This is my nightmare.

"You never cease to surprise me with your...methods, Ailen. Nonetheless, excellent job. Two sirens gone, and Canosa damaged. I'm pleased with you, very pleased, indeed."

I feel numb all over. More than numb, I feel like I'm chiseled from a mountain rock that miraculously doesn't sink. Somehow, I'm still floating, taking in every detail of our encounter in a series of snapshots. My father's open forehead, his gray hair carefully combed back. His stern eyes peeling me apart. His ever-present classy boating outfit, complete with a fancy maroon waterproof jacket and brand-new khaki pants. I sense a whiff of his signature cologne and want to gag.

"Out of all boats, I had to pick the one with you in it," I whisper, every word slow to emerge.

"Kids," he actually addresses both of us, "sorry to have left you hanging. I certainly didn't think it would take you this far from the Aurora Bridge to do the job. But a job is a job is a job, right? No matter where you do it or how, the fact remains. You did it. I will hold to my word. You both will live. Ain't that good news, Ailen? Where is that smile, show your Papa, please?" He looks at me with a new expression in his face, one I don't recognize. Half awe, half fascination, and perhaps a hint of jealousy mixed with fear. All hiding under his mask of fake parental love. Forget gagging, I want to outright vomit.

He leans out of the boat and I have the sudden urge to pull him underwater and keep him there until he is no more. I'm pissed, because I know that a siren hunter can't die from a siren's hands.

"Will you accept my apology for abandoning you two?" my father says. My jaw drops open once more. He has never apologized to me in my entire life. Never. Not once.

He stretches out his right hand, his gray hair moving in the evening breeze and his lips forming a perfect smile.

When I fail to give him my hand in return, he pats me on the head lightly with a contained grimace of disgust. My father always hated wet things, especially wet, dirty things. Promptly, he unzips both of his jacket pockets and takes out two resin gloves, the thick orange kind that fishermen use for fetching their catch out of the water. They squeak as he pulls them on.

"Looks like your boyfriend is injured?" he says to me.

"Hey, son, you all right?" This is directed at Hunter.

Hunter merely nods.

"If you don't want to talk, that's fine with me. We'll have all the time in the world to talk later." My father is obviously in a very good mood and I exhale in relief. I don't know what he'll do to Hunter if he learns of his impairment, especially here, in the middle of nowhere, with who knows what he has hidden in his pockets or under the bench.

Hunter seems indifferent, staring blankly.

"Well?" My father raises his eyebrows.

I hesitate, not knowing what to do next. He apologized to me. He praised me for a job well done. He heard me and spoke to me like to a normal human being. So what that it took for me to die to get this? It's what I wanted my entire life. Perhaps he loves me, really loves me, after all?

Thoughts are reeling around my head like an angry cloud of buzzing bees. Automatically, I follow the boat and help my father prop Hunter up and over the side of it.

"Did you forget how to talk? Or did she stun you with her theatrics?" my father asks Hunter.

"Hello," Hunter mutters and falls silent, slumping into a wet, shivering pile on the front bench, giving me a look full of accusation.

"I don't blame you. I'd be speechless, too. Look at this. She flooded an entire valley! My God." My father's cheery mood fueled by the aftermath of the destruction makes him blind to what's going on, and I'm eternally grateful.

"Ailen? You coming?" My father stretches out his gloved hand, speaking in a jovial tone as if we're departing for a summer picnic.

I wait for a second, still uncertain. Did I finally earn his approval? Can people change? It takes a while, but it can happen. Can't it? Is it possible that he feels remorse, or guilt, or dare I imagine, there is love for me? I wanted to revive his soul fully, is this perhaps another chance? Years of childish yearning are close to impossible to erase, as I know now.

I fasten my eyes onto his bleached gaze. His pupils widen, two dark pools into the unknown. They don't frighten me like they used to. Although the lilac of the dusk solidifies by the minute, I see his eyes clearly for what they really are—merely two orbs full of protein liquid. I could reach out and pop them with my fingers, or I could scream and make them boil. Either way, the source of my nightmares—those two terrible spheres of menace—are gone, replaced by a pair of vulnerable globules, old and tired, sunken from years of internal conflict. My father's whole demeanor is that of a disappointed old man who's trying to make ends meet, doing the only thing he knows how to do well, hate women. What sorry existence it must be, how much pain must he carry around and suppress on a daily basis.

He blinks, unable to withhold my gaze, perhaps sensing what I'm thinking. I choose to believe the unbelievable.

"Sure," I say.

I steady the boat from bobbing and propel myself up and out of the filthy soup in one leap, landing softly between Hunter and him and onto the boat's floor. My greasy feet splatter mud in all directions and I watch with horror how the beautiful maroon fabric of my father's jacket turns brown in several spots.

I feel him burning a hole in my head with his stare and I dare to lift my eyes, automatically expecting a blow. It doesn't happen, and I sigh in relief, noticing wonder in his eyes. Wonder and uncertainty.

"Don't worry, sweetie, it's just a jacket." This is new as well, and I stare, struggling to comprehend the change.

"I have a hundred of these puppies, don't I?" He gives me another pat on the shoulder, and smiles. "Let's go home." He picks up the oars and plunges them into the dark water.

"It will take us forever," I manage.

"But you can hum us faster, can't you? We don't have to go far. I left my car by the campground, over there." He motions west. "It's high on the ridge, so it evaded your...what shall we call it...forceful flooding."

"Sure, I'll do it." I nod, overtaken by his attention. An alarm rings a thousand bells inside my mind, but my heart covers it with a blanket of hope, hushing it.

It's my trap and my curse, this elusive happiness. I'm buried alive by my desire. Despite it, I clutch to the silky rope of the promise of his love, elusive as it is. With an indescribable accuracy, I can feel it pulsing, distant and taciturn, but there.

I've got nothing left to lose at this point, do I? Then why not risk it? Why not throw myself into mad belief? And I do, dwelling on my folly and not having a care in the world; if there is even a one percent chance that I'm right, the reward will thwart my pain and polish me with its new and shiny lacquer.

So I hum and hum, passing hours as we make our way to a campground that resembles a ghostly peninsula in the night, completely devoid of campers and sitting smack in the middle of the mudslide, swollen with tree trunks, silt, and even snowmelt.

"That took, what, less than an hour? You could make good money doing this, Ailen, did it ever cross your mind?" my father exclaims. I nod. No other remarks are exchanged for the rest of the journey.

Time loses significance and staggers along in a series of boring practical moves, like getting out of the boat, pulling it ashore, slushing through wet grass to the dark parking lot, because electricity malfunctioned at some point during my effort to fill the valley with water. My über-organized father, nonplussed, turns on his super bright flashlight. I help Hunter limp along, eager to enter the comfortable confines of Papa's Maserati. Surprised that we're not asked to clean up, we both file into the back of the car and sink into the enveloping leather. I realize I forgot what it's like to ride in a car, to bask in its quiet whirring. I take Hunter's hand, and he lets me. I squeeze it and wait. He doesn't squeeze back at first, then he does, and I feel a tired smile spread over my face.

How we make it out to the highway is less about driving along a road and more about wading through a dark tunnel toward some unattainable light at the end—light and life and normalcy.

My journey home is paved with anguish. Five days ago I was in a different place. Three hours is how long it takes for me to return to its precise location. Three minutes to surface out of sealed off wonder, taking in my house through the tinted car windows like a ghost from the past. It turns my skin into a flock of marching goose pimples. Instantly, I can't breathe, sensing that I'll die right here, in this place where I grew up, where I was born.

We arrive in the dead middle of the night.

My father parks the car by our garage door, kills the purr of the engine, turns around, and throws me a large black fleece blanket to cover myself up. Apparently, he's worried that my glowing skin will freak the neighbors out.

I take the blanket and nod, moving on autopilot. I open the door, throw the blanket over my head, shuffle around the car, and help Hunter out, ignoring my father's hushed urgency to be fast and quiet and discreet lest we be discovered by neighbors who—thank you very much—are still under the impression that I died from my suicidal jump off the Aurora Bridge. I would imagine I gave Mr. Thompson and his elderly friends enough juicy details to speculate on my passing and how it must have felt. Add to that the unexplained death of Missis Elliott and her poodle Lamb-chop, and you've got a morbid gossip party.

I make my legs move, dragging them up the steps to my house that, with its lights turned off, resembles a huge casket. No more running for you, Ailen Bright. Where would you even go?

Hunter breathes rapidly in front of me, taking each step with great care, moving slowly and moaning; his damp hoodie brushes my face as I nearly stumble into it. My father is behind me and I'm caught in the middle. Having endured Hunter's soul melody during the three hour ride, I don't how to find the strength to suppress my growing hunger. It's overpowering. When was the last time I ate? Who was it? That revolting homeless mushroom guy by the Fremont Troll, and that was an eternity ago.

I glance to the side, to Mr. Thompson's dark garden. I could dash into the bushes, wrench open his door, crash into his bedroom, and suck out his soul. But I don't. A certain softness has destroyed my resolve—hope for my father's love. One more attempt to verify whether it's true. One girl's needy yearning, however crazy or hopeless it sounds. It can never be destroyed.

We emerge on the porch and wait for father to quietly fumble for keys and stick one into the keyhole. Hunter leans on the railing, his head turned away from me. Afraid to bother him, I leave him be, clutching the edges of the blanket tighter around my head, creating a hood while looking around.

Velvety black at this hour, with only two street lights dotting the night on either side, lies Raye Street. Wet from recent rain, puddles glisten with the reflected light. Expensive cars are parked along its right curb, while recycling and compost cans have been rolled out neatly in between.

You hypocrites. You like to flash your perfect façades to everyone, but you don't dare talk about your familial secrets. You hide inside your beautiful houses, pretending like you have your shit together, when, in fact, you don't. I spit with vigor, thinking about my father and his nightly violence toward my mother, covered up in the morning with the proper social stance of a respected businessman with a wife who's gone a little cuckoo. But whose doesn't? That was always his counterpoint. Women were made to haul water, his words echo in my mind as I stare at our manicured lawn, so disgustingly pristine in the moonlight. The only sign of disturbance is a pile of sheetrock, wooden beams, and other construction materials right above the garage, to patch up the hole in the ground where I happened to escape Papa's private man cave a few days ago.

"Welcome home," my father says, slowly opening the door into darkness, with a barely audible squeak. Hunter steps in, and I follow, father shutting the door behind us.

Hunter immediately staggers into the living room and plops down on the couch, hands over his ears, all without uttering a single word, silent for more than three hours now. This unnerves me and I throw a worried look to see if father is alarmed by this in any way.

"I'm afraid we won't be able to turn on any lights at this moment, I hope you don't mind. Go on, take a seat." Father motions me to the same couch, and then proceeds to carefully remove his dirty boating shoes. After he sheds his rain jacket, he flattens the collar of his shirt and smoothes his hair. He stretches his neck and checks his teeth in the mirror, like he can see his own reflection in the darkness.

I carelessly drop the blanket onto the floor and, without wiping my bare feet on the rug, I walk over to sit next to Hunter, feeling like I'll never get out of this house again.

I can't help but recognize the outlines of the familiar furniture in the gloom of the living room. To my left stands our dinner table of cherry wood, a thick oval top balanced on a single spindle leg, four chairs tucked under it. The lucid tulip shades of our chandelier hang over it. Swarovski crystal, twinkling like drops of water suspended in the air.

I remember climbing on top of the table and pushing the chandelier to swing, watching the shadows dance on the walls and pretending I was underwater. Papa hit me hard for that, from behind, and without warning. I flew several feet and split my chin on our polished parquet floor. There was a lot of blood, but I didn't utter a sound. I flinch at the memory, remembering clearly how mother was bringing out the casserole and a set of candlesticks, ignoring the scene out of fear and averting her eyes as if nothing happened. I can almost smell the bubbling hot cheese and the burnt matches after she lit the candles. I was five.

I blink and look to my right, to the big window unobscured by blinds, because father likes his light. In the blackness outside I see the street lights on the Aurora Bridge, 3,000 feet of its steel stretched from my house to Hunter's, where his mom is probably thinking him dead at the moment, if she is thinking anything at all in her state.

I turn my head and notice Hunter's gaze in the same direction. He quickly lowers his eyes. I wonder what is going through his head, but I don't dare ask. Not that he'll hear me anyway. I suppress the urge to grab his hand and press it to my chest. I shift a little to the right, just so I'm farther away from his maddeningly sweet melody.

"A perfect blend of art and science, wouldn't you say?" Father interrupts my willful stupor. He lifts a glass sphere from the coffee table and turns it this way and that, squinting at the water against the moonlight that filters through the glass, causing fish to scatter in all directions; they bump into the sphere's walls, into each other, locked in their glass casket until they die.

"Yeah..." I trail off, looking at it with a new understanding.

"Hey," I say, unable to bring myself to call him Papa and yet not feeling comfortable at this particular moment to say father either. "Hunter needs to see a doctor, like, soon. His arm might be broken, and I think I..." I want to say, I made him deaf, but arrest it mid-sentence, biting my tongue. "I think I shook him up pretty badly. We fell off a cliff about five hundred feet, so—"

"Don't you find it fascinating?" father continues, obviously deciding to ignore what I said. His usual treatment is back, so I close off and ignore him, incredulous at his ability to shut out the most horrific facts, yet understanding it fully. This is how must have survived his own horror—whatever it was—by making horrible things sound normal. You fell off a cliff over five hundred feet tall? No big deal.

"It's not very polite to ignore me, Ailen, you know that. Don't you have anything to say?" He places the glass orb back on the table, comes up to me, squats, and lifts my chin toward the window. I freeze at his touch—warm, yet not comforting. He peers into my face, as if it's my turn to be his orb. I'm not transparent, Papa, I'm empty. I have no soul. There's no use looking.

"You really need to take Hunter to the ER," I repeat, feeling the urge to kill rising in my chest in large, vehement waves.

"I'm sure he can speak up for himself, can't he?" my father says inquisitively.

"Sorry," I say, not knowing for what. It's a habit.

"No need to apologize. You're my star, after everything you've accomplished. Albeit, a bit messy. But I understand. We all love a little fame, don't we?" He pats me on the shoulder.

"Hunter needs to see a doctor, now," I press on, curling my hands into fists, hoping it will help stifle my fever. "He's in pain." I turn my head and see him slumped in the corner of the couch, soundly sleeping; by some unknown miracle, I don't fall on top of him right there and then. Watching him sleep is like watching a delicious homemade pie steam its sugary aroma, fresh out of the oven, placed directly under your nose after you've had nothing to eat for a whole week.

"I see." Father is back on his feet and then sits across from me on the other couch, a low glass coffee table separating the ten feet between us, the glass aquarium balancing dully in the middle like an enormous transparent egg.

"You're that fond of him, are you?"

I swallow rapidly but don't answer.

"He seems okay for now, don't you think? Sleep will do him good. Meanwhile, I want to show you something. I want you to pay close attention, please." He sticks his thumb and forefinger into his shirt pocket, takes out a small object, and places it on his upturned palm. It glistens in the hazy moonlight.

A pearl.

While I look at it, he pulls out a sonic gun from under his feet and places on the table top with a cautious smile. I recoil. I thought he trusted me, but he's still afraid, after all. I stare at the pearl.

"Let me explain something to you, perhaps it will help us understand each other better. Do you know what this is?"

Do you take me for an idiot, I want to say, but the gun makes me answer his question literally. "A pearl?"

"Not just any pearl. It's a natural pearl. Do you know the difference between a cultured and a natural pearl?" The way he says it make me feel dumb. The way I'll explain it, he won't hear. So I give him an excuse to shine.

"No, I don't," I say.

"Of course you don't. Most pearls in stores are cultured, grown on pearl farms. It's a fascinating process, really. They take a tiny mother-of-pearl bead, or a piece of sand, and implant it into a mollusk—the host." He pauses, waiting for a reaction.

I nod, unsure where he's going.

"This one," he puts it on his palm, "was made by nature. It's perfectly round, which is extremely rare. Look."

He lifts it against the faint light diffusing through the window, and pinches it between his manicured fingers. "Very pretty. The closer it is to an ideal spherical shape, the more expensive. Until the last century, they've been valued above all other gems. Know why?"

I shake my head, playing along.

"Not for their beauty. For their rarity."

He gives me a long look. I shift uncomfortably. Something sinister wakes in his eyes, I can't place it. He leans over the table, his other hand on the gun.

"Tell me how natural pearls are made."

I stare.

"Do we need to talk about pearls right now? Hunter's—"

"By a parasite," he interrupts me.

A film of greedy fever rolls over his face like parchment. I have a sensation that I'm looking at a marionette controlled by an evil puppeteer, struggling to remember the last time he gave me an in-depth lecture like this one and coming up blank. The only lecture I remember is the one where he taught me how women were made to haul water, never going into as sophisticated of an explanation as the one now about how natural pearls are made. It doesn't make any sense, yet I feel something important lurks behind it.

"The parasite enters a mollusk's body so that it can't be expelled. The mollusk fights back by producing calcium carbonate and protein, to cover it up, layer upon layer, until it's completely enclosed. Dead. It becomes a cyst, a cancerous growth. That's what a natural pearl is, Ailen."

He closes his lips on my name with an audible smack and pulls the corners of his mouth into what's supposed to resemble a smile, then shifts back into the groaning couch cushions, apparently satisfied with my reaction.

My mouth goes dry.

I get it.