There was no hiding her sorrow or her grief or her hopelessness, she realized. As careful as she had been not to speak of her dream, as cautious as she had been in the words she had chosen when Ligeia had asked what more she had seen—the truth would always be in her song, in the hymns she sang to the gods.
So she sang, begging Akheloios to come, to find them again. She sang for any ship at all, and quickly. She sang for her mother’s sake, and her grandmother’s, praying that Persephone would guard their spirits in death as fiercely as they had been forsaken in their lives. She sang and she sang, and she struggled within herself to find the peace her mother had always had—the faith not in Akheloios and escape, but in the knowledge that she would serve her goddess in the afterlife.
And then, quite suddenly, her song died.
For on the horizon, just at the corner of her eye, a dot she had blinked away had grown into a blot, and that blot, when she turned her head just slightly, had become a ship upon the water—red sail full and bright against the blue, cloudless sky.
“A ship!” she cried, her voice breaking with the strain. “A ship, Mama! A ship!”
“Sing, girl!” Ligeia called back. “You must sing!”
She laughed, hardly recognizing the sound as it tumbled from her lips, and then took up her song again—but brighter now, and stronger, louder. Aglaope sang of the children Akheloios might provide, of the groaning tables filled with more food than a thousand men might eat. She sang of the joy of rescue, of the love she was bursting to give, and the long lonely years she had waited. She sang, and the ship sailed nearer.
Hurry, she urged them on. Hurry here.
The scrape and scrabble of rock made her tear her gaze away from the sail, glancing down. And there was Ligeia, weak and frail and climbing, tears in her eyes. “They must not pass us by,” she said, when she had reached the spire’s top, gasping and shaking. “They must not leave us behind.”
Her mother steadied herself, closing her eyes and straightening her back. She drew one deep breath into her belly, and then another, and Aglaope heard her humming, warming her throat—discordant at first, but slowly shifting, falling nearer and nearer into tune.
And then they were singing together, her mother’s voice so much richer now, so much darker, but still beautiful. How had she not remembered how much more beautiful it was to sing together? The ship sped toward them, the sail more now than just a splash of red, and the long oars flashing, until she could see the cadence of their strokes, and Aglaope could match her song to their steady strength.
They sang, and with their voices raised together, their song spreading across the water, spilling from their hearts, it seemed impossible that this ship could escape them. Two Sirens? Singing as one with all their strength, all their power—if the gods had given them any true power at all.
Aglaope would have laughed again if she had not been so determined to keep singing. But she put all that hope and joy into her song. And she sang of fame and renown for the hero who might sail his ship between her rocks. She sang of glory and gold—oh they had so much gold, found upon their shores, tossed up from the water by the winter storms. And though gold had no true value to them beyond the water a pot might hold, they had kept it still, as gifts to shower upon Akheloios when he came. Aglaope sang of all their treasures, of the prizes they would give to the men who succeeded where so many before had failed. How rich they would be, returning home, with so many precious gifts within their hold!
And a Siren too, to be his bride. To sing in his own halls, if he would only save her from the rocks. Aglaope would use her voice to please men and gods, both, and bring travelers from far abroad to enrich his coffers further, just for the chance of hearing her song. And oh, how she longed for a home on fertile earth, to see greenness all around, and trade the pounding surf of the sea for the joyful sounds of fresh running water at a river’s bank. To live beside the beauty of her father’s strength.
She sang of it all, the whole morning through, until the ship had neared enough that she could see—with her own sharp, desperate eyes—the man strapped and straining against the mast, bound by heavy ropes and shouting, screaming, weeping and pleading for his men to slow.
* * *
VII
“Akheloios,” her mother rasped, so startled she had lost the song. “It is Akheloios strapped down, as you described him to the life. And his men – they pay him no heed at all, but to tie him all the tighter.”
Aglaope’s vision blurred, tears offering a blessed blindness from the sight of the god she knew—the god she loved. Her father, caught and trapped upon the mast. Oh, Akheloios—no, oh no. Gods above, set him free!
“This is Circe’s doing,” her mother said. “Circe’s final insult, her last offense. To hold a god against his will! Surely she must suffer!”
She caught her mother’s hand and squeezed, remembering Anthousa’s own words. How Circe would stop their ears with wax if she must, to be sure that they sailed through. Surely even wax would not be enough, could not be enough, to thwart Odysseus-Akheloios, born of Hermes’s blood, that Giant-Killer and friend of travelers and thieves. So Aglaope raised her voice all the louder, feeling the strain in her throat, knowing she would make herself hoarse.
But what did that matter now? If this ship passed, if Akheloios was kept from reaching them, what difference would it make if she could sing or not? She would die with or without it, and even if she did not, even if by some blessing, some gift of the fickle deathless gods above, she lived on, she would be the last of her line. And if she would be the last, then this—this would be her final song, that she might know she had done all she could do. Given all that was within her power to give.
Akheloios, come!
Ligeia understood her mind, and raised her voice, too, again. And they sang to Odysseus-Akheloios alone, of all the men. They sang their love, their thanks for all that he had given. Daughters and mothers, and his own sweet, fresh water, brought to them each winter that they might survive.
“No!” Akheloios cried, near enough at last that they could hear his words even through their song. “No, you don’t understand,” he said, frantic now. “I must reach them. We must reach them! We must thread our way through!”
But his men ignored him, just as they ignored their Siren’s song, working the oars without the slightest hitch, and only the barest glances up. Aglaope could not even imagine what they saw—what they thought. Two desperate, clinging women, mouths opening and closing, gaping silently like fish upon their high rock.
“No!” Akheloios called again, tears streaming from his eyes. “Do you not see? Circe’s woman lied! Anthousa lied, and without us they will die!”
Aglaope wanted to weep, wanted to tear at her clothes and her breast with grief as she watched the ship sail on. But she sang—sang and sang and sang with all she had—holding Akheloios’s gaze as he passed.