Dust Siren

 

 

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Chapter (8): Dust Siren

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On my tenth birthday, I began to consciously slow down my train of life to understand what lurks around me, solely coming to a conclusion; I was not normal, neither was the family I had been raised in, and abnormal persons were to be shunned and irregularly jabbed with scorn.

 

My mother and grandmother, having sensed that, put a lot of effort into crafting a good birthday party with their tolerable budget, to prove to me I could celebrate like any other boy in town; corny happy-birthday-chants, a dozen of balloons, home baked cheesecake and apple pie, two 'mysterious' present boxes (more clothes…), a clown, a hoax magician, and finally, a horde of annoying, people from the Northwest I'd like to call: relatives. Those and their fat, old-fashioned, blunt housewives who would squeeze both my cheeks in their fingers, fervently talking about Esra's 'beautiful' little boy… that is before I became the: fragile, disappointingly unmanly young boy in the family.

 

The magical man with the silly grin whisked his wand, pulling out a nearly endless sequence of colored napkins from the carton on a clothed table. I heaved a small impassive sigh from my seat, turning to look at my right side. Siwar's wide eyes, a distant cousin, seemed to be enchanted by the performance.  

 

"It's not real." I mumbled to her, my glum tone crushed by the laughter and applause coming from the rowdy children in the little plastic chairs, "There is no magic."

 

Siwar frowned glancing sideways, never allowing her attention to leave the mini stage on the backyard lawn, "How do you know that?"

 

I explained to her how the napkins were already put under the table then drawn out of the empty carton through a gap or something, but she was too marveled by the show to believe me.

 

Grandma stood by my chair taking a quick glimpse the hocus-pocus, chuckling over the debate I started and readily informing Ma the day after that I was 'mature for my age'. "I wish you were right, dear." Grandma confessed to me, "The world would be better off without a sinful vogue like Magic."

 

Ma's eyebrows slightly cringed, (an eternal deadlock between the two)  

 

My grandmother used to encourage me to accompany her to the Ivory Mosque on Fridays; it was the only Mosque in town, but the construction with its tall minaret topped with a silver crescent moon was serenely beautiful, especially in the night, when the window lights cast a supple gleam around its pure white archways. And one of the afternoons, after prayer, I had to listen to a long sermon about Magic. A true believer would submit to the existence of this sin, the lecturer said, but would do everything to avoid falling into its shadows. People around would speak of 'true' stories about marriages and entire families defeated into crumbs through the exploit of Magic; love replaced by repulsion, health by illness, and colors by pitch black…

 

"Mama, don't mislead the boy." Ma sighed kneeling to my level, placing both her soft hands on my small shoulders, "Listen to me, habeeby." She said in a mild tone, brushing my blue-black fringes of hair behind my ear, her sincere eyes between the dark eyelashes hoping to let the message infuse into my oblivious shade of brown, "Magic is born from the hearts that believe in it. And once you believe," one of her fingers nudged the left piece of my chest, "you are free to mold it into anything you imagine; good or evil remains a choice only you can make."

 

So, I guess magic does exist, my eyes admitted at the sight of a pastel female child leaping out of the terribly frosty water and into air, the long, drenched golden tresses of her hair falling around her face and the sea-green fishtail twisting in subtle sheets of fog, breaking free from the tight ropes.

 

Rami yelped, plunging backwards into the spongy white turf, the remaining twines of rope in his hands, the mermaid lunging back into the black waters again.

 

I exhaled in wonder, despite Rami's failing spell, turning to the dog geside me, who seemed far less entertained, "wasn't that amazing?"

 

"Rami!" Aseel ran to pick her brother up on his feet again, "Are you alright?" Husky and I followed her closer to the edge of the swamp.

 

"Mh, don't worry." he said, his weight briefly leaning on his sister's shoulder, "I can't lure her out alone though; she's too sturdy." his weakly flickering eyelids scanned the snowy grounds.

 

"Here." I said, handing him the luckily uninjured pair of optical glasses I found near by.

 

"I thought wrong," he received it with a small smirk, efficiently sliding the glass back over his eyes, "you could be skinny and handy."

 

"Sorry about him," Aseel sheepishly told me, shoving Rami's leaning arm off her shoulder, "He'll learn to be nicer in time."

 

"Who was that girl just now?" I asked.

                

"She's a dust siren." Aseel explained, "Only witches with blackened Meezaan (balance) are able to resurrect them."

 

Uh…

 

Long story short, dust sirens used to be generated from the ashes of young girls, approaching the age of puberty. The manipulated dust would be sprinkled in water areas, producing a full-grown woman with a fishtail in less than twenty months. Dr. Farfoor had been trying to capture Miriam for about thirteen months now, and it was almost too late.

 

The three of our heads jerked to the direction of the leaping child again, her pastel, unripe features pausing in the air. My eyes balked at a great, white flash enclosing her form, suddenly barring her motion midair.

 

"Children!" Dr. Farfoor yelled, beckoning us to his direction with one hand, and steadily tugging around the air with the other, a rope I could not see? "I need your strength! We cannot let her escape this time!"

 

Rami and Dr. Farfoor's shaking grips heaved backwards, bringing the siren further from the swamp.

 

I glanced at Husky, "Let's help them." motioning the twins' direction with a thumb.

 

 I didn't know what to pull, but I tapped the space around me anyway, internally smiling at locating the invisible rope in a few seconds. I turned to look behind me, Husky was helping pull the twines with his teeth…He could have told me he had already found it. Wait, he couldn't talk anymore.

 

"I can't find it." Aseel nervously said, standing before me and behind her brother. I quickly took her patchy, cold hand in mine and felt the air next to her, placing it on the rope.

 

A sound of a snap; the rope broke, and I gasped, failing backwards.

 

A middle aged man walked by the doctor's house, apparently ignorant of the view to his right, the swamp water's surface reflecting the violently bright white flashes around a frozen mermaid in the air, and four people and a dog pulling an invisible rope abruptly declining backwards and diffusing onto the snow. The man normally proceeded down the street past the surreal scene on his way to work…or someplace.

 

Magic does exist, that I believed, but not everyone could see it, as if the Doctor's house with all its wonders had been engulfed in a murky sphere.

 

The bright white flash unleashed the congealed child in the air and bolted into the swamp, bursting loudly then fading, breaking the inert black water surface into disturbed sloshing currents.

 

Aseel and I yelped from our places on the ground, pointlessly armoring our faces from the icy shower dousing the edge of the swamp.

 

My eyes unconsciously traced the siren steeply falling in the air, the distance between her and the snowy earth dangerously diminishing as she crumpled. And before I knew it, I had already sprinted up on my feet shooting under the drizzle with stretched arms towards her, spinning around and thumping down on my back to lessen the ache of her fall.

 

Where did that speed come from?

 

I sharply groaned at the punch my stomach received once she landed. God, she was COLD, I hissed at the bitter shiver scaling my spines.

 

Late Discovery: the pain was inevitable on either side…

 

"Did you see how fast he moved just now?" I heard Rami's exclaim further, "What kind of time trick was that?"

 

"Are you alright, son?" Dr. Farfoor worriedly asked, approaching along with the twins, their feet crunching in the snow close to my head, as I still lay groaning my lower body buried beneath the unmoving child.

 

"I'm good." I assured him, towing my back straight up with my elbows, elevating the child's head between the soaked, beige sleeves of my arms, "Hey…" I said in a hushed tone, lightly tapping the icy, pastel skin of her face. "Were you guys supposed to do that?" I wryly asked, raising my head to the Doctor, "Pull her out of the water, I meant." She didn't seem to be breathing; I couldn't feel it.

 

"Akeed (certainly)," Rami said in a 'duh' kind of tone, "Had she stayed a month longer, she would have died, killing all of us along."

 

What…?

 

"Rami, Aseel, move aside." The doctor's voice was low and solemn as he kneeled down near the girl's tilted head resting on my knees. "In the name of Repentance," he recited, brushing away the few wet curls of gold between her eyes, "Acceptance, and Forgiveness, I mend those unjust lesions." A soft glow generated around his wrinkled hands scanning her forehead, intensifying downwards to the sea-green fishtail that gradually dissolved, leaving underneath a pair of pastel, lean thighs, legs, and feet. Oh. My. God…my wide, brown eyes wordlessly blinked.

 

I guessed right; the doctor really could turn animals back into human form, I internally beamed, my eyes searching the spot for the Husky. Where did he go?

 

"She's safe now." Dr. Farfoor sighed in relief, unfolding his knees, heading back to the main entrance "The guardians ought to be immediately informed.. They had already sensed her emergence. I will be back." There was no banal smoke, nor was there a silly finger-snap before the old wizard faded into the colors of the snow and the air.

 

"Hey, wait!" Rami fretfully called, "What are we supposed to do with her?"

 

Physically appearing a couple of years older than my eleven-year-old sister, Nara, the pastel siren was as light as a feather; it was the former sea-green tail extending down her waist that carried most of the weight; small, cherry, red lips plastered on a round angelic face, below the shut large eyes between long, whitish eyelashes. The golden, dripping waves of her hair flowing in between my arms, partially censoring her chest, its curved ends touching the snowy earth.

 

She was distinctively beautiful, Rami and I exhaled in awe at the same time.

 

The sound of a zip, a few button clicks, and a black robe hurled down onto the girl's bare, pastel flesh.

 

Aseel dryly said crossing her arms, her eyes dangerously wincing behind the glasses, dressed in a crimson high-neck sweater and blue pants underneath the robe she had just removed, "The show is over. Is it not?" I flinched at her irritated tone behind me, wordlessly lowering my untamed, wet blue-black fringes over the blush.

 

"You pedophiles…" she said in a disgusted voice.

 

"I am not a pedophile." was Rami's defensive reply.

 

Rami and I carried Miriam into the doctor's house, placing her in the bed of the only room with electric heating…or any kind of heating, until she had revived. Her body was so cold I doubted continuous days of heating would be enough to melt the frost coated pastel skin. It was best for the room lights to be dimmed, the doctor told us, and the door closed away from noise and sight, lest she not be startled by the unfamiliar faces.

 

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"So that's where you've been." I said my eyes locating the Husky roaming close around the wooden cabinets beneath the potion shelves in the living room, "What are you doing?" his dispassionate, baby-blue eyes took a glimpse into mine, turning back around to sniff at the wood.

 

"No, no." Dr. Farfoor shook a finger, "Don't leave your dog near those cabinets."

 

I wanted to ask why, but refrained; it was none of my business.

 

"Follow me outside back by the swamp," He mildly requested, "the children and I are setting a new fire."

 

"D-Doctor, wait." I swallowed the chunk of tension in my throat.

 

"Yes?" he turned half-around.

 

"I need to ask you something. What you did by the swamp a few minutes ago, you really can transform th--"

 

"Ah, that, " he interrupted slightly adjusting his spectacles, "I'll answer all your questions outside by the fire." He gave me one of those fake-assuring smiles.

 

Why not tell me now…? I sighed, my eyes turning to the slightly curious shade of blue in the Husky's eyes.

 

The wintry, dull twilight rapidly shriveled to cloudy black. Amazingly, four hours had passed since I stepped into this surreal piece of land, but it was worth it. Flashes crossed my mind of the hopeless words the dog spoke to me back in the marble cavern.

 

 I was anxious to tell him he might finally return to human form very soon. I failed to suppress a childish smile. He turned away to sniff around the wooden cabinets again.

 

"You heard what the old man said." I lightly surrounded his furry neck with my palms and tried to turn him away from the shelves, "What the--" he wouldn't even budge, I internally gasped, he resisted me.

 

What was so magnificent about sniffing around the deadly-smelling potions anyway?

 

"No--Huskeh!" I groaned my head winding backwards, my knees half bent, as I tried to pull him harder, "You're getting me in trouble with the bearded mummy at the wrong time!"

 

Ah, this never looked easy from the very unintended beginning.

Author's Note

This chapter took long enough to write! So editting shouldnt take that long. As I said, my style of writing has diverged since the past year and a half, for the better ofcourse. So, uhm as I go along the lines, there were some expressions or reactions that sounded a little immature, uh. What else? Okay, putting that aside, ah, also, since I adore culture and religion, I've included a hint of that wherever the colors fit, but not too much to make you roll your eyes or just get lost in between the lines. Magic, besides what we see in Harry Potter, is a despised feared power. Normally shunned as a sin. But what if people used it to help nourish the earth?? Comments and constructive advice will be reallly helpful. Enjoy ^^.

Reviews

[Coyote Poetry]

The chapter was very entertaining. You create many interesting situations. I like the concept and feel of this chapter. The situations seem almost real. Great conversation and story in this chapter. A excellent chapter. Thank you.
Coyote

[Erin]

“Magic does exist, that I believed, but not everyone could see it, as if the Doctor's house with all its wonders had been engulfed in a murky sphere.”
It’s an incredibly powerful statement for what the chapter really is all about, and I like it a lot. I think, though, that you should replace the commas around “that I believed” with dashes to create a more dramatic appeal.
I also think that it might be better off if you break up this sentence into more of a moving description of this realization. Just a thought.
“Late Discovery: the pain was inevitable on either side…”
I like this sentence as well, but if you are to use a colon after “discovery” – which I think you should so, it’s a very dramatic point – then you have to capitilize “the” to create a grammatically correct sentence.
What I’m really trying to say is that I loved loved LOVED your word choice in this chapter. It really embodied what you were trying to say through this chapter. Great job.
PBP

[Havatara]

The siren, had you before mentioned her name before you called her Miriam? I can't really remember, but you hadn't mentioned it in a while, at least, so it just seemed a bit off. Maybe use it again or give a little explanation of who Miriam is when Rami and Jad take her to the bed. I like the story so far. Something seems weird with the doctor.... I guess I'll just have to read to find out. Happy holidays.

[tshigg]

Great story. I like the flow. You do a good job of pacing the story.

[Jonathan De Elvira]

And again you've done a great job adding the chapters, keep on going mate, I'm getting more interested now..

[Revenge<3'sMe]

Nice chapter, send me the next please!!!!

[KarenDN]

This is a good chapter. You're really a good writer. Thanks for the read...

[Deviant Works]

Incredible scene with the siren. Very magical to envision with the swamp, the invisible rope and the wonderful characters you have created. Can't wait to see if Dr. Farfoor can really change Husky back.:) Great chapter, Wella. And I have to say you have an amazing vocabulary.