Siren (6 page)

If he went, he would die. Old Hiapo was right, John knew it in his heart. If he went to the sea, she would take him back, and this time he would die. He did not want to die. Yet his heart did not want to live. Not without her.

He knew in his heart he belonged to Siren. That he could not change.

The wind shifted again, from east to southeast, slapping his sodden hair against his face. It would continue to shift as the typhoon passed the island, and would diminish as it moved on. The desperation of his loneliness drove him, and he slogged through the thickening mud of the road, heading toward the sea, following the gnawing hunger in his soul, until he found himself standing on the wet sand of the little bay by Hiapo's village, his eyes fixed on the wild crests of the waves blowing ashore.

Only a crazy man would be here if he didn't have to be, for any moment a rogue wave could blow ashore and carry him out into the violent surf. He could not deny that might be him.

Crazy.

In the violent dance of wind and wave, he saw her standing proudly on the crest, lit by the unearthly glow of the fire of the sea, a dance of swirling colors radiant and intense, outlining her form. Her Titian hair was like brilliant sunshine on new copper. Her dress of moonbeams draped about her, its silken sheen whipping scarf-like in the wind like something in his twisted dreams.

Siren,
he said in his mind, fixed and drawn to the eerie, beautiful, awful figure. His Siren.

"Come to me, John Wall."

"No, Siren," he replied, wondering where he found the strength to resist. He didn't know or understand why. He just knew somehow he had to stand for something different.

"You are for me, John Wall. Come."

"I will not. If I go into the sea, I will die. You know it is true."

"You are mortal. Mortals die."

"But I will not die at your behest. A man must fight for life, Siren. It is the way we are made. A man cannot live with himself if he has no control of his own destiny."

Her radiant hair danced in the wild wind. "If you love me, come to me."

"No, Siren. I cannot. I am a man. If you love me, you come to me."

"I am Siren. If I do I will be no more than a mortal. I will die."

"That is the natural way of things, Siren. It is not natural to never die."

"It is the way of man. I cannot do it. I am for you, John Wall, and you for me. You must come."

"If I do, we will have no time together. No, if you love me, come."

The sea writhed about her as if she were a storm of her own. He knew her anger. He knew the godlike arrogance that was Siren. Now, this time, for sure he would die. . .

He breathed deeply, steeling himself for what he knew must come. She would not give up her dominance over him, and he could not accept it.

So yes. Now his time had come.

He squared his body, prepared to take what must be and watched as the wave grew ever taller and rolled toward the beach, Siren riding its crest like a magnificent Hawaiian on a board, the long ropes of her hair flailing in the storm as the wave drew closer, ever closer.

The crest broke, then rolled softer in its break. In the ferocity of the storm at her back, the clouds began to break and the lower corner of a crescent moon glowed. Siren rode atop the gentle wave until it reached the sand and she stepped onto the drenched earth. Her eyes fixed on him, she walked, a slow and fluid step with her hips swaying as each foot stepped so carefully in front of the other. John held his breath. Mesmerized, as Siren approached. She stopped.

"I am for you, John Wall." Softly, slowly her hand rose to touch his bearded cheek. "This is the world of man. Your beard has grown."

He could do nothing else. He could not stop himself if he demanded it. He swept his arms around her into a fierce kiss, as if he could absorb her into himself.

John Wall held her face between his hands, stroking thumbs over her cheeks, and she threw back her head, baring her throat. He lavished kisses over every part of her face, down her neck, across the vulnerable crevice at the base of her throat, and down her body. They fell to their knees, hands eager and hungry for every inch of each other. Her dress of moonbeams fell away, and John's unneeded shirt parted from his chest, his trousers deserted his waist, then his hips, her hands warring with his in their eagerness to pull away the offending garments. Bare, they dropped to the beach atop the debris of fronds from the storm.

Rain straggled down their faces and skin as they made warmth for each other. Siren traced the lines of his chest and down the line of hair that led to his rampant arousal. Furious heat raged in his cock and his breath battled for control. He wanted her with such violent heat, he almost feared himself.

"Take me now, John Wall. Take me. Don't make me wait."

In one perverse way, he almost wished he could. Make her wait, as he had. Now, no, now more than ever, he must have her. He must have her his way. Siren had come to him. He had not gone to her. Surely she had been wrong. She must surely know, he was a man. She, the woman.

The thought fled. All thought fled. John let himself slip away into the heavy passion that engulfed him. As Siren wrapped her glorious legs around him, her heated flesh pressing against his, John sought only the crimson haze of oblivion, and thrust himself into the magnificently familiar tightness that gripped him in frantic passion. Siren's need, as fierce as his own, demanded madly of him.

Passion rushed upon them, and too quickly, completion. Then, before he could even catch his ragged breath and withdraw, he hardened anew. It was Siren's magic, still reigning over him, and he, still in thrall to her enticing body and its never-fading allure. He stopped caring. He rolled her over onto her back and fucked her. He took her from behind. He sat her in his lap. He tasted her, and she him, until both of them were so spent, they could do nothing more than lie back, gasping.

Only the lowest hook of the crescent moon showed beneath the last clouds from the storm as they fell asleep in each other's arms on the bed of fern fronds at the edge of the sandy beach.

The sky lightened, the earliest morning gloaming as John opened his eyes. He reached out and found only the emptiness of flattened fronds beside him. He had not dreamed it—no, he was certain. As he sat up, he caught sight of the sparkle from the dress of moonbeams, and took the fantastic fabric in his hands.

The sun broke the horizon, brightening on the gauzy brilliance of the cloth draped over his hands. It disintegrated and sifted through his hands into the sand.

I've killed her! My selfishness has killed her!

He stared at the nothingness in his hands, as empty as a life without his Siren. Why hadn't he gone to her instead? Shouldn't he have known one such as Siren could not live a mortal existence?

Then, there, beneath the ruin that was his empty hands, two perfect pale feet appeared. He looked up to see his Siren pulling his shirt over her head to cover her beautiful nakedness. With a swoop of her hand, she flipped her long, long, golden-red hair out from the collar to flow in enticing waves nearly to the ground. His heart thrumming wildly, he could only stare.

"Where shall we live, John Wall?" she said.

His heart took another tumble.

Chapter 8

Relief flooded him like hot tears as John clasped his beloved Siren tightly in his arms, drinking in her heady scent of sea and earth, absorbing the soft, velvety touch of her skin.

But slowly he became aware that the village was coming to life along with the dawn. Hiapo led his people down the path from the cliff where they had taken refuge from the rage of the seas and wind. As a group, they stood around John and Siren, saying nothing. Siren smiled back at their silent welcome. He thought it odd, for she had always avoided the company of humans. Yet she seemed at ease among the Islanders, who seemed to both accept her and treat her with deference. It was as if they bowed in their minds to her.

As much as he had learned of their language, John still did not recognize all their words. But Siren did. He began to think perhaps she knew more about them than he did.

The women had gone on to their wind-wracked homes, and the men to their canoes and nets, which they had sheltered in larger buildings. Soon, as they walked through the village, Hiapo's women emerged, bringing gifts for Siren. The gaudy garment of missionary origin they called muu muu, and leis of ti leaves and flowers, despite that the storm had made havoc of the fragrant flowering bushes so common around the village.

"Namaka-o-Kaha'i has come to us again," said Hiapo as he walked up to them, and he bowed as deeply as he might to his distant kin, the third King Kamehameha. "We will give you our home, where you may be with your lover."

Puzzled, John frowned. "This is Siren," he replied. But he began to realize he could not tell anyone who she really was, nor how he knew it. He would have to give her a name, a white woman's name, for her vivid red hair set her apart from these people with their dark skins and black hair.

"Namaka-o-Kaha'i has many names, and we sometimes call her just Namaka. But we know this is her, for her hair is still flaming from the burning lava her sister Pele threw at her." The old man paused, and mischief quirked on his lips. "But I think John Wall does not want to say Namaka-o-Kaha'i. It is too hard for him."

A chuckle rumbled through the jolly crowd.

John felt his cheeks redden. "It is true," he said. "That is too much for me. I call her Siren, but the white men will not understand. You say she is a goddess, and they will not understand that, either. I think I will call her Serena now. That is a white woman's name."

"Namaka-o-Kaha'i is not a white woman, John Wall. She comes from the sea."

Yes. He knew that all too well.

"What did you do that she threw you out of the sea, John Wall?" Kekoa asked. "Do you make love like the missionaries do? Namaka would not like that."

The village all laughed, the men even louder than the women.

Siren spoke to the village in soft tones, in their language that sounded like the music of the sea. The women giggled. She spoke some more. Their giggles turned to coos of admiration and the women approached him almost with shyness, and touched the flesh of his arm. Another patted his abdomen, which had always been taut from his many years of hard work at sea, making John wonder if he had suddenly been transformed into some sort of fertility god. He decided this was not the time to comment, especially with his limited vocabulary. Too many of their words had hidden or double meanings.

As the women returned to cleaning up their scattered village and harvesting dead fish that had washed up on the shore, the men went on to survey the storm's damage, which was surprisingly light. But Hiapo and Kekoa soon called the men together to begin the project of building a home for their goddess. Siren took her place among the women, doing the things women did as if she did the same every day, and as John watched, the full import of what she had done began to sit on him.

She had goddess status to these people, and John could not deny she seemed like one to him, too. Yet he had never been able to determine from her answers what she really was. Were goddesses made by the gods? Or did that make her something else entirely? Who knew what a Siren was? The myth of the Sirens had been around for thousands of years and persisted to modern times, even though there was no room for it in the Christian way of thinking. He knew of no sailor who would deny it.

It would not be good to tell the missionaries of this. Or any of the white men. If they found out about her, what would they think? What would they do to her? She looked like a white woman, with her fair skin and flaming hair, brighter golden-red than any Irishwoman he had ever seen. No, it would not be a good thing. He would have to somehow keep her hidden.

And clothed.

And that was only the beginning of his problems. Had she given up immortality for him? He had never even been sure she was immortal. It seemed instead that perhaps Sirens lived very long lives but in some ways were vulnerable to harm. Looking at her tiny, perfect feet, bare in the sand, he remembered.

"If a Siren's blood touches land, she will die."
This, she had told them when they were in the sea. But would it be true? What if she cut her foot on the sharp lava that lined the bay? Or on the steep cliffs that backed the village? She had said she would be like any mortal now.

What about smallpox? It was the great killer of the Islanders, who had never encountered it before the white man came to the Islands. Would she also not be able to resist the disease that had ravaged Europe for so many centuries that white men were almost inured to it? Could he get her an inoculation? But that would expose her to other white men.

He was responsible for her now.

The wild thumping of his heart echoed the dread in his soul.

Chapter 9

Once the thatched houses were repaired, the fishermen returned to the sea. John was not at all keen on going with them, regardless of what Siren said. More than that, he understood that Siren was probably as human and vulnerable as any woman—or more so.