| THE LORELEI SIGNAL |
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| Written by Lynne M. MacLean / Artwork by Holly Eddy |
| Salmon Run |
Jess watched April’s gaze flit around the food court. The two friends were perched uncomfortably over their
coffees (two regular coffees please, black, no sugar). April was regaling Jess with tales of her hectic week, of
chasing her toddler, of driving her older children from sport to sport, of trying to fit in enough time for her
husband and for a deadline with her web-based business, of trying to fit it all in, of trying to fit in at all.
The coffees were an attempt to recharge after their “Big is Beautiful” exercise class. Even the class’s athlete,
a former Olympic gymnast who had bulked out in her thirties, regularly broke a sweat by the end of it. The
rest of them were drenched. Money well spent, though the class was hidden away in the basement of the
overpriced athletic facility, far from the prying eyes of the other members.
Some people’s money seems worth more than others’, Jess thought, But I guess they’re worried about contagion.
Jess knew that she, for one, was hungry. Despite it being lunch time, neither Jess nor April ever ate here. Not
in public. They had never talked about it. There was no need. Both had had enough stares in their lifetime to
learn the rules.
Today, Jess was having a hard time concentrating on April’s life over the clatter and buzz of the food court.
Jess was restless, a current of anticipation thrumming through her. She couldn’t sit still any longer.
“I’m going, April. I’ve got that plane to catch.”
~ * ~
On the cross-continental flight to Vancouver, Jess let the anticipation build into excitement. She was going to
see her brothers, all three of them at once, the four siblings reunited for the first time in five years. Her
business trip to the West coast where two of them lived had prompted a vacation trip of the third. She loved
it when they were all together—the laughter, the back slapping, the beer. With three brothers, she’d had an
unruly, rough and tumble time of it growing up. She could punch, she could swear, and she could drink most
men under the table. At least, she used to be able, once. She had a more civilized persona now. She and two
of the boys had put themselves through university and had professional careers, far from their origins and
each other. Not much punching or swearing anymore, and drinking clients under the table was seldom
necessary.
She straightened her suit, wriggling in the tight confines of the seat belt. Tonight there would be no spouses
or children. As beloved as they were, the lack of them meant certain freedoms. There would be no one to
complain about too many walks down memory lane, of feeling excluded from jokes of times gone by. No
chiding as manners and education slipped away. No one’s feelings to get hurt from an occasional snarling
interchange.
Turbulence over the Rockies bucked the plane. Jess enjoyed the sensation. Jess also enjoyed watching the
slender, long-legged stewardess with the high centre of gravity fumble and struggle for balance. The same
stewardess had fought a sneer when Jess had asked for the seat belt extension. Jess smothered her chortle
at the other’s distress with a grunt, and looked out the window, watching Vancouver approach.
~ * ~
When the four siblings entered the restaurant, the maître d’ smiled, and ushered them to a large table in a
spacious section by the harbour view. Jess and her brothers rewarded him with returned smiles. She settled
back, enjoying the bonhomie. And the feeling of delicate femininity that so seldom crossed her life. Around her
brothers, she felt dainty. Her earthy contralto sounded like bird song, soaring above their deep, grumbling
registers. Next to the boys, she was tiny, and willow-waisted. The men towered above her, their shoulders
and backs like buildings, their huge arms gesturing animatedly. For now, the rest of the customers seemed
fragile, anaemic shadow beings.
Trevor nodded at the server who brought their drinks, then, once the man had left the table, said, “I’ll bet he
was glad to see us coming.”
“No doubt,” Stephen said, patting his girth, “I bet they’re all back there predicting: Best night’s profits in a
month.”
The siblings all laughed, a loud rumble that made the other customers stare, but then smile back as each of
the four good-naturedly grinned at someone. Jess caught Stephen winking at a table of grandmothers. One
winked back.
Still, she knew they formed a formidable group. Walking down the street to the restaurant, they had moved
fast, side by side, a force of nature. People had scuttled out of their way, as huge, hairy, and magnanimous,
they claimed the space that was theirs by right. She gloried in the sense of power. The boys had kept their
facial hair: two brothers were fashionably trimmed; one, who still worked in the bush, had maintained his full
beard. It started just below his eyes, as lush and curly as his head thatch, and extended downwards to mid
chest. All the brothers sported untrainable curls of hair popping over the high crew necklines of their
sweaters, front and back. Even in this age of gleaming pectorals, it would be fruitless for them to wax. Jess,
as a female, felt she had no choice. She sighed. At least society allowed her to keep her long, strong, rapidly
growing nails.
The dinners arrived. What else on the West Coast but fish would do? Salmon, sable fish, trout, shellfish.
Delightedly, surreptitiously under closed lips, she licked her cuspids.
Memories were resurrected: of their childhood spent fishing off the coast in summer, of fall salmon runs, and
long winter nights of family camping in much colder sections of the interior. The siblings laughed softly and
smiled broadly while they ate and talked through the early evening. Through the floor-to-ceiling restaurant
windows, English Bay sparkled its come-hither lights. The rising moon hung temporarily near the horizon, full,
heavy and orange.
“All this talk of fishing makes me feel like going for a swim,” Mark said. At 6 feet, 6 inches and 300 pounds, he
was one of the world’s largest architects. Though his dextrous fingers could build complex miniature models of
great delicacy, his massive strength regularly came in handy with construction crews.
Men can do that, Jess thought. Parlay their size into success.
“I know a place we could go,” local brother Stephen said, “if we’re not in a rush.”
They weren’t. They drove under the moon and through the sprawling city, talking, laughing, and occasionally
arguing, slapping each other’s shoulders for punctuation. Snarls from one were jostled away by deep-chested
guffaws and soothing chuffs from the others. The late summer humidity grew close around them, even with
the breeze blowing through the open windows. The salt and cedar filled wind was too intoxicating for air
conditioning. They swelled and grew hairier with the humidity and the moon.
After some hours had passed, Stephen stopped the car. The temperature had dropped. They were in a park.
Trees rustled. Somewhere close by, water was running. Smells of hemlock and cedar filled the night. They all
sniffed the air, filling their lungs in great thirsty draughts.
“No one around for miles,” Trevor said, after searching the wind.
“Here,” Stephen said. “Sleeping bags are in the back. Thought we might need them.”
With the bags tucked under their arms, Trevor, Mark, and Jess followed Stephen down the dark and virtually
invisible trail. They moved fast, intent on their purpose, with nary a padding footfall or broken twig to mark
their passing. Not even a chuff or grunt escaped their lips on the steep descent.
Thank heavens for that exercise class, Jess thought, clamping her mouth shut over the breath wanting to burst
free and channelling it slowly through her nostrils. I’m out of practice.
The four paused as one to listen to loons calling, the echoes ringing off the rocks and hillsides. The siblings all
smiled silently, simultaneously, though unseen by each other. They resumed the path.
Suddenly, Stephen picked up speed, crashing through the underbrush, bellowing “We’re here!” The other
three followed, with the relatively short-limbed Jess bringing up the rear. By the time she, too, burst through
at break neck speed, Stephen was chest deep in water, his splashes catching the tail of moonlight reflected
on the river’s surface. Trevor and Mark followed close behind, shedding their clothes on the shore and diving
in, barely breaking stride. Jess had forgotten how dense their body hair could become, and looked down at
the fur now on her own muscled forearms. She deposited the sleeping bag neatly in the pile left by the
others. They’d need them when the moon and stars were set; when they emerged dripping onto the cold
dawn of the beach to sleep deep and dreamless sleep.
But for now, it was warm enough to thrash through the mountain night’s cold, into the still water, sending
droplets flying, sparkling, into the suspended moonlight, the padding of their summer-fattened figures
protecting them from the river’s dark frigidity that purpled lips and dragged bodies under. What lips? They no
longer had lips, only furred muzzles with long, laughing canines. They splashed, scampered, and slid down
banks. They dove deep, down to the bottom, powerful muscles pushing against the flotational resistance of
fat. Trevor rose from one dive, eyes dancing, a salmon in his mouth. He flipped it high into the air, and then
tossed it, hand to hand, until letting it slip back into the black depths. The salmon’s grimace of surprise sent
them falling backwards in gales of giddy laughter.
Then Mark, the eldest, climbed the flattest of the rock shelves on the bank. “It’s time,” he proclaimed. The
echoes here picked up any sound, magnifying it and sending it winging into the night. The hills sang with his
words.
The other three held still, treading water, their twitching noses pointed towards the rock. Mark sang a
growling, grunting, bass song of thanks for their children, their mates, and each other. He dove into the water
as next-born Trevor rose and climbed the rock. Trevor sang a chuffing hymn to the ancestors, to their parents,
and to the night that brought them here. It reverberated clearly, like a stage whisper. With a soft slap to his
chest, he clambered down.
Jess came next, shining in the moonlight, and softly wept out her song, wept for tomorrow and the world’s
chains, for the ostracized children, and for the Aprils who would never know a night like tonight. As the
weeping ebbed, her anger built into a roar of unfairness, sounding like approaching thunder.
Stephen climbed up, his eyes glaring, mouth sneering, sharing his sister’s anger. He patted her shoulder
clumsily.
“There, there. You can’t let them get you down. They’re not worth it.” He sighed, the anger seeping away
from his expression. “Now, what should we do about it?” A glint returned to his small brown eyes. “I know
what, let’s really show them.”
Standing in the moonlight, his shadow in bright relief on the rocks beneath his wide feet, he threw his head
back, the corners of his mouth twitching. His siblings fell silent, watching his deep inhalation, waiting.
You never know with Stephen.
Then suddenly he exclaimed: “I am Stephen, Lord of the forests and devourer of the puny and of the ugly self-
righteous assholes. Beware, you who would make us less than we are! And leave my sister alone or you’ll be
sorry!” His roar echoed off the surrounding rocks, ringing through the river valley, sending loons flying and
night-hunters scurrying. He could hold back his laughter no longer, and cannon-balled into the water, his
siblings falling backwards, hooting with exhilaration once more. As the ringing of Stephen’s proclamation and
their laughter faded, with tension released and spent, a moment of silence opened up. It spread over the
surface of the water, swirling around and through them all.
Jess shivered at the awareness that the night was passing. Tomorrow, she would go back to imposed
burdens, to the traces and confines, to the revulsion, fear, and hiding. They would go back to their solitary
lives, and with no more than a shunning sigh, she would become invisible again.
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Lynne M MacLean is new to fiction writing. She won an honourable mention in the 2010
Speculative Literature Foundation's Older Writers Grant competition, and has work published in
MicroHorror.
She lives with her husband and two teens in Ottawa, Ontario, and, when not writing fiction, is
disguised as a university public health researcher and editor of É/Exchange, the working paper
series of the Population Health Improvement Research Network (if you check out our link, it will
be anonymously counted in our total site visits and impress our government funder).
Speculative Literature Foundation's Older Writers Grant competition, and has work published in
MicroHorror.
She lives with her husband and two teens in Ottawa, Ontario, and, when not writing fiction, is
disguised as a university public health researcher and editor of É/Exchange, the working paper
series of the Population Health Improvement Research Network (if you check out our link, it will
be anonymously counted in our total site visits and impress our government funder).