Amanda Hocking - Elegy

“What are you doing?” her dad asked, poking his head in her room.

Gemma was quick to flip the notebook shut, hiding anything she’d written, and she smiled up at him. “Just journaling.”

“I didn’t know you still did that.” Brian walked over and stood next to her bed.

“I do.” She shrugged. “Sometimes.”

“I’m really glad that you’re home and you’re safe.” He reached down, stroking her, then he bent down and kissed the top of her head. “I love you so much.”

“I love you, too, Dad.”

He turned to head back out. “Don’t stay up too late. You have school in the morning.”

“I won’t,” she said, then just before he left, she added, “I had a really great time today. Thanks for spending the day with me.”

“Me, too.” He smiled, then shut her door and went down the hall to his own room.

After he’d gone, Gemma let out a deep breath and flipped the notebook back open, looking over what she’d written. She went over it several more times, making sure it had everything that she wanted to say.

When she was sure it was perfect, she rewrote it in her most legible handwriting, then gave it one final read-through.

To Dad & Harper—

By the time you read this, I’ll already be gone. I’m sorry that I didn’t tell you what was happening, but I didn’t want you to spend our last few days together being frantic and worried. I’ve tried everything I can think of to break the curse, so I thought it would be better if we could just enjoy the little time we had left. And I did. I enjoyed the last couple days we spent together more than you’ll ever know. They were some of the best days of my entire life.

I’m sorry for everything I’ve put you both through. No other girl in the world is lucky enough to have a family as supportive and loving and amazing as you guys.

I want to you know that I’m not scared or upset. I made my peace with this. I’m only sad that I won’t get to see you guys more. Wherever it is that sirens go after they die, I know that I’ll be missing you.

I love you forever and always.

—Gemma

With the letter finished, she set it on her bed, next to the picture. She’d put on her pajamas so that her dad would think she was going to bed, but she changed out of them and put on her favorite dress. If she had to die, then she wanted to do it as much on her terms as she could.

Once her dad was asleep, she laid everything out on her bed the way she wanted him to find it. She almost put on shoes, but then realized that where she was going, she wouldn’t need shoes or her cell phone. So she left them both beside her bed, and as quietly as she could, she crept down the stairs and out the front door, into the summer night.

“You can’t say your favorite movie is Phantom of the Opera, ” Daniel insisted.

She lay in bed next to him, one of his arms around her and her head resting in the crook of his arm. He was still shirtless, but she’d slipped on his Led Zeppelin T-shirt, and she was already plotting a way to sneak it into her bag so she could take it with her to college.

“Why?” Harper laughed. “It’s a really good movie.”

“I don’t know if it’s good or not. I haven’t seen it. But you can’t say that’s your favorite movie if you love The Devil Wears Prada more,” he argued.

“I love that movie, but Phantom is a better film. And it sounds better when I say it.”

“It doesn’t matter what people think or what’s better,” he insisted. “It’s about which one you love more.”

She shook her head. “Nope. I stand by my decision.”

“You know, it’s a good thing we’re having this conversation now and not when we first started dating, because then I would think you were a liar, and I don’t date liars.”

“You’re still here, aren’t you?” She looked up at him, smiling.

“I am. But only ’cause you tricked me into falling in love with you first. Now I’m stuck with you forever.”

“Oh, rough life.” She laughed, and he sat up a little so he could kiss her.

Her phone began ringing loudly in the pocket of her jeans, which were still discarded on the floor from when she’d removed them as she got in bed with Daniel. That was before they’d had sex, and before she decided to venture into more first-date questions and got into the argument about her favorite movie.

“You should not get that,” Daniel said.

She sat up, glancing at his alarm clock. “It’s late, so it’s probably important.” She pulled away from him, and he sighed and flopped back down in bed.

“Lame.”

Harper crawled to the edge of the bed and leaned over so she could fish her phone out of her pocket. She managed to grab it and answer it a second before it went to voice mail. “Hello?”

“Hey, Harper, it’s me, Professor Pine. I know it’s kinda late. I hope I’m not bothering you.”

“No, not at all.” She ran her hand through her hair and grimaced. They were supposed to have a meeting to talk about the scroll tomorrow, but with everything having changed so fast, it had slipped her mind. “Now’s a good time.”

“Oh, you are such a liar,” Daniel said from behind her, and she shot him a look.

“I just got back from Macedonia, and I was thinking about what you’d said.”

“You mean about the ink?” she asked.

“It seems to repeat the same phrase a lot—‘blood of a siren, blood of a mortal, blood of the sea’ over and over,” Pine explained. “I think that’s what the ink is made out of. Blood and ocean water. It also mentions the phrase ‘wash it away’ once, right after the ‘blood of a siren, blood of a mortal, blood of the sea.’”

“Maybe. But um, I should tell you that we kinda sorted everything out, and we don’t need the translations anymore,” Harper said sheepishly. “Sorry for bothering you so much.”

“No, you didn’t bother me at all, and I’m glad you got whatever sorted out that you needed to get sorted. But do you mind if I keep checking into this?” Pine asked. “It’s still fascinating stuff to me.”

“Yeah, of course, if you want to,” she said, relieved that he wasn’t upset. “I think my sister planned on giving Lydia the scroll, in case you want to see it.”

“Thanks. Awesome. I think I will.”

“And thank you again. I really appreciate it.” And she did, even if they hadn’t ended up using his help. He’d done a lot of work for them.

“No problem. And if you ever come across any other weird scrolls, don’t hesitate to give me a call.”

“Will do,” Harper said, and ended the call.

“What was that about?” Daniel asked.

“It was Pine.” She pulled her knees up to her chest and leaned on them as she twirled her phone in her hand. “He was calling me about the scroll.”

“Did he find anything out?”

Harper shook her head. “Not really, I guess. He was just saying the curse talks about blood a lot. Which is interesting because the ink did react to blood, but it didn’t do anything. Like the curse didn’t break, the ink didn’t wash away…”

“So why’d he call?”

She chewed her thumbnail, thinking. Then she furrowed her brow, suddenly remembering something her mother had said. “He said the scroll said something about ‘wash it away.’ You know what’s strange? I went to visit my mom last week, and she kept saying that Bernie told her to ‘wash it away.’”

“Wash what away?”

“I don’t know.” She looked over him. “Do you think she knew something?”

“How would she know?”

She shrugged. “She talked to Bernie a lot all those years ago, and she knew when Gemma was in trouble before, when she ran away. Mom’s brain doesn’t work like it should anymore, but she still seems to sense things.”