My mother used to tell me stories of sirens. Specifically, the sirens that lived in the lake near a lodge up in Fairbank that her family had owned for a long time. The lodge itself was a bit secluded, almost fully hidden behind an acre of forest. There was one road leading in and out to where the lodge and the lake sat. To be fair, the path we took was more dirt than a road, and it was about a 20-minute drive from the nearest town. We went there every summer while I was growing up, and I always tried my best to search for the sirens my mother always talked about. She told me time and time again that it was rare to catch such a supernatural sighting.
“But when the sky rains down, and the winds are swift, you might be able to hear them. They sing above the whistle of the air, crying their blessings to the heavens above that water their lake, nourishing their home with its tears,” She would say, her eyes glassy as she spoke, a small serene smile playing about her lips, as if she was replaying a memory in her head.
This, however, was not a satisfying enough answer for my overly curious mind, and during every visit, I would grab my scuba goggles and search the waters as much and for as long as I could, but I was never able to get too far down before inky blackness was all that I could see; the deeper waters far too out of reach from the sunlight above.
My father…well, he had no time for such nonsense. He would roll his eyes and scoff anytime mother would begin her stories. It made her brow crinkle, not at all happy with his mockery of the stories passed down to her from her mother. However, as I grew older, so too did his annoyance with these so-called ‘fairy tales’ my mother spun. He’d tell her I was getting too old to believe in such things, that her stories were nothing but bedtime stories for young children. This became one of the many arguments they had throughout their marriage as time went on. As the years continued to go by their relationship only seemed to get worse and I was becoming aware of that quickly. There was always this tension that hung heavy in the air whenever they would be in a room together for too long. I may have been young but I wasn’t blind or stupid. I didn’t know exactly why their marriage was deteriorating, and I never thought to ask as it seemed like more of a grown-up problem that I wouldn’t be able to understand anyway. Maybe over all those years, they had both just become different people than when they had first met or they were no longer on the same page when it came to their life goals, I don’t know…but slowly, their disdain for each other became harder and harder to hide from me.
I could sometimes hear them at night, fighting with each other in the late hours, hushed whispers laced with poison would leak into my ears through the thin walls of our house. They never knew I listened and I never said anything as they continued their charade of happiness in front of me in the mornings after, as if I could not see the cracks forming between them.
That was another reason I loved the lodge. It was the one place they would never argue, either in front of me or in their rooms. It was our vacation away from the stresses and monotony of life. Perhaps it was even a silently made agreement between them. When we were at the lodge, we were a happy family…or at least, we pretended to be. And for a long time, I was okay with pretending we were happy too.
The first time I saw a siren in the lake…was the day my mother died. She and dad had gone for a hike through the forest and up to the hills and cliffs beyond, and I had opted to stay behind.
“Maybe I’ll try to look for sirens again,” I joked. Although at 15, I’d given up looking for them long ago. I was growing up after all, and despite my love for my mother’s stories, even I was growing to doubt their validity. Dad sighed in annoyance and mother put a placating hand on his shoulder to try and ease his frustration.
“Well, if you find one, I would love to hear the story when we get back. We should be in well before the storm is supposed to hit this evening,” Mother had said with a grin. I waved them goodbye as they started their trek and watched them slowly disappear from view as they were swallowed up by the woods surrounding the land. The sun had been above the trees when they had left.
An hour later, when the storm began to quickly move in, they had yet to return and I was starting to worry. The winds had become more tempestuous. I could hear the wailing gusts as they began to whistle over the lodge. The rain began to slap hard against the roof of the lodge as the downpour grew worse. The sky was growing ever darker by the minute. I stood to watch at the window, looking for any sign of my parents. Then lightning struck, lighting the entirety of the grounds, yet still no sign of them. I went to the landline but just as I picked up the phone, the power went out. I tried the phone anyway but it was dead.
My heart began to race and I panicked, wondering what to do. I could take the car. Go for help in town? I didn’t know how to drive but I’d risk it! I knew the way to town at least! I’d get to the police and round up a search party!
With my mind made up, I grabbed my parka off the coat rack and dad’s keys from the side table, getting ready to face the onslaught of wind and rain that I was sure would be fighting me every second of the way. I was running down the front steps of the porch and towards my dad’s car when I first heard it. It made me stop dead in my tracks, and wonder for the briefest second if I was imagining things.
High above the screaming winds…there was another sound; an ethereal, bell-like ringing dancing across the air…or was that the sound of someone singing?
I slowly turned towards the sound coming from the lake, my heart beating like a drum in my chest and my breath catching quickly in my throat…and there she was. The obsession of my childhood, the creature of the stories I had heard about for so long. I could see her even through the darkness of the storm. She was above the water from the waist up, the rest of her body hidden below by shadows of the lake. The lightning scattered around the sky in quick succession, showing brief glimpses of the siren’s full glory in bits and pieces.
Mother had said long ago that sirens were not what the storybooks said. They were not beautiful maidens with long shining hair and warm supple skin. They looked like the creature before me now. She had no hair at all; her head was bare and smooth like the rest of her from what I could see. She had chalk-white skin and black beady eyes that stared me down as she sang. Her lips were thin and horrifyingly wide; she had two long rows of teeth that were white as bone and every single one of them was sharply pointed, almost reminding me of a shark. I had always expected to be excited if I ever caught glimpse of a siren despite being warned of their appearance, but this feeling that was creeping through me like ice? That was not excitement. It was a slow dread that was growing and pooling in my stomach as I stared, frozen in place by her song. A dull numbness began to set in and the sound of the wind began to fade into the background, leaving nothing behind but that beautiful bell-like singing. I could feel myself walking away from the car and towards the edge of the lake. I was caught by the bait of her song and had gotten trapped in the dark abyss of her eyes.
“A siren’s beauty does not come from her body alone. She sings to make you look, and when she catches your eyes…that’s what ensnares her human prey!” Mother would say, snapping her fingers in my face.
“She would even eat me?!” I had asked. Mother had shaken her head, smiling.
“No, no my dear. Not these sirens at least, not the ones in our lake. These sirens are different. They will not harm someone of our family line, for we are the ones who brought them here with us so long ago. We are bound to each other, us and them,” She would say the last part in a whisper as if it was a secret. And maybe it was, as she never spoke about it again.
But even now, even remembering her words I felt a shiver of doom crackle through me as I got closer. The singing grew louder, higher, shriller until it was all that I could hear. There was no wind, no rain, no thunder…just her song. I could see her better now as I trudged into the lake, my legs moving forward with a mind of their own. Her skin was like leather, I could see the gums around her white jagged teeth and they were as black as coal, and her fingers were long and thin, ending in black, sharp, needle-like nails. She looked like my worst nightmare come to life, but still, I could not pull away from her eyes, her damn eyes. I wanted to scream, to cry, to run but I was at the mercy of this…this thing! I guess it’s true what they say…be careful what you wish for.
Her song stopped mid-note when I finally stepped within her reach. A long, spindly arm snapped out to grab my left wrist and she lifted it into my line of sight before lifting her other arm and plunging a long black thumbnail into my wrist.
“Sirens can tell us the future?!” I remembered my 10-year-old self asking in excitement. Mother hushed me, for it was long past bedtime, but I had begged for one more fact she knew about sirens.
“Yes and no. They cannot see all, only bits, and only the pieces that do not change no matter what we do to try and prevent them,” Mother explained. I held onto that memory even as the shocks of pain webbed up through my arm, through my chest, and then into my head. I could see it…what the siren had wanted to share with me…the reason she had called to me in the darkness. I screamed and then it was over.
I don’t know how long I sat there in the dirt and mud; the water of the lake gently lapping around my waist as I stared out into the slowly waning storm. The winds had slowed, and rain had gentled, and with the chaos of mother nature’s ever-changing mood slipping away from whence it came, the siren too disappeared with it, slipping back into the lake without a sound or a ripple; as if she had never been there at all. Heavy footsteps pulled me from my reverie and I didn’t need to turn to see it was my father, nor did I need to look to know that he was alone. When I finally turned to look up at his looming soaked figure, his face was grim and his hands were shaking.
They had lost track of time and had gotten caught at the beginning of the storm. The darkness had overwhelmed them quickly, and even with their flashlights, it was a treacherous journey they had to make back down the trail they had come. Mother had walked a bit too close to an edge of a cliff and the mud had given way under her steps. Then she fell…and just like that she was gone.
Father was quiet for a while after that. Even at her funeral, he was stoic and cold. I overheard some of the adults talking amongst themselves, telling each other how sad it was that she was gone and how my father had to be strong for me. We didn’t talk much after that day, and we didn’t go back to the Fairbank Lodge for a long time after either.
I never told him what I saw. I knew he’d never believe me anyway. I didn’t go back again until I was 19, I took mom’s ashes with me, and I made sure to check the weather app on my phone before I went. I waited and bided my time until I knew it was time…and then I called my father. I told him I wanted us to spread moms ashes in the lake and I wanted him to be here. He seemed resistant at first but after a few minutes of begging, he relented. The wind was beginning to gust just as I saw his jeep pulling up to the lodge. Rain was beginning to pour down harder when he got out. He was running up towards the porch in an attempt to escape the onslaught of rain when he stopped…he could hear it in the wind. The beginning of her song. I stood resolutely on the porch, making a point to avoid the view of the lake to my side. I saw him turn to look and…snap, he was snared. I watched him walk to the shoreline and I watched him walk into the water…I watched until his head disappeared under the waves of the lake, following the heavenly, dangerous voices and eyes of the creatures that live below the darkness of the water.
That day, the first day I ever saw a siren, my mother died…but not because she slipped. I know that because I know how she died…the siren showed me. She showed me how my parents began to fight on their hike, a fight bigger than I had ever seen before. She showed me how in a fit of rage, my father pushed my mother. He pushed her right off that cliff, and to her death below. Just as I now send him to his death below….like father, like daughter, I guess.
I finally allowed myself to look towards the lake, my face devoid of emotion, and I saw her that one last time. The siren who snared me so long ago and had let me go…for I was bound to her and she was bound to me and she would not harm me for I was of my mother’s blood. The same could not be said of my father. She gave me a subtle nod before disappearing beneath the water again; leaving no evidence of either of her visits, except the perfectly round white scar I will bear on my left wrist until the day I too meet my end. I sigh calmly as the storm continues to howl around me, creating a whistling sound as it ascends to the skies overlooking Fairbank Lodge…or is that the sound of someone singing?