Mermaid

  “I was outside, getting fresh air, and I saw him. Barely alive, all his men dead, brought here by …” She did not know how to tell them. Her father would think she had gone mad, living here by the sea, and the nuns would think she was a heretic, first a child of prophecy and then a girl who spoke to mermaids.

  The men rushed back into the room, like a murder of crows hailing down.

  “We did not find any sign of him,” Pieter said. “The place is secure.”

  “Then we will leave,” the king said. “And praise God that no harm came to my daughter in this place, even with the son of my enemy inches away from her.”

  Margrethe could feel her shoulders relax. Her father would not hurt these women after all.

  The abbess stood then, smoothed her habit. “Thank you, my liege,” she said, her voice shaking.

  “Thank you, Reverend Mother,” Margrethe said. “For all you’ve done for me.”

  The abbess nodded, her face softening as she looked at Margrethe. “I am sorry that events happened as they did. None of us were aware that an enemy so dangerous was in our midst. We would never intentionally expose you to danger, and I give thanks that you are in full health and safety here today. We have grown to love you very much, and will be sorry to lose you.”

  “We need provisions,” the king said, almost cutting her off, “and fresh horses.”

  “Of course,” she replied. “We will make preparations now. All that we have here is at your disposal.”

  Margrethe stepped forward. “Perhaps you will rest a night here, Father?” she asked, trying to keep the panic out of her voice.

  Now that the immediate threat was gone, the reality of the situation was hitting her. They were leaving. Now. She was going back to the castle, and her old life.

  Far from this sea at the edge of the world.

  “There is no time, Daughter,” he said. “We have urgent business at the castle. We will not let the prince’s insolence go unpunished.”

  She listened in horror. The image of the sick boy and his family, the war-ravaged village shacks, flashed into her mind.

  Something beautiful had happened here—she knew it, down to her bones, the mermaid had brought the enemy prince to her, and she had loved him—and her father would use it as a reason to cause even more suffering and destruction than their kingdom had suffered already.

  “Please, Father,” she said. “Please let me just gather my things.”

  Pieter rushed in. “The horses are ready, Sire.”

  “We do not have time, Daughter. You do not need anything from this place.”

  “Please!” she said. “Please, Father! There is something I must do. I …” She racked her brain. “Let me just get Mother’s necklace, which she left for me.”

  He paused, and she saw something flash over his face. It still pained him to think of her.

  “Go with Margrethe.” He nodded to Pieter, who followed as she rushed through the stone corridor back to her cell, thinking all the while, feeling that same sense of loss and confusion she’d felt when the warrior left, and she knew she had to see the mermaid once more.

  “There is something I must do …,” she said over her shoulder to Pieter.

  “I cannot leave your sight, my lady,” he said firmly. “It is very dangerous for you here. He could be on his way back, even now.”

  He had not yet finished his sentence when she broke away and raced through an open doorway to the cloisters, then through the hall and into the garden, to the stairway that wound down to the sea. As she burst outside, the air assaulted her, as if it were full of knives, cutting through the thin sheath that covered her.

  He was right behind her.

  “Lenia,” she screamed to the water, her voice dying in the wind. “Lenia!”

  “Margrethe!” Pieter called.

  She knew she was only making matters worse, but it could not be helped. This was her last chance. She knew that the prince being sent to her, being brought to her by the mermaid—all of it meant more than what her father, or any of them, could ever know.

  She ran out to the sea. “Lenia!” she called. “Please come to me!”

  The ocean sighed and breathed, churned silver water. Full of mysteries and secrets it would not reveal to her. She stumbled down the stairway that led to the rocky beach, ignoring the cold that sliced through her skin.

  “Please!”

  The wind whisked around her.

  “Margrethe!” Pieter called. “What has come over you?”

  Her eyes smarted against the wind so that she could barely see. There were faces all around her, in the trees and the water and the clouds, but when she blinked and looked again, racing all the while, they were gone.

  She was crying now. She ached to be in the sea. Almost as if that ancient part of her longed to return home. She knew now that everything the mermaid had said was true. She had been part of the water once, a creature of the sea.

  She reached the shore, stumbled over the rocks to the sea. Knelt down, put her fingers in the water.

  “Lenia!”

  If she went back—to the castle, to more war—would she ever again see magic? The magic of this place where mermaids washed up from the sea and told her stories, left shimmer on her skin. The peace of the nuns who whispered and prayed.

  It was like the world before, the world from myth, where bliss was possible. The stories she had read out loud, in Greek and Latin, as her beloved teacher, Gregor, listened. She waited, inhaled the faint scent of the water, the cold, let the wind ravage her body.

  “Lenia!”

  But the mermaid did not appear.

  And then he was holding her, his face buried in her hair, his arms around her waist, and it was all over.

  “Lenia!” she screamed once more, and just as Pieter turned her from the sea to the cliff, she was sure that she saw a face looking out to her from the water, that beautiful moon hair and shimmering skin, the deep blue eyes, and then he was pulling her up, up the stairs, and she could not see anything else for the tears blinding her.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  The Mermaid

  THE SKY SHIFTED COLOR, FROM BLUE TO GRAY TO A BRIGHT silver, as massive clouds scattered across it, assembling into elaborate shapes and collapsing back again. The sun shot through from behind them, dull and steady. In the distance, the cliff seemed to rise straight from the water. In front of it lay a thin strip of beach, vanishing into waves.

  A few miles out, Lenia waited. It was more familiar now, all of this, but she could not imagine ever being unmoved by the beauty of the upper world. Her tail stretched behind her, skimming the water. Her eyes kept moving from the clouds to the cliff in the distance, the convent sitting upon it, the bare-branched trees swaying over it, and the rocky shore beneath. But they were not there. No one had been there for days, and she could feel it, somehow she knew: he was not coming back. But where was the girl? What had happened to her?

  She looked to the sky. She remembered stories about the ancient mermaids who could read their own fates in the clouds, back when it was acceptable to visit the upper world. All the legends of the first humans visiting the sea, the merpeople slipping into the upper world. It had taken a long time for the separation that existed now to come to pass.

  Only Lenia seemed to feel an emptiness inside her, a sense that she’d lost something she could not get back. Why was she the only one who felt it? None of her sisters did. They were all content to find their mates, lay their eggs, and prepare for family life. They were happy with the riches of the sea, the delights of the palace, all the abundance they had been born into. Even her grandmother, who loved these old tales more than any of them, had never had any desire to visit the upper world after her eighteenth birthday.

  Now that she, the youngest of the queen’s daughters and the only one who had yet to find a mate, had reached her nineteenth year, they all expected it from her, too—that she would find her own mate and start her own family. Her behavior of late—singing songs fu
ll of longing as they dined on tentacles and seaweed and sea urchins—had only increased their expectations. It was natural that her mother and sisters would notice, and that they would all come to the same conclusion: Lenia had fallen in love. And she had fallen in love, and it made her voice bigger than it had ever been before, as huge as the empty spaces inside her.

  They’d watched her when she was not looking, whispered about her when she was out of earshot, and they were all brimming with it: the excitement of watching a new love take shape, seeing their youngest sister find the same gift they had all found when their own times came.

  And they’d all felt confident about the identity of the merman who was causing such a change in her: Falke, one of the men of the court, son of their mother’s cousin. A beautifully formed creature, with a long golden tail and dark torso, glittery eyes flecked with gold. For some days they’d watched quietly as Lenia neglected her normal pastimes and smiled to herself when she swam by, unaware of what surrounded her, her face changed by a dreamy look that spoke of new love. And they’d watched Falke gaze at her whenever she was near and attempt to be beside her at every feast.

  It was Thilla who’d approached Lenia yesterday and posed the question directly. Arching her brow, her dark hair swirling around her broad face, she’d asked, “Are you in love, Sister?”

  They’d been floating outside the palace, watching over a gorgeous set of Thilla’s bright blue eggs hidden in the rocks. A group of giant squids whirled about nearby, their long tentacles swishing back and forth like sea vines.

  “Yes,” Lenia had replied. The question had clearly caught her off guard, but she’d answered openly, her voice soft and small.

  “I knew it! Oh, Sister,” Thilla had said, reaching over and embracing her. “We were all so worried. You just seemed so … distracted, ever since your birthday and that horrible business with the shipwreck, and the human man.”

  Lenia had looked at her sister, radiant with pleasure and love. She’d been surprised that Thilla, with her gift of sight, did not already see the truth. “That was when I fell in love,” she’d whispered.

  Thilla had looked at her, confused, her expression hovering between excitement and worry. “What do you mean?” she’d asked.

  “That night, in the upper world. The man I saved.”

  “But … aren’t you in love with Falke? He is the best of the mermen.”

  “No,” Lenia had said. “I do not love him. I love the man I held in my arms and carried to shore. Now all I can do is think of him.”

  As the impact of her sister’s words hit her, Thilla’s face had changed. “Lenia! That is impossible. It is forbidden.”

  “I know. That is why I am suffering so much now.”

  “We all thought you were happy, that you and Falke …”

  “No, Sister,” she’d said. “I am not happy.”

  “You only think this because the man was not conscious. Believe me, if you’d known him …” Thilla had shuddered. “He would have hurt you. That is what men do. You only saw a man who was weak, and so you thought you might love him.”

  “I do love him.”

  “No, Sister.” Thilla had shaken her head, brushed away the starfish floating past. “And even if he was not dangerous,” she’d said more gently, “it cannot be. You are a mermaid. He is a man. You are an adult now, too old for this fantasy.”

  “But, Thilla,” Lenia had said, leaning in. “It is not a fantasy. It is something inside me. I’ve always had this feeling that there is something more. A longing for a soul, for eternal life. I don’t want to become nothing, a handful of foam, the way Great-grandmother did, the way Grandfather did. After all those years and then … nothing. And when I carried him through the water, I felt it. His soul. Leaving his body and entering mine. I felt the way it could be, and it felt like everything I’ve ever wanted. And I saw snow, Thilla. Like Grandmother told us about. Snow! Snow and ice falling from the sky. And I felt their souls, in all of it.”

  “But it is not nothing, Lenia, to become part of the sea. In this way we, too, live forever.”

  “It is not the same,” Lenia had said, wanting to cry with frustration. How could none of them comprehend the beauty of a human soul, shining in heaven for eternity? Where it would be whole again, as they all had been once, in times past? “We disappear. Nothing of what we were or did or felt remains.”

  “Oh, Lenia,” Thilla had said, taking her sister into her arms. “Why do you long for such things? Why are you so unhappy with what you have here, when we have so much?”

  “I don’t know,” Lenia had whispered, wrapping her arms around Thilla’s slender waist.

  THE WAVES LAPPED around her, breaking against the rock. Above her, the clouds were becoming less dense and dark. The storm seemed to be passing. Suddenly, she heard screaming. It ripped through the air and into her body, made her let go of the rock and fall underwater.

  “Lenia!”

  She pushed back up to the surface and looked out. It was Margrethe, frantically running along the cliff, under the trees, to the gate, dressed all in white, her head covered but her voice and her face unmistakable.

  She had come back.

  Lenia was about to go to her when a man appeared behind her, chasing her as she began running down the stairs. For a moment Lenia froze, wondering what to do, and then she felt it, she understood that the man would not hurt Margrethe, that he was trying to protect her, that they were taking her away.

  She stopped in the water. Watched Margrethe cry out to her, her voice ripping into her again as the man pulled her away. He put his arms around her and drew her next to him. Margrethe was freezing, the cold wracking her body. Lenia focused and saw, felt all of it, watched them until they disappeared. And she knew, then, she would not see Margrethe again.

  The shore was desolate now, and bare. A grief broke open over Lenia, a feeling that was brand-new to her, raw and pulsing.

  She pushed forward, through the water. In moments she was at the shore, feeling the rocks under her palm. They glittered where she touched them. She remembered the feel of the prince in her arms as she moved from the water onto the beach. He had lain right there. She had kissed him, felt his skin under her palms, her lips. Now, it was as if he had died, as if both of them had, and she felt real grief moving through her. She had not felt this way since her grandfather had turned to foam a few years before. Everyone had celebrated his passing. She alone had felt it was an irretrievable loss. He is a part of the sea now, they had said. But she had watched his body disintegrate, disappear into the water. Become nothing at all.

  Margrethe’s voice rang in her ears. The longing inside of her.

  And the thought came to Lenia, as it had repeatedly since the day after her birthday, when her sisters had given her the necklace she was wearing now.

  She could go to the sea witch, Sybil.

  She shook her head. She should go home, forget this world, mate with Falke, who was the best of the mermen, as Thilla had said, and lay her eggs. Spend the rest of her three hundred years with her sisters and her children, her sisters’ children, all of them together. And she could tell the children stories about souls as they laughed and played, imagining what it would be like to have webs of light living inside them. Why did she have to long for more than that?

  But the thought kept lingering, still.

  FROM AS FAR back as she could remember, Lenia had heard tales about the sea witch, and her great powers. They all knew that the witch had once been favored by Lenia’s great-grandmother, the former queen, and that the two had fallen out spectacularly when the queen issued the royal decree forbidding interaction with humans. Some said that Sybil had argued vehemently against the decree and openly defied it, others that the disagreement was of a more personal, scandalous nature. Whatever the case, the queen had banished Sybil to a cave at the outskirts of the central kingdom. Where, the story went, she’d been practicing magic ever since.

  Lenia had always heard rumors of mermaids co
nsulting her for love potions and spells, for charms to ensure the healthy hatchings of their children, and now she’d learned that her own sister had gone to see Sybil, too. All of this was strictly forbidden, of course, but for some, magic had its own allure, stronger than a royal decree.

  Ever since Vela had mentioned Sybil, Lenia could not stop thinking of her—and what she might know of the prince, whether or not Lenia could see him again.

  She would do anything, she thought, to see him one more time.

  THAT NIGHT, AFTER the thought had lingered long enough to turn into a possibility, a shining hope, Lenia made a decision. She would visit the sea witch, just to see. It would not have to mean anything at all, but it would do no harm just to see.

  And then she could go to Falke, she decided. This was just one last thing to take care of before she started her new life, as an adult and as a mother. One last adventure.

  She left the palace quietly, when she was sure no one was watching. She let her heart guide her as she swam past the mountain range that cast shadows over the palace and into the vast sea, passing caverns and volcanoes and streams of glowing fish, drifting underwater stars, all manner of shell and pearl and coral. After a long while, the contours of the sea began to change. The luminous green seaweed and glowing bulbs disappeared, and the terrain turned dark, limned with black, starry rock. The water shifted, sparkled, grew dark and dense; a strange sort of electricity moved through the ocean, and she knew she’d entered the realm of the sea witch.

  It was unmistakable: the cavern gleamed in front of her like a black star. Outside stood the figure of a witch built from twigs and grass and leaves from the upper world. Materials so out of place in the deep ocean that they had taken on their own magic.

  Lenia swam through the huge, gaping opening and into the cavern. The walls seemed to be made from glittering black jewel, with huge red flowers blooming out of it. Winged white fish fluttered around, moving in and out of view, illuminating the surroundings.