Silent Echo (27 page)

He slung his bag over his shoulder.

“Actually, Portia, I don’t know that. You seemed pretty hell-bent on mocking me all day. Am I some kind of toy for you? Is our relationship some sort of game? Cuz I gotta tell you, I’m done playing. I deserve better.”

Portia was aghast at his boldness. His ability to stand up to her went against everything Leucosia had told her.

“I’m sorry, Max. I really am. I hope you can forgive me.”

Beg Forgiveness Where Forgiveness is Undeserved…

“Whatever, let’s talk later, Portia. I’m exhausted from my trip yesterday.”

Portia had completely forgotten that Max had had to make another emergency visit to see his father. What was it this time? She couldn’t remember what he had told her.

Reading the blank expression on her face, Max resentfully volunteered, “Don’t you remember I told you there was a staffing issue? My dad’s regular nurse seems to have vanished into thin air. They replaced her with this new young nurse, Khloe, but my dad’s having trouble getting used to her.”

She was relieved that he was opening up to her.

“How so?”

“I don’t know. It’s just that he’s been imagining more and more that my mom has been there visiting him. He claims that this nurse keeps telling him that she knows where my mom actually is, and that it would be impossible for her to be visiting. Obviously he’s hallucinating all of it.”

“Jesus, that sounds pretty bad. Are they trying new meds?”

“Yeah, well, that’s the problem. He didn’t used to be hallucinatory—just depressed. The doctors don’t really know why he’s suddenly seeing things—seeing her. He’s getting so much worse.”

Now would be a wonderful time to laugh at him, Portia!

Drown Out Their Voices with Your Own.

She had not yet tackled this assignment but now seemed an opportune moment.

She tried to speak forcefully. “MAX, I’M SO SORRY THAT YOU’RE IN SO MUCH PAIN. I CAN’T IMAGINE SEEING MY PARENTS THAT WAY.”

“Thanks, Portia. But I don’t exactly need it broadcast to the whole school.”

Now he’s being flip with you? No good deed goes unpunished. And neither should he…

“Stop!” Obviously she was going to need to work on the drowning out thing.

“I should stop? Everything you’ve said to me today has been offensive, and I should stop?”

“Max, I wasn’t talking to you. I’m sorry.” She felt the evil churning inside her. She had only moments before she was going to lose it entirely.

Infuse Love and Passion into a Moment.

She leaned over and placed a gentle kiss on Max’s cheek, allowing her fingers to linger in his hair.

“I care, Max. I know you can’t believe it, but I care.”

He accepted the kiss gracefully and excused himself.

“I gotta go clear my head,” and with that, he stormed off in the direction of the music room.

Portia once again marveled at his strength. At yet another moment when he hadn’t succumbed to her power.

It makes for a better kill!

She needed to revisit that damn homework list…

Felix’s recent growth spurt was especially evident when he and Portia settled themselves into the hammock, where they had so often enjoyed each other’s company. That was before the tension. When it was easy between them. Now she adjusted herself to accommodate his long arms and huge hands, which were cupped behind his head. Her toes ended at the top of his calves.

“Just how tall are you now, Felix?” she signed to him as she tried to muscle her way into a comfortable position. She looked up into the canopy of treetops, the familiar dialogue of the birds calming her nerves.

“I think I hit about six three last month.” Clearly he was pleased with his own imposing size. “So what’s going on with you, Portia? This whole emergency meeting?”

Portia reversed her position in the hammock so that that they were toe-to-toe, or at least toe-to-calf. She needed to see him, to gauge his reaction.

“So what did you think of Morrison’s class today?” She spoke the words aloud, and he skillfully read her lips.

“Why are you trying to change the topic? I canceled a date for this, remember?”

“Yes, Felix, I remember—you only mentioned it like a thousand times. Gabrielle Parker? Really?”

He shot her a look of warning, and she backed off. Now wasn’t the time. She had more important fish to fry at the moment.

“Anyway, I’m not changing the topic. Believe it or not, Morrison’s class…well, it is actually the topic—”

Felix sat up and took Portia’s hands in his. His skin felt warm, his hands safe. “Portia, where did you go?” There was no sarcasm now.

“What?”

“Where did you go? I feel like since the beginning of school, you’ve been wandering off. Like every day you are further and further away from me. From us. I mean, there was an ‘us’ once, wasn’t there?”

Her heart shattered. She needed to make him understand.

“Yes, Felix, there was…is…always will be an ‘us.’ But something has changed, and you are the only person who I can talk to about it. Literally. And I had to get a dispensation from Zeus just for telling you.”

He dropped her hands. “You’re not right. Something’s not right with you.”

“No, something is not right—that’s what I’m trying to tell you. Listen to me, Felix.”

Her voice had risen, lost on his deaf ears. But her desperation must have shown in her face because he evened his eyes with hers, offering her the stage. She wasn’t sure how to begin and tried to take her cue from the night with Leucosia in the alley behind the café.

“Do you remember when I once told you about how birds have syrinxes instead of larynxes?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, did you know that Sirens also have syrinxes, and that’s part of what makes them able to sing so beautifully?”

“No, I don’t think Morrison ever said that. Was that in your research paper? The one you, um,” he let out a dramatic cough, “got a ‘B-’ on?” Clearly he enjoyed the jab. He had gotten an A- on his Cyclops research.

Yeah, well, your paper wasn’t intercepted by a three-thousand-year-old Siren…

She plunged ahead. “Sometimes the development of the syrinx has to follow the pace of the Siren’s maturation into womanhood, which could cause, like, a lack of voice for a long time.” She tightened her posture a bit more and continued, despite the look of confusion on his face. “Anyway, once the syrinx is fully formed, everything falls into place, and the sound that is produced by the combination of the syrinx and the larynx is, well, superhuman.”

Portia couldn’t believe how ridiculous she sounded.

“OK,” said a confused Felix. “Why the sudden Siren anatomy lesson?”

“Felix, the reason I couldn’t speak or make any sound for the first sixteen years of my life is because my syrinx was slow to develop.”

“Wait, what? Why would you think you have a syrinx?”

She braced herself as she dropped the dreaded bomb.

“Because, Felix, I’m a Siren.”

He stared at her, speechless, and then began to laugh so hard that he threatened to tip over the hammock.

“I’m not kidding, Felix. Stop laughing and hear me out.”

There was a despair in her eyes that made him take pity on her. “OK, I’m all ears.”

She couldn’t even manage a smile at the irony of his remark.

“Have you ever noticed, Felix, that Ms. Leucosia hasn’t aged one bit since we’ve known her? I mean, in all the years that we’ve been at RPA, that woman has remained as flawless as she was the first time you brought me into her office, right? Always with those two pinned-up braids? That perfect skin?”

“OK, I’ll give you that. Maybe she’s had Botox or something,” he conceded.

“No, Felix. Not Botox. The reason she has remained the same is because she is one of the original Sirens. You know, like, from
The Odyssey
.”

He grew suddenly very serious, knitting his eyebrows in that way he reserved for the most somber moments. “OK, Portia, now you listen to me. What I’m about to say is being said out of love.” He hesitated for a second, seemingly afraid to upset her. “I really have been worried about you—all your mood swings and, like, split personality stuff. So I did some Googling, and I read that schizophrenia is likely to come on in women who are eighteen to twenty-five. I think it might be hitting you a little early. And I kind of feel like you know something is really wrong, too, or else why would you be spending so much time in Ms. Leucosia’s office?”

He had stopped the hammock from swinging with his leg. His brow relaxed slightly once he offered her his official diagnosis.

“No, Felix. Not schizophrenia. That is not why I’ve been spending so much time with Leucosia. Listen to me! Leucosia used to have two sisters, Parthenope and Ligeia.” Her fingers stumbled over the spelling of the names as she clearly enunciated each one. “They were the evil ones—the ones that used to call in the sailors and kill them. One day Leucosia fell in love with a mortal man—a guy named Nereus—and her sisters killed him right in front of her eyes. They didn’t know that she was pregnant at the time—with a daughter, Melina.”

She was nothing if not impassioned as she spun the implausible tale.

“Wow, you’ve really been doing your mythology homework. Where’d you come up with all of these names?” Doubt edged his voice, along with a frustrating dose of patronization.

Ignoring him, she continued. “Remember the Goddess Athena in
The Odyssey
? You know, the one they always describe as clear-eyed and pale-armed?”

Felix did something between a shake and a nod of his head.

“Well, Athena convinced Leucosia to leave the island where she lived with her sisters so that she could raise Melina, a demigod, in peace. Unfortunately, Melina did not inherit either the immortality or the Siren gene. She did marry and have children, though, with a very nice mortal named Nikolas. They had a few daughters. Again, none of them hit the immortality jackpot.”

Portia was growing breathless as Felix continued to do the shake-nod thing.

“Anyway, on her deathbed, Melina made her mother—Leucosia, that is—swear that she would stay alive until the next Siren was born so that she could prevent her from becoming power-hungry and evil like her sisters.”

She paused to take a breath, allowing Felix a moment to digest the story. He fixed her with an uncomprehending stare.

“Felix, why do you think the boys are suddenly fawning all over me? I mean, it’s not like I became this ravishing beauty overnight.”

“Um—yeah, actually you did,” he responded. “Well, not overnight, I guess. I think it was once you got the braces off…God, that metal mouth was not working for you, Portia—”

“It’s the voice, Felix! It can do anything.” The look of doubt on his face forced Portia to play her last card. She braced herself and told him about the Trotter debacle.

“…When I saw what was going on, it was like some crazy force overtook me. I started quaking and all of a sudden my voice just, like, emerged. Before I knew it, Mr. Trotter was following me, following my voice out to the well. You should have seen the look in his eyes, Felix—I was willing him to climb in, and there was nothing he could do about it. Charlotte and her mom pulled him out—I’m still not sure why. As far as I’m concerned, they’d have been better off with that guy dead. But anyway, in case you were ever wondering why Charlotte and I suddenly became such good friends, well, now you know.”

Felix stood up and began pacing around the hammock.

“Portia, what the hell are you talking about? How could you have even dreamt up a story like this? And why would you? I can’t believe I’m validating you by even asking!” His pacing was having a dizzying effect on her. “I mean, do you realize how insane this all is? I’ve known you forever. And now you’re telling me that you are actually some kind of God—”

“Goddess,” she corrected him.

“Goddess,” he corrected himself, “who can manipulate people with her voice?”

“Everyone except you, Felix.” She signed out the letters of his name tenderly.

He stopped in his tracks and stared at her as panic visibly cloaked him.

Portia stood up and took Felix’s hands in her own. She held them up to her face and pleaded with him.

“Please, Felix, I need you to believe me.”

She leaned her cheeks into his fingers. Tears were streaming down her face, baffling him further with their silver hue. He brushed them away with the pad of his thumb, which stained silver from the gesture.

After a long moment, he pulled her into the warmness of his arms. “Don’t cry, Portia. We’ll get you through this. Whatever this is. I just need time to process everything you just told me. I don’t know what to say. Please, don’t cry. Don’t cry. I’m not saying I don’t believe you. I just, um, I need some time.”

“I don’t have time, Felix. I need your help now.” She stepped away to sign out the words, too choked up to speak. She wanted so much to tell him about the upcoming battle, but with the way this conversation was going, she just couldn’t push her luck. He already had her chalked up as a lunatic.

“Portia, I need time. I need time.” He repeated the words over and over, as if trying to convince himself as well. He brushed his fingers through her hair. She could feel the tremor in them as he moved away any strays that had fallen on her face. “God, I miss you so much, Portia. I just…” There was nothing else to say.

He leaned over and kissed her on the forehead. The gesture seemed so natural, a reflexive show of the affection they had always shared for each other. Taking comfort in the kiss, Portia closed her eyes, blocking out a world that had become impossible to deal with.

He moved away then, and when she opened her eyes again, it was to see Felix running away, his long legs carrying him as fast they possibly could.

♪

“Where have you been, Leucosia?!” Portia was in her room and had been e-mailing the absent Siren for the past hour. When her iChat ringer finally sounded off, she assumed it was Felix, doubtlessly wanting to tell her that he had decided that she was totally nuts and he couldn’t really be her friend anymore, but instead Leucosia’s face popped up on the screen.

“You video chat?”

“Yes, Portia—they don’t age discriminate at the Genius Bar, I’ve already told you that. In fact, I’ve actually been devising new ways to blend technology with the powers of my voice—but we can get to that another time.”

“Where have you been, Leucosia?” she repeated. “I have a million things to tell you.”

Leucosia looked weary. “There was another situation surrounding Scylla. Something is definitely amiss there, but I’m just too overwhelmed to figure out what it is.”

Portia didn’t really care about what was happening with the six-headed freak of nature and wasted no time interrupting and telling Leucosia of her terrifying epiphany. The blood drained out of Leucosia’s face as she told her about the Tiresias discovery and how she had tested her theory with Charlotte.

“You threw your voice?”

“Oh, is that what you call it? I was thinking of it as like an advanced form of ventriloquism—”

“I cannot believe you actually threw your voice. Voice throwing is usually reserved for Sirens with a lot more experience. I don’t think I was able to throw my voice until I was around three hundred years old. That’s why we didn’t even bother putting it on your homework list. I mean, just the other day, after my one-to-one at the Apple store, I figured out how to throw my voice into Siri. Boy, was I proud of that. And I’m proud of you, too. Proud, but still worried. I mean, if your skills are so innately advanced, how are we to ensure that my sisters don’t prey on your expertise for their own purposes?”

“Thanks for pointing that out, Leucosia,” Portia offered sarcastically. “I guess it wasn’t terrifying enough for me to discover that your sisters are still wielding true powers from beyond the grave. Anyway, I was so freaked out that I actually bit the bullet and told Felix.”

“Oh. How did that go?” Hermes was blocking Leucosia from the screen, purring like an engine.

“He ran away. I mean, he listened to everything, but I don’t know—it was so frustrating that I couldn’t convince him with my voice. I mean, you yourself just said that voice throwing is an advanced skill. Isn’t there an advanced skill for getting deaf people to hear your voice?”

Leucosia looked away, and Portia detected a trace of guilt in the Goddess’s eyes.

“Hey, it’s not your fault, Leucosia. I mean, if there’s no trick, there’s no trick. Anyway, he ran and I haven’t heard from him since. He probably ran straight into the perfectly sculpted arms of Gabrielle Parker.”

“Oh, come now, Portia. Pettiness does not become you.” She seemed distracted, typing and looking away from the camera while Hermes kept obstructing the view.

“Yeah? Well, at least Felix doesn’t suspect that Gabrielle might be a paranoid schizophrenic. Leucosia, are you even listening to me?”

Leucosia continued typing. When she was done, she turned back to Portia. “I’m sorry, I was just Googling a bit more about Tiresias. Athena really did get a little carried away there—I think at the time she was going through a bad body image thing. I guess I can understand if he was pitied in the afterlife. But my sisters?! How can anyone pity them? I have some digging to do, Portia, and you have had an exhausting day. Why don’t you try to find something fun to do from your homework list before bed?”