How (Not) to Soothe a Siren (Cindy Eller Book 9) (11 page)

“W
hat can you tell me of the siren’s sworn love, the one who gave her the comb?” I asked the next morning, as I spooned a pottage made of some sort of soft, sweet grain, supposedly into myself, but mostly into the gaping baby-bird mouth of my son.

Viveka bit her lip thoughtfully, and then shook her head. “All I know is that he gave her the comb,” she said. “My father would know more. Perhaps you should seek him out. He is clever—even cleverer than Casidhe. He may be able to solve the riddles that we cannot.”

“I would love to meet your father,” I said, honestly. “Where would we find him?”

Viveka smiled. “We will guide you to him. It has been far too long since we have visited. We cannot linger in one place overly long, you know—it comes with the wings. There are two places we always return to, this place… and home.” A wistful smile touched her lips. “I should like to see my home again. It is a simple place, nothing too grand, but it is the center of my heart.”

I thought about her words for a moment. Her home was the center of her heart. When I tried to think about where the center of my heart truly was, it wasn’t back at the castle. In the most cliché of ways, it was wherever Timothy and Asher were. But, if I had to name a place that spoke home to me…

It would be my bakery.

At heart, I was still Cindy Eller, the baker. If I had never known my family—if I had never learned about my connection to Faerie—I could have been perfectly contented to live and work at my own bakery.

Funny, the U-turns life could throw.

For a moment, I let myself daydream about what that life would have been like. Timothy would still be traveling the world, finding flavors for his brand of ice cream. Would I travel with him?

And, of course, I would never have found Asher.

Would the barrier between the world still have fallen if I had never come to Faerie at all?

It was as if I could see the line of my life, with all its twists and turns, as fragile and gossamer as spider’s silk. Every step I had taken had led me to where I stood now.

Despite all the heartbreak, despite the pain and ugliness I had witnessed, I could not bring myself to regret any of it.

With the Huntsman still absent, we decided as a group that following the swan sisters to their family home was the best course of action. It was, at least, better than sitting still, waiting for him to reappear. I was not the only one that felt a sense of urgency. We needed to help the selkie folk, the ice giants, and any others that the siren had tricked, and as quickly as we could manage.

“Back in the saddle again,” Timothy said with a grimace. “I don’t know about you, but once we get back to the castle, I’m going to avoid sitting on anything that moves for as long as I can manage.”

I looked at him curiously.

“What?” He asked, raising one eyebrow.

“You don’t call the castle ‘home’,” I said. “I was just realizing that the bakery still feels more like home to me, than our actual, you know… house.”

Timothy nodded. “That is interesting. Though, I’m not sure you can technically call a building of unknown massive quantities of square footage a ‘house’.”

“Maybe that’s just it,” I said, feeling a little wistful. “None of it is truly ours. It’s an edifice, not a home.”

Timothy nodded. “It’s a symbol of office, like the White House,” he said. “I’m not sure what we can do about that.”

I made a face. “I can’t either. I don’t suppose re-decorating would help at all.”

Timothy chuckled. “I can just picture Iris running around, coming up with murals for the walls.”

I smiled. “That actually might be a good idea. You know what a great artist she is.”

“As long as she doesn’t flood all of Faerie.”

I let Timothy boost Asher and me into Gealbhan’s saddle. I winced, feeling more than a little saddle sore myself. The bottoms and insides of my thighs felt like they’d been rubbed raw. The insides of my knees were the worst, though. I’d discovered actual sores and scabs there, from where my pants and the saddle had rubbed my skin raw.

Maybe there was some merit to the whole idea of side saddle. I almost liked the idea of riding along in the soft gown the swan sisters had given me, holding Asher in my arms, and riding Gealbhan like a living reenactment of the Madonna and Child.

Timothy laughed when I shared my imagining with him. “You two do look angelic,” he said. “I can picture what some Renaissance painter would create of the two of you riding through Faerie.”

“John Waterhouse,” my mother interjected. “He would have just loved that hair of yours. Instead of the Lady of Shallot, you could be the Lady of the Tower or something equally romantic. Those Pre-Raphaelite painters would have loved the siren’s story.”

“I used to think that the Lady of Shallot was referring to onions,” Timothy confessed.

I giggled, picturing a romantically agonized young woman, painted with a crown of shallots on her head.

The swan burst from the ground and took to the air, drawing us away from our rather silly conversation. I paused in awe, that creatures of such mass and clumsiness on the ground could become so graceful in the air or on the water.

“Have you noticed,” I said, loudly enough so that all of my companions could hear me, “that all of the victims of the siren’s machinations have been related to water somehow? The ice giants—ice is water, and then, of course, the selkie clan, and the swan sisters.”

“It makes sense,” my mother said. “The siren herself is a creature of the water. As an elemental creature by nature, she would not want to stray too far from where she was comfortable and safe.”

“All her Magic comes from a comb,” Timothy said. “Maybe we should focus our energy on getting it away from her?”

“No, she keeps it too close to make the risk worth it,” I said. I caught their startled expressions. “What? I had a dream. I was her, or at least, I think it was her. She was singing and combing her hair, waiting for… someone. In my dream, she kept her comb on hand, tucked into her belt.”

Asher blew a raspberry.

“Yup, buddy, I agree. There goes that plan.” Timothy scowled. “I hate feeling like we’re only on the fringe of understanding what we need to do.”

“Maybe we don’t have to know,” I said. “Maybe we’re just going to have to get used to Faerie sending us out with no information, hoping that we’ll stumble upon what needs to be done.”

Timothy made a sound of garbled frustration. For someone who liked to be in control, who liked to plan things out before he ever moved, not having a clear game plan was frustrating, to say the least.

I didn’t like it much, but I could deal with it.

*~*~*

W
e rode along, following the swans, who occasionally had to circle around so as not to leave us in the metaphorical dust. Swans could fly over much greater distances than we could manage on horseback. Especially since we didn’t intend to ruin our horses.

Not that Gealbhan, Whisper, or any of the other Fae horses would tolerate such treatment.

We stopped to rest a few times, to let the horses drink water and have a little time to graze and eat the provisions we had brought with us. The swan maidens came down as we rested, taking some time in their human forms. I used the time to feed Asher. I had nursed him on horseback, it was possible, but I much preferred being able to feed him while seated on solid ground.

I wondered at the centuries of women who had managed all of this—traveling with a young child. From the nomadic tribes, to the settlers, they had managed in the least ideal situations known to man.

I hadn’t expected breastfeeding to feel so… empowering.

The plains gave away to stepper territory, moving abruptly into a land of canyons and cliffs. The horses shuffled carefully along the narrow track, which was the only path that we could find. It wasn’t wide enough for even the smallest horse-drawn vehicle to pass down. If this was where the parents of the swan maidens lived, then they must supply their keep entirely from the packs of horses, or on swan wing.

I glanced up at our guides. I wondered how much each of them could carry, if they needed.

The sun was drawing alarmingly close to the horizon. I had no desire to try to follow these narrow tracks in the dark. We had passed no place where we could pause for the night, but I was afraid that, if we continued, one or all of us my walk straight out into… nothing. Only to end up smashed at the bottom of a cliff.

I was just opening my mouth to mention my concerns, when the keep came into view.

I had not expected a castle.

Unlike the castle where Timothy and I made our home, this castle had been built by a more gothic-ly inclined architect. The spires were high, dark, and narrow, patterned with arching windows, some of which could be no more than slits. The stone of the entire keep was a deep, ominous black.

“I don’t think I would knock on this door, if we hadn’t been guided here,” I whispered nervously to Timothy.

He stared up at the castle, his face tense. “I know what you mean. You don’t think the girls…”

I shook my head. “No. I don’t believe they would lead us into a trap. Perhaps this place has been here longer than its inhabitants.”

If the upper towers started spitting out bats, I was going to turn Gealbhan around and bolt, terror of falling off a cliff notwithstanding.

My brain insisted on worrying about things like vampires and monsters as we rode closer. It was ridiculous, because I knew that vampires were nothing like they were depicted in most fiction—they were more or less vaguely-humanoid leeches who were too stupid to function in the human world anymore. Zombies were a different story. Other than a certain zombie chicken, I had never met a zombie.

I somehow doubted that the girls were leading us into a zombie-laden castle.

I smiled smugly to myself. Plus, I had a secret weapon—monsters of that sort hated fire, and I had fire in abundance.

T
he girls transformed back into their human forms and met us in a courtyard that stood before the gates of the keep. Up close, the place was even more ominous.

“It’s something isn’t it?” Aurora bubbled cheerfully. “It used to be charming, but then people kept dropping in when father wanted to work, so he charmed it to look terrifying. It’s just an illusion. Promise.”

My estimation of their father’s abilities rose another notch. To maintain such an illusion, with such detail and precision, was not a task most Fae would be able to accomplish. I was sure that I couldn’t, not without adding a few years of architecture to my education.

Then again, I mused, I could always make my castle look like a pile of pastries.

I did know a lot about pie.

The gates rumbled open, interrupting my daydreams of cream puff towers and pulled-sugar windows.

Gingerbread was for wusses.

As we rode through the gates, the illusion that had kept my attention with rigid concern, melted away, revealing a pleasant garden space, complete with a meadow, pool, and waterfall, which fed into the pool.

A woman stood before the water. To call her beautiful would be such a gross misstatement that the word would have to be recreated all over again. That she was the mother of the swan sisters there could be no doubt.

Trying to describe her made words feel inadequate. She had eyes that made me wonder if I had ever seen eyes before. Her nose, her teeth… all of them were revelations.

In the shadow of such a glittering beauty, I could almost have missed the man that stood by her side.

He was easily as ugly as she was beautiful. But, as her beauty left me awestruck, there was something homey and comfortable in the way he wore his ugliness. There was nothing odd or misshapen about his form, he was just spectacularly… ugly.

“Daddy!” The swan sisters rushed to throw their arms around the man. I noticed that they greeted their mother with less enthusiasm, as if they, too, were over-awed by her brilliance.

“Welcome home,” the man said gruffly, kissing each of the girls on the cheek in turn. He beamed at each one, murmuring something as they took their turn before him.

“Well, what do you think of my daughters?” He called to us, opening his arms wide. “Are they not beautiful? Are they not some of the finest minds in all of Faerie?” His eyes sparkled. “I daresay they might even be some of the finest minds in your birth land, eh, Seraphim?”

I found myself smiling. It was impossible not to smile back at him.

“But we’re here because you are cleverer than all of us combined,” Aurora blurted. “Even Casidhe wasn’t sure…”

The man’s bushy eyebrows rose abruptly. “Is this true? A problem that all my little maids in a row couldn’t sort on their own? This may require going inside.” He nodded to his wife. “Right, dear?”

“Please,” she said in a soft, warm voice. “Please enter our home and be welcome.”

The inside of the castle was a tumbled hodgepodge of everything. Mechanical devices lay half-built here and there on the floor, even a few hung from the ceiling. Flowers, lace, and other more typically feminine things were also scattered around, as if no one could be bothered to finish just one project when a thousand could be worked on at once.

For all the clutter, the space was absolutely spotlessly clean. I would have expected there to be dust, heavy on the books that filled he shelves and spilled over onto the floor, but there wasn’t even the faintest speck.

The reason for this soon became apparent. The girls’ mother hurried through the room, her movement so graceful it almost looked like she was dancing. She moved piles of books and papers from on top of the seats scattered through the room and, in what felt like no time at all, had the room pulled back into order.

“Father will have it a mess again in no time,” Viveka confided in my ear. “He says that he likes his girl to feel useful, but I know he just can’t help being a bit of a mess. I hardly notice anymore, not until we have someone new visit the house.” She smiled at me and hurried away after the retreating form of her mother, leaving the rest of us with her father.

“Go ahead and sit,” he said in his gravelly voice. “There’s nothing in here that you can hurt. I learned that one by having children. I keep the fragile things locked up, all high and dry.” He pointed at Asher, who had just awakened and was staring at this stranger with the loud voice and the ugly face. “I see you’ve got a young man of your own. Remember—keep the breakable things locked up tight.” His eyes squinted almost shut as he smiled, making him resemble a rather dignified bulldog or pug.

“They’re here about the siren, Father,” Aurora said, obviously assigning herself the role of spokesperson. “She nearly got to them too—oh, you should see the earplugs that Miranda made. You’ll want to have a pair of those. And they said they visited the selkies and the ice giants and…”

A rumble of laughter rolled from our host. His shoulders shook. “No, if you don’t mind, Seraphim? I would like to hear the story in your own words. From the beginning. With no interruptions.” He pinned his energetic daughter with a stern eye.

Aurora grinned impishly and sat back down into her seat, which appeared to be mostly made out of a stack of ancient books.

“How far back do you want to go?” I asked, sitting down on the more secure-looking bench.

“Not your whole life’s story.” Our host’s eyes twinkled. “How about what sent you here? How did that get started?”

“I suppose it started with my dream,” I said. “Timothy was having them too, but I didn’t know about them.” I gestured towards my husband.

Our host nodded once and gestured for me to continue.

When he had said ‘without interruption’, he had truly meant it. He didn’t interject a single word, and he didn’t let his daughters, even Aurora interrupt my story.

When I finished he nodded and cleared his throat thoughtfully.

“Well, you’ve got some challenges laid in your path, assuredly,” he said. “The siren is ancient, even by my standards. And I make your father look like a piddling toddler.” He let out a bark of laughter.

I couldn’t help but join him. His laughter was contagious. It tickled my funny bone, as did the image of my father as a piddling toddler. My father could be so dignified, so intimidating, it was refreshing to meet someone who was not in awe of the great Lenus.

“I’m Lemek,” he said. “Since my daughters apparently have forgotten what manners they ever had and failed to introduce us.”

“I’m Cindy,” I said. My companions added their names in turn.

He nodded with each name, treating the soldiers and Magi just as he had addressed Timothy and me.

I had a feeling I was really going to like this man.

“You’ve probably never heard of me,” Lemek continued. “There have been rumors of my death floating around Faerie for centuries. Of course, I was the one who started them.” Again, his eyes sparkled. “And Cindy, you may call me Uncle Lem, since I am your dratted father’s elder brother. Not the oldest, mind you.” He shivered. “No, not even close to that brother.”

“Uncle Lem,” I tried out. I discovered I liked having this jolly man as my uncle. “Do you think you can help us?”

Lemek scratched his beard. “You know the nature of quests, yes? Sometimes the quest is the thing, sometimes the result. Sometimes it is the journey that is important, sometimes it is a sword or ring or whatever thing that you reach at the end of your travels.”

I nodded. “Yes, I can see that.”

“What tangles this quest of yours up is that I’m not sure that this truly is your quest.”

I sat straight up. “What? How so?”

“Just a feeling I have.” Lemek wiggled his finger vaguely. “It feels like you are small players on a stage much larger than you realize. Here you are, playing Pyramus and Thisbe, when in reality you are walking on the set of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. There are depths and dimensions here that you can see. Not, you mind, that you should see them. I think your blindness, so to speak, is necessary to this quest… mission… test, whatever you wish to call it.”

I tentatively tasted the word ‘test’. I didn’t like the idea that someone might be pulling the strings all for the sake of testing my worth or mettle.

“Gah, you look like your father when you get your dander up,” Lemek said, wheezing out a laugh. “You stick your chin out, just like he did, whenever someone or something got in his way.” He rubbed his chin. “Come to think of it, your father almost always excelled at whatever it was he was trying to accomplish, when he looked like that. Maybe the same will hold true for you. Keep that stubborn chin up.”

“What about the ice giants and the selkie folk?” I asked. “Couldn’t part of the quest be you stepping in to assist them?”

Lemek paused thoughtfully. “You may have some merit with that thought, lass,” he rumbled. “I never considered that I might be a player on the stage, too. That does manipulate the fabric, doesn’t it?”

While he mumbled to himself, I exchanged glances with my companions. I couldn’t read anything from their expressions, but I didn’t see any fear or anxiety either.

They trusted me.

The realization settled on my shoulder like one of the great collars harnessed horses wore. It was heavy, all that expectation and trust. They believed that I would sort everything out and bring everything back to how it was meant to me. They believed that I could do it.

And, because of that belief, I had no choice.

I had never wanted power. I had never wanted to be responsible for the wellbeing of Faerie. I hadn’t asked to become Seraphim. But, given the task, I could not bring myself to let my people down.

Expectation was demanding more of me than I would ever have asked myself.

Darn it.

Lemek looked up from his musing. “I have decided,” he said. “I will do my best to help the ice giants and the selkies.” He scratched his head. “I would have felt beholden to assist the selkie folk anyway, considering they and the swan folk are kin… of a sort.” He waved the train of thought away. “Well, anyway, I will give what assistance I can. I never expected to take the stage again, not after I went through such trouble to imitate the life of a hermit.”

“Oh, father, you’re teasing!” Aurora almost shouted, a wide grin spreading across her face. “You’re loving this, loving the idea of being needed again.”

Lemek nodded. “Indeed child, I suppose it is nice to be… wanted again. There is a difference, one you will learn by the time you are as old as I am.”