Then blue I saw inside your eyes,
My world now monochrome.
It’s all gray—the sea, the skies.
In black and white I roam…
He stopped for a moment, taking a pencil to the sheet music that rested on the shelf of the instrument. Suddenly he noticed Portia and motioned for her to come in.
“Hey, there. Where’s your posse of male suitors?” There was a bite to his words.
“I don’t know if I would exactly say suitors. More like some kind of testosterone overdrive in the air or something.” Portia attempted to make light of her new celebrity status.
He moved over on the bench, and she sat down next to him, immediately noticing the scabs on his hand, crusty and three-dimensional. She ran her finger over them gently.
“Let’s not talk about it now, OK?” His words were music to her ears.
“OK, that works for me.” She glanced up at the sheet music. “So that was pretty lighthearted stuff you were working on, huh?” She took a chance with the jab and luckily he let out a smile.
“Yeah, I decided to explore the lighter side of our relationship today. It was between that and ‘Every guy in school’s got a thing for my girl.’ ”
Portia tried to change the topic. “You know, I play a little—”
“Are you kidding? How come you never told me?”
“Well, it’s been a really long time. When I was younger, my parents thought that since I couldn’t speak, maybe the piano would be a good way for me to ‘vocalize.’ I think they saw that Holly Hunter movie,
The Piano
, a few too many times. I took lessons for about two years, and I wasn’t bad—I think that’s when my Ella obsession started. I loved playing jazz and since I couldn’t scat with my mouth, I let the keys do it for me.
“But one day I just got so angry that this
thing
, this instrument built by man’s hands, was able to make sounds and I wasn’t—so I just stopped. Oh my God, you wouldn’t believe how I used to take out my anger on that poor piano! I started doing things like heaping my book bag on top of it to scratch the veneer and messing with the pedals so that their footing was totally off. One day I even encouraged Felix to help me glue the keys together.” Portia smiled at the memory of her and Felix creeping into the living room with a paintbrush and a big bottle of Elmer’s. “Luckily the glue was washable—I spent about two days getting every last bit of it out with a wet toothbrush.”
Max let out a hearty laugh.
“Yeah, yeah—it all sounds so funny now, but I gotta tell you that piano was my nemesis. Finally Helena—I mean, my mom—donated it to the Ridgewood Retirement Home. She couldn’t stand to see the instrument take any more abuse.” Portia looked up into Max’s eyes. He was hanging on her every word. She wondered if it was because her story was truly riveting or just that her voice was irresistible.
“So come on,” he encouraged her. “Let’s see what you got.”
“Um—no, thanks. I think I’ll pass.”
Max wasn’t going to give up so easily, though. “Come on, it’s just me.”
“Yeah, just you, who can play, like, every instrument under the sun.”
“Well, I haven’t fully mastered the harp yet.” He grinned. “Come on—I know you can sing like nobody’s business. I’ll chime in. Please?”
How could she say no to those eyelashes?
“Ok, fine. But if I suck, I’m stopping right away.”
“Deal.” He scooted over a few inches to give Portia more room.
She remembered the way he had cracked his knuckles that night when he sang her to sleep and perfectly mimicked the motion. The crack was louder than she had anticipated.
“Wow, I guess I am really rusty.”
But as Portia’s fingertips touched the keys, she was amazed to find that she wasn’t rusty at all. In fact, she was shocked at the fluidity of her own fingers, her memory of the chords, the natural feel of the pedals beneath her foot. She closed her eyes, allowing herself to enjoy the music. She played a few melancholy bars before her fingers started cruising the keys on an autopilot, eking out every bit of sultriness that the voice of a piano could possibly hold.
Is there no end to these Siren superpowers?
To her surprise her fingers were replaying the exact melody Max had been singing before she walked in. He stared at her.
“What are you, like some kind of a savant?”
“I don’t know where this is coming from,” she lied. “I guess I really liked what you were working on.”
“Yeah? Well, baby, there’s a lot more where that came from.”
“OK, so give me another verse,” she commanded as her fingers scaled the keys. They might as well have been suddenly relocated to a smoky bar in Casablanca for the sudden change in the climate of the room. The air had grown hazy with the promise of love. Of touch.
“Um, OK,” he faltered for a minute. It was nice to see him have to second-guess himself for once. But he recovered quickly:
“I was warned ’bout girls like you,
Once in, there’s no way out,
But until now, I had no clue
What they were talkin’ about.
And now you sit here, skin so smooth,
it’s beggin’ for my touch—”
Portia had begun to harmonize with him, and Max looked slightly disoriented at the sound of her voice. She decided to pick up where he had stopped:
“Don’t know that I’d say ‘beggin’,
But thank you very much…
I too was warned to guard my heart
’gainst smoothies like you.
I see the way you look at me,
It’s like you’re looking through…”
Max emitted a smooth falsetto as a backup to her words. They were engaged in a kind of vocal foreplay, his voice the satin to her lace. The gauzy way the lyrics fell from his mouth reminded her of the gentle way in which he kissed. In that moment, Portia understood the kind of ecstasy that had been produced by the sound of a voice. In this moment, he seemed just as much a Siren as she was and so she continued:
“Warnings are for cowards,
And I’m ready to play.
Take you out of monochrome,
No longer the gray…”
He murmured the harmony offhandedly now, completely trapped in her voice.
And then a crash.
She pounded the keys with her fists, interrupting the melody.
What the hell?
Max looked at her in surprise and shook his head, motioning her to keep playing despite the minor trip-up.
But she couldn’t unball her fists. Her fingers curled around themselves, despite how hard she tried to straighten them.
Just keep playing…
She tried knuckling the keys, hoping to ward off the inclination.
But then more pounding. With each slam of the keys she could feel the evil spiraling its way through her limbs.
Get out of me!
But she just pounded on the keys again.
Max tried thwarting her fists with his hands. “Portia, come on—what are you doing?”
It was too late. She tried thinking back to the homework list that the Gods had given her just last night. Was there any clue in it on how to exorcise these demonic inclinations from her body? But there was no time for clue searching. She couldn’t stop her fists from pummeling the keys, releasing angry bursts of noise in every direction.
“Stop it!” he urged.
She wanted to. She really did. But her fists only gained speed.
And then she started to laugh.
Shut up!
“It’s not funny, Portia! What the hell are you doing? Stop!”
But she kept laughing and laughing, her feet slamming on the pedals, her hands hammering the keys.
And then it was gone. Just as quickly as it had started.
Max stared at her, her short breaths filling the air around them.
There was nothing to say. Nothing that could even remotely explain her behavior.
So she got up.
And ran.
♪
Portia thought about heading back to Leucosia’s office but was suddenly faced with an unavoidable reality. What happens when Leucosia isn’t just a few rooms away?
Instead she sprinted toward the library stacks, the most remote place she could think of, taking refuge in the far corner bathroom. But no matter how isolated she was, there was no escaping the presence of the immortals and the intensifying prickle on her limbs.
Where are you? Where the hell are you?
As she neared the bathroom mirror, the prickling grew hotter, burning her skin, itching and sizzling.
All right. All right, you want a piece of me?
She took a deep breath and boldly looked into the glass.
Evil Portia was waiting for her, smiling, chomping at the bit.
She leveled her eyes with her loathsome twin and felt a sudden rise in her own posture. Clearing her throat, she stood taut:
“OK, OK…
So you are mythological,
Your planning diabolical.
You think you’re agonistical,
Your death will be statistical!”
The reflection smiled offhandedly, welcoming the verbal battle and coming back effortlessly with:
“You try to be angelical,
Never anticlerical.
In fact you are panoptical,
You’re not quite so monastical…”
Portia’s anger was further fueled. She was not about to be outdone by Leucosia’s perverse sisters.
“You think you’re mystagogical,
Will guide me psychological.
My voice is phylacterical,
I laugh at you hysterical.”
Evil Portia grinned back and offered:
“I see you are quite skeptical,
Think I can’t keep up metrical.
My powers oratorical
Are not just allegorical.”
Portia pushed up her sleeves. Her voice gained volume. Her rage picked up momentum, causing her to realize that until now her anger had only been set to a low simmer.
“Of words I am alchemical,
A master alphabetical.
I blend my sounds harmonical
Until they are volcanical.
They fight pugilistical,
They’re backed polytheistical,
They bounce and jump gymnastical,
My range—it is fantastical!”
Her reflection started to answer, but Portia raised her voice even louder, stepping in closer to the mirror and grabbing the edges of the sink.
“And it’s not pedagogical,
It’s purely biological.
My words apopthegmatical,
My sayings are so radical.”
The verses ricocheted like bullets off the metal doors and cinderblock walls, spurring her on.
“My voice it is magnetical,
Beyond the hypothetical.
It’s more than polytechnical,
A traffic-stopping spectacle.”
The mirror began to quake with every word she flung at it. Evil Portia had stopped smiling somewhere during the last verse.
“I am no longer ethical,
No need to be mimetical.
My questions not rhetorical,
Don’t care for the historical.”
Portia was entirely engrossed in her verse, each word a blade stabbing away at the creature that was trying to control her.
“
I’m blessed organoligical,My powers are robotical.
I am your diametrical,
You’re no longer majestical!
We started antiphonical,
You thought your words demonical.
But my verse exorcistical—
The real Portia is mystical!
”
With the final boom of her voice, the mirror shattered, spitting shards of glass into the air. A sharp pebble flew past Portia’s neck, grazing it and bringing forth a droplet of blood. But she was too caught up in her victory to care.
I did it, you miserable monsters! I beat you!
When she looked back at the spot where only loose remnants of the mirror still hung, Portia wasn’t sure what she expected to see. Anything from blankness to a shattered image of her hypersexual self would have done.
Instead what she got was a blonde man with ice blue eyes and a moon-shaped scar looming large on his face.
“Who are you?!”
But in an instant, he was gone.
The room was empty but for an oatmeal-colored moth flying out of the bathroom’s small rectangular window.
Proteus was blessed with visions of the future, excepting only matters of the heart. But because of his mischievous ways, the God would not reveal to Ares his visions for battles yet to come. As Ares prevailed upon him, Proteus became a lion, a serpent, a leopard. And then a soaring eagle, who flew away, leaving Ares to wonder at the warfare that lay ahead.
The Great God of War thus plunged unprepared into a bloody battle in which he watched two of his sons die upon the sword.
Ares was forever changed by the death of his sons. Often when the moon did shine as a mere crescent in the night sky was Ares reminded of the arc he had carved into the cheek of the evil shape-shifter who did not forewarn him that of the loss of his kin. He had never again beheld Proteus since that day.
But as he did charge into one battle after the next, Ares thought of all his foes as none other than the evil Proteus, often carving his signature scar into their faces before taking their lives.
After many years, Ares gave up on avenging the death of his sons, assuming that Proteus must have met his own demise.
Until the day that Leucosia brought him tidings of a scar-faced shape-shifter who was surely aiding her sisters in their plot.
Now nothing would stand in the way of his revenge.
Yet Ares wondered at the connection between Proteus and Leucosia’s sisters. Upon considering the matter, he believed that nothing other than love would have spurred Proteus on these many years. Especially the love of a Siren, whose voice could captivate like no other.
Thus Ares had no choice but to reach out to his old lover, the Goddess of all Love, Aphrodite. When Ares arrived in the waters of Cypress to appeal to Aphrodite, he was not surprised to see that her beauty was as magical as ever. Were it not for the serious nature of his visit, he would have fallen in love with her all over again.
“What brings you here today, Ares?” The Goddess sprang forth from the water around the island, revealing her beautiful breasts, her milky skin.
“Aphrodite, long has it been since the death of my precious sons Chariton and Hesperos. But now do I have a chance to avenge them…”
Ares cried tears that had not been shed for centuries, his impassioned plea reaching the generous heart of Aphrodite. And so the Goddess of Passion revealed to Ares the story of the love that did once blossom between Ligeia and Proteus.
And then, because Ares had a way of softening her heart, Aphrodite added an as yet unknown element to the story.
“He visits her in Hades every year on the anniversary of her death, weeping tears for all to see…”
Of particular interest was this melancholy behavior to Ares, knowing that proper timing was half the battle.
When the God of War returned to Mount Olympus, he took out the silver machine that had been bestowed upon him as a gift from the beautiful Siren Leucosia. At first Ares had thought the machine to be a frivolous item, though the mortals seemed wholly dependent on the “computer.” But alas, after he had learned to navigate his way around the vast seas of the Internet, he came to appreciate the MacBook, using it at least once every day.
Now he desired to send an urgent message to Leucosia. He opened the machine and typed in the e-mail address of the Siren, [email protected].
Dearest Leucosia,
I thank you again for this miraculous gift, which enables me to offer you tidings with the mere press of a button. Aphrodite has offered me some valuable insight into the behavior of the dreaded Shape-shifter Proteus, who was indeed the lover of your sister Ligeia. I believe that the best time to attack will be on the very anniversary of your sisters’ death.
I must warn you, Leucosia, that though I desire nothing more than to avenge my sons, the defeat of a shape-shifter is no easy feat. Proteus must be paralyzed before he is to be killed.
You may wonder just how this paralysis will befall the evil God. I propose that only through the powers of the young Siren Portia can the shape-shifter be prevented from altering his form. For though your own voice is as pure as the heavens themselves, the sound of a virgin Siren’s voice is beyond compare. Therefore it is with great urgency that I beseech you to prevail upon your charge to keep at her assignments and sharpen her great tool.
The power is within her, Leucosia. She simply needs to procure it.
I remain your faithful God of War,
Ares
Ares clicked on the icon that read “Send” and then decided to seek out Dionysus.
He really needed a drink.