Wolf Sirens: Forbidden: Discover The Legend (11 page)

I never had been popular before but I took to it like
a duck to water, made easier by the fact that the rest
of the students had ostracized me previously. The
distance I felt between myself and the rest of the
teenagers grew. I was no longer below them but far
above. I was no longer aloof, I was the opposite of
boring and I was definitely not invisible. I was elevated to a social status, faster than anyone could
have predicted. Mr Crealy didn’t recognize me by the
third week of school as I visited the office to change
my class schedule. My hair was dyed and highlighted,
my eyebrows plucked and tinted. Sam and Giny had
more than a little fun giving me a manicure, a shopping trip and make-up, even a shout at the hair salon
where I was given new blonde highlights and layers,
whilst my split ends were cut away. I had been transformed into a popular girl, I walked the halls with
the in-crowd, and we were high school royalty. Tealy
and Monica looked away when I entered English
and stared when I wasn’t looking. Reid stroked my
hair with the end of his pen from the seat behind.
Life had changed. I was now a Dolphin but I felt
more like a shark as I smiled with my painted lips
and shiny hair.

If Cresida was in class I would not have noticed,
I was basking in the collective glow of my new status, which my new friends permeated like perfume
- though like Giny I wasn’t good enough and, like
her, I didn’t care.

Geography was the only thing which dampened
my newfound elation, Mrs Bealy remained absent
and it was revealed on the rumour mill that she had
joined a religious sect and left her husband. I swallowed a lump in my throat when I recalled the things
Cresida had said to me. She said the wolves had taken
Shelly Bealy. At the time I hadn’t realized she meant
Mrs Bealy, my teacher. Angie’s friends seemingly
only noticed her absence. Giny said her stepfather
was a drunk; everyone thought she had run away.

Reid entwined his large fingers in mine and
tucked his arm around me. This was the real deal so
far, he and I. We’d been dating three weeks. This was
an all-time record for me since my last relationship in
3
^rd
grade and my rejection by Jeff for my best friend,
Bec, who was now far from my mind. The fact that
Reid wanted to hook up at all with the new chubby
girl, in baggy street gear from the city, was amazing to
me. My head dizzied as he warmly kissed my cheek
and squeezed my shoulder. There wasn’t room for
paranoia in my life anymore, but I must have looked
troubled. He cocked his head to the side and brushed
my hair behind my ear. I looked up at him thinking
the world would catch up with me soon, and if so,
would I be ready when it did? This tanned god was
my boyfriend.

“Hey what are you sad about, L?” he cooed softly.
Nicknames were big in the popular world, though I
hadn’t been brave enough to make up my own yet. I
changed the subject.

“Where are we going?”
“Dinner,” he said.
I expected a restaurant, but as we rolled down the

long dirt driveway of no. 31-33 Stones Road, I realized we were at a house, though it could have been a
venue; it was a large cabin style log home with multiple stories and stonework, surrounded by purple
Agapanthus. I couldn’t decide if I liked the design or
not, it wasn’t quite like anything I had seen before. It
was a log cabin on steroids. We got out.

“Is this yours?” I smiled, bemused.
“Sam’s,” he simply replied. I walked with him to
the door - he strolled, and I stepped more briskly.
He didn’t knock or announce us. “Her parents are in
Valley Heights in Tarah, at their beach house.” He
said it like an apology as he opened the large door.
The floor was covered in raw irregular slate paving
which stretched the advance of the house and flowed
out the rear sliding doors to a patio and down stairs
to a courtyard. He examined my reaction. “What do
you think? Nice huh?”
I imagined this would have been the sight of parties. There certainly was enough space. I was led to
the back of the house. We stood in the main living
area from which I could view the huge green pool.To
our right, up a level overlooking the courtyard, was a
huge kitchen with a black granite bench top and to
our left a lounge area, where Bianca reclined with a
wine glass in front of her painted toenails on the coffee table. She was reading.
“Where are the others?”He spoke in her direction.
“Out,” she said. “Food’s in the fridge,” she added
in a high friendly tone without looking up.
He went over to the refrigerator and studied a
chart on the side. He pointed, resting his finger on it,
and then turned to her. “B, wasn’t it your turn?”
“I will do it later.”
“It’s your head.” They exchanged looks. He said,
“We take turns cleaning, there’s a roster,” he explained, pulling open the fridge door.
“Sam should just hire someone,” Bianca interjected behind us.
Reid looked visibly annoyed. Instead of replying
to the remark he scanned the fridge. “What would
you like, L?”
I noticed the bin next to the fridge was overflowing with food wrappers and discarded scraps.

We spent the weekend reclining on a beach chair in
the undercover pool area listening to music on the radio. I drank non-alcoholic cocktails with Giny. Sam
and Lily were in and out; I didn’t know where they
went. The house was so big I assumed they were in
another area or on another floor, though I imagined
you could get lost in the unusually large multiple levelled cabin. I glanced up at the long upper balcony
overlooking the back yard.Were they up there? Bianca
seemed to take over hosting duties in Sam’s absence.
She notably knew where everything was, getting us
towels and making food. I made two visits home to
placate my mother. It didn’t take much and she was
pleased to see that I had friends and genuinely happy
to see me smiling and acting normal I guessed, after
the first rough weeks of ‘settling in’.

I snuck out my window on Saturday night. On
the Friday night I told her I was at Sam’s and she
didn’t question me, except to enquire if I had been
heeding the curfew. I knew she thought the Angie
girl had been taken by the wolves and in the past I
would have seized the opportunity to manipulate this
in my favour, but now I just ignored it. She smelt of
gin. I didn’t invite my new friends inside for introductions and in the dark night I rejoined them hurriedly.
Parents were non-existent in this new world and my
mother was merely an inconvenience.

Reid gave me a tour of the rest of the house, everything was normal, apart from the lack of adults,
and all the rooms contained double beds. He showed
me the guest room. There were portraits and black
and white pictures on the walls of what I assumed
were relatives. The guest rooms were on the second
floor, including a main bathroom, with an ensuite to
two of the rooms. Sam and Bianca’s bedrooms were
up more stairs on the third level, Lily stayed at her
place on the beach. Reid said Bianca’s parents were
always traveling, so she lived here with Sam and her
parent’s rather than go to boarding school, though I
hadn’t seen them. Reid said they were on holiday. I
had the distinct feeling they were more often than
not on holiday. Sam seemed to run the place - she
did all the delegating, there was a list you could add
to and the rules were whoever went to town that day
had the obligation of acquiring the items requested.
When Giny decided she wanted to invent cocktails
we ordered coconut milk, mango cheeks, pineapple
and elderberry cordial, tomato juice and celery - and
Bianca arrived back with everything we needed. She
helped us mix the ingredients, but I noted she added
vermouth to her concoction, complaining that she
had to go to two different shops to acquire the ingredients. She left the liquor cabinet open and I saw the
collection of spirits and vodka. She spent the rest of
the day reading a Mills and Boon novel by the edge
of the pool in a yellow animal print bikini, which left
little to the imagination. And I could see the appeal
living with Sam had.

Bianca only rose to put the washing on the line
in her slippers whilst the boys played football and
when the ball struck the clothes line as she pegged,
she swore at them and smiled.

The guys swam in the pool splashing us with salt
water. Giny and I were the only ones who seemed to
feel the cold in the evenings. I swam in a bikini in the
cold water when it was vacated, too shy to join the
boys or risk getting in the way of their ruckus. The
cold burnt my skin and I vacated the green toned
water vibrating with chill. We watched movies in the
TV room and Giny told me about Lily’s place right
on the beach and we made plans to go there in the
summer. I wondered when Sam’s parents were coming back. Gin and I slept on the floor wrapped in
blankets when the last movie credits rolled, though I
knew there were many rooms and beds in the house, I
slept pleasantly, tucked up on the carpet over a couch
cushion.

In the night I heard the guys talking loudly, raiding the fridge contents. They laughed and jostled
each other, the light woke me, but I lay still with my
eyes open. From my view point I could see Giny was
gone from her spot on the couch. I saw her empty blanket in the moonlit darkness. I guessed she’d
snuck out back home as I slept. Her parents were
stricter than ours – but that wasn’t saying much. I
didn’t know what the time was but it was dark and
felt very late. I could tell the guys were in high spirits after some backslapping and jokes at Jackson’s
expense while they ate straight from the fridge and
pulled items out onto the bench. Reid stood there
drinking a whole carton of milk as some ran down
his rippled russet coloured chest, which reflected a
shine of sweat. For the first time I looked at Jackson.
In his own right he would have been considered buff
and handsome at any other high school. He had a
long, shaggy grown-out fringe that covered his eyes,
and it was sand coloured. He was slightly nimbler
than the other two in width and height and he was
the clown of the bunch, a title occasionally rivalled by
the loutish Reid.

In a normal group of high school boys, absent
of Sky and Reid, he would have been the leader of
the group; in his own right he was attractive. But my
eyes always seemed to take in Sky with all their spare
vision. Even in my dreamy state I took him in, he
was clearly the alpha of the group, he was more serious than Reid and definitely Jackson; they moved
around him. It wasn’t as obvious by the pool when
they played diving and tackling each other. Reid and
Jackson frequently returned to their homes. I noticed
Sky always stayed.

Sky leant against the side counter, which met
his lower back, gleaming under the kitchen light. I
saw him slowly glance in my direction. I couldn’t be
sure but I thought he saw me even though it didn’t
register on his face. I shifted uncomfortably as his
gaze met my eyes. He may have been checking if I
was still asleep. He looked considerate, he must have
been able to make me out clearly in the dull light as
he faced the group and resumed talking. Reid and
Jackson didn’t seem to notice me or know I was there.
Sky didn’t say anything about me. After a time they
all left and Reid quietly asked if he should take me
home, his breath warm in my ear. I nodded and he
lifted me up, much to my shock, and carried me outside to the car.

“That was good, but let’s take it again!” Sam ordered
us. Giny was the flyer I was in the base; I learnt the
monkey grab and other terms. I bent over onto my
knees hoping I wouldn’t heave up the vodka cocktails
we had indulged in, when we were bored of the virgin
type. I vowed to never to drink again. Rhythmic
Calisthenics was a cross between cheerleading,
modern dance and gymnastics. I guessed from my
gruelling introduction that kids trained from a young
age for a long time to get it right and I wondered
why on earth Sam had put faith in me to develop to
a standard worthy of competition.

The open liquor cabinet and lack of parental supervision or anyone who cared had seduced us. Giny
looked green and her eyes were bloodshot; a look
was all we needed to exchange this morning between
bouts of performance.

We rehearsed a routine part of the way through,
stopping when I stumbled, out of time. “She’s no
good!” Lily spat venomously, before everyone else
had stopped.

“Do you want to make her any good?” Bianca intervened and I appreciated the remark in my defence
- though Bianca was the one who had left an open
invitation to the array of liquor.

“Give her a break, she’s not like us,” she spat back
at Lily. Lily trembled with rage. I thought she was
going to lash out and hit me as her hands made the
shape of claws and her knuckles turned white - the
anger wasn’t mutual. Bianca stepped in front of me
in a crouching protective manner with her arms back.

I looked at Sam as she shouted, “Lily!” - panic in
her eyes - “Calm down!” Her voice pleaded, “Don’t
ruin all our good work.” Soothingly she wrapped her
arm gently around Lily’s back and placed a palm on
her chest. She whispered into her ear too low for me
to hear, glancing in my direction. Her eyes were wide
and frightened, she began to walk Lily backward,
and I didn’t realize the force with which Lily resisted
until I noted Sam leaning and her feet sliding back
along the boards of the hall floor towards me. Lily was
physically pushing her with less strain than I would
have thought. Suddenly Lily broke from her grip too
quickly for the others to act effectively as barriers.
Mid step her body launched into a shiver and burst
into brown blur. Before I knew it a snarling wolf was
about to lunge toward me. I saw it like a flash before
my eyes in the half a second it took to feel panic and
shock as she sprang at me, teeth out. A slap rang out,
sharp, as the huge creature landed on me, pushing
me with a thud down and backwards onto the floor.
Its weight fell over me, heavy and lifeless, knocking
my head and elbow to the floor with a smack, swiftly
pushing all the air from my lungs. Stunned, I pushed
against her and flailed weakly. My breath had been
flushed from my chest with the force. I’d never felt
so feeble as I wobbled under the enormous weight
like a stunned mammal and then I tried to breathe.
I couldn’t draw in air! I gulped and struggled. In the
severe hit, which my body had sustained I had been
badly winded. The warm furry body was dragged
limp from me. I had my chin up trying to gasp, crying out, trying again and again to suck in air.