by Giger, S. L.
Really, the whole atmosphere on this island was quite relaxed. People were smiling and laughing. Perhaps that was a bonus of being isolated. On the other hand, help would also come later if something happened on the island.
These people all possessed heartbeats, so none of them could get me any farther. I usually didn’t spend too much time in coffee shops, either, so this busy market area most likely was the wrong spot to look for the male Siren. But where else should I start? If he was like Luke, he would prefer to live apart from the other people, so I could start with all the secluded houses.
I started my stroll along the edges of all the villages and listened closely where I heard heartbeats. Of course, that wasn’t a safe bet – if he lived with humans, I’d hear their heartbeats and assume that no Siren was present. But I’d worry about that in the next round of my search. For now, I concentrated on the houses without heartbeats. At all the silent houses, I stopped and rang the bell. First once, then again, and when nobody opened, I could be pretty sure that nobody was home.
This went on until mid-afternoon. I was bored by that time and felt like an unwanted Girl Scout trying to sell cookies. However, at another house where there wasn’t any sound from the inside, a man opened the door. Apart from wearing human clothes - jeans and a red-and-white striped shirt – he radiated an incredible handsomeness, although his face hid behind a dark beard. We both stared at each other for a moment – I, shocked because somebody had actually opened the door, and he because he also instantly knew what I was.
“Ola, o que fazes aqui?” he asked.
“Um, Ingles?” I asked apologetically.
“A little,” he said, and looked around nervously to see if anybody else was with me. “Come in.” He stepped back.
“Thank you.” I followed him. He pointed to a bench in a corner and I sat. He pulled out a chair, sat down as well, and reached for his phone. “Call my woman,” he said. Even though I spoke basic Spanish, I didn’t understand a word he said to her. This was a completely different language.
“Wait,” he said to me with a nod after he hung up, then drummed his fingers against his thigh. We waited. I assumed we wouldn’t have to wait too long, but the guy didn’t give any indication of a timeframe. I was amazed that there were still people in Europe who didn’t speak English.
When after five minutes we still simply sat there, it became slightly awkward that he was studying me, so I concentrated more on the house. The dark wooden walls reminded me of a cabin in the woods. The fact that the only source of light from the ceiling was a bare light bulb only intensified this feeling. Two more lamp posts with umbrellas made of yellow fabric stood in two corners of the living room, but only illuminated a small area around themselves. There was a small brown leather couch and a big old TV on a shelf. I guessed these people liked it old-fashioned.
Finally, the door opened and a woman about the same age as the man – somewhere between forty and fifty – stepped inside. She spotted me right away and gave me a once-over much like the man had. Afterward, she smiled, and her thick, shoulder-length black hair swayed with every step she took.
“Hello. Sorry, my husband can’t speak English so well,” she said with hardly any accent, then presented herself and her husband by saying, “I am Marina, this is Martin, and who do we have the honor of meeting?”
“I’m Nathalie,” I replied, and smiled at the guy, hoping he understood that. “I come from New York.”
“Well, this is an unusual visit, Nathalie,” Marina said.
“Are you the only Sirens on this island?” I asked.
“Yes, and I guess Martin is the only male one you ever came across.” She laughed shyly, and I interpreted it as uneasiness.
“Don’t worry, I live—" I corrected myself. “—lived with a male Siren, as well. Perhaps I should explain why I showed up here unannounced.”
“That would interest us, as well,” she answered, and rattled off something to her husband in Portuguese. He then leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms in front of him.
I shouldn’t have simply assumed that they would trust me. I was a stranger, after all, and could be here because I didn’t agree with the existence of male Sirens. Since so far, we’d always thought the Orbiters were against their existence, as well, and Luke and Melissa had been afraid of them, I decided it was best to leave the Orbiters out of the conversation for now. “Like I said, I know a male Siren. His name is Luke.”
Marina interrupted me to translate to her husband.
I went on. “He is doing fine. He’s been a Siren for about ten years, but he still doesn’t like to be around people too much. He gets headaches quickly.” Marina translated and Martin listened intently. At the end, he nodded. “He has been trying to find out for the last decade why the transformation worked for him and not for others, and how it could get easier for him. However, he hasn’t been very successful at it. Thus, now we – my family and I – are seeking out the other male Sirens in the world to hear their stories and maybe find out something more, or at least figure out the common problems.”
When Marina finished her translation, her husband said something to her and she made an approving sound. “Yes, this sounds understandable, but how did you find us here?”
I took a breath to answer calmly. “Through lots of research and talking to many other Sirens. I only knew that someone was supposed to be somewhere on the Azores. I was surprised myself that I knocked on the correct door so soon.”
She pondered that for a moment.
“Que?” Martin asked, and she woke from her thoughts to translate for him again.
“Yeah, so, it would be great if you could tell me your story. How did you get to know each other, why did he become a Siren, and how is he managing? I’d love to take some notes, if I may.” I pointed to my purse.
“And this is your personal interest?” Marina asked, then followed up in a vaguely hostile tone, “How do we know you aren’t here to see if he needs to be killed after all?”
“I don’t know how to prove to you that Luke exists unless you come to America with me. And I can tell you that I have a human boyfriend. If anything happened to him, I’d want to be able to save him and not make his life eternally miserable.”
Marina sighed. “You are so young. I can feel the fresh ideas bubbling inside you.” She scratched her neck. “You want to hear our story? We can tell you. And if you find something out, maybe it will help Martin, as well.”
I nodded and took a small paper notepad and a pen out of my purse. She seemed to quickly explain to her husband, who then said, “Okay.”
“So,” she began. “As you can see, we are already a bit older. I’ve been a Siren for one-hundred-and-eighty-three years.” She groaned. “Can you believe this number? Martin has been by my side for ninety-five, a little more than seventy of those as a Siren. We met in a wine bar in Porto that always played modern American jazz music in the background. He was there with his work colleagues, and I was there with some friends. Right away, something clicked inside us. I felt drawn to him, and the nice thing about him was that he wanted to talk to me and listened to me. It didn’t feel as if he was only attracted to my outside, you know?”
I nodded. A feeling to which every Siren could relate. I kept scribbling on my notepad.
“He was working as a teacher at the high school, and I was a florist. We led a simple, but nice life. We got married in a small ceremony with our friends and his family and with lots of flowers.” She laughed lightly. “Our marriage was fulfilled, although we didn’t have any children. I knew that I couldn’t have them and had come to terms with it. Of course, I never told Martin the true reason for my infertility, but he also was okay with it, since he was satisfied with caring for his high school students. But I knew that since I had become a Siren, these had been the best years of it. I never wanted to be without him anymore, and yet, I knew that one day he’d naturally turn older and die.” She swallowed. “But he never got that far.” Marina frown
ed. “It was the end of the 1920s. By then, the streets were filled with cars, but the roads weren’t actually prepared for them yet. Martin was riding home in a taxi, and the driver lost control of the vehicle and drove straight into some trees somewhere between Porto and Vagos. These cars looked very nice from the outside, but no safety measures protected them during the crash. Martin wouldn’t have made it. I had to try to save him this way.” She held my gaze as if she was waiting for some confirmation from me that she didn’t commit a crime.
“I would have done the same,” I said. “But can you please describe for me in detail what you did after the accident happened, and who else was present?”
Her expression turned serious. “It was a dark and rainy night. Even though I wasn’t with him, I felt that something was wrong.” She looked me in the eyes. “It was as if I could feel his heartbeat instead of mine. So, I traced it and found him. There was a lot of smoke around the car, but my only concern was to find and save Martin. I dragged him out of the car into the pouring rain, whereupon I went looking for the driver, whose heartbeat was very arrhythmic. He had been catapulted through the front window and was lying a little further ahead, all tangled up. I extracted his adrenaline and raced back to Martin to insert it. I thought I’d somehow be able to then drag him further into the forest and hide him in case the police showed up. But I needn’t have worried about that because suddenly, Martin was breathing again.”
She looked at him with big eyes as if she was experiencing that shock again. “As soon as I realized that, I took his hands and yanked him away from there. I didn’t want to give him a chance to start feeling the hearts from another car that was approaching. We ran out into the Pyrenees. There, we were utterly alone. He asked me what was happening to him. I told him he needed to trust me. To be calm for a moment and I would explain.”
I interrupted her. “How was he feeling at that point?”
She must have repeated that question to him because he exhaled sharply and then answered. He talked for at least a minute. Afterward, Marina translated to me.
“Very confused. He thought his head was very injured and wondered why I wouldn’t bring him to a doctor instead of somewhere where nobody could help him. He was scared he’d die and didn’t even feel the new powers inside him. A little later, he remembered that I would only want the best for him, and so was less afraid and listened to me. I explained what I was and what he now was, as well, and that our instincts are to rip people’s hearts out. I told him that I didn’t want to lose him, that we could be together eternally if he could learn how to control himself.” She swallowed. “He understood that being around people might be too dangerous for him in the beginning. So, for about eight months, we lived like vagabonds, far away from civilization.” She chuckled. “I bought us a tent and we washed ourselves in rivers. I never imagined myself doing something like that, but it was quite romantic. My biggest fear was when it came to our feeding time. I wouldn’t be able to hold him back if he went crazy.”
“How did you do it?” I asked.
“We only went to areas where one person died and no others were near, and he got a new heart after only two-and-a-half weeks. This seemed to work fine.” She smiled at her husband.
This made sense. After a feeding, I always felt a lot calmer, so if you fed more often, that would keep the desire for new hearts at bay. I jotted down a few notes. “And obviously, you can live near people now, so he got used to them?” I placed the notebook on my knees.
“Yes, after six months, we started to set up our camp closer and closer to other people. We first tried to live on the mainland, but after a while, he got miserable and locked himself in our bedroom with pillows thrown over his head. Then we tried it with islands. For ten years, we lived on Porto Santo and another fifteen on Madeira. The fewer people there are near where we live, the better he feels. And for the past fifty years or so, we’ve lived here. If we go to bigger cities, he still gets headaches from the heartbeats, but it’s okay for a few hours at a time. He even offers boat tours to Portuguese tourists.” She said something to him, and Martin got up to return with a framed picture of himself on a boat, and in the background were a group of whales in the water.
“How nice.” I glanced at my filled paper. “It all sounds pretty similar to Luke’s experience. I guess it’s important that the man has enough quiet space around him and a guiding hand to help him adjust to everything slowly.” Time we probably wouldn’t have. “And are you glad she turned you into a Siren?” I asked Martin.
“Well, it’s not like we had a choice in this,” Marina said and translated my question to him.
He puffed his cheeks and seemed to choose his words carefully in Portuguese. Marina’s face turned serious.
“Of course, he didn’t want to die. He always says that as long as we were together, life would be okay.” She smiled briefly but lowered her eyes for a moment. “But it is hard. He can’t live the life he wanted to. He can’t work in the job he learned, and he feels bad about bringing so many restrictions to our life because of him.” She searched my eyes again. “But I don’t mind. I’m glad I can have more time with him, and we are happy. I would do it again.”
That wasn’t a clear answer on whether he wanted it, but instead of pressing again, I nodded, not wanting to risk their candor.
“Yes, that’s about all there is to know about us. More than we’ve ever told anyone. As you can see, we are very quiet people.”
“I really appreciate this. I hope it will help other men in the future.”
“What exactly will you do with this information?” Marina asked.
I pressed my lips together before speaking. “Discuss it with my family. Luke also tried to find another male Siren. Maybe we’ll figure out a way for male Sirens to be more accepted. But if you’re worried about who else will know this info, rest assured, it won’t leave our hands.”
“Mmh.” She chewed her lower lip again. “We also sometimes wondered how the other male Sirens we heard of were living and how many there actually are. Maybe we will also pay you a visit in the future. If a war breaks out in Europe, perhaps America will be safer.”
“I hope it won’t get that far.” I stared at the ground for a moment. “Do you know that the night flu attacks magical creatures exclusively?”
“What? No!” Marina said. “Are you serious?” Alarmed, she looked at her husband, who obviously hadn’t understood anything.
“Yes, somebody is deliberately targeting supernatural creatures.”
Marina moved a little closer to her husband and took his hand. “Usually, such news doesn’t reach our island. We are quite sheltered here, and hopefully, it will stay that way.” Then her eyes rested on me again. “You, on the other hand, seem to know quite peculiar details about the supernatural world.”
“I go through a lot of trouble to talk to people.” I smiled.
“I guess so,” she said and studied me for a moment. “Well, I wish you luck.”
“Thank you. And really, thanks so much for opening the door.”
“Frankly, I don’t know why we did.” She squeezed her husband’s hand and exchanged a few words with him. “He said your eyes look very pure and he couldn’t turn you away when you arrived.” She smiled. “And I have to say that I would love to be able to take Martin’s headaches away. Plus, it would be nice to never have to worry about what kind of reaction another Siren might show toward him because he’s as accepted as all the female Sirens.” She exhaled sharply, turning her head away from me.
There I caught her true feelings regarding something she didn’t like about Martin’s Siren existence, whereas before, she had tried the whole time to show how their life was good as it was. I knew that somehow, I had earned her trust, and that’s why I tried to push a few more questions about what other difficulties he had and whether they had negative encounters with other Sirens. We were engrossed in conversation until late afternoon. Martin had gotten up and gone to cut some wood in front of the hous
e, as he couldn’t really participate in the conversation. I was surprised to hear how much hostility they had encountered from her old Siren friends in Portugal, and that this was the main reason why they lived such a sheltered life now. I realized that we had more work to do than creating a better outcome for male transformations. Once it worked, we needed to convince the Sirens that males weren’t a danger to our existence.
When we said our goodbyes, I invited them to the Cape again, and Marina replied that perhaps they’d knock on our door someday. On my own again, I realized how lucky I was that I had found them so quickly and that, despite the initial language barrier, they could give me so much information. I hoped the others had been as successful.
With the notes safely tucked away in my purse, I continued to Ireland to meet Claire. The wind and exposure to nature while running helped me clear my head from the conversation with Marina and Martin. I started focusing on the questions I would ask Dr. Palmer. If I could figure him out, perhaps the magical people’s suffering could be over, and instead of creating male Sirens to fight, we could create male Sirens to ensure equality.
Chapter 20
I had only been to Claire’s house once, and that was right after my transformation when everything was new for me. At that time, my system had been overloaded with impressions and information, so I couldn’t remember where her house was exactly. She came to pick me up at the Spire of Dublin. I waited in the cold night. On top of the cold, humidity was about a hundred and ten percent, so that all surfaces reflected the shimmers of the street lamps. Claire’s short, slim figure – wrapped into a thick yellow winter coat – stood out from the darkness as she approached me from the other side of the street. Her red hair was covered by a black wool hat, which made her white, freckled skin stand out.
“Good, you made it.” She smiled broadly at me and I couldn’t help but smile back and step in to give her a hug.
