The Surface Breaks

  The room is empty of any furniture, the blinds drawn, dust gathering on their thick slats. The walls are painted to resemble waves, but those in the grip of a storm, fish whirling in panic, seeking the ocean floor. There are canvases strewn in every direction, roughly drawn with no real skill, but it is clear they depict the same face. Eyes so blue and hair so red. A woman so beautiful it is almost unnatural. I reach out to touch one, my fingers caressing the paint. I am moving through dreams, as I stare at that face, swimming through songs of my childhood. It doesn’t feel real.

  It is my mother.

  “What are you doing in here?” My heart hurtles against my rib cage and I put a hand to my chest, as if trying to hold it in place.

  “I asked you a question.” It is Eleanor. How long has she been there? Did she follow me from my bedroom? Did she see me walking in such a peculiar manner? “What are you doing in here, Grace? How did you open that door?”

  She is in a cream lace nightgown, her hair protected with a silk cap. Her face is bare of make-up, and she looks younger than usual, even with the ashen shadows beneath her eyes.

  “Oh,” she says. “You can’t explain because you have no voice. Most convenient.” She looks around the room, her mouth tightening. “Look at these monstrosities,” she mutters, moving from one painting to the next. “This was Alexander’s room,” she continues, as if she’s giving me a tour; ever the polite hostess. I stare longingly at the open door. “I kept it just the way he liked it, or the way he left it, anyway. He was holed up here for months, Grace. Months. The smell.” Her face curls in disgust. “If it was up to me, I would burn everything in here. I can’t do that though, can I?”

  I don’t move. “No, I can’t. I can’t do that because Oliver would be angry with me and he’s angry enough these days, isn’t he? It’s all my fault, you see. I’m sure he’s told you that. His bitch of a mother… All my fault for getting Alex appropriate care.” She runs a finger across my mother’s face. “I couldn’t take care of him, Grace, not here, and I had a business to run. We had bills to pay, all these servants; they depend on me for their livelihood. Not to mention the shareholders. Oliver likes his luxuries, my god, the bills that boy can run up. He’s less interested in where the money comes from. He prefers to blame me for everything while he continues to spend everything I earn.”

  I don’t like this version of Oliver that she is describing. Someone who is selfish, weak. A man who is prepared to abuse his mother while still using her for all that she’s worth. That isn’t the Oliver that I know, my Oliver is kind and decent and— (Is he, Gaia? A little voice whispers inside of me. Is he?) I wish I could put my hands over my ears, making myself deaf to her revelations rather than merely mute.

  “Look at this,” Eleanor says, when she is in front of one painting. That beautiful woman (my mother, my mother) her hair standing on end as if floating in the sea. “It was my fault that he went mad, apparently. That’s what Oli thinks anyway. I emasculated him.”

  She squats on the floor until she’s eye level with the painting. “The women always get blamed. Have you noticed that? The wives are nags. The mistress is a bitch for betraying the sisterhood. And the men just fall through the cracks in between. We expect so little from our boys, don’t we, Grace?”

  The room seems to be shrinking, as if there is less oxygen for us to share. The smell, the sound of the water, all of these paintings with my mother’s face… I need to leave, and soon.

  “We were childhood friends, Alex and I,” Eleanor says, standing again. “And he was captivating, even then. Everyone loved him. They tolerated me well enough, although clever girls are never much appreciated.” I don’t know why she is telling me all of this. People feel so free to tell me their stories, now that they can be sure I won’t repeat them. I shall grow fat on all of these secrets. Eleanor cracks her knuckles, just like Oliver, but she does it slowly, each snap deliberate, echoing in this room. “His family were very grand, but had no money left – gambling debts. Well. I needed Alex, and he needed money – and god knows if my family had anything, it was money. And I was in love with him.” She turns to me, her eyes bright. “It didn’t matter what my father said – that Alex was lazy, that all he cared about was having fun. Well, I wanted to have fun, for once. Fun, I could appreciate. I’ve never cared for beauty. Beauty fades, there’s no loyalty in it. My mother told me it was better to cultivate my wit, my intelligence. If I’d had a daughter, I would have told her the same. I would have made her strong. A woman needs to be strong to survive.”

  I imagine what it would have been like having Eleanor as my mother. I imagine what it would have been like to have any mother at all.

  “Alex and I were happy until that accident. Until he came back from the sea, changed. I loved him…” She’s whispering now, pacing back and forth. “I loved him, I loved him, I loved him. I loved him. I loved you, Alex. Why did you want to leave me? You can’t leave, I won’t let you go. What will people say?”

  I’m dizzy as my eyes follow her, sweat breaking out under my armpits. A chill climbs up my spine, bone by bone. Is this what unrequited love looks like? Is this what worshipping a ghost does to you? Is this what my future holds if I can make Oliver choose me? Lying awake at night in case he calls out Viola’s name in his sleep?

  I gingerly back away from her, away from this room and all the haunted spirits it contains.

  “Grace,” Eleanor says, her head snapping up. I freeze as she points to the painting in front of her. “That woman. Who is she?”

  I forget how to breathe. “Grace. Gracie,” she says in a peculiar voice. “Look at her. Look at her, I said. Why does she look so much like you, Grace?” She steps closer to me, eyes burning as if she has a fever. “Who are you?” I shake my head. I don’t know. I don’t think I have ever known. Please leave me alone. Leave me alone. “Who are you?” Eleanor screams, the sound piercing my eardrums. “Who are you?”

  And I run from the room, my feet breaking beneath me. I run away from this mad woman as fast as I can.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  “Up you get.” Daisy shakes me awake. “Come on, Grace, you’ll miss breakfast.”

  I’m barely listening to her (“Exciting… It’s been… dancing… do you think?”) as she bathes my feet. I sit on the bed while Daisy rifles through my wardrobe, trying to find the perfect outfit for the day ahead. (“Don’t you think…” Daisy keeps babbling, “it would be really great if… I can’t wait…”)

  Did I imagine last night? My dreams have been so vivid recently. Does that room even exist? How can I be sure?

  If last night happened, then what does it mean? Was my mother in love with Oliver’s father? Did she abandon the kingdom to create a new life with him, one without her children? Is that why she called me Gaia, a name meaning “of the earth”? Muireann of the Green Sea cursed me with wanderlust and a thirst for dry air that could not be quenched. And then – what happened? What happened to make my mother vanish, and drove Alex Carlisle mad searching for her? Where is my mother?

  “Grace.” A gentle tug at my hair as Daisy runs a brush through it. “I don’t think you’ve listened to a single word I’ve said this morning.” I stare at her blankly and she sighs. “Never mind,” she says. “You’ll hear the news soon enough.”

  I steal along the corridor to look at that room again, but the door is locked. There is no sound of waves creeping under the floorboards, no musty smell.

  “What are you doing down here?” Daisy asks. I hadn’t realized she had followed me. “That door hasn’t been opened in years. And, my goodness, they need to re-carpet those floorboards, it’s unslightly.” She glances at her watch. “Now get a move on, you’re going to be late.”

  Downstairs, I find the house bustling with activity, busy in a way that I have never seen it before. I take a deep breath, praying that none of them will look my way. Why must there always be so many people here? Dozens of servants weave around as I walk slowly, oh, so slowly, feeling blood betwee
n my toes.

  “Are you all right, miss?” one of the female servants stops to ask me in concern. I must be showing my misery. How unbecoming of me.

  There are servants on their hands and knees in the hall, polishing the wooden floor until it gleams. More servants on ladders, buckets of soapy water in hand as they wash the stained glass windows. To and fro, they dash, carrying huge arrangements of flowers and silver serving trays and cut crystal glasses. Coupe, flute, cocktail, wine, short. I recite their names silently, recalling my lessons with Daisy at the beginning, when I would point to an object and wait until she told me its name. I had so much hope, then, that I would need to know what everything in this world was called.

  “Hey, watch it,” a servant says to a girl tracking mud in from outside, wandering into the entrance hall as if amazed to find herself there.

  “Sorry,” the girl says listlessly. It is Ling, I realize, the servant girl. I remember Rupert’s hand closing around her arm. She is pale, so thin now that her uniform is at least two sizes too large for her. I shiver. Here is another Rusalka made. Another human woman set on fire by an insatiable man, needing to swallow the sea so she can douse the flames in her heart. She will lament her fate for the next three hundred years. She will sing sailors to their graves for her vengeance. And despite everything that I have been told about the Salkas, despite the fact that they killed my Uncle Manannán and drove my mother into the arms of the Sea King, I would not blame her. We were told to hate them but how else should they have behaved? The Salkas died with tears freezing in their eyes, sobs choked in their throats; their hearts heavy with treachery. Perhaps my grandmother was correct. Perhaps they are to be pitied rather than despised after all.

  The orangery has been overtaken by servants too, rubbing silver and shining cutlery. I limp into the drawing room. Eleanor and Oliver are there, and Oliver is drinking wine. Eleanor’s jaw is tight again, but I smile. After all, he likes me because I do not judge him.

  “Grace,” Oliver says, his voice loose with drink. “You are looking particularly radiant today. Isn’t Grace stunning, Mother?”

  I take a seat opposite Eleanor, but she doesn’t acknowledge me. I watch her closely to see if she will give me any indication that what happened last night was real.

  “Morning, Grace,” she says eventually. Her face is serene, no sign of stress or lack of sleep. Did I imagine it all? Was it just a troubled fever dream, a manifestation of this nagging need to know what happened to my mother?

  “Would you like something to drink?” Oliver asks, waving a decanter at me. “Get you in the party mood!”

  Party?

  “Oliver,” Eleanor says, warning him. “Are you sure that this is the best idea?”

  “Excuse me, Mother,” he says. “I have decided that we are having a party, therefore we are having a party.”

  Eleanor stands, smoothing the wrinkles from her dress. She walks to him, placing a hand on his cheek. She looks so sad, so far from the fierceness she displayed last night (a dream, Gaia, it was clearly a dream) that I cannot reconcile the two women. “Oliver,” she says, and he nestles his hand in her palm. “Oli, my darling. Let me help you.”

  “Mummy…” Oliver closes his eyes for a second then pushes her away. “Don’t be ridiculous, Mother. I’m a grown man and I need to live my life. Grace agrees with me, don’t you, Grace?”

  “Grace?” Eleanor says, going to look out at the garden. “What on earth does Grace have to do with any of this? She can’t even speak.”

  “Don’t talk about my friend like that,” he says. (Friend? A blow, but I keep smiling. Good girls must always keep smiling.) “You’d like a party, wouldn’t you, Grace?”

  He nods as though I have spoken. “So that’s decided. We need to move on, all of us. It will be a year next month since…” He trails off, his mother still with her back to us. A year since the shipwreck. A year since his birthday, and my own. “A party will be a good distraction,” Oliver says. “And we’ll invite everyone in the county.”

  “Everyone? Oliver, our friends lost people too that day. Their children. The Guptas lost two. They… they have lost a great deal.”

  “And I have not?”

  “Losing a child is different, Oliver. You’re too young to understand.”

  “Do not tell me what I can and cannot understand, Mother. I need this.” His voice, rising to a whine. Oliver can be so— No. There is no time to criticize Oliver, or to wish that he could be different. He is my destiny. My one hope of survival. “I’m thinking a garden party since the weather has been so good these last few weeks. And then…” Oliver hesitates. “Then, we’re going to move the party on to one of the yachts. It’s not like we don’t have enough of them.” Eleanor’s shoulders visibly tense. “One of Dad’s old ones.”

  “Which one?” she asks sharply and I begin to feel nervous without knowing exactly why.

  “The Muireann,” Oliver says, that name tripping off his tongue as if it was nothing. “It was Dad’s favourite boat.”

  Muireann.

  “No,” Eleanor says, the blood draining from her face. “No, Oliver, I forbid it. Any boat but that one. It is cursed.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Mother.”

  “Oliver. I’m begging you,” Eleanor is so pale now, it is as if she is on her death bed. The Muireann. His father named his favourite boat after my mother. Last night was real, all of it; it must have been – the locked room, full of paintings, Eleanor screaming at me. That room.

  “You can throw the biggest party you want and invite every person in the county,” Eleanor begs. “But don’t set foot on that boat.”

  “I want to use the Muireann.” His gaze lights on me. “Are you okay, Grace?” he asks. “You look strange.”

  My mother’s name, the name that I thought I would never hear for the rest of my life.

  My mother was here. This is proof. She was here.

  “What are you going to wear?” Daisy asks as she throws the wardrobe doors open, grimacing as she rifles through the dresses hanging inside.

  “I’m glad Oliver has called a stop to the mourning,” Daisy continues. “You would look beautiful in blue, with your eyes… No, wait. Green! Green would be spectacular on you.”

  Oliver has decided to throw the party this Friday because, “It’s a full moon, so it’ll look rather impressive from the boat, don’t you agree, Grace?” He is so excited about this party, unaware that it might be the day I meet my end. Would he even miss me? Like his father missed my mother, screaming at the sea to give her back to him?

  Oliver has the power to save my life, if he only knew it; and all he cares about is the quantity of champagne they’re going to serve. “This has to be special,” he tells the event planner, a reed-thin man with a patterned cravat. “I want this to be the biggest celebration that anyone in the county can remember.”

  It flashes into my mind that Oliver can be petty, with his competitive drinking and now this ridiculous party. And he can be moody and difficult and— but I push away the creeping worry. He is my love, I remind myself, my great love. And my only remaining chance. The minutes are slipping through my fingers like water; I don’t have time for regret. Oliver will love me.

  And then, at last, maybe I can decide what it is that I want for myself.

  “This isn’t the right colour, but it’s a good shape. We could always hire a—” Daisy holds a dress out for my inspection, and then sees my expression. “Grace. What’s wrong?”

  Daisy is aware that I haven’t been sleeping; she assumes it’s because of my feet. “You must be in terrible pain,” she says to me, and I have no way to tell her about my dreams, how violent they have become.

  Seas burned red with spilled blood, my sisters’ heads impaled on spikes, eyes bulging. They are dead, all of them, their tails torn from their torsos and thrown to the sharks to feed on. A mirror before me, I am standing there naked. My legs, these legs; rotting, putrefying. Decomposing from the inside out. Then I am back
in that room again, Alexander’s room, the walls swirling with water, Eleanor’s arms outstretched, sucking in the waves then spewing them out of her mouth, washing all those paintings away. Her face, my face, her face, and my face. Over and over again until I cannot differentiate between them any longer.

  My mother.

  Am I going mad?

  “Are you worried about the party?” Daisy says. “Don’t be. You’ll be the most beautiful girl there. Oliver won’t be able to take his eyes off you. This is going to be the night for the two of you, I can feel it in my bones.”

  Daisy thinks it is easy. She doesn’t understand that I am falling apart, that time is eating at my skin, growing mould where my flesh should be. I am decaying before her and she cannot even see it.

  A dressmaker is summoned to the estate, a stout woman with a mouth full of pins. Swathes of material are held up to my face, this colour is gorgeous, and honestly, everything looks simply divine on you. You are so beautiful, they tell me. But what does it matter, in the end? Beauty fades, Eleanor said. And what will I have left when that happens?

  “Wait,” the dressmaker says, holding cloth in her hands. “This is the one.” Forest green. Silver flecks. “It could have been made for you.” And I am back in the palace, gritting my teeth while my grandmother sewed pearls into my tail for the ball. I thought I knew what pain was then. I had no idea. I wonder what Grandmother would say if she could see me now. What am I doing here? What have I done? The panic, like a rising tide. No turning back. Maybe I could—