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Siren Suicides Second Edition Ksenia Anske Also by Ksenia Anske The Badlings Irkadura Rosehead Siren Suicides Copyright © 2016 by Ksenia Anske http://www.kseniaanske.com/ All rights reserved. This work is made available under the terms of the Creative Commons Attri- bution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 license, http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/. You are free to share (to copy, distribute and transmit the work) and to remix (to adapt the work) under the following conditions: you must attribute the work in the manner specified by the author or licensor (but not in any way that suggests that they endorse you or your use of the work); you may not use this work for commercial purposes; if you alter, transform, or build upon this work, you may distribute the resulting work only under the same or similar license to this one. Any of the above conditions can be waived if you get per- mission from the copyright holder. For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work. ISBN-13: 978-0-9861979-3-2 ISBN-10: 0-9861979-3-9 Dedication This book is dedicated to my daughter, Anna Milioutina, who gave me a new purpose in life when I became a mother at eighteen. At seventeen, I escaped the violence of my home life by running away. I was a suicidal teenager, the result of an abusive father. Then, at seventeen, I got pregnant. Giving birth to a baby girl drove the suicidal thoughts out of my mind and filled me with new life. I am forever grateful for her. This book is also dedicated to my partner, Royce Daniel, who believed in me as a writer and helped me finish this book by painstakingly reading and commenting on my writing every single day. At thirty-three, I was suicidal again, from revisiting my adolescence and discovering that my father sexually abused me. Becoming a writer and writing out my pain in Siren Suicides gave me the will to live once more. Above all, this book is dedicated to every single human being who has ever wanted to take his or her life and leave this world. If you are thinking about killing yourself, please, don’t. Life is beautiful, and it’s even more beautiful with you in it. It might seem like there is no other way out at times, but, please, hang on to it, hang on to me, hang on to this book. It gets better. There is love everywhere, if only you’re willing to stretch out your hand and ask for help. I know how hard it is; I know that it’s nearly impossible. I know how painful it seems to continue living in your body, continuing an existence that you hate. Please, ask for help. I know you don’t want to, I know you don’t believe anyone cares. I do. E-mail me at [email protected], tweet to me at @kseniaanske, and I’ll respond back as soon as I can. If you’d rather talk with someone anonymously, you can also call the US Suicide Prevention line at 1-800-SUICIDE (1-800- 784-2433) or visit http://www.suicide.org/. This book is available for free, forever, as a download from my website, http://www.kseniaanske.com/. Why? Because I have a secret wish. I wish that my novel will help save a life, or two, or more. Contents Marble Bathtub ................................................................1 Bathroom Door ..............................................................17 Aurora Bridge .................................................................27 Lake Union ....................................................................37 Lake’s Bottom ................................................................49 Brights’ Boat ..................................................................57 Blake Island ....................................................................64 Stern Trawler ..................................................................81 Fish Factory ....................................................................91 Wet Lab .......................................................................102 Dry Lab .......................................................................114 Padded Cell ..................................................................122 Lifeboat ........................................................................136 Allen Bank ...................................................................144 Salmon Bay ..................................................................153 Fremont Bridge ............................................................164 Fremont Canal .............................................................173 Mount Rainier .............................................................184 Paradise ........................................................................201 Nisqually River .............................................................209 Douglas Fir ..................................................................219 Mud Lake .....................................................................227 Cascade Range .............................................................237 Brights’ House ..............................................................248 Marble Bathtub ............................................................258 Epilogue .......................................................................271 “The Sirenes (Sirens), daughter of the River Achelous and the Muse Melpomene, wandering away after the rape of Proserpina [Persephone], came to the land of Apollo, and there were made flying creatures by the will of Ceres [Demeter] because they had not brought help to her daughter. It was predicted that they would live only until someone who heard their singing would pass by. Ulysses [Odysseus] proved fatal to them, for when by his cleverness he passed by the rocks where they dwelt, they threw themselves into the sea. This place is called Sirenides from them, and is be- tween Sicily and Italy.” —Pseudo-Hyginus, Fabulae 141 (trans. Grant) (Roman mythographer C2nd AD) Introduction Iw as breaking my head over how to write the introduction to this second edition. I looked at heaps of books and read heaps of introductions and none of them really helped me with what it is I wanted to say, so I thought, “Fuck it. I’ll just say it how it is.” Why second edition? Why cut the trilogy from 249K words down to 88K? Well, number one, Siren Suicides was never a proper trilogy to begin with. The story simply didn’t fit in one book and I chopped it in three parts and published it that way (back then I didn’t know any better). Later I started getting comments from readers like “Great book! But it sort of ends abruptly…” and without batting an eye I would reply, “Oh, it’s meant to be that way.” Still later I noticed that many people read the first book but hardly anyone reads the second or the third, and the message at the end of the third book is lost. In fact, the whole point of the story is lost as it’s sitting snugly in the very last chapter. It wasn’t only me who was thinking this. Lots of readers in their reviews mentioned it, the idea that editing it down could make it better, and I thought, “Okay. All right. Fine. Let’s dive back in and see what we can do.” And we did, or, rather, it was mostly my new editor Sarah Grace Liu. Sarah sliced and spliced and stitched and mended important parts together, and I wrote a sentence here and a sentence there to fill in the gaps, which weren’t that many. What you’re holding in your hands is the result of this work and the hope that this story will reach more readers and speak to them as it spoke to me when I wrote it, back when I traded suicide for writing books, this being my first. On the next page you will see the original dedication that has been trimmed just a little, and after that, the sirens will greet you with their cold pitiless gaze. And now, lots of thanks to lots of people who made this book happen. Thank you to all my readers who have encouraged me to republish Siren Suicides as one book. There are too many of you to list here. You know who you are. I love you. Thank you to my Patreon supporters. You guys are supporting the printing of this book and the giveaways and the shipping costs and much more. Thank you to my daughter Anna Milioutina for design- ing the new beautiful cover that keeps the original covers’ color scheme intact—the grey Seattle skies, the rain, the water. I adore it. Thank you to my editor Sarah Grace Liu for taking the time to shrink this sprawling beast down to a neat orderly tale AND NOT LETTING ME BUTCHER IT (I tried). Thank you to Colleen M. Albert who edited the original trilogy and made me believe in my story. Thank you to my formatter Stuart Whit- more for making the interior of this book crisp and readable. Thank you to my partner Royce Daniel who once more proof- read the whole thing just in case some mistakes have been over- looked. And, above all, special huge enormous THANK YOU to Katya Pavlopolous and Christi Frey who have offered their help in identifying the parts that could be cut and who have painstakingly commented in red ink and in neon yellow high- lighter and in black pen and in tears (I’m sure) on the printed manuscripts and then shipped them to me and I shipped them in turn to Sarah. You girls have started it all. You rock. I hope you like the result.