Siren

by Delle Jacobs

  Siren took him into the far north, or he believed it must be the north. It might just as easily have been the harsh, bitter ice-bound land at the South Pole. But when he saw sleek seals being pursued by a huge yellow-white blob that became a fast-swimming polar bear, he knew he had guessed right. He watched the brutal catch, and the bear surfacing. She was a young female, with two cubs waiting on a nearby ice floe.

  Siren turned away. She ate only of the kelp from her garden in the Summer Sea, and that was what she gave to him, for she would not kill any fish in her sea. Yet daily they saw one species kill another. It was what the creatures of the sea did to survive. Siren had demanded that one thing of the gods, she told him, that she never be forced to eat the flesh of another creature.

  John Wall stared at her, dumbfounded. "You could tell the god how you wished to be created, even before you were created?"

  "Of course," she replied. She fingered the little flower chain necklace he had made for her, and John smiled back. Odd though it was that the flowers never seemed to fade, he was glad, for what else could he give his love? In the sea, they needed little, except each other.

  Still, he could not forget. . .

  No, he swam away from the thought. He would forget.

  They set out on a new adventure, traveling through deep, dark canyons in the very bottom of the sea. Siren taught him to dodge away from the little smokestacks for they might seem inactive, then would suddenly puff up steaming water.

  "It is like hot fire, only it is water," she said. "It will kill anything it strikes."

  "It would kill me then?"

  She pursed her eyebrows and mouth almost into a tight knot. "Are you a fool, John Wall? The hot water will boil you as easily as any fish."

  "Then I am alive."

  "I said you were. Why do you not believe?"

  "I believe, I think," he answered. "But nothing is like anything else in my life. It does not seem possible."

  Siren slid up to him and let her Titian hair drape around him sensuously. "Do you believe I am real, John Wall? Do you feel this?"

  Her hands slid over his cock, which had begun to spring into action with the very first glance his way. He gave in to the hazy mindlessness, wrapping his arms around her in an embrace as he propelled them, swirling through the water like ecstatic sea otters. In the weightlessness of water, his strong muscles held them together, and her long legs wrapped around him as he drove into her until he plummeted into the abyss of climax.

  His mind still lost in the haze of satisfied pleasure, John drifted with his Siren in his arms. He loved those times when all was peace, and they had only each other in their very small, intimate world.

  And the troubles of the world no longer concerned him. He did not forget, he knew that. But he made himself not remember.

  A school of tiny fish swarmed past, swirling around them, alerting him to a predator. Siren had warned him, for he was vulnerable when she was not, and she stirred from her reverie, searching for the danger to him.

  Not one Great White Shark, but several of them, and sharks of other kinds, and they were speeding past as if he and Siren were not even there.

  "They scent blood," Siren said.

  The source of the attraction seemed to lie ahead of them, and as they rose closer to the surface, the turbulence of a storm thrashed the sea. A reef, teeming with frenetically darting fish, snagged a very large wooden vessel, ripping away its keel, and it listed heavily as it was battered against the jagged coral. It was going down. Just as Telesto had.

  And in the same way, its men tried to escape. But its long boats were thrown up into giant waves, and overturned into the roiling water. Bodies of men fell into the sea, some living, others lifeless from the moment they hit. And eager sharks snatched them up, more bodies than there were sharks to consume them.

  "Hurry, Siren! We must save them!" John pushed into the water, heading toward the dying ship.

  Siren grasped his arm. "Do not interfere, John Wall," she said.

  "We have to save them Siren! They'll drown. The sharks are attacking."

  "It is the way of the sea. Do not interfere."

  "Well, it is not my way. I'll not allow this. Come, hurry!"

  "You will not!"

  Fury filled him. "You think I won't? Who are you to stop me?"

  "You are mine, John Wall. I tell you, do not interfere."

  "Yours? You think I am yours to command? I am my own man and you will not order me. If you won’t help, I’ll do it myself!" With a hard kick, John launched himself again toward the ship.

  His body froze in the water, rigid as a log. He willed his arms to move forward and propel him, but they would not. His legs would not. Before his eyes, the sea darkened to the deep inky black of a moonless night.

  It seemed long hours that he remained suspended as if in a bubble, not moving, not breathing, seeing nothing beyond the distance of his grasp. What had she done to him? He fought in his mind, for it was the only place he could, his rage at his helplessness growing ever greater. How dare she?

  Because she was Siren. He realized he had never known until now exactly what that meant.

  When at last the water began to brighten again and his limbs began to move, the sea was as calm as if no storm had ever been. In the hazy aqua colors of shallow water, he saw only the ruin of that once proud clipper ship as it lay on its starboard side beneath the surface, one splintered mast drifting its ragged sails along the sea floor. No men nor sharks remained, and only small reef dwellers scooped about in the water, snatching up tiny indistinguishable bits of drifting matter. The last remnants of what had once been human beings. Sailors. Like his own.

  "Why?" he said to Siren, his own voice startlingly low and growling.

  "It is not for you to question. The sea claims its own. Come, John Wall, we will go now."

  With a twirl of her body, Siren headed away from the relic that had once sailed so proudly. In his mind, John Wall refused to follow.

  But his own thoughts did not control him. Against his will, his limbs began the motions of a swimmer of the powerful, efficient kind he had become when he had entered the water after Telesto went down. After his lips had touched the Siren's.

  He had no will. When she commanded, he obeyed. All this time he had thought he willingly went along with her requests, for he loved her and wanted to please her.

  He had been wrong. He did as Siren commanded. He was no man. He was but a slave.

  John Wall's heaven had become his hell.

  Chapter 5

  He followed Siren wherever she led him, now and then attempting to resist to see if he could, and found he could not. He began to think, trying to remember if he had ever failed to follow as she led, but he could not remember a time when he had ever tried. From the very first moment he had entered the water, he had been so enamored by this magical creature, he had never wanted to do anything else. It had not even occurred to him to try, for he did not know the sea beneath the surface. He did not know where to go, where to find food, how to protect himself from the sharks and other predatory creatures. He had indeed been completely dependent on Siren.

  And all this time, he had thought it was love.

  He felt his anger rising in him again. A man was not made to be ruled by a woman.

  Yet she seemed not to know that. Nor was she exactly a woman. She was Siren, made by the gods. She never questioned what she was, nor how she ought to be. And he was a creature subservient to her. It was almost as if he had never been human, the captain of a great clipper ship who held the lives of all his crew in his hands. He had thought himself so important, so powerful.

  Until he'd met the King of all Storms, and discovered how truly insignificant he really was.

  Perhaps this indeed was Hell: an afterlife beyond his imagination, where a man was no man at all.

  It seemed not much time had passed, though he did not know. In this strange blue world where forever seemed to merge with an instant, he had lost his ability to
judge time. Like Siren, he now could not be sure of the passing of minutes, or days, or even years. But soon Siren led him back to her beloved garden and the home where she had made the bed of soft sponges.

  There, she led him to the bed and enticed him to join her. His anger still festered. Somehow he managed to resist, for he could feel only hard, cold rage, not love. Rigid in his body, his hand balled into hard fists, he refused to respond to her caresses.

  "Come, John Wall," she said, tugging on his arm. "You will make love to me now."

  Still, he hovered away from her.

  "Come, John Wall," she said and she leaned back and released herself to fall against the bouncy sponges. She laughed in delight.

  He felt no delight, nor desire, only anger. "No."

  She sat up on the bed, blinking as if she had not heard him right. "You cannot refuse me, John Wall. Come. I will let you forget the sadness. Come to me. You love me."

  "Perhaps you can command what I do, I do not know. But you cannot command love, Siren."

  "I am Siren. You will love me. You are for me, John Wall."

  "No, Siren, you cannot command love, for it must be freely given."

  Abruptly the Siren rose into the water above her bed, and the tendrils of her copper hair twisted and tangled like the many arms of an octopus as she hovered above him. Her face twisted in fury. Her Siren voice that should sound like golden bells became an echoing roar. "Obey me!"

  He had loved her so much. Had he not? He had believed it to be love, and even now he hungered for his beloved. Or was she? Was it all false?

  He had no choice. "No."

  Siren's hands shot forth in the water, fingers spread wide toward him. The sea began to churn, violently pulsing, twisting, flowing like the force of the wind in a storm. John fell from his perch, his body tumbling over itself in the fierce current, his arms and legs pulling as if they would be torn from him. His lungs screamed in pain, wanting desperately to gasp for air, precious air, as he tumbled and fell, and the sea turned dark as ink. Still he held his breath, yet he knew. He felt no fear. It was time at last.

  Now he would die.

  Chapter 6

  He slept. He dreamed, dreams of floating, rocking gently on a quiet sea made golden by an endless sunset. And always the chiming of Siren's song lulled him in his gilded cradle, rocking gently between the waves. The grit of wet sand clung to his face and rasped against his hands.

  Sand. Yes, it was sand. Gritty against his fingers, damp enough to cling to him, dry enough to crumble when he squeezed it in his palm. He struggled vainly to make his eyes open as the odd music of children's giggles broke through the echoing silence in his mind.

  He worked one eye open. Tried to see past sand-caked eyelashes.

  Toes. Small, and brown, and covered with brownish grains of sand.

  As he dragged in a breath, he slowly pushed his body out of its inert state to find the strength to sit. The children's voices stilled abruptly as they backed away.

  Both boys and girls. They were small and naked. Except for one young female who was probably minding them, and she had a sort of blousy dress in bright colors. Their hair hung in black strings over their shoulders. Their dark eyes grew huge and round as he pushed to his knees and groped his way to his feet. In a group, they turned and fled.

  John looked down at his body, supposing it was his nakedness that had frightened them, and was surprised to find himself fully clothed. His shirt and trousers were the same ones he had worn the day Telesto sank. He felt something hard in his pocket and pulled out his gold chronograph watch. It was dead, of course. Stopped cold at the time it had fallen into the water with him.

  Had it all been a dream?

  In his other pocket he found a small bag made of something from beneath the sea with the leathery feeling of kelp. He pulled open the drawstrings and dumped out three gold Spanish doubloons. He ran his thumb over the profile of a Spanish king and the four-armed Spanish cross on the reverse. The ones he had fondled so longingly in the wreck of the Spanish galleon. He had not taken them when they left. Had Siren? But why would she give them to him? It had always seemed to him she had no comprehension of the ways of man. Especially things like money.

  He sighed. Why would she have bothered with clothing, then? Or the chronograph?

  He looked up at coconut palm trees, and around at a broad, sandy cove that formed almost a complete circle, with a steep black cliff at its back.

  Was he finally dead, and this was a dead man's dream of life? He had heard there were sometimes ghosts who didn't know they were dead, and so couldn't do what dead men ought to do, which was, leave the earth. He had long ago supposed a dead man might dream of being alive, even dream of a Siren who kept him alive beneath the sea. Siren said it wasn't true, but on the other hand, perhaps he had dreamed her as well.

  There was supposed to be some sort of Afterlife, and, having been born and raised in a Christian world, he'd always accepted that. He just had never thought it might be like this.

  On the other hand, every sinew of his body ached as if he had been on the wrong side of a bar brawl. And he was pretty sure pain was not something one felt, at least in Heaven.

  Then, if not Heaven or Hell, where was he?

  Not Africa and its desolate Skeleton Coast, where he would have been if he had washed ashore after the shipwreck. Palm trees, perhaps, and sandy beaches might be somewhere along that coast, but everything else he saw, including the beautiful little bay with its marine blue water gleaming in bright sun, and the brown-skinned children, told him he was somewhere in Polynesia. The opposite side of the world from where Telesto went down in the Atlantic.

  Gathering his strength, he followed the small footprints in the sand. Where there were children, there would also be parents.

  Not far off the beach, he saw a small number of rectangular thatched huts with peaked roofs and the signs of a village that subsisted on fishing. Women were tending to various duties, while a few men mended nets. All stopped their activities and stared as he walked into the center of the village. He supposed he ought to be wary of these people, but he saw no signs of hostility, only curiosity.

  The children he had followed clung in a group behind a thin old man, with a younger man standing beside him.

  Huffing out a breath of what he realized was actually air, John walked up to the gathering. The old man sat on his woven mat and looked John over, top to bottom, and across all limbs. He spoke strange words to a tall, thickly built young man standing beside him.

  "I am Kekoa," said the younger man. "You come out of the sea."

  "It appears so," John Wall replied. "I am John Wall. Can you tell me where I am?"

  "This is Oahu Island. Honolulu Port is not far, on the other side of the Pali." Kekoa turned slightly and pointed toward a gap in the cliff where a narrow road ran. "Did your ship sink? Haoles do not come from the sea except in their big ships."

  John shook his head. He could think of no way to explain where he had come from.

  The old man spoke some words in a lyrical language, and the younger one nodded. "Hiapo thinks you come from Namaka-o-Kaha'i."

  "I don't know that place."

  "She is the sea goddess, sister of Pele. Hiapo says you bear her mark. I do not see it, but he says it is so and so it must be."

  The old man spoke again, and again the younger translated. "Hiapo says Namaka-o-Kaha'i has thrown you from her sea, and you are a very lucky man that you are not dead. But you must never go back, or you will anger her. He says Namaka-o-Kaha'i will drown you before she throws you back next time."

  John nodded. Perhaps this Namaka-o-Kaha'i was their name for Siren. The last thing he wanted now was to go back to the sea, anyway. He had thought he would never walk among men again.

  "Hiapo says maybe you want to go to Honolulu Port because the haoles are there. But he says we must offer you hospitality. Are you hungry?"

  Suddenly he was very hungry, hungrier than he could remember since before the Tel
esto sank. "Yes," he replied. "Thank you."

  He'd been around the world enough to know he should be mindful of local customs, so hungry though he was, John watched how the Islanders ate, how they sat upon their mats, how they talked with each other, and questioned him. It surprised him that so many of them spoke English, and in a reasonably good form. Even more surprising was that some of them could read, in both English and their native Hawaiian language.

  "It is the missionaries," said Kekoa. "Now we are all learning English."

  John glanced at Hiapo, serenely sitting on his woven mat beside his aged wife.

  "Him, too," Kekoa added. "But he does not speak it. He is of the Ali'i, but he eats with his wife in the new tradition. His great aunt was the wife of our last king of Oahu. Tonight the singer will tell the story of the last king, in the old language, and I will tell it to you."

  That evening, John Wall was given a place of honor at what appeared to him to be a feast, where the men and women sat together and ate, and he was told of the old ways when it was kapu for men and women to eat together.

  The drums played a heavy rhythm that thrummed in his chest. An Islander whose face was heavily weathered by many years in the sun sat upon his mat and chanted in monotoned verse the story of the first King Kamehameha who came with his army and battled the Oahu king, driving him and his warriors up into the mountains and over the Pali to their deaths. Pali, Kekoa said, meant cliff.

  John slept that night in the old man's grass house, which he learned was not grass at all, but covered in the thin-leafed fronds of the coconut palms.

  The next morning he thought he ought to go find Honolulu, but he could not make himself want to return to the civilized world of the white men. How could he explain himself? They would think him crazy. Here, at least, these pleasant people who moved with leisurely grace seemed to understand him in some way, and revere him in another, as if he had been touched by their goddess of the sea with the very long name.