CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
The blazing sky bounces off the flat sea, rolling it purple. It is beautiful, this world. Why did I never fully acknowledge just how beautiful it was? I was so anxious to make Oliver fall in love with me so that my “real” life could begin, I forgot to stay still and appreciate what was around me. Just for a second, I breathe in the burning air, tasting the hint of coming sunshine on my tongue. I can hear my sisters talking amongst themselves.
“Where is she?”
“There is little time left.”
“I told you that she wouldn’t be able to do it.”
“Do be quiet, Cosima.”
“Don’t tell me to be quiet, Talia.”
“Sisters, please. This is not the time nor the place for these petty arguments.”
I smile, despite myself. They never change, my sisters. Will they continue to fight in such a manner as the years pass? When Nia marries Marlin and the rest are sold off to the highest bidders? After their mer-babies are born, children I will never meet? Children that I will never bear. Maybe becoming a mother would have made up for being motherless. Maybe it would have made me happy. But, in the end, I can only wish that my sisters will be happy in my stead.
I wish for them only sons.
I close my eyes and I think of my mother. How she tried to save us, she came back for us, and was killed for her efforts. And I think of my father.
He waited for her by the rocks that are closest to the human world, slippy with seamoss and mussels, the Sea Witch told me. My mother had tried to conceal her fright when she saw him. I was just going for a swim before Gaia’s birthday, she told him.
I know what you did, he replied, and he kept saying it until she admitted the truth.
But I can change, she said, I’ve learned my lesson. My mother would have started to beg then, for mercy. For her children. It’s too late, the Sea King said as he took his trident. And he broke her spine with it.
I can hear screaming now, my sisters’ voices reaming the air apart. The shrieking obscures any semblance of intelligible sentences, it is but a jumble of words, made up of no and please and sorry and don’t hurt us. And Father. Father. Father.
The Sea King has come for us. That man does not deserve the name of Father, he who fastened strings into our hands, made us dance like marionettes. He murdered our mother and made us believe that she chose to leave us behind.
“What is the meaning of this insubordination?” the Sea King asks, and even now, the sound of his voice causes me to cast my eyes down, crouch my shoulders inwards, trying to show him that I am not a threat.
No more. I force myself to stand up straight. I will not cower before this man for a moment longer.
“We’re sorry—”
“We didn’t mean to—”
“But we just thought that maybe if—”
“Silence,” the Sea King roars from the water. “What kind of maids are you, to disobey your father in such a way? Have you no loyalty? No gratitude for all that I have done for you?”
My sisters whimper in response. Someone is weeping hysterically, Cosima, I do believe, and I hear the sound of flesh meeting flesh, a savage clap, and a cry. How dare he hurt another one of us? “I told you to be quiet,” he says. “Don’t say that I didn’t warn you.”
I creep closer, making sure that I am still hidden from sight. I sit at the edge of the boat’s hatch deck where the Captain brought me earlier, peeking around the wooden bow. My father is there, with my sisters, and he looks smaller than I remembered somehow, his tail submerged in the water, his hair more grey than I have ever seen it.
“What have you done to yourselves?” he says, rapping his knuckles against Talia’s bald head. She recoils, then that learned blankness paints her face, stripping away any fear or hurt. Making her pretty again, the way our father prefers. “Where is your hair? Is this some sort of joke?”
“We wanted to save Gaia—”
“Do not call her by that name. It is cursed,” he says. “That’s what your mother wanted to call her. And look how she ended up.”
I watch them, each face in turn, and I see reflected in them what I know to be true in myself. They try and hide it, but I can see it in their eyes. If my mother didn’t love me, they wonder, then is there something wrong with me? I am broken. My fault. My fault.
We blamed ourselves. We hated our mother. And none of it was true.
“All I’ve ever asked from you is that you look pretty,” my father says, “and you smile when asked to. Is that so hard? Is it? Why must you all be so useless?”
Leave them alone, I think, my hands curling into fists. I am spoiling for a fight.
“What was that?” the Sea King says, turning around to look at the boat. “Who said that?”
Leave. My. Sisters. Alone, I think again and the words are seeping out of me, booming, reverberating in the wood of this yacht and soaring into the morning air. It is my voice.
“Muirgen,” my father says, looking around to find me. “Muirgen, where are you?”
I do not move, my fingers at my throat. My voice has come back to me. My feet don’t hurt any more either, I realize. Has Ceto cast another spell, unbeknownst to me?
“Muirgen,” the Sea King says, and his voice drops dangerously low. “If you don’t show yourself immediately, I am going to scalp your sisters, one by one.”
A low cry, swallowed back. My sisters are afraid, exactly as he wants them to be. He only feels like a true king when we are scared of him. “You wouldn’t want that on your conscience, now would you, my sweet?” he says, the sound of the trident banging against the side of the boat, once, twice.
My father is getting impatient. He is so accustomed to us obeying him instantly; he does not know what it means to wait. “Which one is your favourite, Muirgen?” I peek again and see him grabbing Sophia by the neck, twisting her against him so he has the trident at her heart. She doesn’t whimper, like my other sisters would have, but simply stares at the sky as if praying for divine intervention. “Beg her to come out, Sophia,” the Sea King says. He is whispering into her ear, and yet somehow I can hear him perfectly, despite my distance from them and Cosima’s relentless sobbing. “Tell your baby sister exactly how afraid you are right now.”
Release her. I stride to the side of the boat, staring down at the Sea King and my sisters. I am not afraid, and my father can see that; it is as if he has a sixth instinct for our fear. This is not what he has been expecting. Release her, I said.
“Sister,” Talia says, her eyes huge. “Sister, how are you talking without moving your lips?”
“Shut up, Talia,” my father says, and Talia’s face pinches. “No wonder no man has asked for your hand yet, you never do anything but yap.”
Do not talk to my sisters like that. My voice is louder, and I find that I like the sound of it. Did you hear me, old man?
“Muirgen?” my father says, “Muirgen, how dare you tell me to—”
How dare I what? I thought I told you to shut up.
My sisters stare up at me, open-mouthed. This is not how we have been trained to behave.
Cosima. She is still wailing, her hand covering her crushed face. Cosima, it will be okay.
“Stop that nonsense,” my father turns and roars at her, ignoring me. “All you’re good for is your pretty face, do you want to ruin that too?”
We’re all worth more than that.
“Excuse me? You’re worth more than what?” the Sea King asks, his face flushed with rage.
Worth more than our pretty faces. (I remember Eleanor’s warning about beauty fading, and how she would have made her daughter strong and I knew my mother would have done the same, if she had been given the chance.) You needed us to stay quiet, and scared, didn’t you, Father? You pitted us against one another, forced us to compete with each other – and for what? Because you were afraid of what would happen if we worked together? Of how strong we could be?
“Strong?” he spits. “You? Daughters are not meant to be strong.”
Our mother wanted us to be more than your pawns, didn’t she? We meant so much to her that she was willing to sacrifice her freedom to be with us. My whole life, all I have had is my hope that maybe my mother was still alive, that maybe she was waiting for me to find her and rescue her. That hope is gone, but truth is mushrooming in its place, spreading its hands out to feel the sides of my body. I could climb on to the side of the boat, balance on the railing with my hands to the sky. Take me, gods, I would shout, for I am no longer afraid. Take me and do what you will with me.
“How dare you?” my father says, his left eye is beginning to twitch, I’m making him nervous. “And do not mention that woman in my presence again. She was a slut. She deserved her fate.”
Her fate? What fate would that be, Father?
“Oh,” he says, sneering at me. A flash of anger spikes through me. He will regret that. He will regret all of this. “Have you forgotten about what the humans did to her? The humans you love so much, the humans that you have abandoned your sisters for.” He brandishes his trident at them and they grovel. “The humans took your mother. They destroyed her.”
I laugh, a humming sound vibrating at the base of my throat until it explodes out of my mouth. It blasts against the water, charging waves like a tsunami against my father. He is left spluttering, wiping salt from his eyes, attempting to battle the water away from him with his trident. He should know at this stage that the sea always wins.
“How are you doing this?” he says. He is frightened. For the first time in my life, I have made my father frightened.
Looks like you’re not the only one with powers.
“Gaia,” Sophia asks, ashen. “Gaia, what’s—”
Don’t be afraid, sisters. I hold my hands up, so they will see that I am no threat to them. I want to protect them, to empower them. We are women. And women are warriors, after all.
“You should be afraid,” the Sea King says, but he licks his lips nervously. “Your sister has gone mad. The time with the humans has rotted her brain.” He picks up his trident. “We will retire to the kingdom, and leave her here.”
I can see Nia mouth, ten minutes, Gaia.
Why don’t we have a conversation about the humans, Father? Since you brought it up, after all. I lean forward against the railing, resting my chin on my closed fist, the very picture of nonchalance. I’m sure my sisters would love to hear all about them. One in particular. Alexander Carlisle.
“Girls.” He grabs Sophia and Cosima by the back of the neck, snarling at the others to follow him.
Not so fast. I narrow my eyes, feeling a ring of fire raze my pupils. My father jerks his hands away, steam rising from the palms in smoke rings. He douses them in the water, screeching with pain, and I cackle wildly. I sound like a witch, I realize.
“Who are you?” he says, staring at his singed hands.
I am Gaia, daughter of Muireann of the Green Sea. My voice is strong, and so loud. The louder I speak, the more unnerved Father becomes. Was that what he feared, all this time? That his daughters would raise their voices and refuse to be silenced? And I’m asking you to tell us what happened to our mother.
“Your mother was infatuated with the human world,” he recites the story that we all know so well. “She swam too close to the surface and she was caught. The humans took her and while I wanted to save her, I didn’t want to endanger—”
No. I am howling, voice cracking and splintering, the sky dimming even though the sun is climbing. I am making the darkness rain. I have the power. No. Tell us the truth.
“Muirgen,” he says. “Gaia, please.”
She was beautiful, wasn’t she? Muireann of the Green Sea. Beautiful but restless. Hungering for something more, something that she could not even name.
“She was unruly,” he says. “You have to understand that. She wouldn’t follow the rules. She was different to the rest of us.”
And what is wrong with being unruly? I look directly at Nia as I say this. Her eyes shine with unshed tears, and I know she understands what I am trying to tell her. What’s wrong with being different?
“I did it for her own good,” my father says. “For your own good. You needed a better example from your mother, you needed a role model who was pure. I did this for you. I did this for all of you.”
Shut up. I breathe out and a wind flares, blasting his beloved trident out of his hand. He tries to grasp at it, but I focus again, imagining a rope wrapping around his wrists. See how he likes being tied down. He cannot move. I will not allow him.
You killed our mother. The words split the sky apart, moulding into black clouds. No one says anything; my sisters are silent. Their faces are grey as if, on some level, they too knew this was the truth all along.
“Mama,” Talia says again and again, like a small child. “Mama.”
Ceto told me the truth. My eyes boring into his, and I am not afraid. You killed our mother.
“I didn’t—” the Sea King starts, but he can barely be heard over Talia’s weeping. “I wanted to protect you.” He looks at each of my sisters in turn, seeking support, before turning to Cosima. “My darling girl, you don’t believe this, do you?” She is uncertain, her eyes darting between me and our father. She doesn’t know what to believe.
You killed our mother, I say again.
And this time, my sisters swim away from the Sea King, leaving him alone. That was his greatest fear, of course. For who would the king be if he had no one to dominate? How could he stand tall if he did not have his daughters to look down on?
“No.” He tries to go towards them. I will him to stay still, whispering incantations in my mind. I don’t know how I know these spells; it is as if the words are carved within my soul. They had been there all along, waiting for me to find them.
The Sea King sinks, as if in quicksand. “Help me,” he splutters, spitting out water, and yet none of my sisters move. I imagine his gills closing, taped shut. He will know what it feels like to have your last breath robbed from him, just as my mother did. “No,” he says, gasping. “Muirgen. Muirgen, please don’t do this.”
Don’t call me that. My. Name. Is. GAIA.
A forked tongue of lighting, a serpent licking the sky. You will call me by my name, old man. You will do as I tell you to do, for once. The light plunges dark, the sun painted over. I will bend this world as I please, in ways you could only dream of.
“Zale will come,” the Sea King shouts, wrestling to keep his head above water. “No matter what you do to me, Zale will bring an army and fight this war. He will destroy you all.”
I know Zale will come. My mouth waters at the thought of it, of what I will do to him. What I will do to them all. And I will take care of him, Father; isn’t that what you always told me to do? Don’t you worry about Zale.
“You cannot do this.” He is crying now – my father, who told us that tears were a sign of weakness and should be avoided at all costs. “You are just girls.”
We might be girls, I say, lifting my hand so that he can see the Sea Witch’s blade. His head is bobbing up and down, his mouth forming the word “no” when he drops under the water, like a steel anchor has been tied around his tail. I swish the blade sideways and twist it, imagining a thick needle hovering above the Sea King’s face, cutting into his flesh and sewing his lips shut with black thread. Perhaps it is time for my father to experience what it is like to be silenced.
But us “girls” don’t have to do what you tell us any more.
My father falls down, down, down. His body will sink to the kingdom, like all the human men before him, eyes still open as if searching for something. He will search for eternity.
Sisters, I say. They are huddled together, pale with shock. I want you to remember always how powerful you are. Never allow anyone to take that away from you, or try and make you feel small. The kingdom needs you to be brave now. I look at Nia again, and I think of what Ceto told me. The kingdom needs you to be your true selves. And my sister smiles at me. Living true is the most important thing any woman can do.
“Why are you talking like this?” Sophia asks. “There is still time for you to use the blade as the Sea Witch instructed. Why do you sound as if you are saying goodbye?”
Because I am.
I slice the blade through the air, lifting the blanket of night and calling the day in. The sun continues to rise. It is always there, the sun, even when we cannot see it.
“Gaia!” I hear my sisters screaming as I raise the knife, asking the sky to bless it, to sanctify it for this unholy task. “Gaia, no! Please don’t do this.”
(Who are you? Ceto’s voice in my head. And more importantly, who will you be?)
I have a real choice, for the first time in my life. I can be whatever I want to be.
I will be a warrior, I decide, driving the knife through the air and aiming true at my heart, the searing pain muffling my sisters’ cries. (I love you, sisters. I love you all.) I will grow my nails to claws and shave my teeth to blades. I will flay the skin from the bones of men like my father. I will tear them apart and I will eat them raw. Oh, I will set them on fire and devour their ashes whole.
I will be Rusalka. I will have my vengeance.
Mother. Mother, can you hear me?