The Siren Song - Book 2 of the Legends of Henge Series

Chapter 1

Lark Tanning

"You're an asshole."

That was the first thing Audrey told me when I got back.

"Sorry," I muttered. It was July the Fourth. We always invited Audrey and her family over for the fourth.

"First of all, 'sorry' doesn't remotely cut it," Audrey snapped under her breath. "I go to school on Monday and you're not there. I ask your brother and he says you switched schools- without telling me anything about it?"

"I didn't find out until after the party," I admitted.

"So you didn't think I'd like a call?" I didn't answer and Audrey essentially ignored me the rest of the time.

"If it makes you feel any better, I'm back again," I told her later. "I'm not going back to that school."

"Why?" Audrey asked suspiciously. "What's with this school anyway? Finch wouldn't tell me anything about it."

"It's just... a school," I shrugged. Audrey scowled.

"So what, you're whole family's just keeping it a secret?"

Audrey didn't speak to me for weeks. None of the rest of our friends from school were either. I told my parents a while back that I wanted to start going back to Amelia Crescent, my old school. They didn't argue.

I think they were secretly happy I'd chosen to stay at home. I know Finch seemed extremely relieved that I wouldn't be going back. I had my mom drive me to a salon every two weeks to dye my hair brown.

It kept coming back red unfortunately. You see, there was something odd about me. In the previous year, just before the start of fall, I woke up one morning with my normally brown hair red. Not completely, but ombre. My eyes had also changed from brown to green.

Unfortunately, this was not the most unusual thing that had happened to me that day. Only a couple of hours later, I had been told that I was a shapeshifter.

Thinking about that only made me angry. I was glad I had chosen to stay away from Vale, an academy of shapeshifting. In my last year, my best friend had betrayed me and tried to kill me.

Something white flashed in the corner of my eye and I snapped my head to the right in breakneck speed. It was just a bunny hopping across the yard, but it left me breathless, my heart pounding my chest.

I only had a moment of relief before I realized I could still be being watched. I picked up a rock and chucked it after the rabbit. I squashed any guilt I started to feel about that.

I steadied my breathing with some effort. Luckily, no one was around today to see my slight panic attack. I leaned back in the grass and shut my eyes against the bright sun. I'd be going back to school tomorrow.

It was halfway through the Summer portion of the year. I just hoped some of my old friends would talk to me.

I scanned the clear baby blue sky for something interesting. Unfortunately, there wasn't even a cloud or plane to watch. I sat back up.

There were a few red winged black birds cawing from the marsh over my fence. That was at least a little interesting.

I let out a sigh of displeasure.

"Not enjoying yourself?" Finch said from behind me. I turned to look up into his icy blue eyes.

"Not exactly," I replied gruffly. It irritated me to know that he was noticeably happier that I wasn't going back to Vale. I knew he hadn't liked me going in the first place, but I had no idea why.

"So you're serious?" he sat next to me. I gave him a questioning glance. "About not going back?" I nodded. "Why?" It seemed like he'd been wanting to ask this for a long time but hadn't.

"Because you were right, Finch," I sighed. "I didn't come back. At least not the same."

***

I lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, that night. I heard a bird outside pecking on windows on the lower floor. Why did they always do that?

I pulled my camping lamp out from inside my pillow case and turned it on, grabbing a book and opening it up to the bookmarked page. I did this a lot when I couldn't sleep. I waited until my parents were asleep and turned on the light and read until I felt sleepy.

I would probably rather play my saxophone but I couldn't do that without waking up the rest of the house.

I couldn't really focus on the words so I ended up just staring at the pages blankly and thinking about the next day at school.

Before I could stop myself, I'd pulled out my unpacked bags from Vale and started going through the objects within. My hands closed around a stack of my textbooks. I pulled out a book titled Creatures of Henge.

We'd been issued this book on the last week of school. Aurum had said we'd need it for the next year. I opened up to where I'd left off the night before, in the H's. This was the only book relating to shifting I'd looked at since I'd left.

Aurum was correct to assume that I wouldn't be able to hide from the shifting world. I had to be ready for what was out there and to do that, I needed to know what was out there.

I flipped through the first couple of pages. I'd been confused when I'd first seen the title. What did Henge even mean? I learned that Henge was a Japanese term for shifting creatures.

Harpies

Harpies are creatures that are the cross between a beautiful woman and a bird. The heads portray the woman while their bodies are feathered and winged.

I spaced out for a moment, looking at the drawing of a woman with a bird's body. It looked grotesque. They all seemed to be screeching as they tormented humans and stole their food.

I turned the page after skimming the next few paragraphs on how to get rid of them. I glanced up at the clock above my window and jumped in surprise. There was a face hovering just outside.

A leather clad finger tapped on the glass and I inspected the face closer. Thick blonde hair framed the face, falling into a long bob. Her eyes were full of blue fire, scaring the living daylights out of me.

And yet I knew this wasn't a theif, despite the dark clothing and the obvious attempts to get into my room.

"Laune?"

So, Chapter 1.

I'm so fricking excited for this whole book. You have no idea.

Question of the Chapter: What's your favorite holiday?

My Answer: Gotta say, I love Thanksgiving.

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I'll see you next week!

I reverse hate you all!!!!!