CHAPTER THREE
It is still dark when I wake, a tiny pinprick of light burrowing its way into the palace, promising the coming day. It is time, the water whispers to me.
I am strangely calm as I prepare for my journey, the journey I have been waiting to take for so long now, but I cannot help but picture my mother’s fifteenth birthday. I imagine her, wild hope caught between her teeth, her bone-knowing that she was meant for more than a life of combing her hair and singing for survival. Betrothed to a man much older than her, a man who saw her as a toy, a shiny thing that he couldn’t wait to get his hands on, and yet she married him anyway, putting aside her own needs to make others happy, because that’s what maids are supposed to do. Zale makes my skin crawl, I would tell my mother if she was still here. He looks at me like he wants to destroy me. Sometimes I wish I could hate my mother, that I could resent her for leaving us behind. But all I can do is long for her.
The darkness is collapsing into a murky grey, chasing me upwards. I swim out of the open tower, looking down at the palace beneath me. Thousands of fish surround the walls, a circle of phosphorescent skins, cowering for shelter. They can smell the storm too, can sense shattered sand. Their fear today is greater than their usual trepidation about the nets the humans cast to trap them. It is difficult for me to fathom, but up there it is said that they eat fish the way the Rusalkas eat men, teeth tearing flesh, sucking juice from bones.
We mermaids are not so easily caught. We are rare, and that makes us precious. The humans that believe we exist want to capture us and exhibit our bodies, for that is the only way they can make us real for their sceptical brethren. Most humans cannot believe anything that they cannot see with their own eyes, touch with their own hands. But we are more clever than mere fish; we know how to avoid such snares.
I follow the dawning light, fighting through tangled lumps of seaweed, avoiding the fields of jagged coral that would tear my tail apart, keeping the tattered scales as ornaments. Dodging sucking currents that ache to consume bodies, throwing them back and forth, as if it is a game of catch, like the mer-children play. And then a shark grazes past me, eyes sly and mouth closed to hide its sharp teeth. I stay very still, hoping that it will pass me without incident, holding my breath until it has gone. I keep going, ignoring the niggling twinges in my arms, tired from swimming such a great distance. The light becomes easier, dappling the water in a way that I have never seen before, and I know now I must be close. Panting as I break the surface, my gills fit to burst with the extra oxygen pumping through them. Pushing snarled hair down my back so I can see this new world without impediment, I open my eyes, wincing as the unfamiliar gleam scours my eyeballs. It is too bright, the sun in the pale sky razing heat across my skin. I have never experienced such warmth. My grandmother tried to explain what this would feel like – but how could I understand this sensation? I was born in the water and I was born of the water. The cold is all I have ever known.
It’s too much – the dazzling glow of the sun, its warmth licking my skin, the screaming caw-caw of winged fish (birds, they are birds, Gaia) swooping in the heavens. There is a rock jutting out of the sea’s skin and I swim to it, shooing the seals bathing on its surface away so I can hide behind it. I duck under the water for comfort, soothing my sun-seared face. Panic is twisting my gut, thick-thick, but I cannot give up now. For what would my sisters think if I returned so early? I have been the most eager to see the human world, the one who wanted this adventure the most. Typical Muirgen, Cosima would say, I wasn’t afraid when I broke the surface, I was brave. Zale will not allow you to act like such a baby once you are bonded. As if courage is something that Zale would ever want in his bride.
I grit my teeth, wrapping my arms around the rock to hold steady. I shall stay here until the sun sets and then I will return to the kingdom, spinning pretty stories the likes of which my sisters have never heard. I shall not be shamed.
“There. Over there.” A male voice, calling out. I cannot tell where it is coming from, the sun blinding me. The voice is harsh, the air refusing to lull its tone as the water does. “I definitely saw something, I’m telling you.”
I clamp a hand over my mouth in horror. Those are human voices, and they sound close to me. Too close, Gaia, they are dangerous. Be careful. I should duck beneath the sea, return immediately to my father’s kingdom, but I do not. Perhaps I am too curious. These are the creatures my mother loved, that she risked so much to be near. And so, despite myself, I stay quiet behind my rock, my breath coming fast and shallow. The humans will see you, I try and convince myself, they will cut your tail off and stuff you; display your body above their fireplaces. They will slit your throat without a thought, just to see what colour your blood is. I should swim away as quickly as I can. But I find myself unable to move. I want to see them, I realize. They might know what happened to my mother.
“Oh, Oli,” comes another voice. A girl’s this time. “It was probably just a seal.”
“I could have sworn…” The first voice stops. There is bewilderment in his tone. Where are they? The voices are close but they cannot be swimming, not this far out to sea.
“Sworn what?” A different boy, laughing. “Did you see a monster? A mermaid?”
“What’s the difference?” the girl asks. I take a deep breath and, so cautiously, peek around the rock.
I find a large boat there, painted white, with three balconies at the back and a flat open surface to the front. Thick sticks are growing out of the panelled wood, a cream canvas on top, like a kind of flatfish. There are about a dozen humans on the boat, of different shapes and sizes, their bodies a variety of shades from the palest white to the darkest black. Most of them are lying on the beds made of the same cream material as the canvas, dozing with an indolence that seems strange, given how ferocious they are reputed to be.
“Time for another drink, mate,” the second boy says, and there is a smashing noise, glass against wood, the sun setting the shards on fire, dazzle-white.
“Geoffrey Gupta, why are you such a dolt?”
“Shut up, Viola.”
“You shut up, or I’ll tell Mum that you were drinking too much again. And call Mabel to clean up this mess. Someone will cut their feet to absolute shreds.”
Feet. Feet are what the humans call the stumps they walk upon. The humans will cut their feet on the broken glass and it would hurt them, as the coral slices our tails in the kingdom if we are not careful. These creatures are not impervious to injury, it seems.
“Shall we drop anchor here?” Viola says. “Seems as good a spot as any, doesn’t it, Oli? Oliver? Are you listening to me?”
A boy walks to the side of the boat and stares at the rock that I’m hiding behind. And I see him.
Oh.
A sharp intake of breath that seems so loud, almost a gasp really, and I realize that it is coming from my own mouth. I stare at him, this boy. He is tall, his hair and skin dark, and he is more beautiful than I have ever dreamed a boy could be. Who is he? I want to know. I need to know. I would happily spend the rest of my life finding out everything about him.
“A girl,” he says, a hand cupped over his eyes. A strange heat flashes through me, a heat that has nothing to do with the sun. “I thought I saw a girl.”