Scene 1
The oldest music is birthed in the oceans, both earthly and celestial.
The sentient races of the universe knew that their oldest songs come from the ancient oceans. From the expanses of water that continuously shape each of their worlds and the vast celestial ocean that holds these worlds in their orbits. Even today, some of the women of these sentient races, the Sirens, can still hear these symphonies.
Symphonies that swell and blossom and grow in the cold depths. Shifting rhythms born where the masses of fresh water collide with the swirling salt waters of the far north. Melodies waxing and waning in the gravitational forces that pull at the very heart of the sea. Creatures from the depths find new chords and notes hurl them to the surface so they burst through and dazzle atop the churning waters like flecks of burning light.
The oldest songs are about crossing the sea. The Sirens have never lured sailors to their deaths. That’s just patriarchal nonsense. They have more important things to do than that. The Sirens are custodians. They herd the songs; they keep them alive and in motion. For a still song is a dead song and will soon be forgotten. Occasionally, if called to by the Five Families or some other need, the Sirens can add their own song to the tides…
Scene 2
And so, the women travelled.
Five groups crossing the land to stand at the edge of the five oceans. They drove in old cars or minibuses, they took ferries or boats, they walked and they hiked. They crossed deserts and swamps, forests and ice floes. They came from Kuranko and Kposso; from Quebrada and near Sequa; from the outskirts Jiwan and Gwadat; from Neke and just outside Etah; from Murdanna and down the road from Eagle Neck.
When they reached their shore line they waited, huddled together in the darkness or enjoying the early afternoon sun while they could. They waited, keeping a watchful eye on the clock. Timing was key. The metronome was playing out its steady beat. Fortitude was a necessity. There was no turning back. They shared smiles and tea and sweet treats; they passed the time telling stories and holding hands. Yet, deep down, each of them knew that the next few hours determined their future.
Scene 3
As the concrete road rumbled under the borrowed minibus’s wheels Carol passed yet another bag of jelly babies back, this packet went to Leanne.
“Oh, these taste so good,” Leanne grinned to Carol as she popped two in her mouth. As the women had piled into the musty minibus Ayesha had produced bag after bag of the sweets from the depths of her coat gleefully telling everyone who would listen, “There was a deal in the local Co-Op – two bags for a fiver. Best twenty quid I ever spent!”
Giggles and chatter slowly replaced the awkward silence that had fallen across the group since leaving the Haven and the music shop. Carol smiled finding comfort inside this moment of normality. She watched the bags of sweets being passed back and forth between the women and revelled in the chatter and the warmth and the silliness that had filled up the spaces between the seats.
She missed Anwen.
Despite the chatter, the laughter and the light there was still a cool spot, just there, just at the corner of her eye. If she looked for it, it darted away and hid somewhere only to return a few moments later, like a shy child, to the safety of her peripheral vision. In a way, I am getting used to you being there, she thought. I think that is where you will always live now, just out of reach but always there. She sighed, Well, if that’s where you’re going to live Anwen, at least I know where you’ll be!
A half empty bag of sweets came back to her and she grabbed a handful for her and Ayesha before sending the it back round the rest of the bus. Carol held out her hand and with a quick glance, Ayesha grabbed four sweets and popped them into her mouth with childlike glee. Carol gently pushed Ayesha’s shoulder and gobbled the remaining two with a gently mocking disdain.
Scene 4
The sugar rush was fading. Beyond the minibus’s dirty windows, Carol watched the hulking steelworks slide by, hard edges and dark masses ranged against the sea and the sky. At one time it would have been alive with harsh electric lights, primordial fire and plumes of smoke. Now it seemed that the countryside and the coastline were littered with these decomposing monoliths to old industries. Some considered them a badge of honour, monuments to the power of mankind over nature. Carol shivered and pulled the collar of her jacket higher. To her they were vast graveyards, enormous follies built of concrete, steel and noise, vanities destined to fade and be forgotten, like the men who created them, leaving only a dark oily stain sinking through the earth.
Carol closed her eyes and balled her fists in her lap. I wish you were here Anwen, she looked in the shadows in her mind hoping to catch a glimpse of the darting figure of her friend. Hoping that for a few moments they could stand face to face and maybe have a conversation. Carol sensed that this was not the night for talking to old friends. I just pray to the heavens that Emyr’s ready. I am sorry that I didn’t do more.
Carol slowly opened her eyes to find Ayesha hand gently resting on hers, a worried smile on her face. Carol sighed and patted her friend’s hand and nodded that she would be okay. The cove was just over an hour away, she had to think of the evening’s work. There would be plenty of time for her to wrestle with the ghosts another night. The minibus ploughed on through the afternoon’s weakening light, Carol and Ayesha looked at the road ahead determination settling behind their eyes.
Scene 5
Carol, Ayesha and the other women clambered down the metal, stairs, holding onto the cold handrail as they descended to the rocky beach. At the foot of the stairs the stones were larger, looking as if they had just fallen from the cliff face. These stones were at least dry and with care and attention could be easily traversed. As the women got closer to the tide line the stones became gradually smaller but seaweed clung to the sea polished surfaces, still wet from the recently receded waters. These were more difficult to cross and the easy chatter of the minibus gave way to stretches of silent concentration punctuated with the occasional “Nearly!” or “Oh shit!” or Don’t worry, I’ve got you…”
Approaching the water’s edge they all felt the change in the atmosphere. It was more than just the last vestiges of the early winter sun sinking below the jagged charcoal face of the cliffs. More than the bone chill that washed in from the sea or the slow deliberate motion of the evening air. This was a meeting point. A primal space. There was a thinness here, like rice paper, a sense that something could emerge. Or something could be pushed through to the other side. Here land met sea. Solid met liquid. This was a place, an arena of sorts where natural forces pushed against each other sometimes clashing, sometimes dancing together, but always blurring the boundaries. Here the world’s melodies coalesced, chords crossed and arpeggios entwined.
The women took their places, they had time and they knew they they needed to stand in precise positions. Each of the five groups were to catch a song from their far away sisters. The oceans would carry these distant songs to them, melodies buoyed along by the ancient currents, as if distant star light were carried to them on the waves. Their precise alignment, the delicate pattern the Sirens created with their bodies and their voices would snatch their sisters’ songs from the water and the work would begin in earnest.
Scene 6
The headland behind them swept in an arcing embrace around the women on the twilight beach. As they took their places, with the sun setting at their backs, another cliff faced them. Hard rock, rising out of the rocks and damp sand, pushed upward by primitive forces. Linear scars scratched deep into its time-worn face. The wall of stone stood before the Sirens like a battlement damaged by war and time. Just at the water’s edge was a massive opening in the rock; a huge, almost perfectly rectangular hole pierced the stone wall so that the assembled women could see through to the next bay and the next headland. Locals called it the Church Door but there were other, older, forgotten names for this place.
To the Sirens, those others sensitive to the universal music, this was a sacred place. All notes sung here would become harmonies taken up by the invisible universal tectonic plates, the motion and the music and the magic that bound the universe together. These ancient forces, these shifting spheres of sound helped bind the universe together.
Carol, Ayesha and the other women closed their eyes and listened to the sounds of the sea. The lapping of the water against the shore, the low grumble of pebbles rolling back and forth across the sand by the tides, the distant waves turning over on themselves before they crashed into the headland behind them. Then they felt it, approaching them, a warm wave of vibration coming off the cold waters, a rumble like distant thunder and the promise of rain on a hot summer’s night, far away now but moving fast and getting closer. The women braced themselves, feeling the rock and sand beneath their feet, sensing that connection with the solid world as the songs of their distant sisters majestically rode the waves toward them.
Note:
Scene 1 is a brief explanation of the Sirens power and how they use the oceans to hear the music of the universe and communicate.
- Does this make sense?
- What if anything would you add or take away?
Scenes 2 – 6 are part of the sequence when Emyr is in the Circle and meeting all the Families for the first time. I want these scenes to show the power of the Sirens and set them up to help Emyr as he sets off to find Gloam. I’ll also edit in a scene with Peck in the Circle (this has yet to be written.)
- Does this make sense?
- What if anything would you add or take away?
- Are scenes 5 and 6 repetitive?
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