The Monsters In Our Town

04 // THE SUPERNATURAL OCCURANCE

"What's wrong with you?"

I looked up and Blue stood at the edge of his lawn, a hose in his hand. I had been sitting on the veranda, sulking.

"They all think I'm crazy," I muttered, "there hasn't been wolves in Northrun for thirty years. As if that was the craziest part of my encounter."

"Wolves?" Blue asked.

"Wolf," I corrected him, "there was just one."

"Whoever told you that was right," he shrugged and started to the tap to turn the hose on, "I read about it in this town's excuse for a library."

"Not you too," I groaned. "Seriously Blue, there was a wolf. And weird under-water women. I have the marks to prove it!"

"Under-water women?" He scoffed. "You mean Sirens?"

"Sirens?"

"Yeah. Mermaids, Sirens... Whatever you want to call them. My old man used to tell me stories about them."

"Mermaids," I breathed and thought about it to myself. "What else did he tell you about them?"

"He told me that they nothing like the movies and they don't wear little shell bras." he said as he watered the grass, which was stupid because no matter how much I tried Northrun's grass wouldn't die, "and they appear as the thing you most want. They sing to men and they sound like a symphony but when women hear them singing, they sound like nails on a chalkboard."

"So you believe me?" I checked.

"No," he rolled his eyes, "I was seven when he told me that. I didn't believe him then and I don't believe him now."

"But..." I started.

"What did they show you?" He interrupted. "I mean, hypothetically, what did you see?"

I felt my face warming up as I remembered it, Blue standing in the water without a shirt on and his pants half off...

"N-nothing," I stammered and looked away.

"So why are you sitting out here?"

"Dad is at work and mum went to he boring book club. Jones has Harley up in his bedroom and they're ignoring me because they think I'm insane. Lincoln is out with her mum."

"And you're just going to sit there?" He asked.

"Mhmm," I hummed and watched him. Blue was wearing all black, again. Black skinny jeans and a plain black sweater that was loose on him.

With his back turned to me, I noticed that his hair was short at the back. Like someone had given him an uneven hair cut.

Peeking out from his sweater was, what looked like, the top of a tattoo.

"Stop looking at me," Blue ordered and I smiled. He twisted himself to look at me and frowned. "What?"

"You must have been looking at me to notice that I was looking at you."

"Or, I could be normal and feel it."

"No, you were totally looking at me."

Blue looked at me for a few more seconds, then he let out a sound that kind of sounded like a laugh.

I just made Blue laugh.

***

"He said they were called Sirens," I told Lincoln as we sifted through books in the library.

"Why were you talking to Blue anyway?" She asked and picked up a new book. "I thought we decided that he was evil and not to be mentioned again."