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Chapter Eleven It’s been almost week since I last spoke to Brendan, and what he said keeps ringing over in my head. I went hunting with Claire as usual, but there was nothing other than a few vampires – things I have become more and more accustomed to. I spent Friday night at Rose’s, celebrating her birthday by lathering our faces in these mud masks and watching Titanic, her favourite movie of all time, followed by these ancient horror movies with really bad special effects. I spent Wednesday afternoon with Hunter, but I’ve become even more scared of getting him killed ever since Brendan said what he did, so we didn’t do much other than texting for the rest of the week.

But here I am, Tuesday lunchtime and I’m waiting for my tutoring session with Brendan where I have to let him get away with not learning anything because he doesn’t want anyone to remember him after I’m forced to kill him. It’s weirder still when Miss Hayfield comes up to me in the hallways and asks me what I’m doing there. When I tell her about tutoring Brendan she gives me the strangest look, then confirms my creeping insanity suspicions when she tells me that the tutoring program runs on Thursdays and they only asked year elevens and twelves to tutor the year sevens. What was I doing the last two Tuesdays if I wasn’t tutoring Brendan?

I decide to walk home today, not wanting Hunter questioning why I’m so distant. When I get to the driveway, Anna’s car is still there, and I start to question if I’d forgotten about Anna having a day off this week, but I distinctly remember that she was supposed to go back yesterday, which she did, and she started work today at three. As I get closer to the house, I hear another voice, an older, squeaky Scottish voice, and as I open the door I hear Anna call out loudly that “Lauren’s home” which she doesn’t normally do. I walk out into the dining room, where I heard the call, and I notice Anna sitting with a woman who’s at least in her mid-fifties. Upon closer inspection, I can recognise her face from Anna and George’s wedding photos. It’s Aunt Carol, the one who knew about the sirens.

“Lauren,” Anna greets, “this is your Aunt Carol. She just flew in this afternoon, and she wanted to see you, so I thought I’d wait with her until you got back from school.”

“Lovely to finally see you in person,” she smiles, her top teeth looking a little yellow, “come here and let me get a closer look at you.”

“What brings you here, Aunt Carol?” I ask as I move closer to her. Flights from Scotland aren’t exactly cheap and she’s not exactly rich, that I can recall.

“I have big news,” she announces, getting excited as she says it. “I’ve been speaking to my psychic, and I have big news that concerns you.”

“You two have fun,” Anna says as she stands up, tucking in her chair, “I’m running really late for work, so I have to go now.” Anna leaves in a rush, then after the sound of her car has faded away from where we are, she grabs my wrist and tells me in a darker voice to sit down, because what she has to say is confronting.

As I’m sitting down, she begins what sounds like a prepared speech, starting with the unimportant parts, and things I’ve already covered.

“If I could give you three bits of advice, it’s this,” she continues after explaining to me what a siren is, and what they do, “first, I wouldn’t recommend a career in professional singing. Secondly, I wouldn’t recommend ever singing lullabies to your children if you have any, and um…third, I would have to say that you must remember to floss.” She laughs at her last bit of advice as if she had been working really hard on a bad joke.

“Floss,” I return, trying to determine why that was important.

“Well,” she chuckles, “just because you’re immortal doesn’t mean you’re immune to gum disease.”

She continues to elaborate on everything I already know, and then I hear her mention Dheonas and I’m suddenly drawn back into her lecture. “What was that you said about Dheonas?” I ask, and she sighs as she has to repeat herself.

“First of all, do you know about your mother? Not Anna, though, I’m talking about your birthmother.”

“I don’t know a lot. I didn’t see her until about a week and a half ago,” I answer, and any hint of a smile on Aunt Carol’s ruby painted lips has quickly dropped.

“What do you mean, you saw your mother?”

“I spoke to her, I showed her this letter,” I say, digging the photo out of my wallet and passing it over to her, “and she told me about Dheonas.” Aunt Carol doesn’t even look at the photo. Her deep brown eyes don’t move from the stare she’s locked mine into.

“Your mother,” she begins, solemnly, “your mother is dead, Lauren. She died fourteen years ago.”

“My mother abandoned me fourteen years ago. That’s why George and Anna adopted me.”

“Did Anna ever tell you why your mother abandoned you?”

“No, nobody did.”

“Lauren,” she begins, barely making out my name, “tell me everything you know about your parents.”

There’s something in the way she says it that makes me start to worry. I start at the beginning and I tell her all I know. “My dad died when I was two from a heart attack, only it wasn’t a heart attack, it was my fault. My mother abandoned me at an orphanage with a piece of paper that said Lauren on it after my dad died. Anna and your brother, George, adopted me because Anna was infertile and George was drawn to me because I’m a siren, and he died three months later, thanks to me.”

“So what did you say about seeing your mother?”

“I saw her, about a week and a half ago. Tina is friends with her and she told me about all this siren stuff, from my mother, then when I got that note I asked to see her to explain it.”

“Tina Dubois?” she asks, and I cautiously answer yes, afraid that I’m going to hear more things I don’t want to hear today. “Lauren, my darling, Tina was nursing you at your mother’s funeral. You were there.”

“Were you?” I return, sounding more aggressive than I originally intended.

“I beg your pardon.”

“Were you at my mother’s funeral?”

“Why would I have been? You were still an orphan at that point. You didn’t meet my brother for another two months.”

“So how do you know all of this?”

“I may have lied about seeing my psychic before.”

“Aunt Carol…” I begin, my voice getting slower.

“I get visions, Lauren. The dead show me what they want me to see, and your mother wanted to warn you about Dheonas.”

“She did, but she didn’t say why she wanted to warn me.”

“Her tongue is tied. The thing is Lauren, you have to believe me on this, your father was not the man you thought he was.”

“No,” I shout, and Aunt Carol’s wrinkled face looks up at me pleadingly. “No,” I repeat again. “I can’t do it. I won’t believe it. I don’t believe any of this rubbish.”

“Lauren Marianne, you will not speak to me like that, young lady,” she tries to assert, but her tone is weak against mine.

“I will speak however I want to speak because I just met you. And I have people I’ve known my whole life tell me the exact opposite to you. I don’t care, Aunt Carol. I don’t want to hear your hocus pocus bullshit because I’m sick of this. You all win. Did you hear that? You managed to prank Lauren and you convinced her she was some mythical creature for a few months. Good work. Really convincing,” I huff, and I’m about to storm off to my room, before she grabs me by the wrist and spins me around.

“Your father was possessed. He killed your mother and he was going to kill you. So was my brother, and probably every other death you can be held accountable for. For some reason Dheonas wants you dead.”

“So why doesn’t he just kill me? If he’s so all-powerful like you say, why doesn’t he get it over with?”

“It’s not that simple. Have you heard of Lenaiia’s Caves?”

“No, and I’m pretty sure you’ve just made that up too.”

“If you’d rather I leave you here to die, you can just say so, and I’ll go. I’m here because I want to help you.” The two of us share an awkward silence before I sit back down in the dining chair. Neither of us drops our glare, but she continues to speak.

She goes back to the beginning, and she tells me about Dheonas, the brother of Sefira. I start to worry if he will be faceless to, but then she explains more. “Sefira had a face, a beautiful face, but her emotions were her weakness. One day she was summoned to kill someone and when she arrived, she saw who it was. It was her brother, and instead of killing him, she dropped her bow. As punishment, she had her emotions taken away from her, and her eyes so she couldn’t see.”

“Why did she get summoned to kill Dheonas?” I ask, but Aunt Carol looks more irritated, now that I have interrupted her.

“Dheonas was supposed to care for the sick. He was a healer, but he fell in love with a mortal and they had a child. Their child was an abomination, indestructible to humans, but unable to live on Earth or in Heaven, so Dheonas was forced to kill his own child. That’s when Sefira showed up and she couldn’t kill her own brother, regardless of what he did. Dheonas was the first corrupted angel that Sefira couldn’t kill, so he’s just been trapped down here for thousands upon thousands of years. All Dheonas has ever wanted is to get home, but an eternity on Earth is bound to drive you mad.”

There is an eerie silence for a moment before Aunt Carol continues, her voice softer. “That’s where you come into this.”

“What?” I return, the disbelief evident in my voice. Whatever I did believe of her has quickly faded away.

“You’ve read that siren book. Have you ever heard of a siren giving birth to another siren?”

“Well, no.”

“And what was your mother?”

“I’m an abomination,” I realise, saying it out loud, as Aunt Carol looks at me with a cautious face. “So,” I continue, “Dheonas is trying to kill me because…” I want to finish, but I haven’t worked that part out yet.

“You hold the key to him getting back into Heaven,” Aunt Carol answers, “The last abomination was his fault. You’re his redemption.”

“Seriously,” I ask, but Aunt Carol looks as uncertain as I do.