Siren's Song

by D. L. Snow

  The clink? Oh no! They were going to put me in jail.

  Chapter 4

  I was too stunned to struggle. It wouldn’t have helped anyway. Cap’n was at least six feet tall and easily two hundred pounds with a grip of steel. My brain was too busy trying to make sense of my surroundings to even consider trying to escape. And besides, where would I escape to when I had no idea where I was? Somewhere in my confused brain, I made a mental note of all the buildings we passed, a pool hall, First Citizens Bank, Howard Massey’s Harness Shop. There were more taverns and hotels than I could keep track of.

  If it wasn’t for the man who marched behind me, half-carrying me when I stumbled, I probably would have collapsed on the boardwalk. My knees wobbled, my extremities tingled and my brain seemed to be operating on auto-pilot as I tried, but didn’t succeed, in making sense of everything. The only thing that I recognized were the two mountains that flanked the town. Crow and Turtle Mountain. They looked the same except for where trees had been cut on the slopes.

  It was Bandit Creek and yet it wasn’t and this new reality – if in fact it was reality and not some hallucination of a deranged mind – was impossible for me to comprehend.

  When Cap’n pushed open the door to the Sheriff’s office, I stopped worrying about how I came to be in this place and started worrying about what was going to happen to me now that I was here. If I thought the street outside stunk, the Sheriff’s office, which doubled as the jail, smelled ten times worse. Body odor and vomit were not the nastiest of the smells I identified and I gagged the moment I stepped foot inside.

  “Morning Sheriff,” Cap’n said as the door slammed shut behind us, the noise jump-starting my heart, leaving me on the verge of hyperventilation.

  “Whatcha got there, Cap’n?”

  Cap’n pushed me forward as I struggled to get back out the door. “This here girl’s been causing a bit of a stir down Main Street-”

  “Look,” I interrupted as I tried to twist out of his grasp. “I just need to get home. Please.”

  The sheriff ignored me for the moment. “What kind of stir, Cap’n?”

  “Disorderly behavior.” He coughed. “Attacking citizens and the like.”

  “Anyone hurt?”

  “No, Sir.”

  The sheriff came forward and leaned down toward me. By the way he was built, he looked to be about my age, maybe a little older. But his eyes had that wizened quality that made an age hard to pinpoint. “You’re awfully young to be making trouble. Where you from?”

  I shrugged out from under Cap’n’s hands and shook my head. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”

  “What’s that you say?”

  I groaned. What could I possibly say to make him understand? Nothing. So I chose the truth. “I moved here last month when my grandmother died.”

  “You came by train?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “No, I flew…” Oh shit. I stopped talking because the expression on the sheriff’s face told me I wasn’t helping my case.

  “You flew, huh? Where do you live now?”

  “Up at the old…” I almost said, Hawes Place, but that got me into trouble last time I’d said it. “Just up the hill from the lake. On Spruce Avenue.”

  The Sheriff glanced at Cap’n with a raised brow. “Up from the lake? Spruce Avenue?”

  “We think she’s a little touched,” Cap’n said softly.

  The sheriff sighed. “How old are you, child?”

  “I’m twenty-four. But…”

  “Twenty-four, huh?” The sheriff shook his head. “You don’t look a day over eighteen.” He removed his hat and scratched his head as he looked at me then back up at Cap’n. “What does Kitty think I can do with this girl?” He replaced his hat and settled it more firmly on his head. “I don’t need a soiled dove in my jail today. It’s already full of drunks from a brawl last night. Take her back to Kitty and tell her to find some gainful employment for the girl, do you hear?”

  “Yessir.”

  “And when I say gainful, I mean cleaning rooms, kitchen duty and the like. Not the kind that has her flat out on her back, is that understood? Tell Kitty I’ll be checking up on the situation at the end of the week.”

  “Yessir. I’ll tell her you said so, Sheriff.”

  Cap’n dragged me along stumbling back to the Powder Horn Saloon. I was still in a state of shock, hoping in vain I’d wake, come-to, or simply find that my surroundings made sense once again.

  That didn’t happen. When we returned to the Powder Horn and Cap’n relayed the Sheriff’s message, Kitty Sullivan was less than enthusiastic about following through with his wishes. “What does he think I’m running here, a charitable foundation? This is a business establishment and I can’t be providing room and board to every wayfarer that comes along.”

  “She could help me with the laundry,” a soft child-like voice said from behind me.

  “I don’t recall asking for your opinion, Camille. If you’ve got time to be standing around, thinking and opining, then you don’t have enough work to keep you busy.”

  I turned around to see a rosy-cheeked girl standing in the doorway. She wore a white cap over her dark hair and a stained apron over her blouse and skirt.

  “I don’t need a job. I need to get home,” I said. No one paid any attention to me.

  “The sheriff did insist,” Cap’n said softly.

  Kitty Sullivan grunted and her jowls shook in annoyance. “Oooh, very well. What’s your name, then?”

  “My name? It’s Joss Jones. But, I-”

  “My, my. Ain’t that a fancy name for a bedraggled waif like yourself.” She looked me up and down and shook her head. “This isn’t a boarding house, do you understand?”

  “Whatever, but-”

  “It ain’t no cat house neither, you clear about that?”

  Cat house? What did she take me for? “I-”

  “Camille!” she shouted as if the girl wasn’t standing only steps away. “Miss Fancy will help you with the laundry and the cleaning. And you can share your cot with her.” Kitty’s calculating stare focused on me. “Now, what have you got to give me for insurance?”

  “Insurance? No. Look. I don’t need a job, I’ve got a job. I don’t need to share a cot because I have a house. I just need to get home. Okay? Just tell me where the lake is. I need to find the lake.”

  “The Lake?” Kitty’s eyebrows disappeared beneath her hairline. It was the same sort of reaction that the Sheriff had had.

  “Lost Lake,” I said hesitantly.

  “I don’t know what happened to you, Dove. Maybe you cracked your skull or something, but there ain’t no lake around here.”

  “But,” I swallowed hard, biting back the pain in my throat. “If there’s no lake, how did I get here? How do I get home?” Tears pricked the corner of my eyes.

  “I’ll tell you how you get home.” Kitty came forward, her eyes softening. “You work for me, earn your keep, save everything. Then, when you’ve saved up enough, you buy a train ticket back home, back to whomever it is you’re running from.” Her soft expression hardened in a flash as her gaze fixed on the delicate gold chain around my neck. “What’s this, then?”

  I covered the cross. It had been my mother’s and I hadn’t taken it off since the day of her funeral. It was the only thing I had left of her. “You can’t have it.”

  Kitty pried my cold fingers from my necklace and pulled the chain so hard it broke right off my neck.

  “Hey! Give that back!”

  “There. That’s my insurance.” She tucked my necklace into her apron pocket and patted it. I lunged for her but Cap’n held me back. “I can’t have you taking advantage of me and running off first opportunity you get. Believe me, Girlie, I’ve learned that lesson the hard way. Now, you work for me, earn your keep and I’ll return the bobble. Is that understood?”

  I struggled in Cap’n’s grasp but it did no good. I couldn’t move.

  How I wanted to sho
ut at her, demand my property back and storm out of there. But where would I go? What would I do? I had no idea how to get home. This woman was offering me room and board, maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. It was certainly better than jail, better than sleeping on the dusty street in my damp clothes, in an old mining town.

  I pressed my cold, trembling lips together and blinked quickly to keep the tears at bay. Kitty’s offer wasn’t much, but it was the best offer I’d had all day. “Fine,” I said. At least I had a place to stay while I tried to figure out what the hell was going on.

  “That’s settled, then.” Kitty dusted her hands on her apron and dismissed me.

  Camille led me down a hall behind the kitchen to the maid’s quarters. She patted my hand the whole way, making a sweet cooing sound under her breath as if I was a stray dog that needed coaxing.

  “Don’t you worry, Miss. Mrs. Sullivan is a respectable woman. You work hard and stay on her good side, you’ll do well for yourself. Like me.”

  Just as we entered Camille’s tiny room, I turned to her and asked, “Camille, what year is it?”

  She frowned. “It’s ’99.”

  “1899?”

  “What other ’99 is there?”

  The reality of my insanity suddenly hit me and the tears came fast and furious. “Oh God,” I cried holding my arms tight around my sides as I rocked heel to toe. “Oh God.”

  Camille set me down on her narrow cot and sat beside me with her arm around me. “Shush now,” she soothed. “You’ve had a rough time of it. Everything’s going to be okay. You hear?”

  “No.” I shook my head miserably. “No. Everything is not okay. Don’t you see?” I looked into her sweet hazel eyes and my chest ached more. “I’m not from here. I don’t belong here.”

  “Shh.” Camille held me tight and rocked along with me. Though I was sure she was younger than me, there was a stability about her that was soothing and for the first time since my mother died, I let someone hold me and comfort me.

  *****

  I woke up disorientated. My eyelids felt like sandpaper and my chest ached, but other than that I was well-rested. It was quiet in my room and I burrowed more deeply into the covers. Then I realized why I was disorientated. I still wasn’t used to the guest room in my grandmother’s old house. Located at the end of a quiet street, the house was so unlike any of the penthouses or posh hotel suites that had been my home for most of my life.

  When I saw the outline of Kyle Copeland standing in the shadows at the end of my bed, I sighed in relief. I never thought there’d come a day when I would be happy to see a ghost, but I was. I was ecstatic. It meant everything that had happened, all the stuff about drowning and ending up in some old mining town, it was all just a dream. A terrible, vivid, disturbing…

  “Miss Jones?”

  I screamed.

  Camille ran to my side and clamped her hand over my mouth.

  “Shush now! If you wake the patrons, Mrs. Sullivan will tan both our hides.”

  Oh God! It couldn’t be! I was still there, trapped in that god-forsaken place! That god-forsaken time!

  “I let you sleep a bit because you were so tired, but now it’s time to get up and get to work.” She lit a kerosene lamp, illuminating the tiny cell-of-a-room.

  “No,” I moaned. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  Camille stood regarding me with her hands on her hips and her lips pressed together. Once I finished moaning, she whispered, “Stop that, you hear? You’ve got a warm bed to sleep in, decent employment, independence, what more could a girl ask for?”

  What more could a girl ask for? She could ask to go home, to her own home, to her own time. That’s what she could ask for.

  “You’re acting like a child,” Camille went on. “Worse than a child. I’ve seen babies complain less than you.”

  I sat up and threw my legs out of bed. Camille had just insulted me in the worst possible way. If there was one thing I’d never been allowed to be, it was a child.

  I stood in the cool, early morning air and looked down at my clothes. My pretty peach dress was wrinkled beyond recognition after I’d fallen asleep in it while it was still damp.

  “You’re going to need something to wear,” Camille said. “You can’t go walking around in your under things.

  Under things? She thought my dress was under things?

  She opened the trunk which stood at the foot of the bed and removed a package tied with string. “These belonged to the girl who stayed in this room before me. She just up and left one day. Didn’t even bother to return for her things. I think they should be about your size.”

  Inside the package was a plain grey blouse with a high collar and a worn wool skirt. There were also some undergarments which included stockings and what looked like a night dress but I wasn’t sure. I sorted through the clothes. “There’s no way these will fit me.” I held up the skirt. “Look at the waist on this thing.”

  “Of course it’ll fit, silly, once you’ve got this on.” She held out a corset with silver eyelets up the front.

  “Oh no.” I shook my head, remembering some of the constrictive costumes I’d worn onstage. “I won’t be able to breathe in that. I-”

  The look on Camille’s face was enough to force me to shut my mouth. “I don’t care what you did before you came here but you’re a respectable woman now, understand? You’ll wear respectable apparel from now on.”

  I bit my lip. Not because I had a retort ready, but because Camille was so off the mark, and she sounded so stern. I had a sudden and hysterical urge to giggle.

  With shaking hands, I pulled off my dress until I stood in my bra and panties, staring at the pile of garments, not sure where to start.

  “Is that some new style?”

  “Hmm?”

  Camille pointed at my bra. “I’ve never seen anything like it.” Then her eyes went wide. “Oh. Is that what the ladies wear, where you’re from?”

  The way she emphasized ‘ladies’ reinforced my original suspicion that Camille thought I was a prostitute. I shrugged noncommittally. There was no point in trying to correct her. Maybe if she believed I’d been a ‘lady of the evening’ she wouldn’t pay any attention to my strange behavior.

  “Here,” she handed me a short sleeved, sheer cotton garment that had lace around the neckline and was split into some sort of loose pants at the bottom. “Take off those other things and put this on.”

  I did as she asked. The cotton was soft but smelled of moth balls and dust. Then she handed me the corset and I tried to do it up.

  “Take a deep breath in,” she instructed.

  I breathed deeply while sucking in my stomach and somehow managed to get the last two eyelets done up on the corset. Five minutes later I was dressed and staring at myself in the hall mirror.

  “You have a lovely figure,” Camille said from where she stood behind me.

  I was astonished with what I saw in the reflection. The corset, though uncomfortable, did accomplish magical things with my waist. And although the blouse I wore was high collared and plain, my breasts filled the front of it in a flattering way.

  “Harrumph,” Kitty muttered as she came lumbering down the hall towards us. “Miss Fancy, admiring herself in the mirror. Go eat your breakfast and then get to work. The linens won’t wash themselves.” I caught Kitty’s eyes in the mirror before she turned away. She’d been appraising my figure as well, with the same kind of glint in her eye that she’d appraised my gold cross.

  A shiver ran down my spine as I considered what that glint might mean.

  Chapter 5

  I don’t know if it was because I’d been elbow deep in the laundry tubs all morning, but for some reason my mind kept flashing back to the image of Lost Lake. Water had brought me here. Water would take me home. Water was the key.

  It was after lunch that I decided to make a break for it. We’d been working for about fifteen minutes when I dropped a basket of wet laundry next to Camille. “I’m just going to the…”
I pointed in the direction of the outhouse. Camille nodded and picked up the basket to pin the clothes to the line.

  When her back was turned, I slipped through the back gate and ran down the alleyway behind the hotels and shops, stopping when I saw a man standing beside a horse and wagon filled with kegs.

  “Excuse me, Sir. Is there a lake nearby?”

  The nearly toothless fellow turned at the sound of my voice. “No lake, Miss. Just the crick.”

  “A creek? Where?”

  “A block over, take a right at the next street.”

  A creek probably wasn’t going to do the trick. “Is there a pool or pond somewhere?”

  “You like to fish, do you, Miss?”

  I smiled. “Yes.”

  “There’s a nice fishing spot if you follow the crick up the slope of Turtle Mountain. Take the first fork and you’ll find it in a nice shady spot.” He put a gnarled finger to his lips. “Don’t tell no one I told yah. It’s supposed to be a secret for just us gents.”

  “Thank you.” My smile seemed to be the only thanks he needed.

  Holding my skirts high, I ran as fast as I could, following his directions to the creek and then turned up another street, past some homes. I didn’t want to draw attention to myself, so I slowed my gait to a walk. It wasn’t long before I reached the edge of town where a wide path continued on alongside the creek. Soon the path began to climb and it became more and more difficult to breathe in my constrictive clothing. I worried that I’d missed the fork when I saw a small stream joining the main creek. About fifty yards up from the stream was the pool. It was a pretty spot and the water was crystal clear and deep.

  I knelt down and dipped my fingers in, then pulled them out quickly. Holy! It was freezing! But it didn’t matter how cold the water was. I had to do it, although it was taking me a while to gear myself up to jumping in. I half-expected to see Kyle Copeland’s reflection staring back at me as I looked down into the cold, clear depths. The thought made me feel out of breath. It was one thing to be pulled under water against one’s wishes and quite another to do it all of your own accord.