by Giger, S. L.
“I have to say, I’m impressed by how far you got in the time I had been away,” Roisin stated.
“Well, you’ve been away for long enough,” I said.
“Yes, I have.” Her nose twitched. “A shame Cathy couldn’t see this.”
“She might have been able to learn singing from Serena as well. She had always been so focused,” Melissa said.
“Are you comparing me to Cathy?” I asked. I never had a personal connection to her and didn’t think we had anything in common.
“You are more alike than you think.” Melissa laughed. “If she believed something had to be a certain way, she’d do anything to make it happen. And if she didn’t agree with something, she could be very stubborn.” Melissa and Roisin both started laughing while looking at me and I wasn’t sure whether or not they were laughing about me now.
Roisin reached for Melissa’s and my hand and squeezed them. “I’m glad I’m back with you. It has been an exciting time since we found you in Malaysia but for once in my life, I’d be okay with taking it easy for a while.”
I puffed my cheeks. “We all agree with you on that.”
Melissa was taken by another laughing fit, perhaps exhausted from the emotional exertions of the day and we couldn’t help but join in. Suddenly, we were all hugging each other and with Melissa’s thick brown curls pressed to the side of my face and Roisin’s lovely smelling skin, I thought it was nice to belong to a family with lots of women.
Our task hadn’t come to a sudden end after we had stopped Monica. For months we had been working toward that moment and now some cleaning up needed to be done.
Alex’s sister and dad were thankfully okay, and Alex and I drove up to see them and stayed with them for a few days.
By the end of the week, I had to be back in Orleans because school was going to pick up again. Melissa and Luke had received a letter that our school term would continue normally, and I’d have my degree at the end of the year. Now that the year had been shortened so much, I might as well attend so I’m able to receive the diploma. Afterward, I’d be free to do anything. Since my life most likely would continue for several hundred years, I was under no pressure to find a job for “life”. I had this thought though, that I could somehow work with magical creatures. Work toward a better unity so it wouldn’t be so easy for anyone in the future to make the magical world powerless. But that is another story and should be told another time.
One of our main goals now was to let the other Sirens know about Alex’s and Cathy’s serum. When we got back from his dad’s, he picked up his work in the university lab again. Cathy’s old hospital was still a partner of the actual study he was doing. He got busy creating lots of small ampules which we could bring to other Sirens. He also wrote down in detail how a Siren could clone the serum. At least with some medical knowledge, they’d be able to do it and since quite a lot of Sirens worked in a medical related field, it shouldn’t be too difficult. The harder part was to get the message through to all the Sirens. At least the family members and friends we already knew we could personally visit and explain it to them. For the rest, we had the Orbiters on our side for once. They spread puddles around the world until all the Sirens would know how they had to transform future Sirens.
On top of that, we connected with the wizards. It was good to have friends in their high ranks. We needed a solution to the problem that all Sirens had to be tied down while they were changing and naturally had a shock when they woke up. I couldn’t have imagined the solution they came up with as possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes. The magicians showed us a big lasso and then told me to stay where I was. They placed the lasso around me on the ground in a circle of about two meters in diameter, so that the ends touched. Then, see through walls shot up so that it looked like a giant snow globe. The air still felt the same and I could hear everything they were saying as if nothing was between us. Yet, I could clearly see the thin layer of a kind of cellophane barrier. I bounced a bit on the ground which now felt like rubber.
“Run into the wall.” A wizard told me. “As fast as you can.”
I knew they weren’t joking and didn’t want me to get hurt. So, I took three steps but instead of breaking through the wall or bouncing back, I got stuck in it as if I had fallen into a pot of slimy play-do. It slowly disgorged me, and I fell back on my bum. Which didn’t hurt since it was so soft. The perfect container for a person who wanted to hurt herself or didn’t know any better. It turned out that this was their playpen for children. That's where they put them when they were cooking or doing something else during which they couldn’t keep an eye on their child.
We set up boxes with lassos in various places around the world, for example in all the magical libraries. Sirens could go and borrow them if they had someone in transformation.
I even got to witness the next birth of a Siren who was transformed with the serum. Kim, the wife of the Siren Luke had visited up in Canada, had found a girl with the right aura. Her eyes were as black and evil as mine when I had woken up. In the beginning, she was confused as well about not remembering anything about her past, but she got over it much quicker than Eddie had. This proved to us that if we could take one positive thing out of it all, the serum would be it.
Yet, all that didn’t matter because the most important was that my family as well as Paula, Sam, Phe, and Joe were okay.
Jimmy soon posted in our pub chat that he was opening again and would be happy if we could make it back to work. They all had their own stories to tell from the bunkers they had been in, but luckily, none included a strange memory about me singing.
Phe and Joe were more than alright because they surprised Sam and me with an invitation to their wedding at the end of the summer. So, apart from everyone being in good health we had something else to celebrate.
Them getting married made me think about my relationship with Alex. After all we had been through, he was still my safe harbor and the way he looked at me let me know he didn’t want to have anyone else beside him but me. As promised, we packed our camping gear when normality started to sink in and escaped for a weekend in the forest. This time, I felt a little more relaxed about it than the first time we went camping together. Now I knew I could survive a few months without the normal civilization.
Alex had propped up a fishing rod along the river and we sat next to each other in green camping chairs, our fingers interlaced with each other.
“It feels so good to breathe such fresh air. The taste of freedom has a whole other meaning now.” Alex took a deep breath with closed eyes.
“Right. Wouldn’t it be nice if we get to enjoy this for a month or two without any big catastrophes happening?”
Alex turned his head to face me, one of his dark curls falling across his forehead. “Why do you feel this way? Everything is alright now, isn’t it?”
“Yes, it’s just that my life has been one giant roller coaster ever since I became a Siren.”
“Mostly a good one though, right?” He smiled, and I nodded. “For my part, I love discovering all those magical things about you and your family.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t want to give it up anymore either. Yet, it’s wonderful to have this connection to humaneness through you.” I squeezed his hand. “The beautiful vulnerability of human flesh and blood. How you appreciate time much more if you know it’s not endless.”
Alex stared out onto the glistening river and nodded. “That’s why it makes sense that I stay human for now. This way, I can keep my memory, my mind and the connection to my family but still get to witness magic through you. Perhaps that’s a bit selfish?”
“Not at all. I believe normality should get a lot more credit in life.”
“And there’s nobody I’d rather share this normality with but you.” Alex pulled me toward him, so that my camping chair almost tipped over, and kissed me. Butterflies spread from my stomach to the rest of my body. Right there, with him, was exactly where I wanted to be.
Epilogu
e
Now that you know how modern Sirens live, I have one more story to tell you out of my exciting life.
About a year after we had defeated Monica, there was an event which I had been curious about for the past three years. If Monica’s ruling had continued at the rate she was going, nobody would ever have celebrated the splendor of magic again. Luckily, it turned out differently. The magical world could recover, and I waited with sweet anticipation to receive an invitation to the Dance of Scheherazade. Melissa and Roisin had told me so many incredible things about it. I couldn’t wait to see them with my own eyes. All the magical creatures would receive the invitation in their own way. Hence, Sirens should receive a Puddle.
With each passing day, my chest got a little tighter, feeling like a rope was closing on around it because I was anxious, I’d miss it. I called Roisin, Claire and then Melissa and Luke again to ask whether they had already received their invitations.
“Nathalie, calm down for ice cream’s sake,” Roisin said, “you will most likely even be a guest of honor and therefore they will make sure you attend.”
“A guest of honor?” I sucked in a gush of air that I almost choked on it. “But I don’t want any special attention.”
“Perhaps you should have thought about that before saving the world. But don’t worry, it will be fun.” I heard her laugh over the phone. Calling her felt more special, now that we had some actual distance between us. She had accompanied Themba to the Brazilian jungle. Slowly she was recovering from her time with PaNacea in the lush environment far away from people.
“If you get a Puddle first, you let me know though, right?” I smiled through gritted teeth.
“Of course. How’s Alex doing when you are such a basket case?”
“He works a lot, now that the study his team is doing about pacemaker batteries will be published.” My glance automatically wandered to a framed picture of the two of us in front of the dune behind the house on Cape Cod. That had been the first item of decoration which made it into our new apartment on Long Island. It only consisted of one bedroom and a bathroom with a small dining room and a kitchen, but with a view on the water. We both liked the ocean and wanted a place for the two of us that we could make our own without the stories that were attached to the other places. “So, when he is home, we are doing other things than talk about work or dances.” I chuckled. “How are you? Not bored of all the plants yet?”
“No, it’s great. Exactly what I needed after being enclosed in an insane group for so long. I mean, you saw how I live now. I’m sleeping in a hammock with an amazing view over the rainforest. That’s my definition of freedom after NYC’s concrete jungle. Plus, it’s so interesting to learn about all the plants Themba and Lisa show me. We make medicine which we bring into the villages around us. I’m having a whole new life here.”
“That’s good to hear. Do you think Brazil would be a good destination for a honeymoon?”
“Why, are you getting married?” she screeched into the phone that I had to take it a few inches away from my ear.
“Nothing official yet, but Alex has made a few hints that I should be prepared for a proposal.”
“Well, then I want to be the first one to know as well.” I heard her exhale. “About the honeymoon, depends on what you want. If you want something active, Brazil has a lot to offer. But for a honeymoon, I more picture something like a sparkling white beach in the Maldives. Anyway, we can go pre-check them before you go there with Alex.”
“I don’t think that would be the point of discovering something new with him together.” I laughed. We talked a bit more about the excitement of the Brazilian jungle compared to the usual things we got caught up in our city life.
That evening, Alex and I went for our daily walk along the beach. We talked about our relationship, anything, and nothing, holding hands or hugging. Suddenly, I stopped dead almost ripping his arm out.
“Wow,” I exhaled staring at the waves.
“I agree, it’s nice.” Alex rubbed his shoulder where the arm I had almost ripped out was attached. Then he laughed. “But it can’t be that you’ve just noticed now that we have an ocean next to us.”
I shook my head not taking the eyes of the scene that was playing out in front of me. The whole water was covered with moving images like a giant screen reaching further than the horizon.
“Well, what do you see? Your eyes are as big as donuts.”
“A huge clock but it’s lying on the ground and it’s not telling the time but it’s marking different sections.” I wandered once around the sections with my eyes. “I see forests and rivers, a desert with Bedouin tents, a mountain with several gondolas and chairlifts leading to the top, a volcano which is hollow. You can take a lift up to a viewing platform and slide down on a huge water slide or a roller coaster,” I breathed for air and to wet my throat.
“Um, what?” Alex said glancing from side to side, trying to see what I saw and then verifying whether anyone else was listening to my crazy talk.
“It’s my Puddle,” I said, my voice one octave higher and my eyes shiny with so much excitement that I was almost crying. “I received one giant puddle. A full ocean of it. Now the water was covered in yellow and orange sand dunes which was even more bizarre because the waves of the ocean made the dunes wander around. Something even began to grow out of the water or, so it seemed. A big tower. Alex boxed me in the side to tell him more. “I see the desert again and Burj Khalifa and that other tower in Dubai. I guess that’s where the Dance of Scheherazade will be!”
I swallowed. Now that I knew where the dance would take place, the next question popped into my head. What would I wear? Something else caught my eye. It was floating in the water very close to the beach. It would be washed ashore in a few seconds. Alex had seen it too for he was already striding toward it, pulling it up with a crease between his eyebrows. He held up the dripping wet piece of dark blue fabric.
“What is that?” he tilted his head.
“My dress. I guess.” I laughed.
He turned it a few times to see if there was more to it. “You think? It seems a bit short. Perhaps it belongs to someone else and was washed up here by coincidence.”
“You don’t believe in what you’ve just said, do you?” I looped into his arm, pulling him back to the boardwalk. My shoes were wet from the water and I wanted to go dry the dress and see what it looked like.
“So, you really saw what you told me on the water?” Alex asked.
“Yes, quite cool, huh?”
He frowned. “In such moments I wished I was a Siren as well. It’s not fair that I’d be considered crazy if anything like what you said came out of my mouth but with you it’s normal.”
“One day, you’ll see it all as well and until then, you can be happy you know about all this as a human. I didn’t, and I would never have believed it.”
We hung the dress into the shower and then I took out a hair dryer to speed up the process. The top was more solid, almost like armor but the same dark blue like the skirt and it had a slimming and feminine design. The skirt, on the other hand, was very light and at the end had small and glittery leaves woven into the fabric in a dark blue thread.
“Dry enough.” I touched the dress after blowing at it for about thirty minutes. I stripped down to my underwear and then took the dress off the hook, which weighed down my arms a little. It was still as heavy as with all the water in it from before. Nevertheless, I stepped into the solid upper part and then pulled it up to be able to reach through the armholes. I turned my back to Alex, so he could tighten the cords of the corset in the back but before he could touch it my dress began to have a life of its own. The fabric around my chest closed in on me and I breathed out in short breaths. I hoped it wouldn’t crush me.
“What is it doing?” I screamed and bent my neck as far as possible to get a look at my back.
“Lacing up without my help.” Alex’s eyes had widened. “It’s even making a nice bow.”
; Then, my shoulders tingled because suddenly, the part over the shoulder had grown and now an airy blue fabric covered half of my upper arm. The most incredible sensation followed afterward, as my head grew heavy.
“Um,” was all Alex could manage and then he pointed at me.
“What?” I turned around again trying to catch a glimpse at myself. While doing so, I got entangled in something which turned out to be my hair. Only it now reached down to the back of my knees and was just about to braid itself into a thick long, pink braid. Yes, my nicely combed brown hair suddenly had a thick, pink extensions braid attached to them. The itchiness on my scalp subdued a little since something cooling was placed across it. I quickly swung around again, the leaves at the bottom of my skirt sparkling in a competition and looked at myself in the mirror. On top of my head was a silver tiara. I crossed my arms in front of me, not sure what to make of this. “A mixture between wonder woman and a Disney princess.” I tilted my head and the silver shone onto the walls of the bathroom.
Alex’s mouth had dropped open. “Quite dazzling,” he said keeping a safety distance to me. I twirled around to look at him directly.
He swallowed. “They’ve made you the queen of this dance.”
I looked down on myself and then pushed down flatly on my skirt, trying to stretch it a bit longer. It didn’t even reach mid-thigh.
“No, leave it. This is sexy.” Alex smiled and reached for my hand. “You should walk around the house like that every day.” He gave the back of my hand a kiss.
I straightened up again, leaning my head forward a little more than usual, so my braid wouldn’t suddenly snap my neck back. It wouldn’t make it easier to run all the way to Dubai like that. “You wish.” I stuck my tongue out at him. “Anyway, since I’m the queen, I’m the one who makes laws around the house from now on. We should start with a back and neck massage for me each night because I’ll get a stiff neck from wearing this crown.”
He sighed theatrically. “I know. It’s difficult to live with the hardships of your life.”
