Siren Spell

by Cidney Swanson

  “So, he was both places? At the hospital and at the river?”

  “Yes,” replied Katya.

  Giselle felt her tea bag slipping from her hand. It landed in her cup and floated atop the lukewarm water. “But James is better now. Does that mean they got tired of him or something?”

  Katya didn’t say anything.

  Giselle’s heart began to pound. “Tell me you didn’t—”

  “He spoke to me. He was dying, Giselle. He begged me to save him.”

  “No,” said Giselle, shaking her head slowly.

  “I offered to take his place,” said Katya.

  Giselle felt all the heat draining from her body. Her mouth tasted like metal. She was going to be sick.

  “Sip your tea,” murmured Katya.

  Giselle took a small sip. The nausea passed, but it left cold fear in its wake.

  “Katya …” She swallowed. “Oh, Katya, what have you done?”

  Her sister rose to grab the bowl of raspberry jam. When she sat back down again, she said, “You would have done the same thing.”

  Giselle felt a flare of anger. “I most certainly would not!”

  “Zelya, trust me. You would have. I know he’s a worthless bastard, but the way he looked …” She broke off and bit her lower lip. “You would have done the same thing. But it doesn’t matter, anyway. What’s done is done. And James is better now because they accepted me in exchange.”

  “Well,” said Giselle, sighing and pulling her tea bag out of the tepid water, “At least it’s all over now.”

  Katya took her sister’s cup, rose, and emptied the contents into the sink, and poured her a fresh cup, newly boiled in the samovar. This time when a tea bag was added to the mug, it sank straight to the bottom.

  “Zelya, I have to go back.”

  Giselle looked up. “Back?”

  “I have to dance with the creatures again.”

  Giselle shook her head. “You are not going back to the river. If I have to tie you up and sit on you, I will.” Her fierce glare made Katya sigh and look away.

  “You don’t understand. I made Giselle’s choice. I took his place so he’d live. Like when Giselle protected Albrecht.”

  “In case it escaped your notice, Giselle was dead when she did that!”

  “It didn’t escape my notice,” replied Katya. “I’m not sure what to make of that. But I’m not risking having those creatures remove my soul from my body if I don’t show up, I can tell you that much.”

  Sasha whined in her sleep, her four legs pawing the air as she dreamed.

  “Oh, and this is interesting,” said Katya, as calm as if she were discussing a new way to keep pointe shoes fresh. “Remember how our grandmother held the ikon over her head and chanted, walking along the river’s edge?”

  “Yes,” Giselle said tersely.

  “Well, whatever that ritual was, it had an effect on the sirens. Now, they can only come out of the river between midnight and dawn. Here in Foulweather, anyway.” Katya frowned. “I don’t know if it works everywhere.”

  Giselle’s jaw had dropped. “Babushka did that? Confined them like the willis in Giselle?”

  “I don’t know what Babushka intended to do, but the queen said the ground burns them if they try to set foot on land any other time. Which means I don’t owe them twenty-four, seven.”

  “Katya, you tried to follow them this morning.”

  “Did I?” She bit her lip, concerned. “Well, thanks to Babushka, the queen’s revels don’t begin until midnight, so that’s the, um, required arrival time for me.”

  “How long did you agree to do this for?” asked Giselle.

  Katya shrugged.

  “Katya?”

  “We didn’t discuss the length of time.”

  “So you’re going to dance for the queen four or five hours a night … forever? No. I won’t let you. I’ll tell Mom.” It was the empty threat of a five-year-old, and Giselle knew it.

  “No,” said Katya. “You’ll only make it worse. Mom will … restrain me or something. She’ll never believe it’s true. And if I don’t go, the sirens will do that … soul-stealing thing.”

  Giselle clenched her hand into fists until they began throbbing.

  “Besides,” said Katya. “If there’s one thing I have the strength to do, it’s to dance five hours at a stretch.”

  “Maybe, if you hadn’t already danced four hours at the studio,” Giselle retorted. “And if you got enough sleep. Take a look at yourself in the mirror. You look awful. You’ll end up just like James!”

  “I don’t think so,” Katya said, gazing thoughtfully out the window. “I think as long as I go willingly and don’t try to run off, I’ll just get tired. James ended up in that coma because the paramedics took his body and the sirens kept hold of his soul.”

  Giselle fumed into her tea mug. “So that’s your plan? Dance with the sirens for the rest of your life?”

  Katya sat silently tracing the wood grain of the table with one finger. “I don’t have a long term plan,” she said at last. “Not yet.”

  “Okay,” said Giselle, forcing herself to breathe steadily. “Okay. So maybe we should contact some experts. Alert the media. Something like that.”

  Katya frowned. “I was thinking about that, but when I did my research, I couldn’t find any experts who took into account the creatures’ … magical aspects. I mean, I understand why. Taking the supernatural into account would mean instant death to any sort of respect in the scientific community.”

  “So, there’s no one who can tell us how to get rid of them,” Giselle said.

  “There was one interesting thing I read. In the nineteenth century, Seattle residents got rid of their sirens by dumping a bunch of iron nails that had been shaped into crosses into the Puget Sound. The sirens left and never came back.”

  Giselle nodded. “That story came up in drama a few days ago.”

  “It’s well-documented, meaning it’s more than just a story. Although an argument could be made that their departure at that time was coincidental and not ‘cause and effect’.”

  “You wouldn’t make that argument, though,” Giselle said quietly.

  “Not anymore,” agreed Katya. Then, lowering her voice, she added, “I saw James’s ghost disappear immediately when I struck my bargain with the queen. At the same exact time they say he woke up in the hospital: 1:00 in the morning. I know because the clock struck the hour. I’d call that cause and effect.”

  “Cause and effect,” murmured Giselle. ‘Like what Babushka did with her ikon, right? The ground hurt their feet, you said?”

  “The queen said the ground burned their feet ‘like iron’.” Katya chewed the end of a fingernail. For once, Giselle didn’t try to stop her. “Of course, in all the stories, fairies are made physically ill by the presence of iron, which could be a biological thing, like being allergic to nickel earrings or latex gloves.”

  “The ikon isn’t made of iron,” said Giselle.

  “No. It’s a holy object. Which brings us back to supernatural explanations.”

  Giselle ran a finger around the rim of her mug, trying to stay calm. They had until midnight to figure this out. Giselle couldn’t let Katya return to dance with the queen and her court. But what was she supposed to do? It felt so impossible. Undying beings? In possession of the deepest secrets of human hearts? How were high school students supposed to deal with that?

  Giselle met her sister’s eyes. “Look, this is too big for us. I still think that if we took this to the news, they could drum up, I don’t know … something helpful.” She was grasping at straws now.

  “We can’t go to the news,” Katya said. “Parents are trying to get Mom to take down the ikon at the studio. This would be the worst possible time for our family to come out making claims the sirens are magical beings with supernatural powers.”

  Giselle gave a non-committal shrug.

  “I’m serious,” said Katya. “People are trying to force the schools to
stop paying our studio for Ballet for Jocks because of one little ikon. That’s what Morgan’s mom says, and she hears stuff. Real estate stuff. She heard we would be losing our building and it would be for sale before Halloween.”

  Giselle’s stomach seemed to shrink as though she’d swallowed ice. She should never have met with Mrs. Fitzpatrick.

  “Please, Giselle. Promise me you won’t call any TV stations.”

  Giselle bit her lip.

  “Okay,” she replied. “But you have to promise me something, too. I’m taking your place tonight. You stay home. Talk to Babushka. The two of you can go through the old stories and figure out a way to stop this.”

  Katya frowned. “I’m not sure Babushka will know what to do. I think she already sort of did what she knew to do.”

  “It can’t hurt to ask her,” said Giselle.

  “Actually, I’m worried it might. She’ll start in with Mom about how Mom was wrong and she was right. Don’t argue. You know she will—”

  “And you don’t want Mom to know,” said Giselle. “Fine. So we consult Babushka as a last resort. But I can tell you one thing: you are not dancing tonight.”

  “No one’s dancing tonight,” said Katya.

  “You just said they’ll rip your soul out if you don’t dance.”

  “It’s Sunday. They don't venture on land at all on Sundays.”

  “Oh, my poor girl,” said Giselle, rising so she could wrap her sister in her arms. “You’ve lost track of time. It’s Saturday.”

  Katya nestled into Giselle’s arms, giggling softly. “But what will it be as of midnight?”

  Giselle’s eyes narrowed. “Oh. Right. Sunday.”

  “Which means they won’t come out at all tonight. We have the night off. We have forty-two hours off, starting now.” Katya sighed happily.

  “We have forty-two hours to figure a way out of this, you mean,” replied Giselle.

  ~ ~ ~

  It was a horrible day. Besides the shock of having discovered her sister was bound to the sirens, Giselle was still not talking to her mother. Yesterday, that had been just fine with her. But today, with a heightened awareness of just how fragile human life was, she found herself wishing she knew how to raise the white flag with her mother. Ruslana might never understand Giselle, but her mother was still her mother, and right now, Giselle could have used a mother.

  It was a Saturday: the long rehearsal day at the ballet studio. Her family had left an hour ago and Giselle was home alone, except for Sasha. Saturdays had been her favorite day of the week for as long as she could remember. Now they were a bitter reminder of all she’d lost.

  Especially after last night.

  Last night, she had danced.

  Last night, she had remembered how it felt to extend her leg in a delicate tendu.

  The need to feel this again crashed over her, overwhelming as a tsunami. She rose and gripped the back of the kitchen chair, turning her feet into a perfect first position. She dropped into a soft plié. An almost nothing of a plié. She had stopped herself the other day, too angry to continue, but she was not angry now. She was lost at sea without compass or sextant and this simple plié was the lighthouse promising safe harbor.

  She dropped into a deeper plié. And then another. And another. She moved from first to second position, and on to third, fourth, and fifth, and then to grand pliés, and on to tendus, continuing until she had run through a complete barre.

  Her body felt odd and stiff. Things which should have been soft were angular; simple motions felt awkward, but the familiar patterns soothed her. She had missed her barre every bit as much as her floor work or dancing on a brightly lit stage. A single tear traced along one cheek.

  Swiping her sleeve across her face, she made a decision to go watch rehearsal. And then, before she had time to think it through or talk herself out of it, she walked to the studio.

  Outside, the air smelled of ocean, something that happened occasionally when the wind blew up the river from the coast. Giselle breathed deeply, catching the smell: salt and damp. It was a vibrant scent, and it seemed to fill her with hope, with purpose.

  When she arrived at the studio, a van with an antenna was pulling away. The logo identified the van as belonging to a Portland news station. Why would a Portland news crew visit the studio? Had Babushka agreed to give an interview at long last?

  The van turned a corner and Giselle, shaking her head, reached for the door.

  Slipping inside the studio, she was assaulted by the smells she loved best in all the world: worn slippers, rosin-scuffed floors, and the scent of warm damp that never really left the studio. The scent worked on her like an intoxicant. She breathed deeply. This was all she had wanted. To be here again. To know there was a place where nothing mattered more than ballet, even if she was no longer a part of it.

  Giselle found a dark corner of the lobby from which to observe the rehearsal in progress. Her mother was working with the village enfants, the small children who came to watch Katya’s Peasant Pas de Deux. Something rough caught in the back of Giselle’s throat as she watched the eager young pupils, five of them from her class last year. She missed it all so much—her students, rehearsals, classes, the music … her family.

  Once the village enfants had been arranged into position, Katya and Morgan performed the peasant dance. The two were beautifully paired, sharing so many of the same strengths as dancers. The peasant dance could be performed as an ethereal piece, a sort of precursor to the gauze and mist of the willis’ dance, but Giselle loved the interpretation Katya and Morgan brought to it. They were muscular, grounded, solid; their pas de deux was raw and vigorous. Giselle wondered how Katya found the energy to move.

  And then Heidi stepped forward to perform the role of Giselle. The violin score unrolled like a spool of thread chasing down a hill. Giselle’s heart beat faster; she knew the choreography by heart and her muscles pulled with the strain of not following along as Heidi danced the role that should have been hers. After only a few minutes, Giselle could bear it no more, and she turned away, tears sliding fast and thick down her cheeks.

  Katya found her in the girls’ dressing room with the lights turned off, silently crying. Katya didn’t ask what was wrong; she simply held her sister, making shush-shush noises and rubbing her back, her short hair, her trembling hands.

  “I miss it so much,” whispered Giselle. “Last night, dancing with you, I felt how badly I need it in my life. And I’ve been thinking about it all day, and then I couldn’t stand to sit by myself in the house a minute longer, thinking of all of you here. The music, the rehearsal … I needed to know there was still a place in the world with ballet in it.”

  “Of course,” said Katya. “Of course.”

  After that, they sat without speaking. The other dancers, seeing the Chekhov girls with heads down, foreheads pressed together, turned around, realizing all of a sudden that they didn’t need to visit the changing room during break after all. Only Marcus, clutching his black leather slipper by a broken elastic, sought a dressing room, and as he needed the boys’ room, the girls were left alone.

  “There were news vans when I arrived,” said Giselle, wiping her eyes. “What did they want?”

  Katya sighed. “They wanted to ask Mom questions. I heard something about football.”

  Giselle giggled. “I can imagine her response to that interruption.”

  “She behaved herself,” said Katya, smiling. “She told them she had a rehearsal to run and to make a proper appointment if they wanted an interview.”

  “How is Ballet for Jocks going?” asked Giselle. It was the nearest she felt she could safely approach any talk about classes.

  “Fine,” said Katya. “The same old same-old. The rookies joking and laughing about having to take dance lessons. Then dying about fifteen minutes into their barre.”

  “Anyone pass out?”

  “Not this year.”

  The two sat in silence until Babushka called into the lobby, “Two m
inutes, please; two minutes.”

  Katya stifled a yawn and then giggled. “I never thought of it before, but we’re a little like the sirens ourselves, dancing those poor football players so mercilessly.”

  “Don’t say that,” Giselle said severely. “We’re nothing like those creatures.”

  Sobering, Katya murmured, “I still can’t believe it’s all real. The dancing. The man-hating.”

  “I know. Our sirens, like the willis? How is it possible?”

  “It’s possible,” was Katya’s solemn response.

  “I know,” replied Giselle, sighing. “Sirens, rusalki, willis—whatever we want to call them, they’re real. Katya, you have to let me take your place tomorrow night. Their queen will have to accept if I offer, right? Isn’t that how you took James’s place?”

  “I don’t know about the queen having to accept,” said Katya. “I mean, I offered to dance, and I told her I was a good dancer, and she agreed to release James. I don’t know that she had to. I think they were tired of James. If he didn’t die on his own, they meant to drown him that night, whatever that would mean to a … ghost.”

  Despite the warmth of the small room, Giselle shivered.

  “I should go,” said Katya. “You know Mom’s going to ask me to fix the stereo any minute.”

  “Okay,” said Giselle. “And don’t worry. We’ll think of something.”

  Katya gave her sister’s hand a quick squeeze and left.

  Neither sister observed Marcus as he left the boys’ dressing room a minute later, a puzzled expression on his face.

  34

  THE FINE ART OF NOT ANSWERING A QUESTION DIRECTLY

  It was 9:47 PM at night, and Giselle had forced herself to go to bed early, assuming that if she went to bed early she would fall asleep early and collect a few additional hours of sleep to balance out the hours she wouldn’t get the following night.