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My grandfather always claimed he found the shell during his travels at sea. “Privateering,” he called it, “piracy is such a crude word.” It sat encased in glass at the center of his study, the crown jewel of his collection amidst taxidermy mermaids and salt-frayed treasure maps. Even with a veritable treasure trove of similar curiosities, the Siren in the Shell was his prized possession.
“Is it true that shells all have a bit of the sea in them?” I asked him. I must have been no older than six, my tiny hands smudging the conch’s glass prison. It had a peach pink exterior, which faded to a soft cream interior, its entire surface shining like polished glass. As I stared, I imagined how the spikes covering its pearlescent surface would paint my palm scarlet if I were to hold it.
“Yes,” grandfather said, grasping my hands in his own, “but the sea can be dangerous. This shell,” he tapped the glass, so lightly I could barely hear the sound, “holds something truly treacherous. That is why you must never listen to its call.”
As I grew older many of the trappings of my grandfather’s study passed through my hands. A splendid etching of a ship carved on planks of his own hung over my bed. My desk was dwarfed by a vibrant tapestry he plundered from a far-off desert nation, so large I had to fold the edges threefold to hang it on my wall. He stilled my wanting eyes with shells of every shape and hue. He gifted me so many treasures, yet he never allowed me to so much as touch the shell who haunted my every waking thought.
One night I tried to convince my grandfather to leave me alone in his study, a book of nautical history balanced across my knees as I sat “reading” curled in one of his overstuffed armchairs. At fifteen I was hardly a child anymore– he couldn’t very well send me to bed like one. Unfortunately, he saw through my ploy, producing his own book and settling in the chair across from me.
We sat engaged in silent combat throughout the night, both too stubborn to relent. The fire was nothing but smoldering ashes, the room bathed in the pale gray light of pre-dawn when grandfather lost the battle with sleep. Another hour passed before I gained the courage to move, creeping silently to the center of the room where the case sat.
“What could possibly be so dangerous about a shell?” I thought as I approached. If I could just touch it, just hold it in my hand, if only for a moment, the obsession would end. The siren song would cease, and I would be rid of it for good.
Bracing myself, I lifted one side of the glass, hoping to snatch the shell from beneath it. The glass was thicker than I expected, however, and so heavy that the small disruption sent it careening to one side. I scrambled to catch it, my hands skimming across its surface for a terrifying instant. Time slowed as it slipped from my grasp, and I watched in mute horror as it hit the floor, exploding into a starburst of shrapnel without a sound.
My attention was drawn from the spectacle, however, as a sound more beautiful than any I had ever heard began to emanate from the freshly freed shell.
“Do you wish to hear the ocean’s song? Do you yearn for the freedom of the sea?” a voice as smooth and sweet as honey flowed from the shell. I could taste sea salt on my tongue, the lapping of ocean waves grinding shards of glass to sand at my feet.
“Yes,” my mouth spoke on its own, my body lurching forward to grasp at the sides of the conch. It seemed to glow as I touched it, I could swear I heard seagulls calling beneath the ethereal choir flowing around me.
“I implore thee, bring me to your ear and I shall sing for you. All I ask in return–”
The vision shattered as my grandfather appeared before me, snatching the shell away. Blood pooled in my palm where the shell’s spiny protrusions had pierced my flesh in the way I always knew they would.
I never saw my grandfather again. For years afterwards I would wonder if that night had been nothing but a dream, only to recall the way he cursed me as he tossed me from his home. Even so, the feeling of the shell’s spines against my palm, the rush of adrenaline as it pricked my skin; I was an addict. I dreamt endlessly of the shell, fantasized about breaking into the old man’s house and taking it in the same way he had. He didn’t appreciate it; he didn’t understand what a treasure he kept trapped behind glass. It was a crime. Yet, each time I thought of stealing the shell away, I recalled his warning, and the heartbreak beneath the rage in his voice.
My grandfather refused to see me again. I graduated high school, then college, yet time only further eroded the canyon between us. My father made a habit of calling him every Sunday, though the only response he usually got was the sound of the phone raising from its antique receiver, only to immediately be slammed back down. For this reason, it was not unusual for my father to go weeks without hearing a word from him. After a month of calls ringing through with no response, however, my father recruited me to go to grandfather’s house, fearing the worst.
I was filled with a sick sort of anticipation as we arrived at the house. This would be the day I finally took my prize. We trudged through his overgrown lawn to the front door, still locked. My father and I came to a silent agreement as we stepped inside, splitting up to search for his inevitable corpse. He took the upstairs while I searched the lower level.
As we searched, there was no sickly-sweet smell of death. No corpse, no clue, no sign of a struggle. Grandfather’s bed was neatly made, his glasses resting on his nightstand. The only thing missing was his cane. While my father went outside to check the shed, I approached the treasure trove: grandfather’s study.
It was just as I remembered it. I tripped over grandfather’s cane as I approached the podium, the shell resting precariously at its edge. There was no glass to keep me from it now. No grandfather to stop me as its song soothed my soul. Warm seawater lapped at my ankles and the spines pricked my palm as I cradled the shell in my hands.
“I implore thee, bring me to your ear and I shall sing for you. All I ask in return–”
ns 18.68.41.141da2
