Dark Water, the third and last book in the Siren trilogy, releases day! It seems like just yesterday that I was excitedly filling a notebook with thoughts and ideas about Vanessa, Justine, Simon, Caleb, Paige, Zara, Raina, and everyone and everything else in Winter Harbor, so I can't believe we're already here, at the end of their story. It's definitely bittersweet for me...but for you, I hope it's all sweet!
That said, thank you so, so much for sharing this experience with Vanessa, and with me. The first chapter of Dark Water is below. Enjoy!
Chapter 1
It
started an hour into the trip. The
fluttering in my chest. The weakening of
my legs. The tightening of my throat that
made each breath feel like it was filled with broken glass rather than clear,
fresh air. These feelings were nothing
new. For nearly a year they’d been the messages my body sent whenever it was
slowing down, tiring out…drying up.
The difference
this time was that I wasn’t thirsty.
We’d visited enough rest stops along I-95 to be sure of that.
I was scared.
“Chips?”
An economy-size
bag of Lay’s appeared between the two front seats. Shook back and forth.
“They’re your
favorite,” Mom said. “Salt and vinegar.”
“Heavy
on the salt,” Dad added.
I
watched him take a plastic shaker from his cup holder and tilt it over the top
of the bag. As the white powder fell
onto the chips, I thought about how the mere idea of this road-trip snack should
make my stomach turn. But it didn’t.
“No,
thanks,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”
“You
haven’t eaten today,” Mom said. “And you
barely picked at your dinner last night.”
“I’m
saving my appetite. For Harbor
Homefries.”
Mom’s
eyes flicked away from the road and met Dad’s.
His head lowered and lifted so slightly you wouldn’t notice the nod if
you didn’t expect it.
“So,”
he said, leaving the bag on the console and replacing the shaker in the cup
holder. “Several of my students were
renting a house in Kennebunkport this summer.
It’s supposed to be a pretty hopping place.”
“Hopping?”
I said.
“You
know—happening. Grooving. Or, as one young wordsmith alleged, slamming.”
“Slammin.’”
Dad
looked at Mom. “How come it doesn’t
sound nearly as ridiculous when you say it?”
“Because
I said it correctly.” She tried to catch
my eye in the rearview mirror. “You
leave off the ‘g.’ Right, sweetie?”
I
turned my head, faced the window. “I
think so.”
“Well,”
Dad said, “if our Dartmouth-bound daughter thinks it’s so, then so it is.”
I
pressed my forehead to the glass, blinking away images of green, ivy-covered
walls.
“In any case, the
town gets fairly busy, but it’s by the water and is supposed to be
beautiful. Maybe we should check it
out. Like, today.”
“That’s
a great idea,” Mom said. “The exit will
be coming up soon.”
I
sat up. “Don’t we have an appointment?”
“We
do,” Mom said. “And it can be rescheduled.”
“But
you’ve been planning this trip for weeks.
Why the sudden detour?”
“Why
not?” Mom asked. “It never hurts to know
all your options. Especially when it
comes to real estate.”
“But
where we’re going is also by the water.
It’s the most beautiful place I’ve ever been.” I tried to smile. “And after last summer it shouldn’t be too
crowded.”
This
last point was an attempt at keeping things light. For better or worse, my poor delivery broke
through my parents’ happy façade.
“We don’t have to
go back,” Mom said, squeezing the steering wheel.
“We
can go anywhere,” Dad said. “Try
someplace new.”
“I
know,” I said. “You told me that six
months ago and every week since then. I
appreciate the offer, but it’s not necessary.
I don’t want to try someplace new.”
Mom
glanced over her shoulder. Her lips were
set in a thin, straight line. Behind her
sunglasses, I knew her brows were lowered, her eyes narrowed.
“Vanessa,
are you sure? I mean, really sure? I know you’ve visited a few times
since…everything…but this is different.”
She paused. “It’s summer.”
Summer.
The word hung above us, heavy, expanding. I looked at the empty seat to my left, then
reached forward and grabbed a handful of potato chips.
“Yes,”
I said. “I’m really sure.”
Despite
my countless assurances over the past few months, I understood their
concern. We’d made the same trip each
June for as long as I could remember, and this was the first time we were doing
so without my older sister, Justine. Not
only that, due to our realtor’s schedule—and a supposedly amazing property
that’d recently hit the market—we’d had to leave today. Which just happened to be the day after my
graduation from Hawthorne Prep…and the one-year anniversary of Justine’s death.
As
my body continued to remind me, this was scary.
But one thing would be downright terrifying.
Not
returning to Winter Harbor at all.
I
washed down several handfuls of chips with two bottles of saltwater. For fifteen minutes I half-listened and
nodded along as my parents debated the benefits of all-weather siding. When we passed the Kennebunkport exit, I
waited another five minutes for good measure, then settled back and checked my
cell phone for the hundredth time since waking up.
V! So
excited to see you. Who knew 20 hours
could feel like 20 years?? At restaurant
all day. Stop by when you can. xo, P
Paige. My best friend, recent housemate—and one of
the main reasons why vacationing anywhere else this summer was impossible. I smiled as I texted her back.
Can’t wait to see you, too. Still a few hours away. Will write again when closer. Don’t work too hard! L, V
I sent the note and scrolled
through older messages, hoping, like I always did, that I’d missed one. That maybe there’d been a glitch in my
service and I hadn’t been notified of every incoming text.
There
wasn’t. A quick call to my voicemail
proved that it, too, was working fine.
I
swapped my phone for the Dartmouth course descriptions I’d printed from the
school website, and curled up on the backseat.
I already had a pretty good idea of what I wanted to take in the fall,
but my parents didn’t know that. And
more than anything else, looking like I was thinking about my future stopped
them from bringing up the past. In fact,
the course descriptions were such an effective shield, no one asked how I was
or what I needed for the rest of the trip.
Of
course, by the time we pulled off the highway, they didn’t have to. Not out loud anyway. Mom looked in the rearview mirror more than
she did at the road, and Dad gave a bag of pretzels an extra coating of salt
before propping it between the two front seats.
“I’m
fine,” I said as my pulse pounded in my ears.
“Promise.”
This
seemed to appease them until we neared the sailboat-shaped “Welcome to Winter
Harbor” sign. That’s when Mom jerked the
steering wheel to the left—and we took an unexpected detour bypassing Main
Street and all local businesses. I
started to protest but then hesitated.
Did I really want to sit in traffic and inch past Eddie’s Ice Cream? Which had always been our first stop—and the
official start of another wonderful family vacation?
Probably
not. I let my parents have that one.
I
took another water bottle from my backpack and focused on drinking. A few minutes later, the detour led to the
same intersection we would’ve reached had we stayed on Main Street. Turning right would take us toward the
mountains and down a long, winding road I knew so well I could drive it at
night without headlights. I listened for
the clicking signal, waited for the gentle pull west. Neither happened. We went straight instead.
As
we drove, the straight, flat road began to incline. The houses grew farther apart, the trees
closer together. I’d never been in this
part of Winter Harbor; before I could decide whether that was a good or bad
thing, the road ended. The car stopped. We all stared straight ahead.
“Is
this a joke?” I asked, peering between the front seats.
“I
don’t think so,” Mom said after a pause.
She handed the directions to Dad, rolled down her window, and pressed
the button on a silver box next to her door.
The tall gates, which featured iron mermaids with ornate tails rather
than simple bars, swung open.
“Let’s
give it a chance,” Dad said, then busied himself with folding and refolding the
directions.
I
wanted to take the stack of course descriptions, hold them in front of my face,
block out everything I didn’t want to see.
But I couldn’t. My eyes were
glued to the faceless heads, the flowing hair, the intricate fins. I told myself that these mermaids were
functional art, nothing more, but I still searched for something, anything
familiar about them. As the gate closed
behind us and we continued down the driveway, I even turned in my seat to watch
them grow smaller. Or perhaps more
accurately, to make sure they grew
smaller.
The steep driveway
curled through dense forest. About half
a mile in, Mom, growing nervous, impatient, or a combination of both, hit the
gas. The SUV shot up a small hill—and
toward the edge of a cliff.
Dad
and I reached for the grab handles above our doors. Mom gasped and slammed on the brake. The car skidded a few feet before rocking to
a stop.
“A
fence,” Mom said, exhaling. “We’ll just
get a good, strong fence.”
She
opened her door and hopped out. Dad
slowly leaned forward, started to turn.
Sensing a fresh wave of concern approaching, I opened my door and
stepped down before it reached me.
“Jacqueline! So glad you could make it on such short
notice.”
A woman strode
down a wide stone path to our left. She
wore white linen pants, a white caftan, and leather sandals. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail so
tight, the corners of her blue eyes lifted.
I must’ve been even more shaken by the iron shield of swimmers we’d just
passed through than I thought, because for a split second, she looked just like
another woman I’d met last summer.
But
that was impossible.
Wasn’t it?
“This must be your beautiful
daughter.” The woman shook Mom’s hand
and beamed at me. “The Ivy Leaguer. I’ve heard so much about you. Dartmouth, right?”
I
forced a smile as I joined them.
“Right.”
“You’re
a parent’s dream come true.”
I
looked down.
“Vanessa,” Mom
said quickly, “this is Anne. Our
realtor. And Anne, yes, this is my
beautiful daughter.”
“I’m
the perfectly average-looking husband and father,” Dad said, shuffling up
behind us. “And this is quite a place.”
“I
told you. Didn’t I tell you?”
Anne
took Mom by the elbow and led her down the path, rattling off details about
bedrooms and bathrooms and energy-efficient construction. Dad followed close behind, hands in his
pockets, eyes turned to the horizon on our right. I followed a few feet after him, keeping my
cell phone in one hand in case someone turned around and I needed to look
distracted. It wasn’t that I wasn’t
curious; I just didn’t want to influence the decision any more than I already
had.
“The
house has never been lived in,” Anne said as we neared a building. “The owner, an architect from Boston,
designed it for his wife. It was
supposed to be a gift for their tenth wedding anniversary, but then, just last
week, the missus decided to celebrate early with one of the mister’s male
coworkers. It’s awful the way these
things happen, isn’t it?”
Under
his red plaid shirt, Dad’s back muscles tensed.
Mom’s head dropped as her hands shuffled through the papers she carried.
“Yes,”
she said. “But happen they do.”
“Is
that a pool?” I asked.
Anne,
instantly recovered from her disappointment in the state of modern-day
relationships, shot me a quick grin.
“And hot tub. Wait till you see.”
She
and Mom hurried inside the house. Dad
paused by a tall, coral-shaped stone planter.
I stood next to him.
“Thank
you,” he said.
I
nodded.
“It’s
not quite what we’re used to, is it?” he asked a moment later.
It
took me a second to realize he referred to the house, which looked like a
cluster of glass boxes connected by wooden hallways. There was no rickety front porch. Thanks to countless windows I could see the
backyard from the front yard, and there was no deck, either. Peeling paint, crumbling bricks, and dangling
gutters were also missing.
“No,”
I said. “But what is?”
I
went inside. Mom’s and Anne’s voices
echoed through the house from the right, so I headed left. I passed through the living room, dining
room, and two bedrooms, all of which were decorated in various shades of taupe
and still smelled like paint and sawdust.
One particularly long hallway ended at a set of glass doors. I pushed through them into a third
bedroom—and was nearly knocked over by a rush of wet, salty air. I automatically closed my eyes and inhaled,
savoring the warmth as it traveled down my throat, soothed my aching body.
When I opened my
eyes again, I saw water. As I stepped
into the room, the slate-blue horizon seemed to curve, wrap around me. I kept my gaze level as I walked to a second
set of glass doors and out onto a stone patio.
And there it
was. The ocean. So close I could feel the spray each time it
lunged against the rocks on which the patio rested.
“We won’t do
better than this.”
I jumped. Spun around.
Mom stood in the open doorway, arms crossed over her chest, eyes aimed
past me.
“The only way we’d
get closer is on a houseboat…and no offense, sweetie, but my stomach simply
can’t handle that way of life.”
Personally, I
thought she was a trooper for trying to handle this one. Not many women would.
“Do you like it?”
she asked, joining me on the patio.
A wave slammed
into the rocks below. I rubbed the spray
into my bare arms. “Yes. I don’t know if it’s really Dad’s thing,
though.”
“Your father will
be fine with whatever we decide.”
I knew this. I also knew why. If it was possible to assign blame to such a
thing, they agreed it was his fault we were here.
Mom
tilted her chin toward the water and breathed deeply. “I think someone else would’ve approved. The possibilities for unobstructed sunbathing
are endless.”
I
couldn’t help but smile. “Justine would’ve
loved it.”
We
stood quietly for a minute. Then Mom put
one arm around my shoulders, pulled me close, and pressed her lips to the top
of my head.
“I’ll
go work out the details. Stay here as
long as you’d like.”
When
she was gone, I walked to the patio’s edge and surveyed the grounds. The pool and hot tub were off another patio
about fifty feet south of this one.
Bright green lawn filled the space in between. A stone stairway led from the yard down to a private
beach.
Or,
a nearly private beach. As I watched, a
tall figure dragged a red rowboat across the sand. He had dark hair and wore jeans, a
t-shirt…and glasses.
My
heart thrust against my ribcage. My
breath lodged in my throat. My feet
moved, off the patio, down the rocks.
How
did he know I was here? Did he find out
from Paige? Had he stopped by the
restaurant to ask? But how did he know she’d be there? Maybe he’d been checking in regularly, just
in case?
It
didn’t matter. What mattered was that he
was here. He’d found me. And we’d be together on my first day in Winter Harbor, the way we always
were.
I
scrambled across the last rock, jumped into the sand.
“Simon!”
He
stood up straight, started to turn. I
quickened my pace, wondering what he’d do if I threw my arms around him the way
every inch of them ached to.
“Hey.”
My
heels dug into the ground. My smile
vanished as his widened.
“It’s
Colin, actually.” He released the boat,
brushed his hands on his jeans, and held one toward me. “Anne’s son.”
I
heard his words but they made no sense.
Until I saw that he wore sunglasses, not eyeglasses. And that his hair was blonde, not brown. And that the rowboat was really a kayak.
“My
mom’s big on staging,” he said, noticing me notice the kayak. “Not that this place needs it. Have you ever gone?”
My
eyes raised to his. “Gone?”
“Ocean
kayaking?”
I
shook my head, took a step back.
“Then
you have to.” He stepped toward me. “Maybe we can go together sometime. I’d be happy to give you a lesson.”
I
stopped. My legs trembled. My chest tightened. I opened my mouth to thank him, to say I’d
love nothing more than to be taught by such a skilled expert, to ask if we
could make a date as soon as possible…and then I closed it.
When
I was weak, only one thing made me feel better than saltwater did, and that was
enticing the interest of the opposite sex.
But I hadn’t resorted to such measures since doing so cost me the only
relationship I ever had, the only one that had ever mattered, and I wasn’t
about to start now.
I didn’t know if
there was still a chance for Simon and me.
But I did know I wasn’t going to risk losing it if there was.
“Thanks
anyway,” I said.
And
turned around just as the tears started to fall.
