Chapter Text
“Where are you going?”
If Ajax was startled by Cowgirl’s sudden question, she doesn’t show it. Disappointing. Cowgirl had been so sure she hadn’t noticed that she was being followed. Rude, also, to let Cowgirl follow her all the way down to the marina without even saying hi.
“None of your business,” she says, not looking back at Cowgirl.
Ouch. An uncounterable point. It’s lucky Cowgirl doesn’t really care what is or isn’t her business. Ajax has been disappearing after dinner for a few weeks now, and Cowgirl is going to find out what she’s been up to if it kills her.
“Mm,” Cowgirl says, “There’s nothing down here. Unless you’re stealing a boat. If you’re stealing a boat you have to let me name it or else I’m telling Cleon.”
Ajax rolls her eyes so hard she has to stop walking for a second, which makes a perfect opportunity for Cowgirl to jog the extra few steps to stand next to her. Ajax gives her an unimpressed look.
“I’m not stealing a boat,” she says flatly.
“Great! Then you won’t mind if I come with you.”
“Knock yourself out,” Ajax says. She turns away from the path that goes down to the docks and opens a gate to a stairwell that leads down to the shore. She doesn’t wait to see if Cowgirl is following her.
“Um,” Cowgirl says, peering down the worn, algae-slick stairs. “Ajax?”
Ajax makes a noise like she’s listening but would rather not be.
“I didn’t really dress for this.” She had worn her most fashionable boots, which were not her most walking-on-slippery-rocks-down-by-the-water boots.
“Wow,” says Ajax, who had worn grippy shoes, “What a shame. Guess you’ll have to turn back.”
At this grave insult to her honor, Cowgirl decides to begin picking her way down the stairs to hurry after Ajax. She can’t quite move at top speed, seeing as she has to avoid pools of water and patches of seaweed that Ajax stomps right through. Ajax is walking slightly slower than usual, though, so Cowgirl isn’t too worried that she’ll be left behind.
She is a little bit more concerned when she looks up and sees that Ajax is headed beneath the pier, where a forest of pilings stretch into an endless gloom.
“Ajax,” she hisses. “Ajax!”
Ajax pauses a moment just within the shadow of the pier looming over them, turning back to look at her. “You really don’t have to come,” she says, sounding kind of amused at whatever face Cowgirl was surely making.
Like hell she’s turning back now , though. If she tries to ask Ajax about it later she’ll just get all smug and say ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’ Which is just unacceptable. Cowgirl will just have to keep going. It’s the only way to preserve her dignity.
“Just wait up,” Cowgirl grumbles.
The pier stretches on so far that Cowgirl can’t see the light on the other side, thick wooden planks holding up boat chartering offices and marina administrators and fish market stalls. She’d run amok on the top side of the pier plenty as a kid, but it had never occurred to her to try and go under it. She feels a little uneasy being under it now, at the mercy of the tide coming back in, even if she knows they aren't in much danger of being trapped.
It’s just so unsettling down here, the sound of the waves echoing strangely and the light of the fading sunset reflecting off the water. The further they venture from the edge of the pier the more uneasy Cowgirl becomes. There’s something about the way the echoes of the water fade out into an eerie tuneless humming that makes the hair on the back of her neck stand on end.
Except. It’s not the water at all. As they walk, the sound grows slowly louder, until Cowgirl can hear that it’s someone singing. They’re not really carrying a melody, but the sound floats over the water, folding back onto itself as it reverberates in the air around them. It’s beautiful. It’s like the time Cowgirl got to go on a school trip to the opera and the soprano’s voice seemed to make the whole room sing, but better again by half. It’s almost like-
Cowgirl stops walking. It’s almost like they’re below the high tide mark, at twilight. And someone is singing.
Cowgirl is eighty-five percent city girl, but she spent a summer with her cousins in Massachusetts as a kid. She knows the kind of places you’re not supposed to go alone after the sun sets. She knows the kind of things that live in them.
“Ajax,” Cowgirl says, trying to project an aura of everything-is-fine.
Ajax pauses and turns back to look at her. She doesn’t look even a little bit afraid. Her eyes are very dark in the dim light.
“Ajax,” Cowgirl repeats, with what she thinks is an admirable attempt at keeping her voice level. “There’s a siren down here.”
Ajax blinks at her. “Yes,” she says, slowly, as if Cowgirl is the one who’s slow on the uptake. “I know.”
Cowgirl would like to amend her earlier statement about finding out what Ajax is up to even if it kills her. She would actually like very much to live, if anyone is listening.
“Oh my god,” she says, abandoning her attempts at acting calm. She thinks that advice is actually for bears, anyways. “Oh my god, you’ve been fucking mind-whammied. By a siren. And now you’ve dragged me down here to feed me to it. I can’t fucking believe this.”
Ajax looks deeply unimpressed at this theory. “I actually remember telling you you didn’t have to come. Multiple times.”
“Reverse psychology. You knew I’d get suspicious if you seemed too enthusiastic. Oooh, this is diabolical. I never expected it from you, which is why it's the perfect betrayal.”
“...Anyways,” Ajax says, “Sirens don’t eat people. I’m here to feed the siren popcorn, actually.”
At this, she gestures with the bag of popcorn that she has, admittedly, been holding this whole time. Cowgirl hadn’t considered it relevant to their journey.
“There was just a boat sunk by sirens in Mallorca,” Cowgirl exclaims, “I saw it on the news!”
Ajax frowns. “I never said sirens don’t kill people,” she amends. “But they don’t eat ‘em.”
“Great!” Cowgirl laughs. “That’s so reassuring!”
Ajax’s frown deepens. “Humans kill each other all the time! I don’t see why it matters! You don’t have to come if you’re gonna be weird about it.”
She turns back around and keeps walking. Cowgirl looks back at the entrance, and then at Ajax’s retreating form. It’s. Well. The siren doesn’t have the element of surprise. And she shouldn’t leave Ajax alone with it. And, more importantly, like fucking hell is she going to go back to the others to tell them Ajax has been fucking around with a siren and Cowgirl didn’t even go look at it .
Cowgirl isn’t really sure what she expected a siren to look like. She’d never really asked questions after the old guys who worked the fishing boats told her to never ever go by the water at dusk, and especially not at low tide. That was how they got you. Something about the land between high- and low-tide being neutral territory. Cowgirl didn’t really care about the details of who they were. She was perfectly happy just not being gotten. Or, well, she had been.
There’s a girl sitting on a rock, kicking her bare feet in the water, staring out at the waves. When Cowgirl sees her, her first thought is that the siren has already found another victim and they’re off the hook. But as the girl turns around to look at them, her face breaking into a grin of too-sharp teeth, the humming abruptly stops.
Cowgirl stops a comfortable distance from the siren, but Ajax - who does not practice proper wildlife safety measures - walks right up to her. Cowgirl just stares at them. The siren looks distressingly normal. She’s wearing an oversized tee shirt and cut-off denim shorts, and only the amount of salt crusted on both looks remotely out of the ordinary. She just looks like any girl their age, with pretty brown eyes and a bob of unruly hair.
“Yo,” Ajax says, offering her the bag of popcorn, “Got your shit.”
And, well, she had just lit up when she saw Ajax. Cowgirl knows all about girls who light up when they see Ajax.
“Thank youu,” the siren says, with an odd sort of warbling voice, like a character in a musical who can’t decide if they’re supposed to be singing right now.
“Cowgirl,” Ajax barks. Ah, shit. “Starin’ is rude.”
Sheepishly, Cowgirl crosses the final couple feet to stand next to them. “Hi,” she says. What’s the protocol here? Sirens aren’t fey, right? She won’t get dragged into the water forever if she’s rude, or anything.
“Helloo,” the siren says. There’s a quality to her voice like a parrot, like she’s copying a sound she’s heard. The timing is just a little bit wrong. “I’m Rembrandt.”
And Cowgirl can hear in the way she shapes those vowels, the little bit of Brooklyn lilt she puts on just that one word, that it’s a name Ajax gave her.