A Song for a Siren

Ch. 3 - Three Voices Sing

"Wake up!" A cushion slammed on the back of Maddie's head.

Slam!

Another swing of the cushion.

There was no way she was still asleep, this wee thing.

"Maddie, you can't be serious," Lain said and laughed. "Maddie! Wake now!"

Mumbled grunts came from a mouth hidden in a cushion.

So small. He looked out the window into the cold green of the forest, empty of most light, and back down. Two dirty little feet had escaped their blanket during the night. He touched the bottom of one and it shot under the dark cover, same as some sort of sea creature in the coastal caves.

"Ah, so you're partly awake."

Slam!

"Umph... Lain..."

He burst out laughing.

"Ma said you wanted to come with me to the shops today, she's already left."

Earlier than usual even. He wasn't the only one having trouble sleeping.

"I was home all day yesterday, and you said I could go to the shops with you today." She sat up and rubbed her face.

"Ahh, I know," Lain said, "that's where we're at now."

She sat there for a moment, then looked at her feet.

"Alright, that's it you wee brownie!"

His bedhead, sleepy eyes, and goofy grin would've made it hard for anyone to take him seriously, let alone his little sister, but she was well aware of what was coming. Lain snatched her and tickled under her arms.

"This'll wake you."

She couldn't breathe from it all, Lain stopped only to give her enough air to continue on.

"Lain—" Maddie did her best to form a sentence through the laughter, but just as she'd get to the next word Lain would attack again. A wild hen, the young lass. Her hair matched Lain's in color, it was dark, and her eyes were brown like his too. She looked more like their da though, same button nose. Lain took after Hannah, face, and eyes especially.

"There now, let's hurry along." Lain flipped Maddie upright.

Maddie huffed and untangled the mess of hair on her head.

"I barely see you anymore."

"Get the hair out of your eyes," Lain said. She didn't get it. "I know, I know, love. Alright, keep the head." Lain leapt from the blankets and opened his drawer for a shirt, something at least as tidy as the one he wore yesterday. Maddie followed into his room and finally sorted her hair into fewer clumps.

"What are you doing? There's only one in there, why don't you choose it?" She looked up at Lain, down into his drawer, and back up at him.

She wasn't far from wrong. The small drawer was spacious with only the two shirts sitting in it: a blue long-sleeved and a wool brown. The collared red shirt he'd worn the night before lay crumpled in the corner of his room.

"Is that so!?" Lain laughed and shut his drawer. "Are you ready, yourself? Go on and worry about picking your one dress." Lain raised his hands at her as if he was going to tickle her again. Maddie darted past him with another squeal, and her door slammed behind her.

Lain turned from his drawer and studied his simple room. Wooden sculptures he'd made were in the window. "Wooden dollies," Maddie liked to call them, things of a lad. In the corner sat a planter with hum lily growing up a branch, a gift from his da. Then his bed, built into the box frame his da taught him how to make.