by A. L. Knorr
“Jozef?”
“Yes, him. I thought they had sparks, even if they were only professional ones, but maybe that was just me.”
My face was a mask, but Antoni was actually impressing me to the very soles of my feet with his insightfulness. He didn’t miss much, this love of mine.
“Unfortunately, they’re not getting along so well anymore.”
“What?” Antoni rolled his eyes and let out an exasperated sigh as we came through to the front foyer again. “I swear, it’s like a sitcom around here,” he muttered. “Or, a soap.”
One of the Novak staff crossed from the east wing to the west, and Antoni let my hand fall.
I frowned at him, not hiding my displeasure. “Speaking of a soap.”
He gave me a withering but good-natured look and deftly skirted the topic of us-in-public. “So you’re going to tell Mira what Simon said? See what she has to say?”
“Of course. I said I would. As soon as she’s feeling better.”
“And what do you think she’ll say?” Antoni seemed apprehensive about my answer and I was struck by a second guilt-blade in the gut. How could I continue to deceive him like this? Especially considering how hard I had tried not to use my siren voice on him in the past, and how I’d vowed not to use it in the future.
“I’d say the odds are pretty good that she’ll be interested,” I said, hating myself for how easily the fiction dripped from my lips. “It’s a very tempting offer.”
“Damn,” Antoni said, softly. “And I was just getting used to having her around again. Your mom is a special lady, intimidating as hell, but special.”
I smiled. “That she is.”
8
Mom was special, and she was also suffering in a special hell reserved for sirens coming to the end of their land-cycle. Winter transformed into the holiday season, and my hopes that my mother would pass through the call of the ocean and come out of the other side relatively unscathed were still unmet. She could swim whenever she wanted, and did so, frequently and for long periods of time, but her lethargy only grew.
Weeks passed with a routine that steadied me. Meeting with Hanna and sometimes Marian to learn about the Novak business, doing my online classes, studying for tests, having video calls with Saxony and Georjie every couple of weeks, and spending as much spare time with Antoni as I could while keeping an eye on my mother––it all made the time fly by.
When Mom was at sea, I couldn’t sleep and was never quite at ease. The haunting fears of my childhood had come back with an intensity that took my breath away. During the day, I could fight them back with the belief that my mother would always come back, she would never leave without saying goodbye. She hadn’t even brought up the possibility, didn’t so much as suggest that it was on her mind to leave. She wouldn’t slay me by doing something so cold as going for swim and not coming back. This I knew, during the day.
But at night…
At night, my mind became an eerie place full of tormented visions, irrational misgivings, hag-ridden by vivid imaginings of my worst fears come to life. The mind is a powerful thing, and as potent as it was in the daytime matched how vigorous it could be at night when the shadows were deep and long––when it slipped out of its tethers and frolicked without restraint.
Antoni, Hanna, and Marian frequently began to ask me how I was sleeping and if I was feeling well.
Mira never asked if I was feeling well, and that was only one of the breadcrumbs she was leaving for me as the ocean’s briny fingers slowly wrapped themselves around her mind and began to squeeze.
By the time the Christmas holidays were upon us, I knew it would to be our last together, possibly ever. What I would have paid to give my mother the gift of freedom from her siren cycles, I would have given everything: sold Novak Shipping to the highest bidder, auctioned the house and all the artifacts from The Sybellen. Maybe she would make it to my February birthday, maybe she’d even make it to my graduation, I didn’t know. But this Christmas I would not waste. I would soak up every minute I could have with her.
Antoni and his family arrived at noon on Christmas Eve. Lydia and Otto were there more in body than in spirit. Lydia turned out to be a tall and slender girl with a punk hairstyle. She wore mostly black with heavy black eye make-up. Her one colored item of clothing was a plaid coat with a skull patch on the shoulder. Any hopes I had of becoming friends with her, and maybe helping Antoni figure out why she’d been asking for money, evaporated as soon as I met her. Coolly detached, Lydia spared me only weighing glances that seemed to say she wasn’t certain I was worthy of her handsome, successful older brother. She made more of an attempt to talk with Mom, who’d achieved some small level of celebrity status in Gdansk since the salvage, but soon gave that up when Mom gave her as cold a shoulder as she was giving me. She soon retreated to chairs situated in corners and glued her eyeballs to her phone.
The familial resemblance between Antoni and Otto was obvious, though Otto was a little shorter in stature, a little more baby-faced, and with gray eyes instead of green. He was shy and also mainly absorbed in his phone. Much to Antoni’s chagrin, Otto politely injected into conversation that he’d been invited to a party that night and would probably slip out after dinner.
But Antoni’s mother, Waleria, brought a warmth and sweetness to the house that put me at ease. She spoke no English, which left Antoni to do a lot of translating, but she oozed kindness. She was a tall, slightly stooped woman, with very short silver hair and glasses with a chain to hold them around her neck. She brought three traditional Polish dishes to add to the turkey, scalloped potatoes, and pie I had suffered to make, using online video tutorials every step of the way. I had found the cooking and baking a good distraction. Mom even chopped the apples and potatoes for me, while Antoni grated cheese and fried things as required. Adalbert and Sera had gone to Sera’s family in Warsaw for the holiday, and though we were lost in the gigantic kitchen, we started early and fumbled our way around until good smells began to fill the manor.
The six of us sat down to a very enticing meal, Antoni at my right elbow and my mom directly across from me between Lydia and Otto. Antoni’s mother was seated at the head of the table, against her many protestations.
“Is your mom okay?” Antoni leaned in and whispered to me over the dessert. “I’ve never seen her eat so little, and she hasn’t even touched her pie. She’s usually ravenous.”
Mira’s eyes flicked to Antoni’s face. She hadn’t missed a word he’d whispered. She sent him a stiff smile and picked up her fork.
“She’s all right,” I said, quietly. “Maybe just a little tired.”
“What’s she been up to? She’s never here when I visit and she clearly hasn’t taken The Bluejackets offer. What’s keeping her busy?”
“She’s still considering it,” I said, glancing quickly at my mother. I hadn’t told her about Simon’s visit or offer because I knew she’d never take it. She’d heard what Antoni had said, but hadn’t reacted, not even a little. “She’s got her own projects.”
“Like what?” he persisted. “Maybe it’s something I can help her with?”
Lydia’s chair squeaked against the floor as she got up, leaving her napkin on her plate. “Thanks for dinner. I’m going to catch a ride with Otto and meet up with Makary, wish them a happy Christmas and all.” She touched a finger to her forehead and looked at me, as though saluting me. “Enjoy your evening, nice seeing you again.”
“You too, Lydia,” I murmured.
“Really?” Antoni frowned at his sister, unimpressed. “You’re not even finished with your dessert.”
“I told you I wanted to go out.”
“No you didn’t. Otto did.”
Otto stood also. Picking up his plate, he said, “Where should I take this?”
“It’s all right, we’ll look after it,” replied my mom. My gaze darted to her again, for I thought I’d detected the faintest multi-layered siren sound leaking into her voice. Had she meant to do that,
or had she slipped?
As though she’d had the same thought, my mother’s lips pinched shut and she looked down at her plate. Her throat moved as she swallowed.
Waleria spoke to both of her younger children in Polish and they each kissed her on the cheek before leaving. No one protested any further, whether it was because they’d thought there was no use arguing for the kids to stay, or my mother’s possible siren slip-up had soothed the tension in the room, I couldn’t tell.
After dinner, we put on some vintage Christmas music and cleaned the dishes and the kitchen before slipping into the living room for the evening. Antoni stoked the fire already crackling in the hearth and I plugged in the lights and decorations Adalbert and Sera had put up. The room glowed with white and blue holiday lights and the fire threw a warm glow over everyone’s faces. Mom had suggested in early December that we donate money to a charity rather than giving gifts as we had everything and more that we could ever need, and no one protested, so there was nothing but tinsel under the tree.
Waleria sat in the rocking chair and pulled out a miniature quilt she was working on. Antoni taught me a few confusing Polish card games, teasing me when I didn’t catch on very quickly, until I taught him one of mine and the tables turned.
Antoni’s gaze kept flicking to Mira where she sat in one of the overstuffed brown leather chairs near the window, looking deeply lost in private and serious thoughts.
“Did I tell you that one of my best friends is coming for a visit in the spring?” I said.
Antoni’s eyes came back to mine. “No, that’s nice. Who is that?”
“Georjayna Sutherland.”
“The redhead with the temper?”
I laughed. “No, that’s Saxony, and her temper isn’t so bad anymore. Georjie is the tall blond one.”
“Has she ever been to Poland before?”
I shook my head. “No, and she’s not going to stay any longer than a week. She’s detouring in this direction to meet you and hang out with me before going on to Scotland.”
“Scotland.” He brightened. “I have always wanted to go there.”
“Me too. Perhaps we should go sometime.”
“I’d like that.” His eyes flicked to my mom again. He leaned in. “I’m sorry to harp on this, but Mira just isn’t herself tonight Are you sure she’s all right?”
Though she was across the room, her siren hearing meant she’d heard, Mom got up from her chair and came over to Antoni and me.
“I have a little headache, sunshine,” she said, touching my hair. “And Christmas always makes me miss your father,” she added, purely for Antoni’s benefit. Not that she wasn’t missing Dad, we both felt his loss keenly during the holidays, since it had been so close to Christmas, and on his birthday, too, but Mom never talked about it, never used it as an excuse for behavior. Just the way she never talked about suffering through the pull of the ocean, or complained about bodily pains or emotional turmoil.
Antoni nodded and smiled at her. “Understandable. Have a good sleep and see you in the morning.”
Mom said goodnight to Waleria, kissed my cheek and headed to bed.
“I get it now,” Antoni murmured.
I nodded. Mom had saved me from having to make another stupid excuse for her. Always thinking of me.
Hope glimmered with a hard bright flare as my thoughts wandered back to Georjie. She had helped all those people after the disaster in Saltford—was there something that she could do for Mom? Could my mother even last until Georjie arrived? It seemed like our only hope. Georjie was an elemental, and what ailed my mother was magical in nature. Perhaps Georjie was just what Mom needed to be free.
The rest of the holidays passed uneventfully, and as we rang in the new year, Antoni went back to work and I tackled another semester of school. Life seemed an endless roundabout of routine, one my mother became more and more absent from as her lethargy grew. Helplessly, I watched for her return from her swims, coaxed her to eat, and felt despair hook its talons into me as she slipped into a place where I could not reach her.
9
Something was desperately wrong, I knew it before I even opened my eyes. My body went from asleep to tense and fully awake in the length of one sharp inhalation. My head came off the pillow and my eyes found the digital clock on my nightstand: one thirty-three in the morning.
My room was painted in a million shades of indigo and black, and the barest of starlight cast a shadow on the carpet where it pooled in a soft rectangle. A figure in my periphery brought me all the way up to sitting, in full alarm and with my siren voice swelling in my throat.
At first it seemed a specter from a horror movie––a pale-skinned girl with her head bowed and her long black hair obscuring her face, her posture not just broken-hearted, but broken-of-spirit. My heart leapt into the back of my throat and trembled there with fright, my fingers became spindles of ice. I knew this pale broken-spirited woman.
“Mom?”
I could hardly equate the figure standing at the end of my bed with my powerful, fearless mother.
Slowly, she raised her face and her hair fell away. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.
Half convinced I must be dreaming, because surely this stooped and defeated creature was not Mom, I scrambled over the covers and across the bed to her—afraid of touching her but more afraid not to. I desperately hoped I was still dreaming, and that I’d reach for her only to wake up and discover it was all a nightmare.
“Sorry for what?” I put my hands on her arms, slid them up to her shoulders, to her neck as she raised her eyes and looked at me.
Those piteous orbs made my throat close in on itself, choking back a scream.
“I need you to lock me in.” Her whisper became a soft-spoken supplication.
The flesh of my entire body crawled with gooseflesh. “What?” I couldn’t have heard her right. My own voice sounded high and fearful, I barely recognized it, and despised it at the same time.
Her siren voice filled my room. “Lock me in my room,” she said beseechingly, her siren violins grating in an ugly dissonant way. Her command had no effect on me, but my body shuddered at the sound. Her formerly beautiful voice was raw, damaged, and desperate. She sounded out of tune.
The diary of the long-dead Aleksandra Novak came rushing back to me, ice-water flooding my brain and making it ache. She had written of this very thing. The siren ancestor of the Novaks, Sybellen, had also asked to be locked in, not long before she’d vanished for good.
“Lock me in,” she croaked again. “Please.”
Her voice broke on the word please and I began to tremble, quaking in my knee joints, in my shoulders and elbows, at the base of my neck.
I had to lower my own face to hide my expression from her. I had never, until that moment in time, felt such self-loathing. I was a disgusting, selfish, wretched, and pathetic excuse for a daughter. Tears of rage burned behind my eyelids and I took a slow, deep breath and fixed my expression. Aiming for pleasant and probably falling somewhere in the vicinity of pained, I looked up at her. The corners of my mouth were quivering, and I hoped she couldn’t see it in the dark, though I knew I was fooling myself.
“Come on, Mom. We’re going down to the beach.”
Silently, without any shoes or warm clothing, we slipped from the sleeping manor like the ghosts that we were. That’s what my mother had become, I thought bitterly as we crested the dunes and approached the sacred place where the water met the sand.
My mother said no words as I led her to the Baltic. She moved like a vacant body, a shell with no thoughts of its own.
By the time we were standing in the surf and facing one another, siren tears were pouring down my face. I put my arms around her and pulled her close. She moved to hug me back, but too slowly, and her lack of ‘self,’ the pure absence of her ‘Mom-ness,’ brought a fresh wave of salt water flowing down my cheeks.
“Mom, it’s time.” My voice was steady, and I was grateful. “You’ve done everything
for me, you’ve sacrificed so much. I’ll probably never know how much.”
Her eyes were limpid pools in the moonlight, huge orbs expressing a struggle to understand, a slow dawning realization of what I was saying, what was happening here.
My heart broke when I looked into those eyes and it gave me the will to go on. My breath hitched.
“You taught me what love is, you made me who I am today. You gave me independence and resourcefulness. Your strength has made me strong.”
“Targa—”
“You are not you, and I won’t have you with me as a shadow of your former self. I can’t bear it. You have to go. Be free. I hope that you can forgive me one day.”
“Forgive—?” Her hand drifted slowly toward my face and she began to shake her head, no.
I nodded. “Yes, I need your forgiveness. I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to let you go before it came to this.”
“No.” Her eyes seemed to clear a little and she pulled me into a hug as I fought back the sobs threatening to wrack my body. She whispered against my hair as the surf swirled around our ankles. “Shhh. There is nothing to forgive.”
She was wrong, but we weren’t here to fight, and I was quickly losing my resolve.
“I love you, Mom. I’ll always love you.”
“I love you, too, Targa.” Her words came very slowly, almost slurring, like it cost her physically to say them.
I kissed her on both cheeks before stepping away. “Please, go. Go, now. You’re free.”
My knees were shaking so hard, I thought that if she waited another second, I would collapse, and then she would never leave.
Her own siren tears were slipping down her face now, and she gave me a lingering look as she walked backward into the water, the Baltic soaking through her clothing.
“I love you,” she whispered slowly, but with a gathering power, “more than anything.”
She tipped her chin up as the water reached her neck, and the moonlight bathed her face with light. For one moment I saw the potent, beautiful being that she was, her eyes clear, her expression lifted. She was a goddess, a deity of the underwater realms and all their mysteries. She was not meant for the land, not right now.
