Near Miss

Chapter Eighteen: Sirens

Sylvie awoke to the familiar wail of an ambulance.

She was immediately aware of more than one siren. Different cars had horns of different pitches, of course; and, likewise, not all sirens sounded identical. Some were louder, or slower to wail, or higher-pitched than their counterparts. And since not all emergency vehicles had the same kind of siren, these slight disparities were even easier to pick out between types. Police cars, Sylvie thought, tended to be a bit louder and more insistent, and while ambulances were slower to oscillate, they typically had higher pitches overall.

At the moment, though, she wasn't thinking anything of the sort. Instead, her eyes sliding open ever so slightly, she let the sound wash over her, listening for the inevitable differences in rhythm, the synchronizations and estrangements alternating into a twining pattern familiar to anyone who has compared turn signals with the cars in front of them. At least three sirens, Sylvie thought, and then she heard the sound drag past her as a fire truck sped by- not on her street, but close nonetheless. The Doppler effect, she seemed to remember. In her half-asleep state she swore she could still feel the sound hanging in the air, settling like a fine mist of dust in the sunlight, soon to disperse.

There was an ambulance still to come, and she could hear it even more clearly with the fire truck fading into silence. The sirens were changing now, the long wails interlaced with piercing shrieks, a reminder that the emergency was in earnest, a request for the humblest of drivers to make way for a more important cause. Sylvie could hear the rushing reach a crescendo as one car shot past, and then another, and in half-wakefulness she reached her fingers forward, grasping for the pitch before it inevitably dropped. And then the sound began to fade, and the spell was broken, and the mist was settled, and Sylvie let her head slide back onto the pillow, ready to sleep once more.

Then the sirens wound to a stop.

Sylvie opened her eyes and sat up. The emergency was quite close, she could tell that now. If the sirens had stopped so soon after passing her house, it couldn't exactly be too far away. Whatever had happened, it had taken place nearby- and that, in Sylvie's mind, was not a good sign.

Sylvie opened her closet doors, pulled out a fresh shirt and a pair of pants, and hastily got dressed. Most of her pants were jeans, thankfully, so she looked at least semi-professional; but the shirt she had chosen ruined the impression. It was a Skybrook Junior High shirt.

At seventeen years old, Sylvie would have liked to think that she no longer looked like a middle schooler, but she knew well enough that wasn't the case. Her slim build, wide eyes, and penchant for eager expressions had always made her look younger than she was. Not to mention that the shirt from junior high still fit her eerily well.

Sylvie tried not to think about looking immature. It was the least of her worries. She slid the shirt over her head, trying not to wince as the rough material scraped against her skin. Once she had dressed and put on her glasses, she scampered downstairs, trying to keep her footfalls soft so as not to wake anyone. Her bare feet pattered against the stairs, her hand sliding smoothly along the bannister to match, as her brain began, at last, to work.

Her first thought: Magdalen was in trouble again.

That's what it had to be, right? Sylvie couldn't smell smoke, and no one was shouting anything about a fire. She hadn't received any alerts on her phone, which was a (relatively) good sign. Her watch informed her that it was shortly after six in the morning, but she couldn't hear anyone yelling nearby. There was, of course, a generous amount of ambient noise outside- but, after the sirens had shut off, it would probably be impossible to hear anything relating to the actual emergency.

When Sylvie reached the base of the stairs, she seized her backpack from its hook by the front door and grabbed a pair of flip-flops from the shoe rack. Anything would do at the moment. She swung open the front door and stepped into the twilight.