The Book of Speculation: A Novel

They could leave. She could leave and take him with her.

The water smelled of salt rather than the sweet, rotting peat scent she’d come to know from rivers. She dove below and the familiar weight fell upon her, perplexing half-formed memories of being drowned by Grandmother Visser. In the water she was deaf to Bess’s cries.

She set her feet to the ocean bottom. They came to rest on something smooth like a stone that scuttled under her step. Sharpness snapped her ankle, as though she’d been struck. She shifted her feet only to be smacked again by more lashes, dozens. A stream of breath escaped. The water tasted salt as well.

At the cold briny bottom she could not see the crawling legs or the tails that searched through her dress folds, climbing over her feet and up her calves, hooking into her stockings. She felt an ease she had not known since she was an infant. When her grandmother had held her under in the washtub it hadn’t been fear that had caused her heart to race—it had been a sense of right. The hem of her dress sank into the sand, buried by scrambling legs. Oh, but I belong here.

When she left water she took lives. She killed grandmothers and sons, poisoned rivers. She washed towns away. But in the water she was whole, in the water she did no harm.

Evangeline let the creatures pile upon her, pulling down her arms, until she was shrouded in a living mantle. The shelled bodies swarmed her. When the weight became such that she could no longer stand, she sat. On the surface, bubbles burst and were lost among the waves.

When she could sit no more, she lay down. Legs and tails knotted in her hair until she became them and they her. Her back settled deep into the sand. Their bodies stole the last of her breath.

The cards were right in all things. She brought misfortune where she walked. She was a killer, though she had not meant to be. Evangeline thought of her girl, who in being born had caused so much misfortune. Amos, with his kind eyes and clever hands, would keep Bess away from the water. In this, she thought, her death would be a good thing. When the need for air came hard like hunger she opened her mouth. It filled with sand and ocean. Inside she became as much water as out. Strange, she thought. The mermaid could drown.

*

Amos did not sleep. He rocked the child against him until morning slipped between the wagon boards. He walked to the water to look for Evangeline, but there was no sign. He bounced Bess against his chest as she cried for milk, for her mother. He looked for footprints, for Evangeline’s dress, but found only odd crab creatures on the shore. Swishing tails had swept away all trace of her.

Benno found Amos wandering, gasping, a harsh near-barking sound coming from him. He shook Amos’s shoulder, shocked by the sound and his appearance. “What has she done? Are you hurt? Did she hurt the baby?”

Amos pulled free. Eyes narrowing, he looked at Benno, taking his measure from his worn shoes to the tear on his shirt, and finally his scar. He snarled and went to find Peabody.

Without mention of opening nights or traveling time, Peabody ordered a search party. He sent Meixel and Nat on horseback. Each packed a lantern in case they should not return before nightfall. Melina and Benno were to search on foot while Amos remained on the beach, waiting. Peabody came down to the sand with two cushions from his wagon; he dropped one beside Amos and sat, knees cracking like dry wood. “We’ll wait.”

They watched the ocean. When Bess’s shrieks grew piercing, Peabody walked back to the camp and returned some time later with a cup of goat’s milk. He dipped a finger into the warm cup, and without moving the infant from Amos’s arms, he fed Bess, letting her suckle milk droplets from his fingertip.

Well into the night, after the crabs wandered back into the water, a spot of moonlight glimmered white on the ocean. Amos watched the light bob and dance before shooting to his feet. He jostled the dozing Peabody, who sputtered and coughed when Amos handed him the baby. When it was clear that Bess had not woken, Amos looked back to the water. He stepped in and it rose black and cold around him. The murky bottom sucked at his feet as he stumbled into territory that had previously belonged only to her. He waded to where a swift current ran. He’d not thought to remove his coat or shirt before walking in—she never had—and his clothing impeded progress. When he reached the glinting object, his legs ached and water lapped over his chin. He snatched blindly at the bobbing piece of light; the feel of it was at once familiar but he refused to think on it until he could see it properly. He was near to the shore before he dared look.

A piece of ribbon, white, from the waist of her dress; he knew its texture, the edges frayed from climbing in and out of the tub. His chest burst inside. She would not return. Evangeline was in the ocean.