Ligeia would not watch her daughter die as she had her mother. Nor would she allow herself to waste entirely away, until she was too thin and too dry to provide any real strength. She would kill herself first, drive a dagger through her own breast if she must. And Aglaope would be upon the spire, too far away, too busy singing to stop her.
At last the sky began to lighten, and Aglaope did not linger beneath her furs, but rose at once, fetching water for them both and seaweed from their stores. She watched Ligeia sleep a moment longer after she had eaten, humming a soft prayer to Persephone, to keep her safe another day. And then, with a grief-filled heart, she forced herself to climb.
The spire seemed taller that morning, and her limbs heavier somehow, but the salt-crusted stone did not crumble beneath her fingers or toes, and she did not fumble for any holds. Up and up, until she reached her nest. Aglaope’s eyes narrowed at the rose-red dawn, blinking away the dazzle splashing up from the wine-dark water, and as was her habit, she surveyed the horizon—though she was certain this morning she had risen before any sail, for darkness still had not wholly fled the sky.
Nothing, yet, as she had expected. Nothing, as there had been for so long now, she hardly remembered what it might look like if she found anything at all. But Aglaope warmed her voice, as she did every day, and began to sing all the same.
Akheloios, come to me…
There was no hiding her sorrow or her grief or her hopelessness, she realized. As careful as she had been not to speak of her dream, as cautious as she had been in the words she had chosen when Ligeia had asked what more she had seen—the truth would always be in her song, in the hymns she sang to the gods.
So she sang, begging Akheloios to come, to find them again. She sang for any ship at all, and quickly. She sang for her mother’s sake, and her grandmother’s, praying that Persephone would guard their spirits in death as fiercely as they had been forsaken in their lives. She sang and she sang, and she struggled within herself to find the peace her mother had always had—the faith not in Akheloios and escape, but in the knowledge that she would serve her goddess in the afterlife.
And then, quite suddenly, her song died.
For on the horizon, just at the corner of her eye, a dot she had blinked away had grown into a blot, and that blot, when she turned her head just slightly, had become a ship upon the water—red sail full and bright against the blue, cloudless sky.
“A ship!” she cried, her voice breaking with the strain. “A ship, Mama! A ship!”
“Sing, girl!” Ligeia called back. “You must sing!”
She laughed, hardly recognizing the sound as it tumbled from her lips, and then took up her song again—but brighter now, and stronger, louder. Aglaope sang of the children Akheloios might provide, of the groaning tables filled with more food than a thousand men might eat. She sang of the joy of rescue, of the love she was bursting to give, and the long lonely years she had waited. She sang, and the ship sailed nearer.
Hurry, she urged them on. Hurry here.
The scrape and scrabble of rock made her tear her gaze away from the sail, glancing down. And there was Ligeia, weak and frail and climbing, tears in her eyes.
“They must not pass us by,” she said, when she had reached the spire’s top, gasping and shaking. “They must not leave us behind.”
Her mother steadied herself, closing her eyes and straightening her back. She drew one deep breath into her belly, and then another, and Aglaope heard her humming, warming her throat—discordant at first, but slowly shifting, falling nearer and nearer into tune.
And then they were singing together, her mother’s voice so much richer now, so much darker, but still beautiful. How had she not remembered how much more beautiful it was to sing together? The ship sped toward them, the sail more now than just a splash of red, and the long oars flashing, until she could see the cadence of their strokes, and Aglaope could match her song to their steady strength.
They sang, and with their voices raised together, their song spreading across the water, spilling from their hearts, it seemed impossible that this ship could escape them. Two sirens? Singing as one with all their strength, all their power—if the gods had given them any true power at all.
Aglaope would have laughed again if she had not been so determined to keep singing. But she put all that hope and joy into her song. And she sang of fame and renown for the hero who might sail his ship between her rocks. She sang of glory and gold—oh they had so much gold, found upon their shores, tossed up from the water by the winter storms. And though gold had no true value to them beyond the water a pot might hold, they had kept it still, as gifts to shower upon Akheloios when he came. Aglaope sang of all their treasures, of the prizes they would give to the men who succeeded where so many before had failed. How rich they would be, returning home, with so many precious gifts within their hold!
And a siren too, to be his bride. To sing in his own halls, if he would only save her from the rocks. Aglaope would use her voice to please men and gods, both, and bring travelers from far abroad to enrich his coffers further, just for the chance of hearing her song. And oh, how she longed for a home on fertile earth, to see greenness all around, and trade the pounding surf of the sea for the joyful sounds of fresh running water at a river’s bank. To live beside the beauty of her father’s strength.
She sang of it all, the whole morning through, until the ship had neared enough that she could see—with her own sharp, desperate eyes—the man strapped and straining against the mast, bound by heavy ropes and shouting, screaming, weeping and pleading for his men to slow.
VII
“Akheloios,” her mother rasped, so startled she had lost the song. “It is Akheloios strapped down, as you described him to the life. And his men—they pay him no heed at all, but to tie him all the tighter.”
Aglaope’s vision blurred, tears offering a blessed blindness from the sight of the god she knew—the god she loved. Her father, caught and trapped upon the mast. Oh, Akheloios—no, oh no. Gods above, set him free!
“This is Circe’s doing,” her mother said. “Circe’s final insult, her last offense. To hold a god against his will! Surely she must suffer!”
She caught her mother’s hand and squeezed, remembering the handmaiden’s own words. How Circe would stop their ears with wax if she must, to be sure that they sailed through. Surely even wax would not be enough, could not be enough, to thwart Odysseus-Akheloios, born of Hermes’s blood, that Giant-Killer and friend of travelers and thieves. So Aglaope raised her voice all the louder, feeling the strain in her throat, knowing she would make herself hoarse.
But what did that matter now? If this ship passed, if Akheloios was kept from reaching them, what difference would it make if she could sing or not? She would die with or without it, and even if she did not, even if by some blessing, some gift of the fickle deathless gods above, she lived on, she would be the last of her line. And if she would be the last, then this—this would be her final song, that she might know she had done all she could do. Given all that was within her power to give.
Akheloios, come!
Ligeia understood her mind, and raised her voice, too, again. And they sang to Odysseus-Akheloios alone, of all the men. They sang their love, their thanks for all that he had given. Daughters and mothers, and his own sweet, fresh water, brought to them each winter that they might survive.
“No!” Akheloios cried, near enough at last that they could hear his words even through their song. “No, you don’t understand,” he said, frantic now. “I must reach them. We must reach them! We must thread our way through!”
But his men ignored him, just as they ignored their siren’s song, working the oars without the slightest hitch, and only the barest glances up. Aglaope could not even imagine what they saw—what they thought. Two desperate, clinging women, mouths opening and closing, gaping silently like fish upon their high rock.
“No!” Akheloios called again, tears streaming from his eyes. “Do you not
see? Circe lied! She lied, and without us they will die!”
Aglaope wanted to weep, wanted to tear at her clothes and her breast with grief as she watched the ship sail on. But she sang—sang and sang and sang with all she had—holding Akheloios’s gaze as he passed.
“Please!” he cried still. “Please, we must stop. Do you not hear them? Do you not hear their song? We are all the hope they have left!”
Her mother’s voice died again when the ship did not slow, when the men bent over their oars only to work them harder, and the sail filled to speed them on, Odysseus’s shouts carried off by the wind.
“It will not serve,” she said, when Aglaope did not stop her song. “We have lost, my dear one. We have lost. Circe and her women have conquered us, at last. Conquered even Akheloios, himself. You must save your voice, now. Save your song.”
For what?
What purpose would it serve to save her voice? If Akheloios himself could not reach them, no other man could. They would survive this day only to starve, and Aglaope did not intend to carve the flesh from her mother’s bones as she had her grandmother’s. She did not mean to watch her mother die for her sake—that she might live a half life for a few months longer, always hungry, forever alone.
But her voice broke, all the same, a sob thickening her throat and choking her song. She strangled it and tried to sing on, to put all her desperation, all her strength into her voice, to turn the ship around. To slow them, at the least. The men upon the oars did not even turn their heads, their gazes fixed upon the horizon instead, determined to keep their course.
“Oh, Aglaope,” her mother said, drawing her in and holding her close. “My sweet one, my dearest girl. There is no use. No purpose in singing to men who cannot hear. You only torture Akheloios, now, making him thrash all the harder against the ropes. It is cruel—too cruel, to keep on.”
Aglaope’s song became a wail, despair tightening around her heart just as the ropes tightened around Odysseus-Akheloios. And she wept. She wept and wailed until she heaved, her breath lost, her lungs broken and sore. It did not take long, for she had exhausted herself already with her song. Ligeia stroked her hair, murmuring soft words of comfort, nonsense words that meant nothing at all, for there was no comfort to be had, no reassurance to be offered.
“I’ll fetch water for you,” her mother said, smoothing the tears from her cheeks when she lifted her head. “And you must rest, my love, or your voice will be a ruin come tomorrow.”
Aglaope had not the strength to argue against the preservation of her voice, against the use of singing ever again. She turned her face back to the sea and the ship, not so distant that she could not still see Odysseus-Akheloios, his expression filled with grief, but without her singing to drive him, no longer struggling against his bonds. Just limp and drained, broken as he stared back.
Ligeia squawked, a sharp awful sound, causing Aglaope to spin, something dark and fast teasing at the edge of her vision. Her mother had slipped in her climb, her arms and legs too frail, too weak, and she hung by just one hand now, then just two fingers. Aglaope threw herself across the nest reaching down, stretching out her hand, the stone digging sharply into her waist, tempting her to fall herself.
“My love,” her mother said, eyes wide and flickering as her fingers lost their grip. “Do not waste my life.”
҉
Aglaope stared, frozen, at Ligeia’s broken form, tortured and bent by the rocks below. She stared, half-hanging from the nest, her arm still stretched, a cry of shock and desperate fear still echoing in her ears.
The waves crashed against the rocks, filling the silence that followed—the emptiness that she was not certain how to fight. The waves, dull and roaring, and something else, as even and steady and strong. The splash of oars, still not so far away.
Slowly, Aglaope rose, careful of the lip of the spire and mindful of the steep drop. She closed her eyes when she had found the center of the nest again, but it did nothing to block the sight of her mother, fingers slipping over and over again in the darkness behind Aglaope’s eyes.
“Siren!”
She turned her head, and there was Circe’s hateful handmaiden again, plump and round and fair, floating cheerfully upon the water. It was only then that she saw the shadow of the falcon, soaring high above. Aglaope lifted her gaze, watching it dip and dive, its sleek curved wings spread wide. And she knew.
She knew.
Ligeia had not only slipped from weakness or exhaustion. She had not only fallen. Circe had not been content to let them slowly starve. She had not been satisfied by tying Akheloios to his mast and stopping the men’s ears with wax.
“What will you do now, siren? Now that you are truly alone—and no ship, no hero to save you? For I promise you, every crew that passes will be the same. No ship will hear your song again.”
Aglaope took a breath, steadying herself, and rose to her feet. The swift, black ship had not gone so far that she could not still see it clearly—hear Akheloios’s moans, his pleading when the wind shifted, snapping the sail. And had not Butes-Akheloios swum to them across the sea?
“You will die, siren! And slowly! Even if you live upon your mother’s corpse, you will still starve. There was not much meat left upon those old bones.”
She did not look at the witch’s woman. Did not care what words she threw, sharp as knives and cutting. The water would burn the blood away, the sea would soothe her pain. And Akheloios—he would give her strength.
One step, two, and she threw herself into the leap. The wind pressed against her body, pulled at the edges of her ragged gown, and for that briefest moment—the longest breath—she was soaring.
Soaring as she did in her dreams, but when her wings would have swept against the sky, buoying her up, she arced her arms and her body forward, slipping clean and fast into the water below. Cold and shocking, for all she had braced herself against it all. She kicked down, desperate to get beneath the waves, and put all her will, all her being into swimming.
Akheloios, I am coming.
The water beat against her, even as deep as she had dove. It pummeled her, and she struggled, her chest burning for air. And still, she forced herself to take another stroke. Another kick of her legs, aiming for the light, for the sky above it.
I am coming.
Too far. Too far, and her lungs were bursting, her arms and legs just so much gold, dragging her down. She fought against the need to gasp, to draw breath where there was no air. And part of her knew, then—part of her had always known, from even before she leapt—that even if she reached the surface, it would not be enough. One woman’s arms would never match thirty oars for speed, not even in the smoothest seas.
I am.
Water filled her nose, her throat, her lungs, and around the edges of her vision, the water had turned black. It was not a waste. It was not a waste to take her fate into her own hands. And for that breath, for that endless breath, she had truly flown.
I…
She was nothing.
Epilogue
It was a long time before the darkness lifted its veil. And even then, the world had lost its form, its shape, and Aglaope struggled against the water, flailing desperately, seeking—something.
A hand grasped hers, drawing her up, the lip of the small skiff digging into her flesh as she was dragged over its edge, dripping and sputtering upon the deck.
“Ah,” a voice said, a man’s, dark and ragged, thick with disinterest. “Then you must be the last.”
She lifted her head, wiping the salt from her face with wrinkled fingers. She could see, finally, again. The dark, cloaked shape of the man looming above her, a long pole in his hand. Her shoulders ached and itched, her wings a damp heavy weight upon her back.
Her…wings?
“I suppose Lord Hades will find something to do with you and your mother until your Lady returns,” he drawled, his gaze upon the river again, and the pole he worked, drawing them closer to the shore. “Perhaps you might favor u
s all with your song, if you’ve any voice left. Even in death, for some of you it is too far gone to be recovered, goddess-blessed or not.”
She drew in a breath and coughed, salt and water still clogging her throat. “My—song?”
The words rasped, too harsh and too thin.
“Are you not a siren, then?” he mocked. “Have I dragged some other sodden-winged, half-starved creature from the Styx?”
Siren. She hummed softly, almost absently, warming her voice. Siren. She stretched out her wings, testing them, familiar and strange, somehow, at the same time.
Wings she had dreamed of, all her life. But this was not a dream. This was not a dream, and he had spoken of her mother—of others.
“My grandmother?”
His lips twitched, whether with irritation or amusement, she did not know. Perhaps he didn’t either, for his voice lost its unkindness even while his eyes narrowed. “Thelxiope has gone on with your Lady, to Olympus. They’ll return with the change of the seasons, as they’ve always done.” She let out a breath, relief and wonder, both. Her grandmother—upon Olympus!
Her mother had been right.
They had suffered their punishment, lived their short, hard lives. Now they were returned, all of them together, to their Lady’s side.
And in death, forevermore, they would fly.
Author’s Note
In a world without gods or magic, how is a siren born? What might a siren be? Those were the questions that grabbed hold of me almost immediately when I was asked to join this crew and set sail into a retelling of The Odyssey. I knew immediately that it was the story of the sirens I wanted to tell—and a voice kept whispering over and over in the back of my mind: Once, we’d had wings.
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