Siren Spell

by Cidney Swanson

  The queen gazed at Giselle for a long count of ten.

  “Your request is granted,” said the queen at last. “I do not require your sister’s return. As for your own promise, have a care you do as you have vowed.”

  “I will, your majesty.”

  The queen turned to the river, sadness creasing her brow, and disappeared beneath the waters of the channel.

  36

  COULD USE A GOOD FRIEND

  As the queen disappeared, a gust of wind stirred the leaves on the ground so that they made a dry, rattling noise like whispering ghosts. Katya squeezed her sister’s hand, frightened.

  “It’s over,” Giselle said. “They’re gone.”

  Katya bit her lower lip. “Giselle, I’m so sorry for leaving you behind—”

  “You shouldn’t have,” replied Giselle, an intimation of anger in her retort. “What would I have done if you’d … if you’d gone with them?”

  Katya’s eyes drifted to the waters of the channel. “That’s why I left you behind,” she said softly. “I heard the call, those other nights. And again tonight. I felt their magic. It’s powerful. But for me … I don’t know how else to say this, Zelya, but I’m not like you. Maybe it’s because I haven’t been hurt like you—I’m not saying I’d be above wanting payback if I were in your shoes, but that’s the point. I’m not in your shoes. I felt their call, but it didn’t have the same power over me that I was afraid it would have for you. Although, I guess I was wrong. I’m sorry.”

  Tears formed in Giselle’s eyes. “You weren’t wrong,” she whispered. “Oh, Katya. I almost … I was going to …” She shook her head, blinking back the tears.

  “You don’t have to say it.” Katya threw her arms around her sister, holding her tightly.

  “I don’t know what I would’ve chosen,” murmured Giselle, “If you hadn’t started calling my name. If you hadn’t taken my hand. You saved me, Katya.”

  “Well, then, we’re even, I guess.” Katya released Giselle so that the two were looking into each other’s eyes. “Now,” said Katya. “Tell me what exactly you were offering the queen. If you’re planning to trick her somehow …”

  “I’m not. Not exactly.” A sly smile crept onto Giselle’s face. “The company of dancers will be a recording. I was promising to bring a tablet tomorrow night to show the full length Giselle. And I didn’t say anything about returning on subsequent nights.”

  Katya inhaled sharply, covering her mouth with one hand. “That was clever of you.” And then, dropping her hand, she spoke again. “But, oh, Zelya … what if she’s angry? Won’t she be angry if she feels that you tricked her? They’re always angry in the stories.”

  “We’ll deal with that when the time comes,” replied Giselle. A flicker of movement caught her eyes and she froze. Was it the queen? Had they been overheard, crowing over their success? Giselle squinted into the gloom.

  “Marcus?” Katya’s voice, though cracked, carried in the still air. After a moment, a boy, darkly clothed, stepped closer.

  “What are you doing here?” Giselle asked.

  He looked down at his shoes. “Running?”

  The answer came out sounding like a question.

  “At this hour?” demanded Giselle.

  “Well, yeah,” Marcus replied, on surer footing now. “This is when runners … run.”

  Giselle frowned, doubtful Marcus was a runner.

  “Did you see anything?” asked Katya.

  Marcus grinned, his teeth flashing white in the early morning gloom. “Oh brave new world, that has such people in it!”

  “From Shakespeare’s Tempest,” murmured Katya. “Right?”

  Giselle raised one eyebrow at her sister.

  “So I’ve heard,” Marcus said to Katya, flipping a bottle of water into the air and catching it with easy assurance.

  “Do you mind sharing?” asked Katya, her eyes fixed on the bottle.

  “It’s all yours,” he said, passing the water to her.

  Katya chugged half of it before offering it to her sister. Giselle shook her head, staring at Marcus, her eyes narrowing. He just happened to be here of all places? Now of all times?

  Marcus looked away with the grin of someone caught in a lie. “Okay,” he said, accepting the water bottle back from Katya. He began turning it nervously end over end. “The water bottle was just for the sake of appearance. I’m not a runner. Running makes my legs too tight for dance. I came to see … them. The Sirens of Foulweather.”

  Panic rose in Giselle’s throat. What would the sirens have done to him if they’d seen him?

  “Oh, Marcus,” said Giselle, shaking her head.

  What if he’d … left a girlfriend behind in Minneapolis or something? Or what if the sirens were like the rusalki in Babushka’s stories, drowning men indiscriminately, simply because they were male?

  “You can’t ever come here again,” she said, speaking quickly. “It’s dangerous. They’re dangerous. You have no idea what they’re capable of.”

  Marcus looked to the river. His eyes were wistful. “They didn’t have fins,” he said at last, as though this was a sad discovery.

  “Fins?” Giselle asked, at a loss to understand.

  Marcus shrugged. “My grandpère said they had fins. In Haiti, anyway.”

  “The fin-like appearance is the terminal formations of their exterior mesoglea,” began Katya, “Where the formations meet—”

  “Katya,” snapped Giselle. “This is serious. Very serious.” She turned to Marcus. “How did you know the sirens would be here?”

  “I heard you and your sister talking about them yesterday in the studio,” Marcus confessed. A guilty smile flickered across his face. “I came for my grandpère’s sake, to see them if they were here. Listen, I’m sorry for eavesdropping. I didn’t do it on purpose.”

  “Marcus,” said Katya. “Please don’t tell anyone you saw me and Giselle here. Our mom can’t find out.”

  Marcus’s expression grew sober. “She won’t hear it from me,” he said. “So, you two, uh, headed this way?” He gestured away from the river.

  “We’re going home,” said Giselle.

  Marcus fell into step with them.

  “Listen,” said Giselle. “Marcus?”

  He turned to her.

  “The sirens don’t like men. You risked your life tonight, just being here.”

  “They might like me okay,” said Marcus, grinning. “I haven’t betrayed anyone.”

  “Neither did Hilarion in Giselle,” replied Katya. “And just look what the willis did to him.”

  “True,” Marcus said, “But Hilarion betrayed Prince Albrecht, and that hurt Giselle, which was as good as a betrayal.”

  “Oh,” said Katya. “That’s true.”

  “I could be wrong,” Marcus said, shrugging.

  “In either case, Katya’s right that these sirens are dangerous,” said Giselle. “They almost killed James. Just stay away, okay?”

  Marcus looked up, squinting at a bird as it flew overhead.

  “I turn off here,” said Marcus. “See you both in classes.”

  Marcus ran several paces and then performed a heartbreakingly gorgeous split-leap before turning the corner.

  “Wow,” said Katya, eyes wide, impressed.

  “That was stunning,” said Giselle, sighing.

  They walked for a few minutes in silence while the sky lightened to tired, cloudy silver.

  “You know,” said Katya, “Marcus seems like the kind of guy who would make a good … friend.” More softly, she added, “And I think you could use a good friend right now, Zelya.”

  Giselle turned her gaze up to the sky. Leaves were falling down from the trees, spiraling to the ground in graceful pirouettes.

  “I think I should avoid boys for right now. I was a moron with James,” she replied.

  “James didn’t want to be your friend,” said Katya. “That makes a huge difference.”

  Did it?

  Giselle sighed.
A drifting leaf settled on her sleeve and clung there. She plucked it off and spun the stem end. Back and forth. Back and forth. It was true James hadn’t wanted to be her friend. From his first phone call to their secret “date” to his intentions at the statue garden, he’d demonstrated the only person James cared about was James. Why had she allowed herself to be such an idiot? Because he was a good kisser?

  Because you were lonely.

  That hit home. She was lonely. She saw almost nothing of her friends and her family now. She was horribly lonely. Maybe she could use a friend. She spun the leaf one last time and then set it free to join the others.

  “You know it’s annoying when you’re always right about everything,” Giselle said to Katya.

  “I make mistakes, too,” Katya retorted.

  “I’ll think about what you said,” Giselle murmured. “About …”

  “I know you will,” said Katya, taking her sister’s hand. “Once you have time.”

  “Once I have time.”

  Giselle had more than enough to think about right now. She gripped her cell phone as the clock struck the quarter hour. Less than nineteen hours remained before she would have to face the queen again.

  When they arrived home, Sasha was pacing and indignant. She snuffled first Katya and then Giselle and then Katya again, as having the more objectionable scent of the two.

  Pulling her sister upstairs, Giselle settled Katya onto the bottom bunk, draping her with blankets before climbing in bed next to her. The sisters drowsed without talking, each lost in her own thoughts.

  Downstairs, doors opened and closed: in back for the chickens and in front for the paper. Giselle nudged her sister. It was time for them to get ready for school.

  When the girls made their way back downstairs a few minutes later, they heard their mother muttering angrily.

  “How can it be legal for them to print these lies?” demanded Ruslana.

  Giselle glanced from her mother to her babushka, who was scanning the morning paper.

  “What is it?” asked Giselle.

  Her mother met her eyes as though she was about to utter an angry reply, but then she closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and turned for the door. “I’m going to the studio. I need to think.”

  Ruslana exited, rattling panes of glass as she slammed the door.

  “You, young lady,” said her grandmother, pointing to Giselle, “Are in trouble of large size. Bolshoi, bolshoi.”

  37

  TROUBLE OF LARGE SIZE

  Babushka handed Giselle a copy of the Foulweather Free Press. On the cover was a picture of the ikon from the studio. “When Atheists Pray,” read the title. Along with Katya, Giselle skimmed through the article.

  They say truth is stranger than fiction, and that is certainly the case in Foulweather.

  Local personality Ruslana Chekhov, owner of Foulweather’s Studio Bolshoi, has put off more than one parent with her avowed atheism. “I don’t care to have my son taught by someone with anti-religious views,” says Lee Feverel, mother of freshman kicker Stanton Feverel. “And Coach has been threatening to kick my son off the team unless I put him in ballet. It’s been horrible.”

  But a quick survey of students in Ms. Chekhov’s class reveals a very different side of the Russian-born dance instructor. “She prays to this picture of the Madonna and Child,” says one student, who agreed to be interviewed on condition of anonymity. “It’s a little creepy.”

  The picture in question is an icon, an image found in Orthodox churches where icons play a central role in worship.

  Several parents report having made the request that the icon be removed from the studio, which receives a large portion of its income from students attending class for public school credit, or, as in the case of the Foulweather Cougars, because it is a requirement for participation in high school athletics programs such as football.

  The repeated requests have met with no success.

  “She was downright rude about it,” reports another parent requesting anonymity.

  Attempts to contact Chekhov for comment were met with a refusal to answer questions.

  With the new evidence suggesting that not only does Chekhov display the icon, but she also prays to it during school hours, Foulweather’s citizens are asking hard questions. As one parent commented, “That’s just not what I would enroll my kids in dance for. Prayer has no place in a public school classroom.”

  Katya sighed and shook her head.

  Babushka eyed Giselle shrewdly. “Why is your mamulya telling me this is happening because of you?”

  Giselle flushed darkly. Taking a breath, she told her grandmother how Mrs. Fitzpatrick must have overheard her accusing Ruslana of talking to the ikon.

  “I’m so sorry, Babushka,” Giselle murmured when she’d finished.

  “I am thinking it is not your babushka who is needing to hear apology,” replied her grandmother.

  ~ ~ ~

  Between her confusion over how she’d hurt her mother and her fear of facing the siren queen that night, Giselle’s school day passed in a grim sort of fog. Mr. Kinsler had to ask her repeatedly to pay attention while they ran the third act.

  Giselle apologized. “I’m just not feeling the part today,” she mumbled.

  “So do what all great artists do: improvise,” said Mr. Kinsler.

  Giselle wanted to snap back that not all great artists improvised. A danseur performing Albrecht didn’t decide one night he’d do coup de chats in place of royales.

  After that, she mangled her lines, missed her entrances, and was finally told to sit down until she could get her head back in the game. She took shelter behind a flat that blocked her from view and ran her lines in her head. James, Marcus, and Caitlyn ran the scenes Giselle wasn’t in, but then Caitlyn left for an orthodontist appointment and it was just the two boys.

  As James and Marcus shot the breeze following Caitlyn’s departure, Giselle tried to focus on her lines but kept finding herself distracted by James’s conversation. James’s petty, self-absorbed conversation. For the first of class, James had been quieter. More subdued. Even, Giselle had thought, a bit contrite around her, as though he might be working his way to confessing his gratitude for Katya’s rescue. Giselle was certain he knew who had rescued him.

  But by the time rehearsal started, James was back to being … James. Currently, he was soliciting Marcus’s opinion as to the relative hotness of the Athenian girls’ costumes as compared to the fairy girls’ costumes. Well, James was giving his opinion, at least. The conversation was typically one-sided.

  At that point, Giselle decided she was done with rehearsal.

  “Boys,” she murmured disdainfully as she brushed past James.

  “Hey,” said Marcus. “Unfair. James here is a boy. I, however, am a man.”

  The two threw punches at one another, laughing.

  “Whatever,” Giselle said, fed up with the male species.

  She left after telling Mr. Kinsler she was feeling sick. Marcus caught up to her right outside the door.

  “I wanted to say that I saw that newspaper article this morning and it’s garbage. I’ve never felt any sort of religious pressure or whatever from your mom. If they bring this to the PTO, you can count on me speaking up for your mom and the studio.”

  Giselle’s shoulders relaxed ever so slightly.

  “Is there any chance she might just change her mind and take down the painting?” asked Marcus.

  “No,” Giselle replied.

  Marcus’s hopeful expression fell and he brush-kicked the ground in rapid tendus. “Well,” he said, bringing his foot to rest, “I want you to know I’m really sorry about all this.”

  Giselle dropped her eyes. “I’m in a horrible mood today. I’m sorry I was dismissive of your entire gender just now. You don’t deserve it. At all. You’re nothing like James.”

  She met Marcus’s eyes and he smiled at her softly. “Every school has someone like James,” he said. “Tell Miss Ruslana I’
m sure it’ll all work out.”

  “Thanks,” Giselle replied. “For everything. For caring.”

  But as she turned to go, her stomach wrenched with the impossibility of her family’s situation, her personal situation, every situation.

  And that was when she decided to steal the ikon.

  38

  IMPROVISING

  “Improvise!”

  The order echoed in her head. Well, she was improvising, all right. She caught the irony. All her life, she’d been the consummate student of ballet. She loved precision and control. But the list of things within Giselle’s control had grown improbably short. Short enough to make her contemplate larceny.

  Stealing was wrong, she told herself.

  Her solution was short-sighted, she admitted to herself.

  And it would almost certainly generate unforeseen repercussions, she reminded herself.

  She knew all these things, but she also knew her mother. If Giselle tried to convince her mother to take the ikon down, Ruslana would dig her heels in even more than she had already. If on the other hand Giselle did nothing, Mrs. Fitzpatrick would continue her war of escalation until the studio was forced to close.

  The hardest part was knowing things had reached this point because she, Giselle Petrovna Chekhov, hadn’t been able to keep herself from announcing to anyone in hearing range that her mother talked to the ikon in the studio. Cringing, Giselle remembered how she’d said all the students knew about it; Mrs. Fitzpatrick had obviously found one willing to confirm this.

  It came down to this: Giselle had created the problem, and Giselle had to fix it before it got worse, and after that, she would have to fix things with the sirens.

  It was going to be a long night. And that was assuming she survived it all.

  Recalling her plan to show the Giselle video tonight, she searched until she found her mom’s iPad mini. After queuing the video past the lengthy overture, Giselle placed the tablet in the pocket of her running jacket to eliminate the possibility she might forget it later.

  And then, scratching Sasha behind the ears, she waited.

  She waited until it was twelve minutes past 6:00, a full five minutes after the usual time the studio was locked up for the night. Then, to make sure her mother, Babushka, and Katya wouldn’t see her walking to the studio, she chose a route they never used. It took a little longer, but that gave her extra assurance no one would be in the studio.