The Cronus Chronicles: The Siren Song by Anne Ursu

Author:Anne Ursu
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2008-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

Back up in Charlotte’s cabin, she sat on her bed staring out of the window. It was still dark and stormy outside, and the boat seemed to be rocking more than ever. But Charlotte’s vague feeling of nausea had nothing to do with seasickness. Mrs. Mielswetzski was pacing in front of the bed in full lecture mode, while Mr. Mielswetzski sat darkly in a corner, staring at the ground.

“We’re on this cruise one day, Charlotte,” said Mrs. Mielswetzski, “ one day, and we’re getting calls from security.”

“I’m sorry,” Charlotte said glumly.

“The lieutenant told me you were down there looking for a…boy.”

“What?” said Mr. Mielswetzski, snapping to attention.

“It’s true,” said Mrs. Mielswetzski. “Charlotte snuck down to the crew level to meet a boy.”

Mr. Mielswetzski groaned.

Charlotte straightened. “Look, you guys, it was important, okay? You don’t understand.”

“You’re right we don’t understand,” Mrs. Mielswetzski snapped. “Would you like to enlighten us?”

“You’re just going to have to trust me,” Charlotte said quietly.

“Trust you?” said Mrs. Mielswetzski. “Trust you? You sneak off in the middle of the night and now this. You want us to trust you? We want nothing more than to trust you, but you need to begin acting trustworthy.”

Charlotte couldn’t help it; she was getting angry. Here she had risked her life a thousand times over to save the world, and if anything should earn a girl major trust points, it’s that. “You guys don’t know everything, you know,” she snapped. “You don’t know what things are like.”

Mrs. Mielswetzski stopped pacing and sighed heavily. “Charlotte, I know there are a lot of pressures on a girl your age.” From his corner, Mr. Mielswetzski groaned again.

“That’s not it!” Charlotte was nearly yelling now. “I’m not some teenage girl you read about in your books. I’m me. You don’t know what’s really going on! You guys keep saying you want me to take responsibility, but when I do, you don’t like it.”

But she’d lost her mother again. “I don’t see how sneaking into the crew’s quarters to be with some boy is taking responsibility.”

“He’s not some boy!”

Silence then. Mrs. Mielswetzski stared at her, while Mr. Mielswetzski put his head in his hands. Charlotte cringed. Shaking her head very slowly, her mother said quietly, “Goodness, Charlotte, I thought you’d be a lot older before we’d be having this conversation.”

“I’m a lot older than you think,” Charlotte said through clenched teeth. She knew what it sounded like, and she didn’t know why she was saying these things. Just last year, if this had happened—and of course it wouldn’t have, but a lot can change in a year—Charlotte would have been able to make something up, anything, that could have convinced her parents that she wasn’t having some kind of assignation and in fact her intentions were perfectly pure, as was only natural because she was a perfect angel. But there was something about learning the truth of the world that made lying to them just impossible. The truth was so much more absurd than any lie could be; everything else sounded weak in comparison.

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