Authors: Anne Carlisle
However, his gifts are also a curse. His mental acuity invites suspicion; his physical presence puts strangers on guard. Now Dakota
makes a guttural whooping noise, like a crane setting out on a fishing mission. A pair of tourists turn around to gawk as he addresses his final remarks to the gray sky.
“
I swear it on my mother's grave. The White-Eye will pay for their disrespect of my father and my people!” The dawdlers scurry away, fearful of him.
He is a proud descendant of the Lakota Sioux tribe, not a rube to be put off with fairy tales about curses and Egyptian queens. Once he catches up with Pa's half-sister, he will
make the family pay for their disrespect before they get quit of him. That is,
if
they can get quit of him. It will be better if he does not let on who he is at first, not until it is too late in the game for his snooty relatives to take precautions against him.
H
is infallible memory obliges him with nuggets of purely useful information about Alta, Wyoming, that one-horse town where his father's half-sister lives. Alta has been in the national news lately. All stories feature a destination hotel built on Alta Mountain in the early ‘70s. It should not be too difficult to find day work there while he gets the lay of the land. Dakota is talented with his hands and is employed part-time as a carpenter for the Alex Johnson Hotel. His references are solid.
A smile flits over his face, relaxing the tense muscles under his remarkably taut, flawless skin. Alta, t
he town where Pa was most likely conceived, is only a tiny dot on the northeast corner of Wyoming. Yet it seems to be on the national register for weirdoes and supernatural woo woo.
“Since opening in 1972, the Alta Hotel has earned a reputation among the cognoscenti with its castle-like presence at the top of a mountain. But lately, controversy has arisen over its X-rated, private gentlemen's club, B. L. Zebub's Poolhall Saloon.”
“Breaking news: today Alta's so-called 'psychic witch-hunter,' Mrs. Letty Brown-Hawker, chained herself to a sapodilla tree and demanded a national boycott of the Alta Hotel on grounds of 'satanic infestation.'“
“Following yesterday's report, there was no comment from the hotel's management firm, Drake Enterprises, the largest development concern in Wyoming, regarding Mrs. Letty Brown-Hawker's claim that 'a siren conclave and devil worship are going on right under our noses, endangering the souls and even the lives of innocent villagers.' Brown-Hawker asserts Alta has been plagued with paranormal events since homesteading days. She has publicly challenged the hotel's owner, Harold Augustus Drake, to 'change the saloon's name or face dire consequences.'“
This kind of paranormal buzz is so much the better for his purposes and the worse for the White-Eye. There is no point in staying here. He will waste no time in heading to Alta.
At the risk of repeating myself, I must stress that, u
nlike the sirens of the ancient world, modern sirens live quietly among ordinary humans as members of their species. We are plagued with the same problems as ordinary mortals, only magnified, and, if we get tangled in our own webs, there are usually bad results for everyone concerned. Then there is the family curse, which is entirely beyond our control.
I am here in dreaded Alta tonight only
because of such a case, one which concerns the remaining members of my clan. They are my fifty-nine-year old daughter Chloe Vye, and our cousins, Faith Bellum and her thirty-year-old daughter, Marlena Mae Bellum. This week, the Zanelli sirens, both the living and the dead, have convened in the strange village where the curse began. Supposedly we are here for a holiday reunion, but our focus is on Marlena, and the key agenda is the story that will be told to her this evening. We must inform her how we came to be accursed. The family skeleton is unearthed with a single purpose: to educate the youngest siren about her true nature and her obligations.
Perfect recall
, a gift which some mere humans have, is a useful skill, though it can make for a boring lecturer if he doesn't know how to cut off the spiel. Chloe has this ability in the extreme, and it has helped her construct our siren's tale for tonight. She need only glance at the page of a book to have it indelibly printed in her mind.
We
elder sirens agree on very little, but we are now all in agreement Marlena is in dire and immediate need of home schooling. Changing a mind is never easy. It is even more challenging when a young siren has no idea of who she is and also has her pretty head up her ass.
Do not expect our
siren's tale to be a factual history of our tribe, or a scientific explanation of our powers. Neither history nor science can compare to literature in its power to alter a mind, and literature is what we have in store for Marlena's edification. The magical power of storytelling cannot be overestimated. A story that can move the heart may change more than the listener's destiny. This is the best siren's trick of all.
Chloe
and I will share the mantle as we tell our lengthy story, appropriately, on the longest night of the year. Chloe will have no difficulty commanding Marlena's undivided attention, as she has always been Marlena's second mother. My daughter is a world-famous psychologist. Tonight, however, she ventures outside the domain of science. For our purposes and with great skill and cunning, she has blended my history with a classic cautionary story told by a nineteenth-century British master, Thomas Hardy.
Now, the late ‘70s is a time
of feminism and sexual revolution. Mr. Hardy is widely regarded as a dour misogynist and is not popular with women of the ‘70s. On principle, Marlena, who regards herself as a feminist, has not read him, which is another reason why this particular material has been borrowed to carry the day. I wonder if “feminist” is a correct term for Marlena's persona. Perhaps she regards herself as one because she has a lesbian roommate in San Francisco and donates money to Planned Parenthood.
W
ho knows why women of her generation behave differently from what they profess to believe in?
I do know
cousin Marlena must be convinced of the error of her ways before the week is out. As Will Shakespeare wrote, “the play's the thing.” (Actually, the genius who wrote that wonderful line was Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford, perhaps the world's greatest example of the rare gifted male siren.)
To spin another metaphor, our play
is a cloak of many colors, covering a multitude of sins. If we succeed with it, the Zanelli siren line will be saved from extinction. If we don't…well, color us gone.
I predict our story will have the desired effect, that our young cousin will detach herself from Harry Drake but keep
her unexpected pregnancy. Our challenge is that these moves are the polar opposite of what she is planning on doing. At this moment, she is daydreaming of escaping with her lover to Key West after a quick abortion in Cheyenne. Quite a feat, if we can pull off a complete change of heart. Which is not to say there won't be unintended consequences.
My role tonight is twofold—firstly, to convince
Marlena she is a siren wired to hear voices of the dead, not a madwoman; secondly, to add particulars that will keep her riveted, once she understands her true nature. Since our siren reunion began, Marlena has witnessed two paranormal events. If only she would view them seriously!
First, there was her unpleasant Saturday afternoon encounter with Alta's self-appointed witch-hunter,
Letty Brown-Hawker, who took it upon herself to repeat the ancestral curse laid down by her ancestress, Widow Brown. This was an interesting prelude to the second event, earlier today, when Marlena was confronted with the trashing of her beloved B. L. Zebub's Poolhall Saloon by supernatural vandals.
The private club attached to the Alta Hotel is featured in
Playboy
magazine and celebrated by decadents on both coasts as “the West's answer to Plato's Retreat.” After surveying the costly damage that had been inflicted overnight on the icon of his success, Marlena's employer dismissed her like a bad habit.
“
Wait. Who did all this?” Marlena asked Harry in bewilderment.
“
You tell me. But you’ve missed the best part, lass.”
He flung back the velvet drape from the wall-size mirror, revealing three lines of blood-red writing scrawled in a childishly rounded hand:
“Behold: the handiwork of Marlena Bellum, who has invited Satan into our midst.
“
Harry Drake, this is your final warning: stand against the forces of evil! Smite the snakes of hell from the red hair of Satan's whore, or your eyes will be turned to stone.”
Marlena
and Harry stared at each other.
“
Someone thinks you need a haircut, Marlena. Or perhaps you staged this, to get my sympathy and attention. I wouldn't put it past you. In any event, I want you out, now.”
Why doesn't
Marlena believe something beyond the pale is going on here? Instead, she blames a local club of cut-throat Calvinists who disapprove of her affair. Ha! As if that windbag Letty Brown-Hawker had the power to pull off such a spectacle!
I stag
ed the surreal vandalism myself, of course. Not that I expect any thanks for my trouble. My dead son and I wrecked the bar, but not to be bloody mean. We did it so Harry would boot Marlena from the Alta Hotel, putting her precisely where she needs to be: under our protection at Mill's Creek.
The oak bar's mirrored panels are warped and buckled, so the beholder's reflection appears
grotesquely distorted. At the midpoint of the central mirror is a gaping hole, a crater the size of a manhole cover, where Caesar hurled a javelin that was fashioned with red Indian feathers. And the coup de grace—the priceless hardwood floor is littered in smashed glass and swarming with thousands of wriggling worms and crawling snakes. Disgusting, but effective. The message echoes Letty's dire prediction that death awaits them—two deaths, to be precise—if Harry Drake and “Satan's whore” do not cease and desist from their unholy alliance.
Of course
Marlena is devastated, but what did she expect? That Drake would carry her off into the sunset, ignoring the threat to his bottom line?
I expect more trouble. I removed my zither from its hiding place when the reunion began. Our
magic cloak is stashed in a locked cabinet in Chloe's bedroom closet, but I can swiftly move it in a swoop of telekinesis, should the need arise.
I mention this because, in my dreams, I have seen
Marlena wearing the cloak, and there are tears streaming down her face. I am struck by the likelihood of dire events occurring at the end of our reunion week, though I have not mentioned this to Chloe. On Sunday evening, at Chloe's annual Christmas Fire Night Ball, I expect a dramatic denouement. I suppose I shall have to stand guard with the old cloak, just in case those unintended consequences I spoke of earlier take center stage.
Ahem, girls, are you ready? Time is a-wasting, and the curse waits for no one.
Oh, dear. Chloe and Marlena are looking right through me, ogling the sunset over Alta Mountain. My living descendants can hear me, but they cannot see me in my present form, which is identical to when I was a twenty-year-old siren at the height of my powers. Ah well, telepathy is not all it is cracked up to be. I stand in this wretched place, ready to sacrifice my secrets for the sake of my tribe. Do I have a choice?
Now, for my tastes, the vivid palette of carnal desire is far more appealing than a cold Wyoming sunset.
I would flush all over when a purple-headed cock penetrated the shell-shaped curve of my roseate pussy. I would burn like the colossal fires of the noonday sun when the sparks of flesh-to-flesh contact began to fly. If only my chaste daughter allowed herself the pleasures of sex, she would not be watching the sunset with only her young cousin as company, and we would not be in this quandary!
I'll take my bows later.
The
purple-streaked clouds and violet shadows cast by Alta Mountain are centered on a blood-red, plummeting fireball.
“
Just look at that sunset!” Chloe Vye exclaims. “What could be more beautiful?”
The second-story balcony where they sit overlooks
Mill's Creek Pond. Sprawled in the Adirondack chair beside her is thirty-year-old Marlena Bellum. Marlena's full-length raccoon coat is open at the throat to receive the last rays of the departing sun.
Neither can
see the family ghost on the door ledge behind them, the diaphanous white gown a filmy contrast with the shining masses of red-gold curls rippling down her back. They can hear Cassandra, however. Each evening since Saturday, when the reunion began, there has been a zither playing in the background. The sounds of
plink-plink-plink
waft in on the winds coming off the Black Hills.
Marlena
assumes the ethereal music is imagined or a temporary dysfunction in her hearing. Flashing a gay smile, which is belied by her sad expression, she raises her glass.
“
I give you Cassandra, the one-woman show. Here's to the Old West's most mysterious femme fatale.”
Chloe's expression is impassive, while
Marlena's dazzling blue-green eyes sparkle defiantly, silently daring her older mentor to utter a single negative syllable about the adulterous affair she is having—and has been having, for five years.
“
Do you realize, Chloe, I have been waiting two decades to hear Cassandra's story? Here is another reunion toast, to the end of our long battle of wills. When I have heard tonight's tale, I win! Hip, hip, hooray!”
Daughter,
I can see you need my help reining in Marlena's proud, willful spirit. She has perhaps been kept in the dark too long about her true nature and responsibilities.
As they sip champagne, the plinking sounds become fainter. Each cousin is keeping to
herself thoughts about where the family reunion is headed.
Putting on the heavy rob
es of the epic storyteller will require all her wits and energy, Chloe is thinking. But will it be enough?
She speaks in a neutral tone:
“Of course you are welcome to view tonight as a personal victory, dear. However, when long-held secrets are passed on to the next generation, along with the free entertainment comes a serious expectation.”
Marlena
narrows her eyes suspiciously. “Such as?”
“
You must promise to discontinue exercising your wiles on unsuspecting bartenders.”
The younger woman breaks into child-like giggles.
Not funny. Using our powers for bar tricks is not permitted.
Last evening,
Marlena applied her psychic will power to play a trick for the amusement of Dr. Ron Huddleston. As they sat on vintage saddle barstools at Zebub's, Marlena made Julio, the new bartender, wait on her, though his instructions were to ignore the staff when the bar was busy. She stared directly into his eyes, meanwhile pressing her long fingers to the center of her sternum, and silently ordered them drinks.
Located on her sternum is a tiny, jagged white birthmark in the shape of a lightning bolt. Harry calls it
“the zipper over your heart.” Before, when Marlena concentrated on Harry while pressing on the birthmark, her lover would quickly appear or call her. She believes the birthmark is a good luck charm and her lover's eagerness a sign of their intuitive, intense bond. Alas, despite repeated attempts to will Harry to her side since learning of her pregnancy, she has received only radio silence. Has the ritual stopped working, has Harry lost interest, or is something blocking her will?
“
Did Dr. Ron tell you about my trick?” Marlena asks Chloe.
“
Yes, he did.”
“
It wasn't very nice of Typhoid Ronnie to talk behind my back.”
In the second grade she nicknamed her best friend
“Typhoid Ronnie,” because Ron Huddleston had infected her with a plethora of childhood illnesses, from German measles to scarlet fever. Now Dr. Ron is her physician and the only man other than Coddie Dimmer, her estranged husband, who knows she is pregnant.