Her song of the Salish Sea

“We, the Thirteen Sisters of the Salish Sea…

Summon and call upon thee…

From the depths of the ocean floor,

To the tallest harvest moon,

Who controls our tides,

Protects our crystals and powers.

To grant passage to rise and bring us our new Queen.”

Thalassa addresses the assembly with her deep soothing voice. She grips a dazzling aquamarine crystal, in her left hand. Dark scarlet blood, oozes from her palm, holding a tarnished golden chalice. The chalice collects droplets of blood, before they disperse, like red fireflies in the dark water.

The ocean was still. Holding its breath. The siren sisters, begin to hum softly in unison. Their voices, melodious and haunting.

They seal the spell together, holding their chosen crystals and chant, “For thee, who has gifts of the Sea and is born from the scorched Earth. Drink our lifeline and safe our sisters with our song.”

They swiftly shape shift into a diamond formation and begin to create a current with their fins. Their graceful movements weave a captivating dance, like the facets of a diamond, refracting light beneath the surface. Scaley tales and luminous skin under the moonlight. Each siren has flowing tresses of colourful hair, that ripple like sea kelp.

Thalassa remains in the centre, her indigo hair resembling electric eels. Her bright white tale swirling slowly, with her eyes close she begins, “Our Queen, has fallen, let her rest on the sea floor.” Thalassa reluctantly, parts with a delicate golden locket. The dark hands of the ocean submerge the locket, and it sinks out of sight.

The assembly grows quiet and still, with Thalassa’s interruption. Eleven sirens edge closer to Thalassa. Seraphine, a young siren, watches with apprehension, she tries to slowly drift farther from the group.

“You must be the one to go,” Thalassa’s breathy voice crackles in Seraphina’s ear.

She suddenly emerges beside the youngest siren. A gaunt pale girl. A newly formed siren. The chalice is quickly passed, cut palms drop their respective beads of blood into its interior. They follow their ancestral accustomed ritual.

“You must find them. They will be drawn to your power of persuasion and disguise. You must bring her to us.” Thalassa instructs her.

“Use your voice, entrance and entice them, pull them under your spell.” The sisters sneer and giggle, while they begin to grab at Seraphina’s dark hair. They comb through it with their webbed hands and coo at her. As if she is an unaware child of the daunting task ahead of her.

“I do not want to drown a human,” she whispers back. Her voice shaking subtly, not trusting herself to sound emotionless. She averts her gaze from the sirens.

“You will not, if they are the one. They will submerge with you.”

“The Salish Sea will grant them passage,” chimes out both Odessa and Lai. The golden twins. Their eyes match their hair and fins.

“How will I know if they are the chosen one?” She raises her emerald eyes to Thalassa’s stern haunting gaze. She passes her the chalice. Her eyes are opaque pearls.

“They will be hooked to you, like a caught fish…unable to pull away.” Thalassa eagerly pushes the chalice to Seraphine’s quivering lips.

Seraphine, defenseless and queasy with unease, consumes the remaining drops of a thick metallically liquid. Now completing the last portion of the spell.

It dawns on her now, she is the only one positioned to find their new Queen from earth.

First, she must drown her first, and then turn her into a Siren Sister with the blood of the sisters. Just as the sisters had done to her two years ago.

Except this time, she is alone and hunting down a Monarch.

…..

Hues of pink, purple and gold, melt across the horizon. The water laps gently against the rocky shore. The gems shine against the black rocks. Broken shells shiver under the first drops of the sun. Their bellies smooth as glass, tarnished by the relentless waves.

He sat high in the black boulders, which scaled the side of the cliff looking down into a small cove. The cove had a small inlet, the tidal pool of turquoise water teeming with sea life. When it was a wavy current, sea foam would dance in the breeze.

The familiarity of the cove allowed him to be nimble. He knew there was only one rock that was large enough close to cover his entire body. It had a fist size crack on the left side, allowing him to peer through to see the tidal pool’s entrance.

He never told anyone pink cove. He willed that no one would discover his hidden sanctuary.

He knew his power was special. The weight of the pressure to learn how to fulfill his prophecy felt too consuming for a 15-year-old boy. He yearned for the freedom of the other boys in the kingdom. Envious of the groups of them who lived freely, hunted, climbed trees, and played leisurely in the streets.

They did not partake in hours of training to learn to hold a bow and arrow to shoot perfectly at a target, or hunt vigorously, as his father willed him to do. The shackles of his father’s wandering eyes’ felt immense and suffocating.

Suddenly, the water rippled. His daydream froze, as his heart fluttered against the rocks. He watched bright green scales dance under the water’s surface.

She finally broke the surface. A tangled rope of black glistening hair, like sea kelp. Her bone-white skin, sparkled under the sun, as he watched her long arm strain for a gem along the shoreline.

He was awestruck by this human half-sea creature. He wished he could move closer to really look at her or just see a glimpse of the creature’s face.

He placed his chest flat against the black hot rocks. Feeling restless, morning hunger gnawed at his stomach. He knew he should have packed figs or nuts to snack on while he waited.

He could tell from how poised and beautiful the creature was, that only a girl, could possess such a natural affinity with the earth.

He studied the curved of her long smooth neck and her tangled dark hair cascading into the water. Straining his eyes he relaxed and watched her float aimlessly on the surface, to then sink under the water.

She was humming, an entrancing melody, a song he could not understand.

Under the water she would disappear, this time for longer periods. To emerge again, cupping the pink gems in her hands.

He adjusted, crouching forward and straining his eyes. He wanted to imprint the details of her to his brain.

She was more extraordinary than anything he had every come across in the entire kingdom realm, more entrancing than the gems of the cove.

The starfish seemed to lean toward her once she entered the cove. He felt an intense magnetic pull to go to her and understand her song.

A low grumble rose in his body. Sharply she turned her head, she heard me.

He felt his cheeks redden, struck by her piercing eyes, emerald.

Green, as bright as the stone and fresh moss. They shone under the rising sun, as they locked eyes.

She had a human face and all he could see was fear. It happened before he could even intake a breath, and she sunk beneath the surface. The water did not even ripple or break.

He stood up, frantically looking out towards the sea if she would emerge.

He watched the sun climb higher over the expansive blue canvas. She was gone.

The sinking feeling of disappointment and regret for frightening her, washed over him in powerful waves.

He strangely felt, looking into her bright eyes, that something much deeper and darker stirred in her too.

…

After that day at Pink Cove. He came every morning for one entire year, waiting for her.

She never came.

What started as a daily disappointment, lead to pure dread.

He eventually lost hope and left pink cove behind – chalking it up as out time in his boyhood when he made up fantasizes or lost himself.

Only eight years in passing.

When he came back one morning to find solace in his troubled mind. She was already there. Her long black tangled hair swirled in the tidal pool’s water. Years had aged them both.

She was fingering a small broken piece of a purple shell. This time she did not move a muscle when he started climbing down towards her.

Her eyes shone white, like a gleaming pearl, he thought. As she reached for him, wet slippery hands and submerged his shoulders into water.

…

Seraphine would go on her quest to bring the Siren Sisters, their first and newfound King.

That would shape and torment the prophecy of the Salish Sea Sirens’ for eternity…