In the old days, the husbands would happily hang around, providing for the wife and child. Not since the Coda. In a strange, global, mass-separation, every husband and father I’d heard of, once the Siren song was broken, walked out on the family and never returned.
It wasn’t that the Siren women weren’t beautiful. Even without the power of their song, a Siren would likely look like a fantasy filled with fine wine. The husbands weren’t necessarily bad men either; they were just forced to realize that they’d been living under the influence for their entire relationship. Even if the choice to bed a Siren was a pleasant one, they knew they hadn’t made it with a sound mind. After the incident, they were truly free, possibly for the first time in years, and ventured off with shame, confusion and a desire to make their lives their own again.
Mrs Gladesmith came to the door dressed in a nightgown and despair. Her eyes were red, her cheeks bloated and her hair a mess, yet she was still an indestructible beauty. We entered the living room and I sat down in an armchair with too many cushions. She offered tea and I declined.
“With milk or without?” she asked.
Her mind was somewhere far away, miles out to sea.
“Without. Thanks.”
She went into the kitchen and I was left alone in a room so full of sadness it was suffocating. Even the wallpaper looked suicidal. I transferred a few cushions to the couch and sat back.
It was a living room made for unwrapping presents and spending warm nights by the fire. Above the mantel was a timeline of family photos. January featured in all of them, mostly alongside her mother. Both of them looked beautiful and bright. This house had not been immune to the changes in the world, it had just accepted them and tried its hardest to adapt.
She returned with two ceramic cups and a sugar bowl, balanced on a silver tray. When she set them down on the coffee table, I was hit with an unexpected pang of nostalgia. The factories in Sunder City were almost exclusively powered by the underground fire pits. They all went quiet when the Coda happened, so a lot of industries dried up. Ceramic and other materials had become suddenly rare, so if you were a clumsy oaf like me, that left you with tin dinnerware pretty quickly. The cheap kind that screeches when you rub against it with the knife. Luckily, most of my meals came from a bottle.
“Thank you, Mrs Gladesmith.”
“Call me Deirdre.”
I nodded. She perched on the edge of the couch, not allowing herself to get too comfortable. I understood the inclination. Her daughter was missing and everything inside her wanted to do something about it. To sleep was to abandon her. A smile was betrayal. To ever be at ease, while her baby was missing, would feel like she’d failed as a mother. Neither of us touched the tea.
“How long has she been gone?”
On the phone, I’d told her I wasn’t a police officer but that I was working privately to find another missing person. I said that my case, the details of which I could not divulge, crossed over with the disappearance of her daughter. Though I wasn’t explicitly searching for January, I thought there was a chance we could help each other. She didn’t sound very impressed with me but she was desperate enough to give anyone a shot.
“Three days. She left the house Saturday morning and I haven’t seen her since.”
It had been more than a week since Rye disappeared. They hadn’t gone missing together, but that didn’t mean there wasn’t a connection.
“Any idea where she was heading?”
“I thought maybe she’d gone to see a friend but the police interviewed all of them. All that I know of. No one was expecting her. She’s a good girl. We’re very close.”
“What were her interests?”
Deirdre shuffled, then grabbed one of my discarded cushions and held it tight.
“The usual stuff. Boys, books, games.”
I nodded and adopted my most understanding tone.
“It’s all right, Deirdre. There’s no judgment from me.”
She shot me a deadly look.
“What are you talking about?”
“I heard she wanted to be a singer.”
She had barely made eye contact with me since I’d arrived. Now she was well and truly pulling away from my presence, retreating into her own head.
“I told her it wasn’t right. People will think it’s pathetic, or perverse. It’s a shame. She has a beautiful, natural voice. Not like the old days, of course, but it’s sweet. She’s not trying to charm anyone.”
I nodded. Siren women were often pushed to the fringes of society. Mental manipulation had been a forbidden practice for all spellcasters: Wizards, Witches, Warlocks, Mages. The Opus made an exception for Sirens. It was in their blood. They weren’t able to reproduce or even have relationships without pairing themselves through song. I think everyone always assumed it was somewhat voluntary anyway. Who wouldn’t want to claim a beautiful Siren as their own?
Like a lot of other questions, the Coda brought the answers nobody wanted to hear. Since the worldwide divorce of the Siren population from their partners, a singing Siren gained less respect than a two-bit lady of the night.
That was why Deirdre didn’t want her daughter singing. Did she know that Rye had been helping her?
“How does she find the school?”
Deirdre smiled for the first time.
“It’s been so good for her. I was worried at first. Everything felt so scattered. All our families split apart. The old life was gone and no one who could tell us what the new one would be. How do you teach your child the ways of the world when you don’t know what kind of world it is? Then we heard about Ridgerock. I saw her on the first day, playing with the other children, and knew I’d made the right choice. She’s such a good student, always studying up on something.”
“At the library?”
“Yes. I love that old building. I’m one of the few Sirens that grew up in Sunder. I was in the library the last time the fires flared up. It came right up the hill, so we all huddled together in the basement. It was so hot that the water in the taps came out boiling. That was before I left to see the world. I traveled a lot, you know. Just like January wants to do.”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a journal that I’d taken from Rye’s tutoring files. Recorded inside were scribbled notes from their lessons together.
“Her tutor, Professor Rye. Have you met him?”
From the way she nodded her head it must have weighed more than a wrecking-ball.
“What a gentle soul he is. So intelligent. And January really loves learning from him.”
“What do they study?”
“Oh, history. Language, I think.”
Perhaps she was lying, but it was more likely that her daughter had lied to her. After Deirdre warned her about singing, January must have decided to keep her lessons a secret.
“Why do you think Rye wanted to tutor her?”
She knitted up her brow like I’d poked her between the eyes.
“I don’t know. He saw something in her. Something… how did he describe it? Enduring. Yes. He believed in the importance of carrying things forward. We’ve already lost so much…”
She trailed off. Her mind was going to someplace that I wouldn’t be able to get her back from. I stood up and went over to the mantel. There was a picture of January in front of the house that looked more recent than the rest.