Siren Spell

by Cidney Swanson

  The lobby, when she slipped inside, was dark and warm and empty. Giselle left the lights turned off, using the iPad tablet resting in her jacket pocket as a low-power flashlight. A part of her was hopeful the ikon had already been removed.

  It had not.

  Giselle sighed, shaking her head at her stubborn, stubborn mother.

  As she took the ikon down from its place, the hand painted wood felt slightly warm in her hands. Her mother must have left the heat on again. On the back side of the tiny artwork, Giselle saw Cyrillic script which she couldn’t read next to English words which she could: Holy Mother of Forgiveness Divine.

  It seemed apt. Giselle was going to need a large dose of maternal forgiveness divine if her mother ever figured out who had stolen the ikon. Was this a crazy idea? She turned off her “flashlight” and took a deep breath, standing in the dark, the ikon in hand as she reconsidered her decision.

  The studio heater powered on, wafting eau-de-dance through the lobby, carrying with it the memory of all the dancers she’d grown up with and all the dancers she’d taught. This place was home—not just to her, but to so many. She was doing the right thing. The studio had to stay open.

  The ikon, smaller than a paperback, slid easily into the pocket holding the tablet. She gave her pocket a reassuring pat and then, frowning, wondered if the tablet might damage the priceless painting. Carefully lifting the ikon back out, she moved it to the matching pocket on the jacket’s right side. The tablet glowed softly in her left pocket. She must have accidentally engaged the on/off switch. She pulled out the tablet, turned it off, replaced it, and hurried home.

  “Mom went to bed with a migraine,” Katya announced by way of a greeting, “And Babushka went to bed early, too, so it’s just us for dinner.”

  Later, when the two climbed the stairs to their shared room, Katya asked Giselle if they could both sleep in the bottom bunk again.

  “Of course, my little kapusta-head,” said Giselle, tousling her sister’s dark hair. Katya wanted comfort; she had already snatched her ancient baby blanket, thread-bare and faded from washings innumerable. Giselle would feel safer too, knowing Katya couldn’t sneak off again.

  The two settled in Giselle’s bunk. At first they spoke in serious whispers, going over Giselle’s plan, but Katya was growing more and more nervous, which wouldn’t do at all, Giselle decided. It was time for something … lighter.

  In the end, the girls fell asleep giggling over Gabor’s Star Trek costume. A few hours later, they awoke to the quiet buzzing of Katya’s phone.

  “Derrmo!” murmured Katya.

  “Whazzaproblem?” mumbled Giselle

  “I must’ve hit snooze by accident. It’s three minutes to midnight.”

  Giselle sat up so quickly her head spun. Beside her, Katya had already wriggled one foot into a shoe.

  As the two hurried into footwear, hats, and scarves, trees dripped rain on the roof over their heads. The tick-tick-tick sound seemed to accuse Giselle: you’re late-late-late! She felt sick. They couldn’t be late. What would the queen do? Would the bargain Giselle had struck be forfeit?

  Katya looked so tired, but when Giselle suggested Katya stay home, she refused.

  “We stick together,” said Katya.

  The two raced for the river, the clock striking midnight a full minute before they reached the channel.

  “You don’t feel like your soul’s been … detached, do you?” Giselle asked anxiously.

  Katya shook her head, panting her response. “I feel fine. I mean, I’m sleepy, but otherwise … normal.”

  “Okay,” said Giselle, hoping normal meant … normal.

  As they dashed into the sculpture garden, the two heard the hissing voices of the river creatures calling to one another, admiring themselves and combing their long, wet hair.

  And then Giselle heard something out of place. It was the distinctive sound of male laughter.

  “Who is that?” asked Giselle, her heart pounding.

  “No!” whispered Katya, her hand flying to her mouth. “Not Marcus!”

  But it was Marcus. Giselle dashed forward.

  39

  DISPLAYS OF AFFECTION

  “Go home, Marcus,” she said urgently. “Now!”

  The Queen of the Sirens addressed Giselle, although the queen’s gaze remained fixed on Marcus. “He has no desire to depart.”

  Two maidens of the queen’s court danced to either side of Marcus, a languorous dance, sweeping along the river’s edge. Marcus was dressed for dancing—every muscle visible through his snug clothing—and the elegant lines of his extended arms made Giselle forget to breathe.

  “Giselle,” Katya said. “They’ll drown him!”

  “Not yet,” replied the queen, her voice rasping and low.

  “Not yet?” Katya whispered to Giselle.

  Giselle could not tear her eyes from the dance, heartbreaking in its beauty, terrifying in its import.

  More of the creatures joined hands until a full circle was created with Marcus and two of the sirens at its center. The circle rotated slowly, one part of it always through the shallows of the cold river.

  The sirens swaying with Marcus laughed at something he said. Their laughter was a brittle sound that reminded Giselle of glass shattering. It awoke her to action and she advanced over the muddy grass. Could she distract the queen and her court using her tablet?

  But before she could reach the queen, Giselle heard another male voice.

  “Hey!”

  It sounded just like … James?

  She turned to see James rising from where he’d been crouching behind a boulder.

  “I’m over here,” he called to Giselle. “We’ve got to do something. Marcus is in trouble.”

  Giselle stared at James in disbelief.

  “They can’t hurt you if you stay back here,” James added. “They have limited, uh, range. Or something. They don’t seem to like getting too far from the river. I told Marcus to stay back.” James looked guiltily to one side. “But he wouldn’t listen.”

  “Did you bring Marcus here?” demanded Giselle, “Because I’m having a hard time believing he brought you here.”

  James looked like a proverbial dog with its tail between its legs.

  “I tried to convince him to stay back,” said James. “I figured we’d leave once the sirens showed up. But he said it was a chance of a lifetime, dancing with them.”

  Giselle cursed.

  “And I might have maybe exaggerated about their … displays of affection. From when I was with them.”

  “Their displays of affection?” hissed Giselle. “Do you mean the part where they were going to affection your ass down to a watery grave?” She wanted to pull her hair out. No: she wanted to pull James’s hair out.

  Even gentle Katya was glaring at James in disbelief. “Of all the sirens’ attributes, that’s the one you picked to mention?”

  Giselle glanced over to Marcus, who seemed to be demonstrating how to land a tour jeté.

  James’s eyes dropped to his feet.

  “It doesn’t matter,” Giselle murmured wearily. She knew enough about Marcus to ascertain the prospect of dancing with the sirens would have far outweighed any interest in gaining their … affection. She kicked at the ground in frustration.

  “So, um,” continued James, “I don’t think they have it in for girls. Maybe I could distract them, you know, from a safe distance, and the two of you could grab him and take him away?”

  “You want us to ‘take him away’?” asked Giselle. She rolled her eyes at James and then turned to Katya. “Remind this gutless wonder about the part where his soul was torn from his flesh when he tried to get away.”

  Katya was frowning. “We don’t know for sure if that will happen to Marcus.”

  “We don’t know it won’t,” said Giselle, glaring at James.

  James had the decency to look away, his cheeks darkening with embarrassment.

  “So,” said James, burying one foot in
a cluster of leaves, “What’s the plan?”

  Giselle glanced back at Marcus. He was smiling. Enraptured. This was bad. This was very bad.

  James, flipping his hair back, murmured, “Listen, I want to, you know, help.”

  “Fine,” said Giselle. “You can ‘help’ by staying out of my way.” She turned to Katya. “Stay here. Please.” The urgency in her voice seemed to convince her sister. “And keep Don Juan here from doing something even more stupid than what he’s already done.”

  Katya, biting her nails, nodded.

  “What are you going to do?” asked James.

  “Improvise!” snapped Giselle.

  And then she took off to rescue Marcus.

  40

  HOLY MOTHER OF FORGIVENESS DIVINE

  As Giselle approached Marcus, all her hopes of an easy rescue faded. The look on Marcus’s face told her everything. It was an expression Mr. Kinsler had been trying to elicit from both James and Marcus.

  Enchanted.

  Marcus was past caring about the chill water lapping around his calves, splashing his thighs.

  Enthralled.

  He noticed nothing beyond the sirens beckoning him to dance with them eternally.

  Ensnared.

  Giselle called to him. “Marcus!”

  He gave no indication he’d heard her.

  “Marcus,” called James, his actor’s voice carrying easily across the grass.

  “They will only break your heart, lovely,” whispered the queen, appearing at Giselle’s side. “It’s what they do.”

  A nearby maiden reached for Giselle’s hair, but the queen hissed the creature away.

  “Marcus, please,” called Giselle.

  But like Demetrius newly enchanted by Puck, Marcus had eyes for none but the maidens before him. Their dance was neither modern nor balletic; it was all swaying undulation, whirling feet, sighed susurrations. The rhythm called to Giselle once more: lovely and sure, whispering of heartbreak and eternity.

  “Will you join the dance?” asked the queen.

  Yes.

  Oh, yes….

  Already, Giselle felt herself swaying to the gentle music of the river. How had she rejected its call last night? Marcus smiled at her as he passed and Giselle smiled back, swaying, her knees soft, her arms drifting, rising, reaching….

  “Giselle!”

  It was Katya’s voice, combined with James’s.

  Beware the sirens’ call.

  The words were Babushka’s, whispered with stories told beside October fires, accompanied by chai and cubes of sugar. As if shaking off a dream, Giselle repeated the words: beware the sirens’ call.

  The church bell struck one. One o’clock? How was that possible? They’d arrived no more than ten minutes ago. Giselle checked her phone. It confirmed nearly an hour had passed. A chill ran down her arms. Swaying beside the dancers, she’d lost all sense of time. She had to focus. She had to get Marcus out of here. Could she use the recording of Giselle as a distraction?

  Her hand slipped inside her jacket pocket. Her fingers had grown so numb with cold that it was a challenge to grip the iPad. She brought her hands to her mouth, blowing on them to warm them. Some distraction it would be if she couldn’t even operate the device.

  As she tried to warm her hands, she studied the dancers. The queen and her court were completely focused on their new prey. Giselle felt a flutter of panic. She couldn’t lose Marcus, lose his friendship, his broad grins and contagious laughter. Panic’s icy fingers clawed at her. Giselle closed her eyes. Took a deep breath. Told herself to look at the situation rationally, like Katya would.

  Her brow furrowed. To free Marcus, she needed more than just a diversion. Even with a diversion, they couldn’t just sneak Marcus out for fear his soul and body might end up … parted. Giselle needed leverage. But what could she offer? What did she have to compete with the pleasure the sirens took in luring men to their deaths?

  Nothing. She had nothing. The dance had grown more wild and Marcus more oblivious than ever. She was wasting time with her doubts and second-guessing. It was time to act. It was time to … improvise.

  “Your majesty,” she cried.

  When the queen turned to her, Giselle’s heart pounded as if it were trying to burst through her chest wall. She had to be cautious. And wise. And clever. Above all, clever.

  The queen circled in front of Giselle, unearthly in her drifting elegance. Giselle felt the damp brush of the queen’s strange garb, clinging, gelatinous.

  “Your majesty,” said Giselle, curtsying as deeply as a prima ballerina on her third curtain call. When she rose, her chin was tucked, her eyes low, her demeanor utterly respectful.

  The queen fixed her pupil-less gaze on Giselle.

  Giselle’s pulse pounded in her ears.

  “I have returned as I promised,” said Giselle. “Allow me to … to summon the troop of dancers for your pleasure.”

  “New revels are afoot,” murmured the queen, blinking her white eyes as she returned her gaze to Marcus.

  “So I see,” replied Giselle. “However, this will be the last opportunity I have to present my gift to your court. I shall not return.”

  Giselle held her breath, waiting to see if the queen would contradict her or tell her she was in some way still bound to return, but the queen said nothing.

  Giselle’s heart throbbed painfully; her threat to depart was empty. She couldn’t abandon Marcus. She dug her nails into her palms. If she did nothing, he would be drowned, or worse, by morning. Giselle cursed in silence, her stomach clenching. She couldn’t abandon him. She had to keep trying.

  She cleared her throat to address the queen once more.

  “If I might suggest, your majesty, perhaps your maidens would like to bring their new … friend so that all can watch the tribute I bring.”

  Giselle fumbled in her pocket for the tablet. Her fingers were still cold and clumsy.

  The queen waved her long graceful hand dismissively. “No promises were extracted from you other than your return. You owe me nothing further. You have come; you may go.”

  The queen was intent on Marcus alone. Next to the undulant maidens, Marcus danced with fluid, muscular intensity. Giselle saw full well why the queen could not tear her gaze away.

  From behind, James shouted. “Do something!”

  Disturbed, the queen turned to locate the source of the familiar voice.

  “You have returned to us,” said the queen, her voice sultry, beckoning. “Come,” she said. She held out an elegant hand.

  James turned his head away and stuffed his fingers in his ears.

  “That one is a coward and a fool,” said the queen to Giselle. “As well you know.”

  She stepped closer to Giselle.

  “You are the brave one, mortal,” said the queen, lifting a hand to Giselle’s face.

  Though Giselle feared the sharp nails, she did not flinch, but the queen only stroked Giselle’s cheek with the back of one dripping hand.

  “Have you not felt the call to dance with us?” asked the creature, her voice but a whisper. “You are a great dancer. You are like us. Join us.”

  Beside Giselle, a tempest stirred, a whirlwind of furies, fierce and brave. The wild maidens reached for Giselle’s arms, hands, hair: sirens clamoring about her like fruit flies to a cut apple. She could not shake them off, and once more she felt her blood pulsing to the beat of the dance beside the water’s edge. She felt, too, the fierce joy they took in the dance. Her throat tightened with longing.

  “Dance with us, daughter,” murmured the queen.

  It was an offer for the one thing that Giselle desired above all: to dance forever. She felt it, how she would renew her life with that of the ever-flowing tides of the world.

  “What need have you,” continued the queen, “Of creatures like that….” She indicated James. “Join us: forgetting never, forgiving never, dying never. Vengeance is yours to take. You have but to call him over. We will do the rest. Call him.
Seal your fate to ours.”

  The dancers who drifted past Giselle spoke in their strange hissing tongue, and Giselle found she could understand them: forgetting never, forgiving never, dying never.

  But even as she heard the words, something inside her crossed its arms, resistant. She would not call for James. Revenge was no longer something she craved. She had tasted vengeance, that first night she’d left James to the sirens. And she had tasted it since. Holy Mother of Forgiveness, but she’d tasted it. She’d bitten deeply, the cloyingly sweet juices trailing down her chin and throat, staining her hands, her teeth, her heart.

  “Call him,” whispered the queen.

  The music thrummed, pounded, called to Giselle. The dance beside the river called as well; it became an aching need, a fire in her bones. She wanted, wanted, wanted….

  A sob rose in her throat. Swallowing it, she turned slowly from the dance. She had abandoned dance before in anger, to wreak a small revenge on her mother. She would not take it up again for worse purpose.

  The queen, imperious and deadly, awaited her answer. “Well?”

  “I thank your majesty,” Giselle whispered, “But I will not.”

  The sirens around her hissed; their sharp, white teeth were bared.

  “Will not, mortal?” The queen’s voice held an edge of threat.

  Forgetting never; forgiving never, hissed the whirling maidens.

  “I don’t … I don’t want the same things you want,” replied Giselle. “Forgive and forget: that’s what I want. That’s what I choose.”

  The queen regarded Giselle with disdain. Then she turned, pointing to James, cowering behind Katya. “Him? You would forgive that … worm?”

  Nodding, Giselle called to James. “Did you hear that? I … I forgive you.”

  James stared at her, a puzzled expression on his face. Giselle bit her lip. James probably didn’t understand there’d been anything to forgive. Forgiveness was wasted on him.