They’re not ugly, exactly, but they do look rather strange. Huge eyes in pale faces, veins skimming blue over fine boned skulls. Why have you done this to yourselves? I touch my own head, then point at theirs in question.
“Oh, Muirgen,” Sophia says. “It’s true what Ceto said. You have sacrificed your voice.” Her own quakes, as if she’s holding back tears. “How could you do such a thing?”
“Forget her voice,” Talia says, trying to peer over the side of the boat. “I want to see these human legs that you so desired.” I wave her off, humiliated at the thought of my sisters seeing my ruined feet. “I cannot understand the fascination myself, when our tails are beautiful.”
“She was in love,” Cosima says, her eyes downcast. She says it oh so quietly, as if she has come to a new understanding. That love is painful, love is someone harrowing out your chest and throwing your heart away as if it is of no value. I know, I want to tell her. I know why you did it. I know that you sent me to Ceto because you wanted me out of the way.
“Yes, she was,” Sophia says. “Love can make you foolish.”
“And what do you know of love, sister? You’re not even betrothed,” Talia says to Sophia. “Not like…” She looks at Cosima and she falters. “Not like Nia and Marlin,” Talia rushes on. “They’re perfect for one another.”
Nia’s weak smile, wobbling when Talia isn’t looking. I remember those two girls on the boat, their obvious delight in one another. I wish I had my voice. You are not unnatural, I would tell her. Love is never unnatural, no matter whom you decide to give it to.
“Oh, Muirgen,” Talia continues. “It has been such a mess these four weeks since you left us.”
“A complete disaster,” Arianna says.
“Yes,” Talia says, frowning at Arianna. “There were many rumours at the beginning. Father was furious with Grandmother, he said that she had neglected her duties, he said…” She wavers, unable to repeat the words that the Sea King chose to berate our grandmother with. Grandmother is in trouble because of me. “He had the right to be angry, of course.”
“Yes,” my sisters chorus and I cringe. Was I like this too, when I lived in the kingdom? “Praise the Sea King.”
“Father initially thought that you had been kidnapped by the Salkas,” Talia tells me. “Zale left with a band of warriors, capturing the first greenhead they could find and strapping her to the dining table in the palace with rinds of seaweed.” I can picture it, a group of men surrounding the struggling Salka.
“She was livid,” Arianna says. “But she confessed in the end, told us that you had…”
“That you had gone to the Sea Witch voluntarily,” Talia says, her forehead creasing, as if my reasons for doing so remain incomprehensible to her.
I remember the night I left, the utter despair driving me forward to the Shadowlands, any destiny preferable to the one awaiting me in the kingdom. Even death. Talia would never understand.
“And you asked her to give you two human stumps to walk upon the earth with.” Talia takes an unsteady breath. “Father was so angry,” she whispers.
“Sisters,” Nia says, one hand over her eyes as she faces the horizon. “We do not have much time left. There is perhaps fifty minutes before the sun has fully risen.”
“Muirgen,” Sophia says, and tears prick my eyes at the sound of my own name. I did not think I would hear it again before I died. “The five of us went to the Sea Witch and we begged for her help. She has granted mercy on us.” She gives a haunted smile and dread creeps over me. What did the Sea Witch do to them? “Granted mercy on you, I mean,” Sophia finishes.
“We had to give her our hair, though,” Cosima mutters.
“I don’t know why you’re the one complaining,” Talia says. “It was your idea to go to the Sea Witch in the first place. You said that she was the only one who could help us, that no one else would know how to save Muirgen.” Cosima meets my gaze shamefacedly, and I feel as if she is trying to tell me something. An explanation of sorts. An apology. An image of the two of us as small children, hand in hand, flashes in my mind; sparkling with a beautiful intensity. I look away, allowing it to shatter. Too much has happened now. There is too much to forgive and I am afraid I do not know where to begin.
“So, yes, we went to the Sea Witch,” Talia continues. “What an expedition! I don’t know how you went alone. It was very brave of you.” She looks at me with something akin to admiration, an expression I am unused to seeing on my sisters’ faces. “But Ceto wasn’t as terrifying as we thought,” she says, the rest of my sisters nodding in agreement. “It seemed like she wanted to help us, actually. We had to sacrifice our hair, of course. But she granted us this in return.” She lifts her hand out of the water, her fingers grasped tightly around the hilt of a dagger, steel glittering in the growing morning light. It is the same weapon that I saw in the Sea Witch’s cabin, the one she used to stir the magic potion with. “This is going to save you.”
How?
“You must go to this man,” Sophia tells me, as if reading my mind. “Immediately.”
And what should I do when I find him?
I am so tired.
“Muirgen. Muirgen, listen to me. When you find him…” Sophia says, demanding my attention. “Gaia, you have to…”
“You must take the blade,” Arianna says with relish. She is our father’s daughter, that one; she’s always enjoyed a story with gore. “And rip the human’s chest apart with it, using the tip of the blade to spear his beating heart. The blood that spills must drip on to those human feet of yours, and your scales will reappear, and then your tail. Like magic.”
“Like magic,” Talia repeats.
I picture myself doing as they have suggested, Oliver’s eyes opening when the blade pierces his flesh, screaming for mercy. I take a step back from them, a hand over my mouth in case I am sick.
“This is the only way, Muirgen,” Talia says.
“She will not be able to do it,” Cosima says as I stare down at them in shock.
“You must,” Sophia says urgently. “Muirgen, you must. This isn’t about you any longer. Zale is gathering the troops, placing spears in the hand of every mer-man; child and grandfather alike. You…” Something crosses her face that I cannot decipher, but which leaves me chilled. “You don’t understand what things have been like for us since you left.”
“Zale is only doing what he thinks is necessary,” Cosima says, but her usual defiance has been markedly dampened. “We are bonded now, Zale and I,” she says to me, a quiver in her voice. What will Zale do to you when he sees your bald skull? She is thin and pale, like the others, but there is a light sprinkling of bruises down her arms. Nothing too conspicuous. Nothing that would draw attention. But I see it. And I know. Oh, Cosima.
“Forty-five minutes…” Nia says, still counting the seconds in the sky.
Talia swims closer to the boat, her hand holding the blade out towards me. I cannot do this. You cannot expect me to commit such a deed.
“Muirgen,” Sophia says again when I bend over, hands pushed into my stomach as if I’m trying to prevent my body from falling apart. “Muirgen. We cannot return without you. Father has, he has…”
“Father has been very angry,” Cosima says. They stare up at me, their eyes flat. And I wonder what the Sea King has done to them. Cosima grabs the blade from Talia and reaches as high as she can. “You must do this, Gaia.”
“Forty-four minutes,” Nia says.
I take the blade. The handle is made of onyx, encrusted with ink-black jewels which resemble octopus eyes. It would be easy to tear someone apart with this, follow the route of their spine. The weight of it in my hands is shocking, somehow; the power it suggests. I like it, I am surprised to find. I want more of it.
“We are sisters,” Sophia says. “We need each other, Muirgen. We always have.”
Yes. I am ready to do what must be done.