Sound of Sirens: (Tales of Skylge #1)

by Jen Minkman

  “Eida has offered to take Dad and Grandma Antje to Brandaris tomorrow,” Sytse announces cheerfully. “She’s bringing the cow-drawn carriage to town, so they can hitch a ride.”

  Our neighbor is a darling. This way, my grandmother won’t have to walk and I won’t have to worry about transporting my dad by bike, running the risk of making the pain in his joints unbearable for the rest of the day. “That’s great,” I say with a smile.

  After Sytse and Dad are done eating, I clear the table and put on another kettle to boil some water for the washing-up. No dessert tonight, so I have it easy. I just have to scrub the pots and wash some plates, cups, and silverware. I sing softly to myself as my hands dip into the hot, soapy water to rinse the forks.

  “What’s that?”

  Sytse suddenly pops up next to me. I hadn’t even heard him get up from his seat at the kitchen table – I thought he was reading the paper.

  “What is what?” I say, looking up at him in confusion.

  He narrows his eyes at me. “That tune you were humming.” When it still doesn’t click, he adds: “Enna, you were singing one of the songs from Phoenix. That LP.”

  Oh, crap. He’s right. One particular song has been stuck in my head ever since I left the cottage a few hours ago. Weaving Web.

  “N-no,” I stammer, groping around for a plausible excuse. “I just – came up with that melody today. I...”

  I start when Sytse slams his fist on the counter. “Don’t lie to me,” he growls. I’ve never heard my brother speak to me like that. All of a sudden, he feels like a stranger with a secret side I should never have found out about.

  “Okay,” I squeak.

  “So. You listened to that record. How? When?”

  My jaw tenses. “Who are you to interrogate me like this?” I throw back. “It’s none of your business.”

  His face falls just a little bit. My words hurt him. We used to be so close before he left to work at sea. “Enna, it is my business,” he insists. “I gave you that record. Now, I want to know how you managed to listen to it. I didn’t mean to put you in any danger. Come on – I hate it when you lie to me.”

  “Well, I’m not the only one keeping secrets,” I fume, my voice rising a notch. “What about your nightly visits to Stortum? When were you planning on telling me about those?”

  “What the...” Sytse staggers back, then grabs my upper arm and forcefully shoves me away from the sink and out of the kitchen without saying anything else. He marches me into his room, kicks the door shut, and sits me down on the bed.

  “Okay. Now tell me everything.”

  His stern look makes me draw up a blank as I contemplate lying to him. Sure, I could tell him I saw him sneaking out of the house so I decided to follow him, but that still wouldn’t explain how I know about the music on my new record.

  “Royce Bolton came up to me at the harbor,” I mumble. “Said he wanted the LP you gave to me. I refused. So we struck a deal – he said I could use his electric turntable if I agreed to listen to it together.”

  Sytse lets out an incredulous sigh. “Enna, that’s dangerous,” he groans. “What if his family finds out? What if his mother barges into his room when you’re visiting?”

  “I didn’t go to his house,” I argue. “He owns an old cottage in Stortum that used to belong to his grandparents. And he doesn’t have a mother anymore.”

  “Stortum,” my brother echoes.

  “Yeah. That’s how I found out about you. I was there two nights ago.”

  Sytse shakes his head and sits down heavily in his desk chair. When he fixes his gaze on me again, his next words shock me.

  “Was it you who stole the book from the house?”

  I can feel the blood drain from my face. So he knows. The anthology must have been important to him if he noticed it’s missing so soon.

  “It was,” I admit softly. “I just – I was looking around and I saw all these books, and they seemed so old. I was intrigued.”

  “Is it in your room?”

  I shake my head. When Sytse’s eyes widen in alarm, I quickly add: “It’s with Dani because she wanted to read in it some more. She’s bringing it back tonight, okay? We didn’t intend to keep it. We wanted to give it to the Skelta tomorrow.”

  A tired little smile pulls at his lips. “Well, that’s laudable. Since it belongs to the Skelta in the first place.”

  “Huh?” I stare at him in amazement.

  Sytse’s dark eyes lock onto mine. “That entire house does,” he continues. “And all the stuff in it. Including the radio.”

  What the hell is a radio? “I – I don’t understand.”

  “Once Dani gets here, I’ll explain it to you both,” he says. “But you have to promise me you won’t tell a soul.”

  “Of course,” I say indignantly. “Your secret’s safe with me. With us.”

  “You don’t even know what it is yet.” He smiles wistfully.

  “Well, I do know that you can trust me. Don’t you?”

  “Yeah.” Sytse frowns. “I do. But for the love of Fosta, please stop seeing that Current guy. He’s my age. Royce shouldn’t be hanging around with young girls like you.”

  My jaw tenses. I’m not that young – I’m almost old enough to get my own house. At the same time, my blood runs deliciously hot at the thought of Royce wanting to hang out with me despite the age gap. The allure of the forbidden makes me feel desired.

  “Sure,” I grumble, not meaning it. “If you think that’s best...”

  Sytse unexpectedly pulls me into a hug and holds me tight. “How did you grow up so fast?” he muses a bit forlornly.

  “It just happened. While you were at sea.” I add a bit venomously: “While you decided to become some sort of spy for the Skelta.”

  He scoffs. “Don’t be ridiculous.” Rubbing his face, he continues: “I just want to help my own people. And if that involves breaking the rules and stirring up a shit-storm of trouble, I don’t care. Who made those rules anyway?”

  Right at that moment, I hear voices outside Sytse’s window. My dad is sitting in the front garden smoking his pipe and talking to someone, so I guess Dani’s here.

  “Enna!” he bellows. “You have a visitor.”

  “Coming,” I call back. Quickly, I get up and bump into Dani in the kitchen. She’s just putting her bag on the table to take out the old book.

  “Hey, Enna,” she says, her breath hitching when Sytse enters the room after me. “Oh, uhm – let’s go to your room, shall we?”

  “Whatever you need to discuss can be discussed here,” my brother states calmly.

  Dani blinks up at him in surprise.

  “He knows about the book,” I clarify.

  “Oh.” My friend shoots me a bewildered look. “Okay. But why?”

  I don’t reply. Instead, Sytse gestures at the comfortable couch in the corner, inviting us both to sit down. He takes a seat across from us in my dad’s lazy chair. Gingerly, Dani puts the old leather tome on the table, as though she’s still not sure Sytse is allowed to see it.

  “A few years ago,” Sytse starts out, “I befriended the Skelta’s son, Omme. He was part of the same debate team in high school. When I told him of my plans to become a sailor and merchant, he told me that his father was looking for trustworthy people sympathetic to the Skylger cause who could be liaisons between him and important people on the mainland. Fryslan, mostly, but other countries too. People who were fed up with being the Currents’ doormats.”

  “But the Currents have protected us for centuries,” Dani interrupts him. “I don’t like being a second-class citizen any more than you do, but the ruling class isn’t just at the top of the hierarchy because they are bullies. They actually help us.”

  “The Skelta thinks their claims are exaggerated.” Sytse points to the book on the table. “If the two of you have taken the time to look at the illustrations in that book, you will have learned by now that the Brandaris Tower was never built by the Current invaders. It is
our tower.”

  We both nod silently.

  “I have learned something else,” Dani says, almost inaudibly. “There’s an old legend about Dead Men’s Casket Lake – and it flies in the face of everything we’ve been taught about the place.”

  I turn around to face her. “What have you found out?”

  Dani bites her lip. “The Current legend states that some of the Nixen’s victims washed up on our beach a long time ago, after the sea decided to give back the bodies to the grieving Skylger and Current families. And the deceased were placed in coffins to be buried at the bottom of the lake, to honor the earth and the water at the same time. Hence the name Dead Men’s Caskets. But the older, Skylger legend in this book says that the Nixen brought those bodies to us willingly, after a violent storm had destroyed one of our sailing ships and killed scores of sailors. It was an act of friendship.” Her voice turns rough. “The story claims that we weren’t enemies once.”

  “But...” I am lost for words. My eyes search Sytse, who is nodding solemnly.

  “There are quite some legends in that book that tell a different story from today’s generally-accepted history,” he says. “Everything in it was painstakingly collected by a former Skelta, almost three hundred years ago, so people wouldn’t forget the truth. But the book fell into obscurity because it went missing. Our present Skelta found it in one of the museums. Knowledge about the book was passed down through many Skelta generations. He suspects the Currents got their hands on it at some point and misinterpreted it as a fairytale book written by our ancestors.”

  “Who’s to say it isn’t exactly that?” I object. “Maybe none of the stories in it are true.” Yesterday our discovery excited me, but today I realize that believing these stories has caused Sytse to walk a dangerous path, and I’m not sure I’m a big fan of his decisions.

  “Or maybe none of the stories the Current rulers have told us are true,” Sytse counters. “If I have a choice, I’d rather believe in our own fairytales than in their fabrications.”

  In the silence that follows, my father comes back inside now that the sun has set. “Does he know about your second job?” I sneer, motioning toward him. “About the risk you’re taking, meeting up with strange men in Stortum in the dead of night?”

  “Of course he does,” Sytse replies unflappably. “He was the first person I consulted when I got the offer to work for the Skelta.”

  I stare up at my father, half-expecting him to deny Sytse’s words, but he just stands there and nods quietly. His eyes are calm, my mind a storm by comparison. Something snaps inside of me like a brittle twig when I realize I am just a child to them. A child not worth confiding in.

  “But what do we really know?” I say, my voice faltering. “That history accounts might have been altered? Does it change anything about the fact that we’re still at war with the Nixen and the Currents are in possession of the only weapon against them?”

  “We might be able to fight back more effectively if we were allowed to use electricity,” Sytse replies.

  “It’s a Current privilege. That’s never going to happen,” Dani mutters.

  Sytse looks from her to me. And then he says: “What if it weren’t any longer?”

  11.

  His words punch me in the gut. “What?” I croak hoarsely.

  Sytse remains quiet for a while, clearly debating with himself how much he should tell us. When he finally opens his mouth, a calm resignation softens his features. “I guess there is no point pretending you’re too young to absorb this.” He leans forward in his chair. “Enna, the Anglians have had a monopoly on electric power for centuries. Nobody knows how they generate it – not the original Skylgers and not the Anglian colonists in the Hanze cities. But the indigenous inhabitants of Fryslan, Grins, and Nethersaxony have banded together to tweak Current devices and invent a power source of their own. With success, I might add.”

  My mouth falls open in complete, utter astonishment. Is Sytse saying that the Currents’ power is not some form of magic? Might we be able to build our own Grid?

  “How?” Dani gasps. “Without Brandan’s Fire, how could they possibly?”

  “I don’t know the specifics,” my brother confesses. “I’m not a scientist, after all. But I do know that Mr. Westhaus from Saxony and Mr. Tesla from Fryslan have developed a working system that could light the homes of hundreds of people if they had the means to solely devote themselves to research. And they’d be the homes of common people, not Anglians.” He lowers his voice. “What’s more, Tesla is willing to give it away for free. The Currents would lose their position of power if they’re no longer the sole supplier of electricity to the Anglians on the mainland. Some Anglians in coastal cities are even eager to work together with Tesla. They wouldn’t be dependent on Current headquarters in Brandaris any longer.”

  My head is spinning with all the new info. “So – that is why you travel to the mainland? To consult these Westhaus and Tesla guys?”

  “Among other things. But I talk to Tesla’s assistant even when I’m here, on Skylge. That’s why I go to the secret headquarters in Stortum – the Skelta put a radio there because it needs electricity, and he knows Stortum is connected to the Grid. It’s a Current device, designed to transport human voices across great distances. To broadcast them – that’s the word they use.”

  “It’s like magic,” Dani whispers.

  “And yet it’s a part of everyday life for the Currents,” my dad speaks up. “With the Skelta’s help, it might not be beyond our grasp, either. Imagine what it would be like to hear news from the mainland firsthand and not read about it in old newspapers. Our world wouldn’t be quite so small anymore.”

  The longing in my father’s voice brings tears to my eyes, but before I can comment on his words Sytse gets up and grabs the old book. “I’m going to bring this back to Stortum right now. I’ll let the Skelta know his missing book has popped up again tomorrow.”

  “Sorry for causing trouble,” Dani mumbles.

  I nod along, although regret is not the main emotion bothering me. It’s anger – unadulterated fury about the fact that my family has kept me in the dark for so long. When Sytse walks outside and Dani trails behind him to apologize some more, I pin my father with a dark gaze full of resentment.

  “Why did you allow Sytse to risk his life like that?” I spit. “And why didn’t you tell me anything?”

  “Enna.” His eyes fill with a dull pain. “I was just trying to protect you. You’re too much like your mother – too emotional, and far too prone to Sadness. So susceptible to the Nixen’s call. I was afraid that all this knowledge about the injustice in our world would cause you to snap and do irresponsible things.”

  “But Sytse is doing them,” I point out in frustration.

  He shakes his head and the lines around his mouth harden. “No. Your brother is far too level-headed to be reckless. If I could still walk properly, sweetheart, I would have joined the resistance too and fought for my wife and for our people so we could live in a better world some day. Nothing would have made me more content after your mom’s horrible death. But I can’t. Sytse is my eyes and ears. He walks this path for me.”

  That shuts me up. This, too, is a way for my dad to feel like he still matters. We all cope differently with death and disease and misfortune.

  “I’m not reckless,” I mutter stubbornly.

  “Yes, you are. You let your heart run ahead of itself. You don’t think things through.” He smiles. “It’s what I love about you, Enna. You’re like the fire warming this house inside and out. The beating heart of our family – but sometimes, it makes you unstable.”

  I bite my lip. “Thank you.”

  “Ik hab dy jeaf, Enna,” he says in Skylgian.

  “I love you too, Heit,” I tell him. “Sorry I got mad.”

  At that moment, Dani comes back in and our conversation is over. It would have been anyway - neither of us likes to waste too much time on saying we’re sorry or openly
expressing our love. In that respect, we are very much alike.

  “Shall we sit down?” she proposes gingerly. “So we can look at the Oorol program? I brought a flyer.” She waves it in the air.

  “Sure.” I smile faintly. Now that Sytse is gone with the book, there’s no point talking about all the new things we’ve learned. It will only bring up a ton of questions that nobody can answer – yet.

  We look at tomorrow’s line-up. Of course, Mayor Edison will kick off the festival with a long-winded speech about the precious unity between Currents and Skylgers and how Oorol symbolizes our friendship, yada yada. The Skelta is up next. He usually keeps things short, giving way to the Skylger Choir singing the ancient songs to honor our ancestors and the creatures of the sea. Afterwards, there’s an appearance of the Maidens of Brandan from the convent belonging to the Baeles-Weards on the main stage, and some folk singers from both sides on the two smaller stages near the park.

  “I think I’m going to stick with Adrian Lymes,” I say, pointing at the announcement for the concert in the park. “I liked his songs last year. Remember you learned how to play his songs on guitar so you could play them at my birthday?” Dani has an uncanny memory for melodies. Maybe she developed that skill in the absence of shellac records featuring the latest songs composed by Current artists on the island. They never bother to sell their songs to us. A wasted opportunity, if you ask me.

  “Lymes it is,” Dani agrees. “Oh, look, there’s an after party. You going?”

  “Nah.” I’m meeting up with Royce at ten, but I’m not telling her that. She’ll assume the worst, but she doesn’t need to worry. All I want is to show him I’m not scared of him.

  “And your music buddy is taking center stage on Monday, see?” Dani teases me light-heartedly, though with a slightly accusatory undertone. “Hey, you know that band performing after him?”