Siren's Storm

around him. Guernsey was beside him, her warm chin resting on his knee.

Ever since Will had taken the flute to the antiques store, it had occupied a chunk of his mind. Why hadn’t he ever heard Tim play it? Why would his brother have an ancient recorder, anyway? Why not just a regular flute? Where had it come from? Had Tim found it, or had someone given it to him?

The night air outside was still, cut only by the sound of crickets.

He looked at the smooth bone carefully, wondering what kind of animal it had come from. The recorder was the length of his forearm, so it must have come from something large. A deer, perhaps. Or a sheep.

Will tried to recall the tune of the song Kirk had been singing earlier, but it was hopeless. Tim’s musical gift had passed over Will completely. Between Gretchen-who had a beautiful singing voice-and Tim’s guitar and perfect vocal pitch, Will figured that he should have picked up some talent by osmosis. But he hadn’t. Will had always liked it when Tim and Gretchen sang together. Sometimes Tim would play the guitar, and sometimes Johnny. Gretchen could hold down the melody while Tim carved out the low harmony. Will had always been tone-deaf, even before the accident that stole the hearing from his right ear, and the music had sounded like magic to him. It seemed greater than sound; it was a fabric Gretchen and Tim were weaving together. But it was pleasure mixed with pain. For even though Tim was his brother, not Gretchen’s, and Gretchen was his friend, not Tim’s, when they sang together Will felt the tender pain of exclusion. He knew they didn’t mean to make him feel that way. It was as if they had lost themselves so completely in the music that Will had ceased to exist for them.

He was secretly glad that Gretchen never wanted to sing in public. He was relieved that she wouldn’t join Tim’s band. Will didn’t want the world to hear them together. He knew what they would say. Gretchen with her wild beauty and Tim with the chiseled features of a movie star-everyone would think they were a couple. And even if they weren’t, Will would feel like a child watching his parents drive away, without waving, in the family sedan.

Will placed his lips at the edge of the flute and blew a note. It emerged uneven, but Will was surprised at how sweet it sounded.

“I know, I know, I’m not the brilliant musician,” Will said as Guernsey’s low growl rumbled against his knee. He stroked her soft ears, black flecked with white-evidence of her age-and she nosed his fingers.

Will blew another note, placing his fingers over the holes. He had played the recorder in second-grade music class, but the cheap plastic flutes had sounded flat even in the best hands. This flute, by contrast, sounded crisp and silvery even beneath his clumsy fingers. He didn’t know much about music, though, so he didn’t know a tune to play. “Mary Had a Little Lamb,” maybe, but that didn’t seem like the right kind of song for this instrument. It needed something melancholy, or at least pensive.

As if in answer, a single note came from the open window. Guernsey leaped up, barking madly, making the bed groan and creak beneath her feet.

“Hey, hey, it’s just an echo,” Will said, patting Guernsey’s side with a hearty thunk thunk thunk. She settled down to a low growl, then hopped off the bed. “You’re leaving? You sure?” Will asked as Guernsey looked up at the door expectantly. He got up to let her out, and she trotted stiffly down the hall and down the stairs.

Will looked down at the flute, wondering where Asia had found hers. She had said it was a gift-yet she had sold it. It was strange how thoughts of Asia seemed to sneak up on him. Not in the same way that thoughts of Tim blindsided him. It was more as if thoughts of Asia nibbled at the edges of his mind like the minnows that tickled his leg when he stepped into the bay. Often he wasn’t even conscious that he was thinking of her again. What had she meant when she said she had no family? Where did she come from? Why didn’t he ever see her with anyone-didn’t she have friends? What was it about her that seemed to fill his mind with fog? Was it her speech pattern? Her beauty? Or something else that he couldn’t put his finger on?

Will placed the flute at the back of his bottom drawer and slid it closed. He crossed back to his bed and looked out the window.

He wished he could talk to Tim. It was strange to have your brother, your best friend, disappear overnight. We always shared everything. Right up to the end.

The sand lay spread before her like a vast ocean, and-like the ocean-it felt cool on her feet as she trudged onward. The sun beat down, but it wasn’t hot. A cool wind blew, setting her teeth on edge, making her body rigid with cold. Gretchen kept moving, hoping to get warm.

She had to get to the lake.

She knew it was there, although she couldn’t see it. The sand sloped slightly upward, and her muscles ached as she trudged on. The sand was dewy on her bare feet.

She did not ask herself why she was there. She knew. She had to get to the lake.

The breeze blew again, and this time it carried a gentle strain. It wasn’t quite a song-more like a tone. A single note. Sweet and clear as the jingle of a silver bell on a crisp winter night. It carried her forward, her feet moving more quickly now.

She hurried toward the top of the ridge, but it was farther than she’d thought. Her breath thickened in her throat as she increased her pace. She could see the light fog from her mouth, like a dragon’s snore, hanging on the air.

Another note joined the first, and this was like a golden bell. Warm and sweet, thick as honey. She could almost taste the music. She wanted to gobble it up.

She paused.

She had reached the height. There, below her, lay a glassy sea. And now she was running, running toward the water. She felt like a rock tumbling forward, the momentum taking over. The music grew louder, and more notes joined the first until it was a symphony of tones. All of them unique as they wove together to form a single strand.

Her toe touched the water’s edge, and she hesitated, stopping to look in the smooth surface. She could tell by the midnight blue of the water that the shore was like a precipice. After only a few inches, there was a sheer drop. In the water, she could see herself, her blue eyes, her long blond hair falling forward so that the tips touched the water.

And beyond the surface, in the deep, there was a flame.

She bent closer to see. It flickered, and Gretchen realized that another flame twinkled near the first. And another. Soon the flames were a night sky of stars. She looked overhead to see their mirror image.

But the sun shone high in the sky.

Gretchen looked down into the water. Two of the stars seemed to burn more brightly than the others. Their light glowed blue, like the hottest stars, then green. Suddenly they seemed like a pair of eyes.

As they glowed brighter still, Gretchen saw a face, pale and smooth. Then, around the face, tendrils of hair floated like seaweed.

Something moved, as if the face was trying to whisper something to her. The music caressed her with its own breeze. She leaned closer-and a hand grabbed her hair.

Her shriek suffocated as the hand pulled her face into the water. She kicked and fought, but it was no use. The thing was stronger. And now she could see that the flames were eyes, and they blazed with a dangerous fire, a fierce hate. The jaws snapped at her with dagger teeth. “Gretchen!” it snarled, and the silver bells turned to iron, ringing her chest with an alarm.

She choked and sputtered; she couldn’t breathe. She clawed at the creature, but it held her and would not let go…

“Gretchen!”

With a final effort, she kicked at the creature, and all at once it opened its grip. The thing cried out with a familiar voice, and when Gretchen looked up, she saw that it was dark as night outside.

Rocks bit into her hands; her knees throbbed where the flesh had been torn away. She was on her knees at the edge of the bluff. She barely had time to register that she had been sleepwalking again when something moved.

“Gretchen!” shouted a voice. Will’s voice.

The thing moved again, and Gretchen realized that it was his hand. It was gripping the earth with white knuckles. He had fallen over the edge of the bluff and was clinging to the rocks for dear life.

He must have been trying to stop me from going over, Gretchen realized. I was sleepwalking again. “Will!” Gretchen crawled forward, but she was too slow. His hand slipped, then disappeared. “Will!”