Siren's Storm by Lisa Papademetriou Page B

melody while Tim carved out the low harmony. Will had always been tone-deaf, even before the accident that stole the hearing from his right ear, and the music had sounded like magic to him. It seemed greater than sound; it was a fabric Gretchen and Tim were weaving together. But it was pleasure mixed with pain. For even though Tim was his brother, not Gretchen’s, and Gretchen was his friend, not Tim’s, when they sang together Will felt the tender pain of exclusion. He knew they didn’t mean to make him feel that way. It was as if they had lost themselves so completely in the music that Will had ceased to exist for them.
    He was secretly glad that Gretchen never wanted to sing in public. He was relieved that she wouldn’t join Tim’s band. Will didn’t want the world to hear them together. He knew what they would say. Gretchen with her wild beauty and Tim with the chiseled features of a movie star—everyone would think they were a couple. And even if they weren’t, Will would feel like a child watching his parents drive away, without waving, in the family sedan.
    Will placed his lips at the edge of the flute and blew a note. It emerged uneven, but Will was surprised at how sweet it sounded.
    “I know, I know, I’m not the brilliant musician,” Will said as Guernsey’s low growl rumbled against his knee. He stroked her soft ears, black flecked with white—evidence of her age—and she nosed his fingers.
    Will blew another note, placing his fingers over the holes. He had played the recorder in second-grade music class, but the cheap plastic flutes had sounded flat even in the best hands. This flute, by contrast, sounded crisp and silvery even beneath his clumsy fingers. He didn’t know much about music, though, so he didn’t know a tune to play. “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” maybe, but that didn’t seem like the right kind of song for this instrument. It needed something melancholy, or at least pensive.
    As if in answer, a single note came from the open window. Guernsey leaped up, barking madly, making the bed groan and creak beneath her feet.
    “Hey, hey, it’s just an echo,” Will said, patting Guernsey’s side with a hearty
thunk thunk thunk
. Shesettled down to a low growl, then hopped off the bed. “You’re leaving? You sure?” Will asked as Guernsey looked up at the door expectantly. He got up to let her out, and she trotted stiffly down the hall and down the stairs.
    Will looked down at the flute, wondering where Asia had found hers. She had said it was a gift—yet she had sold it. It was strange how thoughts of Asia seemed to sneak up on him. Not in the same way that thoughts of Tim blindsided him. It was more as if thoughts of Asia nibbled at the edges of his mind like the minnows that tickled his leg when he stepped into the bay. Often he wasn’t even conscious that he was thinking of her
again
. What had she meant when she said she had no family? Where did she come from? Why didn’t he ever see her with anyone—didn’t she have friends? What was it about her that seemed to fill his mind with fog? Was it her speech pattern? Her beauty? Or something else that he couldn’t put his finger on?
    Will placed the flute at the back of his bottom drawer and slid it closed. He crossed back to his bed and looked out the window.
    He wished he could talk to Tim. It was strange to have your brother, your best friend, disappear overnight.
We always shared everything. Right up to the end
.
    The sand lay spread before her like a vast ocean, and—like the ocean—it felt cool on her feet as she trudged onward. The sun beat down, but it wasn’t hot. A cool wind blew, setting her teeth on edge, making her bodyrigid with cold. Gretchen kept moving, hoping to get warm.
    She had to get to the lake.
    She knew it was there, although she couldn’t see it. The sand sloped slightly upward, and her muscles ached as she trudged on. The sand was dewy on her bare feet.
    She did not ask herself why she was there. She