Remember how we said that if you ordered a Call of the Siren Kit before May 15th, you would also receive a mermaid patterned Yarn Bra while supplies lasted? Well, as it turns out, many of you felt passionately about your yarn cakes having the support they needed, and we ran out of them within hours of launching the kit. I felt bad that people who had ordered the same day the pre-order opened wouldn’t receive them, so I hunkered down and made more.
Alright, I made a lot more. What can I say, I’m a softy. And it doesn’t hurt that I really enjoy sewing them. As of my count earlier this morning, we have TWO sets left. Megan-Anne made me promise not to make more since it was supposed to be special, so that’s it folks. If you want ’em, get ’em now! The boss has spoken.
Megan-Anne is not actually the boss of me. We’re a democracy. But she did threaten to stop baking delicious treats for our Sunday afternoon knit dates, so I regret to inform you that I will no longer be making Yarn Bras for the Call of the Siren Kits.
And now for your spoiler of Clues One and Two:
https://www.instagram.com/p/BjulaGFHqAu/?taken-by=doctor_llama
Did you miss Chapters One and Two of Call of the Siren? Click on the highlighted links and catch up on our story!
The Song
The beat of your heart; the drum of the Siren’s call.
Blood courses with the charging tide.
Tendrils of mist that shackle; ensnared by the thrall.
Sinking, drowning, when land and waves collide.
Cursed to dive; destined to soar.
Robbed of our birthright majesty.
Cast out and forgotten; scraping the floor.
Flames of rage unquenched in the sea.
The song was all that mattered. I don’t know how much time passed. We weren’t asleep. Unconscious wasn’t the right word either; we were desperate for the mermaid’s song. It felt as if day and weeks slipped by as I strained to be one with the melody. Even after it stopped, it echoed inside me as I struggled to find it again.
Slowly, I regained rational thought. Well, sort of. There was only so rational you could be when you came down from a terrible, magical, song-based trip and found out you were in a cage.
Obviously, what this already spectacularly shitty day needed was a freaking cage. I reached a shaking hand up to wipe tears off my face. What had I done to deserve waking up in the middle of a Lifetime-Syfy movie crossover? My eyes adjusted to the dim light, and I could just make out the silhouettes of two other figures in the cage. I rubbed at my face again, but couldn’t get the tears off. And that’s when it hit me, I hadn’t been crying. I was under water.
“Nope.” I said. “I’m OUT. I am going back to bed. Today is fired, tomorrow needs to report in immediately.” At the sound of my voice, which actually didn’t even sound that weird underwater, Jac’s head jerked up. I could just make out the curve of her round cheeks and her mass of curling hair floating around her head like Medusa’s snakes.
“Megan-Anne?” Her voice was quiet and dispassionate. “Have we always been able to breath under water?”
The thing about Jac is that if she’s yelling or crying, or just generally freaking out, things will probably be fine. But when she gets that flat, cold voice, shit is about to hit the fan. Well, I guess in this case it was about to hit the undertow.
“Oh yeah, didn’t you know? Those aren’t stretch marks on my hips, they’re gills.” She didn’t get a chance to laugh at my amazing wit. Lights flared up from torches all around us. “Sure. Underwater torches. Why wouldn’t there be? Makes sense.”
Our cage was off to the side of an enormous cavern. Persephone lay unconscious on the far side of the cage, a vicious cut on the side of her head. Blood matted her long dark hair. An enormous throne loomed at the front of the room, carved with intricate feathers so delicate you could almost see them flutter. Meanwhile, our cage was made out of living coral that had seemingly arranged itself to please the sirens. Oh yeah, that was the real kicker. Up until that moment, we’d had a siren problem. Now we had a Sirens problem. There must have been at least a hundred of them, solemnly floating in the huge cavern, the orange light glistening off the scales of their tails. God knows how many more were outside.
The queen rose from her throne. “Mortal Children.” Her voice hurt. I mean, honestly hurt. It was as if my bones were being shaken out of their joints at the sound of it. “Where is the changeling Zagreus?”
“Zag?” Jac asked, her voice still dangerously quiet. “He’s tied up at the moment. He needed a time out to think about the consequences of crossing mortal children.”
My life flashed before my eyes as I rushed forward to slap my hand over Jac’s mouth. This was not the time for backtalk. But apparently the magic that allowed me to breathe did not extend to the law of equal and opposite forces. I moved through water in slow motion and halfway to my sister, I was literally blown backwards by the force of the queen’s laughter. My back slammed into the coral bars, the sharp edges digging into me and piercing my skin in places, which felt super awesome in the salty waters.
“Your petulance pleases me, human girl. Too often your kind forgets that it is in your nature to rebel. To reward your bravery, I will give you your life. You may complete Zagreus’s task in his place, and if you survive, I will grant you passage back to land.”
Jac, her back pressed against the sharp coral bars beside me, narrowed her eyes and tilted her head down as if she had the power to charge out of our prison and take on the Siren Queen single-handedly.
“We accept the task,” I yelled.
Jac glared at me. But I didn’t want to find out how far she was willing to test the queen’s patience for “human petulance.”
In retrospect, I probably should have asked what the task was.
Thanks for reading! ~Megan-Anne & Jac