The Siren Song

by Anne Ursu

  Suddenly the air filled with the sound of a tremendous rushing of water, and Jason stiffened.

  “Charlotte!” he screamed. “Turn left. Turn away!”

  Ever responsive, Charlotte leaned the steering wheel all the way to the left as, in front of her, the sea began to change. The water was moving, at first slowly and then in a rush, into the cave on the right, and as Charlotte steered the boat away, she saw that there was a smaller cave inside the first. No, no, not a cave, but a mouth. A huge, gaping mouth, rimmed with pointy yellow teeth. There was a monster in the cave—green and round and the size of a house, with six pink eyes on six waving tentacles and an open mouth that seemed to take up its whole body. The current was rushing forcefully toward the mouth, and as Charlotte watched over her shoulder, she realized that the monster was sucking in the sea. Charlotte hit the throttle as hard as she could before the current could grab them and carry them helplessly into that awful maw.

  With blood rushing in her ears, she steered the little boat toward the other side of the wall of rocks. It was hard to control the roaring boat in the midst of the churning, rushing water, and for a moment it seemed they’d smash into the rocks that bisected the canyon. But Charlotte leaned on the throttle and in a moment they had dodged them and reached calm waters.

  Charlotte and Jason were both gasping as they stared at the water on the far side of the strait, rushing into the small cave as if it were being sucked in by a giant vacuum cleaner.

  “What was that?” Charlotte yelled to Jason, slowing the motor.

  “Charybdis! She used to be a nymph, but Zeus turned her into a monster. She sucks in the sea three times a day and everything in it. And if that’s Charybdis, then”—he whirled around to stare at the cave they were currently passing—“Charlotte, duck!”

  “What?”

  “DUCK!”

  No need to tell her three times. She ducked down as Jason did the same. From her crouch, Charlotte peered over the lip of the boat and saw a great figure rush from the cave—a giant woman with blue skin, snakes for hair, and a broad red mouth. She seemed to be floating on a pack of large dog-like beasts—no, the bottom half of her body was a pack of large dog-like beasts. There was growling and gnashing, and then one of the black dogs separated from the woman’s body and bounded toward the boat as if it were on solid ground. “Get down!” Jason shouted again, and she felt his arm push her into the floor of the boat.

  As Charlotte tried to shrink herself up into the smallest, most unnoticeable piece of girl the world had ever seen, she heard a loud thud and felt the boat shake. In terror, she scrambled backward and pressed herself against the side of the boat as the hideous dog-beast, with fire eyes and glistening teeth, prowled toward her. Charlotte was hit with a wave of rancid breath. She froze, and then—

  Then a cracking noise, a whistling sound, a flash of light, an ear-bursting howl, and a smell of something singeing—and the dog-beast recoiled. Charlotte sprang up in time to see a large splash where the creature had plunged into the sea.

  Charlotte whirled around. Jason was standing in the back of the boat with the flare gun leveled at the spot where the dog used to be. Charlotte stood, openmouthed, staring at him. As one, all the dog-beasts let out a tremendous howl, and the woman began to move toward the boat and the fallen beast.

  “Can you drive?” Jason yelled. “Get us out of here!”

  With the taste of fear in her mouth, Charlotte sprang back to the console, her back aching from her desperate scramble, and without a look back she jammed the throttle as hard as it would go. The boat seemed all too willing to comply and burst forth in the water so hard that both Charlotte and Jason stumbled backward.

  Five minutes later the lifeboat was back on the open sea. The waters were calm, and there was not a cave in sight. Jason was driving now, muttering frantic apologies as he stared at the water ahead, while Charlotte huddled in a blanket in the passenger seat, trying to recover.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said, shaking his head. “I should have known. We could have gone around the strait. I didn’t realize where we were….”

  Charlotte glanced up at him.

  “That was Scylla,” said Jason. “The witch Circe turned her into a monster. She and Charybdis attack everything that comes through. It’s the Strait of Messina, and it’s death for everyone.”

  “Tell me about it,” muttered Charlotte, shivering into her blanket. She could still feel the dog’s hot breath on her neck and sense his teeth coming closer.

  “I’m so sorry,” Jason repeated desperately, eyes fixed ahead of him.

  “No,” Charlotte said, looking at him. “No! You saved my life.”

  “I wouldn’t have had to if I—”

  “Never mind that! You saved my life!” And despite herself, despite the whole terrible morning, despite all her doubts and fears, and despite the fact that a rabid sea-dog had just tried to turn her into a snack, she found a small smile crossing her lips.

  Jason wasn’t evil. He couldn’t be. If Poseidon had wanted him to bring her to his yacht so he could get rid of her, well, it seemed having her get eaten by a rabid sea-dog would have been a good enough Plan B. Or Jason could have navigated her there on purpose and arranged for the monsters to get her, which is what an evil person might do—but that’s not what happened. He’d saved her life.

  Charlotte straightened in her seat, letting the blanket drop from her shoulders, and stared out into the horizon. There were puffy clouds lingering just above the edge of the sea, and each of them seemed to form a shape against the pale sky. That one was a face. That one a horse. And that one, just above the water, almost on the water really, was—

  —a yacht.

  Oh, yes, it was a yacht. A gorgeous, gleaming yacht. Charlotte’s eyes couldn’t quite get a fix on it; every time she stared at it, it seemed to change shape. It was a cloud, a fishing boat, a cruise ship, a sailboat, a shadow, it was nothing at all. Charlotte had better luck when she looked away from it, keeping the image in the corner of her eye—then she beheld a sleek and stylish yacht sitting on the horizon. There was something about it that made you want to be wearing a diamond tiara and furs (fake fur, of course).

  Charlotte was not in a tiara, nor in a fur. She was wearing sneakers and jeans and a sweater. And as they drew closer to the yacht, which was only half the size of their cruise ship but somehow seemed three times as big, she began to feel, not like a mouse next to a hippopotamus, but like a dirt-encrusted worm next to the sky’s most beautiful dawn.

  “Do you see it?” Jason whispered.

  “Yes,” said Charlotte. “Sort of.”

  “It’s hard to look at, even for me. It’s like staring at the sun.”

  “Yeah.” She squinted at it. “Can anyone see it?”

  “Immortals,” Jason said. “And mortals, if they’ve been invited…. I’m going to bring the boat around the back; there’s a place to dock there, and it should be open.”

  Charlotte blinked at him. “Open?”

  “They’re not really that big on security, because no one ever bothers them, you know? No one’s going to mess with Poseidon. Anyway, people are coming and going all the time.”

  “They are?”

  “Yeah. Poseidon entertains a lot. He’s having a huge party tonight. He’s inviting all the big sea gods and other Immortals. As opposed to, you know, the huge party he had on, say, Saturday. Or the one on Sunday.”

  “Right.” Charlotte was so glad Poseidon had time to have big parties in the middle of plotting to ruin her life. You don’t want that kind of thing to keep you from what’s really important.

  As they approached the back of the yacht, Charlotte scanned the windows for any sign of anyone trying to kill or eat them, but she saw none. Actually, other than the fact that she had almost been sucked into a hideous monster’s mouth and had been attacked by a sea-dog, the journey so far had gone about as smoothly as could be expected. Maybe they’d just be able to saunter onto the yacht, waltz over to Poseid
on, ask him very nicely if they could borrow his trident for a bit, and hop back to the cruise ship.

  Or maybe they’d walk onto the yacht and Poseidon would feed her to a giant squid. It was really hard to say.

  Jason eased the lifeboat up right behind the yacht, where two speedboats and a Jet Ski were already lashed on. Four large houseboats and a big bullet boat were anchored off the other side of the yacht—belonging to people, it seemed, who had reached the yacht by going around Scylla and Charybdis. Charlotte reminded herself to go that way on the trip back.

  If there was a trip back.

  Charlotte shuddered. One foot in front of the other, she reminded herself.

  “You want to lash on the boat?” Jason asked.

  No, I want to go home. “Sure,” Charlotte said grimly, grabbing a long coil of rope and climbing over the bow. The hull shone an intense bright white, and something about it seemed to shimmer. Charlotte had to keep looking away lest the brightness get too intense. There were a series of hooks on the hull, and she grabbed onto one of them. It was surprisingly warm to the touch, and as she held on, she got the distinct sensation of sentience. She shivered.

  Charlotte tied the rope around the hook at the front of the lifeboat and then lashed them to the yacht. The summer before sixth grade, she’d gone to an overnight camp. There was one activity period where they offered classes in nautical knots, and all the sailing-type girls had eagerly signed up for it, but Charlotte, who did not care for those particular sailing-type girls, had gone swimming instead. It didn’t seem, at the time, like one of those fateful decisions that you’d regret later, but that’s summer camp for you.

  Without proper training, Charlotte did the best she could in fastening the lifeboat to the yacht, and once it seemed relatively secure, she examined the hull, looking for a way to climb onto the boat.

  There was none. Other than the hooks, the surface of the yacht was completely smooth. Charlotte frowned and put her hands on the hull, which was as warm as the hooks and seemed to hum slightly at her touch.

  “I don’t see how we’re supposed to—oh!” The gleaming hull had begun to move, and Charlotte stumbled back in surprise, nearly tumbling off the lifeboat’s bow. Before her eyes, the hull seemed to rearrange itself so that in one moment it was completely smooth, and in another it had a series of rungs leading all the way up to the top.

  “Well, that answers that,” she murmured. She glanced at Jason, who didn’t look at all surprised, then turned back to the yacht and looked up the ladder to where it ended at the lip of the deck. “Hey, Jason,” she asked, turning back toward him, “how am I going to get around? I mean, aren’t people going to notice me?”

  Jason shook his head. “Not really. Like I said, there are people coming and going all the time, and lots of the gods have mortal kids. Everyone will just think you have some Immortal blood. But”—he raised his eyebrows—“I wouldn’t mention your name to anyone. You’re famous.”

  “Check,” muttered Charlotte.

  “Well…shall we?” He gave Charlotte a smile that was at once nervous and excited, and if her heart flipped a bit, it wouldn’t have only been out of anxiousness over the task ahead.

  Charlotte began to climb up the ladder, feeling its rungs seem to reach out to her as she made her way up. Just as she was about to climb onto the deck, she saw Jason leaning off the ladder—the rung he was standing on had grown into a platform to accommodate him—and starting to untie the lifeboat from the yacht.

  “What are you doing?” she hissed.

  “Huh?” He looked up. “Oh! I didn’t want anyone to see it. It’s got stuff from the cruise ship on it!” He pointed at the name stenciled across the hull.

  Charlotte couldn’t believe her eyes. “Yeah…but we’re going to need that to get back!”

  “Oh.” Jason blinked. “I hadn’t thought of that.” Jason, Charlotte had noticed, wasn’t so good with the actual thinking. Which was okay, really; Charlotte could think just fine and Jason could sit there and be cute. That way, everyone had something to do.

  As Jason retied the little lifeboat, Charlotte raised her head above the lip of the hull and slowly peeked through the rail at the edge of the deck. Whereupon she found herself looking at two glossy black ball-like eyes—eyes that were staring right back at her.

  CHAPTER 20

  Lifestyles of the Rich and Infamous

  GASPING, CHARLOTTE TRIED TO CLIMB BACK DOWN the ladder, but before she could move, something had grabbed her by the back of her sweater, and the next thing she knew she was being suspended in the air above the sea. She let out something between a scream and a squawk as she dangled two stories above the Mediterranean, then whatever had her began to move her back over the yacht, and suddenly she found herself staring at the face of a gigantic crab.

  The crab seemed to have Charlotte in one of its legs…or arms, or whatever…and she was dangling from its front pincer. The crab was bright red and roughly the size of Charlotte’s living room, with black eyes on what might be its face, if crabs have faces. At this particular moment, Charlotte was most concerned with whether or not crabs had mouths, because if they did, it seemed very likely that she was going to wind up inside it.

  The crab’s eyes fixed on her, and then he lowered his body in front of Charlotte in a strange motion that seemed to be almost a bow.

  “Geia sou, bonjour, konnichiwa, greetings,” the crab said, studying Charlotte. Yes, he did have a mouth, and out of that mouth words were emanating in a tight, dry voice that could really best be described—and Charlotte never thought she’d use these words in quite this way before—as crab-like. “Welcome to the Poseidon. Do you have an invitation?”

  A what? A who? “I—”

  “She’s with me, Kark,” said a voice to her left. Charlotte quickly turned her head. Jason was suspended by the crab’s other pincer over the top of the deck.

  “Ah, Master Hart.” The crab bowed once more. “It’s nice to see you again. You’ve been missed.” This time when the crab lifted himself, Charlotte noted there was something black right below his head-like area that seemed, upon further inspection, to be a bow tie.

  “Can you put us down?” Jason asked. Really, he sounded very polite, much more than Charlotte felt. But at least it seemed that she wasn’t going to get eaten, which was a serious plus. At least…she wasn’t going to get eaten right now.

  “Certainly, Master Hart.” And with that, the crab gently lowered Jason and Charlotte to the ground. Charlotte gasped as her feet hit the teak deck and she quickly grabbed onto the rail for support (physical and moral). “Master Hart,” the crab continued, “will your friend be needing a chamber made up?” His eyes swiveled over to Charlotte.

  “That would be great,” said Jason. “Thank you, Kark.”

  The crab nodded—and nodding, for a crab, is not that different from bowing—and turned his eyes back to Charlotte. “Do you have any…special needs?” he asked.

  “What? I—”

  The crab gave her a look of barely restrained impatience. “Do you, say, grow six times your normal size at night or turn into a codfish after eating or have a lion head for a stomach that must devour everything in sight or…” He held up his front crab legs as if to indicate the wideness of the possibilities.

  “Oh,” said Charlotte. “No.”

  “Very good.” The crab reached to the wall and a phone appeared under his claw. He grabbed the receiver and, pulling it close to his face, said a few words in a language Charlotte didn’t understand (Greek? Crab?), then bowed again. “The Shell Room on Deck Eighteen will be ready for her…momentarily.” He blinked. “And…now. It’s ready now. Does mademoiselle have any luggage?”

  “Uh…no,” Charlotte said.

  Kark eyed her ensemble crabbily. “I see,” he said. “We’ll have a wardrobe provided for you.” And with that, he turned away and began muttering into the phone again. They had clearly been dismissed.

  Charlotte quickly moved toward Jason. “Deck E
ighteen?” she whispered. “This doesn’t look like it has eighteen decks.” She motioned to the yacht around her. “It can’t be more than three or four decks high.”

  Jason shrugged. “It has as many decks as it wants to have.”

  “Right,” said Charlotte. Hades’s Palace had seemed to be about six times as big on the inside as it was on the outside. She needn’t have bothered to ask. “So, uh”—she nodded toward Kark—“he seemed nice.”

  “Aw, he was just showing off. I’m sorry about that. Are you all right?” he asked, putting his hand on her arm and gazing at her.

  Something inside Charlotte’s chest turned gooey. “Of course!” she said. “I’ve been thrown around by crabs twice his size.”

  Jason grinned. “I thought as much. Come on,” he said, nodding toward the inside of the yacht, “let’s go….”

  Other than the giant, talking, bow-tie-wearing crab, from this vantage point the yacht seemed like something any normal foreign prince or movie star might have. From the lifeboat, Charlotte had seen that the yacht had a tremendously large bow and three decks that rose above the ship’s hull, with a three-level circular interior section covered in dark windows that looked like a weird wedding cake or a series of UFOs stacked one on top of the other. At the very top, behind the signal tower, was a round platform that Charlotte guessed was a sundeck. Each level had a big outdoor deck jutting out in the back, and it was on the bottom one that Charlotte currently stood. Besides the giant crab, the deck also had a big whirlpool, some lounge chairs of various sizes, and something in the back that Charlotte thought at first was a bar but proved, upon closer inspection, to be an extremely large aquarium filled with tropical fish.