Mermaid

  “No,” Lenia said. “Of course not. They were busy dying, they were not trying to hurt me. Plus, they are so soft. You would not believe how soft they are.”

  “Wait. You touched them?” Thilla said. She froze, a small crab dangling in her hand, next to her mouth.

  “One of them,” Lenia said. “Only one. I saved him.”

  She watched as her sisters reacted with horror. “I wish you all could understand,” she said, “how lovely it was.”

  “But why would you do that?” Bolette asked, genuinely perplexed.

  As Lenia was about to answer, a flurry of minuscule neon fish hailed down, attracted to her lilting voice. She swatted them away.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “There was something about him. At one point I just focused on him, clinging for life, and I thought, I can save him. I pulled him from the wood he was holding and carried him all the way to land. I could tell he was strong, for a human, but, Sisters, he was so soft, and warm.”

  “Where did you take him?” Vela asked, mesmerized now.

  “I took him to land. I held him for hours, against me, until we arrived. There was a human girl there, watching me, and I called for her to come down to him. She had to come, or else he would die. It was strange. I could feel her. Just like I could feel him. Every beat of his heart, every breath.”

  “I’ve heard of that,” Thilla said. “That we might be able to read their thoughts. That we used to be able to do that.”

  “I would hate to read a human’s thoughts,” Bolette said.

  Lenia thought back to the girl, the cliff. “It was less her thoughts, more just … as if I were inside her, a little. But I was more focused on him. I wanted her to save him. All I could do was bring him to land. He needed a human to help bring him back to life.”

  “You are too kindhearted, Sister,” Bolette said. “If he could have, that human would have ripped you apart with his hands.”

  At that, Regitta gasped, holding her son to her chest.

  “You two are awfully melodramatic,” Lenia said. “I don’t think he would have done that at all. In fact, he seemed rather enchanted by me.”

  “Well, at least you are home safe,” Nadine said, digging back in the chest, bored.

  Vela swept forward, the distress apparent on her face. “I can’t stop thinking about dying, the way humans do it. Imagine! If at any moment, you could just stop existing. How different everything would be. Wouldn’t it? If the world were that dangerous?”

  “They don’t stop existing,” Lenia said. “Remember what Grandmother said? That they have souls that live forever. Even knowing that, they fought so hard to stay alive. I think it’s so beautiful. Imagine: being that fragile, that permanent.”

  It was beautiful, she thought. She hadn’t seen it, right then. The men’s deaths had been so horrible. No souls rising to heaven, no eternal life. Just destruction and that heartbreaking will to stay alive. But when she’d moved through the water and the air with the man in her arms, feeling his fragile heart underneath her, she’d felt it. His soul moving into her.

  Her grandmother had told her about souls: webs of light inside of every human, light that escaped the body and rose to something called heaven when a human body died. “And when two humans fall in love and marry,” her grandmother had said, “a priest joins their souls together, and it is wonderful when that happens because that light becomes very strong.” Lenia had always loved her grandmother’s fantastical old stories, which she told the girls on long swims when the queen and king weren’t around. “Priests can actually see souls, though souls are invisible to everybody else. And when a soul talks to God, that is a prayer.” Lenia had often dreamed about these webs of light, wondered what it would feel like to have one inside her.

  And carrying the man through the water, she had felt exactly like that: as if that light were entering her, too, the beginnings of an immortal life.

  “That is what the sea witch says,” Vela said. “That they live forever.”

  Thilla slammed the tray of crabs so hard on a rock that the water shuddered with it. “First humans, and now Sybil? What has gotten into you two? She’s a witch. She was banished by our own great-grandmother, Vela.”

  “Some of the others have gone to her, for spells and potions. It’s not a big deal.”

  “I can’t believe you,” Regitta said.

  “She has tricks to make a merman fall in love with you,” said Vela.

  “You don’t need tricks for that,” Bolette said, laughing. “At least not from a witch.”

  “She was banished for a reason,” Thilla said. She banged the rock beside her again in frustration. “Don’t any of you care? She is dangerous, to all of us. And, Lenia, you’re lucky to be alive. If you think dying like a human is so beautiful, go back to them. Let them kill you. They will, you know.”

  “I would, if I had a soul,” Lenia said, crying out. The others stopped and looked at her, surprised by the intensity of her reaction. “I would go back right now.”

  “Lenia!” Bolette said. “What about us? The sea? You are a mermaid.”

  “Souls aren’t even real,” Thilla said, raising her arms in frustration. “It’s just a pretty story Grandmother tells us, the way she tells us about sea fairies and talking flowers.”

  “Stop it, all of you!” Nadine said, lifting a heap of jewelry from the chest and tossing it out at them. Heavy gold and silver, gems of every color, streaking across the water. All manner of sea creature appeared suddenly, from under rocks and amid the coral, attracted by the flashing stones. “It’s over. Lenia’s back. We’re arguing about nothing.”

  Bolette laughed as a bracelet knocked against her cheek, then fell onto a tentacle of a passing squid. And then they all began to laugh, twisting onto their sides, batting jewels and stones and coins, hundreds of coins from the bottom of the chest, back and forth.

  Just like that, the argument was forgotten.

  Only Lenia remained quiet, watching as an eel slunk by, catching a twinkling silver ring in its open, gaping mouth.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  The Princess

  MARGRETHE BARELY SLEPT BEFORE LAUDS, THE EARLY morning office. She lay in bed wrapped in furs, her eyes wide open, starting at every sound. The branches crackling outside, the pounding sea, the occasional soft footstep. She slept with a knife blade flat against her belly—the knife her father had sent with her which she’d kept under her bed until now.

  She’d heard about the barbarians in the South for as long as she could remember. They had sharp, pointed teeth, her old nurse had told her, and would drink blood straight from an infant’s slit throat. She’d grown up having nightmares about being attacked in the forest, or the barbarians slipping past the city walls, across the moat and drawbridge, past the sleeping guards, into the castle and her private chambers. These people had killed her ancestors, her mother had told her, back when she’d told her stories at night, when she was alive—they’d slashed through villages, burning crops and houses, even churches, and danced among the flames. No one alive had seen these things specifically, but the stories had been passed on for generations now. Margrethe herself had spent countless nights lying awake, imagining these horrors, just like any peasant child.

  She tossed in her bed. She rose, as she had done at least a dozen times, intending to go straight to the abbess, who could call her father’s soldiers from the village below.

  But the man had not seemed barbaric. There’d been something gentle about him. The way he’d looked at her—as if she were the one with glimmer on her skin, instead of him. As if she’d been the one to carry him through the water and to shore.

  A fire burned in the corner of her cell, throwing everything into shadow.

  She lay back down again. Did he know who she was? It would be a great coup, wouldn’t it: to capture the daughter of the enemy king? They were not at war now, and yet there had been reports that the South was planning new attacks. That was why she was here. She thought of her fat
her’s men positioned in the village below. Disguised as civilians but ready to come to her aid at any moment. And the abbess—a powerful woman with old ties to her own family—had vowed to protect her at all costs. She could call all this aid to her in an instant, if she needed it. But instead she turned the events of the last day over and over in her head. Who was he? What he was doing here?

  He was so close to her. Outside her locked door, past the cells of the novices, through the main cloisters, and past the abbess’s chamber, he slept.

  She reminded herself, again, of what she’d seen: the mermaid had saved him and brought him to the shore. To him, she was a “woman of the cloth,” a girl who’d left her family to take vows and spend the rest of her life in this convent by the sea, and that was all.

  She fell asleep, finally, imagining those moments in the water, the mermaid’s arms wrapped around him. The cold sea, its ice and jagged rocks. The mermaid’s silver tail, moving through the water. The blue of the mermaid’s eyes as they met her own.

  The bells seemed to ring only moments later, and Margrethe woke shivering and disoriented.

  She quickly washed in the basin, then grabbed her breviary and headed to the chapel, where all the others were gathering.

  They were watching her as she slid into place, crossing herself and kneeling to the floor. They nudged each other, gave her sidelong glances.

  Margrethe looked away quickly, tried to act as if none of it affected her. As if nothing could distract her from the sacred call. Her heart pounded. She opened her breviary to the correct page and stared at it intently.

  Around her, she could feel their eyes boring into her. Many of them were girls from noble families that could not afford to marry more than one daughter off and so sent those more or less fortunate offspring, depending on one’s view, into the church’s care. Despite their crisp habits and plain, unpainted faces, most of them could have been her own ladies-in-waiting, playing cards or chess with her in her castle chamber. Others, like the elder nun standing in front of them now, had received a real calling, one that made them lie awake at night trembling with love, but even this nun was watching Margrethe now. Wondering about this mysterious young novice who’d rescued a man on the rocks.

  The abbess signaled the beginning of service. After lighting a candle, the elder sister began reading through the day’s office. Margrethe closed her eyes, listened to the nun’s soft voice whispering against the stone walls. Even on a day like today, the presence of all these holy women around her was reassuring, comforting.

  When the sister led them in prayer, Margrethe spoke with more fervor than usual, liking the feel of Latin as it filled her mouth, the cold hardness of the stone under the soft soles of her shoes. Here in this bare room, in these sacred garments, surrounded by these women, she felt safe. What had happened to her was God’s will, all of it. The world was larger and stranger than she could ever imagine—the mermaid proved it. If death came to her here, it was because God had meant it to be so. A rush of bliss came over her—unbidden, a gift. Finally her body started to relax.

  At the end of the office, as the women all began to move from the chapel to the refectory, where the morning meal awaited them, Edele slipped to Margrethe’s side and grasped her hand. “How are you?” she whispered fiercely. “Would you please stop worrying me all the time?”

  Margrethe looked into her friend’s pale, freckled face, her round cheeks and huge green eyes. It always surprised her how unmistakable Edele was, even with the habit concealing her mass of red hair and large, curving body, whereas most of the others seemed to blend into one general person. “There is no need for you to worry so much,” she chided. “It does not suit you, you know. I am in excellent health and spirits.”

  “Perhaps you could try to stay that way?”

  A nearby nun shushed them, and Edele made a face. Margrethe stifled a laugh. Seeing her old friend try to adapt to this environment was a constant source of amusement for her.

  They took their seats. The novices all sat at one end of the long wooden table and the older nuns at the other. Huge fires burned at either end of the room. One of the nuns sat reading scripture, her voice ringing out above the quiet clang of the dishes. Talking was officially forbidden at mealtimes, but this was one of many convent rules that was not strictly enforced.

  As they ate, Margrethe heard snippets of news about the man and his fast recovery. The village doctor had been called for, to treat the man’s wounds and apply cleansing leeches to his body.

  “He is very strong,” whispered one of the younger nuns, a woman who’d been sent to the convent by her family to rid her of the devil’s touch. “He has the most wonderful eyes. Doesn’t he, Mira?”

  They all looked to her, waiting.

  “How did you see his eyes?” Margrethe smiled.

  The other novices giggled and received a sharp look from one of the older nuns seated nearby.

  “I offered to bring him water and cloths,” the young nun said, looking down at her plate.

  “You are quite generous and kindhearted, Sister,” Edele said.

  “How did you find him?” one of the others whispered to Margrethe.

  She looked at them, all of them watching her, fascinated. If only they knew how wonderful it’d been. For a moment she wished she could tell them everything, let them share with her the wonder of those moments, standing over the sea. She looked at Edele and suddenly missed the long hours they’d spent together at the castle, in complete freedom. There, she would have already told her friend every detail of the event several times over, reliving it again and again. She was not used to this silence and secrecy, pretending to be someone she wasn’t.

  “I was in the garden,” she said finally, “and I saw a man lying on the shore. I don’t know why I didn’t call to anyone. I just ran down the steps, to him.”

  “You gave him your furs, I heard. You could have died in this cold.”

  “Imagine him, lying there, almost drowned!” someone else said. “It’s a miracle he survived.”

  “I heard he’s some kind of Viking.”

  They were all talking at once, and Margrethe leaned back, glad that, for a moment, they had almost forgotten her.

  The abbess entered then, and a hush came over the room.

  “I would like you to come with us today, Mira,” she said, approaching the table, her black habit swishing about her legs. “To the village, to deliver help and blessings to the families …”

  “Yes, Mother,” Margrethe said, standing.

  “A group of us are going. And then you and I will make a few visits alone.”

  Margrethe nodded. She knew what this meant: that they were to visit her father’s men who waited in the village below, most likely to discuss what had happened. It was normal for the novices to accompany the older nuns on these visits, and no one seemed surprised. The abbess’s appearance had instead sobered the group, and they quickly finished their bread and fish.

  THAT AFTERNOON, a group of holy women walked from the convent into the village. The convent was at the top of a mountain, and the path was rocky and curved sharply down, bordered by bare, thick trees. The wind was brutally cold, and they were all bound in furs, the black and white of their habits flailing out beneath. Like the others, Margrethe carried a basket of goods to take to the villagers: furs and blankets they’d woven.

  She stepped carefully along the path, behind the abbess. Her eyes watered from the wind, but she could just make out the village: its main street lined by shops, the pointed rooftops, the smoke funneling from the chimneys. The sky grew more and more dark as they walked, shifting from silver to gray, and she felt something nagging at her, that something was not right.

  “It looks like another storm,” someone said, but other than that, it was quiet except for the howling of the wind, the crunching of their shoes along the rocky pathway.

  As they wound their way down the hill, the village unfolded in front of them. They passed a stone apothecary, and s
ome small shacks. Villagers stopped and crossed themselves as the line of holy women walked by. Despite herself, Margrethe could not help but thrill at being out in the world. She’d not left the convent grounds since the night she’d been rushed through on horseback, three months before.

  She remembered that night. She’d been covered in thick black cloaks, clinging to the back of one of her father’s soldiers, flanked by them on either side. They’d left the castle in the dead of night. She’d had so little time to prepare, but she wasn’t allowed to bring anything, anyway, that could give her away. It had been terrifying, being that exposed—she was so used to being pampered, adorned, protected—but her father had insisted that she go into hiding. “It is the only way to keep you safe,” he’d said as she clung to him. “We must prepare to defend ourselves against the South’s attacks.” Later, as the world rushed past her and the horse under her strained against the wind, she’d felt the weight and fear that came with her position more than she ever had before.

  “Mira?”

  She started, looked up at the abbess, who was motioning for her to stop. The old woman’s pale eyes reflecting the washed-out landscape. The others were walking ahead while the two of them stood in front of a shack, next to the blacksmith’s. The sound of clanking metal filled the air.

  “We will stop here,” the abbess said, “before we visit your father’s men. There’s a boy here who’s very ill.”

  Margrethe nodded. “Of course.” She looked around. The village appeared peaceful in the daylight, and she felt inexplicably happy, being out in the world. Suddenly she realized what had been nagging at her. She hesitated, then spoke again. “I have been thinking,” she said, “and I do not believe it is necessary to tell them about the wounded man. I fear they might react strongly for no reason.”

  “But your safety is of our utmost concern.”

  “I do not think he is a threat to me, Mother.” She thought of the knife under her pillow and blinked the thought away. She had to have faith that he’d been brought to her for a reason. “I spoke with him—”