“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.”
CHAPTER SIX
Eat, they tell me. You look so thin, Muirgen. You look so pale. What’s wrong, Muirgen? Tell us what’s wrong.
I smile and say that I am fine. I sit at the dining table and I pretend to eat my food. (And all I can think about is him, his tight curls and those dark eyes. How he made me feel, my insides turning soft. I need to feel like that again.) But then I remember my father, and the Salkas, and the Sea Witch’s attack which must be imminent. What are they planning? Fear grips me so tightly that I can barely breathe.
It is difficult, feeling as I do, when you are a part of my father’s court, meeting his demands that his daughters be charming at all times. Entertain me, he says. (Earn your keep, he means. Prove to me that you are not like your mother.) We must tell stories or jokes, we must dance in swirling loops, we must raise our voices to the gods and hope that we have pleased him.
I do all those things. And underneath it all, I pray. I pray that the Salkas will not attack.
“Very go
od, Cosima,” my father says, after she sings a song which she has composed herself.
“I am pleased you enjoyed it, Father,” she replies, her cheeks pink.
“But your youngest sister’s voice is still the sweetest,” Father says. “Do try and listen the next time Muirgen sings. You might learn something.”
He insists that I sing then, and I do as instructed, of course. But I have lost all joy in it. Singing was the one thing that made me feel content, and even that has been tainted; as if fear has scratched its nails across my vocal cords, leaving them bleeding and raw.
Zale and Marlin continue to visit, Marlin sitting by Nia silently, while Zale regales us with stories of his youth. “Such a long time ago,” he says to me after a particularly dramatic account of a battle with the Salkas during the war, “years before you were even born, little one.” His lips against my cheek, too close to my mouth. It is as if he wants to peel my skin away from my body and taste it on his tongue. Patience, Gaia, I tell myself. The nausea might subside once we are bonded. I might learn to like him, in time.
“It’s getting late,” the Sea King said one night, when he arrived to tell the men it was time for them to go home. Zale stopped mid-story, instinctively knowing that such boasting would not be appreciated by my father. Our betrotheds left, and my father gave Nia and I a long look. Does he know? Does he know what I have done? “You’re very quiet tonight,” was all he said.
Nia and I are always quiet when the men leave. “I hope you both know how fortunate you are,” my father said. “Particularly you, Muirgen. Zale could have had whichever of my daughters he wanted.”
“Thank you, Father,” I replied, wishing that Zale had chosen someone else, anyone else. Why did it have to be me? “Thank you for bestowing this gift upon me.”
I cannot stop thinking about Oliver. When I wake up, the first thing I see in my mind’s eye is his face. I wonder if he is safe. I remember the Salka, her claws spiked and her mouth screeching, and I imagine the horrors the Sea Witch is dreaming up to exact her revenge upon us. I cannot sleep for worry, circling my room, around and around.
Human men will bring you nothing but pain, the Salka told me. Does she know what they did to my mother? My mother, who was taken when I was so very young. My mother, who is dead.
My mother is dead.
Isn’t she?
Another long night of half-dreams and worry. I press my hands into my eyes, blinking back tears. Water is our life force, it runs through our veins, turning our insides to blessed salt. It should not be wasted by crying.
“In bed already?” I start, but it is only Grandmother speaking.
“You’re very jumpy at the moment, Muirgen,” she says, floating by my bed. Her grey hair is tied in a knot at the base of her neck, a necklace of seashells hanging between her breasts. How long has she been there?
“I’m fine, Grandmother.”
“Your sisters are going swimming tomorrow. Just as far as the pools, I believe, so it shouldn’t be too taxing,” she says. “I thought you might like to join them.”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
“I said no, didn’t I?”
“That’s a shame. You used to love going swimming before.”
Our swimming expeditions were the only time I ever felt free. My sisters and I, mer-children then, our hands gripped on to a dolphin’s fin, screaming at the speed at which we were towed through the water. The joy of it, the exhilaration. Back then, Cosima and I were best friends. A team. Just us against the world. Cosima had been promised to Zale since birth, and she talked often of the wedding, what she would wear in her hair, how adorable their mer-babies would be. That was before I turned beautiful, before I became something that Zale wanted to possess. That was before I lost her too. It seems that I am forever destined to lose the people I love.
“I’m too tired, Grandmother.”
“You’re always tired these days,” she says as she strokes my hair. I close my eyes and pretend that it is Oliver’s hand on my hair, his voice whispering to me. I pretend that I am just a girl, not a mermaid or a monster. “Can’t you sleep, Muirgen?”
I sleep a little but I do not rest. How can I? I am holding my breath until I hear the Salkas’ battle cry, the clash of metal as blades are sharpened in anticipation of tender throats to be slit. My dreams fracturing into splinters every night, breaking me apart from the inside out. I dream of brown eyes and skin, of long legs, and a perfume made of a flower that I cannot name.
I dream of my mother, chains looping her tail, binding her wrists together. Roll up, roll up, see the mermaid! See the freak! Genuine article, or your money back guaranteed! In some dreams, all I see is my mother’s heart, torn from her chest and placed under a magnifying glass for inspection, still beating. In others, she is contained in a large tank, trapped, begging for someone to rescue her. I’m coming, Mother, I say but I make no sound. Wait for me.
And I dream of walking on two legs, walking towards Oliver, my steps sure. You are beautiful, he says, and he is not looking at my face, but at the legs that have grown from my body. You are so beautiful. I awake gasping, fumbling down my body to see if it’s true, if I am free, but no. All I feel beneath my fingertips is scales of oil, not human flesh. Then I remember what I have done in order to save the boy. I lie in bed for hours, awaiting my destiny.
“Shall I call the healer?” Grandmother asks now. “She will brew a tonic for you.”
“I’m fine.” The healer is said to have mind-reading abilities, and I am afraid of what she might see in me, in the murky depths of my subconscious. We are not allowed to describe her skills as “powers”, not when the Sea King is in hearing distance. He despises the healer, but he must tolerate her. His need for her services is too great to banish her to the Outerlands with the rest of the misfits.
“I don’t think you are fine, actually,” Grandmother says. “Please talk to me.”
What can I say? I cannot tell her about Oliver, about what I have done. I turn over on the bed, a wasteland of loneliness spreading infinite in my chest, hoping my grandmother will get the hint and go. A girl, he said. I thought I saw a girl. And even though we are in the depths of the kingdom, the same heat ripples through me, starting at the base of my stomach and radiating out through my arms and tail. I have never felt anything like this before. I don’t understand what it is.
I look out of the tower when Grandmother has left my room. The water is still tonight, so clear that a counterfeit moon is hovering near the surface. When I was a child, I would have thought it remarkable. I would have assumed that this weak reflection was all the world had to offer. But I know the truth now. I have seen how much more there is to experience than what I have been told to be satisfied with.
I cannot resist climbing out of the tower again tonight, aiming for the true moon. I should not be doing this. I rise and I rise until I reach the same place that I go every day. An inlet. Yellow flesh-flowers on the trees, cutting sharp. A white building, a steeple, a bell calling time. But no Oliver. I try to come at different times of the day and occasionally at night, hoping to catch a glimpse of him. I see other humans but never him; it is never him. I keep my distance as I watch them, attempting to learn them by heart. The girls that pour out of that building once the bell rings, they argue and laugh and sulk; they whisper secrets to one another, promising to never tell, cross my heart and hope to die. They sigh over how pretty one another is, proclaiming themselves ugly in comparison. I am struck by the similarities between them and my sisters, the same games that we play, despite everything we have been told about the humans and how barbaric they are. It is cold up here tonight, the air tight with frost. Winter is near, the water whispers to me, the stars forming constellations of ice on the horizon. I hear no voices and see no one, but I wait until the last light has been turned off in the white building (Is he inside there still? Those full lips and laughing eyes, a man more perfect looking than I ever thought possible? Is he calling out her na
me in his sleep? Viola, Viola.) before I force myself to dive back to the kingdom.
Every time I return, I am struck by how small our world is. How insignificant it seems, and by extension, how insignificant we are. I bite my lip at what my father would do if he heard such traitorous thoughts. I bite so hard that I taste tin-blood.
In my bedroom, I run my hand across the statue, pretending that it’s Oliver and that he has reached my tower; that he has somehow found a way to breathe in water, his ears morphing into gills. I imagine the two of us, and a life on-the-swim, always trying to stay out of tails-length of my father, but happy because we have each other, and that’s all we need. I sit in front of my mirror, folding my hair under until it resembles her neat bob, imagining my skin as brown as hers. Viola.
“It doesn’t suit you like that.”
I start, allowing my hair to fall around my shoulders. And then I see him, in the shadows by my door, his eyes hungry. He always seems to be watching me, ever since I was a small child.
“How long have you been there?” I ask.
“I’ve been waiting for you. Where have you been?”
“Zale, you shouldn’t be in my bedroom,” I say, my mouth dry. “The Sea King would be furious if he knew you were here.”
“The Sea King approves of me, little one. We have been the closest of friends for decades now,” Zale says, moving behind me and resting his hands on my shoulders, forcing me towards the mirror again. I look so young next to him, as if posing for a portrait with my grandfather. “And we are betrothed, are we not?”
“We are betrothed, Zale, but we are not yet bonded.” I do not want him touching me. Ever since he decided that it was the sixth daughter of the Sea King he wanted rather than the fifth, I have felt his fingers on my skin. Just a light touch to the waist or the cheek, trailing across the small of my back. Nothing that he could be reprimanded for. Just enough to remind me who I belong to.
“We shall be bonded on your sixteenth birthday,” he says, and I look away. I do not want him to see my fear. “So soon, little one.” It is tradition in the kingdom that maids are not to be bonded before their twentieth birthday, but it seems that rules can always be broken by powerful men. They created the laws, after all, and they uphold them, therefore they can shape them to their own desires.