The Sirens

I called you Lucy. I wanted you to have the sea in your name.

It was the water that protected me. It's the water that makes us strong.

And perhaps something inside her had cracked. All her life, she'd taken for granted that doing the right thing - being conscientious and kind and considerate - would be rewarded; that official procedures and processes could be relied upon. That there would always be a number to call, a person to report to, an answer to every question. That facts would always, inevitably, prevail. But she'd been wrong. When she sought help through the proper channels, the procedures, no one gave her a gold star or thanked her for asking nicely. Instead, they wanted her to keep being nice, to put Ben's feelings - his reputation, his future - above her own. They wanted her to go away.

Most people just want an easy life. It’s unsettling when someone starts pulling apart the stories we’ve stitched together, the things we tell ourselves for comfort.

The dreams had returned, lifting her hopes, but when she was awake she heard nothing, only the rush and roar of the sea. And so she decided to paint them, the women. As if to let them know that she was there. That she was ready. It would be the opposite of an exorcism. A summoning.

Capture. It's the perfect word, isn't it? You paint someone and it's like you own them, like you've taken their soul from their body and put it right there on the canvas.

The rash on her legs is peeling, coming off her in great pale strips, like the discarded skin of a snake. Below it, the flesh isn't pink and raw, or dotted with blood. Instead it glimmers, changing color with the light of the storm. Green then blue, then the pinkish white of mother-of-pearl. Iridescent as scales.

I was looking for it," Eliza said. "For the tír fo thuinn. The land beneath the waves." As if she might find Mam there, like the merrow from her childish story.

She had asked Lucy to make a choice. But sometimes, there is no choice. There is only love.

But then he heard something--- a note purer than birdsong, softer than morning dew. He turned. It was then that he saw the woman: she sat on a rock near the shore, singing just for him. Like she'd been waiting. The rising sun set her hair alight, her skin glittered with wet. Her eyes were round and dark as a seal's; her hands soft and warm as summer air---

But sometimes, there is no choice. There is only love.

Together, they’d breathe the scent of peat and earth, of things ending and beginning.

An ultrasound. The column of text on the left-hand side reads: 20 April 1999 Martin

Lucy would know that face anywhere. She knows it almost as well as she knows her own.

She had asked Lucy to make a choice. But sometimes

I’m only sure of two things. One

Even though she’s sitting on the floor

Her hunger for the world and all its workings was never sated.

You should have known me before I sang you to sleep

a voice had valleys and crags, telling you of sadness or delight. You could almost feel it under your fingers, like it was land.

Time seemed different under the sea, slow and sinuous, and perhaps it was now for her, and for Eliza, but not for the others.

Lucy wipes her eyes with the back of her hand, takes a long, shuddering breath to compose herself. But it’s no use. Already, her face burns with the memory: of how trusting she’d been, how foolish.

When she sought help through the proper channels, the procedures, no one gave her a gold star or thanked her for asking nicely. Instead, they wanted her to keep being nice, to put Ben’s feelings—his reputation, his future—above her own. They wanted her to go away.

When he'd spoken of good and evil, of righteousness and sin, he'd made it sound easy to tell the difference between the two. As clear as sorting flax stalks from their seeds. But where did that leave Aoife, who had killed her husband to save her own life?

And yes, sometimes, people look away from inconvenient facts--just like the student welfare officer did when Lucy told her what happened with Ben. Most people just want an easy life. It's unsettling when someone starts pulling apart the stories we've stitched together, the things we tell ourselves for comfort.

Actually,” she’d said, the words ferric on her tongue, “it isn’t.