Siren Spell

by Cidney Swanson

  Gabor’s hands flew wide to either side, palms up in an expansive gesture. “Whatever you are liking, lovely madam.” His grin exposed two gold-capped teeth, making him look like an overweight Mr. Spock with extensive dental work.

  A frown reorganized Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s features.

  “Chai is just the Russian word for tea,” Giselle said, repeating Bogdana’s explanation to Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “It’s not like the spiced drink at Starbucks. That chai is Indian. This chai is Russian. You can put milk or cream or whatever in it yourself, if you want.”

  Ignoring Giselle, Mrs. Fitzpatrick spoke to Gabor. “So you don’t make chais? As in, a chai latte?”

  Gabor shrugged and replied. “Russian chai, yes. Indian chai, no. I can prepare latte for you. Latte is on house for disappointment.”

  “Oh, never mind,” replied Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “I’ll have a bottle of water.

  Assuming …”

  “Yes, yes, certainly,” replied Gabor. “Is on house. And you are wishing for chai, of course,” he added, smiling at Giselle.

  With such company as Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Giselle did not at all wish for chai, but Gabor was already rushing to greet more guests.

  “What kind of person doesn’t know what chai is? My God, a Fix-at-the-Fitz would thrive here.”

  Giselle held her tongue, trying to think how she could exit the meeting.

  Bogdana arrived with tea, a water bottle, and a complimentary scone.

  Giselle murmured a quick spasiba, thanking Bogdana in Russian.

  Mrs. Fitzfussy, meanwhile, withdrew a cleaning wipe from her purse, running it carefully around the lid of the bottle of water. Then, looking at Giselle, she spoke. “So, back to your family’s studio. How would you say your mother feels about selling?” A flicker of eagerness registered in the woman’s eyes.

  “Listen, according to my mom, we’re not selling. And I should really get going. My bike light isn’t reliable.”

  Also, she was feeling more and more uncomfortable. Her mother wouldn’t want her to be having this conversation. Giselle didn’t want to be having this conversation.

  Mrs. Fitzpatrick continued speaking. “And does your mother have controlling interest? Can she prevent the sale?”

  The air seemed to prickle. A line had been crossed.

  Bristling, Giselle rose. “I’m sorry,” she said coldly. “That’s a question you should ask my mom.”

  “Oh, how thoughtless of me,” said Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “Please forgive me. Sit, sit, sit. Of course your loyalty to your family must come first.”

  Remaining standing, Giselle reached into her bag and dug out a pair of dollar bills, leaving them on the table for Bogdana. Mrs. Fitzpatrick continued talking to her.

  “I hear your mother keeps a valuable Russian icon at the studio. I’m something of a collector.”

  Giselle rolled her eyes. “Trust me, Mom would sooner part with the studio than with the ikon.”

  “Mmm. Well, I always find it’s worth asking.”

  “I have to go,” said Giselle. She felt … dirtied. Whatever she might have wanted when she’d chosen to bike down here, she saw now that the last thing she wanted was for her family’s studio to be bought by some rude, sanitizer-obsessed, icon-collecting woman who would turn it into a trendy place to guzzle chai lattes.

  Gabor swung by, patting Giselle’s back. “Leaving already?” He placed a hand on his heart and gestured with the other hand to Giselle. “Always this one is bringing me new customers.” He swept away the water bottle and table setting, then held his right hand as if in a salute and slowly separated his middle two fingers. “Live long to prosper,” he said to Giselle.

  Smiling back at him, Giselle repeated the Star Trek gesture. “Live long and prosper, Gabor.”

  Gabor leaned in as if to share a notorious secret. “You know, Star Trek is first television show in Cold War to show Slavic young man who is not villain, yes?” Gabor smiled, tapped his nose on one side, and then turned to greet other guests.

  Mrs. Fitzpatrick rose, murmuring, “Slavic, indeed,” as if adding a sin to a long list.

  Trailing Mrs. Fitzpatrick down the outside stairs, Giselle vowed to speak to her grandmother—and maybe even her mother—about never selling the studio to the horrible woman. Then, from the stairs, Giselle recognized her grandmother’s Mercedes parked on the opposite side of the road. Katya was in the back seat chattering with Babushka. Her mother was just exiting the driver’s seat, probably picking up something for dinner.

  Noticing Mrs. Fitzpatrick, Ruslana’s dark blue eyes flamed with a fire visible even by streetlight. Giselle’s presence went unnoticed, at first. But then Ruslana saw Giselle. Something in Ruslana’s face shifted. With distrust? With hurt? Before Giselle could decide, the mask of calm had descended again, and Ruslana was striding across the street, her gaze fixed on Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

  “How dare you meet with my daughter behind my back?” Ruslana demanded. Though her face was placid, her voice cut through the evening like an icy wind.

  “Mom, it’s okay,” murmured Giselle.

  “Well?” Ruslana spoke to Mrs. Fitzpatrick, ignoring Giselle.

  The three collided awkwardly at the base of the stairs.

  “Mom, just leave it. It was nothing.”

  “I didn’t ask you,” her mother snapped to Giselle before turning back to Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “As for you—” She broke off, her lips pinching to a thin, dark slash.

  Giselle felt embarrassed. She couldn’t stand the thought of Mrs. Fitzpatrick snickering about it later over an overpriced coffee.

  “Good evening, Ms. Chekhov,” said Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “What an unexpected surprise, seeing you again so soon—”

  “You can stop with the play-acting,” retorted Ruslana, glaring at Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “And if I ever catch you near my children again—”

  “Mom.” Giselle lowered her voice. “You’re making a scene.”

  Her mother’s cheeks darkened. “Get in the car, Giselle Petrovna. Now.”

  “I’m on my bike. Come on, let’s get some take-out and go home.”

  A small group had paused on the sidewalk, staring, and Giselle felt her cheeks flushing.

  “I don’t know what you thought you were doing, Giselle,” said her mother, “Meeting with this woman behind my back!”

  Giselle opened her mouth to say something, but then closed it again. She was tired of fireworks. Tired of every encounter with her mother ending in blood-letting. She shook her head. “I’m going home, Mom, and you should calm down.”

  “That is no way to speak to your mother,” said Ruslana, her hands clenched into tight fists at her side.

  Ignoring her mother, Giselle turned to the group of girls paused beside them. “Do you have a problem?” she asked.

  “We just want to get past,” said one of the girls, pointing to the stairs to Carbs.

  “Oh. Sorry,” murmured Giselle. She recognized two of the girls from the studio. Great.

  “It was just a friendly cup of tea,” said Mrs. Fitzpatrick, her eyes trailing the group walking up the stairs.

  Ruslana’s head whipped around to face Mrs. Fitzpatrick. “You will leave my daughters alone,” she said in a cold whisper.

  Mrs. Fitzpatrick gave a mild shrug and ambled to her car, parked nearby on the close side of the street.

  Giselle strode to her bike, propped in Carbs’s bike rack.

  “We’re not done talking about this, young lady,” said Ruslana.

  “I already told you it was nothing,” said Giselle, leaning down to remove her bike lock. “If you don’t trust me, then I guess we have nothing left to say to each other.” The bitter truth of the statement stung.

  “There’s plenty to say,” said her mother, staring at Mrs. Fitzpatrick, who was probably overhearing the whole thing from where she stood by her car, scanning her cell phone. Ruslana turned her attention back to Giselle. “But we’re not having this conversation here.”

  Giselle rolled her eyes. “Of
course not,” she said. “Because we don’t have conversations anymore. Not even important ones. You couldn’t even tell me the truth about my father. Babushka had to do that. You talk to everyone else more than you talk to me. You probably talk to that ikon more than you do to me.”

  The two stared at one another and then something in her mother’s gaze shifted.

  “That’s not true,” Ruslana said, her voice cracking.

  Giselle couldn’t tell which accusation her mother was responding to, but what difference would it make? Their relationship was broken. It was past broken. It was irreparable. She wrenched her bicycle from the bike stand.

  Ruslana spoke again, her voice low with hurt. “I do not talk to the ikon more than my own daughter—”

  Giselle didn’t let her finish. “Really, Mom? Ask your students. They’ll tell you. Even when I was at the studio, you were always so worried about not showing favoritism that you hardly gave me the time of day. And at home, you’re always too tired to talk.”

  Ruslana’s eyes were bright, and Giselle realized they were shining with tears.

  Feeling her own throat tighten, Giselle wished she could take everything back. Take back the entire last hour of her life.

  “I’m sorry you feel that way,” her mother said, blinking her eyes clear.

  Giselle was sorry too. Why did things have to be so hard with her mother?

  “It doesn’t matter,” Giselle murmured. “Forget I said anything.” She felt exhausted. This conversation with her mother had been a mistake. The whole evening had been a mistake.

  She kicked off on her bike. The last thing Giselle registered as she sped away was the thoughtful expression on Mrs. Fitzpatrick’s face.

  31

  SHE LOOKED LIKE HIM

  Giselle rode hard and didn’t stop when she reached her house, instead biking on until the river came into sight. When she dismounted, her hands were stiff from having gripped the handlebars too tightly. Her whole body shook with frustration and anger. Even when she’d seen the cast list for Giselle, she hadn’t been this upset. Or if she had, she’d stuffed it down inside, somehow, the way her mother always did.

  Giselle made a noise of disgust and paced beside the river. Treading on something hard, she glanced down. It was a mirror, left by residents to placate the sirens. She hoped it hadn’t cracked because she could really do without the seven years of bad luck. Despising herself for being superstitious, Giselle bent to examine the mirror. It was whole. Her own face glared back at her, eyes bright with frustration, even in the falling darkness. Was that what she looked like? She hardly recognized herself.

  She set the mirror down and as she did so, she was struck by an obvious truth. If she looked like her father, Dmitri, then she must be a constant reminder to Ruslana of the man who had broken her heart and stolen her dreams. Of course. Of course.

  Giselle collapsed onto the damp grass. She hugged her knees to her chest and dug her fingers into her forearms until her arms throbbed in pain. Her mother would always mistrust her because she looked like him.

  This was why Babushka and not Ruslana had told the sisters the story of Giselle’s parentage. Giselle was a constant reminder of her mother’s lost role, her lost chance to become a prima ballerina. Giselle had prevented Ruslana from having the career that ought to have been hers. The swelling of her mother’s belly month by month must have served as a growing reminder of all that had been lost.

  There it was: the bitter truth. And there was no way to fix it. Giselle could dye her hair, wear colored contacts, change her appearance so that she looked less like Dmitri, but her mother would always see her for who she was, for what she had cost.

  Slowly, she rose and returned to her bike. Her frustration was spent, a fire that had burned through all combustible material in reach and then flickered out, leaving behind nothing but choking ash. With nowhere else to go, Giselle turned for home, walking her bike. It had grown cold, and Giselle noticed it now. Shivering, she pulled her hood up and over her bright hair. Dmitri’s hair. Maybe she would dye it. It wasn’t her fault she looked like him. It wasn’t her fault she’d been born.

  She planned to go to her room without eating because the thought of facing her mother, tonight or ever again, was too much. When she arrived, the Mercedes wasn’t back yet. Maybe her family had eaten at Carbs without her. But while she was locking her bike in the garage behind the house, she heard the ancient car rattling to a halt out front. Giselle slipped into the shadows behind the house.

  The large window in the back of the house gave Giselle a view through to the front door. She could see Sasha clawing the glass of the front door. The dog was yelping, and when Katya entered the house, Sasha barreled into her, knocking Katya onto her derrière. Ruslana gave the down command. Sasha wove back and forth, frantic but obedient, tail flapping like a hairy flag. The interior lights flicked on, warming the small house with a yellow glow. Babushka carried a bag of takeout boxes to the kitchen table.

  Giselle shrank back a few feet, trapped. If she used either door, someone was sure to speak to her, to tell her to sit down for dinner, and she couldn’t. She just couldn’t. A sob rose in her throat. She swallowed it back, remaining outside watching her family, imagining them without her, as perhaps her mother did. The sounds of their conversation at the table traveled through the dog flap on the back door. No one spoke of Giselle or her absence. They were discussing Kevin.

  “If we go with the idea that he’s already supposed to be exhausted from dancing with the willis, then he can simply perform his death scene with more pantomime and less leaping. It should work well enough,” concluded Ruslana.

  “This, you would never suggest to a real danseur,” replied Babushka, shaking her head in disapproval.

  Unless you wanted them to quit, Giselle thought dully. This was what her mother had done by casting her in a pantomime-only role.

  Giselle noticed Katya wasn’t eating, just twirling a bite of blinchiki on her fork without looking up.

  Her mother continued, ignoring Babushka’s remark. “Fortunately Marcus is really coming through. He’s hitting a good height during the royales. We just need him to get more comfortable with Heidi in the Grand Adage.”

  Her mother continued in this vein and Giselle found herself hopelessly drawn to the conversation. She scooted closer to the door to hear better. Ruslana moved on from Hilarion and Albrecht to discuss the children dancing the roles of village enfants. She asked Katya about one of the dancers.

  Katya didn’t answer. Was she, too, upset with their mother? Giselle couldn’t see Katya from here, so she sidled back to the window. Katya’s head had flopped to the side so that it was propped against the wall, her eyes closed. Katya had been asleep, not petulant.

  “Katya Petrovna,” called their mother.

  Katya twitched and pulled her head upright. “Hmmm?”

  Ruslana reached over and felt Katya’s forehead.

  “I’m fine, Mamulya. Just a little tired,” said Katya. “Morgan and I ran the Peasant Pas de Deux over and over while you were working with Kevin.”

  “Get to bed with you,” said Ruslana.

  “It’s my night for dishes,” protested Katya.

  Swearing softly at her sister’s stubborn sense of duty, Giselle reached for the door to let herself back inside.

  “I’ve got the dishes,” Giselle said.

  Everyone turned to look at her. She didn’t refer to the meeting outside Carbs.

  Neither did anyone else.

  Katya hesitated, several plates already in her hands.

  “Go on,” Giselle said, taking the plates. “You look exhausted. Besides, I owe you from the other night.”

  Katya frowned as if trying to remember if this was right, which it wasn’t because Giselle had already cleaned up after Katya last night when she’d gone to bed early.

  “Go to bed,” said Giselle, in a voice hauntingly like her mother’s.

  Katya scrambled, followed by Babushka, murmuring prom
ises of a good foot rub to send little Katyusha to sleep.

  Ruslana hovered at the table, and Giselle was afraid of what either of them might say. She kept her attention on the plates and forks, not meeting her mother’s eye.

  “I’ve got the dishes, Mom.” She had tried to pitch her voice neutrally, but her mother responded as though an icy blast had accompanied the words and departed in silence.

  ~ ~ ~

  Giselle wasn’t certain what it was that awakened her at 4:20 the next morning. A noise echoed in her head like that of leaves being cleared off the sidewalk by a metal rake.

  She sat bolt upright. Her hair crackled with static electricity, almost unheard of in Foulweather’s damp climate. Change was in the air.

  Giselle rose and pushed strands of hair behind her ears as if to help her hear. All was quiet. Her family slept. The chickens slumbered. Giselle couldn’t even hear Sasha’s usual snore downstairs. The back of her neck prickled and she felt a sudden impulse to check if her dog had stopped breathing.

  She slipped downstairs, skipping the squeaky tread at the bottom. Her fine hair billowed with a gust of cold air. Had someone left the window over the kitchen sink open last night? Giselle glided to the kitchen where she could check on both dog and window.

  The dog bed lay empty.

  Giselle’s pulse picked up, just enough to make her irritated with herself. Of course Sasha was fine. The dog had probably nosed her way over to some heater to warm up. It was cold downstairs. So cold. There must have been a window open.

  “Sasha?”

  Giselle’s soft whisper carried through the kitchen, down the steps leading to the doggy door. She paused, listening for the click of toenails. Nothing. Another cold breeze rushed past. This time Giselle recognized where it was coming from: the front door.

  She raced into the front room, her heart picking up speed. No, no, no.

  The door angled away from its frame, resting partway open.

  Sasha!

  Giselle bit her lip in frustration. Her mother had promised to fix the front door.

  Giselle looked for the pair of sheepskin boots that usually haunted the front entry and, finding them, stuffed her feet into the dry, squashy fleece. At the same time, she grabbed a wool coat to pull over her sleep tee and sweats.