“And she is mute?” Eleanor asks him, brushing his excuses aside.
“I’m not sure,” he replies, before asking me to stick my tongue out. I do not move. I don’t want to do this in front of Oliver. I don’t want him to think I am unsatisfactory in any way.
“Are you deaf as well?” the doctor asks. “Show me your tongue.”
And I open my mouth, averting my eyes so I won’t have to witness his disgust.
There are horrified gasps and, “Bloody hell!” and, “What kind of barbarian would do this?” and, “We must take care of her, mustn’t we, Mother?”
“Mother,” Oliver repeats when the woman doesn’t reply. Her lips are in a thin line, compressing white. “We must take care of her. It is our moral duty.”
“Moral duty?” Eleanor says. “Oh, Oliver – you’re still recovering after the accident. It’s probably best if we get her the best help and allow the professionals to take care of it.”
“I have seen what happens to people when you get the ‘best help’ for them,” he says. “I haven’t forgotten. I will never forget.”
“Oliver, we—”
“We what? We don’t have the space? We don’t have enough servants? What other excuses are you going to come up with, Mother?” He turns to me and I try to hide my shock that he would speak to a parent in such a way, even if she is only a woman. “You have nothing to be afraid of. You’re safe now.”
Eleanor calls a servant then, a young girl by the name of Daisy, who is ordered to take care of me. “Watch her closely,” she mutters to the girl.
A male servant is ordered to transfer me to a bedroom as I am still too frail to walk, and as he carries me out of the room, I can feel Eleanor’s eyes following me. The room I have been brought to is beautiful, and I am told that it is my own for as long as is required. A bed draped in gold silk, an antique dresser with ornate moulding, a large box (a wardrobe, Daisy says) filled with material (dresses, Daisy says) so plush that I shiver at their feel.
“They are all black, because we are in mourning,” Daisy tells me as she shows me into an adjacent alcove made of cream tiles that are cool to touch. I want to touch everything, make sense of this world through my fingertips, but I am conscious that I cannot behave strangely in front of this girl.
“Do you need to use the toilet?” she asks, pointing at a clay seat in the corner, helping me to sit upon it. Liquid runs between my legs, a warm release from that strange tightness in my abdomen that I was unable to explain until now, and I gaze at it in shock. What is this?
“Come on,” Daisy says as she fills the container in the centre full of water. It comes surging down from silver knobs she called taps, and she helps me to climb into this bath. The relief as I lie down is dizzying, and I duck my head underneath. For a moment I can pretend that I am lying in my room in the palace, staring at the hazy night sky above the surface. For a moment, I can pretend that nothing has changed. Then I have to come up for air, panting, my human lungs burning with need.
When I am alone, I find a hand mirror on the bedside table and I hold it to my face, opening my mouth to see Ceto’s handiwork for myself. I see a brutal wound, not even a half-stump left behind, just a raw, jagged lesion. I put the mirror away, my hand shaking as the enormity of what I have done begins to fully register. Remember, Gaia. Remember why you are here. I stretch my feet out before me, pulling up the nightgown for a better view. I touch one thigh, then the other, running my hands up along the insides until I reach the centre, the place where Daisy told me was for the “toilet”, and I feel an unaccountable pleasure. Here is something the Sea Witch failed to mention when she said human men preferred legs that were easy to spread.
“Hello?” There is someone at the door. “It’s me,” he says. “Oliver. Oli, I mean. I was hoping to speak with you before you retire.”
I clap my hands. Oliver. Excitement courses through me, fizzing rich in my stomach.
“Is that a signal that I can come in?” he says from the other side.
I clap again, and the door opens. His curls are damp, and he smells of those trees that hung ripe with sharp-smelling yellow fruit on the beach where I left him. He is wearing a coat of soft, black material wrapped around him, the same on his feet.
“I hope you don’t mind,” he says, as he sits on the bed, and I am light-headed being this near to him. Why did no one ever tell me that it was possible to feel like this? “I wanted to say hello.” There is silence, a silence I try to fill up with my prettiness. For what else do I have now? “Your eyes are so blue,” he says. “I don’t think I have ever seen a girl with eyes that shade before.”
It feels odd to be complimented on something that was so commonplace under the sea. The mer-folk would comment on the flame-red of my hair, or the sweetness of my song. No one would think to say my eyes were blue because what other colour would they be? There is another awkward pause. The Sea Witch told me that men like the sound of their own voices, that Oliver would present his opinions to me as if they were a gift; she said all I would have to do in return is smile and nod. Why is Oliver remaining quiet? Have I done something wrong, already?
He stares at his hands, the energy leaching out of him until he hunches over, like an old man. “I don’t know why I came,” he says, his voice bleak. “I don’t know why I do anything these days.” He stands up, his fingers brushing against mine as he does so. A shiver of heat runs through me and I am torn between pulling away and reaching forward and grabbing his hand, moving it to where I need it to be, to this new place that I have just discovered. Is this what the Sea Witch meant when she talked about desire?
“Goodnight,” Oliver says, with a wave.
Come back. I want to say. I am on fire. I am on fire because of you.
I turn the light off as I saw the maid do earlier. I lie there in the darkness, in my soft bed, and I do not think about my mother. I do not think of my father, and what punishments he has devised to ensure that the rest of his daughters do not dare to misbehave as I have done. All I can think about is Oliver.
Oliver and the way he might touch me.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Rise and shine, miss,” Daisy says, throwing open the slatted blinds, the sun chasing the shadows away. I stare out of the window. It is so strange seeing sky instead of water, sharp edges rather than soft blurs. Will I get used to it, I wonder? Could my mother be looking at that same sky today?
“You were out such a long time,” she says. Daisy is small, shorter than I, with dark blonde hair tied in a neat ponytail, her face more freckles than flesh. No one had skin like that under the sea; it was alabaster white from the moment we were hatched to the moment we dissolved to sea foam.
I find myself drawn to how different everyone looks up here, how unique. It is far more interesting than the conformity my father prizes. Daisy is wearing the same outfit the other girl servants are attired in, a black dress with a white band around her neck, those odd things on her feet that all the humans wear.
“Did you sleep well?” she asks.
I dreamed of the woman with the red hair again. My mother, it must be, for looking at her is like looking in a cracked mirror; almost the same but not quite. You have made a mistake, Gaia, she told me, and I thought I could hear my sisters screaming in the distance. The woman clasped my hands in hers, her eyes brimming with tears. I wanted to catch them, hold them to my lips. I wanted to know if her tears tasted of salt. You made a terrible mistake, just as I did.