Atlantia

Maire shrugs. “How does one get a collection of anything?” she asks. “I kept an eye out in the deepmarket. When I saw one I liked, I bought it. I’ve been gathering them for years.”

“Is that how you hear me?” I ask Maire, gesturing to the shells. “Do you pick up one and listen?”

“No,” Maire says. “Those shells are all empty.”

“That’s what you said about the sirens,” I say. “You said they were empty. Vacant.”

“Yes,” Maire says. “That’s how the Council wants them to be. And over the years, the Council has become very good at breaking sirens down.”

“What happened?” I ask. “You told me about the time when the sirens were worshipped. When did they come to be hated?”

“It’s a terrible story,” Maire says. “Are you sure you want to hear it?”

I am, but I’m not sure I want to hear her tell it. It’s one thing to hear of the past from a distance, in the shell, removed from the power of Maire’s voice. It’s another to sit in her home, to look her in the eye as she speaks.

“Did my mother ever come inside this room?” I ask.

“Not on the day she died,” Maire says.

She doesn’t have to answer me directly, because we’re speaking with each other in person. For a moment I want to ask her questions in the shell, see her dance. But that feels wrong. She is not a puppet. Neither am I. She gave me the shell as a gift for when we are apart, so I can keep learning.

But right now we are together.

What does Maire know? I still feel that she hasn’t told me everything about my mother’s death. And is Maire aware that Nevio is a siren? Even though the thought of Nevio fills me with revulsion, I have a strange feeling that the three of us—Nevio, Maire, and me—are connected in some way. We are all sirens who have secrets.

In the full light, Maire looks old and young, as if she has always been and as if she is very new. The light dances on her hair and in her eyes. She waits for me to decide whether or not I will listen as if she has all the time in the world. At the same time, her very stillness lets me know that we do not, because in that stillness I hear Atlantia breathe. And then I hear something more. Voices.

I draw in my breath.

“Yes,” Maire says. “It’s like I told you at the wishing pool. The voices are all there. Waiting for someone to hear. I’ve listened to many of them over the years, but I’m finished with that now. I’ve heard enough. Now it’s my time to tell.”

“And it’s still my time to listen.” I keep the bitterness from my voice, but my heart is full of it.

“Yes,” Maire says. “But not for much longer, Rio. Not for much longer at all.”

She’s going to tell me the story, and I’m going to listen. And I am afraid. I wonder if this is how my mother felt, when she went into the floodgate chamber for her trial to be Minister and the doors opened and her sister came inside.

“After several generations,” Maire begins, “some of the sirens began to use their power to control the people. And to control one another.”

Her words are simple, no embellishments. Her voice is soft, no force or threat behind it. No anger. No judgment. Only: This is what was, and I am telling it to you.

“When this happened, the majority of the sirens agreed that they should no longer be able to serve as Ministers. They didn’t want the leader of Atlantia to have too much opportunity for unfair persuasion.

“Then, several years later, there was an awful day in the temple when two of the sirens stood up and argued right before the Minister’s sermon.

“One siren stood up and screamed; the other sang.

The one singing said she had to tell the people the truth about our world. The one screaming said the people weren’t ready to hear it, that the truth could ruin them.

“After that no one could make out any of their words, only the sounds, and the sounds were terrible.

“So terrible that some of the worshippers in the temple that day died.

“They fell with blood streaming from their ears and terror in their eyes.

“They died under the statues of the gods and in full view of the congregation, and after they fell, the two sirens stopped screaming and singing. One knelt by the bodies and begged them to come back to life, but of course that didn’t work. Even a siren can’t command such a thing. The other began to weep and could not stop. The peacekeepers broke through at last and took away the sirens and, later, the bodies. No one could believe such a terrible thing had happened in the temple, where everyone is supposed to be safe.

“After that disastrous day, the Council decreed that the sirens should be under their protection and governance. The sirens were so distraught over what had happened that they agreed. They thought it was better for everyone.”

When Maire finishes, Atlantia is quiet. “And so,” Maire says, “began the long domestication and decline of the sirens.”

“Those two sirens,” I ask, “what became of them?”

“One of them agreed to abide by the new rules,” Maire says. “The other committed suicide.”

“How?”

“She drowned herself in the wishing pool,” Maire says. “The one where I met you the other day. She used locks to chain her hands and feet together, and then she threw herself into the water, at night, when she knew no one would come along to save her. Hers was the first voice I was able to hear clearly, years ago. It’s gone now. She’s gone now.”

I don’t know about that. I can picture her in my mind, seaweed-haired, blue-limbed after all these years, lurking at the bottom of the pool, two flat coins settled in the sockets where her eyes used to be. The thought makes me shiver.

“Your mother did love you,” Maire says. “But it made her afraid. You can’t let love make you afraid.”

How can she say that? And how could she leave my mother out on the doorstep that day? If Bay died like that, I would bring her inside, away from prying eyes. I would use my real voice and pray to have her back. Even though it wouldn’t work, I’d have to try.

I stand up to leave. Maire follows me downstairs, turning off the lights as she goes, darkening down the house for the last of the night.

“You know what they were, don’t you?” Maire says as I open the door. “The two sirens in the temple.”