Page 32 of Hot in Witch City
“And you chose to come to Salem?”
She tilted her head. "Yes, it’s right on the sea and is full of magic, which attracts supernatural beings. That’s how I ended up visiting here years ago when I met your father.”
And then left him with a newborn baby girl. I bit that part back again to keep her talking.
“The wanderlust keeps us traveling. I don’t like to stay in one place when there is so much of the world to explore.”
She didn’t come here specifically to meet me. That hurt. I swallowed the sting. “What do you want with me?”
She flashed the dazzling smile once more, oblivious to my pain. “I’d like to learn more about you. And maybe you’d like to get to know me.”
Although a scowl had been pretty much plastered to my face the second I glared at my mother, I couldn’t deny my interest. Still, she abandoned me, and she wasn’t getting off that easy. “Where have you been since you left me and my father?”
“Oh, all around,” she replied with a carefree wave, as if oblivious to my scathing tone. “Mostly the Mediterranean and Caspian Seas. Many sirens live in those areas.” She gazed at me and smiled like a proud mother. “Look at you and what you’ve accomplished at such a young age. I'm so proud of you.”
Was she? Although, I would have loved to hear that at any point in my life, it sounded somewhat flat. It didn't fill me with the comfort that I thought it would. There was something about the way she said it that struck me as rehearsed. Like she’d studied things a mother should say. Maybe she had to since she didn’t know how to be one. Who was she, really?
I had to focus on my questions. “I’ve met a few sirens, but they didn’t share much.” The Salem Supernatural Network connected me to a pod in New Orleans when I was in my late teens. When they’d realized I was only half-siren and couldn’t shift to swim like them with fins and tails underwater, they became wary of me. They didn’t share much, and their reticence stung. I told myself screw them and returned to live my life with humans.
“I’m not sure what’s myth or real,” I continued. “And since nobody was around to show me,” I bit back more accusatory comments, hoping she’d spill some secrets.
“Don’t believe those horror stories about us,” she scoffed. “Those tales of sirens luring sailors to their death are pure fabrication, delved up by madmen.”
That was another thing that some mean girls in school had given me a hard time about. They’d warn the boys that I’d sing a song that would lead them to their doom.
“If a sailor was lucky enough to spend time with one of us, he’d be having quite an enjoyable time.” She arched her brow and gave me a knowing smile.
I squirmed. Thinking of my mother seducing a sailor wasnotwhat I wanted to picture.
“What about the legends about a siren’s song? Is there anything to it?”
I could sing. In fact, I loved to sing, and I thought I had a decent voice. To my knowledge, I had not led anyone to their demise.
“We can express magic though our voices, the same as a witch may use a spell.”
I leaned forward. “How?”
She shrugged and then turned her hands palms up. “You put your intention behind your words.” Touching her chest, she added, “Energy for any magic starts in here.”
With a slow nod, I filed that away for later. Nova and I had to chat about this.
I tipped my head. “What kind of magic?”
She exhaled. “Oh, the usual. Healing. Soothing. Defensive.”
I blinked at her. Maybe this type of magic was typical for her, but new to me. “Meaning?”
“You can sing to calm fears, for instance. Or you can sing to confuse an enemy.”
Sweet jumping frogs! “I know I’m only half-siren, but is there anything that’s different from humans?”
“Well, there’s the shapeshifting and the ability to breathe underwater.”
I frowned. That wasnotsomething I was able to do.
“You can do that, right?” she asked, possibly reading the disappointment in my expression.
I leaned back in the booth. “I’m afraid not.”
