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 between 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—
“Are you all right, miss? You’ve gone a bit funny looking.”
“She’s fine,” Daisy says to the dressmaker. “Grace just gets distracted at times. But don’t you think the material is a little dark for this time of year?”
“It looks wonderful on her,” the dressmaker argues, taking out a pair of silver shoes in a solid leather. “And I have these to complete the ensemble. Aren’t they adorable?”
Adorable – like a child. Men are never called adorable. They are hurried into maturity. Whereas we are forced to behave like small girls when we are grown up; performing youth in our dress and our manner. It is ironic, really, when we spent our childhood years striving to look like adults before our time.
“No,” Daisy says, testing the leather between her fingers. “They won’t do, I’m afraid. Miss Grace has rather delicate feet. Do you have anything softer?”
Cloth shoes are found, soft as can be. Soft enough even for my broken feet.
“A long dress,” Daisy insists, as material is draped around my naked body and pinned in place, even though the dressmaker complains that a short skirt would be more chic and more suitable for summer.
“No,” Daisy says. Daisy understands. She knows these legs must be hidden.
“How tiny you are,” the dressmaker says, pinching my waist between her hands. “You must take very good care of yourself. What is your diet like? Do you exercise? What’s your secret?”
And, “How beautiful you are,” the dressmaker says. “You are so blessed.”
And then, later, “How perfect you are,” the dressmaker says. “I have never worked for anyone with such a perfect face and perfect body. You are so lucky.”
Please don’t touch me, I want to say, but I know that a woman’s body may always be touched if so desired. I am blessed to attract such attention. Everyone says it, so it must be true.
The day of the party is approaching fast, only four days to go, and my stomach is so tight with nerves that I am unable to tolerate any food offered to me. To make matters worse, Oliver never has any time to spend with me. “Not now,” he says. “Sorry, Grace. So much to organize. And I watch him with George and Rupert, the three of them bickering about yet another idea they have that will make this party a huge success.
And that night— “Tick, tock,” the Sea Witch says in my dreams. She is sitting at a vanity table, applying a bright lipstick. She smiles at me, red lips and white teeth. “Time is running out, little mermaid. Shall I come for you? Are you ready for the help I can give you?”
The sheets are dripping with blood by the time the sun rises. My legs end in two open wounds, stringy flesh falling off exposed bone, barely resembling human feet. I stare at them, these battered reminders that I am not human. Daisy is changing the bedclothes every morning and every night now, dry-retching when she spots a sliver of bone needling through the broken skin. I hold her hands in mine. We are so close now that I feel as if she can hear my thoughts. How beautiful my voice was, Daisy. I could sing so well, you would have wept to hear me.
She helps me out of bed, picking me up without so much as a cry when I fall to the floor. I lean on her as I hobble into the bathroom. She pulls up a hard-backed chair to sit by the tub as I bathe, collapsing under the water. I could drown myself, but I fear that I would still need someone to hold me down. This new, human instinct to survive is too great to discount. And I don’t want to die, not really.
I just want the pain to stop.
“What are we going to do with you, Grace?” I see the fear in her. She knows something is not right. She knows that this is not normal, not human in some way. “I wish you would let me call the doctor.”
There will be no doctors. What use would they be? The only people who could help me now are the Sea Witch and the Sea King. Two sides of the one coin, my grandmother told me; both with powers, but one is celebrated as a great leader while the other is an outcast, exiled to a land of floating girls, angels of death with snarling smiles.
Neither can help me now.
“What’s wrong, Grace?” Daisy asks. “You’re shaking.”
Nothing, I smile.
I sink under the water.