Never Date a Siren, page 3
Brigit was meticulous about keeping her Balance in all ways. So even though her obligation was to a human, she would pay back the hospitality of having such a lovely room to call home.
Brigit thought over the problem while she worked on her hair. She had left a brownie at Sam’s, and she was pretty sure that the fae being would love to move to a more agreeable situation.
Who wouldn’t? Sam, being a troll, had little hygiene. The way he left his beard clippings in the sink and his hair in the tub always disgusted Brigit.
Undoubtedly, the brownie would love a better position.
Brownies were one of the few clans of the fae that worked closely with humans. They tended their homes, barns, or fields, to make all tidy and plentiful. If she could convince the brownie to housekeep for them, her roommate would be well compensated for Brigit’s use of the room.
Thus the Balance would be maintained.
When her tight black curls made a perfect, angelic halo about her head, Brigit was satisfied. She struck a pose in the mirror, giving herself air guns, and a blessing chant to cheer herself to meet the day with the proper spirit.
“Oak, Thorn, and Ash. Time to dash.”
Before leaving the room, she laid her palm on the door’s sigil once more. Feeling the emptiness of the living spaces, she exited, backpack in hand. In passing, she noticed the violin and its case were gone.
Brigit was about to step out the door when a glint of gold on the kitchen counter caught her fae attention. Like a magpie, she came closer. Inspecting it, she discovered it was only a brass key.
It wasn’t her fault if humans were notoriously lackadaisical about doorways and physical boundaries. She scooped it up, murmuring with glee, “Finders Keepers.”
At the front door, she confirmed again the coast was clear before exiting.
Yes, the key fit the front door just as she thought. Didn’t she have the luck today?
Hello! Welcome, or is it goodbye? Are you leaving? He already left. When you come back I’ll always be here for you! said the coco mat.
Brigit rubbed the mat with the sole of her shoes and gave a fondle to the hallway palm. The fae slid the key into her jean pocket and headed to the stairwell.
When Brigit discovered that the Treaty of Sigismund gave qualifying fae the ability to attend a human university in Bewachterberg, it encouraged her to implement a long-desired plan to leave the Perilous Realm. Using a long forgotten atlas from her parent’s library, she discovered the location of a majestic, ancient oak. It was near the tennis courts of Leopold-Ottos-Universität and was a portal point.
Portals were specific gateways that could serve as a bridge between the Perilous Realm and the human lands. One early morning she left home, using the tree to cross into Geheimetür. She promptly enrolled at LOTTOS as a student of botany and biology.
While she had been busy last semester adjusting to her new life in the human lands, Brigit never forgot her first friend. She always made a daily detour on campus to pay the matriarch tree respect.
Spring is almost near its end, said the oak.
“Finals will be here before you know it,” Brigit agreed while laying her hand on its rough bark in greeting. The young fae closed her eyes, grounding and centering herself.
The forest sprite sent some healing to the tree’s oak galls. This type of work took time and patience, and over the passing months, the two had come to know each other very well. She fed some of her energy downward, encouraging more of the oak’s root hairs to sprout and grow, which would, in turn, help the tree get more food.
The fae breathed in through her nose and out through her mouth. Her emotions calmed as her thoughts merged with the heavy old ones of the tree where its tranquil nature combined with the sprite’s more vibrant personality.
Brigit’s heartbeat slowed as she fell into the tree’s heartwood.
Blinking slowly she opened her eyes. She was inside the portal now, surrounded by a gold-green light. The interior of the ancient tree held part of the Perilous Realm magic within it, making the area expansive.
As a dryad, Brigit had considered sleeping within the tree but knew it would be too risky. Anyone coming through the gateway would have found her immediately. Risking discovery was one reason she rarely used the portals between the Perilous and the human lands.
When Sam evicted her, Brigit had taken advantage of the oak’s offer to store her belongings. Most of what Brigit possessed she had bought since starting school. There was little from home, but it was still all needed: clothing, textbooks, and notepads.
From one pile, she pulled out a work uniform, a green polo with the company name and logo embroidered in yellow on it. Her affinity for plants had landed the wood sprite a job within weeks working for a landscape and garden store.
Due to the Treaty of Sigismund, her tuition was gratis, but food and shelter were not. Even though it was her first time in the human lands, Brigit still understood Balance. Things weren’t free, and there was always a price to pay.
Brigit kicked off her loafers, changed to clean socks, boots, and jeans. In fresh clothes, she hummed a tune as she crossed the threshold to return to Geheimetür. Patting the oak a goodbye she headed off to her usual stop, a corner bakery where she’d grab an orange juice and a blueberry muffin before heading into work for the mid-morning shift.
Working in a greenhouse was overall a fun, easy job for Brigit. The only potential hazard to her happiness was the chemical fertilizers. These she assiduously avoided by telling her employer she had an allergy, which wasn’t far from the truth.
She enjoyed taking the early morning shift because it gave her time to commune with all the plants when humans weren’t demanding she answer questions. Alone, she liked to pretend she was a mad scientist growing an army of minions. Grinning maniacally, arms upraised, she would shout “grow, children, grow, and we take the world!”
Automatic sprinklers maintained the larger greenhouses, but the flowering plants and bushes in the retail area needed support with daily visual checks. Being a Saturday, by lunch garden fanatics had wiped out quite a bit of stock.
Brigit tried to hide her frown of displeasure. She loved her job, but after the chemicals, it was people who were the problem.
And the weekends were the worst because more humans meant more questions. Wearing her work uniform, she couldn’t avoid being seen by irritating people wanting things from her.
Because of her tiny size, barely five feet tall, she was often mistaken for a child or a young human teen until humans noticed the ears. Her slight frame also made humans think her incapable of carrying heavy sacks of soil and mulch. Their condescending remarks, cautioning her not to load their car for fear she would be injured, always irked her.
Another unpleasant aspect of interacting with humans was that because of her dark skin, Brigit sometimes received worse insults and remarks. Their racist epithets were infuriating, ridiculous, and inflammatory at all once.
She was fae first, and not a descendant of some human race, no matter what her appearance was. But given a racist insult, the dryad would stick a thorn from a Hawthorn tree in their vehicle’s tires. Brigit maintained the Balance.
After a few hours of answering silly questions about what type of plants would grow best in their human gardens, Brigit retreated to the greenhouse located at the very back of the lot. Generally, she could rely upon it being a quiet green place - a spot for some breathing room from the Saturday shoppers.
However, as Brigit entered the last greenhouse, she found a fae being sitting on the side of a decorative fountain, playing with the Koi fish. The blond siren was Brigit’s least favorite of the fae she had met at LOTTOS.
The hostility between them began when Sibyl tried to convince the dryad to join a club for the fae university students. Brigit’s refusal seemed to be seen as a personal affront. The tension between them had continued to build so Brigit avoided meeting her on campus.
“I wish I could climb in there and join them,” Sibyl told her. In an affected manner, the siren brought her long blond hair over her shoulder. The drape fell like a waterfall to her knees.
Her oval face, with its abnormally large blue eyes, and classical Greek features was just part of the facade the siren used to tempt humans foolish enough to believe such perfection was real. But her appearance could not sway her fellow fae. Brigit viewed her presence with irritation.
“Scat,” said Brigit, wishing Sibyl was as easy to tame as a closet monster. “I don’t need you seducing my boss.”
Sibyl slipped off her sandals and put her long-toed feet into the fountain. Brigit ignored her antics. She had work to do.
Turning on the faucet, she took the hose and started watering the pots of bushes. Brigit was careful to keep herself farther than an arm’s reach from the siren. It would be just like Sibyl to attempt some physical altercation if given a chance.
She was tempted to squirt the hose Sibyl’s way but quelled the desire. The siren would insist on completing her dramatic performance one way or another.
“You haven’t been attending our club meetings,” said the siren, putting her chin in her hand as she observed the working dryad.
“Not this old song again,” said Brigit, her irritation growing. “I have a full schedule, Sibyl, as I’ve told you numerous times.”
“Really? Working for humans takes up that much time?”
“I need this paycheck. I don’t live on thistledown like some.”
Brigit wondered if Sibyl knew what a tactical error she had made coming to the dryad’s domain. Because of Brigit’s emotional turmoil, the plant life around them was becoming aroused. The rich smell of vegetation increased in the greenhouse as the plants connection to Brigit’s emotions grew stronger.
A vine started creeping toward the siren wanting to fulfill Brigit’s thoughts of strangling Sibyl. Brigit hushed its eagerness and tried to bring back the calm meditative feeling she had enjoyed with mother oak earlier in the day.
Finally, Sibyl came to the reason for her visit.
“I was at Logan’s apartment this morning. When did you move in? I didn’t realize you knew him.”
Beetle dung! So this guy Logan was the apartment’s owner? Worse, Brigit hadn’t realized her new roommate and Sibyl were connected. What a complication!
Pretending not to care, Brigit gave a noncommittal shrug. She found it a useful human gesture for many things.
Sibyl continued talking, her feet splashing the fish.
“Girl to girl, you should know that he’s my territory and always will be. A siren never gives up her trophies. What is mine, stays mine, forever.”
The siren’s fatuous comment ended in a giggle. Brigit restrained the desire to punch her in the face, as the fae continued, “It’s not like I even want him anymore, but I’ve got to keep my reputation intact. A siren marks a heart with a scar that can never heal.”
“Who taught you that? Your mother?” Brigit sneered.
Everyone knew that sirens matured in a crèche. Not until a siren fledged did they gain human form. Maybe, being in animal form so early in a siren’s development was why they missed social cues? Everyone knew that shapeshifters were odd in that way.
While the siren gave her trademark smile, as if unmoved by the insult, her hair shifted to the blue and green of peacock feathers, showing a lack of control.
“You are naive, Brigit Cullen, — if that is your real name. Strangely, I couldn’t find you in any of the royal court records. And no one hereabouts even knew of you until you showed up last fall semester. Your college application seems pretty skimpy on details. For example, exactly which court do you owe allegiance too?”
“The kingdoms in the Perilous are numerous, Sibyl. Maybe you didn’t look close enough?”
Brigit walked over and shut off the faucet. Doing so placed her further away from the siren. If Sibyl attacked, the dryad would have time to react.
“In one breath you insult me because I work a human job and in the next, you tell me not to date your ex.”
Brigit’s dark brown eyes had shifted to a rebellious black. She hadn’t defied her parents and risked her Balance to have a bird-brained beauty boss her around. “I will manage my affairs, and you will stay out of my business.”
“Logan is my business, so consider yourself warned, sprite.”
Waving her hand like a beauty pageant queen, Sibyl walked away, leaving Brigit fuming.
Bought Loyalty
Due to his exchange student status, Logan often received more attention than he desired. Of course, being late and stumbling in through the concert hall’s door during the rehearsal of Dvořák’s Symphony No. 9, didn’t help anyone keep anonymity.
Logan was the third violin in the second violin section of a seventy-five member orchestra, so he reported first to the principal second violin mistress. Sadly looking him up and down, she administered a lecture about tardiness and letting down the ensemble. Sighing in disappointment, she sent him to the first violin concertmaster.
The concertmaster, a tall, bony man with the face of a passionate music lover, administered a blistering lecture to Logan.
The previous two sermons were only warm-ups for the Grand Slam delivered by the master. As instructed by the concertmaster, Logan waited while the maestro talked to various members of the orchestra. As members prepared to leave, they stopped to ask the maestro for advice or had information to give. Others came up to the conductor just for an excuse to glimpse the condemned man standing behind Kados Géza.
Eventually, though, all the orchestra members retired, leaving Logan alone with the maestro.
Kados Géza, the university’s conductor, was Hungarian. Rumor was Géza arrived in Bewachterberg as a young child at the end of World War II. However, it was a mystery how he had managed this feat. From 1890 to 1989, Bewachterberg was concealed from the world through the power of fae magic and in this way, avoided both world wars and Russian occupation.
Now elderly, he was a small, thin man with thick wavy white hair. His controlled frenetic energy made him use his hands sparingly but emphatically. He had the coldness of the professional assassin paired with the calculating skill of a Finnish sniper.
Logan would prefer Herr Géza take a rolled-up newspaper and beat him over the top of his head than deliver one of his famous blistering lectures.
“The prince of Bewachterberg will be attending the final concert this semester,” the small man frigidly told him as he began his reprimand.
The fae magic permeating Bewachterberg made all languages understood no matter the native tongue of the speaker or listener. So while the maestro spoke in the tongue of his adopted country, Logan understood the words in English.
The sentences sounded like two stereo speakers, each broadcasting a separate language. The twining of languages was one of the disconcerting things Logan had experienced when arriving at Bewachterberg. Sometimes it gave him a headache and the dizzying feeling of being in two worlds at once. Today, Logan was too embarrassed to worry about his head hurting.
“Or does this matter with your loose American morals where everyone is equal despite ability?”
Logan mumbled an apology, bowing his head at his teacher’s justified verbal assault.
“If you think as an exchange student you can, as you young people call it, blow this off and ditch rehearsal, you are very wrong, young man. Yes, music is art, and to do it well we must be inspired. But we must also work. Hard work. Without putting in the practice, you are no more an artist than someone who yells at the television, thinking they are a football coach.”
Logan would have found the maestro’s words funny if directed at anyone else. He couldn’t imagine Herr Géza even owned a television or watched American football. Though maybe he meant soccer? Logan still hadn’t figured all of that out yet.
To atone for his mistake, Logan got a long list of things to do in the practice room. Chairs needed to be folded and put away, music sheets sorted, and he was to hold himself ready for anything the concertmaster required him to do.
Late morning became the afternoon, and by the time he exited the building, the sun was starting to set. Realizing he still hadn’t eaten all day, he dropped his violin off at the apartment and headed to a popular Biergarten located down the street.
The Weberhaus was once an 1800s textile factory, but through urban renewal, the derelict structure was renovated to a modern beer hall. The former factory building had several businesses carved out from its hollow interior. The Weberhaus Biergarten was a long and narrow rectangular section that went from the front to the back on the second floor. The interior was composed of wood, brick, and metal with industrial fans and tubing hanging from the ceiling, serving more as sculptural art than for any practical purpose.
Hanging on the distressed brick walls were colorful canvases displaying post-modern art. While the town’s government wanted Geheimetür to continue looking like an 1890 oil painting, there was, in some circles, still a backlash against this aesthetic. While Bewachterberg had not been part of the 1989 art revolution that swept through Germany and the eastern countries, many fervently embraced modernistic art.
Popular with students, the place was usually noisy and filled with strangers. Logan didn’t mind, just the opposite. The noise and bustle made him believe things were normal in his life.
The American entered through the front doors and received a blast of warm air, smelling of hops. He shouldered his way through the crowd to find a spot to sit.
The hardwood floors, scarred by decades of heavy machinery, were now home to tables and chairs, and long tables that seated groups. The Biergarten’s communal tables encouraged people to meet strangers and leave as friends. It was a part of the atmosphere and culture that Logan usually enjoyed.
He picked a table, not recognizing anyone in the beer hall. The diners all exchanged nods but continued talking with their companions, deep in a conversation about Egyptian hieroglyphics.
