Serenade Me

3. Syncopated Beats

Syncopated Beats

"I am a siren, and for my adoration of mankind, have been caught in fishing nets one time too many. And in those fishing nets I have learned too many unfavorable things about human intentions and the lack of trust and goodwill; I'm not going to allow myself to be caught, anymore. Sirens do well at singing the sirens' song and dragging vile people to their deaths, and for good reason!"
-C. JoyBell C.

Elijah Davis

"Give me the book!"

"No! What if you're lying and you still try to kill me?"

"I'm not! Just give me the stupid book, Elijah!"

"It's not stupid, it's my mother's."

Aurelia sat down on the edge of my bed. "Look, you don't have to trust me. But I don't want to be tethered to you and if-"

"What does being tethered even mean?" I sat on the floor in front of the doorway, just in case.

"It means we have to stay within a 3-mile radius of each. The farther we stray, the more painful it gets. If you die, I'll die, and vice versa." 

Slowly, I stood up, and cautiously walked inside the room. Aurelia just stared at me. Suddenly, she got up and snatched the journal out of my hands.

"Hey!"

"Shut up!" She flipped through the pages. "Damn it! There's no reversal spell in here."

"So why do you- I mean we die in five months?"

She sighed. "Sit down." I did as she said. Mostly because I was scared of her. Tethered or not. "Every 50 years, a siren must drink the blood of someone with a broken heart and kill them or the siren will die. This is to keep their youthful appearance and immortality. It's like blood to a  vampire."

"Wait!" My eyes grew wide, "If sirens are real, does that mean vampires are real too? Or werewolves? Or... or Bigfoot?"

"Eww!  No." She dropped my mom's journal in my lap and I caught it before it could drop to the ground. "Humans make up the stupidest, weirdest  concepts."

I scoffed, "And sirens aren't weird?"

Her head snapped at me. "No. Because we're actually real. Vampires and werewolves, dare I even say Bigfoot, were created to scared children. Sirens were created to scare men. And kill them."

"So how did vampires even come to be a thing?"

"A  stupid siren got caught doing her 50-year ritual. Someone labeled her a  vampire. Later it was discovered what she truly was but by that time  someone with a peanut-sized brain had already start dreaming about  Edward and Bella."

"So everything my mom said was right," I uttered to myself. Aurelia went back to the doorway and hit the invisible wall.

Turning back to me she said, "You need to let me out of here."

"No way! You could hurt someone."

"That's kind of the fucking point, Elijah! If I don't hurt someone we both die." She was right. What the hell am I supposed to do now? "Look through your mom's journal and see if she has any spell for this."

"So was my mom a witch? Are witches real?"

"Possibly. You're asking a lot of questions."

"What do you expect?" Aurelia rolled her eyes. "This is a lot for me to take in!"