Fiction | Short Story | Fascinate Me Fiction

Siren’s Song

Sometimes even monsters can be innocent

For the first time, Elea joins the women at the edge of the cliff. She feels the salty wind whipping her long hair around her bare body. The feeling is exhilarating. Elea is so happy to get to be here with the others this time, an acceptance into womanhood. The other women nod as she walks up. They know she is supposed to be here, meant to stand alongside the rest of them. She opens her mouth wide like she has practiced many times before and begins to vocalize. The others do the same.

Oh, the music that comes out of their mouths! Spectacular! Elea marvels to herself. The echoes reverberate across the sound, bouncing off the tall cliffs that rise on either side of them, a corridor to the sea beyond. The music from their throats mixes with the wind and the crests of the waves as they pummel into the cove below. The voices swirl into something different, something otherworldly. They harmonize into one sound, and then separate again into many distinct octaves. Walls and ribbons of undulating music can be heard for miles, all the way back to the village where Elea knew everyone would joyfully stop and listen just as she had for her entire childhood. This music exists only because they, the women of the Serene Island, exist. Their voices alone can calm the stormy seas.

After a while, their singing slow and calm to almost a whisper. They let the music flow from their bodies to a trickle, until no energy remains. The wind falls, the water rolls gently into the sound and laps the beach lazily below. The sun comes out. Blue sky, blue water. All is right with the world. What a satisfying feeling, to be part of the power that calms nature’s untamable forces. Elea smiles.

Just then, Elea hears a shout. She looks down at the beach just inside the cove. A large vessel has wandered inside and struck a rock. The men on board yell at each other, trying to turn the boat around. The women above see their attempts are hopeless.

“Elea, run and go get the men. They will need to help those people,” Lyra orders. As the youngest of the chorus, Elea is expected to be the messenger. Off she runs, grabbing her tunic from the bushes as she goes.

Back in the village, Elea waves her arms and shouts to every man she meets along the main path. “Help, there are men in the sound! People, stuck on the rocks! Somebody, help them!” As they notice Elea, the village men begin grabbing tools and gathering into a group. Elea’s father appears from their doorway carrying his own fishing spear. He speaks to the other men, as he organizes their mission. They all make their way toward the sound, and Elea follows. She is ecstatic about being accepted by her fellow women, but she’s also curious about how the men will handle this crisis.

“Elea, go back to the village! It’s not safe!” A handsome young man she sometimes enjoys the company of, Agnon, exclaims fiercely. Elea nods but continues creeping behind when Agnon is out of view. She attempts a quieter, more invisible approach. The path down to the sound is mercifully dense with trees and undergrowth. It’s not too difficult to stay concealed.

“Hello, there!” Elea hears her father’s voice addressing the men trapped on the vessel. They are out of reach, but not so far away they can’t hear her father’s booming and commanding voice. “Are you in need of assistance?”

Unintelligible shouts ensue. The men don’t speak the language. Elea peeks up from behind a bush. The vessel has now begun to take on water and the bow is dipping low. Smaller vessels are thrown off the deck and she can see some men now climbing into them. They are definitely in distress and escaping toward Elea and the village men.

Elea’s father continues to try to communicate with the panicked men as they grow closer to where he stands. “We can help drag your boat to shore, and we can repair….” Suddenly an arrow strikes Elea’s father through the throat, interrupting his offers of help. One of the men on the smaller vessels shoots another arrow, which strikes the man that rushes to help Elea’s father. This creates pandemonium among Elea’s village men. Now they, too, shout and aim their weapons. More arrows are shot, and before long the beach is a battleground. Men from both groups lie bleeding on the sand. The air from Elea’s lungs is sucked out. She can neither breathe nor make a noise, such is the effect of her shock. Elea stays where she is, where no one can see her.

As the day wanes and the sky darkens, Elea grows cold and shivers. A few men have escaped and head toward the village, but Elea is too scared to leave her hiding place to follow them. She can only watch. As darkness falls, the beach begins to quiet. A handful of vessel-dwellers wander inland, but most of them have expired on the beach. Elea eventually gathers the courage to stand and make her way cautiously home. Her foot suddenly hits something in the darkness. A groan emanates from somewhere below her, and she stumbles in surprise. She squeals and hurries to get back up, but she’s stopped by a low and pitifully exclaimed word.

As she strains to see in the pitch black, Elea makes out a face. A man from the sunk vessel, but not much older than she. He is young and terrified, that much she could tell from his shadowy face. He speaks to her. The words are hard to understand — not her language — but she is familiar enough. Occasionally, the islanders are met by sea travelers that speak the same language. “Please. Please help me!” Elea draws in a deep breath to calm herself. This man is harmless and needs her help. She feels around with her hands on his body where the darkness is less penetrable. There is an arrow through his knee. It has crippled him, but it is not life-threatening. Elea removes the arrow as gently as she can, but not gently enough to stop the man from screaming. She quickly tears strips off her tunic and ties them securely around the man’s injury. She finds a large flat stone upon which to elevate his knee. He sobs in grateful agony.

“It’s okay.” Elea coos to him. “It’s not the end.” She hates to see anyone in pain. She wishes she could do more for him. Elea sits next to the injured man, stroking his head of dark curls, at a loss as to what to do next.

Time passes, and eventually the man begins to stir. “Thank you…. for getting the arrow out.” He speaks hoarsely. Elea understands, as he motions toward his knee. “I don’t know what I would do if you weren’t hiding in the brush over there.” Elea is taken aback when she realizes he’s smiling at her. He’s actually smiling.

He laughs at the confusion on her face. “I saw your eyes peeking out when I was on the beach. I imagine you may have seen me, too. I was the scared one looking around for somewhere to hide.” He winced as he tried to pivot his body to sit up. “I was struck down anyway. By accident, too. My own people. I’m always out of place.”

“Don’t sit up,” Elea puts her hands on his body in an effort to force him back into a lying position.

“It’s fine,” he waves her away. “Did you see everything that happened? What chaos! I wonder what will happen to me now?” The man stares off toward the direction of the sea.

“Where did you… come from? What brought you here?” Elea asks after a long hesitation. She speaks carefully, as she searches for the correct words so he can understand.

The man smiles wistfully. “It was the music we heard. The voices. They were so beautiful. We were curious, so we tried to find them. We’ve been at sea for so many months. Some of the men… desired the company of women.”

Elea sucks in her breath audibly. She understands a few of his words. He heard voices. Their voices; her voice. The man’s eyes dance.

“Was it you? Were you the one singing?”

Elea pushes away from the man, putting a little distance between them. What would he do if he knew? No matter, she quickly reasons. The man can’t hurt her. He can barely sit up.

“I am very sorry. It was us, the women. We sing to the wind and waves to calm the storms, to Poseidon. He loves our voices. We alone have the power to temper the violence of the storm.”

“It was beautiful.” The man croons, trance-like. “Thinking back, I imagine now that I could hear your voice, separately. Higher, soaring through the air to me.” He met her eyes in the darkness. “I am Jove.” He puts a hand to his chest. “What is your name?”

“Elea.” She smiles.

“Elea.” Jove whispers her name back, trying it on his own lips.

They gaze at each other for a moment. Elea is at a loss for something to say, so intense is Jove’s attention. She wants to ask something, anything. She has to know more about this brave man who sails the world and follows her song to his own misfortune. But her command of his language fails her, and she cannot get another word out. Elea never felt so powerful and so weak at the same time.

A whoosh and a stomach-churning wet crunch sound next to her. A large wooden staff is suddenly buried deep in Jove’s chest and blood is gurgling from his mouth. A spear from her village. He is still reclining in the half-upright, half-lying down position he had pulled himself painfully into just to sit up and talk to her. His body is frozen now, though, his eyes staring blankly through her. Elea stops breathing herself and her lower jaw hangs uselessly open. She swirls her head toward the direction from which the spear had come.

“Elea! Stand up, come with me!” Agnon extends his hand to help her stand.

Elea can only stare at Agnon and scream. She screams the mournful wail of the dispossessed. In this moment, the full realization of how she had doomed Jove hits her. She led his boat astray, she gave him hope, and she is the reason he is dead now. Whatever future Elea harbored hope for when she decided to help the injured man is now lost to the wind, the wind that now carries her anguished song.

Thanks for reading! Please leave a comment to let me know what you think! To get more from me, grace me with a follow. I also write for The Customs House Museum & Cultural Center. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram as Meggiebeth_Writes.

Disclaimer: This story is a work of fiction. The characters and events in this story are entirely fictional, and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.