I cannot hear what Eleanor is saying any more. “Come on,” Daisy whispers. “He seems to have calmed down. His flare-ups never last that long, thank god.” She pushes the double doors open into a round room made of glass, the floor divided into geometric shapes of green and white. Oliver and his mother are sitting at a small table, the white metal carved into whirling shapes, with dishes of blue print so fine that my sisters would gasp to see them.
“Come in, come in,” Oliver says, waving at me to join them, even though Eleanor is squinting at me in that strange manner of hers. Daisy touches the small of my back, nudging me forward. These shoes she insisted I wear make my feet feel as if they are covered in seeping blisters, the leather like acid soaking into each open pore. But I hold my head up high, swaying as if I am floating through water.
“She woke late,” Daisy says as I sit next to Oliver. “I tried to rouse her earlier, Mrs Carlisle, but dead to the world she was.”
“That’s fine, Daisy.” Eleanor takes a sip of a pale green-coloured drink. “I’m sure you did your best.”
“Oh, I did, I know you and Master Oliver like to have your breakfast at the same time every day, and I was sure you would want her to join you, but when I tried to—”
“We get it, Daisy,” Oliver says. “You tried to wake her. She was asleep. Anything else you would like to add?”
“No, sir.”
“Thank you, Daisy,” Eleanor says. “We appreciate your hard work. I know that you are performing your duties with the greatest of care. All of your duties.” Eleanor raises an eyebrow, Daisy nodding silently in return. “You may go now, dear.”
She flees out of the room. These humans have such strange ways of walking, there is no lightness to their movements, no elegance. Ghastly, my father would have said. It baffles me to think your mother was so enamoured with these specimens.
“You are so beautiful,” Oliver says, and then reddens as if he had been thinking aloud.
“You really are,” Eleanor agrees thoughtfully. “I don’t think I have ever seen a girl quite so perfect, not in real life anyway. It’s almost…”
“Almost what, Mother?” Oliver asks, jaw tightening. “If you have something to say, then say it.”
“I was just commenting on how lovely our new friend is. It’s nearly inexplicable how perfect her face is. Like a painting.” She gives a small laugh at that, as if she has said something amusing, although neither Oliver nor I get the joke.
“Oh, for god’s sake, Mother, would you ever—”
Oliver stops as a man-servant approaches the table, placing a bowl before me, steam rising off it. I peer at it – creamy white, a milky-sweet smell.
“I hope you like porridge,” Oliver says. “Or our chef can prepare kippers for you, if you wish. Or smoked salmon?” I put a hand over my mouth at the thought of putting a fish inside, chewing on it until it died in my throat. So it’s true; the humans do eat their remains. “Oh, dear,” he says in alarm. “Are you a vegetarian?” I do not understand. “Do you eat fish or meat?” he continues, and I shake my head. No. No.
“Interesting,” Eleanor says, and I don’t like the way she says it. “Well, porridge contains neither. Our doctors have advised that it is the healthiest option for breakfast to ensure a long life. How long do your people live for, my girl?”
“Her people? What kind of stupid question is that, Mother?”
“Do you take cream and sugar?” Eleanor continues, pretending she didn’t hear Oliver. She nods at the servant, who pours a thick white liquid over the porridge, sprinkling grains of brown crystal on top. I imitate Eleanor, lifting the spoon, and this porridge burns but it’s delicious, sweet and good. I take another spoonful and then another, until I notice that Oliver is watching me. I place the spoon down. Perhaps women are not permitted to be hungry in this kingdom either. I am quite satisfied, my sisters and I would say after two dainty bites at the dinner table. No more, thank you. It was important that we neither ate too much nor too little, and so we often went to bed still hungry, the denial of our appetites a sign of our goodness. It was important that we be good.
“It looks like you enjoyed the porridge,” Eleanor says. “What do they have for breakfast where you come from?” I remain still. There is something unnerving about Eleanor, as if she is a shark sniffing the water for blood. “We never found out, did we, exactly where that is,” she continues. “If I ask Hughes to fetch an atlas, would you be able to show us on that? You do know what an atlas is, don’t you, dear?”
“Mother, you’re being unbelievably rude right now.”
“Oliver! I am not being rude. Surely you can agree that it would make things easier if we knew more about our young visitor,” Eleanor says. What does this woman want from me? “What shall we call you? Jane Doe, as is the name given to the missing girls from our country? There are many of them, you know. Girls who simply disappear one day, never to be seen again.” She stirs her tea with the spoon, around and around, metal scraping off china, causing my teeth to grind. “Foolish, really; probably following some man who doesn’t want to be followed. A man with a wife, perhaps. With children. Not that girls like that care about such details.”
“What has this to do with anything?” Oliver says, scowling at his mother. “And, no, we will not call her Jane. It doesn’t suit her. I will think of something more suitable.” He finishes the porridge, pouring more cream and sugar into his bowl.
“I was thinking we could go horse-riding today,” he says as I stare at my own breakfast, willing myself to resist temptation. Girls are not allowed to want more. There is silence, and I find him looking in my direction. I point at myself to make sure, and he laughs.
“Yes, you, beautiful one.” He thinks I’m beautiful. I wish I could tell him that I think he’s beautiful too, more beautiful than any man I have ever seen, above or below the surface. “Do you want to come horse-riding with me?”
I do not know what a horse is or how I could ride one, but I smile my yes. The more time I spend with Oliver alone, the more likely it is that I shall convince him to fall in love with me. I must convince him of it. When he is in love with me, I will be safe. And once I am safe, I tell myself, I will be able to find my mother, if she is still here to be found.
“Wonderful,” he says. “I bet George’s riding gear will fit you; he is as slender as a girl.” He snaps his fingers at the servant. “Call the Delaney house. Ask their butler to send George’s riding outfit to the estate, immediately.”
“Oli,” his mother says, as the servant leaves. “The Galanis people are coming in from Athens to discuss the sale. It’s important that you—”
“Enough, Mother,” he says, slamming the spoon down on the table. “You can go in my place, can you not? You’re better at all of that stuff than I am, anyway.”
“Yes, Oli,” she says. “Of course I can.”
No. No. No.
I shake my head, backing away from these horses. They are huge animals, with slobbering mouths and stamping feet; throwing their heads back as an older man with dirty fingernails and two missing teeth tells them to hush. (“This is Billy,” Oliver had introduced us. “He’s the best groom in the country.” “She don’t got a name?” Billy asked Oliver when I remained silent. “It’s a long story,” Oliver replied.)
“What’s wrong?” Oliver asks now. “I thought you wanted to go riding?”
“Are you afraid of horses, miss?” Billy asks, pulling at the leather strips around the animals’ heads. “No need to be; Blaize and Misty are two of the gentlest creatures in the stables.”
I turn to Oliver in panic, clutching at his elbow.
“Oh, for pity’s sake,” Oliver says, clearly annoyed. I’ve only had legs for a day and already Oliver is weary of me. (…the waves taking you for their own. It is Sea Law.) I can feel an ache forming behind my eyes. I have so little time to make him love me; I cannot afford to anger him. What would my mother tell me to do if she was here? How did she manage to calm my father when
he was in one of his moods? I nestle into Oliver, resting my head on his shoulder until I feel him relax. That was easier than expected.
“We’ll go on Misty together, Billy,” Oliver says. “The lady can hold on to me.” He winks. “As tightly as you need.”
And I do hold on tight. The leather seat (a saddle, Billy had called it) is solid between my legs, rubbing against that new centre in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable and restless all at once. Misty runs faster, Oliver urging the animal to pick up speed as we jump over holes in the earth, broken down fences and trickling streams. I have my arms around his waist, pressing my body into his back, the country air roaring past my ears until I am becoming frenzied with the thrill of it. I never imagined such a thing when I was under the sea.
“Woah, Misty,” Oliver says, pulling back on the straps (reins), the horse slowing until we come to a standstill. We are at a clearing in the woods, sunshine dappling through the leaves and falling on the ground in shards of light. Oliver jumps down, his thighs muscular in those tight cream trousers, (Impure thoughts, my grandmother would have said, those are not for good girls. Why does being a good girl always have to be such hard work?) and he ties the reins around the stump of a tree. Misty steps back, snorting, but gives up when he finds he cannot escape. Do all creatures who find themselves in captivity surrender so easily? Oliver reaches up and places a hand on either side of my waist, lifting me down.
“There you go,” he says as I stand before him, swallowing down the excruciating pain that my feet are subjecting me to. He points at a mountain ahead, steep, a daunting prospect at the best of times, let alone with serrated knives for bones. “Ready for a climb?”
He insists that I walk ahead of him. “Just keep to the path,” he says, and I do, each step feeling as if a steel trap is opening and closing upon my toes, the metal teeth tearing through and chewing on my bones. But I keep walking, the boughs of the trees grazing my shoulders and the top of my head. I reach down to pick one of the flowers blooming from the ground, pressing it to my nose and inhaling its scent, the strength of which I could never have imagined beneath the sea.
“Christ,” he says when we reach the top, wisps of clouds drifting below us, obscuring our view of Oliver’s kingdom. I sit down on a rock as quickly as I can, fighting the urge to throw my head to the sky and scream for oblivion, for a mercy of any kind. “I have never seen anyone move like that. Were you a dancer where you come from? You have such grace—” He snaps his fingers. “That’s it. That’s what we shall call you. Grace. It is a fitting name for one so beautiful.” He sits beside me, taking my hand in his, sweat beading his brow. “Is that okay? Do you like it?”
I will like any name you choose for me.
“Grace,” he says again. My hand is still in his, and I hope he never lets go. “The beautiful Grace.”
Later that night when Daisy pulls the riding boots off, she sees the blood spilling from the soles of my feet, and there is so much of it, this human blood, smearing on the carpet and on the sheets and all over Daisy’s hands until her fingernails are encrusted with my pain. I stare at it, fascinated, and yet I do not feel afraid.
“What is this?” Daisy asks, her eyes huge. “What have you done to yourself, miss? We have to call the doctor, miss, we have to.”
I place my finger to my lip.
“But—”
I take her stained hands in mine, urging her to keep my secret.
“Okay, miss,” she says, and she’s confused, as if unsure as to why she is agreeing to my demands. “I won’t tell nobody.” And somehow, despite how chatty I have found Daisy to be, I sense that I can trust her.
And I smile. Oliver will be mine. It is worth it. All of this will be worth it.
CHAPTER TWELVE
The next morning, Daisy brings me a draught; a “special drink”, she calls it.
“It’ll help with the pain,” she says, as she places a bronze goblet on the dresser. She nods at my feet she so carefully bandaged the night before, already soaked through with blood. “I should tell the mistress, we should get the doctor; Mrs Carlisle said I was supposed to watch for anything odd—”
I sit up straight, clutching at Daisy. I have learned since my arrival that doctors means scientists and scientists means experiments and tests and medical studies, like my grandmother warned my sisters before they travelled to the surface. Don’t get too close, she told them. Is that what happened my mother? If they allowed her to live, did they use her for scientific research, her body torn apart to help with their “enquiries”? I don’t know, of course, that’s the problem.
“Okay, okay,” Daisy says, rubbing her arm. “I get it. No doctors.” She picks up the goblet again and hands it to me. “Hopefully this will help.” She wavers, as if deliberating whether to continue or not, her skin flushing. Daisy’s feelings are so easy to decipher, mapping themselves scarlet on to her skin. “And I haven’t told Mrs Carlisle anything either. Don’t worry about that.”
There is no smell off the clear liquid and only the slightest aftertaste of something too sweet. “Aniseed,” Daisy says, when I grimace. After ten minutes, she urges me to try standing and I do so, feathers rushing up through my throat and into my eyes, turning my vision hazy. But the throbbing in my legs has stopped. I cannot feel my feet. I cannot feel anything.
“Better?” Daisy asks as I stare at her in wonder.
Are you a witch too?
We begin to establish a routine, Daisy and I. She wakes me in the morning, unwrapping the bandages from my feet, shuddering as she mops up the crusted blood that has gathered there since bedtime.
“Oh, Grace,” she says every time, unpicking clumps of peeling flesh between my toes with a small brush. “What are we going to do with you?” She draws a bath, handing me the magic potion to drink while I soak in the water, oh, and the holy relief of both. Once I have been dressed, my hair wound into braids and red powder dabbed on my cheeks (It’ll make you look a little less lethargic, Daisy explains, and I speculate as to what my father would say if he could see me with paint on), I take breakfast with Oliver and his mother.
A bite of porridge or toast and that is all; I refuse offers of any more food.
“What a tiny appetite you have,” Oliver says every day, and I ignore the sound of my stomach rumbling. “Like a little bird.”
“Yes,” his mother agrees, buttering a bread roll and stuffing it into her mouth, as if she is taunting me. “Don’t you ever get hungry, Grace? It is most unusual for a girl your age.”
Then a variation on this: “Oliver,” Eleanor will say, turning away, bored with whatever game she has decided to play with me. “I was hoping to speak to you about—”
“Maybe later, Mother? Grace and I are going riding again, it’s such a pleasant morning. We should make the most of it while we can, don’t you agree?”
And on it goes.
“But, Oli,” his mother says the following day, “It is imperative that we deal with—”
“I’m so sorry, Mother. I’ve decided to take Grace into the village, I want to treat her to croissants. Will we finish this conversation later?”
And on.
“I beg of you,” his mother says the day after that when Oliver has dabbed his mouth with a napkin, pushing a near empty bowl away from him. “I cannot make any more excuses for you, Oliver. Petro Tsakos is meeting with the Galanis people too. If Tsakos-Co secures this merger over us, they will control more than a quarter of the world’s fleets, and it will be next to impossible for us to catch up. You are twenty-one now and—”
“Mother, I know I’ve been distracted this week,” Oliver says. “But Grace and I have plans today that cannot be changed. I’m sure the board will do whatever you tell them to do. Most people do.”
I sneak a look back at Eleanor as we leave, slumped in her chair. Her life seems such a struggle, continually trying to get all these men to respect her, to give her the keys to their kingdom. Perhaps they never will. Perhaps she should just bu
ild her own, like the Sea Witch did.
I want to tell Oliver that he should go back and speak with Eleanor, that the matter is clearly of great importance. I wish I could tell him how lucky he is to even have a mother.
“Oh, Grace,” he says, as we walk through the front doors, servants scurrying out of his path. “That’s what I like the most about you. You never judge me.”
“We used to have parties here,” Oliver tells me, linking arms with me. Adrenaline courses through me as his skin meets mine, and I shiver. How can one man have such an effect on me?
We left the mansion and he led me down the marble steps, but not to the sea. A sharp bend to the right, through a thicket of tangled roses, thorns catching on the ends of my dress as we fought our way into this secret garden.
“There’d be a band in the gazebo,” he points at a wooden structure in the corner, tangled weeds creeping around it, “and everyone would dance in the middle of the lawn until the sun rose. There was music and drinking and people kissing, which I thought was disgusting at that age, of course. Little did I know how my opinion would change within a few years.” He sneaks a look at me and I blush. “I wasn’t allowed to stay at the parties for very long. They just rolled me out to charm the guests, then my nanny would come and take me back to the play room. I was the only one of my friends with a live-in nanny, you know. Mother was too busy working. Working, working, working, that’s all she ever cared about.”
Where was Oliver’s father in all this, I wonder. As though he had heard me, Oliver continues.
“My father would come if he was feeling well enough,” Oliver says. “Everyone would have been enquiring about him. Where’s Alex? they’d ask, and my mother would promise that he would be there soon. The party couldn’t start until Dad arrived; he was the life and soul of every event. But towards the end … Dad just looked sad all the time. Then he would become bothered, and my mother would be embarrassed, apologizing for his behaviour. My husband isn’t himself these days,” Oliver mimics in a mocking tone. “He wasn’t well; he needed help, and she just…”