Page 28 of Siren Problems

CALDER

T hey said it couldn’t be done.

Hell, I said it couldn’t be done. The tidepool cove— my tidepool cove—once barred to everyone but ghosts, sea-worn secrets, and my own bitterness… is now teeming with laughter.

I stand at the edge of the rocks, arms crossed, boots wet with spray, and watch Lyle attempt to give a “magically immersive” tour in flip-flops and a tank top with a seahorse that reads Siren or Nah?

“See here?” Lyle waves dramatically toward a glowing crack in the stone where ley energy pulses like a heartbeat. “This fracture once split open during a storm curse so fierce, even the kelpies peaced out!”

The kids crowding around him oooh and ahhh like he’s a bard from the old court instead of a former bartender with a penchant for glitter and high drama.

Beside me, Mira’s tapping furiously on a tablet she’s rigged to a piece of kelp tech. “Ley flux is stabilizing. Again. That’s the third reading today.”

I grunt. “That a good thing?”

She looks up, pushes her glasses higher on her nose, and gives me a sly grin. “It’s a Luna thing. Your girl rerouted the whole damn web using her voice and love or whatever. The sea’s basically got a crush on her.”

My chest does this stupid soft thump at the mention of Luna. Not because I’m surprised. But because Mira’s not wrong. The water knows her now—like I do. Like it owes her.

“You’re sure about this?” I ask, voice low. “Opening the cove? Letting the ley markers stay visible?”

Mira shrugs. “I’m sure that guarding your trauma in a tide shack for two centuries wasn’t exactly an educational experience for the next generation.”

I scowl, but it’s half-hearted. She’s not wrong. Again.

It wasn’t easy, pulling the wards back. Unbinding the silences I’d stitched into the sea itself. But I kept Luna’s hand in mine the whole time. I sang. And it stayed still.

No magic backlash. No curse.

Just peace .

Now, instead of solitude and fear, there’s curiosity. Research interns. Kids with sand in their pockets asking about sea sprites. Mira cataloging echo frequencies from relics I once hid beneath stone.

And for once, I’m not watching from the shadows.

I’m here .

Mira elbows me. “You’re brooding.”

“This is my face.”

“Well, change it. You’re a public figure now.”

I groan. “Gods help us all.”

Across the beach, Luna waves from where she’s perched on the hood of her Jeep, boots kicked off, hair wild in the sea breeze. She’s talking to a reporter from some paranormal anthropology journal who keeps blinking like he can’t quite believe she actually tamed Lowtide’s myth.

She catches my eye and winks.

Damn woman could unravel me with a blink.

Mira catches it and sighs dramatically. “I take it back. You’re not brooding. You’re pining. ”

“I do not pine.”

“You’re a tree, Calder. A tall, grumpy, emotionally repressed tree who just realized spring exists.”

I grunt again, but this time it’s a laugh under my breath. “That mean you’re sticking around?”

Mira closes her tablet, her gaze turning serious. “Yeah. If you’re serious about this place becoming a sanctuary, you’re gonna need someone who knows what ley sickness looks like before it blooms. Someone who doesn’t mind your mood swings.”

I nod. “Then you’re hired.”

She smirks. “About damn time.”

Just then, Lyle trips over his own enthusiasm and nearly faceplants into the tidepool. I lurch forward on instinct, but he catches himself—barely—and the kids erupt into giggles.

“Also,” I mutter, “tell him the glitter wards are off-limits.”

Mira snorts. “You’re going to have to accept that magical beach tours are the new local economy.”

“Gods save me,” I say again, but I can’t stop the grin tugging at my mouth.

Because somehow, this place that once held nothing but salt-scabbed memories and silence... now holds life.

And I let it.

When the crowd thins out, I walk the cove alone for a few minutes. It’s quieter now, just the rhythm of the waves and the distant voice of Luna arguing with Kai about whether ley mapping qualifies as flirting.

I crouch by the altar rock—the one we once feared. I press my palm to its surface. It’s warm.

No echoes. No pain.

Just freedom .

“You did good,” Luna’s voice says behind me.

I turn. She’s barefoot, her jeans soaked from wading through the surf, a shell in her hand like it’s some kind of offering.

“I did what I should’ve done centuries ago,” I say.

She shrugs. “You did it now. That’s what matters.”

We sit in the sand, backs against the altar stone, shoulders brushing. The tide creeps in, cool and gentle.

“I want this,” I say quietly. “Not just for the town. For us.”

Her hand finds mine. “Then keep it. No more hiding.”

I squeeze her fingers. “No more hiding.”

The sea hums like it approves.

Later that week, I wait inside the new field lab—a renovated boathouse with open walls, filtered light, and more enchanted weatherproofing than I'd ever admit I helped with. Luna's due any minute, and my hands keep twitching like I'm about to be caught doing something illegal.

Mira helped stain the wood. Lyle engraved the nameplate with more flair than necessary. But the desk? I built it. Every plank sanded, every joint fitted by hand. Oak and stone and a shimmer of sea glass set into the corners, humming softly with ley protection.

The nameplate reads: Dr. Luna Wilder – Chaos Cartographer, Sea-Saver, Certified Nuisance.

The last part was Mira’s idea. Obviously.

Luna walks in mid-rant about someone refusing to let her sample a ley crystal without three forms of ID. “I swear, if they make me fill out one more?—”

She stops cold.

Her gaze falls on the desk. On the nameplate. On me.

“You…?”

I shrug, trying not to fidget. “You needed a place to work.”

She walks to it like it might vanish if she breathes too hard. Her fingers trace the carvings, the smooth polish, the little drawer handles shaped like coral.

“Calder…”

My throat tightens. “I just wanted you to know. You’re not temporary here. This town, this research, me. You’re a part of it.”

She turns slowly, eyes glassy but bright. “You made me a goddamn desk ?”

I nod, awkward as hell.

She launches into my arms with a laugh that sounds like sunlight.

“You absolute softie. I love it. I love you. ”

And for the first time in longer than I can remember, I smile without guilt.