“Because I failed you. I did not save Maren. I let your sister be taken by the merfolk.”
“It is what she wanted. I have told you a hundred times, but you have not listened.” I sit down on a boulder and lay my hands in my lap. “Now Maren is well, and she is home. And we will go to our home and live with Auntie and Scarff. Next year, we may visit Maren and hear her stories of sea horses and starfish and underwater courts.” I speak to convince him and myself that these things are both true and good.
“Yes,” he says. Only he does not sound convinced, not one bit. He sits at my feet and wraps his arms about his knees. Suddenly, he looks all of twelve years old.
“You must not blame yourself for things beyond your control, O’Neill. It is one of your most irritating faults.” Through my pain, I smile at him, and he smiles back. It is like the sun coming out after a hundred days of rain.
“I was not aware that I had more than one fault,” he says.
“Well, your stench is one.” I wave my hand in front of my nose. “Please, for the love of mercy, go and wash yourself!”
“Just because your sister is a princess does not make you the queen,” he says. He tosses a small rock at my bare foot.
And then he obeys.
The world will continue, as it has for thousands upon thousands of years. We will live without our dear Maren. We will finish growing up and we will work and play and love. The sun and moon will take turns shining, clouds will sail across the skies, and rain will wash the earth. I will touch snow and smell flowers. Perhaps someday I will have a child, and I will tell her of her mermaid auntie. Or perhaps I will become a stork and fly wherever the winds take me.
I wish I were a stork and not a girl without a sister.
In the nearby town, we use the Sea King’s coins to purchase a covered wagon, clothes, horse tack, cooking supplies, food, soap, and a tent.
That night, we camp in a meadow beneath a million stars and a fat moon.
“I feel as rich as any king,” O’Neill says, patting his full belly. His tone is cheerful, but his eyes are swollen and red from shedding countless tears.
“Does your wound bother you?” I ask.
“No,” he says. “There is no sign of it, not even a scar to boast of.”
I pour tea into two earthenware mugs. “That is good.”
He looks at me strangely as I hand him his mug. “Clara?”
“Yes?”
“I promised you, in a letter brought to you by a very fine raven, that we would dance together. And the dancing Jasper forced us to do does not count.”
“Drink your tea, O’Neill,” I say. “Before it gets cold.”
“A man must keep at least some of his promises.” He sets his mug onto the ground, then he takes mine and sets it beside his.
“I do not want to dance,” I say as he grabs my arm and pulls me away from the fireside. My heart races like a spooked pony.
He begins to hum, and steers me through the wildflowers and weeds. “Dance, Clara. Do not just clomp along.”
I pull away from him. “I do not wish to dance.”
Hurt and disappointment are in his eyes. Even the moonlight reveals that much. I turn my back, afraid my face will shame me by exposing my true feelings. I have surprised myself. I had thought that my grief had erased the last vestiges of my unsisterly love for him, but I love him still. I love him terribly and completely.
“Clara,” he says, “why do you turn away from me?”
I do not reply.
He takes my arm and spins me around to face him again. “Do you not know?”
Gently, he lifts my chin and forces me to look into his sparkling eyes. Suddenly, I do know. He does not need to say the words, but (miracle of miracles!) he does.
“I love you, Clara.”
“But you love Maren. That was why you tried so hard to save her,” I say.
“Of course I love her. We have been together since we were babies. But I have never loved her the way that I love you. The way I have always loved you.”
I shake my head. “But I saw you with her, so many times. The way you looked at her. The way she looked at you!”
“She did love me. She wanted me to marry her. Asked me more than once, bold as brass, in that way she had. I told her that I loved her only as a sister, although she never accepted it. When I sat with her, when I held her hand, it was only to comfort her in her suffering. I would have done the same for Auntie. Or Osbert. I had planned to tell you in March—even Madame Vadoma knew—but when I arrived and saw Maren, and she demanded my attention . . . things did not go as planned.”
“You kissed me,” I say. “In the forest.”
“That was not just for Jasper’s sake, Clara. I had waited years for that moment with you.”
All of my manners flee as I grab him by his shirtfront and pull him to me. I kiss him shamelessly, and long.
Finally, he steps back. With gentle fingers, he wipes the tears from my cheeks. “Come with me,” he says. He leads me by the hand back into the camp.
“It’s here somewhere,” he says, rummaging through the crate full of the Sea King’s gifts. “Ah, here it is.”
He kneels before me and slips a ring onto my finger. “Will you be my wife?” he asks. The Sea King’s rubies and gold glimmer in the firelight, and O’Neill’s eyes reflect the flames. “After your forward behavior this evening, you must say yes.”
“Yes,” I say. “In the next town, at the next church.” I kiss him again, and I swear I can hear the mermaids’ sweet songs even though we are miles from the ocean. How can one heart be so full and so empty at the same time?
I shove him away suddenly. “O’Neill,” I say, panicking. “I cannot marry you! What if I become a stork? It could happen at any time, perhaps even tomorrow.”
He laughs. “You are no stork, Clara. You are no more a stork than I am an apple.”
“But Auntie said a stork brought me to her. And after what happened to Maren . . .”
“It was Scarff,” he says. “It was Scarff who found you and took you to Auntie.”
“But Auntie cannot lie, and she said it was a stork.”
“Scarff’s given name is Ezra Corraghrian Scarff. Corraghrian means stork. It was his Scottish mother’s family name. He found you on the steps of an abandoned orphanage.”
“Why did they never tell me? All this time I have dreaded growing feathers and a bill!”
“Your story was so unromantic compared to Maren’s and mine. They wanted you to feel special, too. To have some magic of your own. None of us thought you actually believed you would become a bird. How could you have kept such a worry to yourself all these years?”
“I did believe it. I was resigned to it, in fact. But I would much rather be your Clara. I have seen enough magic,” I say. “And what does it matter where my journey began, as long as I end it with you?”
O’Neill takes both my hands. “I feel foolish, you know. Almost as if I ought to ask for your pardon.”