IGMS Issue 9 Page 15

  Crews were mixed and supplies were stolen, and then they were off in search of the next victim.

  The second ship burned. It was spectacular. She ran to the railing and held her hand out to the beautiful, live thing that danced on the sea as it consumed sails and timbers and bodies alike. She had seen candles and lamps in life and in memory, but this was a beast, wild and hot and bright as the sun. Hands grabbed at her clothes to keep her from falling over the rail, and they pinned her down when the magazine finally exploded, taking the rest of that ship's crew with it.

  On the third one, she found him.

  The battle this time was a long one, and by the time Lawson brought her the captain of the other ship, he was half dead. She drank him anyway. And somewhere in the memories of this man was the someone she had been looking for.

  She gasped when his face came to her. She drew back, her teeth disengaging from her meal, blood running down her chin and staining her dress. This man knew her lover. Not well, but he knew him. She tried to make sense of the jumble of images that flowed through her, but nothing connected. She searched his body for a sign, a hint, something. She found it on the smallest ring he wore, a gold band stamped with the crest she had traced over and over on the beach that day.

  When Lawson returned, she pointed at herself and then held up the ring. He smiled and patted her on the head. "Of course you can keep it, darlin'. You can have all the trinkets your little heart desires."

  He didn't understand. How would she make him understand? She slid the ring over her red-tipped thumb. She would save it until she thought of a way.

  The fourth ship was a long time coming.

  She spent most of that time at the bow. Lawson called her their figurehead. It was an apt description, based on what she had seen on the prows of other ships. She would lean against the rail, arms spread, red hair trailing behind her in the breeze. She liked letting the wind slip through her fingers. It reminded her of home. The currents of air were not that different from the currents of water. Men did not have the freedom of movement that her kind enjoyed, but the principles were the same. They walked among it, breathed it in, let it give them life. It brought sounds and smells to them. They did not see it or think to taste it, but it was always there inside them, touching them, surrounding them.

  She stood there, day after day, until the salt encrusted her lips and her hair was a faded orange. What little red appeared in the tips of her fingers had been burned there by the sun. The men avoided her and prayed hard for another ship. They tread lightly around the captain. No one wanted to be the Siren's next meal.

  Lawson finally bade her return to the stateroom, and she was too weak to disobey. The table was covered in maps and charts. She walked past them on the way to the bed and glanced down at the area Lawson was plotting. A symbol caught her eye, and she jumped back. She waved at Lawson. She pointed to herself, and to the ring around her thumb. She pointed to herself, and to the same symbol down on the map.

  "There?" he asked her. "You want to go there? Why?"

  She could not answer, so she just kept pointing to herself and the map.

  "That's home," Lawson told her. "Where Molly is. I promised never to go back until I had a ship full of riches. She deserves no less." He shook his head. "No, darlin', we can't go there. Not yet."

  Frustrated, she closed her eyes. Disjointed thought-flashes skipped through her mind. She tried to remember the man with the ring, tried to bring his soul to the surface. But it had been so long, and she was so weary . . . and there was a port . . .

  Her eyes snapped open. She moved her finger on the map to an island just off the coast of the country bearing her lover's symbol. She pointed at Lawson, and then stamped her finger back down on the map.

  "Windy Port? What's there?"

  She threw her hands up in exasperation and scanned the room. She held up the medallion of her necklace to him.

  "Gold?"

  She nodded and kept searching. She found his knife on the table, picked it up, and then shook her head.

  "Swords?"

  She shook her head again.

  "This?" He removed the pistol from his belt and held it out to her. She nodded emphatically.

  He cocked his head and grinned. "Siren, if you're right about this, I'll take you anywhere in the world." He strode out of the room and hollered to his first mate. "Hard to port, Matey!"

  "Cap'n?" the first mate asked.

  Lawson hooked his thumbs in his belt. "We're going home."

  The moment Lawson set her down on the dock at Windy Port, she fell. The hollowness inside her throbbed. She could not believe anything could have been so still as land. There was no life in it. The air was not strong enough to keep it fluid. It was rock. Still, empty, dead rock. She was but a shell, a humble reconstruction of the world upon which man walked every single day. How did they survive without a connection? She hugged her stomach, doubled up and gagged, only emptiness escaping her dry heaves.

  "You okay, honey? Take it easy. It'll pass soon."

  The words spoken to her had a cadence she had never heard before, and it surprised her so much she didn't understand them at first. The hands that pulled her hair back away from her face were small and delicate. The woman had on a black dress. Her hair was pinned up on her head and decorated with shiny black beads. She smelled . . . soft and nice. And she was gentle when she accepted the Siren's embrace.

  "It's all right," the woman said as she patted her back. "Everything's going to be all right." She barely screamed when pointed teeth pierced her flesh.

  Everything was going to be just fine.

  Suddenly conscious of her appearance, she pulled her dress over her head and began tearing at the woman's clothes. Lawson knelt beside her and motioned for his men to surround them so as not to draw attention to the scene. "Discovered vanity, have we?" he chuckled as he helped her undress the woman's corpse. Once she had changed, the men weighted the body and rolled it into the ocean.

  Lawson helped her stand. He tossed a dark cloak about her and covered her hair with its hood.

  The inn they went to almost pushed her sanity over the edge from sensory overload. The room was filled with people of all shapes and sizes. There were smells from the food, the ale, the dogs in front of the fire, the fire itself. Men and women talked and shouted and joked and laughed. A scrawny youth crawled up beside the dogs at one point and sang for his supper. She was mesmerized. These were so different from the songs of the water, the flash of fish in the currents, the mating of whales in the deep. Some were slow and soft; some were fast and loud. And when the rest of the room joined in, she clapped her hands in merriment.

  Throughout the night the crew dropped in one by one to report and consult with Lawson. There were nods and low whispers. She watched as papers were signed and money changed hands. Thus Bloody Lawson conquered Windy Port, without ever leaving his seat. When the festivities ended he paid for his meal, tipped heavily, and left, dragging her behind him.

  Molly's homecoming was a grand event. Lawson covered every flat surface in his new house with sweets and cakes and flowers. He hired a seamstress to take Molly's measurements for a whole new wardrobe, the only seamstress he could find that didn't seem overly preoccupied with the Prince's upcoming wedding. Paper-wrapped packages of all sizes littered the largest of the tables. A doll and a red rose waited on the chair for his princess.

  The Siren sat on a stool in the corner, cut off from the sun and the earth, the water and wind. She waned as she watched the miniature cherub-faced human run through the door to embrace her father. Her mop of dark brown curls disappeared in her father's coat as she hugged him, right before he picked her up and twirled her around the room. There was something about this strange apparition, this child, and she could not decide what it was.

  Molly giggled as she snuggled her doll. She reached out to the rose.

  "Be careful," her father warned her.

  "Yes, Papa," she said smartly. "I will watch for the prickl
ies and the thornies." She buried her nose in the crimson petals and took a deep breath. When she opened her eyes, Molly saw the Siren there in the shadows.

  The child set her doll down carefully on the table. "Who is she, Papa?" Molly whispered.

  "She's . . ." he started, twisting the ruby ring on his finger. "I saved her," he said finally.

  "She's so pretty," Molly said. The child came around the table and held the flower out to her. "She's just like the flower."

  "Yes," he said. "Just like a rose. She's got pricklies and thornies too, Molly. You have to be careful around her."

  Molly took another step forward, still offering the flower. The Siren took it and grinned, being careful not to show any teeth. Before her father could stop her, Molly launched herself into the Siren's arms.

  The child's skin was softer than the woman's at the pier. Her hair smelled of sweetness and . . . something . . . indescribable. Irresistible. She took another deep breath. There was life within this little bundle, so much life she vibrated with it.

  Lawson wrenched his daughter away. He took her by the arms and held her tightly. He sank down to his knees, so that he could address Molly eye to eye.

  "Don't you ever go near her again," he said sternly.

  "But Papa, she's so sad," Molly cried.

  "She's dangerous," he admonished. "Just be a good girl and do as your papa says."

  Molly bowed her head. "Yes, Papa."

  "We'll even call her Rose, okay? So you don't forget." Lawson chucked her under the chin. "Now, what are you going name your dolly?"

  Molly's eyes brightened again and she rushed back to the table for her doll.

  The Siren sunk her nose into the flower and inhaled, its fragrance mingled with leftover sweetness. She watched the child open the rest of her gifts.

  That night as he escorted her to her room, he said to her, "You touch my daughter, I'll kill you." Then he shut the door and turned seven keys in seven locks.

  Each day after that was much the same. He would not let her leave the house, for fear that she would be recognized, and he be discovered as the lawless man he used to be. The third time Lawson caught her staring out the windows, he forbade her that too. Each night he would take her to her room and give her the same warning about his daughter before turning the seven keys of her prison.

  She would sit on her bed and stare into the darkness, wondering what she had done wrong. Had she not given him the riches he desired? Had she not paved the way for him to return home to be with his daughter? She had made him happy - why should she suffer as a result? How would she ever find her lover now?

  She edged closer to the window and watched the moon move across the sky. Somewhere not far, the reflection of that same light was skipping across the waves. Somehow, she would escape from this prison. Someday, seven locks would not hold her.

  Every few nights he would bring her someone, long after Molly was asleep. He would wake before the dawn and take the body away. She learned all she could from these poor souls, but it was never enough. They were whores or cheats or liars, people whose absence in some way benefited Lawson and whose minds were such a jumble of unreliable information she could never discern anything that could help her.

  She waited. She waited while he scolded her every night. She waited as he shoved each of the seven bolts home. She waited as he fed her, sparingly, barely enough to survive. She waited for him to get comfortable, to slip, to let something get by him.

  Like the snitch.

  Lawson bent over and the unconscious man fell from over his shoulder and onto the bed before her. "Small, but he's all you'll get, understand?"

  She opened her mouth, throat contracting. "Yeth," she managed to say.

  "Good. 'Cause if you touch my daughter, I'll kill you." He shut the door. She counted slowly to seven before pulling the man into her lap and feasting.

  Her heart pounded with a foreign pulse.

  He was there.

  Her lover.

  He was everywhere inside this man's head. He sat at the head of a table, talking sternly to a group of older men dressed in black. He sat in a large chair at the end of a hallway. He rode a horse down the path through the garden and along the beach. He rode in a carriage beside a beautiful, golden-haired maiden and people threw flowers in the street before them. This was the golden-haired maiden who had saved him from a shipwreck, he told them. After months of searching, he had found her in a small fishing village on the coast. He owed her his life, and he loved her with all his heart.

  He was the Prince.

  And in a week, he was going to marry the wrong woman.

  Lawson did not come the next day to let her out of her cell. Nor did he come the next. The third day, the snitch's body began to smell. The fourth day, she tried to feed off it again and gagged. There had not been much in him to begin with, and whatever was left in him now was gelled and rancid. The fifth day, she began to shake. She pounded on the door and the walls and the window until the skin of her fists shed. The sixth day, she began to scream. It came out of her as a long, keening wail. It echoed her hunger, her desperation, her emptiness. Her voice gave out as the sun rose on the seventh day, his wedding day.

  She spent the hours curled up against the door, hoping to hear something. Any sign of movement at all would have been welcome. She played with the ends of her faded hair, teasing them in and out between her toes. The shadows moved, lengthened, and eventually, the sun's light died. Her hopes died right along with it. She placed her palm flat on the door beside her head.

  It was warm.

  She closed her eyes and could feel the energy radiating from the other side. She could hear small, shallow breaths. She could taste sweetness on the air.

  Molly.

  She knocked two times on the door.

  "Rose?" the tiny voice called hesitantly.

  She knocked two times again.

  "Daddy's sick and he had to go away." Skirts rustled against the floorboards. "I'm lonely. Are you lonely?"

  Two knocks.

  "Do you want to play with my dolly?"

  She spread her fingers against the door. "Yeth," she croaked.

  The warmth faded, and there were sounds of a heavy chair being dragged across the floor. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven keys were all slowly turned in their locks. The chair was pushed aside, and the door opened.

  The lonely child flew into her arms, the momentum pushing the Siren back onto the bed in her weakened state. She cradled the frightened child, felt the porcelain head of her dolly poking into her side. She soaked up the child's energy, willing it into her empty body. She bent her head and breathed in the sweetness of her. She nuzzled her nose in the softness.

  She shouldn't. She knew she shouldn't, but he had caused her so much pain. She was so hungry. She had nothing left to lose.

  Molly screamed and fought, but every bit of her gave the Siren the strength to hold the child down, to fill the abyss inside her with this soul of pure innocence. It was so beautiful. The sensations did not wait until she was finished. They exploded into her mind every second. There was fear, yes, absolute fear, but then came sadness and betrayal. There was happiness and laugher, anger and tears. Most importantly, she finally realized the whys. She knew why a person felt joy and why they felt pain. She learned the elation of seeing something for the very first time, and the despair in losing it.

  Loss. She knew now what she had been dealing out all this time. There was no way she could have ever understanding the impact of ending a life without understanding what it was like to begin one. The weight of all the souls she had consumed pressed heavily upon her. She learned consequences. She realized that the things she did affected people other than the person she was killing. She understood that all the pain she had felt before was nothing to the pain those people would feel for the rest of their lives. She felt regret, and love.

  Love.

  It spread through her. Unconditional love tickled her down to the red tips of her finge
rs and toes. Love was trust. Love was faith. Love was believing in the impossible. The rainbow of Molly's soul filled her with love until the last drop. She held the child's limp body in her arms . . . and she laughed.

  She laughed and laughed, her voice echoing through the dark, vacant house. She laughed until she cried, tears flowing unchecked down her cheeks for the first time. She cried for Molly, for all of them. She cried for all the things she had done. She cried for herself, for the love she had lost, for nothing.

  Or was it nothing?

  She had to hurry. She had to leave this place and never come back. She had to find her lover, find some way to tell him the truth. She gently laid Molly's body out on the bed and curled her arm around her dolly. She smoothed back the dark curls and kissed her forehead. She covered herself in the black cloak and fled into the night.

  She was glad again to be in the air and running over the earth, despite what little support the strange elements gave her. She followed her heart and the dim memories of the snitch all the way to the castle gates.

  She strode up to the guards there and threw her hood back. Those that knew of her let her pass. Those that didn't know of her learned. They died quickly.

  The myriad halls and stairs and rooms made the castle a giant labyrinth, but she knew where she was going. Up and up and up . . . to the balcony suites of the Prince's bedchamber. She did not stop until she was at the foot of his bed, staring down at his sleeping body. She wanted to shake him awake, wanted to explain everything to him, wanted to scream her love for him to the rafters.

  But she couldn't.

  If he awoke now, he would know what she had become. He would see the evil inside of her, the stain of it in her hair and on her skin. She had saved his life, true, but how many others had she taken on her path back to him? With love came regret. She knew what she had to do. She knew that the only thing she had to offer him now was her absence.

  If she could just touch him one more time . . . she reached out a hand to him. He would wake and see her. He would know that there was sky blue beneath the black of her eyes. He would know that there was gold beneath the red of her hair. He would know because he loved her. All she had to do was touch him.