The Siren Song

by Anne Ursu

  And it was her fault. All her fault. She’d acted too rashly. She never should have gone out on her own. She should have waited for Jason; he’d told her to wait. He knew the ship. He knew what he was doing. They could have worked together. But no, Charlotte had to go off on her own in a head of steam, and now hundreds of people were going to pay with their lives. Her mom and dad were going to pay with their lives.

  Tears sprang to Charlotte’s eyes, and she bit her lip and tried to blink them away. She was not going to give Poseidon the pleasure.

  But he noticed, and his mouth spread in a hateful smirk. “Are you going to cry? Are you? Didn’t take much, did it?” he cackled. “You think you’re so strong, but you’re weak. All mortals are weak. Go ahead, cry. Show me how brave you are, Charlotte Mielswetzski.” And then he burst out in a deliberate, mocking laugh.

  Well, that was too much. It was bad enough that he was going to kill her, he didn’t need to make fun of her as well. It wasn’t like she had anything to lose by talking back to him. He couldn’t kill her any harder. (At least, it seemed better to believe that.) Drawing herself up slowly, she scoffed, “Yeah, I’m pretty weak. Just ask your legless grandson.” Poseidon stiffened and slammed the trident on the floor again so hard that Charlotte bounced up in the air, then came down with a crash.

  “How dare you? How dare you? You are nothing! You are vermin! You are scum! You are mortal!”

  “If I’m nothing,” Charlotte coughed, trying to ignore the screams of her bones, “why did you go through all of the trouble of punishing me?”

  “Why? Why? Because you meddled with one of my descendants, mortal, and you must pay for it!”

  “What was I supposed to do? He was trying to overthrow the Underworld! He was going to throw the Dead into Tartarus!”

  “It was none of your affair.”

  “Of course it was. I’m human!”

  Boom! (Bounce.) “That is why it was none of your affair. You cannot meddle in the doings of the great gods!”

  Charlotte’s head was a haze now, a muddle of pain and fear and anger and grief, her body was battered and bruised, and Poseidon still stood over her. He was horrible, he was worse than Philonecron, he was worse than Hades, he was petty and vindictive and hateful and he was a god and he had all the power and she had none. But she was not going to let him see her break. She was going to keep her strength until he killed her.

  “Why shouldn’t I meddle? Someone has to! You don’t care about people at all!”

  “Care about people? Why should I care? It’s not enough for you to be able to worship us, you want things.” He set his face in a sneer, and his voice grew high and mocking: “Poseidon, protect my boat from the storm! Poseidon, save my village from the tidal wave! Poseidon, I’m drowning. Save us, Poseidon, save us!” He scoffed. “Why should I help them?”

  Charlotte couldn’t take it anymore. As Poseidon ranted, she picked herself up off the ground. One foot on the floor, then the other, then she pushed herself up—oh! Not with that hand—so she was standing almost at her full height, despite the loud protests of her muscles and bones. It was nothing, she was barely above Poseidon’s kneecaps, but at least she was up. She stared up at him, eyes full of fire, and hissed, “Because you can.”

  “You!”—his eyes narrowed into little slits—“You vermin. You dirt. You think you can tell me what to do? You think you can speak to the gods? Well”—he spread his hands out—“if you are so eager to be in my world, let us see how long you survive in it.”

  And with that, Poseidon lifted his arm toward Charlotte, and an invisible force pulled her up from the ground. Up, up, up she went, then hung in the air for a moment, and Poseidon, arm outstretched, leered up at her. The wall in front of her began to open up, and before Charlotte could see what lay behind it, she shot through the opening like a cannonball. Room after room whizzed by her, and then suddenly she was through the yacht’s walls and into the dark of the evening. The next thing she knew she was hovering several yards away from the yacht, staring down at the open sea. The water roiled beneath her, and in the blackness, she saw a large shape move just underneath the water’s surface. And then, whatever force that had her let her go, and Charlotte plunged toward the night-black sea.

  CHAPTER 23

  Sir Laurence Gaumm

  CHARLOTTE WAS PLUMMETING THROUGH DARKNESS, this time with no metal chute to guide her way. She tumbled through the night air, head over heels over head, toward the moon-capped waves. Time slowed to a crawl as her body rotated in uncontrolled freefall, she was utterly conscious of moving slowly toward her doom. The air was thick with the rushing and roiling of waves, and some other sound too, something high-pitched and loud, something that Charlotte eventually recognized as her own screams.

  As the surface of the sea came toward her, there was some displacement of the water and the air and everything below her seemed to grow only more black, as if the moon itself had been blotted out. Frantically Charlotte tried to take in as much breath as she could—as if that would help, as if there were any way out of this—and then she lost control of her senses entirely. It was just black, all around, and she was falling, and there was no direction anymore, no sense of up or down, of body or time, and then—

  Thud! Charlotte hit something. Not water, but something else, something soft and sticky. Then it was as if the world suddenly collapsed from under her, and she tumbled downward along a strange, wet surface. She slid and slipped and slurped and then—

  And then everything was still. Well, not everything—Charlotte had a distinct sense of motion, of some sort of pressure change happening around her, as if she was in an airplane coming in for a landing. But she was no longer falling, and the aftershock of her experience hit her and she began to gasp for air, to shudder and shake, as tears poured down from her eyes. Her stomach roiled and she vomited—once, twice, three times—and then she collapsed on the strange, gummy floor.

  Charlotte was insensate with residual terror, and it took her some time to gather herself enough so that she could process her surroundings. But even once she had finally gone from gasping and crying to trying to analyze her current predicament, she found herself with absolutely no conception of where she was. She was in total blackness, and her eyes would not adjust. As she lay in a heap on the soft surface, she could not even see the ground inches from her face. She had expected to be in water, she should be in water, she had been falling toward water; yet as she waved her hands around in the air, it was clear that it was just that—air. But there was no moon.

  No, she was not outside anymore. She was inside something, very definitely, something without an opening or even a crack for light. It was as if she had been sealed inside—which perhaps she had been, perhaps Poseidon had chosen to prolong her death by sealing her in a trunk and sinking the whole package to the bottom of the sea. If given a choice, Charlotte would have preferred the quicker death, but no one had asked her.

  Slowly she began to crawl around, feeling her way with her hands, at least to get an idea of how big her current prison was. If she was indeed in some kind of weird container at the bottom of the ocean floor, she was really most curious to find out how much air she had left. The very thought made her lungs constrict, and she automatically took in a deep breath as if to reassure herself that she still could. Her lungs filled with strange, sour air, and Charlotte retched.

  “Gross,” she muttered to herself.

  Then, suddenly, the ground beneath her feet moved, and Charlotte was knocked off balance. She let out a yell of frustration, and then something very strange happened.

  Something spoke.

  “Pardon me?” The something said in a voice that echoed all around Charlotte.

  Charlotte fell back, and something came out of her mouth, something that might have been a “Whaaa?” but was possibly just a yelp.

  “Pardon me,” it repeated, “is there someone there, please?”

  The voice seemed to surround her. It was somehow omnipresent
in Charlotte’s strange chamber, as if the walls themselves were speaking.

  Charlotte leaped to her feet and looked around frantically. “Hello?” she whispered into the darkness.

  “Hullo, hullo! Are you in there?”

  Charlotte looked around wildly. “In where?”

  “Oh, dear, oh dear. Oh, bother!”

  “What?” Charlotte exclaimed. “Who are you? Where are we?”

  “Oh dear,” said the voice, “this is dreadfully embarrassing, but…well, dash it all—there’s no really good way to say this, I’m afraid, so I’ll just out with it. I seem to have swallowed you.”

  “What?”

  “Quite. It’s ill-mannered of me, but I’m afraid it was an accident, miss. Couldn’t be helped, really!”

  Charlotte narrowed her eyes, trying to pierce through the darkness. Was this a joke? If so, it wasn’t a very funny one. But whoever was talking was, she had to admit, not inside the room with her. And if she were really to consider the matter carefully, she would determine that it wasn’t quite like the walls were talking, as she had previously thought, but rather as if Charlotte were inside the closet of her bedroom back home and the house suddenly started talking. Or, frankly, as if she were somewhere inside the stomach of a very large beast that was now having a conversation with her.

  Charlotte stood poised in the darkness, every nerve on end. “Did Poseidon feed me to you?”

  “Gosh! No! Upon my honor—”

  “Then who are you? What are you?”

  A coughing sound, and the floor underneath Charlotte’s feet vibrated. “My name, miss, is Sir Laurence Gaumm, at your service. I was once an English gentleman, but now, well, now, the deuce of it is…I seem to be a giant squid.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Charlotte dully. After all her worrying, she had, in fact, been eaten by a giant squid.

  “Well,” Sir Laurence continued, “perhaps the naturalists might have a more technical name for me. But I am a something very like a squid, certainly, and I am most decidedly giant. In fact, I am twice the size of the yacht you just descended from so surprisingly. But my manners are beastly! The Lady Gaumm—that is my sainted mother—would be most appalled. Please forgive me. Whom have I had the honor of swallowing?”

  “Uh…” Charlotte said, “I—I’m Charlotte Mielswetzski.” This was absolutely the weirdest conversation she had ever had in her life. She didn’t know what to think. The squid—Sir Laurence—didn’t seem like he was going to kill her any time soon; unless, that is, he liked to talk to his food before digesting it. Charlotte wasn’t that familiar with the eating habits of giant squid.

  “Mielswetzski? Gosh! And you’re American? I do so like the Americans. So spirited, our brethren across the sea!”

  “Yes! Yes, I’m American. But look…”

  “Sir Laurence.”

  “Yes, Sir Laurence…are you planning on eating me?” It seemed like a good idea to get to the point.

  “Gosh, I mean, gosh! No! I assure you, this is a most unfortunate accident. You see, I—Sir Laurence Gaumm, giant squid—was swimming close to the surface and saw you being tossed off the side of the yacht and I thought—well, it’s very embarrassing, really—that you were a bag of parsnips. I am excessively fond of parsnips. Especially steamed with a good lot of butter—but, you know, you can’t have everything.”

  “Right,” said Charlotte, growing slightly impatient. She had to find a way out of there and back onto the ship, though it seemed in her current situation, it was best to humor Sir Laurence. As he talked, she began to explore her environment, looking for an escape route. (Preferably through the mouth…)

  “But I now realize you are not a bag of parsnips, or if you are, you are an excessively well-spoken one, and I most certainly do not want to eat you. Do you think that you might remove yourself from the upper chamber of my stomach? I would hate to have you fall through and begin to digest you. I am a vegetarian. I didn’t used to be a vegetarian, you know. I liked a good suckling pig and venison sausage just like the next fellow. But it is different once you’ve been turned into a sea monster and you are asked to eat your aquatic compatriots, who are really stand-up fellows—”

  Charlotte stopped. “Asea monster?” she interrupted. “Are you the Ketos?”

  “Oh, my, no. I am an English gentleman. The Ketos is no gentleman, I assure you. He’s not even English. Dreadful chap. I’d stay as far away from him as possible.”

  “Okay,” said Charlotte.

  “Well, by the by, Miss Charlotte, it seems we are in accord. I have no wish to eat you, and you do not wish to be eaten. A happy coincidence, what! So, if I were to open my mouth quite wide, perhaps you could see your way clear to wandering up to my mouth and then you might, as it were, swim off? I’ll count to ten, and, well, off you go, then!”

  “No!” exclaimed Charlotte. “It’s night! I’ll die!”

  “Die?!” Sir Laurence exclaimed. “Are you mortal?”

  “Yes!”

  “Oh, well, that’s a different kettle of fish. Mortal! Good gracious! I don’t mean to intrude, but, times being what they are, well, young lady, I would recommend most heartily that you stay as far away from Poseidon as possible. He’s quite dangerous, you know.”

  “I gathered that,” Charlotte muttered.

  “Mortal! Just think of it. I was mortal once! At the time I thought it was an unfortunate condition; now I realize it’s quite something to cherish! Well, Miss Charlotte, that’s neither here nor there. It would be most ill-mannered of me to deposit you in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea at night. What would Lady Gaumm say? So how’s this: I shall gallantly swim over as close to shore as I can get, and we shall wait until the sun is up to warm your passage, then you shall swim the rest of the way to safety, and we shall all go on with our lives, such as they are. A bracing morning swim off the beaches of Sicily. Capital!”

  “No!” Charlotte exclaimed. “No! I have to get back on the yacht!”

  Sir Laurence paused. “My dear Miss Charlotte, why would you want to go back on the yacht? It seems to me you were just tossed off it. And believe you me, you got off lucky. I’m not sure the Lord of the Seas would take kindly to your reappearance. He’s not a very nice fellow.”

  “Tell me about it,” muttered Charlotte.

  “Ah, very well, I shall,” said Sir Laurence, clearly unfamiliar with idiom. “Many years ago I was a happy fellow, a decent sort. Perhaps a little overfond of a game of cards here and there, but being a sporting gentleman at heart is hardly something to earn one reproach, is it? But that’s neither here nor there. The year was 1912. I was in Venice with Lady Gaumm and my sisters, the Miss Gaumms, and I got caught up in a game with a fellow. Well, it came suddenly to be between him and me and I staked quite a sizable sum, and the gentleman—if I can call him that—when he put his hand down, well—not to put too fine a point on it—but I saw him draw an ace from his sleeve.

  “So, a gentleman cannot let those things stand, you know, so I said, ‘Sir, I say, sir!’ and, well, called him out! And, well, next thing I knew I was a small, squirmy thing with tentacles. Really, they’re most unwieldy—I’ve grown quite a bit, you see. I’ve been following him around ever since, trying to convince the old boy to let it go, but there’s no reasoning with that chap.”

  “Yeah, I know,” muttered Charlotte. She’d hit upon a strange part of the stomach wall, something thin and elastic. She poked it.

  “Gosh!” exclaimed Sir Laurence. “What are you doing down there? I don’t want to be rude, but that tickles! Gosh!”

  “Sorry,” Charlotte said, smoothing her hand over the thin area. It was no use. Even if it was the exit, there was no way to activate it that she could find.

  Sir Laurence sighed. “There’s just not much to do down here, and a giant squid can only eat so much plankton. So I follow the yacht along, and every once in a while Poseidon comes out on deck. At first I thought I might sort of, you know, present myself to him as perhaps someone with whom one does not
want to trifle. I do not think he intended for me to get quite so large, you see.

  “But it matters not. The rogue shot me with that dreadful trident of his, and the fact of the matter is, it hurt like a bear. Then he informed me, waving the dread thing, that if I made one move toward him, he would turn me into chum. Chum! I, Sir Laurence Gaumm! Well, I must tell you, I would rather be a giant squid than chum, so recently I changed my tack and tried to appeal to the man’s better nature. Unfortunately, I don’t think he has one. Usually he just waves his trident at me and laughs. Really, it’s not very sporting.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Charlotte, leaning against the wall.

  “Well, Miss Charlotte,” Sir Laurence continued, “the point is, I should not advise going back on that yacht. Whatever you have done to merit the undignified treatment you received earlier, I do not imagine Poseidon wants to see you again. So, shall we make for the shore, you and I?”

  “No!” Charlotte exclaimed. She needed Sir Laurence to let her out, and there didn’t seem to be anything to do but tell him why. Time was running out. “Okay, Sir Laurence, look,” she said. “Poseidon is having a party tonight, maybe even now, and at that party he’s going to be showing everyone a cruise ship being eaten by the Ketos. And on the cruise ship are hundreds of people including”—tears suddenly welled up in her eyes—“my mom and dad.”

  “That cad!”

  “They can’t get away!” she exclaimed, voice trembling. “He sent a Siren to the ship and she hypnotized everyone and suddenly we were in the Mediterranean and the ship wasn’t moving and Jason appeared and he told me about the Siren and that the only way to stop her was to get Poseidon’s trident….”