Lost Temple of the Siren
The thing against my leg remained motionless. I reached for it apprehensively, my fingers submerging in the cold water as if passing into another dimension. The object I found was cylindrical, smooth, hard like plastic.
My flashlight! I brought it to my lap and felt for the raised grooves of its on switch. I pushed the switch forward.
Nothing.
I flicked the switch the other way. More nothing.
I leaned my head against the rough wall at my back and listened to the dripping sounds surrounding me. I was lying on a hard surface at the bottom of a perfect darkness, my legs half-submerged in running water. The foul air, cool and moist, crawled heavily over my skin and blanketed my tongue bitterly, causing me to cough. Somewhere, far away, came the muffled thrashing of the sea.
Ripples sloshed in front of me.
“Hello?” I called, my voice emerging hoarse. I cleared my throat. “Hello? Is someone there?”
No response, though I sensed a presence close by.
“I’ve fallen and my flashlight has gone out. Could I get some help?”
I strained to perceive any more movements in the dark. Hearing nothing, I placed one hand low against the wall and rose slowly.
My movements jostled the flashlight in my hand, and its beam sprang to life. Shining the light quickly around me, I found myself standing alone in a narrow, water running forcefully across the floor. I pointed my light down the tunnel in both directions, hoping to find something that would indicate the direction I should take.
The sea! I should head toward the sound of the sea. But the acoustics of the cave were echoey and misleading. I would have to choose my course carefully.
Something moved behind me! I spun to face it.
My flashlight’s flickering beam illuminated a few pebbles rolling down a sloping ledge. The pebbles plopped into the water flowing over my boots.
The water! Yes! I had come early to the cliff, before the tide was completely out. That meant the seawater was currently exiting the cave. The water would lead me to the cave’s exit!
After following the flow of water for several minutes, I heard a tinkling sound, almost like laughter… or, was it… singing? Yes, a feminine voice. Beautiful, enchanting. I quickened my steps toward the sound.
When I came to a gurgling rivulet of water streaming down the cave wall, I found that the glorious singing had stopped. After a moment, I understood why and walked on. The lovely voice I had thought I heard was actually the rivulet’s waters echoing through the odd acoustics of the cave.
Remembering the old legends of the area, I chuckled at myself. My subconscious was using my erudition to play tricks on me.
I had learned that a local myth claimed that sailors cruising past this part of the island’s coast sometimes saw a beautiful woman calling to them from a ledge halfway up the steep cliff, her sweet voice barely audible over the crashing sounds of the waves. She would beckon ardently for them to come nearer, but the jagged rocks fronting the cliffside were too treacherous for any sane captain to dare closer approach, and most crews reluctantly sailed past without altering course. However, sometimes a crew would give in to the temptation to venture closer to the beckoning beauty. These ships were inevitably crushed against the rocks, the bodies of their crewmen never recovered.
I stopped. Had a shadow passed across my flashlight’s beam?
Something tapped my wrist.
I jumped, slamming my shoulder against a sharp, protruding rock. The flashlight blinked but remained on. Turning its light toward my arm, I saw, just above my hand, a single drop of blood. Then another.
Slowly, I raised my fingers to my scalp and found the warm, sticky source of the blood, along with what felt like the dried remnants of older blood from the same tender spot. I shone the light on my clothes and saw dried blood on my jacket.
Looking past my clothes, my eyes were again drawn to the flowing water. It was almost over my boot-tops now. Why was it rising if the tide was on the way out? Unless… unless I had been unconscious a long time! If so, that would mean the water in the cave was not draining… but filling. Moving in the opposite direction I had assumed. I was going the wrong way!
Something moved past me—so closely that I felt the chill of its passing.
Holding my light in one hand, with the other I pulled my knife from the short sheath I kept fastened to my exploring belt.
A dark figure approached from the shadows. I tried to make out what it was, but—
Blood trickled into my eyes! I jerked up my hand to clear my vision, but something wrapped around my arm and held me tightly. Then, what felt like a soft fingertip began gently stroking the underside of my forearm—before piercing me!
I cried out and swung my knife wildly in front of me, trying to blink the blood from my eyes, my flashlight falling from my hand and into the water, its light dimming.
My injured arm, burning with pain, began to cool, then go numb. My vision, already obscured by blood, blurred, and my head began to swim. A squelchy, wet touch slid across my face.
I shut my eyes tightly, trying to squeeze away the last of the blood. When I opened them, I saw the lovely arm of a young woman reaching toward me from the darkness and felt a soft hand stroking my cheek.
As the flashlight sank deeper and the cave darkened, a feeling of euphoria flowed through my body. I watched, detached and amused, as a monstrous mask of thick, leathery wrinkles and large, iridescent eyes emerged from the black depths of the cave. I shook my heavy head, and the dreadful image clarified into the broad, rounded face of a beautiful woman. She stared at me with deeply compassionate eyes.
“Who—who are you?” I stammered.
You come alone? she asked, although her sensuous lips did not move.
She jerked me forward and wrapped herself around me. Agony shot through my spine, followed by waves of indescribable pleasure. I sensed her greedy, voracious need for me and reveled in it. So accustomed had I grown to the burdens of my heart, I had forgotten their weight until lifted from me, and my gratitude was boundless. It pleased me to please her. I wanted to give her anything, everything.
I felt her drawing away and clutched at her retracting arms. “No!”
Next time, my darling, she said, do not come alone…
When I awoke again in darkness, my head was pounding.
Glowing red numbers provided some light. I recognized them. My digital clock. I was in my motel room.
I found the edge of the mattress and lowered my feet to the floor. My arm burnt with pain, but the clock did not provide enough light to determine the extent of my injury.
The pounding in my head returned with greater intensity, like someone beating on all the walls at once.
“Professor Conrad!” called a deep, masculine voice. “It’s Sheriff Hidalgo. Answer the door, please.”
The sheriff?
“Be right there, Sheriff!” I called, grunting with the all-over body pain generated by my standing.
I stumbled to the dresser and found the switch for the lamp and looked at myself in the mirror. My clothes were muddy and partially wet. Dried blood covered my head and jacket.
I shrugged off my jacket, bringing it down softly over my wounded arm, and stepped to the bathroom sink, where I ran a wet a towel under the faucet and tried to wipe the blood stains from my face.
More pounding.
“Com-ing!” I called, drawing out the syllables and camouflaging my annoyance with a sing-song tone. “Bloody troglodyte…” I added under my breath.
Moving toward the door, I grabbed a hat and set it lightly on my head, just low enough to cover my scalp wound. I staggered as I reached for the doorknob, overcome with weariness.
I opened the door until its chain caught and peered through the crack into the assaulting sunlight, the sun too high for even the sheriff’s big frame to block.
He was wearing the same brown uniform I always saw him wearing around the small town, a badge sitting high on his broad chest.
“Sorry to disturb you, Professor,” he said, scanning my rumpled attire from head to foot through the narrow opening of the door. “But I need to ask you a few questions. May I come in?”
An interview with the local sheriff sounded much too exhausting at the moment. I needed a long, hot shower before I could face anything so official. “No. I don’t think so, Sheriff. I mean, I’m feeling very poorly. Perhaps later?”
“This will just take a minute. Tell me, do you recognize this man?”
He held up a large photograph of a young man with big, dark eyes and curly hair.
“No.”
“Are you sure? You don’t need to take a moment to think about it?”
“Really, Sheriff. My head is killing me. Perhaps—”
“Because some of the townspeople say they saw a young man fitting this description walking around with you not long after you got here.”
Small-town people, I thought. Always minding everyone’s business but their own.
“Really?” I said. I looked again at the picture. The face did look rather familiar. Those dark, liquidy eyes. That dimpled smile. “Oh, yes. He does remind me somewhat of that young man. But it’s not the same person.”
I caught the sheriff staring at the wound on my arm and shifted my stance so it hung behind me.
“Not the same guy, huh?” he said, his tone vaguely accusatory but his steely-eyed expression remaining neutral. “You’re sure?”
“Fairly certain, Sheriff. Although, I did only meet the boy a few times.”
“What was your relationship with him?”
I bristled at the term. “Relationship” sounded so… tawdry. “He ran a few errands for me when I first arrived on the island. Helped me get situated. I gave him a few dollars.”
“You didn’t happen to catch his name?”
“Afraid not.”
The sheriff nodded. “Didn’t think so. How did you two meet?”
“We struck up a conversation at the diner. The same way I imagine most everyone meets in this quaint little, seaside hamlet of yours.”
“I see. What else do you remember about him? Did he ever mention where he lived, his acquaintances? Say where he worked?”
“Really, Sheriff. We exchanged a few words. There’s nothing more I can tell you. And he wasn’t even the same young man you’re looking for.”
“I understand. Well, I won’t take up anymore of your time, Professor.”
“Thank you.” I began closing the door.
“How did you get that nasty cut on your arm?”
The sheriff had attempted to ask the question lightly, as if simply curious in a nosy-neighbor sort of way.
“Oh, uhm… Just a little accident.”
“Little accident? Jesus, looks like a knife wound. Fresh one, too.”
He glanced toward the empty knife-sheath on the exploring belt I was still wearing.
“No, no. Nothing like that,” I said. “Now, if you’ll excuse me. I really must—must…”
The ceiling spun once, and all was darkness again.
*** *** ***
I awoke in a hospital bed, my arm bandaged. When I tried to move, my muscles felt like jelly, and I fell back into my pillows.
The nurse, a middle-aged woman with a wide girth, heard my groan and turned to me with a plump-cheeked smile.
“Good day, Professor,” she said, stepping nearer.
“What—what happened?” I asked, hearing the weakness in my voice.
She described how I had passed out and the sheriff had brought me to the hospital. She also informed me that I had lost a lot of blood.
“I have?”
The image of shadowy, feminine form flashed like dark lightning through my mind.
“Yes,” she answered. “Your blood pressure is very low. Also, there’s a good chance you’ve suffered a concussion.”
“A concussion?”
“Yes,” she replied, pointing a finger toward her head.
I reached up a hand and found my head wrapped by a thick bandage.
“He’s conscious?”
I turned toward the baritone voice and saw the sheriff’s thick-jawed face jutting into the room. We made eye contact, and he began barreling toward me.
“Yes, but you can’t stay long, Sheriff,” said the nurse.
“Of course,” he replied. “Feel like talking, Professor?”
I turned my face toward the ceiling. “I think we’ve talked enough for today, Sheriff.”
“I’ll make it quick then. How about you tell me about those injuries now?”
I considered my situation before answering, quite aware that I had not procured any permissions to cross the chain-link fence and do what I had done the night before up at the cliff. More importantly, I did not want word of my discovery leaking out before I had established a firm claim to precedence in the academic literature.
“I didn’t feel up to getting into it earlier, Sheriff, but…well, I was attacked last night.”
“Attacked?” The sheriff’s eyes darted to the nurse before coming back on me. “Where? By whom?”
My mind began rapidly composing a story fitting only those facts I wished to divulge. “At Siren’s Cliff.”
“Ah! That evil cliff!” exclaimed the nurse, turning to some task out of the range of my vision. “Many people have drowned at that cliff, Professor, their bodies washed out to sea and never found. You stay away from there while you’re here.”
The sheriff raised his eyebrows at the nurse as if impressed by her emotivity before continuing with his questions. “Uhm, so what were you doing up at Siren’s Cliff, Professor?”
“Research.”
“Research? What kind?”
“How could that possibly be relevant to my assault?” I asked, my tone purposefully arch in hopes of halting that line of inquiry completely.
“Maybe it’s not,” responded the sheriff. “Tell me… Did you go up there to meet someone?”
The image of a dark, female figure drawing closer flashed through my consciousness. My face must have betrayed my fear and confusion, for the sheriff stepped closer.
“You okay, Professor?” he asked, more suspicion than compassion in his tone.
I quickly composed myself. “You mean other than the fact that I’ve just been brutally assaulted?”
“Sheriff, please,” said the nurse. “Must you do this now?”
“Just a couple more questions, Enid,” replied the sheriff, taking out a pad and pencil from his shirt pocket and giving the nurse the closest thing to a smile he likely possessed in his limited arsenal of expressions. He turned again to me, rubbing the bottom of his stubbly, Mount Rushmore face. “Can you describe your assailant for me, please, Professor?”
“Well, I didn’t get a very good look.”
“Do the best you can.”
Rising to the challenge, I gave the sheriff a vague description of my high school history teacher, a football coach who had obviously been hired for the field first and the classroom second and from whom I learned next to nothing, an unfortunate happenstance handicapping me for the first several years of my higher education.
“Were you robbed?” he asked after I had finished.
“Robbed? No. No, I suppose not.”
“Uh-huh. And how did you end up in the drink?”
“Pardon?”
“In the ocean. Your clothes make it pretty obvious that you went for a little swim last night.”
“I—He must have pushed me over the edge.”
“Your attacker? Over the edge of Siren’s Cliff?”
“Will I be needing to repeat many of my answers, Sheriff?” I turned to the nurse for support, but she averted her eyes and continued with whatever work she was pretending to do on the cart near the foot of the bed.
The sheriff whistled. “That was some drop. And all those rocks down there. It’s a miracle you’re alive.”
“You don’t have to tell me,” I replied evenly. “Nurse, could I have a drink of water?”
She took my request quite seriously and moved with dispatch to bring me a bottled water, giving the sheriff a disapproving look on her way past.
“So, help me with the timeline here, Professor,” resumed the sheriff. “Did your assailant cut you before or after he pushed you over the cliff?”
“Cut me?”
“Your arm.”
I looked down at my bandaged forearm. “Before,” I answered. “Obviously.”
The sheriff snapped his pad closed, an expressionless look remaining on his wide face. “That’s all for now. Thank you for your time, Professor. We’ll keep a look-out for someone matching this description. I wish you a speedy recovery.” He began toward the door.
“Thank you, Sheriff,” I said. I began rearranging myself on my pillows. “You know, I bet it was the same guy who killed that poor boy.”
The sheriff spun on a heel. “What makes you think the boy’s dead?”
“Well, I… You know better than anyone, Sheriff, the longer these missing person cases go, the more likely the outcome will be a tragic one.”
“Sadly, that’s true.”
“Come, Sheriff,” said the nurse, taking the big man’s elbow. “Let’s leave the poor professor to get some sleep.”
The sheriff acquiesced to the nurse’s less-than-gentle nudging, and they exited the small room.
Finally! I needed to collect my thoughts and try to remember what had really happened to me in the grotto. None of it was very clear to me, and chunks of time seemed to be missing. All I had were a few unnerving images that made no sense. The face of a beautiful woman. An exquisite embrace…
“Oh, one more thing, Professor.”
I looked up to see the sheriff re-entering the room. I sighed and rolled my eyes. “Yes, Sheriff?”
“That wound in your arm. They tell me it’s consistent with a wound that could have been made by your knife.”
“My knife?”
“This,” he said, holding up my own knife for me to see. “It washed up on the beach this morning.”
“I do not understand, Sheriff. Are you implying that I stabbed myself in the arm, then threw myself over Siren’s Cliff?”
“Well, now… that would be ridiculous, wouldn’t it, Professor?” he returned, setting the knife atop my clothes, which someone had washed, folded, and set on the stand beside the bed. “Besides, we found no blood on the knife.”
“Oh, that’s such a relief. Top-notch forensics work there, Sheriff.”
“Of course, any blood could have been washed off in the ocean,” he added.
“Really, Sheriff. This is bordering on harassment. Please leave me in peace.”
“Of course, Professor. It’s just that…”
“Just what?”
“Well, I made a few calls while you were sleeping. Seems you’ve had an incident of self-hurt before, haven’t you?”
Anger burned within me as I pictured this lumbering, small-town oaf trespassing over my private past, but I forced myself to remain calm. “That—that was a traumatic time, Sheriff. I had just lost my wife.”
“My condolences,” he said, turning as if to leave, then pausing. “They never found the body, did they?” he asked over his shoulder.
“The body?”
“Your wife. Her body was never recovered.”
“Good day, Sheriff,” I said, closing my eyes and folding my hands over my chest.
“Good day, Professor.”
*** *** ***
After my release from the hospital, I attempted to return to the regular course of my life, but my mind kept circling back to the cave. My normal pursuits no longer stimulated me, and academic work seemed a waste of time. I stopped checking my email or returning phone calls. Food lost all flavor. Nothing appeared worth the trouble of doing. Even Rubenstein’s Chopin failed to raise my spirits. And sleep served as no respite. Several nights in a row, I awoke to the echoes of my own screams, a shadowy figure with long, writhing tentacles disintegrating before my eyes.
For hours at a time, I remained reclined upon my bed, reliving the glorious moments of a foggily remembered embrace, picturing those lovely eyes, those full lips, those soft, smooth arms. I felt as if everything beautiful in my life had been ripped from me, and the absence was overwhelming.
At last, some number of nights after my incident in the cave—I do not know how many—I removed my bandages and left my room for some fresh air. The early evening winds had subsided, and the streets were quiet. Beyond the outskirts of town, the ocean stretched, dark and calm, to the starry horizon. My wanderings eventually took me to a dimly lit part of town where I crossed paths with a man prowling a desolate corner and wearing a flat-topped, narrow-brimmed hat low over his face. He raised his wolfish eyes at me as if he would approach, and I crossed the street to avoid him.
Eventually, I found an open store, and I returned to my room laden with full bottles, desperate to find some way of numbing the void within.
The next week crawled by in a haze. Each time reality nudged its nose under my escapist tent, I poured another glass and retreated to bed or bathtub. Some days, I would awaken to find a mess left behind from some nocturnal fit of rage or despair, furniture overturned, empty bottles strewn across the room. More than once, I curled up beneath the heavily curtained window, hungering for the light of day but not daring to face it alone.
When my last bottle ran dry, my thoughts turned to the man on the corner. Convincing myself that I needed something stronger to pull myself out of my funk, I decided to seek him out and see what comforts he could offer me.
I found him where I had left him, looking much the same as before, almost as if no time had passed for him. I made bold to introduce myself and nervously inquired about the nature of his inventory.
“Same as always,” he responded gruffly, tilting his hat back slightly. “Whatcha need, man?”
I did not much care for his vague and unhelpful answer but chose to ignore his impertinence and tried my best to describe what I wanted.
He quoted me a price, and I handed him the money, and he gave me a small bag that I stuffed immediately into my pocket.
“Do you want the girl?” he asked.
I was taken aback by the question. I supposed he had some wretched woman stashed somewhere whom he rented out by the minute.
“No, no. I don’t want the girl. Just the… just what I’ve got,” I said, patting my pocket and backing away quickly.
*** *** ***
Several nights later, after running out of what the man had given me and feeling shredded inside, I decided to return to his gloomy corner of town and request something a little stronger this time, something capable of coloring-in some of my bleached-out parts.
After our exchange was complete, he grabbed me by the arm. I was struck by the memory of another hand wrapping around my wrist—just before piercing my skin with a long fingernail.
Far away, the man was asking a question…
“Yes, yes, a woman,” I answered, rows of flowers spinning inexplicably through my mind, twirling like a woman’s dress at a dance. I backtracked. “Well, I don’t know…”
“The other girl ran off on me,” he said, “but I will send you a good one. You will like her. At the motel, right?”
“Yes, the motel,” I answered, suddenly wanting to be far away from the man. I gave him my room number and the additional money he demanded and hurried back to my room.
Later, pacing my room, I considered returning to the corner and telling the man that I had changed my mind and that he could keep the money, but please, please send no one over. I was better off without her. And she was better off without me. Two such tragic lives should never combine. The darker shadow subsumes the lighter.
I caught sight of myself in the dresser mirror. My face was gaunt, my eyes sunken. My clothing, stained and rumpled, hung loosely from my frame. An unkempt beard covered my normally smooth-shaven face, shocking me with its streaks of gray.
A dark silhouette rose slowly behind me in the mirror, thin arms whipping back and forth, large iridescent eyes glaring. She was here!
I stumbled back from the dresser, falling over the foot of the bed.
A rap at the door startled me. I tried to call out, but something soft and slithery was constricting around my throat.
Another rap, more insistent this time. I flinched at the sound, then struggled to my feet. I steeled myself and looked again into the mirror, but the haunting figure was gone, replaced by the reflection of shadows cast by the lamp. I touched my throat. The tightness was gone.
I got up and went to the door, rubbing my neck as I went. I was obviously having a bad reaction to whatever the man on the corner had given me.
The chain on the door had not yet been repaired from when the big, brave sheriff had burst in to save me, so I opened it a little way and put my foot behind it.
I was surprised to find a pretty face staring up at me. Or rather, it would have been a pretty face if healthier and less lined. Her eyes, at least, retained the hint of a youthful sparkle, but her years, though few, had evidently oxidated hard on her young body, and what beauty remained was the beauty of a beach-strewn shell, a brittle beauty twisted in upon itself around an inner hollowness.
Glancing behind her and seeing no one else, I opened the door wider and backed away. She stepped over the threshold with the graceful, light movement of a cat.
She accepted the drink I offered, and we sat on the foot of the bed. I awkwardly attempted to make small talk, and she responded pleasantly enough, faking a smile now and then, although never initiating any conversation of her own. After several minutes passed this way, she tossed me a rather thick hint about getting down to business.
“Of course. Your time is money,” I said. “Actually, judging by your rate, your time is more valuable than mine.”
“You say that as if it surprises you.”
“No—Well…”
“I suppose you don’t think that the time of woman like me could possibly be as valuable as the time of a man like you.”
Was she actually implying that the world should value people like her as much as a scholar such as myself?
“Perhaps another drink?” I offered, standing from the bed.
“No,” she said. “If I stay too long some place, Buddy gets suspicious.”
“Buddy? Oh yes. Your, uhm… manager. Or, is he more like an agent? Well, I’ll just have a spot more, I think.”
I went to the dresser and opened a new bottle.
You must not come alone, commanded a mellifluous voice.
The bottle shook in my hand as I tried to pour, its sticky brown contents dribbling down the side of my glass. I set the bottle down quickly, almost tipping it over, as my body slouched sideways. I was only able to remain upright by supporting myself with both hands on the dresser. It took every ounce of willpower I had not to look in the mirror. I knew she would be there, staring back at me. Beckoning.
“Mister, you all right?”
My legs gave out, and I fell to my knees, my hands remaining ridiculously atop the dresser.
I heard the girl stand from the bed. A gentle touch pressed against my back, steadying me.
Remaining on my knees, I turned and wrapped my arms around her, pressing the side of my face against her abdomen, shaking us both with my weeping.
She rubbed my back and reached over and downed what drink I had managed to get into the short glass.
*** *** ***
I suppose I should not have been surprised when, a few days later, feeling lonelier than ever, I again visited the man on the corner and asked him to send over the same girl.
*** *** ***
“Does it still hurt?” she asked one night while tracing one of my scars.
Feeling the tremble returning to my hands, I reached for the bottle at the side of the bed. “Always,” I said.
“You know, Professor, I could give you my private number,” she said. “You could call me directly next time.”
“Directly? What about your… agent?”
“It could only be in the afternoons. My nights belong to Buddy.”
“Won’t he be angry? Cutting him out of the deal like that?”
“He’d slit both our throats if he found out.”
“We really need to work on your sales pitch, darling,” I said, taking a gulp from my bottle.
*** *** ***
“What’s your name anyway?” I asked one afternoon as we lay fully clothed atop my bed.
“Why do you want to know?”
“Do you always respond so suspiciously to questions?”
“I respond suspiciously to everything.”
Wise policy, I thought. As enormous and important as our own lives seem to us, to those around us, we are nothing more than tools to use or obstacles to get around. And nothing is worse than being considered an obstacle in someone’s life. To be wanted as a tool is at least to be wanted at all.
“Julie,” she said after a moment.
“Is that your real name?”
“What’s a real name?”
“Miss Julie it is, then.”
A few minutes later, I felt her move on the bed and assumed she was getting up to leave. She never stayed long. However, she rolled over and put her head on my chest.
She had never spoken more than a few words at a time to me, so I was shocked when she began telling me a story. It was the story of a young woman, a teenager, who had become pregnant after an assault. The local sheriff and some ladies at the shelter had convinced her to put the baby up for adoption as soon as it was born. Finding the idea of giving away her baby difficult to bear, she had remained undecided for several months. But as the advice she received was universally in favor of adoption, she eventually gave in to the pressure and signed the papers a few days before the birth.
“Was it the right decision?” I asked.
“For her? Yes.”
“And for the mother?”
“I guess if it was the right decision for the child, then it was the right decision for the mother.”
I was uncertain how to respond. “There are ways to track down an adopted child.”
“She’s better off without me.”
I nodded. I was sure she was right.
When she next spoke, my thoughts had already returned to the dark woman of the cave haunting my dreams.
“Professor, do you think one enormous sacrifice can outweigh a lifetime of bad choices?”
“No. There’s no evidence to support that.”
*** *** ***
Some nights later, Julie found me sitting in the dark, my arms locked around my knees, an empty glass in my hands.
I heard her walking toward me in that soft, cat-footed way of hers and sensed her kneel on the floor beside me. Her small fingers found my forearm and slid down to my clenched hands. Gently, she pried my fingers from the glass.
“I miss her so much,” I said.
“Who?”
“My wife.”
I stood from the chair and flipped on the lamp. Julie hesitated a moment, then also stood, bringing the empty glass to the dresser.
“I need to go to the cave,” I said.
“Where?”
“I need to find out if she’s real or just a figment of my imagination.”
“Who? Your wife?”
“Sit down. I need to tell someone what really happened at Siren’s Cliff.”
“Okay, so tell me,” she said, sitting in the chair I had just occupied.
I folded my arms and leaned against the dresser and told her the full story the best I could remember it. Gaps and fuzzy spots still obscured my memory. Not just my memories of the cave, but farther back. Months. Maybe years.
I explained that, after my wife’s death, I had thrown myself into my quest for the Lost Temple of the Siren, a temple described in detail by the great Herodotus thousands of years ago, but which had been lost to history since his time. My quest had eventually led me here to the island and then to Siren’s Cliff. I described my discovery of the hidden grotto and my encounter with the mysterious woman inside the cave.
“Well?” I said, after I had finished. “Questions? Comments?”
“That’s crazy,” she said.
“Yes, yes. You’re right, of course,” I said, leaning up from the dresser and beginning to pace the small room. “The only sane explanation is that I imagined the whole thing. I did hit my head pretty hard in the cave. A concussion, they said. But, frankly, not knowing if I’m crazy is driving me mad.”
“There’s only one way to find out. We have to go back.”
“We?”
“You need someone to go with you this time, Professor, someone to collaborate your story. For your own peace of mind.”
I considered her offer. What she said was not without merit.
“I could be your assistant,” she continued, an uncharacteristic brightness in her tone. “Like a research assistant.”
“I don’t know…”
“You could mention me when you write about your discovery of the temple site. I could put it on my resume.”
Hardly likely, I thought.
“It could be my first step out of the pit.” Her voice was soft, her flickering gaze turned toward the hollowness within. “Back into respectable life.”
“I suppose I have to return to the cave sometime,” I reasoned aloud. “I need more information if I’m going to prove to my colleagues that I’ve really found the ancient temple.”
“Consider it, Professor,” began Julie, standing. “If you were able to find it, someone else can, too. Sooner or later. You can’t sit on this. You gotta move.”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve devoted too much of my life to this to have some boy just out for a swim discover it by accident and steal away all my glory.”
“Absolutely,” said Julie. “Let’s go tonight, Professor. Right now.”
“Well, I’d—I’d have to check the tides,” I said, reaching for my phone. I glanced at an online tidal chart “The tide’s out,” I said. “But it’s rising. We’ll have to hurry.”
“Let’s go,” she said, moving toward the door.
I got fully dressed, then pulled open the top dresser-drawer and took out my backup flashlight and my exploring belt.
“Ready for your first assignment as a research assistant, Miss Julie?” I asked, fastening the belt around my waist and securing my knife in its sheath.
“You don’t know how ready.”
*** *** ***
As the town was not the sort of place where one could flag down a cab in the middle of the night, we traipsed on foot to the clifftop. My health had deteriorated rapidly during the last few weeks, and my chest was heaving by the time we ducked under the chain fence and stood at the edge of the cliff. Below us, white foam, lit only by the moonlight, sloshed around the jagged rocks hiding the cave’s entrance.
“What was that?” I said, shining the flashlight behind us. I was sure I had heard something.
Julie looked at the empty terrain behind us. “I don’t think there’s anyone there, Professor.”
I searched the girl’s prematurely aged face for any signs of deception. Had she contacted someone about our trip without my noticing?
“Alright,” I said, hiding my suspicions. “Let’s start down.”
Fortunately, I was able to recognize the path I had taken previously, and we made our way fairly easily to the cave’s mouth. Only once did Julie slip, but I caught her by the arm and yanked her back. She remained standing there, her back plastered to the cliff, staring down at the sharp rocks and rabid waters below.
“Be more careful!” I hissed, thinking immediately of the scandal of having a dead girl of her station on my hands.
“Sorry, Professor. Thanks.”
At the entrance to the cave, I stopped to catch my breath and shine my light inside. I saw nothing but glistening stones.
I noticed Julie glancing back at the ocean. The level of the water had risen perceptibly since we had left the top of the cliff.
“Do you think we have enough time to go inside and get back out?” she asked.
“Yes, yes,” I replied irritably. I was not about to be thwarted now. Not when I was so close. So close to returning to her embrace.
As soon as we stepped inside the cave, the sound of the ocean diminished markedly. My hand was trembling, and I hoped my new assistant did not notice the shakiness of the flashlight’s beam.
“What’s that smell?” she asked. “It reeks in here.”
As we moved forward through the narrow tunnel, I told her about the gases rising from the bowels of the Earth, explaining how the intoxicating chemicals contained in the fumes likely enabled the ancient temple’s priestess to experience the vivid visions she used to make her prophecies.
Julie gasped behind me.
“What?” I said, spinning, the rising water sloshing around my shins.
“That’s pretty,” she said, pointing at the cave wall.
I followed the direction indicated by her finger and saw that she was pointing at the tiny waterfall I had seen during my first visit to the grotto. I was disappointed not to have heard its delightful music again this time.
“Yes, yes,” I said, continuing farther into the cave.
“Professor?” said Julie after a few dozen more paces.
“What is it?”
“Do you think these fumes could have caused your… your vision of the woman?”
“It’s possible, but I don’t think—”
I stopped. I had heard something that sounded suspiciously like someone attempting to muffle a cough. I turned and swept the cave behind us with the flashlight’s beam.
“What’s wrong, Professor?”
“I think someone’s followed us into the cave.”
“Is there another way out?” Julie whispered, moving closer to me.
“None that I’m aware of.”
We stood a moment longer but heard nothing more.
“Here, take the light,” I ordered.
She took the flashlight from my extended hand, and I reached for my belt. Her eyes widened when she saw me draw out my blade, but she said nothing.
“You first,” I said, nodding my head toward the deeper recesses of the cave. “We must hurry. The water’s already deeper than I had anticipated.”
As we moved forward, our legs heavy with the weight of the water, my heart began to race. I could feel her presence. We were close.
“If I can go legit, it won’t be so weird to look her up,” Julie said over her shoulder, as conversationally as if we were walking through a mall. “Do you think she misses me?”
“Who?”
“My daughter.”
“How could she miss you? She’s never met you.”
“Yeah,” said Julie, her voice hardening. “You’re right.”
I was feeling quite weak by the time our flashlight shone on the back of the cave.
“No!” I gasped, splashing forward on feeble legs. “This can’t be the end of the grotto!” I darted in every direction, Julie trying to follow me with the light. “Where is she? She told me to return!”
“Professor?” began Julie, fear in her voice. “What’s that?”
I followed the beam of light to where it shone upon what appeared to be submerged clothing.
A sickening sense of foreboding came over me as I sloshed through the water. Julie followed, shining the light over my shoulder as I bent down for a closer inspection.
She shrieked and drew back.
I leapt up. “What?”
“That’s Sierra’s dress!” she gasped, one hand at her chest.
I gazed back down at the clothing. It was a dress with a flower print. The body within the dress was only half-decomposed. Beside it lay a skeleton wearing swimming shorts.
I staggered back against the cave wall, flashes of memory overwhelming me… A money-hungry, dark-eyed boy asking to run errands for me. A tall girl in a flowery dress being introduced to me by the man on the corner. The boy telling me he had discovered a cave at Siren’s Cliff and asking if he would be famous now. The girl in the flowery dress arriving at my motel room door, staring at me over the small chain. The shadowy, writhing creature in the dresser mirror, iridescent eyes shining in the dark. The boy running from me through the cave. The girl dancing in my motel room, her dress spinning higher. A shadow looming over the frightened boy, his dark eyes full of terror. A black, tentacle-thrashing silhouette spreading over the spinning girl.
“Flee!” I screamed. “She’s here!”
Julie ran to my side, searching the cave with the flashlight’s beam. “Who? Where?”
I felt a soft touch at my elbow and heard the familiar, musical voice.
My darling, you’ve returned.
Then the prick in my arm… The spreading of the familiar numbness… The return of the glorious bliss I had so long craved.
A shadow wrapped around my wrist and began to raise my arm.
Julie turned just as my knife came down. She screamed and fell sideways, her arm spurting blood. The flashlight dropped as she fell, and it bobbled in the water, its light remaining on, causing the shadows of the grotto to dance around us.
“Run!” I yelled. “She’ll kill you!”
Julie attempted to crawl away through the deepening water.
The knife rose again.
A pain exploded in my chest, knocking me backward as a thunderous sound filled the cave.
I felt the shadowy arm slide away from me, heard the wounded shriek behind me.
“No!” I screamed. “You’ve shot her!”
In the bouncing light of the flashlight, I saw the sheriff wading toward me, smoke rising through the cool, damp air from the barrel of his pistol.
“You’ve shot her,” I repeated.
I fell against the cave wall and slid down roughly, the jutting rocks tearing into my back, my chin settling just above water-level. I watched the sheriff help Julie to stand.
“Shot her…” I mumbled, seeing, on the grotto’s ceiling, the bewildered eyes of my wife staring at me from a pool of blood. She had just told me that I had become an obstacle in her life, a weight around her neck.
“Shot her,” I admitted as I sank into the cold, salty water.
Zephyr Dorsey 