Siren Spell

by Cidney Swanson

  Giselle didn’t respond.

  When the sisters emerged from the car, a gaggle of boys paused in admiration of the Mercedes. Giselle and Katya thought of their grandmother’s car as ancient, but when boys (and the occasional girl) saw it at school, they crossed their arms knowingly and tossed out phrases like sweet ride or vintage classic. Both were correct. The car had been ancient when Babushka purchased it upon arriving in Amerika with her daughter and newborn granddaughter.

  Katya wriggled her fingers in a quiet hello to the gaggle of boys, one of whom was quite handsome and looked vaguely familiar to Giselle.

  Giselle raised an eyebrow at her generally reclusive sister.

  Katya responded with a single word. “Drama.”

  Giselle nodded. Last year, Katya and Giselle had had different lunch periods, so Katya had spent her freshman year eating lunch with a combination of band and drama students who didn’t mind including a dance geek. This year, however, the sisters had the same lunch period, and Giselle planned to wean Katya from her band and drama acquaintances. Lunch together at Carbs represented a start.

  Giselle and her sister went their separate ways. The school was a-buzz with talk of the return of the sirens. Giselle shivered and kept her thoughts about the creatures to herself. It was probably just rumor-mongering anyway. The boys who claimed to have seen sirens had been lying or drunk or both.

  The sisters didn’t see each other again until the break between second and third periods.

  “Have you heard?” asked Katya, her dark brows meeting in a full-face frown.

  “Heard what?”

  Katya’s right forefinger crept to her mouth where she nibbled the nail. Giselle’s frown put the activity to a halt.

  “Was there another attack?” asked Giselle.

  “Not the sirens …” Katya broke off, gnawing her lower lip instead of her fingers.

  “Oh,” whispered Giselle. The cast list. “Is the list up already?”

  Her sister shifted her head a fraction of an inch.

  “Well?”

  The warning bell rang and Katya mumbled something vague about talking at lunch before dashing down the hall to her next class.

  At which point Giselle Petrovna Chekhov decided to do something she’d never done before. She decided to cut class and visit the Studio Bolshoi to see for herself.

  4

  PANTOMIME

  The studio would be empty since the classes held for high school credit didn’t start until after lunch. Even if Ruslana had put the cast list up at the studio, she would have returned home by now for Babushka’s sake.

  Giselle raced along the damp sidewalk to the studio. Early fall leaves skittered alongside her, tossed by sudden gusts that shoved Giselle forward as well.

  When she reached the studio, all was dark and quiet. She fumbled in her coat pocket for the key. From next door, the owner of the sandwich shop stared at her, arms crossed, as if trying to remember if school had started and, if it had, whether or not he should notify someone of the Chekhov girl’s truancy. The Chekhovs weren’t on the best of terms with Mr. Martins, who wanted the studio gone so a coffee shop could move in, increasing traffic and improving the sales of his sandwiches.

  Through the diamond-shaped window set high in the studio’s front door, Giselle could see a sheet of white paper pinned to the announcements board. The cast list. She inserted her key, pulling the handle up and to the right to persuade it to unlock. The damaged lock was on the same not as important as pointe shoes list as her bedside lamp.

  The groaning of the garbage collection truck behind the studio accompanied Giselle’s measured stride to the announcements board. As the truck emptied and re-set the heavy dumpster, Giselle felt the studio’s sprung floor shudder. These things she heard and felt, but they seemed to be happening to someone else.

  On the cast list where her name ought to be next to Giselle, A Peasant Girl, she saw her friend Heidi’s name. The wrong name had been inscribed. Next to her role. Automatically, she scanned the remaining roles. Her sister’s name was where it belonged: Ykaterina Chekhov, A Peasant, Pas de Deux. But opposite Albrecht, A Prince, Giselle saw not Kevin’s name but Marcus’s. Her eyes flashed back to Giselle, A Peasant Girl. It still read “Heidi Pickernell.”

  Giselle’s mouth opened and closed but no sounds came out. It was all wrong. It was horribly wrong. She had to be dreaming. She stared at the cast list, trying to force the right names into the right places, but Heidi’s name remained stubbornly fixed beside Giselle, A Peasant Girl. And then she saw her own name. “Giselle Chekhov” was printed next to Berthe, Giselle’s Mother.

  Giselle gasped, her hand flying to her mouth.

  Berthe wasn’t even a dancing role. It was pantomime.

  Giselle had expected Miss Ellen, a retired dancer-turned-instructor to take on the role of Berthe. Hot tears burned behind Giselle’s eyes. She blinked them back, too angry to allow them to fall.

  Outside, the wind gusted and the front door whooshed open, banging hard against a pair of folding metal chairs. Giselle twisted at the sound. A flurry of leaves from outside scattered across the studio floor. Two of the leaves chased one another in a miniature cyclone.

  Feeling dizzy, she closed her eyes, one hand against the wall to steady herself.

  Berthe, Giselle’s mother.

  Suddenly she couldn’t bear to be in the room with the horribly wrong list. She ran outside, slamming the studio door behind her, locking it somehow. Mr. Martins stared at her, frowning as she ran down the sidewalk. It was not a cold day but Giselle felt frozen, felt as though there were icy fingers clawing at her belly, inscribing it over and over with Heidi’s name next to the role Giselle had been born to dance.

  She came to a crossing where she had to decide whether she was going home or back to school. Perhaps, she thought, she would simply walk away from both. But then a police car drove slowly past her on the opposite side of the road. The vehicle came to a halt, pulled into a driveway and reversed direction, coming toward her.

  “Derrmo!” she cursed, cutting across the field of wet grass separating her from Spanish class. Mr. Martins must have called the truancy officer.

  Not that truancy mattered. Nothing mattered.

  She wasn’t Giselle.

  How would she face her sister over lunch? Or Heidi?

  She wasn’t Giselle.

  How would she face her life?

  She wasn’t Giselle.

  “Giselle?” called a voice. Adult and male.

  She looked up, wondering how the truancy officer knew her by name. But it was Foulweather High’s head football coach. Coach knew Giselle from Ballet for Jocks, where she’d assisted for the three years since the program’s inception.

  “Everything okay?” he asked as the police officer pulled the car into a no parking zone. Coach lowered his voice to ask a second question. “What are you doing out of class?”

  Giselle couldn’t speak. Her throat felt as though it had swollen shut.

  “Your mom?” Coach asked quietly. “Studio business?”

  She nodded, even though it wasn’t true in the way he meant it.

  Shaking his head, Coach pulled out an orange notepad and scribbled something on the top sheet.

  “Ruslana Chekhov doesn’t get that you girls have a life outside of ballet, does she?” He tore the sheet off and handed it to Giselle. “Here.”

  She stared at the get out of jail free paper, flapping between her fingers in a sudden gust.

  “Don’t worry. It’s good with your teachers,” said Coach. “Schools are too broke to print separate ones for each campus.”

  Giselle found her voice. “Thanks.”

  “Morning, officer,” said Coach, nodding to the approaching policewoman.

  Giselle clenched her hands into tight fists, suddenly fearful of adding detention to her other problems.

  The officer nodded to Coach but addressed Giselle. “I got a call about a student matching your description who broke into th
e building beside Martins’ Deli.”

  “I wasn’t breaking in,” Giselle said. “I work there.”

  “During school?” asked the officer as she pulled a notepad from her jacket.

  “She was there on official school business,” explained Coach. “This is Giselle Chekhov. She works at Studio Bolshoi where she helps train my boys.”

  Turning to Giselle, Coach winked and said, “I’ll have the last two players register this afternoon. Sorry for the delay. Now, get back to class.” He turned to the officer. “Unless you have further questions, officer?”

  The woman shook her head, pocketing her notepad.

  “Back to class, Chekhov,” said the football coach.

  As Giselle strode slowly away, the officer’s voice carried after her, loud and echoing in the empty hall.

  “Listen, Coach, tell your team to stay away from the channel the next couple of days, would you?” asked the officer.

  “Sure. They find that boy’s body?” asked Coach.

  “Pulled him from the river. He was a real mess.”

  A shiver ran along Giselle’s spine.

  He was a real mess.

  But that didn’t mean it had been sirens.

  Pulled him from the river.

  The loss of her ballet role paled beside such a fate, but before Spanish class was half over, Giselle was back to grieving her loss, and by the final, “Adios, Señora,” she had decided how she would respond to her mother’s betrayal.

  Katya, along with Heidi and Morgan, awaited Giselle for lunch outside her classroom, sad-eyed and apologetic.

  They knew.

  Giselle dug in her bag and handed their mom’s twenty to Katya. “I have to spend lunch in the library,” she said. She avoided the eyes of her ballet friends. Every glance of pity was a dagger to her heart.

  “Are you okay?” Katya asked softly.

  Giselle shook her head. “I can’t talk about it at school.”

  After a lunch spent in a quiet corner of the library, Giselle endured her three final classes, alternating between rage and despair. Other students were happy to see one another, hugging, squealing, and chattering in groups that clogged the halls. Every happy conversation made Giselle more aware of her own misery.

  After school finished, the sisters drove home in utter silence, and when they reached home, Giselle locked herself in the bathroom.

  5

  WORRIED IT MIGHT HURT

  She was not the sort of girl to inflict self-harm, even over such a keenly felt disappointment. But then, neither was she the sort of girl to endure it without protest. Verbal protest would be pointless; her mother’s mind would not be changed. Had Giselle been part of a different family, she might have acquired a prominent piercing or tattoo. But in her family, another sort of protest would be more effective.

  Scissors in hand, she stared into the bathroom mirror. She worried it might hurt, although she knew this was silly. Of course it wouldn’t hurt. Not in a way that might make her change her mind, at least. No, this would hurt in the way that running her eyes over the cast list had hurt. It would be a wound on the outside to match the one her mother had etched inside, upon her heart. It would be something her mother would have to look at, every day.

  Slowly, she pulled her single tight braid over her left shoulder so that it lay smooth and luminous against her dark tee. She could not quite imagine who she would be without long hair. Her hair trailed eighteen inches below her jaw line. Even casual observers noticed Giselle’s hair. It was beautiful. Lustrous. All of a length. But to an informed observer—to a dancer—Giselle’s hair was ballet hair. No bangs in front, no layers of differing lengths, no perms or bold color, and, best of all, no fly-away ends. Exactly what was required for a perfect dancer’s bun.

  One last time, she fingered the white-blonde plait. She admired how it rested on her ideally flat chest. Perfect dancer’s hair on an almost-perfect dancer’s body—the almost of the equation being the reason she was now standing before a mirror, scissors in hand.

  Giselle opened the shears. Placed her perfect ballet hair between the silver blades. A shiver, part fear and part anticipation, slithered along her spine. What she was about to do was so easily done and so impossible to undo.

  Was this what she wanted? Was this who she was?

  The answer was contained in the question: her mother had decided Giselle was not a dancer. Anger flared inside. Not a dancer? Fine. She wouldn’t be one. She shifted her full attention to the scissors rather than the braid. And she cut.

  It was more difficult than she’d expected. With the first closure of the blades, some hair was pushed forward as though in flight from the deadly edge of the scissors. It was impossible to do it all at once, as she’d imagined. Suddenly she wanted to undo that first dreadful cut, but there was no reattaching the snipped hair. She took a deep breath. She steadied her hands. And then she opened the shears and sliced again, again, again.

  And then it was done.

  There were two things to gaze at in the same frozen moment: the freed tresses spilling across her planed cheekbones and the plait, lying very still on the tile counter, one end collapsed into the sink. In the mirror, Giselle identified the Baltic blue of her eyes, but they stared at her from a visage she didn’t recognize.

  Her haircut, at this juncture, was an incomplete declaration. To complete the statement, she needed to make another cut. She grabbed a handful of hair from either side of her centered part, making her best guess as to where bangs should start and stop. As none of the Chekhov women had ever worn bangs, she couldn’t even ask Katya for help. Bangs were a dancer’s nightmare. All those ends to secure; all those pins that might be seen from the audience.

  Pinching the swathe of hair between her index and middle fingers, Giselle clipped once more. This time the hair made no sound at all as it fluttered down to the bathroom sink. She gazed at it for a long moment, spilled silver threads on the curved porcelain surface. Then she raised her eyes to evaluate her handiwork.

  Derrmo!

  She had cut crooked bangs. Gathering the slippery handful once again, she snipped slowly and carefully. This time the result was not so bad. If you like short bangs. Really short bangs. Another shiver ran down her spine. The girl in the mirror was a stranger.

  Who are you? she wanted to ask this girl.

  But of one thing, Giselle was certain. With hair like that, she was no student of ballet.

  A tiny rap sounded on the bathroom door.

  Katya.

  Giselle felt a sudden reticence and put off answering her sister’s knock for a moment, scooping the scattered hairs from the basin and tossing them into the trash as if they didn’t matter. Then she turned to wash the remainder down the drain. The faucet squealed in protest.

  Another knock.

  “Giselle?”

  Giselle collected her braid. Opening the door, she felt as though she held a live snake in her hand instead of a severed plait of hair.

  Katya’s eyes grew, and then grew again, staring at the length of braid as if mistaking it for a detached limb.

  Giselle bit the inside of her cheek. She should have given Katya fair warning. Families existed where chopping off a length of hair would mean nothing, but her family wasn’t one of them.

  Katya’s eyes drifted from the cut braid to her sister’s shorn hair. She covered her mouth, speechless.

  Giselle’s fingers drifted, pulling through her short hair, and she tried to imagine opening a door on her sister and finding a stranger.

  Katya spoke first. “Mom’s going to …” A tiny shake of her head. “How will you …” Another shake, firmer this time. “How could you?”

  In that moment, Katya sounded like their mother. It made the back of Giselle’s neck prickle.

  In answer to her sister’s question, Giselle held up the scissors.

  “Gi-selle! You know that’s not what I meant.”

  “How do I look?” Giselle brushed self-consciously at her bangs.

/>   Katya, who never crossed her arms at anyone, crossed her arms and considered her sister’s appearance. At last she spoke.

  “Not bad, I guess.” She tilted her head to one side, as though this might help her to find her sister again. “But it’s not you.”

  Katya reached out for the blunt-cut ends of her sister’s shorn hair, but something made her flinch and withdraw her hand at the last second, as if she feared she might cut herself on those new harsh ends. Katya folded her arms protectively around her torso. Then she shook her head, sighing heavily.

  “You’re going to need a million hair pins.”

  A million pins, thought Giselle. This was Katya’s response? If Katya didn’t understand the implication, the import, the significance of the severe haircut, how could Giselle expect her mother to understand?

  She brushed past her sister, carrying the braid to their room.

  “I’ll help,” said Katya, trailing behind. “We can use the lacquer spray. But honestly, today? You had to do this today, with the ensemble call?”

  “I’m not going to rehearsal.”

  “It’s an ensemble call,” said Katya. She rummaged through her desk junk-drawer, tossing old, mutilated hair pins onto the desk one at a time. “Your character is part of the ensemble.”

  Giselle’s throat tightened and she choked out half a laugh. “Berthe? Giselle’s mother? I could have danced the role when I was five. It’s not even dancing. It’s pantomime. Mom could have cast someone from Ballet for Jocks. I’m not going to rehearsal. I cut my hair because I’m quitting.”

  “Giselle!” Katya uttered her sister’s name in a way that accused her of lying.

  “I thought the haircut would make it … obvious,” said Giselle, touching her hair.

  “You can’t quit ballet,” said Katya, her face pale. She had stopped plundering the junk-drawer.

  Giselle walked across the room to her bed and bent down to pick up her bedspread which lay on the floor. She gave it a shake.

  “Mom will kill you,” said Katya, trying to catch Giselle’s gaze.

  Giselle shrugged. Her mother couldn’t kill her twice. The deed had been done the moment that cast list went up.