Once all the boats were assembled, Dr. Brock stood up and reached for a megaphone. The stiff breeze blowing inshore made it difficult for the skippers to keep their vessels in a ring around the huge stones, known locally as the Stacks. Col cursed under his breath as he revved the engine to nudge Water Sprite forward. He had to keep in formation; Dr. Brock was depending on him not to let the creatures slip away unseen. Col hoped he would not have to hold position too long—just waiting here was unbearable. He grew very aware of himself: his quick, shallow breaths, his heart throbbing in his chest, the lick of the wind on his skin. If Dr. Brock did not do something soon, Col was in danger of disgracing himself by doing something rash to release the tension—yell, laugh, or even leap over the side before the creatures had a chance to lure him there—anything but this awful stillness.
Dr. Brock cleared his throat. “Your Reverences,” he called out to the seemingly empty rocks. “We are from the Society for the Protection of Mythical Creatures and we request an audience.”
Protectors clamped on his ears, Col heard none of this, but he knew what Dr. Brock was saying. He scanned the rocks, a bead of sweat trickling from his brow, as he tried to spot the least sign of life.
Dr. Brock repeated his call three times, but still there was no movement.
Was that it, wondered Col? After all this feverish anticipation, would they have to return home empty-handed? He could almost laugh at the indignity of their predicament.
“Shall we go?” Col mouthed to Dr. Brock.
Dr. Brock shook his head, and then bowed it as if in prayer, willing the creatures to respond. So much depended on this moment.
A flutter of wings—a flurry of activity on the rocks. Out of the lengthening shadows darkening the base of the Stacks, eight figures flew up to land—one on each crest. From afar, they looked like huge seagulls, but the members of the Society knew that each had the face of a woman.
The sirens had come.
Dr. Brock raised his megaphone to his lips but, before he could speak another word, the sirens launched themselves into the air, bearing down on them like storm clouds driven by a gale. Each siren had a vast wingspan, double that of an albatross. They skilfully cut through the air, white tails spread like fans, wings like scythes. Two headed for Evelyn Lionheart’s boat, three to Mr. Masterson, and three towards Col and Dr. Brock. Skimming over the boats, they wheeled upward to spiral high overhead, until they looked like no more than distant white flecks in the sky.
Were they gone? Had they fled? Col strained to see what was going on, wondering if he could relax.
He got his answer: no. In unison, the sirens snapped their wings close to their bodies and plunged like darts aimed at the heart of each vessel. Col felt a stab of fear in his stomach, gaining unwelcome insight into how a rabbit feels when an eagle plummets out of the sky to pluck it from the ground. Approaching at great speed, the sirens were now close enough for Col to see that their crimson mouths were open in a scream, pale faces blazing with white-hot anger, their bird-claws tearing at the air. There was no need for Dr. Brock’s frantic signals: Col knew that it was time to turn tail and race for the shore. He revved the engine and swivelled the wheel.
Whoosh! He ducked as a rush of wind gave him a second’s warning of the siren’s approach. A claw flashed into view. Fiery pain. Something had caught him on the side of the face. He held on to his headset, ripping it away from the clutch of black talons. He glanced up to see the huge gray wings with white undersides swooping out to sea: beautiful but terrible.
Swiftly, Col turned to check his passenger was still on board. On the bow of the boat, Dr. Brock was fending off the claws of two sirens. The creatures were mobbing him, intent on tearing the headset from his ears. Col glimpsed their human faces, their beauty distorted with rage: black eyes burning, blue-gray skin gleaming with sea-spray, the nostrils of their long, beak-like noses flaring, all surrounded by tendrils of feather-like hair that blew in the air in curling white whips. If they succeeded in taking the ear protectors from him, Dr. Brock would be lost. The song of the sirens, once heard, was fatal. It enticed the hearer to throw himself into the sea to reach the singers. No one could stop themselves. Screaming at the boat in terror, Col urged it forward as fast as it would go. Just a little further and surely their attackers must give up? A broad white wake stretched behind as he put as much distance as he could between the boat and the Stacks. At last, as the harbor came into sight, the sirens rose from their prey and hurtled past Col, back to their rocks.
Col pulled the ear protectors from his head and bellowed across to Dr. Brock, “Are you all right?”
Dr. Brock staggered to his feet, having been knocked down as a parting gesture. Taking off his headset, he replied breathlessly, “Unhurt, but I’m afraid I’ve spilt my tea.”
Shaken to the very core by what he had just witnessed, Col started to laugh with relief. Dr. Brock was famous for his cool in the face of the most difficult creatures, but this was the first time Col had seen him in action. He was glad Dr. Brock could not have heard his terrified cries a few moments before. He was certain the doctor would never have lost control like that, and he was ashamed of his weakness.
Back on shore, Col and Dr. Brock had an anxious wait for the other boats to return home. Col tried not to think what might have happened to his grandmother and could barely be restrained from taking the boat back out again to find her. Five minutes later, a huge weight lifted from his heart as two boats rounded the harbor wall. Borrowing Dr. Brock’s binoculars, he saw that they had emerged from the attack without losing anyone. The sirens had been content to scare them away. Except for Dr. Brock’s ripped jacket and pulled hair, Col was the only one to have been hurt; he was sporting a nasty scratch on his cheek that his grandmother fussed over with some antiseptic cream.
“What do we do now?” asked Mr. Masterson. Col noticed that, as the farmer sipped some hot sweet tea from Dr. Brock’s flask, his hands were still trembling. That made Col feel a bit better.
“I’ve never known anything like it,” said Mrs. Clamworthy. “Those sirens have been living perfectly peacefully on the Stacks for years. What could have made them turn on us now?”
“That’s not so hard to guess,” said Evelyn sourly, kicking an empty gasoline can on the marina walkway. “Oil. It’s no coincidence that their change of heart has come as Axoil invades their territory. Do you think the sirens could be behind the disappearance of the refinery workers, Horace?”
Horace Little, the most experienced among them with sea creatures, nodded. “I think it’s very likely, my dear.”
The verdict prompted Dr. Brock to reach a decision. He put down his mug. “This has spiralled out of our control. We don’t have the resources in our local chapter to deal with the sirens now that they’ve abandoned our ways. We’ve got to find out how we can stop them. They risk endangering everything the Society has sought to protect for centuries if they carry on like this.”
“So what do you suggest, Francis?” asked Mrs. Clamworthy.
“I think it is time we called in the expert. Does anyone speak Italian?” he replied, raising one eyebrow quizzically.
3
Oil
On Tuesday morning, Evelyn was subdued. She sat nursing a cup of coffee gloomily, not looking up from the local newspaper when Connie came in for her breakfast. Still angry at being casually abandoned the previous night, Connie was determined to make Evelyn acknowledge her existence for once.
“How was your meeting?” Her aunt only grunted. “Bad news?” Connie persisted, gesturing to the newspaper as she helped herself to cereal, refusing to let her aunt get away with ignoring her so completely.
Evelyn gave in, perhaps realizing that she was going to get no peace until she replied. “You could say that,” she said acerbically, pushing the paper over to Connie so she too could see the article that had caused a black cloud to settle on the day.
Connie glanced at the main picture—a group of grinning adults, one dressed
in a fur-trimmed cape and badge of office, gathered around a model of a factory. “ ‘Axoil entertains mayor,’ ” she read. “ ‘Oil company opens its doors to local dignitaries.’” Sounded pretty boring to her, but why had this upset her aunt? She looked harder at the photo and noticed one gaunt-faced man at the back staring at the camera as if he was about to strangle the photographer, his glare a strange contrast to the cheery smiles of his companions.
“What’s wrong with this?” Connie asked cautiously, pointing to the article.
Evelyn gave a snort of derision. “Well, it’s enough to make anyone sick, but I didn’t mean that story. Look at the bottom of the page—the small column in the corner.”
Connie did as she was told and spotted the article tucked away between an advertisement for Stair-Masters and another for cruises in the Mediterranean. “ ‘Third Axoil employee goes missing’ by Rupa Nuruddin.”
“Hey, I wonder if that’s Anneena’s sister!” Connie said excitedly.
Evelyn grimaced. “Read on,” she said tersely.
William O’Neill, 37, of Seabrook Caravan Park, failed to return home on Saturday morning. He was last seen by his family leaving for the night shift at the new Axoil oil terminal, where he is employed as a welder. Maurice Quick, managing director of Axoil, told this paper that the company has “no record of O’Neill reporting for duty,” though a number of O’Neill’s colleagues told this paper that they saw him working as usual on the far end of the new sea defenses guarding the harbor before the sea-fog obscured their view.
O’Neill is the third person associated with the construction of the oil refinery to have gone missing in the past six months.
Connie put down the paper. The article was very brief for such an important story. Surely the paper should have given more space to this than cheesy pictures of some mayor shaking hands with a bunch of suited businessmen? She thought she now understood her aunt’s bad mood.
“That’s very sad. Do you know him?”
Evelyn shook her head briskly. “No, I don’t. That’s not the point.”
Connie swallowed. “I’m sorry—I don’t understand....”
She immediately realized that she had said the wrong thing. Her aunt leapt up from the table and marched over to the sink, irritably throwing her cup into the washing bowl.
“You’re just like all the others, Connie: so shortsighted! Can’t you see a disaster looming, even if it’s staring you right in the face? How stupid can people get, building an oil refinery here of all places!”
“But what’s that to do with the missing man?” Connie asked tentatively, looking back down at the paper. The gaunt man in the photo now seemed to be glaring at her.
Evelyn appeared not to have heard as she attacked her mug with the washing brush, shooting soapy water all over the kitchen floor.
“This is only the beginning—you mark my words. We just knew things like this would happen, but did anyone listen when we tried to tell them? And now they’re talking about building a new road. Heaven knows the consequences with so many crea—so many ready to take matters into their own hands.”
“Was that what your meeting was about last night?” Connie made a cautious guess, trying to steer the conversation into calmer waters.
“In a way, yes.” Evelyn gave no more details. She clanged her mug down on the draining board and returned to read the rest of her newspaper, allowing her anger to simmer down. After a moment or two, she added, not looking up: “We’ll be having a guest from Italy to stay, possibly next week, depending on how soon he can get away.”
“Who is he?” Connie was learning to accept the surprises that her aunt had a habit of springing on her, without making a protest that she had not been consulted.
“Society member. Italian branch.”
“Is this society an environmental one, like Greenpeace or something?”
“Sort of.”
Connie wondered why her aunt was now smiling grimly, as if amused by her question.
“Can I come along to one of your meetings sometime? I’m really interested in the environment.”
“That depends.”
“Depends on what?”
Her aunt thought for a moment, then said with a sly smile, “I suppose it depends on who you take after: me or your father.”
This cryptic reply puzzled Connie. What on earth did she mean? Why did she never give her a straight answer? She was fed up with having to tread on eggshells around her aunt, without any clear clues as to what she should do and say.
“And how do I find that out?” she said, unable to keep the irritation from her voice.
“You don’t—we do.”
Yes, Connie decided on her way to school, her aunt was definitely insane, and the Society members sounded equally mad. All that rubbish about them finding out about you before they let you go to a single meeting! She was not sure she wanted to be in their precious Society. In fact, the sooner her parents realized they had left her in the hands of a lunatic, the better. The only thing she would regret if she had to move again was the good start she had made at school. If it weren’t for that, she would be on the phone to her parents today, demanding to be removed from Hescombe.
“Hey, Col, where’d you get that scratch?” Connie was standing only a few feet away from Col in the lunch line and couldn’t help overhearing his friends quiz him about his injury.
“Neighbor’s cat,” Col replied, rubbing his cheek.
That wasn’t right. Connie was sure he was lying. If it had been a cat, the scratches would have been smaller and parallel. That ugly scar looked as if it had been made by something big.
“And why didn’t you come to soccer club last night?”
“Oh, yeah. Sorry, Justin. Had to go to a Society meeting with Gran. You know, mega-boring, but she wouldn’t let me out of it.”
Connie couldn’t believe her ears. Col was in the crazy Society, too?
Justin kicked the wall absentmindedly. “You seem to do nothing else at the moment, Col. You’ll get dropped from the team if you’re not careful.”
“You think?” Col grinned, supremely confident.
“Well, perhaps not.” Justin laughed. “You’re the only half-decent player the school has; Mr. Johnson knows that. But he was mad at you.”
Col shrugged. “I’ll get Gran to talk to him. She’ll explain.”
Society. Connie itched to ask him about it. Perhaps he’d be more informative than her aunt; at least tell her what she needed to do if she wanted to go along to a meeting. Deciding it was time she had another word with Col, she sought him out after lunch. For once, he was standing on his own, gazing out at the scrap of sea visible from the playground. She thought it would be best to broach the subject indirectly. Best to start with a neutral question.
“So, Col, where did you really get that scratch? No cat could possibly make such a mark,” she said in what she hoped was a passable imitation of a cool, careless tone.
He shifted his eyes from the ocean, annoyed by the interruption. He was busy thinking about the sirens, wondering what had become of William O’Neill, and did not want to be bothered by Evelyn Lionheart’s niece.
“Er...”
“The only thing that could make a mark like that would be something like a bird of prey.” She hoped she would impress him with her knowledge of animals.
Col flinched, reminded of the razor-sharp talons of the sirens and their furious attack. He was also unnerved by Connie’s astute guess. “You know a lot about wildlife, don’t you?” he said, trying to move the subject away from his dark thoughts.
She refused the hint. “Come on, Col. Tell me. I know you’re lying about the cat.”
“Okay, okay.” Perhaps the quickest way to get rid of her was to tell her part of the truth. “I got it at a Society meeting last night from a very large...seabird. We’ve been patrolling the waters near the Stacks to...er...to protest about the new refinery, and I probably got too near its nesting site. Does that satisfy you?” He sound
ed exasperated with her, and he quickly turned his back.
Connie was far from content: she now had many more questions she wanted to ask.
“How come you were allowed to join this Society?” she asked, dodging in front of him so he could not ignore her.
“What?” Would she give it a rest?
“I asked my aunt if I could go along but she said it was invitation only.”
“You want to come along to the Society?” Col looked at her oddly as if she was talking to him in a foreign language.
“Yes, why not? I’m interested in saving habitats for wildlife, too,” she said defensively, her courage beginning to falter under his intense gaze. She wasn’t sure if he was laughing at her.
Col’s face creased in the same odd smile her aunt had given her that morning. He looked at her properly for the first time.
“Sure. You seem the type—you’ll know what I mean if you get to meet the others. We’re a bit busy at the moment—bit of a crisis really—but when things settle down in a couple of weeks, your aunt can ask the assessors to have a look at you.” There—that should get rid of her.
The bell rang for the end of break. Col hurried back to class, leaving Connie trailing in his wake. She wondered what it would be like to be a member of the Society after all. If Col was in it, it couldn’t be completely full of weirdos—he was too cool for that. There was definitely something special about the people in the Society she’d met so far, not that she could describe what it was exactly. And a society that went on evening boat picnics sounded fun. She was sure she’d be able to tell them how not to upset the seabirds if they went out again. After all, understanding animals was the very thing she was good at.
Back in the classroom, Connie sat down next to Anneena. Mr. Johnson called the class to order.
“Right, listen up. I want each of you this term to do a project on a subject of local interest for an end of term display. You can work in groups or singly as you wish. I’ve jotted a few sample ideas on the board. Copy them down and see if any of them catch your fancy. I’ll then ask if anyone has any ideas of their own that they’d like to pursue.”