“She’s the person I think you were before you were a mermaid.”
She pitches a brow. “What do you mean before I was a mermaid? Like my soul? What is it that they believe in the spice lands . . . reincarnation?”
“No, not reincarnation—the person you were before, the person you were made from.”
“I was only made of my mother and father,” she says with certainty. “There’s no other way to make a mermaid.”
“But what if there is?” I flip our grip, and I’m now grasping her wrists. “I know it’s crazy, but my best friend, Anna Liesel Kamp, drowned four years ago. She resembled every inch of you but younger—blond hair, deep-blue eyes, freckles across the bridge of her nose. Beyond looks, she loved to sing. She was spirited, she was—”
“Evie, how many blondes have we seen here these past few days? A hundred? A thousand? I’m sure that Malvina has three blond sisters of her own. There are more blondes in Havnestad than under the entire sea. How many girls have blue eyes? Like to sing? Give cheeky answers?”
“I know, but—”
“That’s not evidence, it’s coincidence.” Annemette shakes out of my grasp and points in the direction of the hordes on the beach. “All these people must remember Anna, but except for that ancient woman, your old tante, and you, not a one has mistaken me for her this entire time.”
“Because they think you’re dead!”
Annemette throws down her arms, clenching her fists. Frustration has gotten the best of me, too, and I feel as if I have no measure for how loud my words are. I don’t know if I screamed them or whispered them. All I know is that Annemette’s face has shifted from annoyed to concerned. I open my mouth to say that Nik and Iker see the resemblance too, but she’s already speaking.
“You think I’m her—you have this whole time . . .”
“In the beginning yes, and then, no. It was you I became friends with, Annemette, but has a part of me hoped—believed—you were always Anna? Of course!”
The second the words are out, I realize how strongly that belief has been driving me. I haven’t just been imagining what an alternate future would have been like with Anna; I really believed it was happening. And is happening now.
I lower my voice and turn my back to the tulip garden. “Anna drowned. Her body was never recovered. And then, suddenly, you pop out of the same water, the spitting image of her. What am I supposed to think?”
Annemette’s face is completely buttoned up. Her lips are screwed shut, her eyes closed; a wall of hair shields her ears. I realize she’s preparing to answer me, but I can’t take the silence.
“How well do you remember your childhood?” I ask. “Do you remember it at all? What were you doing five years ago? Ten? Who is your oldest friend?”
Finally, when she opens her eyes, there is anger there, though her tone is subdued and her words completely ignore my questions.
“I am sorry for your loss, Evie, but I am not your friend. I am not her. I am Annemette.” She lowers her voice here, her voice cracking with pain. “Besides, your dream isn’t possible for almost the very reason why I’m here.”
“What do you mean?”
She’s now in my face, the set of her jaw is angry, her nose at a subtle flare. “Mermaids don’t have souls, Evie, not like you humans. I couldn’t be created from someone who did. Your friend Anna is in a better place, not in this body that will become nothing but sea foam.”
Her crushing words hit me one by one, diminishing nearly all my hope. Then one of Tante Hansa’s sayings floats across my mind: The only thing magic cannot do is know its bounds. Anything is possible. I open my mouth to say more, to argue this one more point, but Annemette puts up her hand.
“Stop, Evie. Just stop. You’re only hurting yourself.”
I look at her closely. Is she really Anna? And then I hear her words echo from a moment before: Your dream isn’t possible for almost the very reason why I’m here. My blood begins to rise.
“Why are you here?” I ask, my eyes squinting at her every inch.
“What do you mean? I love Nik,” she says.
“No,” I shake my head. “You’re here for a soul. Aren’t you? Any soul will do. So is this your plan, you get Nik to love you, kiss you, and then you steal his soul? Is this all some kind of dark, sick game?” My heart is beating so loudly I can barely hear myself speak.
Her eyes go soft. “No, Evie. You’ve got it all wrong. I love Nik. And yes, if he loves me and kisses me, I get a part of his soul. I get to live on as human, and then when I die, more. But Nik’s generosity is no different from you giving a piece of yourself to him and to all the people you meet and treat with kindness, making them better. I don’t have that to give, but I don’t think wanting it is a crime, either.”
My heart rate slows, but I’m breathing like I’ve completed the rock carry. How could I have said what I just said? It was horrible. Annemette grabs my hands and pulls me into an embrace, the smell of the sea on her hair, calming me down. I look up when I hear boots clicking on the cobblestones. Iker and Nik are walking down the path. I pull away from Annemette, and I’m sure my face looks like hers, cheeks flushed and eyes red.
“Smile,” I say, wiping my eyes. “Our princes await.”
Annemette clasps my shoulder, a smile already blooming on her lips. “Thank you, Evie.”
With that she turns and runs past me and into Nik’s arms, squeezing him close and taking a pink tulip from his hand when it’s presented. He’s changed too, his mud-splattered boots and sweat-worn clothes switched out for a nearly identical, crisp, clean edition.
“When you weren’t where we’d left you, we’d thought you’d run off with some other sailors.”
Iker winks. “Well, he thought that. I knew you’d find none better.”
He hands me a red tulip, and I immediately sink into him. Impossibly, this new shirt smells of salt and limes and the sea despite being freshly clean and scratchy with starch.
Nik glances up the path to the court homes, Anna’s house prominently standing at the end. His eyes settle on the sharp red brick, and then move to me.
“That was our friend’s house, once,” Nik says, his chin nodding in its direction. “Has Evie told you about Anna?”
Annemette nods. “We met her lovely grandmother just now. Poor thing thought I was her.”
His thumb grazes her cheek in a delicate arc. “I must admit that you do resemble our old friend, but considering Fru Liesel has accused everyone—including me—of being Anna in the years since, I’d tell you not to worry about what she thinks.”
Nik and I allow ourselves a small laugh with the others despite how hard it is still to speak of Anna. And while my body is drained from arguing with Annemette, I can’t let go of the hope that somewhere inside of her is that old friend. I can feel it in my bones. In my heart. I’m right about this.
I’m right about her.
Tomorrow cannot be her last day, and if Nik can’t or won’t help me achieve what she needs, I will find a way do it myself.
FOUR YEARS BEFORE
The hero was too big for the room. That had been happening often of late, his new height making trouble with any doorframe or ceiling outside of the castle. Belowdecks on his father’s ships was definitely the worst, ironic considering the Viking blood thick in his veins.
It had been a week, and he had to see her again. She’d missed the entire Lithasblot festival that year, swallowed in blankets and despair. He’d visited her every night before his duties, entering a room cluttered with bottles and incense, Tante Hansa’s famous healing skills at work. He’d never been to this room before—she’d always come to him. Her house felt like another world—and it was.
It was weeks later now, August bearing down. And still she kept to her house, heartache confining her to her room.