The Siren Song

by Anne Ursu

  “It’s serve yourself,” Jason explained, motioning to the aquarium.

  “Oh,” said Charlotte, looking toward the sky. There was a humming noise coming from somewhere; she couldn’t quite place it, but it seemed to be heading toward the boat. It was growing louder and louder, and Charlotte finally realized what it was, but it seemed too weird, for what on Earth would a—

  “Helicopter,” Jason said as Charlotte stared upward into the sky.

  “A helicopter! Here?” Charlotte’s heart leaped. Maybe it would fly over the cruise ship, maybe they’d be saved, maybe Charlotte and Jason could get back on the lifeboat and go home, away from self-serve aquariums and snobby giant crabs and who knows what else that lay in wait for them, and maybe this time when Jason leaned his face into hers as they rode off into the sunset, they wouldn’t be interrupted by a dog lady trying to eat her.

  “Sure. Not everyone comes by boat.” He squinted up at the helicopter, which was now heading directly for the boat. Charlotte couldn’t be sure, but from where she was standing, it looked to be pink. “Probably a party guest.”

  “You mean”—Charlotte pointed upward—“that’s someone coming to the yacht?”

  “Sure. There’s a landing pad up there, see?” He pointed up to the circular platform at the top of the boat that Charlotte had thought was a sundeck. Silly Charlotte.

  She went over to the edge of the deck and leaned over the rail to look. The noise was almost overwhelming by that point, and the deck floor hummed as if in chorus. The helicopter hovered right above the small landing pad, then seemed almost to float down onto it. A man with dark hair and a dark suit got out of the copter and then reached up to help someone else out—a woman, tall and willowy with long, wavy blond hair, big sunglasses, and a long, silvery cape. Charlotte squinted up at her. She couldn’t be sure, of course, but from this distance the woman looked a great deal like a certain movie star who had just won her second Academy Award for her performance as a deaf long distance runner who overcomes her handicap and her abusive father to find love and Olympic glory. Or something like that—Charlotte hadn’t seen it, on account of how completely stupid it looked.

  She stared up at the silver-cloaked woman some more. “Is that…?”

  “Yeah,” said Jason.

  “He invited movie stars to the party?” Charlotte whispered to Jason.

  “Well, when the movie stars are Immortals. Her real name is Calypso.”

  Lacking anything real to say, Charlotte just nodded. She wondered how much the tabloids would give her for that story.

  “Come on,” said Jason, nodding at the doorway. “Let’s go inside.”

  Charlotte did not know quite what she had been expecting Poseidon’s yacht to look like; maybe some nautical version of Hades’s palace, which looked on the inside like a (rather grim) Victorian manor. What she was not expecting was what she found when she walked through the door. While the outside had looked like any old billionaire’s yacht, the inside, well, did not.

  The hallway in front of her was all aqua, from the tall painted ceiling to the satin-covered walls to the thick shag carpeting on the floor. Suspended from the ceiling were large turquoise lights molded to look like the face of a man who stared down imperiously at the floor as he cast pools of blue light on it. Around each light were a dozen foot-long gold seahorses that dangled down from the ceiling. The satin walls were all covered in an appliqué to form giant glittering seascapes, with many different kinds of tropical fish in their multicolored glory, great gleaming dolphins and green sea turtles with luminous shells, a giant purple octopus and bright pink coral, and a great jungle of a sea floor made of sparkling plants of all different colors that seemed almost to sway in the nonexistent current.

  As Charlotte examined the walls, she realized that every one of the flora and fauna before her was made up of countless small jewels. The red sea anemones were all tiny rubies put together with small diamonds interspersed for extra sparkle. The fish were made up of every color of jewel Charlotte had ever heard of, and some she had not. One of them, on a brooch maybe, a third of the size, might be beautiful, but all of them together, well—it looked like the student committee for the eighth-grade Under the Sea Dance had gone way over budget.

  “Wow,” said Charlotte.

  “Yup,” said Jason. “Kind of gross, isn’t it.”

  “Kind of,” said Charlotte. A booming noise rushed to her ears, and everything around her erupted in a tremendous shudder. Her body shook and her teeth rattled together harshly. Then, suddenly, everything was quiet again.

  “What was that?” she asked, looking around. Charlotte had never been in an earthquake, but if she had, she thought that would surely be what it was like.

  “Oh, nothing,” Jason said, shrugging. “That’s just Poseidon. He’s got a bit of a temper.”

  “Oh, great!”

  “Don’t worry about it—shhh! Someone’s coming!” A door a bit down the hallway opened—which was strange, since there weren’t any doors in this particular hall that Charlotte could see—and an extremely large, lumbering figure made his way toward Charlotte and Jason. He was four times Charlotte’s size, and as he entered the hallway, the ceiling seemed to grow to accommodate him. He looked, for all intents and purposes, exactly like the Cyclops Charlotte had seen in the Underworld, only the one in the Underworld hadn’t had a patch over his one eye, nor was he being led by a Seeing Eye dog. As the blind Cyclops lumbered past, Charlotte and Jason pressed themselves against the bejeweled wall, though not far enough away to avoid the horrible smell of rancid meat that hung about him like a cloud. The Cyclops, not surprisingly, did not notice them.

  “I’m just curious,” said Charlotte, as they removed themselves from the wall after he had disappeared into another invisible door, “how many creatures are there on this yacht that might, at any time, eat me?”

  “Well,” Jason said, “not a lot.” He paused a moment, considering. “There’s one, two…maybe three. No,” he corrected himself, “five.”

  “Five.”

  “Of the ones who wander loose, anyway.”

  “Right,” said Charlotte.

  “Jason! You’re back!” said a voice. Charlotte whirled around to behold a tall woman with pale green skin, bright blue eyes, and a thick mane of long white hair smiling down at them. She was wearing a long, flowing, white dress with a shawl that looked like a fisherman’s net made of gold, and small sea shells dangled down from her ears. Despite the green skin, the woman was beautiful, just as beautiful as the Siren, and Charlotte suddenly felt every one of her freckles burning like a pox on her face. She took a step backward into Jason’s shadow.

  Jason took a step forward. “Hi, Eunice…. I just went on a little trip….”

  “Well,” the woman said, “you’d better go find your father!”

  Jason blinked at her. “Is he back?”

  “Just this morning. He’s worried sick.”

  Jason scowled. “Aw, he doesn’t care about me.”

  “Now, Jason,” said Eunice, “your father loves you very much.”

  “Well, he has a funny way of showing it!”

  “Didn’t he take you on a mission?”

  Jason rolled his eyes in response.

  “Well…” the woman said, “he does the best he can for you.” Her wide, deep, blue eyes glanced over at Charlotte. “And”—she looked back at Jason pointedly—“aren’t you going to introduce me to your little friend?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry!” He glanced back at Charlotte and motioned her forward. Charlotte—very reluctantly—complied. “This is Char—Charlene,” he said. “She’s my date for the party.”

  His what? Despite herself, Charlotte felt her cheeks reddening a bit. Well, what was he supposed to say—this is my accomplice?

  “Ooooooooh!” The woman beamed. “Pleased to meet you, Charlene. I’m Eunice. I haven’t seen you around here before. Do you have”—her eyes looked Charlotte up and down carefully—“Immortal blood?”<
br />
  “Yeah,” Jason said quickly. “Her dad’s a river god.”

  “Oh!” said the nymph. “Oh! I see.” She gave Charlotte a sympathetic smile and lowered her voice. “Well, that’s all right, we don’t have to tell anyone.”

  Charlotte opened her mouth as something flared up inside of her. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell this beautiful sea goddess (for that is what she looked like, and in fact what she was. Eunice was a Nereid, if you want to be precise) that she could tell whomever she wanted that her father was a river god and she—Charlene—was quite proud of it herself, and when you thought about it, didn’t freshwater gods have, well, a bit better smell to them? But this seemed like an excellent occasion to heed her mother’s constant pleas to control her temper.

  “Look, um, do me a favor?” Jason asked. “Don’t tell my dad about Charlene? I want to surprise him at the party.” Charlotte cast a glance at Jason. Sometimes, he thought ahead.

  Eunice giggled. “I promise. It’s going to be some party! Poseidon’s going to be feeding a whole cruise ship to the Ketos.”

  Charlotte froze. “What?”

  “Yeah, he’s going to send in some helicopters and film it, and we’ll watch the whole thing live! Isn’t technology wonderful? We couldn’t do that when it ate Troy, could we?” She let out a loud, gurgling laugh. “You’re in for a real show, Charlene.”

  Charlotte stood frozen, her breath caught, as something in her stomach exploded in fear and horror. There was no doubt in her mind which cruise ship was going to be this monster’s dinner.

  “Wow, that’s great, Eunice,” Jason said quickly, grabbing Charlotte’s arm. “Well, I better go show Charlene her room.”

  “Okay. Ta-ta!” And with that, the sea goddess gave a two-fingered wave and continued down the hallway. As soon as she was gone, Charlotte whirled around. “You said the ship was just going to float around for a dozen years or so!” she hissed.

  Jason held up a hand. “I’m sorry, Charlotte, I didn’t know!”

  “What’s he doing? What’s the Ketos?” The words came tumbling out of Charlotte’s mouth.

  “It’s a giant sea monster. And by giant, I mean several football-fields giant. Poseidon likes to sic it on people.”

  “He can’t!” Charlotte exclaimed, as Jason held up his hand to hush her. She leaned in and whispered, “All those people! My p-parents!” As tears sprung to her eyes, she shook her head rapidly. No, Charlotte, there’s no time. “How do we stop it?” she hissed.

  “Same as the Siren,” Jason whispered, looking around. “The trident. It’s the only way.”

  “Okay!” said Charlotte. “What are we waiting for? We have to go.” And she started to move down the hallway, as if she had any idea where she was going or what to do when she got there.

  “Charlotte, wait,” said Jason, scurrying up to her. A two-foot-high woman with bright white skin in a French maid’s outfit walked past, and he lowered his voice. “I have to go find my dad before he hears I’m back.”

  “What?” Charlotte couldn’t believe her ears.

  “He’s going to be so mad! Do you know what he’ll do to me?”

  “B-but”—Charlotte shook her head rapidly—“sea monster!”

  Jason looked intently into her eyes. “Look,” he said, “if my dad hears I’m back, he’ll get really suspicious.” His eyes widened in something very like fear. “He’ll send everyone out looking for me, and then we’ll be sunk. You should go to your room and rest, okay?”

  Rest?! Charlotte thought. “Rest?!” she said.

  “Just for a little while. We can’t do anything now. Poseidon will be in his throne room later, and I know a place to spy on him there. Then we can figure out what to do. He’ll be wandering around the ship now, greeting guests, and if he sees you now, Charlotte, it’s all lost. The party’s not till late. We have time.”

  “Time?” Charlotte felt her temper flare again, and she breathed it back. She couldn’t yell at Jason; he was the only person on her side—plus he had saved her life, plus he had almost kissed her. He had gone to so much trouble to warn her and save the ship, he wouldn’t lead her astray now, would he? Did she mention he had saved her life? If he said they had to wait, they had to wait. Charlotte might not like it, but it didn’t sound like there was any choice.

  “Okay,” she said, breathing. “Okay.”

  “Come on,” he said, “I’ll take you to your room.”

  On Charlotte’s cruise ship, there was a bank of elevators to take you from one deck to another. On the Poseidon, three floor-to-ceiling elevator-size glass tubes stood where the elevators were supposed to be. Two were empty, and one was filled with blue-green seawater. On the wall next to the tubes was a panel with two fish-shaped buttons cut out of sapphire, one with the fish pointing upward, another with it pointing down. Jason pressed the first button, which promptly lit up.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Charlotte saw a figure move through the water-filled tube, and she turned and saw what was without a doubt a mermaid swimming inside of it. The mermaid had blue skin, bobbed black hair, and, of course, a long, scaly fish tail, and she moved quickly up through the shaft until she disappeared from view. Charlotte was in no mood to wonder at mermaids, but she still couldn’t help but stare.

  “There are whole floors on the ship that are all seawater,” Jason whispered, “and that shaft connects them.”

  As he was talking, something began to rise up in the tube in front of Charlotte, something golden and lumpy and quite large. She watched as it rose slowly up into the ceiling, revealing itself to be a giant solid-gold head. It was the same face that had been immortalized in the hallway lights, with wide-set eyes, curly hair, and a wavy beard. The head stopped moving when it filled the length of the tube, and from somewhere above came a mechanical pinging noise. The glass tube parted in the middle, and as it did so, the great golden mouth began to open. The mouth methodically stretched all the way over the face, and when it stopped Jason nodded at Charlotte. “Well?” he said. “Get in.”

  As she stepped in, the mouth closed again. A low voice rumbled, “What floor, please?” and then they were off.

  “This place is…something,” Charlotte muttered, tapping her foot. Everything inside of her seemed to be moving very quickly—her heart, her blood, her breath, her thoughts, and as she stood in the elevator, she found she couldn’t stop moving.

  “Yeah,” said Jason. “Everything is like this. And my dad wouldn’t raise my allowance, can you believe it?”

  Charlotte didn’t say anything. She was sympathetic to Jason and his evil sea god father, and she knew he didn’t mean anything by it, but it was difficult when her own parents were about to be fed to a giant sea monster. It just made all other parent troubles pale in comparison.

  When the elevator let them off on Deck Eighteen, she found herself in a coral hallway—not coral colored, but rather with coral all over the walls and giant coral-shaped lamps casting a pink glow over everything. In the elevator landing stood a giant marble head about the size of Charlotte, with the same face as the gold elevator head they’d just ridden up in, and smaller versions of the same head sat decoratively on small tables throughout the hallway. Charlotte was beginning to get a good idea exactly whose visage that was.

  This hallway had doorways set into the coral walls, and each door they passed had a different golden icon in it—there was a seahorse, a seal, a fish, an otter—and when they reached one marked with a seashell, Jason stopped. “The Shell Room,” he said, motioning to the door. “I’ll come get you soon. You rest up, okay?”

  “Sure,” Charlotte said, her heart speeding up again at the thought of a delay. She was conscious that her hands were trembling.

  Jason reached out, picked up a strand of Charlotte’s hair, and tucked it behind her ear. “You’re the best,” he said softly. “Don’t worry. We’ll go to work later this afternoon, okay? We’ll have our chance then.”

  “Okay,” mumbled Charlotte. Her brain was th
reatening to overload. Fear and anticipation and anger were making it difficult for her to breathe properly, her heart felt like it was trying to set some kind of speed record, and her stomach was churning harder than all the butter makers at Williamsburg. And meanwhile, despite everything, a small part of her heart still found the energy to leap at Jason’s touch.

  When Charlotte entered her room, she found that they called it the Shell Room for a reason. It was decorated with as much taste and subtlety as the rest of the yacht, which was to say, not much. The room itself was in the shape of a shell, and the walls and ceiling were covered in a light pink colored velvet. The floor was bumpy and strange, and when Charlotte looked down she found that it was made out of a giant fan shell sculpted in pearl. There was a large pink conch shell in the middle of the room that upon closer examination turned out to be a bed—once you climbed inside. A gold shell door led to what Charlotte assumed must be the bathroom (she didn’t want to think what the toilet was like). The lamps, the light fixtures, and the doorknobs were shells, and shells made out of various jewels lined the tops of the walls. And on the far wall, opposite the bathroom, was a giant painting of a muscular blue-skinned man with a now very familiar face lying naked inside a big clamshell.

  Charlotte was supposed to wait, and to rest, but there was no way she could do that, so she paced around the room and studied everything in it. On the shell desk, there was a binder much like the binder she had seen in her room on the Isis just a few days before, only this one was solid gold. Poseidon’s head was engraved on the front, and inside was a single sheet of parchment with only the words THE POSEIDON written across the bottom. Charlotte was about to close the book when suddenly some words appeared on the page.

  Hello, and welcome to the Poseidon, the finest yacht in the Universe, designed by the Divine Lord of the Seas himself, Poseidon the Earth Shaker. How may I help you?

  “Uh,” Charlotte said. She was already jittery enough; she didn’t need inanimate objects talking to her.