“Hello, Muirgen,” she says, but it is me talking, my lost words coming from Flora’s mouth. I am too stunned to try and run away so I close my eyes, listening to that which I thought I would never hear again.
“Don’t cry,” my voice says. “Don’t cry, little mermaid.” Flora’s features soften, melding into one another before they begin to melt away. It’s like water on a canvas, washing away the paint. And what is beneath? A beautiful face, a full body, but there is no tail this time. Fat, luscious legs, beautifully shaped. Pearls wound through her hair, gleaming. It is her.
The Sea Witch.
“I’ve told you before, my name is Ceto,” she says. “Don’t be rude. What a relief to be rid of that … insipid body. I don’t know how people pretend to be something they’re not; it takes so much effort. That was always my problem, ever since I was your age. I didn’t care about what people thought of me. I only wanted to be true to myself.” She laughs. “Your father didn’t like that, I can tell you.”
My father would kill you, Sea Witch, if he had his chance. I push my back into the door, fingers still grasping the handle in the hope it will open.
“You think I am afraid of your father?” she says, smirking at my attempts to flee. “You think I live in the Shadowlands because I fear his strength? No, little one. I live in the dark because I can be true there, and living true is the most important thing any woman can do.” She tilts her head to the side. “But it takes courage, and we are not taught how to be brave, are we? Women are taught to obey the rules.” One of her hair ornaments shimmers, catching my eye. So many pearls. One, two, three…
“Thirteen,” she says. “There are thirteen of them. More than any maid you have ever known, am I right? The Sea King used to say that thirteen was unlucky, but he was just annoyed that I was the first-born. My brother always did want to win at everything.”
Brother. I stop fumbling with the door.
“You’re catching on at last!” She claps her hands with genuine satisfaction. “He was a nightmare when we were growing up,” she says. “I had more natural powers than he did, that was obvious from the very beginning. He hated me because he was the boy, and boys were supposed to be more powerful. When Papa died, and my brother got his hands on that trident, I knew my days in the kingdom were numbered.” She stares at the ground, her face sombre suddenly. “I overheard him talking war tactics with his cronies, boasting about how he was going to be the one to finally wipe out the Salkas. I loved my father, I did, but I never agreed with his policy of exiling the Salkas to the Shadowlands. It was only breeding fear in the merfolk, resentment in the Salkas. And resentment cannot be contained for ever.”
So the Sea King sent his men to the Shadowlands… I prompt her impatiently.
“Yes,” she says, “But even that wasn’t enough for my brother. He was obsessed with blood purity, with all of us being the same. He wanted to exterminate them for good. You have to understand, the Salkas didn’t want war. They were just defending themselves against the kingdom’s attacks, but he didn’t care. He would kill them all, and then me in my turn, I presumed, even if I was salt-kin. Powerful women are often threatening to insecure men.” Her eyes darken. “So I left, stealing away from the palace in the dead of night and I went to the Salkas. And I told them I would help them. So I know what it’s like to leave my family behind me, little mermaid. We are not unalike, you and I,” she says, and I don’t know if that is supposed to be a compliment. “Although you were much younger than me of course. I was at least forty-five when I left. And it was fine,” she clears her throat, “living in the Shadowlands. I have had my poor Salkas to take care of, and I have had freedom. That’s more than most mermaids can hope for.”
Why did you let me do it? Anger is building inside me, caustic and sour. And why did you come tonight and distract him when you knew it was my last chance of survival?
“Would you really want a man so easily distracted?” she asks. “I barely had to try tonight. He was ripe for the picking.”
Why did you help me? I need to know, my whole body tense as it waits for her to respond.
Her smile fades suddenly. “I failed your mother. I couldn’t fail you too.”
My mother. Two steps, and I am in front of her. I catch her by the throat, cat-quick. Squeezing hard, for I am not afraid of her anymore. I will have the truth, at last. Tell me. Tell me everything.
She removes my fingers, her touch gentle. “I knew Muireann of the Green Sea. Not very well. She was just a baby when both my brother and I were into our fortieth decade, but her father was a favourite of the court so she was in the palace often as a child. She was like you, that same red hair, that same beautiful voice. A sensitive soul.” You’re so like your mother, young Muirgen. So like her in every way. “My brother was obsessed with her, ever since she came of age at twelve.” Ceto shudders. “He kept badgering Muireann’s father for permission, and he was told to wait, that a few years wouldn’t hurt. Your grandfather wasn’t afraid of the Sea King. Mac Lir was too well respected in the kingdom to be bullied into submission.”
But my mother agreed to marry the Sea King. To end the war.
“She came to me first, arrived in the Shadowlands demented with grief over her brother, demanding to know which of the Salkas had slain him. As if it was the Salkas’ fault!”
But it was their fault. They killed Uncle Manannán, and they did it with glee. It was their fault that all of this happened.
“You still believe that to be true?” Ceto says. “I don’t know what happened to your uncle, but my Salkas swore to me that they had no knowledge of his death. It did seem rather convenient, I always thought. Manannán disappears, the person Muireann loved most in the world. People do funny things when they’re grieving, don’t they? And the Sea King knew what Muireann was like, he knew that she didn’t have a taste for war. I think he bet upon her doing anything to regain peace in the kingdom.”
I try and connect the jagged edges of her jigsaw, assemble them in a way that makes sense. Is she saying that—
“I’m not saying anything,” she cuts across me. “All I know is that the Salkas just wanted to be left alone in peace to live their lives, and yet their mere existence was enough to inflame my brother.” The Sea Witch exhaled loudly. “I tried to explain to Muireann that this war was not of my doing, nor of my desire; and thus I could not end it, no matter how hard she begged me. I did not know the measures she would take next.”
She married the Sea King. I try and imagine her, fifteen and wild with sorrow, betrothed to a man old enough to be her father. The poor little mermaid.
“She was reasonably content for a time,” the Sea Witch says. “She had children, you and your sisters. Word reached me in the Shadowlands of how much she loved you.”
But not enough. It was bad enough, as a child, knowing my mother had been reckless. But since learning of her relationship with Alexander, it has become clear that she was heartless too. My father was right all along. She did abandon us. She did. The melancholy that has been my shadow since the day my mother left me tugs at my hand like a small child demanding attention.
“That’s not true,” Ceto says fiercely. “She didn’t mean to fall in love with a human; she meant to save his life. There was an accident, you see, and Muireann found this man in the wreckage.”
It was Oliver’s father, wasn’t it? The paintings, my mother’s face replicated over and over again. Hair so red and eyes so blue.
“Yes,” the Sea Witch says, watching me closely. “The shipwreck occured a few months after you were born. The man, Alexander, found himself rescued by a beautiful woman. They were attracted to each other, certainly, and like so many before them they mistook their lust for love. My Salkas said they saw her regularly sneaking away to the surface after that to go and meet this man, all the way up to your first birthday. They had decided to make things more permanent when…”