The Sister and the Siren

Originally written for a three-prompt short story challenge, this piece has been lightly revised after feedback.

Content warnings: Drowning, grief, death of a sibling, attempted killing, mild injury.

Do I remember the night my sister drowned? 

Rather hard not to.  

I remember the boat breaking beneath us and the sea dragging at my skirts, filling my mouth whenever I tried to scream. Marion’s hand was locked around mine so tightly that her nails went through my skin, and I held on until I could no longer feel my fingers. 

I told her not to let go. 

Something white moved beneath us, circling through the wreckage. Then a wave tore Marion’s hand from mine, and the sea dragged her into the dark. 

Suppose that sort of thing stays with you. 

Six months later, I saw the white creature again. 

It surfaced beside my little boat, a pale face and narrow shoulders rising above the water, silver fins flowing beneath the surface. It watched me through bright blue eyes. For one moment, I forgot how to breathe. 

Then it smiled, revealing teeth sharp enough to make me forget the eyes. 

I threw the net. 

The siren vanished beneath it, as she had every other time. 

“Bloody thing.” 

A pale hand rose behind me and tipped my bait bucket into the sea. I turned to find only ripples and a chiming sound that might have been laughter. 

That was my fourth attempt. 

The first had cost me two hooks and an oar. The second had ended with my boat wedged between the rocks while the siren watched from the water, clearly delighted. The third net had come back sliced neatly down the middle. 

Sirens could sing sailors into the sea, yet this one seemed far more interested in making a fool of me. 

I did not find it amusing. 

It had killed Marion. 

I could not drag my sister back from the sea, but I could make certain the creature that had taken her never took anyone else. My fingers found the piece of blue glass hanging beneath my collar, the last piece of bracelet I had worn during the storm.  

Three nights before the half moon, I climbed the cliff to the Moon Weaver’s tower. 

Everyone knew of her, though no one claimed to know her. Her tower stood where the cliff narrowed into a crooked finger above the sea. Inside, a loom of driftwood and whale bone consumed most of the room. 

The Weaver sat before it, thin and silver-haired, her pale skin creased like folded cloth. Far above the open roof, a sliver loosened from the edge of the moon, while shining thread slipped between her fingers. 

The moon became a little less full. 

“You do that?” I asked. 

“Someone must.” 

“Then you can hold the tide still?” 

Her hands paused. “Why?” 

“I need to catch a siren.” 

“They are slippery creatures.” 

“Yes, and a proper nuisance.” 

One corner of her mouth moved, though I could not tell whether it was meant to be a smile. 

I told her about Marion, the storm, the white shape beneath us and the creature that had begun circling those same waters months later. She listened without interruption, her hands continuing their work. 

When I finished, she cut a length of moonlight with a pair of black scissors. 

“You cannot catch a creature that belongs to the tide while the moon still owns it,” she said. 

“Then what am I meant to do?” 

“When the moon begins to pass from half to crescent, I will hold it there. The tide will stop with it. No current will carry the siren away, and no wave will hide her from you.” 

“For how long?” 

“Not long enough for hesitation.” 

She wound the thread around my wrist. Cold bit into my skin. 

“Thread this through your net. Moonlight does not loosen for creatures of the tide. But first, you must give her reason to come willingly. Kindness draws a creature closer than any hook.” 

Kindness, then. I could manage kindness for three evenings, if it ended with a knife. 

I looked down at my wrist again. “Why help me?” 

The Weaver’s expression did not soften. 

“Because grief left too long beside hatred will harden around it,” she said. “And soon enough, you will not know where one ends and the other begins.” 

*** 

The moon-thread vanished among the ordinary rope until even I could no longer find it. 

For the next three evenings, I took my boat into the cove without throwing a single hook. 

On the first evening, the siren kept its distance, with only its eyes showing above the water. They were blue and watchful and far too familiar. 

I placed a sugared bun on the side of the boat. 

“You may as well have it. You’ve already taken everything else.” 

The siren approached slowly, her white fins drifting around her like thin silk. Gills opened beneath her ears and fluttered along her neck, while long fingers tipped with white nails curled over the boat’s edge. 

She snatched the bun and disappeared. 

A moment later, she surfaced ten feet away, took one bite, then threw the soggy thing towards my boat. 

I stared at her. 

She made that chiming sound again. 

“You could’ve just said no.” 

Her smile showed every pointed tooth. 

On the second evening, something tapped twice beneath my boat. 

I reached for my knife before I realized it was only her. 

The siren rose beside me, blinking as though I were the one behaving strangely. Unlike the previous night, she had surfaced without warning and sent me tumbling into the bottom of the boat. The two taps, it seemed, were a courtesy. 

I hated that I found it thoughtful. 

I gave her a pear. She ate the whole thing, stem and all, then placed a shell in my lap. 

It was small and pearly, curled like an ear.  

“I don’t want your rubbish.” 

When the siren nudged it closer, I sighed and stuffed it into my pocket. 

As I rowed home that evening, three soft notes drifted over the water behind me. 

A hum. 

My hands stilled upon the oars. 

Marion used to hum those notes whenever storms shook our windows: three rising sounds, followed by the beginning of a fourth. 

I turned so quickly that the boat rocked beneath me. 

The siren floated in my wake, her lips parted. 

“Don’t.” 

The note died. 

Anger arrived before the memory could finish opening. 

“You don’t get to sing that.” 

The siren sank without a splash. 

On the final evening, the moon hung precisely half-full. 

The Weaver waited in her tower with both hands closed around the silver threads of her loom. 

“When it begins to turn, I will hold it,” she told me. “You will not have long.” 

“What happens if you hold it too long?” 

“The tide will turn violent when it breaks free.” 

That was not an answer I particularly liked. 

I took my boat out anyway. 

I waited until the lights of the town became tiny stars behind me, then placed a red ribbon upon the water. 

Marion used to tie one just like it through her long brown hair. We had looked so alike that strangers called us twins, though she had been three years younger, and her eyes had been blue where mine were brown. 

The ribbon floated beside the boat until a white hand rose and lifted it from the water. 

The siren surfaced. 

She studied the ribbon, then wrapped it clumsily around her wrist. As she moved, something flashed beneath her scales. 

A silver bead. 

I leaned closer, but she slipped away. 

“Wait.” 

She paused. 

I removed the chain around my neck. A single piece of blue glass hung from it. 

Marion and I had once worn matching bracelets. I had made hers for her sixteenth birthday from blue glass, white cord and one silver bead in the center. The knot had been crooked, and she had teased me mercilessly for it before promising never to take it off. 

Mine had broken that night. I kept the final bead around my neck. 

I held it out. 

The siren drifted closer and touched it with the tip of one white claw. Her face changed, not much, only a small crease between her brows. 

Marion used to make the same face when trying not to cry. 

The siren began humming. 

Three notes, then four. 

“Stop.” 

She reached for me, and I recoiled. 

The hurt upon her face was so human that, for one terrible moment, I nearly apologized. 

Then the moon changed. 

A silver edge peeled away from it, and somewhere high above us, the Moon Weaver caught the falling light. 

The moon froze between half and crescent. 

The sea did not calm. 

It stopped. 

A wave stood motionless beyond the cove, curved like glass. Fish hung beneath the surface, their silver bodies suspended in the dark. 

The moon-thread inside my net began to glow. 

The siren looked upwards, fear widening her blue eyes. 

Now. 

Before she could flee, I threw the net. 

She tangled in my silver rope as I hauled her on my boat, nearly tipping it. Her fins thrashed against the boards, and when she opened her mouth, sharp teeth flashed beneath the frozen moon. 

I reached for the knife at my belt. 

She went still, her gaze travelling from the blade to my face. Slowly, she understood. Every pear, every gift, every quiet evening spent beside my boat had been nothing but a path leading here. 

The knife suddenly felt too heavy. 

“You killed her,” I seethed, but the words came out small. 

The siren made a broken sound. 

Then she sang. 

Three notes. 

Four. 

The melody Marion used to hum in our little room while rain tapped the roof. 

“Don’t you dare.” 

The siren continued, her voice trembling beneath the weight of the net. She had never spoken to me. Perhaps sirens could not. But when she sang, the words came clear.  

Sleep whilst the moon minds the sea, 
sleep whilst the stars mind the foam… 

I pressed the knife against her chest, though my hand had begun to shake. 

“Stop!” 

Her voice rose. 

She did not bare her teeth or fight the net. She only watched me through those bright blue eyes and kept singing. 

“The song belonged to her,” I said. “You heard it when you killed her.” 

The siren’s voice softened as she reached the final line. 

Should the dark carry you far from me… 

I knew the final line. 

Our mother’s lullaby had ended with the moon guiding lost children home, but Marion had always changed it. Every single time. 

The siren looked into my eyes and sang: 

I’ll bite the moon and bring you home. 

The knife slipped from my fingers. 

Only Marion had ever sung that ridiculous line. Only Marion had laughed when I told her the moon was far too large to bite. 

Grief could make a person see what she wanted to see. Six months of wanting my sister my back had surely carved her into everything. A song. A pair of blue eyes. A familiar expression. 

It could not be her.  

My gaze dropped to her wrist. 

Beneath the red ribbon lay blue glass, white cord and a single silver bead. The bracelet had sunk deep into her scales, yet the crooked knot remained. 

“Marion?” 

She stopped struggling. 

One trembling hand rose to touch the scar in my palm, exactly where her nails had once broken my skin. 

The white creature beneath the wreckage had not killed Marion. The sea had. And the siren I had spent six months hunting had never been that creature at all. 

It was Marion. 

Somehow, the sea had taken my sister and given her back to me. 

A crack tore across the still sea. 

The Moon Weaver could not hold it much longer. 

I dropped to my knees and pulled at the net. The moon-thread sliced into my fingers, but I tore until the silver strands snapped and the moon lurched forward into its crescent. 

The tide crashed back all at once. 

Water flooded the boat, and Marion caught me before I could fall overboard. For one breath, we clung to each other again, as we had in the storm. 

Only this time, I let go first. 

She slipped into the sea. 

I waited, fearing she might vanish into it once more. 

Then two taps sounded beneath the boat. 

Marion surfaced beside me with the red ribbon around her wrist and her old bracelet shining beneath the scales. Her teeth were still sharp, her hands were still strange, and the sea had changed nearly everything about her. 

But it had not changed her eyes, and it had not taken her song. 

She began the lullaby once more. 

This time, I let my sister finish. 

Thank you for spending a little time beneath the moon with Clara and Marion! xx McKenna