The people on the sand scattered then, knowing it wasn’t safe. All but the boy and his cousin, still watching the water as if the girls might resurface. So many questions on their lips as the black water feathered out toward the ?resund Strait.
And down under the surface, the water roiled and turned until great whirlpools twisted from cove bottom to top. Scalding gas from deep within the earth shot up through the deadened sand, violent geysers forming between the whirlpools. The cove’s sand began to rot, all the color washing away until nothing but gray remained. And when the light faded to nothing but the obsidian of the ocean, something peculiar happened.
The girl with raven curls was no longer a girl.
She still had her raven curls, her beauty, and the upper body of a woman, but where her long legs had once been were eight tentacles, onyx black and shiny as silk. They plunged from her waist, unlike anything the ocean had ever seen.
And, with magic swirling around her, through her, from her, the creature opened her eyes.
Epilogue—Fifty Years Later
THE SEA KING AND HIS PEOPLE CALL ME THE SEA witch—though I’m still surprised to be anything at all.
I was prepared to die that day in the water.
I’d given my life to Nik. I knew what that spell would do.
But something happened in the swirling magic—mine, Mother’s, Hansa’s, what was left of Annemette’s. The octopus haunting the cove had something to do with it too. All combining to leave me with the body I have now.
Not the body of a mermaid.
Not the body of anything else seen in these waters.
I am my own magic.
I spread out my tentacles beneath me: eight, shiny and black, and as voluminous as one of Queen Charlotte’s gowns, each plucking a shrimp from the seafloor. I am quite the sight, though very few have laid eyes on me. I am tied to the cove, something keeping me here. Magic or memories, or both.
My lair is a sunken cave, surrounded by bubbling mire—turfmoor—and violent whirlpools. The water here is a flat black—Havnestad Cove now a sunspot on the sea.
Around my cave, strange trees have grown from the bones of Anna and the guards, though my father’s bones never changed, buried gently as they are. These trees—polypi—are half-plant, half-animal, like serpents rooted to the pewter sand, a hundred heads where branches should be.
The T?rhed died in the magic that made me this way, the sea rid of both drought and abundance. And so, the whirlpools draw fish into the polypi’s clutches, keeping me well fed without ever having to hunt.
Feeding on my strange forest’s catch, I study magic. I’ve learned everything I can about the sorcery beneath the waves, though new mysteries present themselves to me daily. And so my power has grown, but so has my reputation.
The merpeople are frightened of me—time and tales building upon each other. They’ve been told to stay away from the witch powerful enough to ruin the sea as soon as save it. The sea king knows of the magic I’ve done—of the black death and then the famine—and he also knows of me and his Annemette, memories of her resurfacing when my name is spoken aloud. But that is rare. No one dares.
It, too, has been long enough that no one on land knows me as Evelyn. Evie. That girl.
They know the story of the mermaid and the witch and King Niklas. They know of—and dare to visit—the strange cove with ink for water and sand as gray as steel. Now they forgo the bonfire and toss their little wooden dolls into the cove every Sankt Hans Aften. Presents to the witch who saved their kingdom.
But they don’t know me.
My people are long gone, or so I’ve heard from pieces of conversation floating down from above over the years.
Tante Hansa was taken by age, having lived out the remainder of her life in Havnestad despite her magic. Safe from banishment because of her role in saving Nik on that awful day. Hansa sent me gifts until the end—enchanting her own magical tomes to be waterproof before hurling them into the deep. All the secrets that she didn’t dare teach me when I was a girl, now at my fingertips. Almost as if she knew I were alive beneath the muck. And maybe she did—though I cannot surface.
Iker: lost in the North Sea. Victim to the king of the whales, who grew tired of being his prey.
Nik is gone too, but he lived out his days as he should have. How I had hoped he would. Marriage, children, a successful reign, and beloved by all.
I miss him. I miss everyone. I strangely miss her sometimes, too—Anna, Annemette, whoever she was.
Alone, there is a quiet under these waters that no one above will ever know. A quiet that makes me miss even the most painful of sounds.
But one day, I receive a visitor. Not from land, but by sea.
A little mermaid. Brave girl, with golden curls topped with a wreath of sea lilies and a complexion as clear as fresh milk with cheeks blushed at the apples. Her eyes are an earnest blue—as icy as the fjords up north.
As icy as Iker’s once were.
But rather than the confidence that flashed in his, her eyes hold a determination warring with fear. For such a fearsome creature I’ve become.
So immediately I know.
Yes, only one thing would cause a mermaid like her to brave my presence.
I stare down at her as she approaches, tentacles mounded beneath me—a throne if ever there was one—a web of ghost-gray curls swirling about my face. Her tail swishes under the weight of eight oysters, each showing her rank. For a moment, I think she will retreat, but instead she holds out her arms, which had been clutching a bouquet of bloodred roses.
“Please accept these flowers grown in my garden, a gift for the great sea witch—”
All it takes is a shake of my head, and her voice immediately cuts off. I glide toward her, and to her credit, she stays still.
“I know what you want,” I say, and the girl’s eyes blink with my words. Her arms flutter down, the roses sinking to the seafloor. “You want to chase the love of a human boy on legs of your own.”
Her answer is immediate. “He already loves me, this I know.”
Dubious. “And do you know this boy’s name?”
“Not his official name—it is long and drawn out, five names in one—but the other sailors, they called him Niklas.”
Crown Prince Asger Niklas Bryniulf ?ldenburg V.
Nik’s grandson.
I grit my teeth and set my jaw, glancing down my nose at the girl before me. A princess. One of the sweet singing girls who perform often at the palace. Shows to which I’m never invited. I can hear the music, though—the sea king’s castle isn’t far. If I squint past my strange forest, I can see the peculiar blue radiance surrounding the palace grounds. It looks almost as if a piece of clear sky fell from the heavens to the navy depths of the sea and mingled with the brine.
“Please,” the girl starts when I say nothing. Though she’s desperate, there’s a thoughtful quality to her face—both her head and heart are feeding her bravery. “You are the only one with the magic to change me—it’s been banned for so long. Please, even if it is just for a day, I must see him. My heart cannot bear to be away from my Niklas.”
Looking in her eyes, I am sixteen again, learning of Nik’s love for the very first time on that beach. Kissing him before our lives changed forever.
But now I am old enough to know better than to listen to my memories.
And I know she doesn’t know what she is asking. The price: the cost to her family, her loved ones, the magic. The pain: physical, mental, familial, magical. It is too much.
“The heart can bear many things, child, and love is one of them.”
The little mermaid reaches for my hand, but thinks better of it at the last moment. As if my touch will burn. Maybe it will. “Please—I will do anything.”
I again think of Nik. His laughter. His love. How long it had been there, waiting for me to see it. There in his dark eyes.