The Siren's Fate Read online

  The Siren's Fate

  Siren's Upheaval (The Missing Witches of Romiou)

  Table of Contents

  Introduction

  Chapter 1: The Perfect Life

  Chapter 2: Moving On

  Chapter 3: Snatched

  Chapter 4: Romiou

  Chapter 5: Smoke and Mirrors

  Conclusion

  Introduction

  The people of Romiou woke up and discovered that the witches were gone. They celebrated and began forgetting the dark period in their history. But, a year later, a rock was discovered bearing the carved message saying that the witches will be back to reclaim Romiou and the entire island of Cyprus.

  But, first, Ian needed to despair. Ian needed to be vulnerable, so that they could influence him.

  Why do they need a teenage English writer to carry out their plan? Will they succeed?

  Chapter 1: The Perfect Life

  Ian, the wealthy teenage son of the late shipping magnate Dom Reynolds, walked inside his writing studio at the back of the house he purchased from the sale of his debut novel. It was the former gardener’s shed which he transformed into a small writing room supported by glass walls that showcased the incredible view of their back garden and the enchanting tributary that flowed into the River Thames.

  The sun was just beginning to set, sending beams of faint orange light that landed on his antique writing desk which his father’s auctioneer said once belonged to Edward VII. He sat on his chair and stretched his arms. He had just woken up, having finished his latest novel about the curse of Tutankhamun the night before. It was followed by a small celebration at his agent’s lavish house down Billionaire’s Row near Kensington Palace which kept him awake all night.

  Ian was the eldest son and natural heir to his father’s empire, but his passion for writing got in the way. He dropped out of high school to his father’s ultimate disappointment, and wanted nothing to do with their massive family business. He instead began writing his first novel.

  Yves, his ambitious older cousin inherited their father’s position in the company. And against his mother’s pleadings, Ian began his solitary existence writing stories and living in dilapidated flats in Essex. He wanted nothing to do with his father’s money who he caught many times sleeping with his many mistresses—prostitutes provided by one of his senior shipping agents.

  So, it was natural that Ian succumbed to substance abuse. He felt like an outsider, misunderstood by even his own family and friends who he expected to be the first ones to understand him.

  In an interview done by the Daily Mail at that time, Yves said that he wouldn’t be surprised if one day he’ll read in the news that his cousin’s dead. Broke and dead were his exact words.

  This hurt Ian the most for he loved his cousin Yves despite his oddities. That same year, he finished his novel and found a publishing house. The rest is history. At just 16 years old, followed by the massive success of his first ever book, he became the youngest person to win the prestigious Booker Prize.

  He traveled the world and attended every book signing event his publisher asked him to do.

  For the first time in his life, he felt validated. He even secretly wished that his father were alive to see him succeed.

  A day after his 17th birthday, he met the daughter of his late father’s Russian business partner at an event organized by his agent. Sasha was a beautiful teenage socialite. People even said that she looked like Alix, Alexandra Feodorovna, the last Empress of Russia.

  He tried to ignore her at first, having a dislike for his former life as ‘heir to his father’s throne’ or anything and anyone who reminded him of it. But Sasha loved books as well and she surprised him for being well versed in classical literature.

  Ian was impressed. A couple months later, he bought a house and asked her to live with him.

  His mother pretended to like Sasha. She wanted her as an ally. She was hoping that she could help her convince Ian to take the reins from his cousin Yves. Ian wouldn’t budge.

  He turned his head and looked at a picture of his beautiful girlfriend. He smiled and reminded himself of how lucky he was for having someone who understood his need to be awake and seem distant most nights.

  “Would you like me to take your food here, Ian?” Mrs. Potmore, his beloved former governess and current housekeeper asked from behind him.

  Ian turned and smiled. It broke his heart when his father dismissed her when he was only 8 after he caught him kissing someone in the stables. Later that night, he decided to tell his mother. Then, as a form of retaliation, his father sacked Mrs. Potmore.

  They continued communication and Ian vowed to one day take her back in his life. The 59-year-old Irish woman practically raised him, teaching him everything he needed to learn in life that wasn’t taught in school.

  “Just coffee, please, Mrs. Potmore,” He replied with a smile.

  “What happened last night? And how did you get inside? You should’ve called, I could’ve opened the door for you,” Mrs. Potmore said, tidying up the writing room a bit.

  “You wouldn’t believe it—I swam so I could enter the garden,” he replied, laughing. “The water was freezing!”

  “Goodness-gracious! You could’ve drowned!” The old woman said in shock.

  “I wasn’t drunk,” Ian assured her. “I didn’t want to call and wake you up—“

  “Nonsense!”

  Ian chuckled, he loved it when Mrs. Potmore’s perplexed. “What’s for dinner?”

  “Sasha said that she’ll cook tonight,” Mrs. Potmore said, ready to go back to the main house to get Ian’s coffee.

  “I see… Okay, I’ll be right here. I’m planning to start researching for the next book.”

  “Already? Why don’t you take a break—go travel!”

  “I can’t, Sasha—“

  “Well, you don’t need her to travel,” Mrs. Potmore replied.

  Ian knitted his brows. There was something about the way Mrs. Potmore said her that made him nervous. She never used that tone before and he wondered if something happened between the two of them. He opened his mouth to ask her what was wrong when Mrs. Potmore spoke:

  “Ian, I found something in the mail this morning.”

  “Shit, what’s this? What’s happening?” Ian thought to himself. Ever since he began writing, he could pretty much predict if something bad will happen, perhaps it was because of his talent in plotting stories.

  “The envelope didn’t have anything written on it, not even a return address,” Mrs. Potmore continued.

  Ian remained speechless.

  “So, I opened it,” Mrs. Potmore said in a high-pitched voice.

  Ian cleared his throat and turned to face his Mac and clicked the mouse to turn it on. Immediately, an email notification popped up. It was from his agent. “Unbelievable. This guy never sleeps,” he thought. He clicked the email and opened it. It was a link followed by the words: This could be the next book.

  Ian pouted his lips and clicked on the link, trying hard to prolong his sense of peace before Mrs. Potmore dropped the bombshell. He knew it was something terrible. He could feel it in his gut. The writer inside him told him that a plot twist was about to happen to him. “Not now,” he thought. “Not yet.”

  “I know it’s not in my place to…”

  “To what, Mrs. Potmore?” He said without looking back, his eyes on the article that said The Missing Witches.

  “I’ve been here for almost four months now—“

  “You’re leaving us?” Ian said, turning around to face her.

  “No, I would never leave you!”

  “That tone again,” he thought. “What’s happening?” He screamed inside his head.

  “I will never leave—especially now!”

  “Now? What was in the mail, Mrs. Potmore?” He said, feeling his heart beat faster.

  “It’s about your girlfriend...”

  “Go on,” Ian replied, standing up to get something from a cabinet nearby to hide the expression on his face. “What about Sasha?”

  Mrs. Potmore sighed and said, “And Mr. Milby, her gym instructor.”

  “What about them?” He replied, his back on the old woman, mindlessly fingering the files.

  “Here, take a look for yourself.”

  Ian turned around and took a bunch of photographs from her. “What’s this?”

  “You’ll see,” Mrs. Potmore said, turning to get coffee.

  “Wait, did you show these to her?” Ian asked, his voice, trembling.

  “No,” Mrs. Potmore said, shaking her head. “I want nothing to do with her from now on. And you should do the same!”

  ###

  Ian walked inside the house and sat on the Queen Anne chair by the kitchen, banging his full weight against the graceful and fragile-looking chair.

  He didn’t know what to do.

  He took his iPhone and began calling Sasha, but he dropped the call before it had even connected.

  “Here’s your coffee,” Mrs. Potmore said in an emphatic voice. “I’ll be out in the front garden if you need me.”

  He nodded and looked up at the painting of Sasha on the heavily paneled wall in front of him.

  He swallowed hard.

  He buried his face with his hands and began to shake. “How can she do this to me?” He thought. “I gave her everything she had always wanted and more!”

  “Ian,” Mrs. Potmore said, interrupting his thoughts. “The coppers are here…”

  “The cops?” Ian said, standing up, his eye
s filled with questions and fear. “What do they want?”

  ###

  It was cold, but he was outside looking down on the dark river at the back of the house. The moon was up, unaware of the troubles on earth.

  “Why don’t you come inside,” a female voice said from behind him.

  “I’ll be in in a minute, Mrs. Potmore,” he replied in a lifeless voice.

  “Do I sound like that old witch?”

  Ian turned and saw his mother. “What are you doing here?”

  “I came as soon as I heard—“

  “But, the doctors said—“

  “Doctors say many things,” his mother said, caressing Ian’s face, “but they can’t stop me from being with my only son at his time of need.”

  Ian knew he was about to cry, so he faked a smile and said, “Come, let’s go inside…”

  “I knew that daughter-of-a-whore was trouble the moment I laid my eyes on her,” his mother said while drinking tea in the kitchen.

  Ian didn’t know what to say. He was still in shock.

  “What do you want to do for the funeral?” His mother continued, but Mrs. Potmore turned on the kitchen television just like she always did and the sound of the evening news interrupted everyone:

  The girlfriend of the youngest Booker Prize winner in history, Ian Reynolds, was shot this afternoon along the Mall just a few blocks from Buckingham Palace. The suspect, the victim’s gym instructor, Michael Milby, is now in police custody. Witnesses say that Milby stopped the car and began arguing with the murder victim who was seated at the back of the car. Then, after firing a couple of shots attempted to flee the scene, but bystanders—American tourists wanting to see the palace—quickly captured the suspect. The driver of the car helped as well.

  A love triangle is now being considered after a witness claimed that the argument was about a secret pregnancy.

  “Turn that bloody thing off,” Ian’s mother said.

  “How’s Yves?” Ian said, changing the topic.

  “Listen,” his mother said, moving closer to him, “I know it’s hard, but at some point, you have to decide whether to go to her funeral or not…”

  “I’m not going,” Ian replied in a firm voice.

  “But that would look bad for—“

  “I don’t care.”

  The doorbell rang.

  “Someone’s at the door, Mrs. Potmore. Could you get it for me?”

  It was Steve, his agent. Mrs. Potmore showed him inside the kitchen

  “I’ll be back tomorrow,” his mother said, standing up.

  Ian nodded and gave her a kiss.

  Steve placed his hand on Ian’s shoulder and sighed. “I’m so sorry, kid.”

  Ian gave him a hug. “Sit down…”

  “So, is it true?” Steve said, removing his leather gloves.

  Ian stood up and fetched the bunch of photographs Mrs. Potmore gave him that afternoon and handed it to Steve.

  Steve took the photographs, his face, full of questions. “What’s this?”

  “You’ll see,” Mrs. Potmore said as she passed by to resume washing the dishes.

  Ian was taken aback but decided to let it pass.

  Steve looked at the photographs. His jaw dropped. They were pictures of Sasha and Michael sneaking a kiss on the parking lot, pictures of them in bed inside a cheap motel in Westminster, pictures of them visiting an OB GYN clinic in Camden.

  “Bloody hell,” he said, looking at Ian. “Did the cops see these?”

  “No, there’s no need…”

  “That’s sensible of you...”

  “Can I get an extension on my next book?” Ian said, looking at his agent in the eye.

  “You have a year, son,” Steve replied. “And if you need more, just let me know.”

  “Thank you, Steve,” Ian replied, looking down on the floor.

  “So, the baby?”

  “You know it’s not mine… You know what the doctors said.”

  “Did she ever find out?”

  “No. Never. I didn’t have the heart to tell her…”

  “At least one of you has a heart.”

  Ian looked up at Steve and sobbed.

  Chapter 2: Moving On

  A month passed like a few days. Ian thought that he would be able to recover quickly, but he was wrong. What happened to him hit him days after Sasha’s funeral, which he ended up attending in Moscow to downplay the rumors surrounding the fight that led to the crime. “Fuck the press,” he said to himself whenever speculations about his girlfriend’s infidelity was further discussed on TV, sparked by the witness’s statement which he repeated countless times on TV and radio interviews.

  He hated the tabloids most of all. But, he couldn’t do anything but to let everything run its course.

  He instructed Mrs. Potmore to cancel their newspaper subscriptions in the meantime. And he temporarily discontinued his social media accounts.

  His publishing house had to put out a statement of course, urging the media to give Ian the time to grieve the loss of his girlfriend. It lessened the reporters outside their house for a few days, but they resumed camping until he ordered his lawyers to take care of it.

  To make things worse, his own mother died in her sleep a week ago. That’s the reason why Mrs. Potmore woke him up early—to attend the funeral in Brighton.

  “Steve called, the chopper is ready,” Mrs. Potmore said by the door.

  “I’ll be down in a minute,” Ian said as he looked out the window and into the garden below.

  Contrary to what he felt when Sasha died, when his mother did, he was filled with courage instead of sadness and anger. “Perhaps, it’s mother sending me help,” he thought.

  The funeral was attended by everyone from his past, including Yves who took every opportunity to smirk at him and make him feel inferior in every level.

  After the funeral, and before leaving for London, Ian wanted to have his moment of glory. “Just a little bit,” he thought, smiling at himself. So, he approached Yves, who was busy telling everyone about his latest conquest in the Baltic Sea, and whispered:

  “Do you have a minute?”

  The two of them walked outside the tent and Ian leaned close to Yves’s right ear and said:

  “The next time you think you could smirk at me as if I’m someone pathetic and powerless, try to remember the fact that I, as my father’s son, own 80% of your kingdom. You’re lucky that I’m not in the business of destroying kings—“

  “You wouldn’t dare—“

  “Oh, but I might. I’m not busy at the moment. My agent gave me a year to rest. All I need to do is summon the board and show them a picture of you while your Argentinian boyfriend is ramming your ass,” Ian replied, with a smile.

  “Fuck you,” Yves said, lost for words, his face, reflecting the turmoil inside his head.

  “You can’t fuck me—I’m straight. But, I can fuck you up. Not that I want to. But, I just might while you scream in pain, because I can assure you, based on the photographs that I obtained, I’m bigger than you boyfriend.”

  “Photograph?”

  “Photographs.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “Doesn’t matter. What matters now is that I’m turning 18 in a couple of months. Let that sink in for a minute. You know as well as I do that the board is filled with bigoted Lords who will not even lift a finger to save a faggot like you.”

  “What do you want?”

  “I want nothing. At least for now. But make sure I don’t see that smirk of yours ever again—it makes me sick.”

  “Okay, I’m sorry, Ian.”

  “You may be the CEO, but you are nothing more than my pathetic puppet.”

  “I better get back inside,” Yves said, preparing to walk away.

  “Oh, and there’s one more thing: I want you to buy Mrs. Potmore’s village in Cyprus. The entire village. I heard a corporation is planning to turn it into a shopping mall. Make sure the village is left in peace.”

  “Consider it done.”

  ###

  Mrs. Potmore was busy in the kitchen when Ian remembered the article his agent sent him about the missing witches. He sat up in bed and turned on his Macbook. He looked for the email again and clicked on the article. The Missing Witches: The Quest To Find The Dwelling places Of The Witches Of Romiou, the complete heading of the article said.