CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I watched the sun rise this morning, climbing into the clear sky and I willed it not to set, never to set again.
“Gorgeous day for a party,” Daisy said when she arrived. “Breakfast, Grace? I can bring up some tea and toast if you’d like.” I shook my head: No, I’m not hungry. The nerves maul at my stomach with talons sharp. I stayed in bed until noon. “Best to rest your feet,” Daisy had said. “Seeing as you’ll be on them for the whole evening.”
And then it is time. Stepping into the new dress, clouds of silk cinching my waist. Feet placed into cloth slippers, fingers clenching as my toes start their shrieking beat. But I am relieved that the mutilation has been disguised for this, this which could be the final evening.
“Do they feel comfortable?” Daisy asks, gently tying the laces. “Not too tight?”
They feel like barbed wire, wrapping around and around, piercing deep. Gesturing vigorously, I convince her to give me a second dose of the draught. “It’s not safe,” she says, but I don’t care about being “safe”; I need to be anaesthetised. The medicine is working its magic already, unravelling the thick clot knotted in my chest, thread by thread, until I am numb; my mother and the boat called by her name, and her painted face after painted face, all drifting away from me. I never realized until I came to the human world how blissful it is to feel nothing.
“We need to cut the hedge back in the garden,” Eleanor had said during the many discussions about the party preparations. I kept watching her for a sign, an acknowledgement that our encounter in that room did happen, but she is too busy pretending to be eager for this event she disapproves of. Her rictus grin as Oliver talked of trained doves and ice sculptures (“Won’t they melt, Oliver?” she asked. “It is summer, after all.”) and singing waiters and juggling clowns and how we “must fly this volcanic water in from the islands, Rupert said it’s the best kind and I only want the best, Mother,” Oliver said.
“Let’s focus on the hedge for now,” Eleanor repeated. “It’s utterly overgrown.”
But Oliver had disagreed. “No, Mother,” he replied. “I like it. It reminds me of when Dad was still alive.”
“But it’s unmanageable, Oli,” Eleanor said, faltering at the mention of her husband.
“Just leave it, Mother,” he said. “You might want to pretend that Dad never existed, but I don’t.”
“Yes, dear,” Eleanor replied, turning away from Oliver before he can see the devastation on her face. I don’t like Eleanor, and I certainly don’t trust her, but Oliver’s cruelty to his mother is so carelessly done that it’s breathtaking. “Whatever you want, Oliver.”
The lawn in the secret garden has been cut for the occasion; the rose bushes that Eleanor wanted to trim act as a barrier to any inclement winds the sea might blow our way. The servants are in uniforms, sweating in the midday heat, offering glasses of champagne or portions of food so tiny they can be eaten in one bite.
“Caviar?” a servant asks me in a bored tone. He proffers a silver tray, a bowl with heaped eggs in the centre, oily balls glistening in the sun. A silver spoon, all the better to dig in with. “Fish eggs. It’s a delicacy,” he says, confused, as I back away, bile seeping into my mouth.
“Grace is a vegetarian,” Oliver tells the waiter as he approaches. He is dressed in a crisp white shirt and shorts, showing off his muscular legs, Rupert and George following in similar outfits. Rupert grabs a spoonful of caviar from the tray, spreads it on a cracker, swallowing it whole. “That’s delicious,” he says, eyes never leaving mine.
“You look beautiful, Grace,” Oliver says, handing me a glass of sparkling water.
I lower my eyes, as if embarrassed. “It’s better not to seem too pleased with one’s own beauty,” my grandmother had explained to me. “But why do we spend all this time combing our hair and adorning our tails if we don’t want to be admired? It doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “Oh, Muirgen,” she sighed. “So many questions for such a little mermaid. You’ll find life so much easier if you ask fewer questions.”
“Are you having fun, Grace?” George asks, his face as freckled from the sun as Daisy’s.
I smile at him in response, and Rupert rolls his eyes.
“What enthusiasm,” Rupert says. “Always such a joy spending time with you, Grace; the conversation is truly scintillating.” I glance at Oliver, but he doesn’t give any indication of having heard Rupert. “God,” Rupert says loudly. “I’m so bored.” Oliver stiffens. This, he will not ignore. “It’s utterly dull,” Rupert says, draining the rest of his glass.
“This part is just to keep the geriatrics happy,” Oliver says. “Wait until we get on to the Muireann.” My heart catches; my mother’s name, so casual on his lips. “That’s when the real fun will start, Rupe.”
Rupert raises an eyebrow, as if in challenge; Oliver grins back at him. They’re like school boys, the two of them. And this is the man that I need to make fall in love with me by sunrise.
“Ladies and gentleman, boys and girls.” A voice is coming from the sky, shaking the leaves from the trees like a deity addressing us through the clouds. I clutch at Oliver’s arm and he laughs. “It’s just the microphone,” he says, pointing towards the gazebo tucked into the corner of the garden. It has been trimmed of weeds since I last saw it, a fresh coat of white paint glistening wetly in the sunshine. “See?” There is a woman standing there, three girls behind her with their musical instruments.
“We are Flora and the Furies,” the voice says. “My name is Flora. And these are my Furies. Are you ready to have a good time?” The crowd roars in response. “And a one, two, three,” she yells, followed by a sudden burst of music. As it plays, she walks to the front of the gazebo, the sun hitting her face like a halo. She is tall, as tall as Oliver, dark hair cut to her jaw, a short skirt showing off long, brown legs.
I feel Rupert shift beside me. “Jesus,” he says. “She looks like…” He takes a deep breath, as if trying to control himself but when he sees that I am watching him, he stands up straight, swatting his sadness away from him like an irritating insect. “What are you staring at? Why are you always staring at everyone, you fucking weirdo?”
I look away. I wish something terrible would happen to this man. A sudden fall, a snapped neck, a— I stop myself. These are Salka thoughts, wild and sharp. I must remember my place.
“I’ve never heard a voice like that before,” Oliver says when the song ends. I hadn’t even been listening.
“Don’t you think she looks like…” George trails off.
“Looks like who?” Oliver asks, and neither Rupert nor George answer him. “Bravo,” he calls out, raising a glass to Flora. “Thank you,” she says, without shame. “Hopefully you’ll like this next one too.”
She begins to sing again, her voice crystal clear, achingly sweet. Sweeter than anything I have heard since I broke the surface.
That song.
“What is this song?” I hear someone ask. “It’s most unusual.”
And it is most unusual and I know it, I know it heart-deep. A song that my grandmother used to sing to us in the nursery, a song of mer-men and brave deeds and a war fought that would never be forgotten. A song of necessary death, of the courage that it takes to do what it is right. Trembling notes, hushed by water. How does she know this song?
I drift, barely noticing, towards the middle of the garden. Towards Flora.
“What is that girl doing…”
“Is she okay? She doesn’t look…”
“But Oliver seems to like her so I…”
And then I alone and I am dancing and I can’t stop. I dance as if I am still beneath the surface, floating through water. The weightlessness of it, even with my pearls on. I did not know how lucky I was. I twirl, my skirt skimming around me in clouds (forest green) of silk (with silver flecks) and if I half-close my eyes I can pretend that my tail has returned to me, imagine that I can travel through the world without being conscious of every scalding step I take. Why did I not appreciate it when I could?
“Isn’t she graceful…”
“I know, it’s no wonder Oliver…”
“Even though…”
“Even though…”
Even though I have no voice. Even though my tongue has been torn out of my mouth and swallowed by a hungry woman. Even though I am a stranger who was found abandoned on the beach and there is no telling who I am or where I came from. These people don’t care; all they want is to see me dance. So I dance.
The song ends, this Flora reaching the crescendo perfectly. I was the only person in the kingdom who could sing that note, it’s beyond most mermaids’ capabilities, let alone a human’s. I come to a standstill instantly, staring at this woman while she sings my song with…
That is my voice.
Ice cold, and a song so sweet and paintings of a woman with a face like my own and a stranger before me with long legs, my stolen voice pouring out of her mouth.
“Well done, little one,” the singer says, and I know somehow that only I can hear her. “I am proud of you.”
“Grace.”
Fingers pinching my upper arm, pulling me away. “Come with me,” Eleanor says, pulling me into the bushes. I turn to find that Flora is gone from the gazebo stage, the Furies left playing instrumental music while other guests begin dancing. I need to find her, I need to—
“Hello there, Dancing Queen,” Eleanor says. Her eyes are bloodshot, pink lipstick smudged on her front two teeth. It’s clear that she’s been drinking heavily, which is unlike her. She prefers to stay sober at these events, remain in control. Women can’t simply be good enough, she had said to me one night, when everyone else had left after an exceptionally boisterous dinner party. She wasn’t even talking to me, not really; I just happened to be there. We have to be twice as good as the men just to break even.
“Are you having fun? Are you enjoying all of this?” She waves back at the party. “I paid for it, you know. Every last thing in here was bought with my money. Not that anyone seems to care. Ships are boring, Mother!” she says, mocking Oliver. “No one ever cares about what I want.” She is too close to me now, and I can smell wine on her breath. Her hair is mussed, the hem of her cream dress stained by the grass. “This is where I met Alexander, did you know that?” She looks at the garden again, as if remembering. “Right on that lawn. I was only thirteen years old, and I knew immediately that I would love him for ever.” She points at the sea. “And that’s where I lost him.” She doesn’t say anything for a few minutes, standing with her back to me.
“Where are you from?” she says, spinning on her heel. “Answer me,” she shouts when I remain silent, and I put my hands to my throat. I can’t talk, Eleanor. Remember? “Enough of that.” She grabs me by the shoulders, shaking me violently. “I know what you are. I know. He talked of a woman who danced like you. Who danced like she was gliding through the air. He wouldn’t forget her, he wouldn’t—”
I wrench my arm from her grasp. “He wouldn’t forget her,” she says again, and she begins to sob, a keening sound ripping from her gut, so primal it makes me feel unsteady. “You can’t take my son from me too, I can’t lose Oliver. I can’t. I can’t. Please.” Eleanor falls to her knees, holding on to my skirt. “You can’t take him away from me. I don’t want to be alone. I won’t survive.”
I crouch down, thrusting her hands away from me. She barely notices as she curls up in a ball, heaving with sobs. The mighty Eleanor Carlisle, always in control, is disintegrating before me; she is like a perfect portrait of someone falling apart. Is this what happens to scorned women? She’s crazy, we used to say about maids in the kingdom who pursued certain mer-men relentlessly, crying and asking too many questions about where their man was and who he was with and if he had talked to any other maid that day. I’m beginning to wonder that if, when we call a woman crazy, we should take a look at the man by her side, and guess at what he has done to drive her to insanity.
When I get back to the party, Oliver is gone.
And so is Flora.
I try and breathe but I’m beginning to panic. (I don’t have much time left.) A burning sensation in my chest as if someone has struck a match to my lungs, a dry strike of flint against flint. (I’m going to die tonight; I am going to dissolve into nothingness.) I push my way through the crowds and I tell myself I’m searching for Oliver, but I realize that I am actually looking for Flora. That voice… My voice, it was my voice. How did Flora have my voice? And how could I have thrown it away? The only time I was ever happy under the sea was when I was singing, and I sewed my own mouth shut in the hopes that a boy I barely knew could kiss it open again.
I collapse behind a huge tree at the edge of the lawn. Hidden from sight, I rest my hands on my feet for a second. The pain is intense but at least it is real; it is something I can call my own. Night is stirring through the air, thickening with shadows. I can smell a metallic tang, a smell that is my constant companion these days. I touch my feet again, my fingertips coming away sticky. At least it is dark. No one will be able to see me bleed in the dark.
“Grace? It’s me. George.” A slight figure, the scent of tobacco. I hold my hands out, pleading with him to help me to standing. “What are you doing out here by yourself?” He waves his cigarette by way of explanation. “I’m not supposed to be smoking, my mother will kill me if she sees me. I really wish Eleanor hadn’t insisted on inviting her.” These humans and their lack of gratitude for their mothers. They seem only interested in women whose legs they can spread. George glances back at the party. “We should hurry. Have you seen the queue for the yacht? It’s absurd. Oliver has gone already, he left with that singer. Flora.”
Flora, I repeat silently. Flora with the beautiful voice. My beautiful voice.
A winding procession of people, sneaking from the garden down the steps, a sharp turn along the beach until they reach the marina where the yacht is docked. Young men and women, pushing against us, faces flushed. “I thought Oliver’s mother had the Muireann burned?” one girl says, then curses as she spills wine on to her cream dress. My heart hurts at the mention of my mother’s name, said so offhand. As if it was nothing. “Wouldn’t blame her, to be honest,” another girl laughs.
The line for the yacht turns around a corner, the sea coming into view. The sky reaching away from us to stitch stars into its surface. I see Oliver. That woman, Flora, standing beside him. She whispers in his ear, looking back at me as if she knew I would be there.
Who are you? She puts a finger to her lips, as if telling me to be quiet and I trip over the end of my dress. George’s hand on my arm steadies me and I wish I could ask him to carry me, to take the weight off these ruined legs. I wish George had been the man I had rescued, that it had been him that I had traded my voice for. I might not love George, but I could live with him and be happy.
“Are you drunk? Is our innocent little Gracie drunk?”
“Give it a rest, Rupert,” George says, but he takes his hand away from me quickly. “And you just cut the queue, by the way.”
“Don’t be so wet,” Rupert rolls his eyes. He has a half-empty bottle of champagne in one hand, the other around the waist of a barely conscious girl. Her hair is covering her face, her skirt so short that I can see her black lace underwear. He turns to the people behind us. “Do you mind that I’ve joined my good mate George here, or would you rather be fucking bastards and insist I go to the back?” The two girls nervously murmur, it’s fine, don’t worry about it, Rupert. Not a problem.
“See?” Rupert says to George. He swigs from the bottle, the girl slipping from his grip like a rag doll. She doesn’t move as she hits the ground, her legs akimbo, showing her secrets to the world. No one goes to help her.
“What a slut,” I hear someone say. “And what is she wearing?”
“Oops,” Rupert laughs as he looks down at her. “Someone has had too much to drink, haven’t you, darling?” He drags the girl up, her head lolling on her shoulders. “Cordelia here and I are going to have a very fun night.”
“That girl is comatose,” George says. “You can’t possibly—”
“You’re not my fucking mother, George.” Rupert walks away from us, carrying the girl over his shoulder, as if she was a prize he had collected. I remember Ling, her dark eyes, her new-found silence. How she now walks as if she has lead in her bones. Something stolen from her that can never be given back.
“Shit,” George says under his breath. “Grace, I have to go after him. I can’t let him – not again.” He winces an apology at me. “Do you think you can walk the rest of the way by yourself?”
I wave him off, I’ll be fine. He hurries after Rupert, yanking him back by the shoulder, Cordelia falling to the ground again. George kneels to help her, but Rupert grabs him by the lapels of his jacket, lugging him to standing and screaming in his face.
“Hello?” Fingers prodding into my back. “Hurry up, will you?” Inhaling through my nose when I take the first step without George’s help, the pain bitter-sharp.
“Sorry, miss,” a man in a peaked cap says when I finally reach the marina. “No shoes allowed on deck.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” he says when I look around, as if expecting Daisy or Oliver to come to my rescue and explain. “No. Shoes. On. Deck.” He points to a container at the side of the ladder. “Put them in the wicker basket and you can collect them after the party, like everyone else.”
I cannot take my shoes off, dancing blood across this boat like a seeping shadow, this boat which shares a name with my mother. Muireann.
“Come on,” someone shouts. “What’s the hold up? Get on the boat or go home, for fuck’s sake.”
I step out of the way. The guests boarding the yacht are all young, in their late teens and early twenties, I would wager, and their excitement is palpable. It is as if an infectious fervour is soaring within them at the thought of the night ahead, at the promise it holds. This could be the night that everything changes, you can imagine them thinking. Lovers, hand in hand, trailing kisses and sonnets from mouth to mouths. Young men, eyes hungering: What about that one? No, look at the one next to her, the dark-haired one. They estimate the beauty of each passing girl, weighing it up with their friends. Listing pros and cons as if it is their decision to make, that the girls’ beauty will be determined by their opinions rather than objective fact, because they are men and a man’s word is final. The girls, knowing the men are watching them but pretending to be unaware, performing a calculated innocence they have been told they must possess.
“Hey, you.” The man guarding the ship asks me some time later, when I am the only one remaining on the marina. “Are you coming? Crunch time, little lady. I’ll have to set sail without you otherwise.”
I could go back to the Carlisle estate, limp upstairs and call for Daisy, beg her to give me more of her potion while she bathes my feet. I would try and thank her for everything she has done for me and wave goodnight smiling, as she leaves me to die in peace. What would she find of me when she came to wake me in the morning? Bones and tides of blood smeared on the sheets? Or would I simply vanish, leaving no trace?
“Miss?” the man says. “I haven’t got all day here.”
I must do this. I cannot lose courage before the final test. My mother would have wanted me to be brave. I reach down, shedding my shoes, a soundless scream congealing in my throat when the leather hooks into my feet, stripping flesh with them. It is as if my bones know that these feet are not real, and they are eager to fall away from me.
“Jesus,” he says, stifling a gasp. “What have you done to yourself? Do you need me to call a doctor?” No. No doctors. They cannot help me. “I can’t let you on board like that, miss,” he says. “You need medical attention.” I grab his hands in mine. Please. I need to get on this boat named after my mother. Maybe there will be clues about what happened to her, about her relationship with Oliver’s father. I need to know, I cannot die without knowing. I point at his socks then at my feet. “You want my socks?” he asks, confused, and I nod. “But your feet. Miss, that’s not normal.” I am tired of people saying I am not normal. “You should—”
I sit on the floating walkway, dipping my legs into the water, the blood sizzling-fresh on the waves. I take one clean foot out, then the other, displaying them to him. With an uneasy glance over his shoulder, he peels off his socks.
“I don’t know why I’m doing this,” he says as he gives them to me.
Maybe he too is used to doing as he is told.
The man tells me to call him “Captain”, although he bears little resemblance to the man at Eleanor’s dinner party, the one who believes in mermaids. This new Captain brings me to what he calls the “foredeck hatch”, dragging an armchair into a corner where I can curl up, feet hidden beneath my dress. The Muireann is much larger than the boat upon which I saw Oliver for the first time. I imagine my mother here. Did she dance on this gleaming deck, smile at the staff in white uniforms, circulating with trays of champagne?
The atmosphere is hectic; and overwhelming – do these humans never get tired of so much noise? I can hear the sound of broken glass, and young women are pulling dresses off over their heads so they can dive into the sea, their nubile bodies cutting through it like blades. Heads bobbing in the dark, and they look like Salkas as they wrestle their way up rope ladders, hair pushed back off their faces, dripping salt water. It’s so refreshing, they say, warm as a bath, while their teeth chatter. Girls in their soaking underwear, swaying but not falling. This would not happen in the Sea Kingdom. My father would not tolerate it, especially not for the pure women born of his flesh.
No one is interested in me, tucked away in this corner, so I am free to study them closely. Drinking, dancing. Kissing. Couples going downstairs, the girls pretending to be reluctant. “I don’t usually do this,” they say, the boys urging them to: “Come on, baby.” When they reappear, the girls are flushed, the boys buttoning up shirts with an exaggerated emphasis, looking around to see who has noticed them.
And Oliver. I have been unable to take my eyes off him, and yet I doubt he has even noticed that I am on board.
He is sitting at the back of the deck, Flora opposite him. He is bending forward, his knees touching hers but she leans away, as if there is no need to make any effort with him. Oliver looks happy, I realize. He looks the happiest I have seen him since the water claimed Viola for its own. Maybe this was what he needed, all along. Someone to talk with, rather than at. The one thing that I could not give him, indeed the one thing I gave up so that he would find me attractive. Flora stands, holding five fingers up; Oliver’s gaze following her until she disappears out of sight. He looks dazed, as if he had forgotten the rest of the world had existed until now. Then he sees me and my stomach drops, tightening with that sensation that I cannot name, the sensation that only Oliver gives me, still, still. My body is a traitor.
“Grace,” he says, walking over to me. “I didn’t notice you there. Are you having a nice time?” He takes a glass from a passing waiter, but doesn’t thank him. He rarely thanks the staff, I’ve observed. All the little things that I have ignored about this man, in order to make the narrative of true love and destiny fit. I tried to make him as perfect as I needed him to be.
“What a night this has been,” he says. “I can hardly believe it. And the band were the highlight, weren’t they? I only hired the Furies because one of the servants said that he had seen them at a fête last year. I could have so easily hired another band. And then I wouldn’t have met Flora. You know who Flora is, don’t you?” he asks me. “The girl with that extraordinary voice.” My voice. Is Oliver really trying to tell me that he’s fallen in love with a girl who has my voice? “Tall girl, short hair.” Looks like Viola, I want to add. You do remember Viola, don’t you, Oliver? “She’s wonderful, Grace. She’s so smart and interesting and she’s funny. You rarely meet girls who are funny, do you?”
Maybe because girls have been trained to laugh at boys’ jokes rather than make any of their own.
Flora is interesting and smart and funny, whereas all I have to offer is my face and my body. And if he does not want that, then what use am I? I am a shiny ornament to be displayed and admired, but not to be touched. All I have ever wanted was to be touched by someone who loved me.
“And you know what, Grace?” Oliver continues. “I have you to thank for this.”
Me?
“It’s true.” He laughs at my astonished expression. “You’ve only been here such a short time, but I feel…” He runs a hand across his jaw while he searches for the correct word. “Settled now that you are here. Does that make sense? It was as if you were left on that beach for me to find, like the heavens sent you to help me recover. You have given me back my confidence. I know that you only ever want what’s best for me.”
I clear my throat. In that moment, I do not want what is best for Oliver. I want to slit his throat with a rusty blade, watch him fall to the deck and bleed out before me.
“Hello.” Flora has returned. Up close, she is even prettier than I had thought. Perfect white teeth in a full-lipped smile, clear skin. “Apologies for taking so long, the queue for the loo was horrifying.” Her speaking voice doesn’t sound like mine, though; it is lower. More husky. Sexy, Rupert would say, if he was here. She holds out a hand to shake mine. “I’m Flora,” she says.
“Don’t expect much in the way of conversation from Grace,” Oliver says, elbowing me as if I am one of the boys. “She’s more of the silent type.”
“Grace?” Flora raises an eyebrow at me. “That’s your name now, is it?”
“That’s what we call her,” Oliver says, adding sotto voce, “she’s a mute, poor thing. My mother and I have taken her in at the estate.” My hands curl into fists at my sides. As if I am a stray dog that they have rescued. An animal that can be easily cast aside again, when they grow bored of me.
“Well,” Flora says, grazing her hand across my shoulder, an indistinct murmur of an electric current running between us. “It’s very nice to see you, Grace.”
“So,” Oliver says, angling his body towards Flora, edging me out of the conversation. That’s rude, Oliver. Didn’t your mother teach you any manners? “You were saying before that—”
“That the uprising in the islands was essential? Yes, it clearly was.”
“I disagree,” Oliver says, as if that should be enough to shut down any counter arguments. I can imagine his parents reassuring Oliver that his opinions mattered when he was a child, sitting around the dinner table and asking their young son for his thoughts on the meal or his day at school. His voice would have been valued. I wonder if I would have been so quick to relinquish my own if I had experienced the same. “I don’t think rioting is acceptable under any circumstances,” he says. “Those people were just using the protest as an excuse to smash windows and loot whatever they could get their hands on.”
“Those people? Are you serious?” Flora screws her face up at Oliver. “Those people owned the land long before you came, and those people have been treated abominally ever since. Do you expect them to wait politely while they’re being shot down in the streets? I’m shocked they’re not tearing the islands apart in fury; god knows they would have the right to.”
I draw a breath in anticipation of how Oliver will respond to being challenged in such a public fashion, and by a woman at that. But he is quiet, his forehead creasing in concentration as Flora talks. “Yes,” he says when she pauses. “I suppose you’re right, Flora,” and then: “That’s a very good point, Flora, I never really thought about it that way.”
The conversation moves from politics to music to literature to sports, Flora displaying an in-depth knowledge of each subject, as if she has spent years studying in preparation for this conversation. It’s almost mystifying, her expertise. “You’re so clever, Flora,” Oliver says, eyes shining, and I want to scream. What is it men actually want from us? “How do you know all of this?” he asks. She cracks jokes that I do not understand, but which make Oliver throw his head back in laughter. People drift towards us, the group becoming larger and larger, but Flora remains the centre of attention. No one can take their eyes off her. She’s so funny, I hear people whispering. And smart. They stand in a circle around her, enthralled. And yet her eyes remain on me, as if this entire performance is for my benefit.
Who is this woman?
The evening plummets into night, the moon rowing across the ocean’s skin. Voices spiking, people throwing words at each other but no one waiting for the replies. They are not having a conversation, these humans; they are merely delivering speeches, competing to see who can speak the loudest. The boat returns to the marina so a few guests can leave. Women with shoes in hands, make-up smeared down their faces as they stagger back towards the estate; some boys leaning over the side of the boat, vomiting. Two women wait to disembark, both petite and pretty, and they keep stealing kisses from one another. I can’t help but stare at them, open-mouthed.
“What are you looking at?” one of them asks me.
Nothing. I turn away hurriedly, and I think of Nia. Is this all that she has wanted? The freedom to hold another girl’s hand? Why had my father deemed such a simple act to be so terrible?
“Come on, Captain, just another hour.”
“No,” says the man whose socks I am still wearing, ignoring their protestations. “Time to go.”
And go they do, one by one, until at last, it is only Flora, Oliver, and me remaining.
“Goodnight, Captain,” Oliver says as that man goes downstairs, the crew following him. The captain tips his hat at Oliver as he passes. “Good evening, sir,” he says. “Or good morning, I should say. The sun is nearly up.”
The sun is nearly up, I repeat to myself, feeling oddly resigned. The sun is nearly up and it brings my death with it. I will never see my sixteenth birthday.
Why must you always be so passive, Muirgen? Cosima’s voice whispers in my head. If Cosima was here, she would march over there; run her fingers through Oliver’s hair and plant kisses on his mouth. Cosima would not be in the shadows, waiting for night to claim her for its own. But I am tired, so very tired. I don’t want to have to fight any more. My sisters might want me to rage against the sky tilting with light, beckoning a new day forward with fingers of streaking pink, but I don’t have the energy. I feel weaker as the air gets brighter, wrapping itself around me, bending me transparent. I already feel as if I am dissolving.
Oliver leans closer to Flora. A question is asked. She nods. And a decision made. Her hand reaches out to his, leading him downstairs to where the bedrooms are. Just before she disappears around the corner, she turns. Come, she mouths at me, crooking her finger to beckon me forward. There is a glint in her eyes, something between mischief and malevolence, and I am shaken out of my lethargy, I stand up to follow – but I fall to the floor instantly, my feet buckling beneath me. And they are gone.
“What do we have here?” A harsh voice, slurring at the edges. “Gracie. All alone. That’s not like you. Where has your master disappeared to? Doesn’t he know that it isn’t safe to leave his pets unattended?”
Rupert smells of anger and alcohol, his mouth streaked with the remnants of another woman’s lipstick. If it was George, I would smile, hand him a handkerchief to clean his face. But I do not dare do so with Rupert. I have seen with my own father how dangerous certain men can become when they think you are laughing at them. They always want to punish you for it. “Grace? Are you listening to me?” he says, and I shrink away, pressing my body into the couch.
“What?” he says. “I’m not who you were hoping for? That happens a lot with me, I’m afraid. Everyone wants the dashing heir to the Carlisle fortune. My deepest apologies for disappointing you.” He bends low, as if curtseying to me. “Or were you looking for George? No luck there either, George took Cordelia home. So chivalrous, is our friend George.” He breaks off into a high-pitched voice and says, “I won’t allow you to take advantage of another girl, Rupert, it’s not right.” Rupert laughs. “He did leave me in rather a bind. No other woman at this party was in as, ah, acquiescent a mood.” He leans against the bow, watching me. (Tell us the nymph-tale of the Big Bad Shark, Grandmother, that’s my favourite, and the mermaid with the red ribbons in her hair. The shark and his sharp teeth. “All the better to eat you with, my maid.”)
“You look sad – sad that Oli’s got a new playmate? She looks disconcertingly like Viola, I have to say. The perfect fucking couple,” he seethes. “That’s why I wasn’t on the boat that day, little Gracie. I couldn’t stand the idea of spending yet another afternoon with them, watching him slobbering all over her. Everyone pretending that they were so well suited when she was too good for Oli, she was always too good for him. She could have taken over the world if she had wanted to. She graduated first in her class, did you know that?”
I did not. Mermaids were not permitted to attend school in the kingdom. A waste of time, my father said. For what need would wives and mothers have of education? We would have our husbands to do our thinking for us.
“And Oli, he just…” Rupert’s jaw tightens. “If he wasn’t a Carlisle then Viola would never have even looked at him. Money and power, that’s the only things you whores seem to care about.” He stares at me as if only just remembering that I’m still there. He crouches down. “Is that why you liked him too?” My heart feels as if it is pumping too much blood into my body; it is ferocious. “So odd,” he says, grabbing my arms and dragging me to standing. “The way we found you on that beach, nearly a year to the day after Oliver washed up there. That’s what happened to his father too. Isn’t that a coincidence? Alexander’s boat was wrecked, and when they found him, he was raving about a girl who saved him. A girl who came from the sea, Oli’s old man said. He named this boat after her, the story goes. The Muireann.” He pushes my hair back and my throat clenches at his touch. I don’t want him anywhere near me. “Utterly mad, of course, and there was a lot of talk. You know how people like to gossip. Eleanor put him in that mental hospital to try and stop it and Oliver never forgave her, Jesus, he wouldn’t stop banging on and on about it, it got boring pretty quickly. What did he expect Eleanor to do? His father was a raving lunatic and she had to make sure Alexander wouldn’t do any damage to himself.” He snorts. “Or to the Carlisle name. She’s canny, is that Eleanor. But there was no keeping Alexander Carlisle locked up.”
I can’t move, my legs lifeless as a statue. I’m trapped here with Rupert, forced to listen. “Poor old Alexander Carlisle went back to the sea and he drowned himself.” Oliver’s father took his own life? Why did he not tell me that? “Giving Eleanor free rein to run the company and Oliver the perfect excuse to act like an asshole for the rest of his life.”
There is a silence and he rubs his hand across his face. “Anyway,” he says. “Enough of that. The past is in the past. It’s just you and me now, isn’t it? Whatever shall we do to pass the time?” His hand trails down my arm, then on to the skirt of my dress, inching it up a little. “Don’t be so coy,” he says. “I’ve seen the way you look at Oliver, like you’re a bitch on heat. There’s no need to pretend that you’re some innocent virgin.” He presses his lips against my ear, sticking the tip of his tongue into it, like Zale used to, and my stomach flips over, pushing vomit up my throat like a promise.
My mouth is open, searching for my voice – please. Please help me. But there is no help coming, and no sound save for Rupert’s heavy breathing. He backs me into the wall, pressing his body against mine until my spine feels like it might crack. Undoing his belt, and a silent sob breaks from me at what is to come. He will finish what Zale started. “You’ll like this,” he says. A hand reaching down, pulling up my skirt, Rupert’s fingers prodding that new place between my legs. No. No. But I cannot speak and worse, I cannot move. I am motionless, petrified; watching this man as he takes my body and does what he wants with it. My words are trapped tight in my throat, frozen, turning my limbs to stone.
Little mermaid.
Rupert is grunting, fumbling. He will take what he wants from me and he will destroy me as he does so.
Be brave, little mermaid.
Brave? I push Rupert off me, and he trips, trousers caught around his ankles. “You tease,” he says. I turn left, right, the frenzy of dread making me clumsy and stupid, running to the end of the boat but there is nowhere for me to escape to – unless I dive into the sea as cleanly as if I was diving into my nightmares.
There will be no protection there. The Sea Witch told me, she warned me. There is no going back.
Little mermaid, we are here.
Where are those voices coming from? Am I going mad, like Oliver’s father? Is my sanity as lost to me as my voice is? Will they find me knee-deep in salt water, knuckle-white, mouthing words I will never be able to hear again?
“Where do you think you’re going?” Rupert says, pulling his trousers up. He is walking towards me, oh, so slowly. He is in no rush. He is standing in front of me now, his lips almost touching mine. He leans in to kiss the bare skin of my throat, ignoring my uncontrollable shaking. “Just relax, Grace.”
Little mermaid. The hissing words are louder now, demanding my attention. They sound … wet. I look over Rupert’s shoulder to find dozens of eyes staring at me from the dead of the water. They emerge, green hair slicked back, mouths open. The Rusalkas. The fallen women with arms outstretched, ready for their prey.
“Woah,” Rupert says as I push him against the side of the boat, kissing him forcefully. “Easy, tiger.” His tongue invades my empty mouth. “So strange,” he mutters. “There’s just nothing there…” I allow my fingers to dip beneath the waistband of his trousers as I had seen Flora do to Oliver earlier, and Rupert relaxes, his grip softening just enough for me to gather my strength. For I am Muirgen, daughter of Muireann of the Green Sea. I am Gaia, of the earth. And no one treats me in such a manner.
“Jesus!” His face gnarling in wide-eyed panic as he falls, his arms flailing for something to grab on to. The cry as he hits the water, hard, his body flinching. He resurfaces in a splashing fury. “You little—”
Then he sees the first Rusalka and his double-take of shock is nearly comical. These are creatures that he has not given credence to since he was a small child on his mother’s lap, listening as she spun stories to help him sleep. Monsters or mermaids? Maybe the Rusalkas are both. And maybe, in the end, they are neither.
Salka by Salka, they rise from the water, surrounding him in a circle, baring pointed teeth.
“Grace. Grace, help me. Get someone,” Rupert begs. “Anyone!” he shouts when I stay where I am. The Rusalkas pull a tighter ring around Rupert, wrapping their arms around each other’s shoulders, heads thrown to the skies, music slashing from their throats. A song of betrayal, of broken promises. Jilted brides, and babies torn from wombs and imprisoned girls put to work in institutions, locked away by men who were supposed to be holy, men who told those same girls that they must atone for their sins of lust. (Tell me about your impure actions, my child, they whispered in dark corners, trying not to drool with anticipation. Tell me in great detail about what you have done, and I shall grant you absolution.)
Rupert is weeping as their song turns to a searing shriek, the windows in the yacht shattering and falling in shards of glass around my feet. Blood dribbles down Rupert’s nose and his eyes start to cry tears of blood too. One of the Salkas breaks rank, Rupert’s head between her clawed hands, licking his tears away, red tarred across her mouth. Then he screams no more.
I slump to the ground, shaking, my legs too weak to hold me any longer. What would I have done if the Salkas hadn’t come to my rescue, if they hadn’t smelled a bad man’s rapacious appetite? I was so stupid to come here, to give up everything that I have ever known, ever loved, in an attempt to seduce a human man. A man I didn’t know, a man that I had seen once and decided would be the answer to all of my problems. Perhaps my father was right. I am just a stupid little mermaid.
My hands touch my throat. I will never hear my voice again. I stare at the sky. The light is turning and the moon slipping, calling her lover, the sun, to take her place. I use the rail at the side of the boat to drag myself to standing again and I begin to cry. I have no words in this world above the sea but I will spell out the alphabet with my tears.
A head in the water (Have the Salkas come back?) then another. And another, another, another. No green manes this time, but clean skulls; hair plucked as finely as the kitchen maids pluck a chicken for yet another one of Eleanor’s interminable parties. I strain to see, waiting until they swim closer and I can see features etched on those pale faces. Eyes so blue and lips so red. And then I realize who these maidens are.
“Muirgen,” one of them says, and I squint at her to figure out that it’s Talia. I had forgotten how homogeneous the mer-folk could appear. My father wants us all to look the same, act the same, think the same; and I just accepted that as natural. Why did I never understand how boring it was? And how stifling? Why did none of us realize that there could be strength in our differences as much as our similarities? “What have you done to yourself?” Talia asks when she sees me, her eyes wide in horror.
“You’ve caused so much trouble,” Arianna says. “Father is furious. He and Zale have been planning—” She looks over her shoulder as if expecting our father to be there, like all of us do. “But he’s right, of course,” she says. “The Sea King is always right. For he is wise and good. We are fortunate to be living in the time of the Sea King.”
My sisters are thinner, the bones pronounced in their faces. They’re nervous, speaking quickly and yet choosing their words with a deliberation that is unusual. I look past them, searching for the other face that I want to see before I die. “Grandmother is not here,” Sophia says, understanding instantly. “She would have felt obliged to tell Father, and there’s no telling what he might do if he heard we went to the Sea Witch.”
You went to the Sea Witch? I shake my head. I cannot believe my sisters would do such a thing.
“Our father would be right to be angry,” Cosima says. “What would he think if he knew we had left the Shadowlands looking as we do? His daughters, ugly.”
They’re not ugly, exactly, but they do look rather strange. Huge eyes in pale faces, veins skimming blue over fine boned skulls. Why have you done this to yourselves? I touch my own head, then point at theirs in question.
“Oh, Muirgen,” Sophia says. “It’s true what Ceto said. You have sacrificed your voice.” Her own quakes, as if she’s holding back tears. “How could you do such a thing?”
“Forget her voice,” Talia says, trying to peer over the side of the boat. “I want to see these human legs that you so desired.” I wave her off, humiliated at the thought of my sisters seeing my ruined feet. “I cannot understand the fascination myself, when our tails are beautiful.”
“She was in love,” Cosima says, her eyes downcast. She says it oh so quietly, as if she has come to a new understanding. That love is painful, love is someone harrowing out your chest and throwing your heart away as if it is of no value. I know, I want to tell her. I know why you did it. I know that you sent me to Ceto because you wanted me out of the way.
“Yes, she was,” Sophia says. “Love can make you foolish.”
“And what do you know of love, sister? You’re not even betrothed,” Talia says to Sophia. “Not like…” She looks at Cosima and she falters. “Not like Nia and Marlin,” Talia rushes on. “They’re perfect for one another.”
Nia’s weak smile, wobbling when Talia isn’t looking. I remember those two girls on the boat, their obvious delight in one another. I wish I had my voice. You are not unnatural, I would tell her. Love is never unnatural, no matter whom you decide to give it to.
“Oh, Muirgen,” Talia continues. “It has been such a mess these four weeks since you left us.”
“A complete disaster,” Arianna says.
“Yes,” Talia says, frowning at Arianna. “There were many rumours at the beginning. Father was furious with Grandmother, he said that she had neglected her duties, he said…” She wavers, unable to repeat the words that the Sea King chose to berate our grandmother with. Grandmother is in trouble because of me. “He had the right to be angry, of course.”
“Yes,” my sisters chorus and I cringe. Was I like this too, when I lived in the kingdom? “Praise the Sea King.”
“Father initially thought that you had been kidnapped by the Salkas,” Talia tells me. “Zale left with a band of warriors, capturing the first greenhead they could find and strapping her to the dining table in the palace with rinds of seaweed.” I can picture it, a group of men surrounding the struggling Salka.
“She was livid,” Arianna says. “But she confessed in the end, told us that you had…”
“That you had gone to the Sea Witch voluntarily,” Talia says, her forehead creasing, as if my reasons for doing so remain incomprehensible to her.
I remember the night I left, the utter despair driving me forward to the Shadowlands, any destiny preferable to the one awaiting me in the kingdom. Even death. Talia would never understand.
“And you asked her to give you two human stumps to walk upon the earth with.” Talia takes an unsteady breath. “Father was so angry,” she whispers.
“Sisters,” Nia says, one hand over her eyes as she faces the horizon. “We do not have much time left. There is perhaps fifty minutes before the sun has fully risen.”
“Muirgen,” Sophia says, and tears prick my eyes at the sound of my own name. I did not think I would hear it again before I died. “The five of us went to the Sea Witch and we begged for her help. She has granted mercy on us.” She gives a haunted smile and dread creeps over me. What did the Sea Witch do to them? “Granted mercy on you, I mean,” Sophia finishes.
“We had to give her our hair, though,” Cosima mutters.
“I don’t know why you’re the one complaining,” Talia says. “It was your idea to go to the Sea Witch in the first place. You said that she was the only one who could help us, that no one else would know how to save Muirgen.” Cosima meets my gaze shamefacedly, and I feel as if she is trying to tell me something. An explanation of sorts. An apology. An image of the two of us as small children, hand in hand, flashes in my mind; sparkling with a beautiful intensity. I look away, allowing it to shatter. Too much has happened now. There is too much to forgive and I am afraid I do not know where to begin.
“So, yes, we went to the Sea Witch,” Talia continues. “What an expedition! I don’t know how you went alone. It was very brave of you.” She looks at me with something akin to admiration, an expression I am unused to seeing on my sisters’ faces. “But Ceto wasn’t as terrifying as we thought,” she says, the rest of my sisters nodding in agreement. “It seemed like she wanted to help us, actually. We had to sacrifice our hair, of course. But she granted us this in return.” She lifts her hand out of the water, her fingers grasped tightly around the hilt of a dagger, steel glittering in the growing morning light. It is the same weapon that I saw in the Sea Witch’s cabin, the one she used to stir the magic potion with. “This is going to save you.”
How?
“You must go to this man,” Sophia tells me, as if reading my mind. “Immediately.”
And what should I do when I find him?
I am so tired.
“Muirgen. Muirgen, listen to me. When you find him…” Sophia says, demanding my attention. “Gaia, you have to…”
“You must take the blade,” Arianna says with relish. She is our father’s daughter, that one; she’s always enjoyed a story with gore. “And rip the human’s chest apart with it, using the tip of the blade to spear his beating heart. The blood that spills must drip on to those human feet of yours, and your scales will reappear, and then your tail. Like magic.”
“Like magic,” Talia repeats.
I picture myself doing as they have suggested, Oliver’s eyes opening when the blade pierces his flesh, screaming for mercy. I take a step back from them, a hand over my mouth in case I am sick.
“This is the only way, Muirgen,” Talia says.
“She will not be able to do it,” Cosima says as I stare down at them in shock.
“You must,” Sophia says urgently. “Muirgen, you must. This isn’t about you any longer. Zale is gathering the troops, placing spears in the hand of every mer-man; child and grandfather alike. You…” Something crosses her face that I cannot decipher, but which leaves me chilled. “You don’t understand what things have been like for us since you left.”
“Zale is only doing what he thinks is necessary,” Cosima says, but her usual defiance has been markedly dampened. “We are bonded now, Zale and I,” she says to me, a quiver in her voice. What will Zale do to you when he sees your bald skull? She is thin and pale, like the others, but there is a light sprinkling of bruises down her arms. Nothing too conspicuous. Nothing that would draw attention. But I see it. And I know. Oh, Cosima.
“Forty-five minutes…” Nia says, still counting the seconds in the sky.
Talia swims closer to the boat, her hand holding the blade out towards me. I cannot do this. You cannot expect me to commit such a deed.
“Muirgen,” Sophia says again when I bend over, hands pushed into my stomach as if I’m trying to prevent my body from falling apart. “Muirgen. We cannot return without you. Father has, he has…”
“Father has been very angry,” Cosima says. They stare up at me, their eyes flat. And I wonder what the Sea King has done to them. Cosima grabs the blade from Talia and reaches as high as she can. “You must do this, Gaia.”
“Forty-four minutes,” Nia says.
I take the blade. The handle is made of onyx, encrusted with ink-black jewels which resemble octopus eyes. It would be easy to tear someone apart with this, follow the route of their spine. The weight of it in my hands is shocking, somehow; the power it suggests. I like it, I am surprised to find. I want more of it.
“We are sisters,” Sophia says. “We need each other, Muirgen. We always have.”
Yes. I am ready to do what must be done.