Hubris (Book One of the Siren Tragedies)

The Find

It was a cool fall day in Greenridge. Eric had decided to attend school here because of its disconnect from urban life. He loved the weather, and the area was surrounded by woods with small roads—even dirt paths—that led to the nearest town, if you could call it that. Greenridge really offered only a few bars, a grocery store, one clothing store, and a couple antique stores. The student body consisted of only around 1,100 people, as most people didn't even think to look to Greenridge for higher education.

They walked in silence down the Maine country road for two blocks to the store. The road was rough and bumpy as some gravel gave way to spots of dirt and rocks. He had no idea what Van was thinking about, but Eric still wondered about Meg. They had met her a few months ago, and he couldn't figure out if she was as sweet as she seemed to be or if she had ulterior motives for the things she did.

They came to the building—a small, storybook-like house with green painted shutters and cedar shingles on the outside. Eric pushed the wooden door open and stepped inside.

Agnes, the owner of the antique store, could easily be mistaken for a decoration in the shop. She was a willowy woman with a thick head of silver hair piled into a messy, loose bun who wore floral-printed, lace-accent dresses, as only somebody forever surrounded by past generations' trinkets and heirlooms would appreciate. Her eyes permanently squinted through her tiny silver spectacles into a suspicious glare.

"You break it, you buy it, boys," she snapped as they closed the door behind them.

Van nodded at her. "Good evening to you, too, Agnes."

Agnes fixed her glare on Van, as though she was trying to figure out if he was being polite or obnoxious. She scowled and went back to her newspaper.

Eric stepped toward the bookshelf. "There are some new ones here," he told Van.

"If you can call anything in here 'new,'" Van scoffed. "Did you translate the Russian book already?"

"Da," Eric said. He looked up to see Van's perplexed expression. "It means 'yes' in—"

"I know what it means," Van interrupted impatiently. "What are you looking for now?" he asked as Eric picked up books, flipped through them, and replaced them on the shelf.

"Something different," Eric said, inspecting a Japanese book. Too easy. "Something challenging."

"French?" Van suggested.

Eric shook his head, running his finger over spines. "Derived from Latin, therefore not a challenge."

Van looked at the shelf. "How about German?"

Eric looked up at him with one eyebrow raised. "You mean the foundation of 60 percent of my native language? No, thank you."

Van sighed. "What are you hoping to find? Some alien language from far away galaxies?"

Eric nodded, looking through the books again. "That would be cool, I guess. As long as I could have some foundation language to work with."

He carefully read through the titles—some he remembered from the last time he was there, some new. Most were in English, but every once in a while there was some copy of a Russian play or an old French science journal.

"I doubt you're going to find anything here. Why don't you just look on the Internet ? You wouldn't believe the things you can find there. I remember when I was looking for a chemistry book and found one written in Arabic. I almost got it for you, because then you would finally learn something about some useful subject, but, you know—"

Eric had been listening to Van talk, but he suddenly lost interest when he came across a book—and a language—he had never seen before. It was very triangular, but all of the letters seemed to connect. It looked like it was written in some sort of ancient language, but the binding of the book, bright red with gold writing, suggested it was published in the 20th century, albeit early on.

Van looked over Eric's shoulder. "What is it?"

Eric shook his head. "I have no clue. I've never seen anything like it. Well, I mean, I've seen languages sort of like it," Eric turned the book over in his hands and flipped through the frail pages, "but never anything exactly like it."

Van scowled. "It's probably a million dollars or something. Maybe you should take that Finnish book over there. You haven't tried Finnish."

Eric looked at Van, who seemed reserved about the book. He checked the price on the inside of the cover: two dollars. "Hardly going to break the bank, I think," Eric said. "I don't even have to take out a loan."

Van raised an eyebrow, and Eric tilted his head. "What are you worried about? Is it witchcraft?"

"How should I know?" Van said, watching Eric with a guarded look. "I can't read it." He looked down at the book timidly. "I just think you should concentrate on languages that you can identify. Those are the most useful."

Eric had already tucked the book under his arm and walked toward Agnes. He gave her the book and the cash. She rung it up without a word, and the boys stepped outside.

"A whole new language, from who even knows where," Eric said. "I'll bet we'll learn something from it, though."

"Oh, yes," Van agreed mirthlessly, "I'll bet we will."

Eric looked up suddenly to the sky. "Did you hear that?"

Van looked around. "What?"

"It sounded like some huge bird. I don't see anything, though."

"Look, you pick up a weird book and you're already hearing things."

Eric rolled his eyes. "Come on. I want to get started on this."

As he walked, Eric swore he heard the sound and even felt it. It felt as if large, feathered wings were trembling.