Siren Queen(33)

We found roses and columbine in the east courtyard garden, as well as whispering stalks that rattled as we passed and something that chimed like bells, but until we came closer to Ronald Abelard’s office, with its brass plaque inscribed with his name on the door, we couldn’t find love-comes-home.

The little flowers were lovely, but nothing special. I wondered briefly if Abelard came from someplace like Greta and Emmaline did, where the rusty-hearted flowers meant home, and then I decided that I didn’t care at all. I pinched off the stalks close to the dirt, grateful for my sharp nails. I could never have kept them so long at the laundry. I had only plucked a few stems when I glanced up to see that Greta was gazing at the roses.

“In for a penny, you might as well,” I said, and she broke one woody stem with a soft laugh.

That was when we heard it, a rustle at the gate, a sound like a groan for water. We both froze, and I bent down, ready to grab another handful of flowers and run.

“What are you doing here?” asked Greta, and her voice was sharp, as if someone had come into her courtyard and not the other way around.

“Caroline?” The face was male and slightly breathless, but the name wasn’t a guess. That was the name they were throwing around for Greta, Caroline Carlsson. She answered to it about as well as an iron teakettle would, which was to say, not at all.

“No,” said Greta sharply. “That name is ridiculous. My name is Greta.”

“Greta…” The tone was worshipful and wondering, and now I stood up, bewildered at what was going on.

Brandt Hiller was just twenty-four, and he looked younger. There was something tender about his face and the way his blond hair fell into his eyes, something soft and sweet and touching even to me. He had played eager young sons for a few years, and just that summer, he had graduated to young romantic roles.

“No,” Greta said, stalking towards him. “Get my name out of your mouth.”

I watched, mouth slightly ajar, as Greta walked towards this young man that looked like a willow branch in the violet light of the courtyard. I didn’t think I had ever seen her approach anyone with that kind of resolve before, and the missing piece clicked into place.

“Is that…” I hadn’t meant to speak at all, but Greta glanced over her shoulder at me.

“Yes,” she said, her eyes bright.

He was perfectly still as she approached him, and I saw the uneasy shadow of something I recognized in his eyes. She could have been coming towards him with a knife or a railroad spike instead of a rose in her hands, and that would have been just fine as long as she kept coming. She trampled moss and flowers under her feet, and when she came up to him, he took the white rose from her hand.

“Please,” he said, and Greta must have known why he said it because she reached for him and drew him in for a deep kiss. It went on so long that I looked away, and when I looked back it was still going.

When Greta pulled away, she was turned so that I couldn’t see her face, but I could see his. It was as if he had lost himself but gained something so profound that it was worth it, worth it.

Greta glanced over her shoulder at me. She looked more than beautiful. She looked wild, and this was the part of her the studio wanted, that it could never touch. It would never show up on film or on command, worthless to them, and I shivered at how rare it was to see at all.

“This won’t take long,” she said curtly. “Pick your flowers.”

She took him behind the fountain, dragging him by one hand. He stumbled after her, losing a shoe in the process, and because I didn’t have anything to do besides what she said, I picked as many of the flowers as I dared. They looked patchy when I was done, but not so devastated that someone would get in trouble, I hoped. The more time I had to think, the more I could see destruction radiating out from what we were doing.

I bound the stems together with a garter. My stocking drifted down but that didn’t matter on Friday. I looked like a wasting bride with the bouquet in my hands, but Greta was right, and it didn’t take her long. My head jerked up when she called me, and warily, I rounded the grotesque fountain to find her bedded on smashed greenery with Brandt Hiller resting on one shoulder. They hadn’t taken off their clothes, but Greta’s skirt was hiked up to her hips, Brandt’s trousers undone.

“Put that down and come here,” she said, indicating the side opposite from Brandt.

She was wild and strange, but I went to her without fear. I placed my bouquet carefully on the ground, and I came to rest next to Greta, leaned up on one elbow and with my back to the fountain.

She sighed with satisfaction, butting her head against me. There was still that anger wound through her, but it was calmer now, not so desperate or grieved. As I watched she patted Brandt’s cheek until he came awake.

“Cigarette and lighter,” she demanded, and he fumbled them out of his pocket.

He lit three narrow cigarettes, taking the last for himself. Three on a match means the last one’s dead, but nothing came out of the darkness looking for him. The smoke was sweet and sharp at once, floating up over our heads.

“I’m sorry,” Brandt said presently, and Greta shot him a sideways look.

“Why?”

“Because I don’t belong to you.”

A strange set of emotions crossed Greta’s face, and she narrowed her eyes.

“Yes, you do,” she said. I was older when I learned about the skogsr?, Greta’s people. Hollow-backed, cow-tailed, they would love their men until they killed them, and that certainly meant that they owned them. What it meant for a girl with no tail, brought back from Sodermalm on a rope, no one really knew, but Greta knew her way best.