I add another log to the campfire before sitting on the rickety chair I borrowed from the abandoned house. At suppertime, O’Neill refused the chair I brought him, saying he prefers to have the good earth beneath him. The stains on his trousers attest to this belief.
Maren taps the empty chair with her slim, webbed fingers to get my attention.
“What is it, dear?” I ask.
She makes signs with her hands, touching her heart, forming waves with slow grace, pantomiming the motion of the wagon and the journey of the sun across the sky. I know what she is saying. She says it every day: “Take me to the ocean. How long? How long?” And the question always makes me feel as though I have fallen from a tall tree and hit the ground hard, losing all my breath.
Before I can calculate an answer, O’Neill skips into view. When I see him, I can breathe again. Whenever I see him, I feel rescued somehow.
On his head is a turban of canary-colored silk. His vest, embroidered with strange animals, changes from red to gold and back again as it reflects the firelight. Voluminous sleeves of snow-white cotton are cinched and buttoned at his wrists. I bite my lower lip to keep from laughing at the odd trousers he is wearing: pink silk with green stripes, each absurdly wide leg trimmed with cuffs of silver bells.
“Lady Clara,” he says, hands on hips, “do you laugh at me?”
“I am thankful for your bare feet,” I manage to say. “For I cannot imagine any shoes that might have complemented such an outfit.” I give in to laughter, so overcome that tears spill down my cheeks.
“You dare to mock the coronation garb of Prince Gubabalek of Hubrustan?”
Maren slaps the water with her tail. She, too, is laughing at O’Neill’s fashion. Or perhaps the name “Gubabalek.”
“Well,” he says with a false frown, “since you find my appearance so unsettling, I shall retire for the night. It is plain to me that you do not wish to watch the wondrous feats I meant to show you.”
Osbert sneaks up behind him and bestows a sympathetic wet kiss on the back of his neck. And then O’Neill smiles his lopsided smile and begins to pull a handkerchief from a tiny pocket in his vest. He pulls and pulls and pulls, and the handkerchief looks as though it will never end. Finally, ten feet of fabric later, its end emerges. O’Neill uses it to wipe the wyvern spit away.
Maren and I applaud. Osbert, looking pleased that he has lifted O’Neill’s spirits, settles down beside Maren’s tub to watch the show.
It is an amazing thing to behold.
We have seen many of O’Neill’s tricks before: card tricks, flowers pulled from the air, vanishing pocket watches, a dozen eggs pulled from his mouth. We have heard him play the tin whistle and watched him dance the sailor’s hornpipe and Irish jig.
But tonight! Tonight he twirls and tosses flaming batons. He juggles four swords at once and then swallows one for good measure. He blindfolds himself and throws knives at a board, making the knives form the letters of Maren’s name.
For his final act, he plays the lap harp with his hands and a small drum with his feet while singing a plaintive melody in the gypsies’ Romany tongue.
The song ends. I do not clap, finding the sudden silence almost holy.
“Our mermaid is asleep,” O’Neill says as he sets his instruments aside.
“Thank you,” I say. “You were right that we will not soon forget this night. I am certain that I shall never forget. When I am old, I will think of it as I sit by the fire and knit lumpy stockings for my grandchildren.”
He smiles. “The gypsies were kind to me. They treated me as a son, and taught me their arts. You should meet them someday, Madame Vadoma and her family. Each one of them is quite remarkable.”
“I would like that very much.”
“Come,” he says. “Help me get Maren inside. I do not want to splash Prince Gubabalek’s finery.”
Quietly, we carry the tub to the caravan. Maren remains asleep, only her head and shoulders above the water.
“How happy she looks,” I say as I cover the tub with the oilcloth to trap the warmth. Even a mermaid needs a blanket on a cool spring night. “You make her happy, O’Neill.”
He turns away and works at unbuttoning his vest. “It is the least I can do,” he says.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Six days ago, we left Llanfair Mountain. Then, Maren only fit into the washtub while mostly sitting up. Soon, she will be able to fully recline in it. O’Neill says we are making good time, and that we should reach the Atlantic in another eight or nine days. Job and January are swift and nimble creatures, and the weather has been most agreeable.
We camp tonight beside a creek. Osbert patrols the area while O’Neill and I prepare a meal of fresh fish and corn bread. We have placed Maren’s tub at the doorway of the caravan so that she might watch the orange and red sunset across the rollicking creek. She sleeps instead.
“I have been thinking,” O’Neill says as he places a portion of fish on a stone for Pilsner. “I’ve been thinking of how we might save her.”
I hold out my plate for some fish. “We are saving her now. We are taking her home.”
“That is not what I meant, Clara. There must be a way to restore her. To change her back. We should not give up so easily. If the Sea King comes to meet her, we could strike a deal. We could buy her freedom or trade something for the removal of whatever curse is on her. Surely he has the power.” His eyes are bright in the firelight, his face aglow with hope and passion. He glances toward Maren’s sleeping form. “We must try.”
He may be able to resist a mermaid, but he has loved Maren since she was a little girl who could, in the space of an hour, both steal his slingshot and share her cake with him. I reach for his hand. I must begin to speak the truth to him, carefully and slowly, because in little more than a week, he must be prepared to accept it. He must be prepared to give her up. “O’Neill,” I say gently. “She does not wish to be saved in such a way. She is happy as a mermaid. She is a mermaid.”
“That is absurd,” he says. He pulls his hand away. “Her happiness is part of the enchantment. Part of the curse that made her into a mermaid. She is blinded by strong magic. You, of all people, should be able to see that.”
“Think, O’Neill, of her life. How she has always adored the water.”
“I like to swim, and I am no merman.” He sets his tin plate on the ground and crosses his arms over his chest. His nose twitches. It is classic angry O’Neill.
“Perhaps you have forgotten this story. One of Auntie’s favorites. We were picnicking in the forest, on the big slab of stone we always called the Giants’ Dinner Table. Auntie was setting out the food, making everything pretty. Scarff was bouncing you on one knee and me on the other, singing ‘Ride a Cock Horse’ and carrying on, making us laugh. We children were not quite three years old that summer. After Auntie finished arranging the pickles and tarts and filled the tin cups with milk, she looked about and discovered that Maren was gone. Do you remember where they found her, O’Neill?”