The Siren's Cry

by Jennifer Anne Kogler

  Aunt Chan shook her head as if trying to shoo an annoying fly that had landed on her head scarf.

  Flarge, still standing in the hallway, again got himself in the best position to strike.

  “I had a brief phantasm. It was nothing,” Aunt Chan said, scrutinizing Fern.

  Fern looked at her watch. She suspected Lindsey and Sam were beginning to worry by now, and she was still haunted by the sound of Candace’s voice as she left the bathroom. What if Candace had begun looking for Fern? She felt as if she hadn’t made any progress.

  “How can you help me? What kind of Otherworldly are you?”

  “A name is what you make of it, I suppose. I am what some call a Bacab. Not only can I determine which will be fortunate years for my people and which will not, but I have certain types of knowledge about the future. Not infallible knowledge, mind you. In your case, I hope it’s not infallible.” Worry lines appeared on Aunt Chan’s face. “Miles, like you, was born under special circumstances. Since his birth, I’ve had visions about his possible abduction. But I never knew by whom. I prepared for the day, training Miles, making him strong in mind and heart.”

  As the time ticked by, Fern was beginning to lose hope that Aunt Chan had any answers.

  “Why didn’t you try to stop it from happening in the first place?”

  “I don’t think you are fully grasping the nature of my talent, dear. I can see what will happen, yet I am powerless to stop it. That is not my province.”

  Aunt Chan scooted her chair backward and hopped down. Fern was shocked by her diminutive size. Gasping inaudibly, Fern stared at the old woman’s short legs. Aunt Chan was several inches shorter than Fern, even counting her towering head scarf. Fern hadn’t noticed how tiny her arms and feet were. She almost looked like a doll, barely able to see over the table, now that she was standing and not elevated in her chair. How could this woman help her rescue Miles?

  Aunt Chan walked through the nearby doorway, leaving Fern all alone in the candlelit room. Almost instantly, Aunt Chan was back, with a tall ladder in her hand. Propping the metal ladder against the wall opposite Fern, she began to climb until her colorful head wrap grazed the ceiling. With one swift move, Aunt Chan dislodged a section of the ceiling. A large book crashed to the floor. From Fern’s perspective, it seemed to appear out of nowhere, but there was now a book-size hole in the ceiling. The volume had been disguised as a part of the ceiling itself. Fern had to admit, it was a clever hiding place.

  As Aunt Chan climbed down from the ladder, Fern examined the book. It was leather-bound and as large as three encyclopedias fastened together. Its pages had ragged, uneven edges. Aunt Chan, now back on solid ground, took the book in her arms and heaved it onto the table in front of Fern. She pushed her chair toward Fern and with a single movement, hopped up to her seat.

  Because she was closer, Fern could detect dozens of small wrinkles on Aunt Chan’s face that she hadn’t previously noticed. Aunt Chan dusted off the cover of the large tome, revealing the words POPOL VUH.

  “The Popol Vuh—the most sacred text we have. It’s one account of my people’s history. I have been its keeper for the last two centuries.” Aunt Chan flipped the book open. There were detailed drawings of beasts and thin cursive writing on every page in a language Fern couldn’t decipher. The early pages had a rough texture to them, like they were made of thinly pressed tree bark. Near the back of the volume, the pages were made from more traditional paper. Aunt Chan began searching through the book until she found what she was looking for—a crude drawing.

  At first Fern thought the black-and-white drawing was a large snake of some kind. But then she noticed that it had large, talonlike feet and its bottom half was decorated with feathers. The creature’s eyes were completely black.

  “Is that a Howling Quetzal?”

  “Exactly,” Aunt Chan said. “They are extraordinarily rare, though their powers are exceptional, as you have heard from Miles. When it howls, those special descendents of Itzamná are rendered powerless under its spell.”

  “Special descendents of Itzamná?” Fern questioned.

  “What your people call Otherworldlies,” Aunt Chan explained. “Otherworldlies permeate all cultures and all people. Your view of them may have been unnecessarily narrow before now. Surely your people have a similar volume, recording their story?”

  “The Undead Sea Scroll” Fern offered.

  “The Popol Vuh or your Undead Sea Scroll. These are our best accounts of that which we do not understand. But they are still mere interpretation, constantly being revised by experience.”

  “It’ll help me figure out how to rescue Miles, then?” Fern asked, still unable to determine why she’d come to Mound in the first place.

  “The Popol Vuh is nothing more than a collection of tales. Its stories help us understand . . . to make sense of things that seem incomprehensible,” Aunt Chan said, her voice impassioned. “With every myth about the beginning of something, every legend . . . we try to understand life. Human existence would be unbearable otherwise. You must use and integrate what we already know with your own knowledge to save Miles.”

  Fern’s head began to spin.

  Aunt Chan began flipping the pages of the great volume, muttering to herself things like “That’s not it,” and “It can’t be that he’s after.” Fern ticked the minutes off in her head, peering at the pages of the large book. All kinds of strange drawings of bizarre creatures popped out at her.

  “Aha!” Aunt Chan raised her arm in the air and pointed toward the ceiling.

  “What.?” Fern said, trying to follow Aunt Chan’s gaze with her own.

  “Whoever this Silver Tooth is,” Aunt Chan said, “why would he have gone through the process of taming the Howling Quetzal—which would have taken many years— unless he was planning to make the Ah Puch Potation!”

  Aunt Chan pointed to a string of pictures on the page before her. The first was a picture of a large green feather.

  As she pointed to the picture, in the neighboring hallway, Flarge took out a single scrap of paper and began writing on it. She knows about the potion, he wrote. Calls you Silver Tooth.

  Fern peered at one of the pictures Aunt Chan had pointed to. There was a drawing of an angry man, with five arms, holding golden weapons. The last two pictures in the row were of a large blue diamond and a woman’s cartoonlike face with tears rolling down her cheeks. Below the tears was a single crescent moon. The woman’s head was adorned with a fanciful headdress, complete with horns and feathers.

  Fern was confused and growing more concerned about the time it was taking to piece together any useful information.

  “What does any of this have to do with Miles?”

  “The Ah Puch Potation is legend—said to give he who drinks it immortality, along with the ability to subdue Otherworldlies, much like the Quetzals do,” Aunt Chan said. She turned to face Fern and pointed down to the Popol Vuh. “What you’re looking at, child, are the ingredients to be used in the Potation, according to the legend.”

  Aunt Chan explained. The first component was something Fern quickly recognized: a single feather from a Howling Quetzal. Quetzals were very protective of their feathers and fought to the death to preserve them, unless, of course, the Quetzal had been tamed. The second element was one of Chac’s golden arrows. Chac was the Mayan god of rain, who threw his golden arrows toward Earth from the heavens, forming the lightning that mortals saw crash to Earth. Fern stared at the picture in the large book. Chac had many arms and dark menacing eyes, and in each one of his hands he held what looked like a long golden nail, spiked at the end.

  The third ingredient was the essence of Ix Chel, the Mayan goddess of birth, weaving, and the moon. According to myths about Ix Chel recorded in the Popol Vuh, Ix Chel’s tears had formed the moon and other planets. The last component also originated with the same Mayan goddess: Aunt Chan called it the Stone Eye of Ix Chel. She explained that, according to the Popol Vuh, the Stone Eye had been stolen from
a famous Mayan statue of Ix Chel centuries ago and was presumed lost forever. The drawing of a crying Ix Chel with a crescent moon beneath her fascinated Fern.

  “No one is entirely sure what the earthly manifestations of each of these ingredients are, if they indeed exist at all, or where they might be located. An ancient rumor has it that powerful members of the Mayan council protected these items by hiding them in plain sight, making them available should it ever be necessary to assemble the components and create the potion. Its power is overwhelming, and in the hands of someone with evil intentions . . .” Aunt Chan let her voice trail off as she imagined what kind of monster would imprison Miles in a cage and the consequences of that monster successfully formulating the potion.

  Of course, Aunt Chan didn’t know that one of the monsters who had helped imprison Miles, Flarge, was no more than a few feet away from her. At that very moment, in fact, he was in the midst of recording what was said so Laffar would better know exactly when to kill Fern McAllister.

  As Flarge listened on, Fern peered closely at the last picture of the stone in the book—the stolen Stone Eye of Ix Chel. She’d seen something exactly like it before.

  Then it came to her.

  “The Hope Diamond!” Fern blurted.

  “What?” Aunt Chan asked, wrinkling her face.

  “That stone. It’s in the Natural History Museum. I saw it today. The Hope Diamond. It’s really famous and looks exactly like that.”

  Fern took a closer look at the book. She was sure of it. The shape and color were an exact match.

  Aunt Chan put her hand over her heart.

  “My word,” she said in amazement, as if she had seen a shooting star unexpectedly light up the sky. “That is it, then. The man who took Miles . . . is planning to use his talents to steal the stone.” Aunt Chan’s eyes turned a golden yellow color. She grabbed Fern’s arm and squeezed it tightly. “I have helped you as much as I possibly can. You must stop this!” Aunt Chan implored.

  In order to appease Aunt Chan, Fern nodded her head in agreement, but she had no idea what she was actually agreeing to do.

  Suddenly Aunt Chan and Fern turned around toward the hallway. The front door had slammed shut, creating a draft so strong, most of the candles in the dining room blew out.

  “You may not have brought anyone here,” Aunt Chan said in the near darkness, “but someone came nonetheless, without being invited.”

  Fern didn’t have any time left to posit guesses as to who had snuck into the Zapo house. Lindsey and Sam would be waiting for her call, and there was still the potential problem of Candace to deal with. Aunt Chan rattled off more details Fern would need to help Miles, insisting she show Fern one last thing before she departed. Fern, distracted with thoughts of who might have been spying on them, tried to take in all that Aunt Chan had to show her. After a few more minutes, Fern declared she had to leave. Meanwhile, Flarge sped to the airport, intent on planning the final demise of Fern McAllister.

  Chapter 10

  The Disappearing Acts

  The conclusion of Fern’s visit with Aunt Chan was far more satisfactory than its beginning. Aunt Chan finally revealed a few things Fern was anxious to know— including the nature of Miles’s unusual talent.

  According to Aunt Chan, Miles shared certain traits with a famous Mayan hero. The hero, Ixbalanqué, or “Little Jaguar,” was one of the divine twins from the Mayan creation story, known for his trickery. As an Unusual, Miles had inherited one of Ixbalanqué’s best characteristics.

  Though at first Fern was somewhat skeptical about Miles’s talent, she soon came to realize that it was one of the best powers a kid (or perhaps anyone) could possess. Specifically, when Miles rubbed his hands together, he secreted a special kind of sweatlike liquid. This liquid, however gross it seemed at first, could do something incredible.

  It could make Miles invisible.

  Perhaps even more astonishing, if Miles touched any object with the secretion, the object immediately turned invisible too. Aunt Chan said that Miles called it his “magic water.”

  Both she and Aunt Chan were fully convinced that Silver Tooth was after the ingredients of the potion and was going to use Miles and his Unusual talent to steal them. They also suspected that all the necessary items were hidden in plain sight somewhere in Washington, DC. Why else would Silver Tooth be keeping Miles there? The ingredients couldn’t be better protected than in the nation’s capital, with its 24/7 security—it was the perfect place for them.

  “I want to show you one last thing,” Aunt Chan said as she hopped off her chair once more, bidding Fern to follow her. Though Fern tried to impress on Aunt Chan that she had limited time, she would not be rushed.

  The older woman led Fern up a rickety wooden staircase, illuminated with candles. Her legs had to stretch for each step until they reached a dark corridor. Inching her hand against the wall for guidance, Fern followed Aunt Chan until they came to a door.

  Aunt Chan pushed it open. She flipped on a light switch and stepped in, with Fern close behind her. Fern, acclimated to the flickering candlelight of the rest of the house, shielded her eyes from the sudden brightness. After a few seconds, her eyes adjusted and she removed her hand with only slight lingering stinging.

  Minnesota Twins memorabilia filled every inch of the room. Miles had papered the walls with pennants, posters, and pictures of all things Twins. The greats were all there—Harmon Killebrew, Rod Carew, Kent Hrbek, Kirby Puckett, Joe Nathan, Joe Mauer. Miles even had bobble-head dolls of Twins players, an authentic Twins batting helmet, and several signed jerseys. His bedspread was a pattern of the Twins logo and baseball bats.

  There was no other way of putting it: The kid was obsessed.

  Fern had to smile, though, as she thought of her new friend. It was easy to forget that she’d only met him a few days before. Fern felt as if she had a fairly complete picture of him—Miles Zapo was so confident about his identity. He was comfortable with his status as an Otherworldly and an Unusual. And more than anything, he loved the Minnesota Twins.

  Aunt Chan walked toward the opposite side of the room, which had a desk, a light, and a corkboard displaying a school schedule, a few reminders, and a charcoal drawing.

  “He drew this picture after he saw you in his dream,” Aunt Chan said. Fern walked over to get a better look. In large block letters, Miles had written her name, “Fern!” at the bottom of the drawing. He had done a pretty good job capturing her likeness. Fern was standing on a beach, and in the background a man appeared to be either dead or unconscious. Fern recognized the man’s goatee and black tails immediately. It was Vlad, frozen on the beach. The only color in the drawing was green splotches within Fern’s eyes.

  “Miles was the voice you heard in the water that day you defeated Vlad. I told Miles that if he was seeing you, you would soon see him. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done,” Aunt Chan said, her voice quaking with emotion, “telling Miles that he would be taken. I was only able to bear it because I knew you would appear to help him. I told him that he shouldn’t be frightened.” Aunt Chan’s voice wavered. Her eyes pooled with tears.

  “And here you are, Fern McAllister. As I envisioned you would be. I’m only sorry that you had to meet Miles under these circumstances.”

  Fern felt a lump in her throat. She wasn’t exactly sure why she was so emotional, but with Aunt Chan’s trembling voice and Miles’s drawing, somehow her connection to Miles had a particularity to it. His plight had become terrifyingly personal to Fern now that she was in his room, staring into the eyes of someone who cared about him so deeply.

  Fern swallowed the lump. Determination shaded her face.

  “He’ll be back here before you know it,” she said. The words flowed with such conviction, Fern almost believed them herself.

  Fern’s landing wasn’t as smooth on her return trip to her hotel bathroom in Washington, DC, as it had been when she arrived in Mound, Minnesota. She wound up reappearing in the fetal position on the top of
the bathroom sink. She blinked her eyes and wiggled her toes until feeling returned to them. Swinging her legs down, she stopped herself short of tumbling off the sink to the tiled floor. The bathroom door was ajar. In the midst of her curious visit with Aunt Chan, Fern had forgotten all about Candace’s intrusion into the bathroom right as she was teleporting to Miles’s house.

  She quickly scanned the bathroom. Curled up in the corner, Candace Tutter slept peacefully. She must have been there since Fern disappeared from the bathroom— waiting for her return.

  Fern decided to sneak out of the bathroom and leave Candace slumbering. She would convince her in the morning that she’d had a bad dream while sleepwalking. Fern gently put one foot on the ground, then the other. She tiptoed nervously toward the slightly open door, reaching for the handle.

  “You’re back,” Candace said, her eyes popping open. She rubbed them with an open palm. Fern shut the door to the bathroom as quickly as she could without making any noise.

  “What?” Fern said, trying to turn the tables on Can-dace. “Did you fall asleep in here? I was about to use the bathroom.”

  “”Who are you?”

  “Candace, it’s me, Fern.”

  “I know . . . but who are you? What are you?”

  “Candace, you’re talking like a crazy person. Unless you want to wake Blythe and Lee with your groggy rambling, we should both go to bed.”

  Gambling that Candace wouldn’t talk once the door was open, Fern pressed down on the handle and slipped out of the bathroom. She was right—Fern didn’t hear another peep from Candace, who didn’t want Blythe or Lee awake and grousing any more than Fern did.

  Candace’s soft footsteps followed Fern’s back to bed. Fern breathed a little easier, knowing that she would have until the morning before she had to confront what were sure to be impossible questions, along with more “Fern” entries in Candace’s maddening journal.

  Fortunately for Fern, the next morning Candace didn’t have the opportunity to grill her about her bathroom disappearing act, because before she was able to corner Fern, the Commander arrived.