The Sirens

19 September 1999

Jess is on a bus to Comber Bay. She’s been dreaming of the cave where she was found and thinks, “The sea was in her veins, calling loud as a song” (236). She lets Max believe her child is Hennessey’s. Cameron left the school, and Jess thinks he is repulsed by her now. Max is the one who wants to take care of her.

At Cliff House, her labor begins. Jess hears women calling to her, singing a song she knows. She makes her way to the cave. Her fingers and toes turn webbed, and the skin of her neck feels different. She births the child, then hears the sound of a motor and sees her father in a boat. 

Later, Jess awakens in the hospital. She tells her mother that the child is named Lucy. A woman comes from the child welfare office and tells Jess that because she has endangered her child, Lucy will be put in emergency foster care. Her mother suggests that they, the grandparents, register as carers.

Mary is thirsty and feels a new, strange pain in her body. One of the women describes factories in the colonies where men come to pick out wives or servants.