CHAPTER FIVE
“Muirgen.” Human men will bring you nothing but pain.
“Muirgen.” Human men will bring you nothing but pain.
“Muirgen! I shall not tolerate such insolence from you, girl.”
An elbow to my ribs. “What?” I hiss at Arianna, rubbing my side. She tilts her head towards our father. He is sitting at the top of the mother-of-pearl dining table, glaring at me.
“What is it, Father?” My voice is strangled, even to my ears.
“I asked you a question, Muirgen,” he says. “And when I ask a question, I expect you to answer me immediately.”
“I’m sorry, Father,” I say. He looks at me strangely, and my skin prickles with dread. Does he know what happened? Does he know what I have done? “I was distracted.” I have been distracted these past two weeks, waiting for the Salkas’ response to me saving the human boy. Each day brings a silence that is increasingly unnerving. The peace between my father and the Sea Witch is brittle, fragile; hard fought for and easily dismantled. I have put us all in danger.
“And you haven’t touched your dinner,” he continues. “Did you not enjoy it?”
“It’s perfectly fine, Father. I’m just not hungry.”
“Muirgen is never hungry at the moment, Father,” Cosima says eagerly. “She has barely eaten anything in weeks. That’s not right, is it? Not when you do so much to provide for us.”
“Perhaps a loss of appetite might not be a bad thing,” my father says, looking pointedly at her empty plate. “We don’t want any suitors put off – or preferring another sister again, do we?”
“No, Father,” she says, pressing her lips together. She won’t cry, no matter how upset she is. Not in front of him.
“Well, I think it’s disgraceful,” Arianna says, taking another spoonful of greens. “Such a waste of food; it is most ungrateful of you, Muirgen. And think of all the mer-folk in the Outerlands, practically starving to death. As if it’s not bad enough that they live in constant fear of an attack from the Salkas.” She shudders at the thought. “You have no idea how much they would appreciate this dinner.”
“Sister.” Sophia is uncharacteristically cold. “Do not talk nonsense. The Salkas will never invade the Outerlands without the Sea Witch’s blessing – they fear her powers too much – and the Sea Witch is just as invested in the armistice as we are, if not more.” I shiver. Little do any of them know how I might have already ruined that armistice beyond repair.
Grandmother places a hand over Sophia’s, reminding my sister of her place. None of us speak after that; the room is so silent that all we can hear is the lapping of water against the sea-glass window.
“No, no,” Father says. “Let the girls speak. Such lively debate is … interesting.” He taps his fingers slowly against the table, one at a time. I repress a shudder. “You speak of the ‘starving’ mer-folk in the Outerlands, Arianna. I hope you are not insinuating that there are people within my kingdom who are not adequately provided for.”
“Of course not, Father,” she says cautiously. “Those in the Outerlands are most grateful for your support.”
The Sea King seems to be waiting for her to say something else, all of us holding our breath.
“A-a-as they should be,” Sophia rushes into the silence.
“And as for you, Sophia…” He smiles, and it’s sinister, that smile; he’s relishing this. Would he smile at me like that if he found out that I had saved a human life, risking the kingdom’s peace in order to do so? Risking all of our lives? Or would it be worse? Would he cut my tail off and hang my torso on the palace walls, call me a traitor to the crown? Banish me to the Outerlands, damn me to a life of famine and misery with the other undesirables? I don’t know. The only person who ever disobeyed the Sea King was my mother, and he didn’t need to punish her. The humans did that for him.
Human men will bring you nothing but pain.
“I’m sorry, Father,” Sophia says. The rest of us stare at our plates as if to pretend that none of this is happening. We are never brave in times like this; we are all too afraid that Father will direct his attention on to us instead.
“You’re sorry?”
“Yes, Father.”
“And what exactly are you sorry for, daughter number three?”
Sophia’s eyes dart to Grandmother, as if hoping she will intervene on her behalf but our grandmother sits still, eyes down.
“I’m sorry for,” she says, and I can barely hear her. “I’m sorry for mentioning the Sea Witch at dinner.”
“Oh, I think you did more than just mention the Sea Witch, didn’t you?”
“Yes, Father.”
“I think you might have implied that she had … what was the word you used?” Sophia doesn’t reply. “Sophia,” he says, her name thickening between his lips. “What was the word you used?”
“Powers.” The word jumps out of her.
“Ah, yes. Powers. Surely you weren’t suggesting that the old hag has abilities akin to my own?”
“No, Father.” Her voice is faltering, like a shadow moon. “I’m sorry, Father.”
“No one in the kingdom has powers like the Sea King,” Cosima says, with indecent haste.
“Precisely,” my father says, passing his trident from one hand to the other. My eyes follow it back and forth, the metal glittering with the promise of destruction. “Everything I have done is to keep you girls safe. I hope you’re not becoming ungrateful, Sophia. I’m sure you remember what fate has befallen ungrateful women in this family.”
“Yes, Father,” Sophia says, gulping. “I’m sorry, Father.”
“Under my reign, the mer-people are the most prosperous they have ever been,” he says. “The rightful mer-people, that is; those allowed the privilege of life within the palace grounds. No one can deny that I have made the kingdom powerful again, can they?”
“We are blessed to be living in the time of your sovereignty, Sea King,” Grandmother Thalassa says. She picks up her knife and fork, cutting some weeds into smaller chunks. We are the only ones who use such human items, collected from the ruins of shipwrecks. My mother insisted on it, apparently, and even then, no one thought to question how she knew to use them, how she came to be familiar with their names. My mother said the utensils were glamorous and refined and my father, always keen to make his family more “special”, agreed. He did not suspect any threat in his wife’s interest in the humans then. The tradition of formal dining has never been broken, despite the Sea King’s hatred of the world above the surface. “Now eat your food, Muirgen,” Grandmother says. “You need sustenance.”
I stare at the bowl of weeds in front of me. The humans on the boat had sipped frothing bubbles from gleaming crystal, and unwrapped little powdery cakes from coloured paper. They wouldn’t eat this. They would laugh, call us animals. Maybe they would be right. My hand slips under the table and I tear at my fishtail with my nails. Maybe we are half-beast, after all.
“You most certainly will need to keep your energy up, young Muirgen.” Father winks at me. “What with Zale calling to visit you after dinner.” A lump of nausea throbs in my throat at the mention of Zale’s name, clotting deep. He turns to Nia. “Don’t worry, daughter. Marlin will accompany him. You shall not be left out.” He shovels another forkful of green into his mouth. “At least some of my daughters are betrothed, isn’t that right, Talia?”
“We are fortunate,” Nia murmurs as Talia stares at her lap. I don’t want to be like Talia, twenty-one and unloved, and yet I don’t want to marry Zale either. But what other option do I have?
“Thank you, Father,” Nia says. She returns to the window. If I have spent my life looking up, then Nia has spent hers looking out, staring into the depths of the sea. Past the Outerlands, past the Sea Witch’s realm of the Shadowlands. It is as if she thinks there might be somewhere safe for her beyond that. What are you searching for, Nia?
Of course Zale is coming tonight; it is Saturday. He has visited every Saturday evening since my twelfth birthday. I was still half-child then, half-maid; just becoming interested in mer-boys my age. Hoping to hold someone’s hand, have their lips brush chastely against mine. I thought nothing of my father and his old friend huddled in the corner, brows furrowed. I didn’t know that while I was tidying away my toys in the nursery, my body was being sold to the highest bidder.
I want to get to know you better, Zale said that birthday night, his hands on my shoulders as he leaned in to kiss my cheek. His lips lingering too long, my stomach turning over with something between shame and fear. Beautiful, he said, and I would have torn off my own face than have him look upon me with such pleasure again. But I smiled, and said, thank you. I have always been a very polite girl.
“Muirgen? Did you hear me? Zale is coming to see you.”
“Wonderful,” I reply, attempting to smile, but it is a struggle, every muscle in my body taut with anxiety. What if I have brought war back to the kingdom? Grandmother Thalassa has told us of what the last one was like, of starving children, their bones twisting out of flesh as their tails withered away. She told us of fathers and husbands and sons and brothers sent to fend off the Sea Witch and the Salkas, women who were frantic to claim the kingdom as their own. She told us too few of our mer-men returned and those that did were utterly changed; they were silent, quick to take fright, their sleep broken by sweating dreams and pleading sobs. Then my mother’s brother was taken by the Salkas, his bones sucked dry and sent back to the court as proof of purchase, and that was when my mother went to my father. Offered herself to him so that there might be no more bloodshed.
She sacrificed herself for an uneasy peace.
A peace that, two weeks ago, I put in jeopardy. My chest tightens. And for what? For a human boy who thought I was a girl because he only saw me from the waist up, a swirl of pale flesh and tangled hair?
(Human men will bring you nothing but pain.)
I wasn’t thinking of the kingdom that day, as the storm raged on. I hauled Oliver’s body to the nearest beach. It was deserted, only one small building nearby. The inlet was enclosed by a semicircle of trees with fruits of yellow and orange upon them, flavouring the air with a sharp tang. No mermaid had ever ventured on to human land before and returned alive.
And yet, I did not feel afraid. All I cared about was that I save Oliver. I laid him down on the beach, smoothing back dripping hair from his face, willing him to wake up. I sat there, watching him, waiting for him to open his eyes. Until finally, he did.
“Viola,” he groaned, trying to sit up. “Viola.”
He reached his hand out to touch my face, the face he thought was Viola’s, but I crawled away from him, dragging my tail across the coarse sand until the water took me back. Of course he would call for her, Viola, the girl with the charming laugh and dark eyes. He was in love with her. She was not a monster or a mermaid. She was just a girl.
“Muirgen,” my father says again sharply, and I jump, banging my wrist on the table. He laughs, the rest of my family joining in while I rub the stinging skin. Every time he says my name, I think that he knows, he knows, and what will he do to me?
“Eat your food,” he says. “You have been acting peculiar these days, Muirgen. Anything you want to share with the rest of us?”
“No,” I say, and my heart is pounding so loudly that I fear he must be able to hear it. “I have nothing to say, Father.”