The Sirens

by Emilia Hart

Exiled from their homelands, the convicts were put to work to create a new penal colony called New South Wales.

In 1901, these and other surrounding colonies united to become Australia.

Jess has described the symptoms of aquagenic urticaria.

Hot fury blooms in her chest. Lucy had always believed she was the only one in their family with aquagenic urticaria. The invalid, the freak.

Like every Australian, she knows the basics already—British and Irish criminals were exiled to Australia, then just a collection of colonies.

Ryan Smith is the brother of Daniel Smith, who disappeared in 1981. And he was on the fishing boat that discovered Baby Hope. The sea gives, but it also takes.

Mary forgot about what Bridie had said. There was too much else to crowd her mind: the flesh between her fingers was beginning to thicken, and there was an odd ache under her jaw, as if something were budding there.

Oh God. Jess. Jess is Baby Hope. She knows, doesn’t she? She must have known for years. That’s why she’s here, in Comber Bay.

be. But then the guilt shifted inside

And so she decided to paint them, the women. As if to let them know that she was there. That she was ready. It would be the opposite of an exorcism. A summoning.

by understanding where she came from, she’d be able to bear it: letting Lucy go. And perhaps she’d hear it again. The women’s voices, calling to her. That sweet sound of belonging.

She’d been almost seventeen—a young woman—and he’d been just twenty-four. Seven years separated them. What’s seven years? It’s hardly more than the age gap between her parents.