High school junior Tavia Philips is at Portland’s local community pool, where her “sister” Effie Calhoun Freeman loves to swim. Though not biologically related, Tavia and Effie are both magical Black girls who consider each other sisters and best friends ever since Effie moved in with Tavia’s family about a year ago. 

While Effie swims like a mermaid, Tavia reminisces about the beaches of Santa Cruz, California, where her family lived before Portland and her incident. Tavia closes her eyes and searches the community pool for her siren grandmother’s spirit. Tavia is a siren, a mythological being who can sing compelling songs, and can listen for the dead in water. In siren mythos, they were born through water and used their calls to curse seamen, their voices returning to the sea when they die. But Tavia can’t hear her grandmother in the pool water—though she wants to learn how to stifle her siren song, to be “normal” and not live in fear. 

Sirens are persecuted for their manipulative songs, seen as beings to be feared and never trusted. Thus, Tavia keeps her identity hidden. Only her family, Effie, Effie’s great-grandparents, and the network of siren-sympathizers in Portland know she’s a siren and choose to protect her.