“I understand, already. You think she’s perfect.”
“As I was saying…” He swiveled his head around and verified the color had risen in her dimpled cheeks. “You see, even though Roselle is my true love, I do recall one instance where her behavior toward me was less than lovely. But it was only because she hadn’t eaten her breakfast yet. The creature that emerged from her hideous, starved state was not beautiful, not like the real Roselle.” He paused so Claire had enough time to stew over his silence. “Therefore, the only conclusion is that the half-starved creature was not Roselle at all,” he said in a rush and turned back to the bookcase.
“You believe she was temporarily possessed by another creature?”
Tad shrugged, resisting the impulse to turn and look at her. He would just have to feel her rage with his imagination.
“Oh, well, then, how convenient for her that her meal was sufficient to cast the thing off!”
“It doesn’t matter to me if you approve of my Roselle. In a manner of speaking, she was possessed. But she’s my true love and it’s my duty to overlook any flaws that may suddenly manifest as a consequence of…Ha! I’ve found it.” He withdrew a book from the shelf and hopped down.
“Your sanity?” Claire replied.
“The boy might be a little romantic,” Pip’s voice said.
Tad froze for a moment, then whirled around holding the book in both hands against his chest. “Was that…a compliment?”
Pip’s gaze shifted to the ceiling. “You are still stupid.”
Tad sighed and flung the thick brown volume onto the table in front of the bookcase where Pip had perched himself next to Claire’s head. “Well, there you have it.”
Claire gave him a weary look. “You expect me to read this entire book?”
“You call yourself a scientist.” He grinned at her incredulous expression and shrugged. “Read.” He shrugged again. “Explore.”
Disbelief shifted into a look of manufactured indifference. Claire crossed stubborn arms and lifted a defiant chin. “I am not doing your research for you.”
“Somewhere in there is a beauty preservation spell I recall seeing.” He pointed to a second volume at the other end of the table. “In that other book is an extraction spell. Since you have the scientific mind, the task falls to you to figure out a way to mix the two so that we may extract the siren’s essence while preserving the princess.” He turned back to the shelf and feigned continued interest in its contents. Claire was definitely working herself into a lather behind his back. “Then the princess will be left with only herself and we may dispose of the vile siren. That will be my job.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No, merely improbable.”
“This is a strange idea,” Pip said.
Tad did not care for the pigeon’s assessment of his work. “What are you doing back here, anyway?”
“The siren is taking a nap.”
“She sleeps?” Tad rubbed his chin.
“Doesn’t everybody?”
“No logical mind at all,” Claire said behind Tad’s back. “And wait until you hear his newest—”
“Then there is our opportunity.” Tad whirled himself around on his heels and strutted up to Claire. “So, make sure your hybrid spell does not require any oral injection or—”
“I can’t do what you so obviously think I can,” Claire almost shouted in his face.
“You haven’t even tried,” he said as calmly as possible. But really, a gentleman was sorely taxed in the lady’s presence.
“I specialize in biological constructs. I dabble in chemicals and equations. I don’t know anything about magic formulas or spells or—”
“See, a deficit in your education. I have done you a great service in finding a way for you to improve yourself.”
Claire alternated between wordlessly opening her mouth and shutting it again to uttering little gasps filled with nothing but air.
“He is infuriating,” Pip said.
“And you are rather pretty when you’re flustered,” Tad said to the lady. Of course she was nothing at all compared to Roselle, but some young fellow would be glad to have her. If she ever got over all of that nonsense about science and logic and reason. Probably her heart’s desire was to have her own laboratory.
How sad.
He left here there in a delightful state and returned to the island to solve the case without her interference. The pirates he found right where he had left them, not setting up camp, but arguing over who was going to keep watch over the pirate girl so that nothing devoured her in the night. Tad was fairly certain it was Prince Henry that Avery wished to keep from swooping in and carrying her off.
“She’s my sister so I’ll do it,” Avery said. “Now the rest of you get the supplies from the ship.”
Tad looked up at the sky. “Wait there, captain. Before you make any plans, allow me to show you where your treasure lies.”
Something bony jabbed him in the arm. “What are you doing?” Claire stood next to him watching the pirates squabble.
What was he doing? He was about to ask why she was not busy experimenting like he’d told her to do, but that argument would waste precious daylight. Instead he leaned over and whispered very loudly in her ear, “My job.”
“Now you want to tell me the whereabouts of the treasure?” Avery said. “I thought you were holding that information hostage until I cooperate with your magical schemes?”
Tad shrugged. “I changed my mind. If you will kindly follow me, I will take you to the most beautiful sight your eyes have ever seen.” He held out his hand to Claire. “The goggles, if you please, and this whole ordeal will be over before nightfall.”
Claire crossed her arms and observed the pirate captain. “I have a hypothesis.”
Tad moaned loudly.
“You see those apples?”
The green orbs Claire was pointing at looked nothing like the fruit in question. “You already had breakfast.”
“I need to study those as well. I think—”
“Never mind all that.” Tad wagged his finger at his helper. “We have important business to do.”
“Man business,” Avery said. His sister sent him a withering look that exactly matched one Claire bestowed on Tad. “Where is my treasure?”
“Right this way.” He held out his hand to Claire again. “Goggles, my esteemed colleague, if you please.”
She slapped them down into his palm. The sting informed him she was all huffy again, but that was her own fault for showing up where her presence was not requested. He had a brilliant scheme in mind that would resolve the case in a flash.
The princess’s eyes when she was after him had been hazy, as if she had fallen into a deep slumber. Probably Avery could give her a good kiss and bring her out of it. But keeping this plan from Claire would make it so much more enjoyable when she witnessed the results for herself. Being a scientist must be such a bore, having to see everything with your eyes to believe it.
Tad crept on his hands and knees to the precipice that overlooked the siren’s lair, Avery at his heels, the rest of the company following not too closely behind. He stopped when he spied his quarry and shoved the goggles toward Avery while he continued to stare at the sight below. “Put these on.”
The goggles remained in Tad’s hand. He rotated his eyeballs to the man at his side.
“I’m a pirate, sir. I don’t trust in magic. I say again, where is my treasure?”
“Down there.”
Avery craned his neck over the edge of the precipice. “All I see is a pile of bones and…” His gaze rose and landed on the back of the woman who was staring out into the sea. “Is that her?”
“Yes, it is your true love. Now, do as I say and look at her through these magic lenses. They show you the true nature of something…or something or other.” He didn’t actually know what they did, but they were Lady Love’s goggles so they must help a person be more romantic, even a pirate. “Just put
them on and look at the princess.”
Avery did not budge.
“Leave a rich man or a pauper. Your choice.” Tad thrust the goggles against Avery’s chest.
The pirate huffed at him but slowly brought the goggles to his face, though he declined to strap them on. He stared at the siren and not at the mound of bones behind her. “She’s not a princess.” A grin crept to his lips. “She’s a lost cause, like me. Such passion, such…hunger.”
“You’re attracted to her ravenous appetite?” Tad mumbled out.
“Well, there’s only one thing to be done.”
Tad raised his eyebrows at the pirate. He still looked very dashing in his black trousers that matched his devil-may-care hair and his biceps bulging in that very piratey sleeveless tunic of his. But now there was something else about him—abject stupidity. “And what’s that?”
“Feed myself to her, of course.” Avery positioned the goggles over his eyes and tightened the leather strap around his thick skull.
“That’s very brave of you,” a sighing voice said.
Tad turned to see Claire staring all smiley-faced at the hunky pirate man. But this plan was not romantic at all, just stupid. “This coming from the woman who only believes in science.” She probably didn’t mind if Avery got eaten as long as she got to observe a siren and her feeding rituals in her natural habitat. Tad turned to his besotted client. “Now, give me back my goggles. You are under the lady’s spell and I cannot allow you to proceed with this plan.”
“I wasn’t asking for your consent.”
Pirates. “You’re all twinkle-eyed and that means danger. I think—”
But Avery was already halfway back to his crew. “So that’s the plan,” he said right as Tad jogged up to the huddle.
“Might I know this plan of yours?” Tad asked.
“I already told you, I’m going to dangle myself out there for her to eat. Then I’m going to do what all true love’s do.” Avery winked and nodded abruptly. “Give her a kiss.”
“And how will you do that? I have magic and I could not escape her song,” Tad replied.
“This is the difference between you and me.” Avery gave Tad a sober look. “I trust my crew.”
Chapter 11
Tad chased Avery along the beach as the imbecile strode toward his true love in his pirate garb and a pair of goggles that made his eyes look like a frog. “This plan is stupidity,” he called out after him. “She will gnaw off your lips before they manage that kiss you’re after.”
But the pirate captain marched on. As Tad’s own tasty flesh was in mortal peril, he stopped and put his fingers in his ears. That was the only thing to do while you watched an intelligent species devour a lesser one. Tad thought if he might somehow solve the case without having to interfere in the natural order of things.
An elbow nudged him. Claire held out one hand, palm up. The other pulled back her hair and turned a pointy finger toward an object lodged inside her ear canal. She plucked it out and added it to the other plug in her upturned hand.
Tad looked at the plugs in her palm with her ear leavings on them and shook his head. His eyes spun back to where the princess was watching Avery approach. Any moment now the fool would be dinner. Tad nodded to himself that he might be just fine with that. No doubt Lady Love could find a replacement.
The siren stared at the approaching morsel. But she didn’t sing. Unflinching, she sat on her mound of rock, her sandy hair flowing out behind her as the wind shifted.
A movement on the right caught Tad’s eye. Four of Avery’s men crept along the wall of the cliff that ran parallel to Avery’s path toward the siren-princess. Their crouched forms were hardly necessary as the creature’s back was to them but their gaze was locked on her as a cat that had chanced upon an unsuspecting mouse.
Only this mouse had rows of needle-shaped teeth and a sweet song to call for her cheese.
The siren opened her mouth. Claire bumped Tad with her elbow again, hand outstretched with the earplugs in her palm. “Put these in.”
Tad hesitated only a moment before snatching them.
“All hand hoy!” Nadie’s cry rang out from the cliff overhanging the lair. “Come to me, my sweet pirate crew,” she sang. “Come to me Grimtrunkle, Iakapov, Diddle and Stew.”
Tad shoved the plugs into his ears, just as the siren began to direct a song at Avery.
The pirates creeping toward the siren stopped and turned their heads toward the song that swept down from the cliff instead of the one that came from mouth of the she-beast. But the siren kept her eyes fixed on Avery, who scowled as his men deserted him to scamper up the incline that led to where Nadie stood on the cliff.
Nadie lured her crew to her side, one and all, singing out her soprano song, though Tad could not hear the rest of the words through the plugs in his ears. The pirate men came to the pirate girl, and there they stayed as if their captain had ceased to exist.
Tad didn’t have time to figure out what was happening with Nadie and her horde. His attention moved back to Avery. The siren had her true love on the ground, choking the life out of him, that mouth of hers yawning. Avery grabbed her wrists and wriggled but remained pinned beneath her frame.
Nan and Sev swooped down and flapped their wings in the siren’s face. Her eyes narrowed and her hair whipped about her ears but her grip did not fail. The enchantment of this place must have interfered with the pigeon’s magic. They had managed to push an entire ship across the seas and yet their flapping was not impressive at all.
A black lump sailed down and smacked the siren in the side of her head. Nan and Sev swooped away. Pip drew back and popped the siren again and again with his wings. This produced no change of sentiment from the lifeless eyes and the mouthful of needle-shaped teeth aimed right at the salt-crusted morsel writhing in the sand.
Pip landed on top of the siren’s head and dug his claws into her eyes. Still nothing. The siren’s face inched closer to Avery’s as if Pip were no more than a leaf caught in her hair.
Another figure appeared, a dragon-winged beast the size of a man with the body and face of a red eagle. For a moment Tad imagined Pip was about to be the roc’s meal, or perhaps the siren. It hovered over the she-beast’s head. Moments later something fell from its posterior region and landed on the siren’s face. And on Pip.
The excretion had the siren swaying and shaking her filth-covered head. She shrieked and turned loose of Avery. Tad grinned as the siren’s free hand sent the pigeon on her head flying into the sand where he landed with his usual splat, a spray of feathers being absent due to the fact that Pip was covered in oily excrement.
Regrettably, Tad had no time to enjoy the sight properly.
Avery scrambled to his feet. Before the siren could scrub the residue form her eyes and redirect her ire from what was surely Wiggy disguised as a roc, the pirate captain was running along the beach in the opposite direction from which he had come. The siren stared after her almost-kill but no song went out to retrieve him.
Claire walked right up to the siren, leaned over and picked up the goggles that had been left behind. The siren turned her head and hissed at the girl, but did not try to eat her.
Tad pulled out the earplugs and magicked himself to the cliff where Avery’s crew had gathered around Nadie. But he could not get a word in. Claire arrived on the scene moments later and began giving orders for everybody to get back to their camp until she contrived a solution to the siren problem, as she put it. Tad shoved the earplugs into his pocket and watched his assistant blather on and on about how her scientific approach would, notwithstanding highly suggestive evidence, endeavor to produce an antitoxin and rehabilitative procedures, though she had no conjectures as to the exact method of the application of the principles of auditory reflex to the morphology of amphibious species of the soon-to-be-discovered subset of some kind of something or other. Tad found himself too deep in a trance to hear much after that.
Prince Henry observed Claire’s mouth at
work with equanimity, but the crew’s eyes had taken on the same hazy look as the siren’s by the time Avery came thrashing through the bushes brandishing his sword.
“Did you see? I kissed her on the cheek and then she tried to eat me.” Avery sheathed his weapon and grinned.
Tad huffed out a breath. “I suppose that’s a sign of affection in the pirate world?”
“I had to be sure. She’s no princess, and that’s all that matters. And you…” He turned to his sister. “…always trying to take over my ship, and now my entire crew?”
“They followed, didn’t they?” The girl chewed on her lower lip a moment as she observed the wild state of her brother’s hair and garments.
“We had a plan. I gave orders. Your interference nearly had me choked to death.” Avery shot bitter looks at his crew. “And the rest of you, losing your senses over a silly song.”
“Says the man who nearly got himself strangled to death by a siren. I wasn’t about to sit back and watch while my misguided brother got our entire crew eaten. Besides, you had magical helpers. What use was it to let my poor Grimtrunkle…” She rubbed the pirate head nearest her, earning a grin. “…Iakapov, Diddle and Stew get lured to their deaths?” She nodded at each of these pirates in turn. Stew pulled up his eyepatch and smiled at her, then pulled the patch back down and scowled at everybody else.
Avery’s men averted their eyes as his searing gaze fixed on them.
The captain’s lips pursed. “You were sent to torment me for my lifetime of indiscretions.”
“Only until sunset. Then I’m off duty.” Nadie dashed him a forged smile. “But I’ve saved you all twice already today so I think I’ll turn in early.”
The crew tried to cover its snickers and chuckles with throat clearing and coughs.
But how was it Nadie’s song had broken the siren’s spell over the crew? Tad thought he knew the answer as each of Avery’s men cast dreamy looks at their savior. She was like a mother and they were like a brood of naughty children. They were practically in love with her and she with them, only not in a romantic way. No doubt it was love’s song, like in Meg and George Thirteen’s case.
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