toby does, she’s just been keeping tabs on any activity about me as well as any other gossip she can report on for Monday.

Tina is in the kitchen, which tends to be her favourite place to spend her time. Her passion is cooking, like Rose’s is gossip and Anna’s is helping people. I still don’t know mine. I try to repress the tiny voice in my head which I can hear squeaking out “Killing people. That’s your passion.” I shudder at the thought, then walk in the kitchen to see Tina. Rose follows me in, the pom poms on her slippers dragging across the white kitchen tiles.

“Rose Avery Dubois, it is almost the afternoon and you have guests over. Go get out of those pyjamas,” she orders and I wonder if my mom would’ve ended up like her, only I know she’s only saying it to get time to talk alone with me. She’s special in the way that she knows what I’m thinking. Rose grumbles but walks back to her room where I know she’s going to spend the next half an hour keeping tabs on everything, so I start talking as soon as she’s out of the room.

“What else do you know about the sirens?” I ask and Tina sort of sighs, before walking off to her room and returning a few minutes later with a rough leather bound book. On the front is a picture of a very geometrically shaped sword with only straight lines used to draw it. The inside of the book is all handwritten, beginning in elegant calligraphy neatly spread across the pages with a few sketches here and there, and then as I flick through the pages I can see the handwriting getting messier and scrappier up until what I recognise as being Tina’s.

“Everything I could tell you and more is in that book,” she tells me.

“Just answer me one thing,” I say. “Am I going to grow feathers?” Instead of answering seriously, she just sort of laughs and says that I won’t. While we can, I start looking through the book, but I don’t have time to read anything. This book is pretty huge, at least two hundred pages and they’re all handwritten. Tina said that it was a gift from my mother to me and I’m suddenly tempted to not take it, but I need it more than I need to shun my mother. Besides, it’s quite obvious that this wasn’t just from my mother and that there is years of history in here. It’s history that got either discounted from history books or classed as mythology.

I have one more question for Tina, which I’m hoping I can get in before Rose comes back, something that’s been bugging me.

“If I’m immortal, why do I keep getting older?” and Tina looks at me, smiles and says,

“It’s all in the book, sweetie.”