“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 good, 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.”