Page 14 of A Song of Death and Desire

The rain is starting to fall lighter now, more of a misty drizzle. My clothes are plastered to my skin and covered in sand. My throat hurts from drowning. I am so bloody conflicted at the moment. I can't reconcile this woman in front of me as the siren from the legends although I have the memory of her transformation. She's responsible for all my madness but right now she looks like a confused and frightened girl.

I don't know what to do and I am so tired. I feel like if I close my eyes I won't open them again. My body feels heavy, mymovements slow. I feel stuck. I can't bring myself to leave her now that I've found her but what else can I do?

The woman stops retching and I'm finally able to take all of her in. She's just as beautiful as what I have been picturing these past weeks. Even more so if I am being honest. Her skin is a smooth, creamy white, dotted with freckles over her nose and cheekbones and her eyes, a bright shade of green that reminds me of the forest. The combination of her emerald eyes and auburn hair is striking and I’m instantly flooded with warmth and desire. And she's naked.Fuuuck.The sight of her body makes my cock hard instantly, the bastard completely disinterested in the fact that this woman is the cause of all our problems.

I shake my head, silently urging the blood to travel back north so my brain can actually function. “What's your name?” I splutter, desperate to put a name to the goddess-slash-monster in front of me. “Do you even have a name? Do you talk? Oh fuck, or are you just kind of like a fish?” I'm rambling now.

“Of course, I fucking speak and have a name!” She responds indignantly. “And how dare you call me a fish. Do I look like a fish to you?” She gestures down her body, and I can't help but stare at her breasts and take a quick glance at the mound between her legs as she does so. I mean, I’m only human.

I mentally slap myself, using every ounce of mental strength I have to focus on our conversation and not her body. Okay she speaks, and not only have I managed to almost kill her but now I have offended her as well. Things are going wonderfully.

“Okay, okay I'm sorry all right. I have no idea what's going on. I don't know anything about you other than I’m pretty sure you’re a siren, a creature that until recently I didn’t think existed. And I’m reasonably sure that it's your song that has been driving me so crazy. But I don't know how much of what I read is actually true. You don't really look like the pictures. Can youplease help me? Can you make the song go away?” My words come out in a pitiful whine, and I would be embarrassed if I weren’t so fucking tired.

Her eyes soften as I speak and try not to fuck things up any more than I already have.

“Kairi,” she says softly. “My name is Kairi.”

Kairi. Kairi. Kairi.

And just like that I feel like I've found the answer to a question I didn't even know that I was asking. I'm flooded with a sense of peace that is so at war with our current predicament.

“Kairi,” I whisper back. “Can you please tell me what's going on. My memories… they are all messed up and I don't know what's real or not.”

A grimace of what looks like pain and guilt crosses her face. Fleeting, but present, nonetheless.

“Um so yes, I’m a siren. I have a different form when I'm in the ocean to what you see now. This is my human form for when I come to land.” I nod, memories of her blue-gray skin and slitted eyes surfacing.

She speaks hesitantly again. “I don’t know how to fix this problem I’ve caused by letting you go. Humans don’t usually survive after coming across us. I’ve never heard of something like this happening.” I try not to focus on the whole “people don’t usually survive” thing and what that means and instead growl in frustration at her admission of not being able to fix this.

“What do you mean you can’t fix this? You have to! You did this to me.” Her eyelids flutter closed, and she takes in a deep breath.

“I don’t know! I didn’t know this was possible. I had no idea what letting you go would mean!” She cries, her hands covering her face. “I’ve made such a colossal mess of everything,” she says more quietly.

I make a move towards her, an urge to comfort her in her distress coming to the surface. She takes a step backwards, the distrust still evident in her eyes. I’ve frightened her. My rational brain has decided to resurface and I’m able to control the anger and frustration I feel towards her. It’s still there. I’m still furious with my predicament. But I’m not completely unsympathetic to the fact that she is also clearly distressed.

She turns contemplative for a moment and I’m silent as I wait for her to speak.

“There is one thing that might work but I’m not certain. It’s mostly legend and I don’t know how much of it is actually true…”

“I’ll try anything,” I interrupt. She nods and a look of determination crosses her face.

“Okay I’m going to need your help.” I watch as she ducks behind a nearby rock and pulls out some loose clothing. “For when we come to shore,” she explains when she sees my confusion. I can’t help but mourn the fact that she is covering her body, but it is probably much better for my focus.

“So, we are going to find the witch.”

“The what now?”

“The witch.”

“The one this town is named after? The one that made the curse that plagues the town? That’s just a myth,” I scoff.

She raises an eyebrow in response. “Like I am?” Well, she’s got a point there.

“Like I said, I am not sure how much truth there is to the legend, but I am pretty sure she exists. And it’s not her that is responsible for the curse. It’s actually us who cause the disappearances. Humans just don’t know about us and find it easier to blame a witch’s curse.”

I try to process this absolute head fuck of a situation I've found myself in. “Okay so I'm being driven mad by a siren's song and I'm currently standing on a beach with said siren, but she lookslike a human right now because she's on land. And now we are off to find a mythical witch who is somehow going to fix this whole bloody situation. Do I have that right?” Words tumble from my mouth in a rush, bordering on hysteria.

“Yep, sounds exactly right to me,” she says, her voice a little brighter now, no longer seeming as afraid of me as she was before. “My sisters and I have heard the legends of the witch. It's something that has been passed down to us as a cautionary tale. This is, quite literally, the only thing I can think of that even has the slightest chance of helping you. The witch is isolated and lives in one of the cliffside caves. I’m not even sure she is able to leave it. We are going to have to do some climbing. Do you feel up for that, Eagan?” she asks.

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