The Sirens Gift

Chapter 2.

“Adalaie, you work today.” I sighed as I stopped at the door and groaned as I turned back to the living room where I could see my sister eyeing me from the kitchen. I had a plastic beach bag slung over my arm, a baggy sweater and yoga pants hid my blue one-piece swimming suit.

“Yeah, but you said you’d make up for an hour and a half today.”

“At the end of your shift, Addy.” She growled. I smiled and shook my head.

“I’m calling it now! It snowed last night, the water is perfect!”

“I’m not taking the morning!” She cried after me.

“Thanks Sabby!” I called back as the door closed behind me and I trotted down the stairs.

“Addy, your shift starts in 20 minutes.” My dad called as he saw me fly down the stairs to the back door.

“Sabrina said she’d cover me for an hour and a half this morning to make up for yesterday.”

“Does Sabrina know that?” My dad rolled his eyes.

“She does now.”

“Be careful.” He said, defeated.

“I will dad!”

It was hardy 8, a few lobster fishers hung around the storefront as I sipped from the alley way. Fisherman John waved at me as I passed them and trotted across the roadway and through the parking lot, stepping over the wooden stairs that led into the sand dune that hid the beach.

Today, though, I decided to walk down further since I had a longer time before I worked. About a mile away from the beach in front of my dad's restaurant was an old lighthouse that many in the town regarded as the Sirens Lighthouse.

It was a bit of an urban legend, a story that mothers told their little kids before bedtime and that travelers would pass to others on their travels.

Long ago, on a dim night, a storm hit our coastal town, with winds so powerful it tore through the lighthouse and blew out the flames that kept the beacons lit to guide ships into the ports. Ships were set to arrive that night, and without the lighthouse to guide them, they could easily hit land and capsize.

The Wickie, who was a young, handsome man who had just barely started his time at the lighthouse, had to climb up the staircase to repair the wicks in the lantern room. When he arrived, he fought with the wind which whipped in from seemingly nowhere and just as the lantern lit, a glass panel that protected the lantern room broke free from its housing and slammed into the man. Sending him crashing through the opposite window and down into the depths of the stormy ocean below him where it thrashed him around in rocky white water.

Miraculously, the lanterns stayed lit. Guiding the ships safely to harbor during the storm. But as morning broke, no one could find the new Wickie anywhere. A massive search party amounted, starting from the lighthouse and fanning outward and even into the ocean to find his body.

A day later, while a young couple strolled on the beach, they spotted a man being dragged onto the beach not far from the lighthouse. They claim that a beautiful young woman with a naked torso and a fish body dragged him, one handed onto the beach, and gazed upon him with affection before she realized that she was being watched. She quickly dragged herself back into the ocean on her muscled arms and they rushed to the Wickie. He was badly beaten and bruised but, against seemingly all odds, breathing. They called for the police and the search party ended.

It took weeks for him to be well enough to share his story. He claimed he was saved by a siren. She kissed him as he sank to the bottom of the ocean, unconscious, which woke him up and allowed him to breathe underwater and understand her thoughts. He was so bewitched by her that he allowed her to show her the ocean near the area. When he finally fell asleep from exhaustion, she brought him back to the beach and left him there, safe and sound.

He then spent his years at the lighthouse claiming she’d visit him often, that he was in love with her and she him. That she favored stormy, cloudy days over sunny ones, and that he would often spend time with her guiding him through the ocean where she lived. No one believed him, no one saw her, no one had proof besides from the couple who were vacationing there that fateful day. And even they doubted what they had seen and never had a straight story when questioned.

Sirens Lighthouse was white with fading baby blue stripes painted thin across the base and just below the lantern house. It was still well kept inside but paint was chipping from the main door into the base of the lighthouse. It sat further up on a short outlet over a grouping of shallows and rocky shoals that hid just beyond the shores. A dock led out from the opposite side of where I was walking, only big enough for small, personal fishing and motor boats to land.

The hill the lighthouse sat on had been worn into small caves and channels as time went on. The water carved away a beautiful area of stones and sands and small, shallow pools of calm water away from the treacherous ocean that laid just behind the reef where it deepened.

It was a small paradise that few took the time to venture to in the winter. Thus, leaving a quiet and serene area for natives like me to escape to for peace and quiet.

I stripped off my sweater and pants and set my beach bag on the ground just short of the water. Snow dusted the sand with white glitters that were slowly melting as the sun glimmered onto the beach, making the sand damp and cold. I loved the feeling of the winter sand almost as much as I loved the chill of the water. I set the loudest alarm on my phone in case I dozed off, which I tended to do often, and set my phone up to a small speaker I kept with me when I swam to keep me on time. Otherwise I’d spend hours drifting silently alone.

I treaded slowly into the freezing water and let it engulf me as I ducked down into it. Submerging my body beneath for a moment before turning over on my back and allowing the cool water to cradle me once more in its grasp in a shallow part of the water. A very light breeze whistled across my face and I dipped my head below to fight the chill of the wind for a moment before looking up to the grayish sky and sighing in relief as the ocean seemed to wash away the aching feeling of my bones I always seemed to have.

I practiced my breathing exercises, taking deep breaths in through my nose and out through my mouth in slow counts. The weightless feeling allowed my body to relax and enter into as close to what I assumed a meditative state was for me.

The therapist my dad had put me with said meditation was the best way to heal the mind and soul, but there was no other way I could come close than by floating listlessly in the calm waters of the Maine coast.