The Surface Breaks

  “No,” I whispered to Cosima then. “I’m not happy. I will never be happy under the sea.”

  “There is a way,” she whispered back. “A way to escape. To have your questions answered. To walk on land, even. But you must go to the Shadowlands. You must go to her.”

  “No, no,” I said, when it dawned on me what she was proposing. “The Sea Witch? Are you crazy? She will kill me if I even cross the whirlpools.”

  “You need legs, do you not? If you want this man to reciprocate your feelings?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Your birthday is approaching rapidly, sister, and by then it will be too late. How much do you love this human?” she asked, and I could not answer her. There were no words. Maybe there would never be enough words to encapsulate the true love I feel for Oliver. “That much?” she asked. “A human man whom you haven’t even had a conversation with?”

  “You don’t understand,” I said, and she smiled again.

  “Well, then,” she said. “The Sea Witch has the power to help you. You must go to her.”

  “But Father is the only person in the kingdom with powers,” I said, confused.

  “Muirgen,” she replied, kissing me on the forehead as if anointing me. “You really are naive sometimes.” She lifted the mirror, capturing our faces in the glass. Her blonde hair against my red, identical blue eyes and rosebud lips. But when I looked at my reflection, all I could see was what Zale had done to me, what I had allowed him to do, and I pushed the mirror away.

  “You are beautiful, Muirgen,” my sister said. “Even when you have been crying, it’s quite astonishing.” She tilted the mirror so only her face was shown. “But you have not spent years crying, as I have.”

  Cosima left me then, to wait for the palace to fall silent. To wait for my chance to escape.

  Now, the whirlpool separating me from the Shadowlands churns before me. After everything I have heard of the Sea Witch, everything that we have been told since birth, the idea of being in her presence is almost unendurable. This is the woman whose Salka warriors killed my uncle, who scored a shadow so deep into my mother’s heart that she handed it over as dowry to a man she could never love. And here I am, come to beg a favour from her. But what other choice do I have?

  I think of my mother and I ask the gods for a millimetre of her courage. Mother, mother, I pray as I push my way through the whirlpool. For a moment I am suspended in that in-between space, momentarily held safe in the deafening void. (I wish I could stay there for ever, safe in the nothingness.) However, I make myself keep swimming until I am in the Shadowlands, the Shadowlands and it feels both impossible and somehow inevitable that I am here. Here, the setting for my childhood nightmares, the place that we mer-babies whispered about when the adults were out of earshot.

  My mother says the Salkas take bold mer-boys and mer-girls to the Shadowlands and they break their skulls as punishment.

  My mother says that the air in the Shadowlands is poison, that only the Sea Witch and her Salkas can breathe there for their lungs are made of electric rays, and can withstand death itself.

  No, no! My father says there are traps made of quicksand, so if you cross through the whirlpools, you are sucked into the sea-bed and buried alive and you will never see your family ever again and it’ll be all your own fault because you didn’t do as you were told.

  For time immemorial, children have made up games where some of us were the Salkas and others were mer-folk and we fought long battles for control of the kingdom. The mer-folk always won, of course, due to the bravery and genius of the Sea King. Blessed be us who are born in the time of the Sea King. Long live the Sea King, we said when we finished. The kingdom has been made great again.

  But now that I am here, the Shadowlands seem different than I imagined as a child, although no less macabre. The water is solid, somehow, catching in lumps at the back of my throat, while the sand has melted to a bubbling mud. Before me, there lies a thicket of trees and bushes, unlike any vegetation I have seen before, above or below the surface. Garbled stems of oily thorns blooming into snake heads, their eyes closed in slumber, grating breath through slit noses. They have arms made of congealed nettle leaves, each grasping a treasure tightly. A silver fork, broken pieces of china, clumps of human hair torn out from the roots, a tiny skull that could only have belonged to a human baby. I pray to the sea gods as I pass them, pray that they will not awake and claim me as their newest trophy.

  Hidden behind them is a hunkering cottage, cobbled together out of bleached human bones and chunks of sludge. Many Salkas surround it, floating in the water, their hands clasping one another. Long, pale green hair wilting over their faces. The Salkas carry their pain in their hair; it is laced through the strands like ribbons of the thinnest anemones. And then there are their legs. I long to touch them, to count their toes and run my fingers up their inner thighs, but I know I must not do so.

  Eyelids fluttering, slowly, then too fast, and I try not to scream out in fright. A flash of white, a low keening cry.

  “Who are you?” the Salka asks.

  “I am not a threat,” I say, trying to quieten her. “I am here to see the Sea Witch,” but she is screaming now and the other Salkas are stirring. She presses her fingers to her flat stomach. “Did you take my baby? Where is my baby? Who are you? What have you done with my baby?”

  “Sadhbh.” A voice comes from inside the bone-cabin. It is like crackling wood at a beach bonfire, like oil slicking over water, a sky so black that you forget the stars exist. A shiver runs down my spine. “Settle.”

  The Salka called Sadhbh falls silent, tears trickling down her cheeks, her hands still on her belly, twisting.

  “The Irish girls find it the most challenging, this new life of theirs,” that voice says. “Always searching for tiny hands that were ripped off breasts the moment they gave their first cry.”

  The door to the cabin has opened, and something is standing there, waiting for me. My eyes struggle to see in the dim until it becomes apparent that it is a mermaid, but a maid unlike one I have ever seen before. A tail so black that it dissolves into the gloomy sea so she looks like a floating torso. Skin pale, and so much of it – rolling into ruffs of flesh around her neck, spooling around her waist. I have never seen a woman of this size before. Every maid in court has been told that we must maintain a certain weight for the aesthetic preference of the Sea King and his mer-men. I did not know such a body was even allowed to exist. I feel faint, as if all the salt in my veins has rushed to my head.

  “You are nervous,” the Sea Witch says. Her face is beautiful, something I had not expected. As mer-children, we had been told that her flesh was green, her teeth rotting, her skin covered in sores and pock marks. We were told that she was jealous of the Sea King’s powers, bitter because she was no match for his might. We were told that she did not want to bear children and if she laid eggs, she would eat them before they hatched. We were told many things, much of which is difficult to reconcile with the mermaid before me now.

  “No,” I lie. “I am not.”

  “Hmm.” She angles her head to one side, examining me. “Unfortunately, little mermaid, I don’t quite believe you.” She swims back into the cabin, indicating that I should follow her.

  “I have been expecting you,” she says, as she settles in the one piece of furniture in the room, a large wooden chair that rocks back and forth. Her tail is vast, the black flesh punctured with (I count them quickly) thirteen oil-black pearls. Thirteen? No, it cannot be. That would mean—

  “My Salka told me what you did the night of the storm,” the Sea Witch says, conjuring a tube of red lipstick from thin air, applying it carefully. My father does not allow us to wear make-up; he says it is an artifice used to trick unsuspecting men. We must be natural, he says, natural at all costs. “I suppose you are wondering why I did not seek revenge for your behaviour?” she asks.

  “Y-yes,” I stammer.

  “I was waiting for you to come to me,
” she says. “Mermaids like you always come to me, in the end. But I have to admit, it seemed rather a foolish move – risking your father’s kingdom for the sake of a human man.”

  “He would have died if I had not intervened,” I protest, and I am shocked at my own courage. “The Salkas are murderers.”

  “Do not speak about my girls in such a manner.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say quickly, even though what I have said is true. The carcass of my Uncle Manannán was evidence enough of that. But I cannot risk angering her. “I didn’t mean to insult them or you.” I am curious, though; my besetting sin. “You defend their attack, then?”

  “I will defend them,” she says. “I will defend them until my final hour. For who else will? Not your father. He would have seen us wiped out in a pointless war, no matter what the cost. No matter how many of his own young mer-men died.” She snorted. “The Sea King would have been safe, though. He never did like putting himself in danger. Muireann was far too adventurous to be stuck with an old man like him.”

  “What?” The water seems to be sucked out of the room at the mention of that name. “You knew my mother?”

  “I know everything that happens in these seas.”

  “Can you tell me what happened to her? Father says that my mother was captured and murdered, but we never saw a—”

  “Sssh.” The Sea Witch places a finger over her lips. “You’ll upset my girls with this talk of murder. It brings up such unhappy memories for them, you know. They can be a tad self-involved. But then young people always think they are the first to experience anything. Heartbreak. Betrayal. Lust.” She scrapes the word off her tongue. “Desire. Isn’t that why you’re here, after all?”

  I’ve never heard a mermaid speak about that before. Maids are not allowed to feel in such a way; it cannot be desire which has hunted me to this place. It’s love. It must be love. Love is pure, and I want to be pure again. I want Oliver to help me forget everything that Zale has done to me.

  “Am I making you uneasy?” she asks me. “Is there something about me that disturbs you?” She runs her hands down her own body, caressing it with a touch that is infinitesimally tender. “I am comfortable.” She sounds out each syllable clearly. “Do you know what it feels like to be comfortable in your skin? Have you ever known?”

  No, I think. No, I do not know what that would feel like. I wonder if I ever will.

  “That is not why I am here, Sea Witch,” I say instead.

  “My name is Ceto,” she snaps, pushing herself out of the chair until she towers above me. “It is your father who has insisted on calling me a ‘witch’. That is simply a term that men give women who are not afraid of them, women who refuse to do as they are told.”

  “I’m sorry.” My voice drops weak. What does the Sea Witch do to people who anger her? Has anyone ever lived to tell the tale? “I didn’t mean to upset you. Please,” I beg her, “please forgive me.”

  “Do not apologize,” she says, sitting back down as if nothing has happened and I am over-reacting. “I am not upset.”

  “Sorry,” I say again, glancing at the door to the cabin. If she decides to destroy me, how fast could I swim away? But where would I even go now? I need the Sea Witch’s help. She is my only hope. “I’m sorry, honestly I am.”

  “Goodness,” she says, sounding amused. “You do realize that you don’t need to apologize for your very existence, don’t you? No matter what your father has led you to believe.”

  “The Sea King’s word is law,” I say, as if worried that he has followed me and is eavesdropping outside the cabin. It’s hard to tell which is greater; fear of my father or fear of the Sea Witch. I have been told that one is all-powerful, the other is evil. Which is which? What is true?

  “And here you are, in the Shadowlands, disobeying him. I hardly imagined a mermaid so young would possess such daring.”

  “I am almost sixteen,” I say, irritation spiking through me despite my terror. “I am not a child. I travelled through the Outerlands at night and then crossed the whirlpools into your realm, even though it is expressly forbidden.”

  “I am quite aware of the route you took, dear,” she says, yawning. “No need for the traffic update.”

  “Yes, well.” Frustration gives me courage. “I am in the Shadowlands, am I not? Where no other mer-folk, maid nor man, has ever dared to venture before. I am the first to brave these lands, and I am here because I need your help so—”

  “The first?” the Sea Witch says, mockery in her voice. “Little mermaid, do not be absurd. Many maids pass this way, more than you could conceive of.” Did my mother come here before she was taken? Did she need your help too? “Some come to Ceto to seek revenge. Sometimes they need help with wounds too deep for your healer to understand, wounds the Sea King refuses to even acknowledge. He never was a fan of ‘emotions’, particularly in women. Hysteria, he called it.” Her jaw tightens every time she mentions my father, it’s unsettling. “Some come to me because they’re afraid of being cast into the Outerlands for failing to breed,” she continues. “Help with virility too. There are so many mer-men who are afraid to be gentle. They are made afraid of their true selves, it is a tragedy. For what happens to men who are not allowed to be afraid? They become angry. Vicious. Feral. I believe you may have some experience with such men, do you not?”

  (My father, raising his voice or his trident or his hand; blows raining down upon us, but we deserved it; we were too loud and too demanding. Too much. We would be better next time. Next time, he would find no reason to punish us. We would have to be perfect.)

  “This can’t be true,” I say.

  “And yet it is, little mermaid. But most who come to the Shadowlands are searching for something a little more…” she flashes her teeth at me. “Primal?”

  Primal. She can’t mean… “But it’s forbidden for us to enter the Shadowlands.” I say. “If mer-folk have come here, then—”

  Something cold winds around my tail and I look down to find two fat-bellied snakes leering at me. I scream, and the Sea Witch calls them to her side.

  “My darling,” she says, as one twists around her waist, “and my baby,” she coos, as the other settles around her neck. “Oh, little mermaid. You would be surprised by how many mer-men come to the Shadowlands, and how frequently too.”

  “But why would they?”

  “So many questions. I’m surprised your father hasn’t beaten it out of you, he never did like chatty women.”

  Was my mother chatty? There is an ache in my chest at the thought of her, and I wonder at how I can miss someone so much when I never even knew them. “They want me. A woman with power. Can you believe it?”

  “But why would the men come to you for that?” I ask. “You’re fat.” I regret the words the minute they fall out of my mouth. “I’m so sorry,” I say in a panic. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

  “Why would I be offended? Being called fat is not an insult, little mermaid. It is as meaningless as being called thin. They are just descriptions. It is your father who has deemed it to be a negative word, and a negative state of being.” She looks down at herself with obvious pleasure. “I like my body. And while I value my own opinion over those of men, it might surprise you to know that some prefer a woman of more plentiful flesh. It is nothing to be ashamed of – we all have our preferences – but they have been forced to feel ashamed even so.” She sighs. “And I am a fallen woman because of that shame. It is their desire and yet I am cast out as a result.”

  I can sense the beginnings of a headache, as if my brain is struggling to absorb all this new information. We have been told since we were mer-children that extra weight is revolting. There have been mer-men who gained in stature as they aged, but the men were not born to please the eye, as we were. Maids have been told that being slim is as important as being beautiful, as necessary as being obedient, as desirable as remaining quiet. We must stay thin or we will die sad and alone, spin-maids of the kin
gdom, cast to the Outerlands because we are a drain on the palace resources. Such maids are neither mothers nor sirens and therefore are of no use to anyone.

  Ceto wheezes as the snake around her neck tightens its grip. “Ah, my pretty,” she says, stroking its blistered head until it releases its hold. “It is not a punishment to be here with you. I am content with my lot. Which is more than can be said for you, little mermaid. What dissatisfied women the Sea King produces. You are not the first of your sisters to visit me, you know.”

  I stare at her in shock. Who could have come here? Talia, to find a husband? Cosima? She wouldn’t have asked the Sea Witch to curse me, surely? I think of her coming to my room, her insistence that Ceto would be the only one to help me, and dread grits my teeth. Was this just a trap, after all?

  “Which one?” I ask.

  “Names, names,” she waves me off. “The girl was quite distressed. She had come of age and realized her nursery-crushes weren’t merely confined to the nursery. Unnatural desires, as the Sea King would put it. Really, he is most intolerant, he always has been. I sent her away, the poor thing. I have heard of witches who will perform such rituals as she begged me to do but I am not one of them. Burning. Cutting. The girls will feel relentless pain afterwards, but they will not be burdened with desire either.” She chuckles at the expression on my face. “Yes, little one, women can experience both. You will see, in time.” She smoothes down her hair and I shrink back at the sudden motion. “Pretty maid, she was,” she continues. “A tail of the palest blue. About bonding age, I would wager. The Sapphic girls always come to me when it is time to take their vows.”