She shut her eyes.
The words continued and she began to shake. Violently. Steam rose from the waves lapping at her petticoat.
A splash. A large splash. Male voices.
Her eyes opened and looked to the faraway surface.
Nik.
Iker had Nik in his arms.
They were yelling at each other, both full of life. Nik’s voice cut through the splashes, a single clear word rising above it all, enough to be heard.
“No!”
The girl’s stomach dropped. The words stopped. She was too late. They were all too late.
“Oh, Anna. I’m so sorry.” She began to cry, the spell dead on her tongue, her skin cooling.
She blinked and saw black. Swirls of dark viscous liquid pooled in her eyes. Startled, she shot to her feet, thick black tears dripping down her cheeks and into the water.
Not again.
The girl scrubbed at her eyes, wiping her hands on her petticoat. And when she could see clearly again, she looked at her feet. Dead minnows floated on the tide’s surface, seaweed shriveling black.
She stumbled backward, onto dry land. The magic gone from her lips, one best friend swimming for land, another lying with her tears in the sea. Tears that had killed the life at her feet.
The girl turned to face the crowd, black streaks staining the heels of her hands as she rubbed her eyes again. The magic sinking into the skin.
The collective gasp was unmistakable.
“Oh, stop, it’s just sea grit. She nearly drowned!” Tante Hansa. The old woman came toward the raven-haired girl and pulled her close. Whispered in her ear: “We must leave. Hurry, your life is more important than seeing those boys to land.”
19
“ARE YOU SURE YOU’RE ALL RIGHT?” ANNEMETTE ASKS as we leave the palace, a bundle of strawberries in our hands. We went back to change so I could put on dry clothes and Annemette less muddy ones. I suggested a snack and a walk so I could clear my head. Everything was just feeling so muddled—did I actually just agree to run away with Iker? But I can’t talk to Annemette about any of that.
“I’m fine. It wasn’t a big deal. Really.”
“I just don’t understand why these people are so horrible to you,” she says. “You’re generous and smart and beautiful and best friends with their prince!”
I sigh and pull my hands away from my eyes. “That’s exactly why. You see, I’m poor, but that’s okay because nearly everyone is. But in Havnestad, and probably everywhere else, too, the poor do not befriend the royals. They serve them. Being friendly as children was fine, but it should have ended long ago.”
“So why didn’t it?”
“Tante Hansa. She saved the king when he was a boy, cured him of some terrible illness, and then again years later after a boating accident. My family was rewarded. My father was named royal fisherman, and Nik and I were allowed to remain friends. No matter how much Queen Charlotte protested, even after my mother died in the way she did.” Annemette doesn’t push further on that topic, and I go on. “The great irony is that Tante Hansa has never approved of my friendship with Nik, either, but she knows me well enough to criticize yet never to bar. But the people, they just think I’m using Nik to act better than them, to be more than them. They hate me for it. And it’ll never change.”
We walk by a row of brick cottages, each with a small garden out front.
“Anna? Anneke?” someone calls from behind.
Annemette blinks and I twist around.
Standing there in the lane, weight on her wooden cane, is Fru Liesel—Anna’s grandmother.
A crooked finger points toward Annemette, and a smile crosses the old woman’s lips. “Anneke, come, give Oma a hug. It’s been too long.”
Annemette glances at the old woman and then to me.
“Fru Liesel, this is my friend, Annemette. She is here from Odense.”
The old woman ignores me. As she always does. “Anneke, come, give Oma a hug. It’s been too long,” she repeats.
Annemette takes a step toward Anna’s grandmother.
Just as I’ve felt so many times this week, it’s as if I’m glancing through a looking glass at another present. One where Anna is alive, well, beautiful, and singing about boys and strawberries before embracing her beloved grandmother in the street.
But for Annemette, this is not a reunion scene.
“Fru Liesel, my name is Annemette, it’s so lovely to—”
Stronger than she looks, Fru Liesel ditches the cane and hauls Annemette to her chest with the force of both knotty hands. Annemette goes along without a fight, her face buried against the old woman’s heartbeat.
“Anna, my Anneke, why haven’t you visited? Where have you been? Your father is worried sick—I’m worried sick.”
Annemette pulls herself up and places her hands gently on the old woman’s shoulders. Kindness wraps her features. “I’ve been away, Oma. I’m so sorry. How have you been?”
My throat tightens as I watch Annemette give the old woman what no one in Havnestad ever allows her—compassion.
“Oh, I’m trying to be good, but at my age, I’d rather fly with the witches.”
“A safe bet, Oma.”
Fru Liesel is still clutching onto Annemette with both hands. Annemette bends a bit and picks up the woman’s cane and holds it out for her.
“Here you are, Oma. Now, where were you off to?”
Fru Liesel grabs the cane with her right hand but stays grasping Annemette with her left, all her weight pressed into the girl’s side.
“Home, dear. I was headed home.”
Annemette catches my eye. “Let us help you, Oma.”
I walk a few steps behind as Annemette and Fru Liesel walk arm in arm down the sea lane, up to the castle and around to a row of grand manor houses on the sunny side of the ?ldenburg Castle grounds. Fru Liesel is surely guiding Annemette, the way home being one of the few things she likely hasn’t forgotten, but Annemette seems so at ease, it’s hard not to think there’s something else calling her forward.
Anna’s childhood home is three down to the right—red brick and clean lines. It was Fru Liesel’s childhood home, and she refused to leave it when the rest of her family fled to the Jutland. I watch Annemette’s face as Fru Liesel points to it, and I tamp down the little flutter inside me that hopes she will recognize it—that this girl born of the sea really is my old friend in a shiny, impossible package. But if Annemette recognizes the grand lines of the home, it doesn’t flash across her features.
“Here we are, Oma.” Annemette’s voice is clear and sweet as they maneuver the foot stones to the front door.
“Thank you, child, my Anneke.” She rests her cane against the threshold and opens the door. “Let us have some portvin and talk of your travels. I want to hear it all, especially about the young men queuing for your hand.”
Annemette laughs gently. “Yes, Oma, we shall. But can we do it later? I have plans with Evie.”
“Oh, you and Evie, always running around. Only two fish in your school. Asger’s boy always did try to join, but even a crown can be a third wheel.” She chuckles to herself.
“That’s right, Oma.” Annemette pats Fru Liesel’s arm, finally freeing herself completely from the woman’s grasp in the process. But that freedom lasts only a moment before Fru Liesel snags her hand yet again.
“But you be careful with that girl, Anneke. Bad things follow her. Black death. Minnows floating at her feet.” Annemette catches my eye, and I don’t know what to say. “That little witch will be the death of you if you’re not careful.”
20
WE ARE NOT EVEN OUT OF VIEW FROM ANNA’S HOUSE when Annemette stops me short by grabbing both my hands, tugging me to a thatch of trees just outside the queen’s tulip garden.
“The first time you saw me, you called me Anna. And Tante Hansa mentioned an Anna too. Now this woman insists I’m her grandchild. Who is this girl? How do you know her?”
“Knew her. She’s dead.”
Annemette’s gaze softens.
I swallow but hold her eyes. The tug-of-war in my heart has ended—the little voice in my head has received a chance to be heard.