by Giger, S. L.
When I heard the parents’ heartbeats within one mile, I let them know that they were still on the right path and would be there soon. Once they arrived at the tent, both parents stumbled down the stairs, wanting to throw their arms around their boys rather sooner than later. They hugged their boys tightly, waking them both up. Nurlan finally started sobbing and Ayna picked up Shamil to carry him over to her other son and her husband and hug them at the same time. I felt a bit out of place.
“So”, I cleared my throat. “I will leave now. I hope you will be okay. We need the magical world to grow stronger and not weaker.”
Arslan peeled himself out of the embrace and then surprisingly threw his arms around me as well. “Thank you, dear Nathalie. We deeply owe you. I hope we can repay you in the future.” His eyes shone with gratefulness out of his wrinkly face.
I smiled weakly. “I hope I never need your offer.” I needed a heart now and not far away in the future and they couldn’t help me with that. I felt bad for even thinking about this, but I had wasted time. Too much time during which I was away from Alex and with so many other people still suffering. “I must go on now.”
“May your journey be blessed, Nathalie,” Ayna said, holding on to Shamil as if her life depended on it. For now, it didn’t anymore.
For the last time, I climbed up the stairs and out of the tent. Alex would want to live in one of those if we had one. But first I needed to keep myself alive. So, on I ran. Only, how much further would I need to look? How much further could I manage to go? I felt lonelier than ever. I knew Alex couldn’t be here with me but still, I longed for the strength of a guy to help me get through this situation. It would have been so much easier with him. I ground my teeth and pushed forward, always listening for that one heartbeat that pumped out of rhythm. The shot that would get my batteries reloaded and my spirits back up. The thought that I still had miles to go before I sleep, crossed my mind which was odd because I didn’t need sleep. Except, perhaps if I was running out of life energy which meant it was high time to find a heart. Feeling my own life threatened was enough motivation to keep going and so I ran, and I listened.
Chapter 11
Nutrition wise, I might stand a better chance with untouched islands. Therefore, I headed down to Indonesia to do a bit of island-hopping. Here, the ocean was the color of a dreamy infinity swimming pool. The white sand below the water made the soft blue of the ocean shine against the sun as if it was a competition. The waves that rolled toward beaches were long and even. Very different from the wild side of the Atlantic Ocean which I spent hours observing on Cape Cod. The islands varied in size from as small as half a football field to the state of Ohio. People were fishing or working on buildings, but I didn’t hear an excited heart. I ran out further and further into the open water and the distances between the islands got bigger. The heat started to get to me. I sweated and felt disgustingly sticky. With new adrenaline in my veins, I’d surely have enjoyed running through paradise. Now, however, my motivation to continue my quest for a heart diminished by the minute. I scanned the pretty palm trees with the inviting shade. I didn’t even know why I ran out here but now that I was surrounded by all those bountiful beaches, I thought it would be a good place to die.
I stopped hard and sank into the water down to my knees before I remembered I needed to run. If I was thinking about dying, I was getting dangerously close to losing my mind. Luckily, I had witnessed what happened to Eddie. I couldn’t let my mood swings kill me. I slapped both of my cheeks to wake me up and continued, circling around every island, to at least give someone a chance to have an accident while I was close by. But nobody did and so I couldn’t stop. Until something odd happened. I circled around another small island with a lot of lush, green bushes and a rock plateau with the ruins of a small temple. Once I got around the wall of the temple, I spotted a woman sitting on the beach. She appeared to be meditating. She was sitting in a cross-legged position with her hands loosely placed on her knees and her fingers in a round o-shape. Her long, silver-gray hair loosely fell over her back and shoulders, being slightly shifted by a breeze. She was wearing a dark blue dyed batik towel as a dress and had her eyes closed. I hadn’t noticed before that someone was on this island because I couldn’t hear a heartbeat. This and the fact that she radiated a beauty of someone who aged in dignity made it a pretty sure guess that I had found a Siren! Although I would be intruding her meditation, I had to stop and say hello. Perhaps she could give me a hint on how to stay alive around here in those tough times. I raced to the white beach and slowed down a short distance from her.
“Hello.” I walked the rest and then stood next to her in the shade of a palm tree.
“Hello, Nathalie, nice to finally meet you.” She said in a foreign sounding accent. Her words made me lean toward her a little closer. She hadn’t even opened her eyes.
“You know me?” A shiver went down my spine.
“We’ve only just met, silly.” Her voice was high and raspy. The words were thick and some of them rolled where they normally wouldn’t. Perhaps it was a very old British accent but nothing I’d ever heard before. “But I have seen you before.” She added. Then she turned her head and looked at me with light blue eyes, the exact color of the ocean which was behind her. The same eyes as Rey had.
I took a step back. With the long silver hair, her wrinkly, tanned skin and those eyes she matched the image of a witch in my childhood fever nightmares. That she appeared beautiful despite having lost her youth made it even more creepy. I was starting to doubt if she even was a Siren. We stop aging at about fifty and I had never seen a Siren with such leathery skin. Maybe she was an evil witch and I should have started running about a minute ago.
“Sit.” She patted the ground next to her. Curiosity about why she knew my name won over and I obeyed. “I have expected you. You’ve kept me waiting quite long though.”
“Who are you?” I asked confused.
“Your great, great, great times thirteen aunt.” She chuckled. She didn’t have all her teeth anymore.
I narrowed my eyes. So, she was a Siren? “Okay?” I asked, not knowing what else to say.
“Just so you know, I pulled some cosmic strings that you chose to come by my lovely island. We need to talk.” She nodded her head decisively.
This kept getting more and more interesting. In fact, so captivating that I finally managed to push my desire for new adrenaline away and could fully concentrate on her. All the other Sirens I had met so far had a youthful touch about them. This woman, however, had gotten old. Maybe it was the sun, so I was glad to be sitting in the shade. “So, who are you?”
“You may have heard of me.” Her blue eyes rested on mine and I sunk into the different shades of white, blue and dark blue until she tore me out of them again. “I’m Serena.”
I swallowed. I had heard of her because as a human, I had carried the same name. Once I became a Siren, Luke had shown me her story in one of those ancient books in the library. Serena and Laya were the first two Sirens on earth. At some point, Laya got too distressed of living on the Ocean and always having to attract lost sailors. She headed for the coast while Serena stayed on her rock. The picture that went along with the story showed a woman with long, black hair, even darker eyes, and horrible fangs to rip the hearts of the humans out. If she was the Serena mentioned in that story, she’d be thousands of years old. “You mean, Serena, the first Siren?”
“Yes, precisely.” Except for her face she hadn’t changed her position at all.
I tilted my head. “So, you are like two thousand years old?”
“A bit more than that.” She smiled. “I know, it doesn’t show.”
I let go off a short breath. “Wow.” I heard that the oldest Siren died at the age of around five hundred. “What have you been doing all this time?”
“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. You know, the ships and the people coming by got kind of the same after a while. Except that the ships got bigger and u
sed more steel instead of wood. Perhaps Laya was right to leave. She had your eyes.” She looked at me sentimentally. “Dark like the night without stars.” Her voice was like a chant at a religious ceremony and my skin reacted with goosebumps although the sun was still in the same high spot as before. “However, I stayed because I felt and still feel that the Ocean is my place.”
Then, how could she possibly know who I was if all she did in the past two thousand years was sunbathing on an island?
“A long time ago I had a bit of an unpleasant encounter with the Orbiters. They didn’t agree with my method of hunting anymore. But it’s who I am. It’s who we are.”
I clenched my jaw. “So, you rip their hearts out with your teeth?”
“It’s a natural behavior.” She shrugged and then narrowed her bushy eyebrows. “Humans weren’t put on Earth to be our friends.” She preached. “But even so, after the encounter with the Orbiters, I swore to myself that I would not let them get to me like that again. I learned about the different physical spheres. I started to meditate-”
“Excuse me,” I interrupted her. “What are physical spheres?”
She wetted her lips. “You have to imagine our universe like a mirror maze. Most things on earth are in the main pathway through the maze and therefore everyone in this sphere can see them. However, there are many more chambers behind each mirror. Only, normal people can’t see those chambers because the world around them is reflecting back on them. Once you school your third eye enough you can see past those mirrors and your mind will be able to jump into the next attached force field. I’ve trained myself to do that.” She said with pride in her voice. “Basically, I do the same thing the Orbiters do as well.”
I wanted her to keep talking and telling me more about all those foreign sounding spiritual words. I looked at her expectantly and she did me the favor.
“It took me a couple of hundred years to master it but now I can hide myself in a parallel sphere completely. Shield myself with the mirrors around us. Somewhere, where the Orbiters can’t find me.”
“So, they can’t snatch you away anymore?” I bit my lower lip.
“No. And I can let my spirit travel across the world and see what’s going on. I can even listen in on the Orbiter’s conversations and that’s how I found you.”
My mouth dropped open and then I shut it again so that my teeth made a crashing sound. “Can you teach me?” It would surely be valuable to be able to respond to the Orbiters with the same game they were playing.
“That would take months or years and first of all you are far too impatient for that.”
I snorted.
“Second, I see that the world is in trouble. It’s a stupid vendetta but for the first time in history, magic could lose to physics.”
“So, you know what is going on?” My eyes widened.
“Yes, and indeed, they need someone like us to set an end to it.”
I let go of a breath and then shook my head. “But if you know what the problem is, then why don’t you help?”
She lifted one corner of her mouth. “I bet the Orbiters would have forced me to, but they can’t find me.” Then she continued more serious, “I’m too old. I don’t have the energy for that anymore.”
“I don’t want to be rude, but you don’t sound so lifeless. Half of the world lives in bunkers and a fifth is starving. If you have the possibility to help it shouldn’t fail because you don’t feel energetic enough.”
“I know a heavy burden has been placed on your shoulders, but you can manage it. I haven’t eaten in three years. It’s okay if I sit here and move from sphere to sphere with my spirit but I can’t possibly lead a revolution.”
“You haven’t had a heart in three years?” I almost yelled the word ‘three’. I already felt nauseous after twenty-seven days.
“Yes, if you don’t spend any energy, you don’t need energy.”
“So, you should eat something maybe?” I suggested.
“It’s not absolutely necessary right now and it’s more important that you awaken a few old Siren habits. It would be a shame to let them die out.”
“So, okay. Um, what can I learn?” I sat up a bit straighter.
“It’s already inside you, you have to remember it.” She touched her heart and I slowly lifted my shoulders.
“Sing”, she said and held out one hand like she was presenting the word on a tray.
“I’ve been wondering about that.” I chewed my lower lip. “None of the Siren’s I know can sing. Unfortunately, my voice is very weak over all. I’ve always been a horrible singer. So, this might take a while as—”
“It’s not singing with your voice,” she interrupted me. “It’s with your Siren aura. When a Siren sings it’s mesmerizing. Everyone and everything who hears her sing will be enchanted by the song. Birds stop whistling or ruffling their feathers. Fish don’t jump after mosquitos but sit as close to the water surface as they can. Humans are completely hypnotized by our voice. I can see the reason why Sirens stopped singing. It created too much of a sensation. With the increasing human population, it became too dangerous. But we shouldn’t completely forget this craft.”
“Yes, I agree,” I said eagerly. “What do I need to do?”
“Take a deep breath.”
I inhaled until my lungs were about to burst and then she nodded.
“Now slowly let go.”
I exhaled.
“Now do that a few times. You have to be serene and not so excited.”
I exhaled sharply. This wasn’t even part of the singing process. But then I inhaled and exhaled again and repeated it a couple of times.
“Okay, and now you have to find your roots.” She looked out onto the ocean with her clear blue eyes and took a deep breath herself. “Sitting in a cross-legged position helps to concentrate.”
I imitated her position. I also looked out over the water and after a few minutes back at her. “What am I supposed to concentrate on?”
“The different energies inside you. You found your power to run and now you need to find the one for singing as well.”
I closed my eyes as I thought it might help. I heard the soft wind in the palm trees and the waves which were coming and going. I smelled the salt in the air and wet rock and seaweed. A few seagulls squawked in the distance. I noticed every detail about my surroundings but nothing about myself. My thoughts wandered to Alex. That I should be going back. I didn’t want them to have to worry about me as well.
“Rid your mind of your thoughts. You have to go deeper.” Serena interrupted my wandering.
I swallowed. My back started to hurt from sitting in such an unusual position. I tried to go inside me. I thought if I was a human, I would probably hear my own pulse now. So, I listened for some kind of sound from inside me, but nothing came. I searched for other signs of life within me. I wasn’t successful but time had passed quicker because at some point I felt cold and so I opened my eyes. To my surprise, hours must have passed. It was in the middle of the night and the stars were twinkling in the sky. Serena was still next to me.
“You are nowhere near there yet but go on, you are on the right track.” She said without looking at me.
I rolled back my shoulders and went back into my state of inner search, trying to forget about the absence of the sun. At some point, I don’t know how much time had passed, I felt something. A warm flow running from my left hand up my arm. I followed that warmth and it developed into more heat and then it felt as if my chest was vibrating. I opened my eyes, a bit shocked, only to be blinded by the sun and lost the string of energy.
“Good, that’s it. That’s where you will take the power from.” Serena didn’t appear to have moved at all. I slowly climbed out of my position and shook out all four limbs.
“Do you ever get up?” I asked.
“Not much, it gets better over time.”
I felt tired and massaged my neck. I still hadn’t had my adrenaline and if I didn’t get some soon, I wouldn�
�t be able to run back to the mainland.
“How does all this meditation relate to me singing?” I asked.
“Patience is a virtue.” Her eyes rolled over to my side again but since there was no pupil, I wasn’t sure where exactly she was looking at. “Now you should find that spot again. Once you feel the vibration, you transport it outside. With your voice and every fiber in your body. That’s how we sing.”
“What should I sing?” I asked.
“It won’t be a song with words. The energy is important, there won’t be any words.”
Nevertheless, I swallowed to wet my throat. I shook my legs again. Then, I deeply inhaled and closed my eyes anew. I don’t know how much time had passed but I was sure it had taken me quite a while again to find the vibration. Once I had it, I visualized how I’d transport the energy outside. When I newly became a Siren, I had to visualize my movements before I conducted them as well. Otherwise, I could have accidentally killed myself by running into a wall. The vibration expanded from my chest into my throat, as well as into my stomach and arms. From the stomach, it wandered into my legs and then it was as if my whole body was vibrating. It was an exhausting but thrilling feeling at the same time. Then, without even opening my mouth my skin sent out sonorous vibrations. I opened my eyes to see whether anything about this melody was visible. Whether I was emitting some kind of color smoke or something, but my rich and full song was only for the ears. It sounded like an orchestra of flutes and string instruments. Out of surprise, my mouth dropped open anyway and now it must have looked like I was producing this sound vocally. Serena turned her face up at me with closed eyes and a smile. She nodded approvingly.
The air filled up with my melody. I couldn’t hear the wind in the trees anymore. The seagulls had stopped squawking for once but landed on the temple and palm trees to listen curiously. In the clear waves, I noticed dark spots of smaller and bigger fish which were attracted by my song and came to listen. I couldn’t believe it! I wanted to keep singing and see what else would happen but then, I lost the energy flow inside me and the music died down. I bent over to fight dizziness. My whole body felt as if it was electrified. My knees were shaky and my palms sweaty.
