CHAPTER SEVEN
Time passes, as it always does in the kingdom. The winter festival comes and goes. The court room is adorned with silver and gold in its honour, and goblets are held in the air to toast the Sea King. “Thank you for your graciousness,” the mer-folk say. “Thank you, Sea King, oh, blessed Sea King.” The chorus maids sing songs celebrating the ice, thanking the winter gods for another year of peace.
Peace. Yet I do not feel relief. I don’t feel very much at all. I have become resigned to my fate: I will never know true love. This is as good as it gets for maids like me, maids who should be content with beauty, wealth, status. Perhaps it is greedy for me to want to be happy too. But I am hungry, so hungry, for something more. My desire is carving a hole in my stomach, leaving me hollow.
“Sing,” my father says to me as the festival celebrations become wilder, his eyes blurring from the drink. “Sing, my darling.” (That’s what Oliver called Viola, my darling.) Thinking of that night, I sing a song of my heart; something strange, full of longing. I sing a song for him. When I am finished, the crowd is quiet, some wiping tears from their eyes. “That was fine,” my father says. “Though a tad melancholic for my tastes. Remember, Muirgen, the winter festival is supposed to be a celebration.”
I am still my father’s favourite; Zale kept his promise and has not told him of my misdeed. And I uphold my side of our bargain as well. He continues to visit, late at night when everyone else sleeps. I envy them that. They still possess an innocence that I will never know again. He does not take my purity – he knows that would be a step too far without my father’s blessing. But he is rough with me. He pulls my hair, his fingers forceful on my skin, leaving discoloured marks that I struggle to explain to my grandmother and sisters in the days following. “You’re hurting me,” I tell him, and he only laughs. “Better get used to it, little one,” he replies.
Spring breaks slowly that year, spilling light through the water. The eggs hatch, the next generation of mer-babies unfurling themselves in a new world. There are more girls born this year than ever before. I want to tell them to be careful. I want to tell them to swim away at first light. I want to hold a pillow over their mewling faces and bury their last breath inside their mouths. They would be safe then, safe from men who watch them all the time. Men who come to your bedroom every night, demanding you pay the toll for their silence.
When Zale leaves, I curl up in a ball, nursing my disgust like I am feeding an infant at my breast. Summer will be here soon, I think. Summer means my sixteenth birthday. It means a bonding ceremony with Zale. This summer will also bring the anniversary of the shipwreck, of the boy in my arms on that beach. Watching as he was re-born and the humans took him, helping him to his feet, helping him walk away from me. He didn’t look back. I’ve stopped going to the surface to try and find him. I spend my days lying in bed, weary, staring at the water-softened sky, jolting at every unfamiliar sound for fear that it is Zale.
He continues to visit in an official capacity, smiling when I float into the reception as if he hasn’t seen me every night. Cosima rushes to his side as soon as he arrives at the palace with a: “How are you, Zale?” and: “You look so well, doesn’t he look well, sisters?” and: “Are you comfortable, Zale, I can get you another cushion if you so desire?” She fusses incessantly, until Father sends her to her room, complaining of an ear-ache.
“Why can’t you be more like your sister?” he asks Cosima. “Muirgen is always quiet. It’s much more attractive for a maid to be quiet.”
I am quiet because I have nothing to say. Every Saturday, Nia and I sit in the palace’s reception room with Zale and Marlin while Grandmother hovers in the corner, keeping a close eye on us to ensure we don’t behave inappropriately. Where are you at night-time? I want to ask her. Why don’t you protect me then?
“You do seem rather quiet,” Zale says to me, after he told me a joke and his punchline landed into silence. “I’m sorry,” I say automatically. I can’t afford to anger Zale, not now. “I found it hard to understand. Can you explain it to me? You’re so intelligent, Zale.” I see Grandmother’s head jerk up as if in surprise at my response, but then she nods. It is easier for girls to be agreeable, she has always said. Don’t you want an easy life, my child?
“Muirgen.”
I am counting the fish as they swim past my tower. One fish, two fish, three fish more.
“Mama used to say that counting fish helps you fall asleep,” Talia told me when I was little. “Look out the window and tell me how many you can see, Muirgen.” I would fall asleep soon after, dreaming of fish and a woman with hair as red as mine. Talia was seven when our mother left, and she can remember. Those memories might be patched together with half-forgotten bedtime stories and kisses on foreheads and whispered I love yous, but it is more than the rest of us have. And we resent Talia for that.
“Muirgen,” my grandmother says again.
Gaia. My mother called me Gaia.
“Muirgen, I know that you are awake.” Grandmother swims closer to the bed, sitting by my side. “Muirgen, look at me,” she says, and there is an urgency in her voice that makes me roll over and face her. “My child, you must not worry. You must not worry about the Salkas.”
“What…” I need to find words. Safe words. Words that will not get me in trouble. “But why would I be worried about the Salkas, Grandmother Thalassa?”
She is unadorned at this time of night, the hair hanging freely around her face is the same silver-grey as her tail. There are tiny gaping wounds in her tail from the pearls, the flesh taking longer to heal these days.
“I know what you did, my Muirgen. And I need to tell you that there will be no retribution from the Salkas for your actions. I have spoken with Ceto and all is well.”
I push myself to sitting on the bed. “What? You spoke with the Sea Witch?” She nods and I carry on, bewildered. “After what her Salkas did to Uncle Manannán?”
“Don’t.” My grandmother raises her hand, as if she wants to push the words back down my throat. “Do not say his name.” Her voice cracks. “Do not speak of things you do not comprehend, Muirgen.”
“I’m sorry, Grandmother,” I say. “But how did you find out what I did? What did the Sea Witch tell you?”
“So many questions,” my grandmother sighs. “All that matters is that you are safe.”
“She will not attack us? She hates the Sea King so…”
“Oh, your father and Ceto have fought since they were children,” she says, suppressing a small smile. “They are two sides of the one coin. They need each other, as much as they are both loathe to admit that.”
“Need each other? Father and the Sea Witch are mortal enemies.”
“There are many things that you do not understand about the ways of the kingdom, my child. About its history,” she says. Then tell me, Grandmother. Tell me that which I do not understand. Let me learn. “All you need to know is that your father will never hear of this,” she continues. “Surely that is the most important thing?”
Hope flares in me briefly – I am safe – and then dies down just as swiftly. This does not change much. Zale will still visit, and I am still not allowed to say no. I hate him, and I hate myself more. And my bones still ache and I will never see Oliver again, and what does it matter? For he woke with her name on his lips. Viola.
“This is good news,” I say. “I am grateful, Grandmother Thalassa.”
“There is more, is there not?” she asks. “Muirgen? I know there is more that you want to tell me.”
I pause, unsure if I can trust her but I need to talk to someone, anyone and then—
“I love him,” I say, the words shredding my throat in their desperation to be heard. My grandmother is silent for a moment, but her expression is not unkind.
“Love him? This human man?” she asks. I nod. “After everything they have taken from us?” She runs her hands through her hair, silver strands like rings on her thin fingers. “You cannot tell a soul of this, Muirgen. Whatever you think you ‘feel’. Do you understand?” I catch the edge of panic in her voice. “Your father will… I can’t lose you too. I just can’t.”
“But maybe my mother isn’t lost.” I watch my grandmother close her eyes as if in pain but I press on, regardless. “We never had a body to bury. Maybe if I go to the surface, I can find out what happened, finally discover the truth of it all. What if she’s still up there, waiting for us to find her?”
“Stop it, Muirgen.” Grandmother’s voice is ragged. “Your mother swam too close to the shore. She was impetuous and headstrong. She was taken by the humans and she died in captivity. That is the end of it.”
“But it doesn’t make sense. Father said that she chose to go, that she left us of her own free will – but he also said that she was captured. Which is it? And you always said that mermaids are too wily for the humans’ nets, so how did they take my mother if—”
“Muirgen. I said enough. The Sea King told us what happened. His word is law.”
I cannot deny the truth of that. None of us can. “Was he upset when she was taken?” I ask instead.
“What?”
“The Sea King. Was he upset when my mother was taken?”
She hesitates, but only for a second. “Of course he was upset. He was outraged. As he should be, he had lost his wife, the mother of his children. He was…” She breaks off, swallowing hard. “I don’t want to talk about this any more. It was a difficult time for us all. I still don’t know why your mother did what she did. I thought I had raised her better than that.”
“I don’t think she loved my father,” I say. “It must be very hard to be bonded to someone who you don’t love.”
“Oh, Muirgen.” She softens. “I’m sorry. Zale isn’t a bad man, I’m sure of it.”
You are wrong there, Grandmother.
“He’s so old,” I say. “The bonding age is twenty. Can’t I have a few more years, at least?”
“Your father was sixty-three when he was bonded to your mother, and she was only sixteen. Exceptions are made, from time to time.”
And I will be sixteen too. Soon. So very soon. “But I want—”
“I’ve told you before, wanting has never brought anyone in this family any luck,” she says. “A woman wanting more than what she can have only results in pain and loss and small children crying for someone who will never return. Wanting has brought—” She stops herself. “Muirgen,” she says, more calmly. “All you need to know is that the humans are different to us. They don’t even believe that we exist, not really. They tell stories about mermaids, stories they believe to be myths, legends. They are fascinated by us, and terrified by us as well. Do not underestimate that fear, and what they might do with it. Some men are very afraid of women, my child. And those men long for us the most, and are the most dangerous when they do not get what they want.”
“But why would they be afraid of us? We have no powers.”
“Of course we don’t,” she says, looking away from me. “But the humans do not understand that. They fear that their men will be overcome with madness and dive into the depths of the water to make a bride of one of us, finding only death instead. And then they blame us, as men have always blamed women, for prompting their lust, for fuelling their insatiable greed for something they cannot have.”
“But…” I know that I am about to say the unsayable. “Why can’t they have us? If that is something a mermaid wants in return. What is to prevent it then?”
My grandmother skims her fingers across my tail. “Have you forgotten something?” she says. “The humans find our tails disgusting.” I stare at the dark green scales flecked with silver, catching the moonlight and making it seem as if I am aglow.
I can believe that. I can believe it easily.
A mermaid or a monster? What is the difference?
“Yes,” she continues, mistaking my silence for shock. “They prefer their own legs, those clumsy stumps that allow them to walk upright. It is most puzzling.”
“But could they…”
“Could they what, child?”
“Could a human learn to love someone with a fish’s tail, do you think?” I hold my breath.
“No,” she says, not ungently, and I feel something split inside my chest. “A man would need a woman with legs. For all our beauty, to the humans we are freaks, curios.” She rubs her eyes and I can see how weary she has become.
“If only…” I whisper. “If only I could find a way to…”
“Find a way to what?”
“A way…” Grandmother leans in to hear me properly. “Find a way to grow human legs. Father has powers – perhaps he could…”
She rears back. “Have you gone mad, child? The Sea King despises the humans, especially after what happened to your mother. He would rather see you dead than what you’re suggesting.”
She is right. My father would rather bury me in the shifting sands than see me happy with a human above the surface, and a part of me always knew that. I must obey his rules, be a good girl and live the life that he has chosen for me. I will wait here in the kingdom until the end comes and my soul is scattered on the waves for the fish to feed on.
“You are of the sea, child,” my grandmother says. “This is where you belong.”
But I do not want to belong here.
“I will leave you now,” she says. “Muirgen, you are young, beautiful. You have the purest voice that has ever been heard in this kingdom, a gift that could make hardened sea-warriors shed precious tears. You have your sisters. You are betrothed to the most respected man in the kingdom after the Sea King. You are blessed, child.”
“I can’t, Grandmother,” I am gasping now, the words breaking apart. I can’t seem to control them. “I can’t be bonded to Zale. I would rather die.”
“There’s no need to be so dramatic.”
“I’m not being dramatic,” I say, stung by the accusation. “It’s not true love with Zale.”
“True love? My dear, those were nymph-tales. That’s not real life.”
But it could be. Oliver has proven that to me. He represents the possibility of love, of something more than a life under the sea has to offer me. “Grandmother,” I say, “Zale frightens me. And sometimes,” I gather my courage, “sometimes, he comes to my room at night and—”
“Stop it,” my grandmother says. “That is not true. Zale is a well-respected member of the kingdom, I do not believe that of him.”
And I know then. I know it is over. My grandmother had been my last hope.
There is a clanging noise outside, metal hitting the pearl steps, and both of us shrink back.
“What was that?” I say as Grandmother swims to my bedroom door to check. “Is someone there?”
“There’s no one there,” she says, peering into the dark. “It must have been a fish.”
“That sound was too heavy to be a fish.”
“There’s no one there,” she says again. “We are tired, and it is the darkest hour of night. It was nothing.” Our eyes meet, uncertain.
“Goodnight, Grandmother,” I say.
“Goodnight, Muirgen,” she replies, and she doesn’t return to my bedside to kiss me on the forehead or tuck me in, to tell me she loves me and to pray to the sea gods to protect me while I sleep, like she normally does.
I lie there, imagining the phantom legs that I know must be trapped inside of me. I picture them, stretching, pushing, ripping my tail apart. Craving the earth beneath them, solid.
There have been rumours, before, of mermaids who decided that two hundred years was too long a time to spend in the kingdom. Maids who have wrapped seaweed tightly around throats and scraped sharpened seashells across wrists, praying to the sea gods to melt their bones to foam when their pain became too much for them to carry. Defective, the whispers in nursery went. Broken. More like Rusalka than maid, and it was always mermaids who chose this fate. No man would ever feel so utterly without hope.
I am desperate now, more desperate than I ever thought possible. But I still have hope. There must be a way to escape this. There must be.