The Sirens

1998, 7 February

Jess feels stifled at home. Her mother surprised her in the bathroom recently and screamed at the sight of Jess’s skin. She hears her parents argue about whether to take her back to the doctor, who wanted to write about Jess for a medical journal. She hides herself under dark clothing as much as possible and calls her skin condition the Flakes.

Her art teacher, Mr. Hennessey, praises Jess’s self-portrait, a swirl of blues and greens. She wonders if his attention means “that [she] was different than the others. Special” (85). Mr. Hennessey is young and attractive, and he offers to give Jess extra lessons after school.

At dinner, Jess asks her parents if they can roll their tongues. Both can, but Jess can’t. Due to what she’s learned about genetics in school, Jess believes this means she’s not their biological child. Jess has always wondered why they have no other family, no grandparents, no aunts and uncles. She begins sleepwalking again, as she did as a child, and remembers “bits and pieces of the dream, like broken shards. The warmth of a hand in [hers], a cold wind on [her] skin. Water, its lap and suck. A reflected face that wasn’t [her] own” (89).