“We are sisters,” Sophia says. “We need each other, Muirgen. We always have.”
Yes. I am ready to do what must be done.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The stairs creak as I steal downstairs, a shrieking wail in the silence. I inhale sharply in the rushing fear that I have failed already, that my footsteps will rouse the crew from their slumber; that they will rush out to find me with this blade in my hands. But nobody stirs. I take the rest of the steps gingerly. Toes to heel, toes to heel, the bones peeling away from one another, bursting through the flesh. The pain is so agonizing that for the first time since I became human, or whatever it is that I am now, I am glad that I have lost my voice. I would not be able to stop myself from screaming.
There is a small kitchen to the left, two bathrooms straight ahead, and then four other doors. The door to one of the rooms is open, showing rows of empty bunk beds. Snoring is coming from another, so I presume this is where the crew reside. Two other rooms. I try one handle and it is locked. I silently curse. What will I do if Oliver has bolted his door shut to ensure privacy for him and Flora?
Praying to the gods, both of the air and of the sea, I test the other handle. It gives way, the door swinging open into a large room. Cream carpet, dark oak panelling, an enormous bed. And there they are, Oliver and Flora, foreheads pressed against one another as if waiting to kiss while they dream. They are both naked, the bed clothes crumpled around them. Her long, lean legs; unblemished, untouched. Perfect in a way that I will never be again.
My grip on the dagger tightens as I stare at Oliver. I have sacrificed so much for this man; I have given up my family, my home, my identity. I have mutilated my body, carving it into something unrecognizable, just so that he will find me beautiful. Not even beautiful, but acceptable. And I was silenced for ever in the name of “true love”. I wish Grandmother had never told me those stories, duped me into believing that a happy ever after was possible for women like me.
Oliver sleeps on, his chest rising and falling, his face serene. He thinks he has nothing to fear. He did not even lock his door to safeguard his chamber; so sure is he of his own immortality. I imagine myself stepping forward, bloody footsteps all over the snow-white carpet, leaving a mark on this human world that they’ll never be rid of.
I have the sensation of splitting in two, as if my consciousness is peeling away from my body, floating to the ceiling, and watching the girl below me. The girl with the broken feet and the broken heart. The girl with no voice. What a fool she has been.
Yes, Gaia, yes, I whisper to her. Do what you have to do. You will stand at his bedside, his back towards you. You raise the blade to the sky (It is heavy, is it not, little one? So heavy.) and then you force the blade into his back, twisting it, feeling the flesh solid. And you twist deep again, carving circles in his skin, pulling out gristly chunks of him. You will search for his heart, the heart that he would not give to you of his own accord. Still beating, that heart, but not beating for you, never beating for you, Gaia. And you will hold it to your mouth and you will eat his heart whole, swallowing it, pushing it deep down inside your stomach. It will beat there, a second heart. Oliver will belong to you then. Finally.
I breathe in, a rasp in my throat as the air searches my mouth and find it empty. I can sense that I am settling back inside my body, like loose sediment sinking to the sea-bed after a storm. I look at him again. Oliver. Oliver… What is Oliver? Spoiled. Weak. Heartbroken. Damaged, yes. But loved; he is greatly loved. I think of George, his steadfast loyalty to Oliver no matter how badly he has behaved. Daisy, who has become like a sister to me and who would never believe this of the Grace she knows. And Eleanor Carlisle, who has lost so much. I remember that night in the room of the paintings. Her hopelessness felt too raw to be ignored. The women of my family have caused her enough pain; will I be the reason for more?
My hands hang by my sides, yet I do not drop the dagger. I kneel beside the bed. I stood still while the Sea Witch sawed out my tongue, and I thought I could still make him love me. I had my face, as the Sea Witch told me. I had my face and my lovely form. What else could a man want, I reasoned? I have been told to stay quiet for so long, to listen to the mer-men, and to be attentive and respectful. To know my place. I did not imagine that a human man would want much more from me.
And yet he did. His delight in Flora’s wit and her intelligence, her ability to challenge him, to make him laugh is evidence enough. Why didn’t I realize that such things would be important? I brush my fingers across Oliver’s forehead. I thought he would save me.
Oliver stirs, as if to shake my hand off him. My name is Gaia, I tell him. I want you to know my real name, since you have never known the real me.
I should leave before he wakes up. I should leave before I change my mind, before I decide to claim his blood to turn my own back to salt.
I look at Flora, her lovely face, so peaceful in her sleep. She really is unbelievably similar to Viola. It’s uncanny. It’s…
Her eyes open. A snap rather than a flutter, as if she had been merely pretending to sleep. Like she knew that I would be there.
“I’ve been waiting for you, little mermaid,” she says.
CHAPTER TWENTY
Terror is scratching its fingernails across my heart, searching for blood. Flora climbs out of bed. She does so with a languid grace that suggests she is used to being nude, and sees no shame in it. I stare at her naked body, those long legs and brown nipples, frowning.
“Very modest of you,” she says. “You have become accustomed to the human ways.” She opens the chest of drawers in the corner of the room, rifling through its contents. “His-and-hers bathrobes,” she says, as she wraps a white gown around her. “I wasn’t sure this man could become more of a cliché, and yet here we are.”
She is being very loud, I think as a wooden clothes hanger drops to the floor. She will wake Oliver.
“I wouldn’t worry about that,” she says. She walks to the other side of the bed, a hand to his forehead. Unlike when I touched him, Oliver does not move. His breathing becomes slower, his body dropping into the mattress as if he’s sinking. “They always fall asleep afterwards; it’s pathetic how little stamina they have. You didn’t miss much with this one, I can assure you.”
Miss much? What is she talking about?
“He was adequate,” Flora amends. “Concerned with his own pleasure, and annoyed I didn’t seem to think it all a great honour. Male fragility can be exhausting at times, can it not?” She sits on the bed, grinning at me.
“It is okay to be confused,” she says. “Understandable, in fact.”
How can she—
“I can hear you. There’s no need to look quite so terrified.”
These shattered feet unsteady as I stumble away from her, reaching for the door handle. Grasping it between my fingers. Twisting and twisting.
This door is locked. Turning back to her, almost blind with fear. Did she lock the door?
“Yes,” Flora says. “I didn’t want you running away from me before I could explain.”
But how did you do that? I can’t seem to breathe out properly, my inhale coming more quickly with each passing second.
Who are you? Are you— are you Viola?
“Viola?” she says. “You think Viola has returned from her watery grave to haunt you?” Viola, sinking past me, arms flailing. “Is someone feeling guilty?” Flora asks me. “You gave her up so quickly, did you not, to save him?” I did. I let Viola drown, and I did so without a second thought. Shame prickles my skin, breaking out like a rash.
Who are you?
“You haven’t guessed yet?” Flora presses two fingers to her throat, and the voice that emerges this time is different and yet familiar.
“Hello, Muirgen,” she says, but it is me talking, my lost words coming from Flora’s mouth. I am too stunned to try and run away so I close my eyes, listening to that which I thought I would never hear again.
“Don’t cry,” m
y voice says. “Don’t cry, little mermaid.” Flora’s features soften, melding into one another before they begin to melt away. It’s like water on a canvas, washing away the paint. And what is beneath? A beautiful face, a full body, but there is no tail this time. Fat, luscious legs, beautifully shaped. Pearls wound through her hair, gleaming. It is her.
The Sea Witch.
“I’ve told you before, my name is Ceto,” she says. “Don’t be rude. What a relief to be rid of that … insipid body. I don’t know how people pretend to be something they’re not; it takes so much effort. That was always my problem, ever since I was your age. I didn’t care about what people thought of me. I only wanted to be true to myself.” She laughs. “Your father didn’t like that, I can tell you.”
My father would kill you, Sea Witch, if he had his chance. I push my back into the door, fingers still grasping the handle in the hope it will open.
“You think I am afraid of your father?” she says, smirking at my attempts to flee. “You think I live in the Shadowlands because I fear his strength? No, little one. I live in the dark because I can be true there, and living true is the most important thing any woman can do.” She tilts her head to the side. “But it takes courage, and we are not taught how to be brave, are we? Women are taught to obey the rules.” One of her hair ornaments shimmers, catching my eye. So many pearls. One, two, three…
“Thirteen,” she says. “There are thirteen of them. More than any maid you have ever known, am I right? The Sea King used to say that thirteen was unlucky, but he was just annoyed that I was the first-born. My brother always did want to win at everything.”
Brother. I stop fumbling with the door.
“You’re catching on at last!” She claps her hands with genuine satisfaction. “He was a nightmare when we were growing up,” she says. “I had more natural powers than he did, that was obvious from the very beginning. He hated me because he was the boy, and boys were supposed to be more powerful. When Papa died, and my brother got his hands on that trident, I knew my days in the kingdom were numbered.” She stares at the ground, her face sombre suddenly. “I overheard him talking war tactics with his cronies, boasting about how he was going to be the one to finally wipe out the Salkas. I loved my father, I did, but I never agreed with his policy of exiling the Salkas to the Shadowlands. It was only breeding fear in the merfolk, resentment in the Salkas. And resentment cannot be contained for ever.”
So the Sea King sent his men to the Shadowlands… I prompt her impatiently.
“Yes,” she says, “But even that wasn’t enough for my brother. He was obsessed with blood purity, with all of us being the same. He wanted to exterminate them for good. You have to understand, the Salkas didn’t want war. They were just defending themselves against the kingdom’s attacks, but he didn’t care. He would kill them all, and then me in my turn, I presumed, even if I was salt-kin. Powerful women are often threatening to insecure men.” Her eyes darken. “So I left, stealing away from the palace in the dead of night and I went to the Salkas. And I told them I would help them. So I know what it’s like to leave my family behind me, little mermaid. We are not unalike, you and I,” she says, and I don’t know if that is supposed to be a compliment. “Although you were much younger than me of course. I was at least forty-five when I left. And it was fine,” she clears her throat, “living in the Shadowlands. I have had my poor Salkas to take care of, and I have had freedom. That’s more than most mermaids can hope for.”
Why did you let me do it? Anger is building inside me, caustic and sour. And why did you come tonight and distract him when you knew it was my last chance of survival?
“Would you really want a man so easily distracted?” she asks. “I barely had to try tonight. He was ripe for the picking.”
Why did you help me? I need to know, my whole body tense as it waits for her to respond.
Her smile fades suddenly. “I failed your mother. I couldn’t fail you too.”
My mother. Two steps, and I am in front of her. I catch her by the throat, cat-quick. Squeezing hard, for I am not afraid of her anymore. I will have the truth, at last. Tell me. Tell me everything.
She removes my fingers, her touch gentle. “I knew Muireann of the Green Sea. Not very well. She was just a baby when both my brother and I were into our fortieth decade, but her father was a favourite of the court so she was in the palace often as a child. She was like you, that same red hair, that same beautiful voice. A sensitive soul.” You’re so like your mother, young Muirgen. So like her in every way. “My brother was obsessed with her, ever since she came of age at twelve.” Ceto shudders. “He kept badgering Muireann’s father for permission, and he was told to wait, that a few years wouldn’t hurt. Your grandfather wasn’t afraid of the Sea King. Mac Lir was too well respected in the kingdom to be bullied into submission.”
But my mother agreed to marry the Sea King. To end the war.
“She came to me first, arrived in the Shadowlands demented with grief over her brother, demanding to know which of the Salkas had slain him. As if it was the Salkas’ fault!”
But it was their fault. They killed Uncle Manannán, and they did it with glee. It was their fault that all of this happened.
“You still believe that to be true?” Ceto says. “I don’t know what happened to your uncle, but my Salkas swore to me that they had no knowledge of his death. It did seem rather convenient, I always thought. Manannán disappears, the person Muireann loved most in the world. People do funny things when they’re grieving, don’t they? And the Sea King knew what Muireann was like, he knew that she didn’t have a taste for war. I think he bet upon her doing anything to regain peace in the kingdom.”
I try and connect the jagged edges of her jigsaw, assemble them in a way that makes sense. Is she saying that—
“I’m not saying anything,” she cuts across me. “All I know is that the Salkas just wanted to be left alone in peace to live their lives, and yet their mere existence was enough to inflame my brother.” The Sea Witch exhaled loudly. “I tried to explain to Muireann that this war was not of my doing, nor of my desire; and thus I could not end it, no matter how hard she begged me. I did not know the measures she would take next.”
She married the Sea King. I try and imagine her, fifteen and wild with sorrow, betrothed to a man old enough to be her father. The poor little mermaid.
“She was reasonably content for a time,” the Sea Witch says. “She had children, you and your sisters. Word reached me in the Shadowlands of how much she loved you.”
But not enough. It was bad enough, as a child, knowing my mother had been reckless. But since learning of her relationship with Alexander, it has become clear that she was heartless too. My father was right all along. She did abandon us. She did. The melancholy that has been my shadow since the day my mother left me tugs at my hand like a small child demanding attention.
“That’s not true,” Ceto says fiercely. “She didn’t mean to fall in love with a human; she meant to save his life. There was an accident, you see, and Muireann found this man in the wreckage.”
It was Oliver’s father, wasn’t it? The paintings, my mother’s face replicated over and over again. Hair so red and eyes so blue.
“Yes,” the Sea Witch says, watching me closely. “The shipwreck occured a few months after you were born. The man, Alexander, found himself rescued by a beautiful woman. They were attracted to each other, certainly, and like so many before them they mistook their lust for love. My Salkas said they saw her regularly sneaking away to the surface after that to go and meet this man, all the way up to your first birthday. They had decided to make things more permanent when…”
When what? Tell me more.
“What else is there to tell? He wasn’t good enough for Muireann either, this Alexander.” She gestures at Oliver, still asleep. “This bloodline does produce weak men, but I’ve found that weak men are often attracted to strong women. In the beginning, anyway. In time they come to resent that same stre
ngth they professed to love. They try to put you back in your place.” Just like Eleanor said, in that room of paintings.
Was it you? The questions are tearing through me. Was it you who gave my mother legs, so she could seduce Oliver’s father? Did you take her tongue as payment too? I picture my mother travelling to the Shadowlands, her fear pressing her forward as my own has done. My mother, on a beach with Oliver’s father, dancing rings of blood around him.
“No,” Ceto says. “Muireann of the Green Sea had no need of such help from me.”
I don’t understand. I bang one of my fists against the door behind me in frustration.
“Muireann could do it herself. Your mother was able to shed her tail like a snake when she reached the shore, and transform back into a mermaid the moment that her temporary legs tasted salt.”
What? I sink to the floor, pulling my knees into my chest. You mean—
“Yes.” Ceto remains still. “Your mother had powers. Impressive ones, at that.”
But that’s impossible. I shake my head. Muireann of the Green Sea was only a mermaid.
“All mermaids used to have powers, Muirgen.” Ceto hands me a towel to wrap around my feet. I hadn’t even noticed the wounds had re-opened, spilling their guts on to the floor. I look at them in disgust. What I would give to have my tail back. “The powers would develop the day we came of age, when our bodies decided that we were women now. But we were told such powers weren’t mermaid-like. We were told that no mer-man would want to be bonded with us if we were more powerful than they were. They warned us that our powers made us too loud. Too shrill. And so women became quiet because we were promised that we would be happier that way. And our powers were lost. And it happened so quickly too. That which we take for granted can so easily be taken away from us, if we do not remain vigilant.”