Aunty Carol by Jason

“Like fuck you will!” the tall woman cracked the knuckles on both her hands and looked directly at the being in front of her.

“Aunty Carol, please,” Emyr stepped in front of the Herald. “It’s the only way.”

“Sweetheart,” Aunty Carol’s lips curled into a smile but her gaze retained its cold steeliness. She held Emyr’s shoulders in a firm grip and looked him squarely in the eye. “This twat has been a thorn in my side since before you were born love. As far as I’m concerned, he can do one!”

“If I may explain,” as the Herald started to speak the line of women standing behind Aunty Carol bristled and a chill wind moaned and rattled the warehouse windows. The Herald held up its hands and took a step backward.

Aunty Carol put an arm around Emyr and pulled him toward her, drowning him in a hug. When she finally released him, he thought he saw tears in her eyes. “It’s cold in here,” she said, wiping her cheeks. “We need to talk. I have been trying to get hold of you since your Mum’s funeral.”

“I’m sorry,” Emyr looked down at his shoes. “It’s been a weird few weeks. I’ve been meaning to get back to you but I started having the – “

“- the dreams again?” Aunty Carol looked worried. “I thought that might happen. When you lose someone without warning a lot of the barriers can come down. It was always going to be harder for you sweetheart.”

Emyr remembered that phone call from Aunty Carol. It was, without doubt, the single worst conversation of his life. The afternoon sun had been shining weakly through the dusty blinds into the staff room. The teaching day was over, most of the pupils, save those on detention or in after school clubs, were off home. He was sat in a quiet corner pondering over the lesson planner for the Year 9 group he had for the first period the next day, when his mobile had jolted him back into the room.

He could barely remember what Aunty Carol had actually said, to this day the words refused to stay put, they ran around like unruly kids in the playground, all shouting for his attention, but there were far too many of them and their voices became a tidal wave of noise. He could remember the sudden lack of air in his lungs though and the fear and adrenaline coursing through his body. He had gripped the back of a chair, his knuckles blanching, then his knees gave way and his heart broke.

The weeks leading up to the funeral were a series of maelstroms. The school were professional and respectful: they had his covered his classes for a fortnight but if he wanted more time, he would need to take it as holiday. Compared to the rest of it Emyr found the practical side of death a breath of fresh air. The paperwork was steady and reliable and reassuringly easy to deal with. Arranging the funeral brought him a sense of order and calm. Choosing the hymns, the readings, the casket and the flowers. Sorting through his Mum’s clothes to decide what to cremate her in gave him a feeling of comfort and stillness.

It was the well-meaning colleagues and friends that made things worse. They cast him adrift on a tepid sea of well-intentioned twaddle. They said things like – it was too soon, or, that they were sorry for his loss, or, that his Mum’s passing must be a great sadness but at least she’d gone to a better place. He found himself dancing around the fact of his mother’s death with similarly placatory tones but, behind these saccharine replies, he was sick with rage. Of course it was too fucking soon, it would always feel too soon when he still needed to hear her voice. She wasn’t lost like a pair of his reading glasses that he’d forgotten were on his head and what better place was there for her than in her home, where he still needed her to be. Everything was in motion, shifting on colder, deeper currents but she would always be his Mum, no matter what, except now she was dead. What else was there to say?

With a firm hand, Aunty Carol guided Emyr away from the Herald, the line of women followed at a distance, forming a wall between the two of them and the Families. When Aunty Carol felt comfortable, she held his face up to the light regarding the scratches on his cheek, “So, the Collectoris finally got themselves a prize, eh?”

“It would seem so,” Emyr blushed.

“Load of bloody nonsense if you ask me. Shame they don’t – ask me that is,” Aunty Carol grinned and playfully punched his arm. “Then again, they probably know exactly what I’d say to ‘em!”

She laughed and some of the women laughed with her. Emyr recognised two of the older women from when he was a young boy. They had visited his home on and off over the years, arriving at odd times of the day, walking in as if they owned the place, slurping tea, eating the good biscuits and having a proper chat with his Mum. Though, it occurred to Emyr that, as he got older, they visited less and less frequently and the chat turned to sharp words and then there was no tea.

Above them the Fang wriggled around trying to find comfort in the cold warehouse rafters. Aunty Carol looked up at them and a moment of pity flashed across her lined face. She grabbed Emyr’s hand, “I cannot let them take you, sweetheart. You are not ready for this!”

“The Herald has explained it to me,” Emyr squeezed his aunt’s hand, enjoying the warmth of her worn skin. “I’m one of the five prizes and as such I need to go to the Circle. To be presented to a group called the Coruscation, it’s a kind of ceremony really, like-”

“Ceremony?” Aunty Carol let go of Emyr’s hand and bellowed back at the Herald. “A fucking ceremony you call it eh? You bastards!

Ceremony my sweaty arse crack! Look, sweetheart, none of us know what this ceremony really is, they won’t tell us. All we know is that they pick five sirens and send them to the Circle. We never see those sirens again. Never. Ask Lilly – her sister was a prize a few years ago.”

“Six years ago,” the tall, wiry woman sighed and looked at Emyr. “And we haven’t seen or heard from her since.”

“Since sirens were first discovered and cultivated by the Heralds we’ve been taken to the Circle, it’s a part of our history,” Aunty Carol fixed the Herald with her stare. “At first they took five of us every hundred years or so, and it was that way for centuries, but with consciousness having developed on a few planets across the universe we were all relatively safe.”

“Consciousness developed on planets across the universe?”

“Yes sweetheart!” Aunty Carol looked at him like he was a young boy again. “Remember that blue skinned girl from your dreams when you were eight or so?’

“Tea’doh? Yeah?”

“Well, how do I put this? Uhm, she wasn’t a dream as such, more of a – a projection. You could say that her people are very, very conscious!” Aunty Carol smiled and patted Emyr’s flushed cheek. “Anyways, the Five Families created the Hunt to pick Five Sirens, like I said. It was every hundred years or so, like I said. Except, that all changed roughly two hundred years ago when the Families went into a major meltdown. From then on, the hunts have become more and more frequent and despite protests from many of our Siren sisters the families won’t tell us what the fuck is going on.”

Emyr felt like his mind had suddenly realised it was in a race, one that had started a while ago and for some reason had not heard the starting pistol. He looked along the line of women, their diversity was beautiful. All of them were connected by a universal music that he didn’t yet fully understand but that he felt tugging at his edges like an insistent puppy. All of these women were Sirens and there were other Sirens scattered across the universe including the blue skinned girl from his childhood dreams who was actually real and one of them.

“You alright love? You don’t look very well,” Aunty Carol took a step back.

Emyr looked up at the Fang, nestled in the roof, he sensed a resounding crash of cymbals and a distant, steady drum beat. He looked at Peck and Jynn and heard the thin, reedy sound of a dozen oboes weave an intricate melody around the warehouse, The Herald stood to one side, seemingly impassive, but it was surrounded by the confident shining trill of a lone trumpet.

Aunty Carol grabbed his arm as Emyr staggered, easing him down to the concrete floor. As he looked up into her kind, worried face Emyr felt the tides of sound, the chorus of all the sirens in the universe, washing over him.

“There is so much to hear,” he grinned, feeling himself slip beneath the waves of sound. Then he threw up on Aunty Carol’s boot and passed out.

“You have made him into your thing!”

“I only did as Anwen asked.”

“Oh, I’m sure! Whatever you need to tell yourself to get you through the day, eh?”

“Everything I have done was at Anwen’s insistence,” the Herald’s light rippled in defiance. “Carol, you know she was guided by the Mothers. Their songs told her what she needed to do.”

“Guided? Ha! If you say so.”

“She knew what she was doing and why! There was nothing else to do but help her as best I could.” The Herald looked at the floor between him and Aunty Carol. “I loved her.”

“He is still your instrument though, isn’t he?” Aunty Carol stood face to face with the Herald. “Does Emyr have a choice anymore?”

The Herald’s eyes dimmed for a moment then flickered with a golden flame. “He never had a choice, Carol. Anwen knew it. You know it. All we can do is arm him and protect him, in accordance with his mother’s wishes.

I admit it would have been better if he had been older, wiser, more experienced, if Anwen were here herself, but we were never going to be able to hide him forever. The Coruscation have chosen him now; therefore, we have to act now.”

“I just wish we had more time,” Aunty Carol looked at Emyr’s sleeping form, her shoulders sagged. “He’s still my little boy.”

“I know,” The Herald lightly touched Carol’s shoulder. “Which is why Anwen chose you to teach him! She knew that out of all her sisters you would be his best hope. We need to trust in Anwen.”

“She was crazy and foolish and stupid and the closest thing I have ever had to family,” Aunty Carol sighed, straightened her shoulders, reached up and patted The Herald’s hand. “Of course I trust her: she was a Siren of the City of the Forts, a Sister and my friend. Our friend. I just can’t help thinking…”

“We must not think Carol. We must act.”

The once grand building, like the once grand street it sunk into, had seen better days. The mint green paint was cracked and peeling away from the pock marked plaster; the sign above the door was worn and cracked, dirt streaked the aging plastic. Years of rain and pollution had aged the facade, careless and indifferent landlords had done the rest. Behind the rain-streaked window a dusty old drum kit, a sagging piano stool and some faded manuscripts on a rickety display stand sat unpromisingly underneath a sun scorched “Closing Down Soon” sign. Some of the older locals joked that the music shop had been closing down forever, the rest of the city tried to ignore it.

The morning commute was over but the streets were still busy with early shoppers failing to beat the bad weather. Emyr watched the people skitter past as he stood by the battered looking shop door, the collar on his coat turned up to try and block out the icy winds. Aunty Carol stood to one side watching the street and barely keeping her frustration in check, whilst the shopkeeper, Mags, struggled with the rusty shutters.

Once out of the wind Emyr stood in the middle of the gloomy room, Mags turned on the dust covered lights, looking around Emyr wondered why she bothered. A few sad looking instruments hung on the walls of the shop; crinkled price tags hung off some like the last leaves of autumn. The counter was a sea of ageing papers and dust. On the wall behind the till a board displayed fading gig posters for bands that Emyr had never heard of, playing in venues that had long closed. The shop smelt of sadness, decay and mouse droppings.

Aunty Carol watched the passers-by on the wind-swept street for a moment longer then pulled the old woman to one side. She whispered quickly and purposefully as Mags kept looking to the door, then to Aunty Carol and to the door again all while nodding to some unheard rhythm. Aunty Carol gave Mags a pat on the arm and an encouraging smile, Mags started to set up the shop for a day’s trading.

“Why are we here?” Emyr whispered as he followed Aunty Carol to a doorway at the back of the shop.

“Don’t worry, Mags doesn’t look like much but she is one of my oldest sisters,” Aunty Carol opened the creaky door. “I trust her with my life.” Emyr looked back at the tiny fragile looking woman in her ill-fitting cardigan and realised that it wasn’t the maddest thing he’d heard in the last twenty-four hours.

Emyr made his way through the shadows and the cobwebs, past the piles of old boxes, music manuscripts and broken instruments and gingerly walked up the ancient looking wooden stairs. The room at the top of the landing ran the width of the building. The walls and floor were bare, floor to ceiling windows overlooked the busy street, the grimy pains diffused the light and afforded the occupants a modicum of privacy.

Standing in the doorway Emyr shivered, this room was colder than the shop, or maybe it was the stand-off in the room: the Sirens had gathered close to the door. In the opposite corner stood the Herald. He was not alone, Jynn and Peck stood on an old plastic chair, trying to look imposing. Emyr looked up, he couldn’t see them but he knew that the Fang were in the air, high above the building.

Well, whatever this is, Emyr told himself. It is not going to be fun!

Aunty Carol smiled and winked at Emyr but couldn’t quite hide the sadness tucked in behind her eyes. She strode into the centre of the room and took a deep breath. Slowly she closed her eyes and sang a single, soft, sustained note. One by one the Sirens joined her with a single note, each one perfect and unique, till the harmony built and filled the room. Emyr marvelled at the richness of sound. At one point Mum would have been here, in this room with these people, he watched the women sing, felt their joy and strength in the vibrations around him. Am I meant to join in?

Then the sound stopped and the light in the room changed, the air seemed to move from musty dampness to the smell of fresh cut grass. It was warmer and brighter and suddenly, for the first time in hours, Emyr felt his shoulders loosen and his stomach unknot. Aunty Carol looked to the Sirens and raised her arms as if about to give them all a huge hug.

“Sisters, a Haven has been found. Thanks to the Mothers for this space.”

“Thanks to the Mothers,” all the Sirens repeated.

“Now, Emyr, sweetheart,” Aunty Carol turned to face him. “We have a lot of ground to cover and nothing like enough time, so take that coat off and get over here.”