“It’s like he’s a beacon, Geneva,” he’s saying to my mom like I’m invisible, like I didn’t preemptively clear my history to make him happy. Whenever he gives up like this and only talks to her, I feel like I’ve physically shrunk. Like if I keep it up, one day I’ll disappear. Like maybe that’s what he wants. “Three years he’s been roosting here. You don’t think the neighbors are wondering why? What about our house is different, what makes a gargoyle choose us, what’s he protecting?”
Effie’s right beside me, and there’s no way she speaks up in a situation like this, but I know what she’d say. Something totally sardonic and hilarious, but only to me—which is fine because she’d only say it to me anyway.
If I were her, I could get away with smirking and saying, I don’t know, Dad, Hillside’s a pretty desirable neighborhood. Plus we’ve got that spire.
Which I obviously don’t say.
“No, I don’t think the neighbors are wondering why.” My mom is being gentle with him, like my dad’s the one who needs consoling today. “I think they’re envious—and who says gargoyles are protectors?”
He doesn’t have an answer for that, but what does that matter? We’ve got a secret, and as far as my dad’s concerned, everything threatens to give us away. The fact that anyone else would be excited to host a gargoyle is beside the point. The fact that gargoyles are ridiculously rare, are the only nonhuman magical beings beside sprites, and therefore—and most importantly—have zero connection to sirens doesn’t matter.
“And even if they were protectors”—I hate when she does this—“not every siren has a guard.” My mom doesn’t go one step further and remind him that no siren does. That’s why there’s a network in the first place.
“These people don’t know that, Geneva!” He keeps saying her name like he wants to be sure I know he isn’t talking to me. “They’re not supposed to know which of us are sirens and which aren’t!”
“And they won’t, honey, if you keep your voice down.”
The room is suddenly quiet, and of course now is the time for the gargoyle to curl his stone talons tighter so that they scrape the drainpipe. When my parents’ eyes lift, mine close.
I hate that beast.
The four of us are standing in a circle, Effie and me side by side. We’ve only come just beyond the foyer, but none of us move to the living room or try to take a seat. When the beast on our roof is done adjusting, my parents pick up the conversation where they left off.
“I’m gonna get rid of him, Geneva.”
“All right, honey.”
“I have to!”
None of us ask him how, or why three years later he thinks it’s going to work. When the thing first arrived, or when a week had passed and we accepted that our house wasn’t just a rest stop on his way somewhere else, my dad had tried blocking his perch. Whenever the gargoyle was away, he’d climb out my bedroom window and onto the roof to put something in its place, I guess in the hopes that gargoyles are severe creatures of habit and it would have no choice but to flee. Or maybe it wouldn’t recognize the house, I don’t know. I don’t know any more about them than he does. None of us do. The only gargoyle mythos I’ve heard is that they’re created, chiseled by a master out of solid stone. Which, full disclosure, I saw in a cartoon when I was little. No one ever disputes it, but who would. Other than the odd publicity stunt that turned out to be a load of crap, there aren’t any known gargoyle masters chiseling new beasts to life, and as far as anybody knows, gargoyles don’t speak for themselves. Who knows if they even can. What we know is that there’s one gargoyle in Portland, and he chose us. According to the news crew that eventually showed up and that my dad couldn’t bar filming it from the street below ours, this gargoyle’s the first one to perch in the city in a very long time. So I’m pretty sure it has nothing to do with me. But that doesn’t matter. According to my dad, everything’s my fault.
Well, his, since it’s his fault I’m a siren at all.
“And then the doggone news today, Gen,” he’s saying. “They’re calling it a modern-day Siren Trial.”
I don’t say anything because they’re standing closer together now. The circle’s collapsed. We’re not a group anymore; it’s my parents and then Eff and me, and my sister’s pretty occupied digging under her wrap to scratch her head. So we’re putting up a pretty united front, too.
Between her persistent dry skin and a tingling scalp that no amount of oil treatments or tonics ever seems to soothe, I can’t blame Effie for being distracted. I could’ve done without the way she’s just ripped her headwrap off. Guess the itch got overwhelming. She’s so adorably weird; I’d smile if I weren’t totally miserable.
“These kids don’t think past their hashtag activism.” Dad’s just shaking his head now, like he disapproves of everything. “They’ve been demanding the media pay attention and now it turns out the girl was a siren. She’s dead, but what about those of us who can still get hurt by this? But everybody wanted a spotlight and now white folks are gonna give it to them. What happens to those of us who knew better than to call attention to ourselves? We get caught up with the rest of them.”
My eyes shoot up to look at my father and my vocal cords turn to flint for the second time today.
“Her life mattered,” I say, but the heat is building in my throat and I have to sign the rest.
“Whether she’s a siren or not,” Effie says in my place, translating for me while her twists protect her from my dad’s disapproving glance. “No one should get away with murder because of what we are.”
Effie’s fingering her skin looking for dry patches. She doesn’t want to be in the middle any more than I want to waste my breath. What else is there to say when someone still thinks they can prove anything to the rest of the world. When they think there’s a way to behave to avoid being brutalized.
And why bother when all I want is for my dad not to be upset with me anyway.
When it’s obvious Effie has nothing left to translate, my mom squeezes my dad’s shoulders, nodding at him after a moment.
“We’ll talk about this later, Tavia,” he says through a sigh. “Just stay away from this whole mess. I’m serious. Nothing any of us do or say online is a secret.”
“I know,” I reply, because nonsensical or not, if my dad says I can’t watch the news, I won’t.
Mom ushers him off to the kitchen and blows me a kiss over her shoulder. Only a tiny part of me wants to follow her, ask her for a real hug. Instead I start up the staircase until Effie interrupts.
“Hey. Dinner.”
“I’m good,” I say. I know there’s no way my dad’s done talking, and I almost ask Effie not to engage, but I can’t. They’re her parents now too and I don’t wanna mess that up, so I trudge the rest of the way to our bedroom.
I just want this day to be over.
* * *
When Monday morning finally arrives, I have choir first period, and today I really need it. After a weekend involving multiple instances of my throat overheating, it’s a good thing there’s a small group competition coming up. It means that instead of working in the main room with the whole class and the clutter of tacky music-program posters taped to every surface, my gospel ensemble gets to sequester ourselves in one of the soundproof practice rooms.