Grateful that Scarff and O’Neill have brought sunshine with them, we throw open all the doors and windows to let in the warm air and the sounds of birds rejoicing. Auntie bustles about, gathering ingredients and supplies to prepare a celebratory feast. At Auntie’s command, I stir and knead, baste and slice, chop and arrange. She alternately hums and fusses over the food. Will there be enough applesauce? Are those carrots cut thinly enough? Does O’Neill still hate cabbage?
Scarff and O’Neill are entertaining Maren. For once, she is wide awake and able to enjoy herself. Scarff’s terrible jokes follow close upon O’Neill’s fervent ballad singing (slightly off-key but still moving). Scarff’s deep voice echoes through the cottage as he tells outrageous tales of his youth—which may or may not be true.
When the air is saturated with the scents of ham and fresh bread rolls, candied carrots and apple pie, and once the perfect sprig of parsley is plucked from its pot on the windowsill and placed atop the steaming platter of potatoes, Scarff and O’Neill drag Maren’s tub into the kitchen—mermaid and all. She is given a view of the table and a cup of seaweed tea, for she no longer eats anything.
Other than the bathtub in the kitchen, the celebration resembles every other return-of-Scarff-and-O’Neill party we have ever had—complete with overeating and the exchange of stories and fond glances. Finally, Scarff stands and raises his glass of elderberry wine.
“A toast to the present company,” he declares. We clink glasses and take sips, despite our full bellies. “Now, an announcement.”
Maren claps her hands. Water droplets splash into the fireplace, hissing as they evaporate.
“For many long years has this wonderful creature been the very heart of my heart,” he begins. He looks at Auntie as if they were both seventeen and stricken with first love.
“Do sit down,” Auntie says, “and try not to embellish things too much!”
With a harrumph, Scarff settles into his chair beside Auntie. He takes her hand in his and rests them upon the table. “Shall I start at the very beginning, my love?”
Auntie nods, eyes twinkling.
Scarff leans back in his chair. “If I were to tell you how long ago this tale begins, you would doubt the entire telling of it. So, I will use the traditional beginning. Once upon a time, there was a beautiful young maiden.”
Auntie rolls her eyes heavenward.
“’Tis true, ’tis true,” Scarff insists. “No ordinary girl was she. It was said that her mother was of full faerie blood, and her father was a warrior prince of a far northern land. But she was placed in the care of a pair of spinster ladies. They raised her in a rambling redbrick mansion beside a blue lake. They taught her manners and dancing and how to sew a fine seam. What they did not teach her, what she already knew in her half-faerie bones, were the names and uses of every herb and plant in the forest. Why, without any lessons or books, the lass could make up medicines to cure almost anything. And when the spinster ladies—the Furstwangler sisters, they were called, Inga and Hilma—when they realized the depths of their adopted daughter’s unusual talents, they sent her to be apprenticed to a healer woman in Bremen by the name of Frau Albruna. Some said Albruna was a witch, but I’d never call her such. She did not like the word, and crossing her never did anyone a lick of good. Well, our girl—who came to Albruna with the unlikely name of Veritude—had a mind like a thirsty sponge and before long she’d soaked up all Albruna had to teach. After that, young Fr?ulein Verity taught Albruna a thing or two!” Scarff pauses to sip his wine and wink at Auntie.
“Enough flirting,” O’Neill scolds. “Get on with the story, old man.”
“Yes. Well. Where was I? Oh, yes, Bremen. I was a strapping lad then, you see. Sixteen, and just back from a year at sea. I’d seen such things on that ship! Six-headed sea monsters that would give your Osbert nightmares! Squid bigger than the ship itself. And even mermaids, though none as lovely as our Maren.”
Maren blows him a kiss. He pretends to catch and pocket it.
Scarff clears his throat and continues. “I was feeling poorly, so my grandmother sent me to Albruna’s place on Otto Strasse. Now as world-traveled as I was, my first sight of Albruna gave me a fright. The tallest woman I’d ever laid eyes on, broad shouldered as the most strapping seaman, wild haired as Medusa, with eyes like two spheres of polished coal afire. I trembled in my boots. My mouth went dry and my pulse roared in my ears. Ready to die standing up, I was. And then a sweet voice came from behind the dreadful woman, saying, ‘Who is it?’ Like music, those three words. A second later, a face peered around the dreadful Albruna, and my poor heart stopped. Just stopped.”
Auntie grins. “It stopped, and he fell like a sapling before a woodsman’s ax. Flat onto Albruna’s enormous feet, squashing her new doeskin slippers.”
Scarff’s chuckle rumbles like far-off thunder. “When I awoke, there was that beautiful face, peering into mine. My heart was beating right as rain, but it no longer belonged to me, and never would again.”
Auntie chimes in, “And I felt the same, from the moment I saw the scrawny blond boy all aquiver on Albruna’s doorstep. Albruna knew it, too. She never said a word about it, but after we’d dosed our patient with tonics and tisanes for three days and nights, and the color had returned to his cheeks, she handed me a satchel holding all my earthly goods, placed a gold ring in Scarff’s hand, and shooed us out the door as if we were a pair of trespassing chickens. I looked back from the street to see her wipe away a tear, and we waved good-bye to one another. I never saw her again.”
Scarff lifts Auntie’s hand to his lips and kisses her knuckles tenderly. “Before we took to the roads, we visited the old priest. Poor Father Matthias, as ancient and holy as he was, he greatly feared Albruna and her pupil, and so did not refuse to marry us—even though it was midnight, with only a pigeon in the chapel rafters as witness. Afterward, he gave us woolen blankets and a lantern and the room above his stables for the night.”
“Married?” I exclaim in wonder and delight. “All this time!”
“You rascal,” O’Neill says, poking Scarff in the shoulder. “Keeping such secrets from your own son!”
“Wait,” I say. “Why have you not lived together? Why have we not all lived together? What fun we could have had!”
“If I could continue without you children interrupting, perhaps you might learn the answers to your questions.” His tone is serious but his blue eyes merry.
“Do go on, forgiving us our rudeness,” O’Neill says with false penitence.
“We wandered for years, my bride and I. I did odd jobs in the towns we visited, and Verity (no longer Veritude, since I changed her name on our wedding night), Verity earned coins aplenty healing the sick. A happier couple there never was. We had each other, a fine tent, a cooking pot, and all the world before us.”