“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Oliver whispered.
It wasn’t. I didn’t want the siren to murder the prince. I wanted him to realize his mistake, to see how he’d hurt her by rejecting her love, and to fall in love with her in turn. But apparently it wasn’t that sort of play.
I turned to Irene, intending to ask her opinion. She stared fixedly at the stage, her eyes wide, her expression slack. Her mouth moved, but no sound came out, and her skin had gone deathly pale.
Something was wrong. “Irene?” I whispered, touching her wrist. Her skin was clammy under my fingers. “Are you sick?”
She made no response, didn’t so much as glance at me. Her gaze remained fixed on the stage. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the prince reach the siren, where he would no doubt come to the most grisly of ends. Had the spectacle proved too disturbing for Irene?
“Do you need to leave?” I gave her a little shake, but it was as though she didn’t even know I was there. “Irene?”
The prince flung himself hopelessly at the siren’s feet. The music swelled, the siren raised a knife, and her song reached a crescendo almost great enough to drown out Irene’s scream.
*
“Is Miss Vale going to be all right?” Oliver asked. We stood on the sidewalk in front of the boarding house. As no men were allowed inside after dark, I’d been forced to see Irene in alone. I’d told Oliver not to bother waiting, but he’d insisted.
I crossed my arms over my chest against the chill of the night air. Fog had rolled in off the ocean, and I could hear the distant call of the Daboll trumpet. The damp only served to make the atmosphere feel colder. “She’ll be fine,” I said, though I wasn’t entirely certain of it. She’d seemed disoriented the entire way back from the theater. “Perhaps something she ate didn’t agree with her.”
“Perhaps,” he said. “Though I saw the ushers had to help her friend Mr. Burton out as well.”
I’d been too focused on Irene to notice. “That’s strange.”
Oliver hesitated, then asked, “How well do you know Miss Vale?”
“Well enough,” I replied. “She moved into the room across the hall from me around the beginning of August, and I see her at least twice a day. Why?”
“Oh, no reason.” He offered me a smile. “Just curiosity on my part. I want to know who your friends are, Maggie.”
“Oh?” I said faintly.
“I had a good time this evening—at least, up until the part where Miss Vale fainted.” He looked away, then back at me. “The play reminded me a bit of that old sea shanty about the mermaid. That seeing one spells your doom.”
Ah—now the play finally made sense. The prince had tried to outrun his doom by returning to land. A shame the playwright hadn’t made it a bit clearer.
I hadn’t thought of the shanty in years, but I still knew all the words by heart. “Twas Friday morn when we set sail,” I sang, and he joined in.
“And we had not got far from land,
When the Captain, he spied a lovely mermaid,
With a comb and a glass in her hand.
“Then up spoke the Captain of our gallant ship,
And a jolly old Captain was he;
‘I have a wife in Salem town,
But tonight a widow she will be.’”
“Papa used to love that song,” I said wistfully. “He held me on his lap, while we all sang around the piano.” The memory seemed so clear: his weathered face, the warm glow of the whale oil lamp, my brothers on the floor playing with whatever presents he’d brought back for us from exotic ports.
Then one day he was gone. Taken by the cold sea he’d loved.
Had I inherited that love from him? What would he have done, if he’d found himself face to face with a woman from its depths?
Oliver smiled, but the expression had a sad quality to it. “It’s been good to see you again, Maggie. I can’t help but think our fathers wouldn’t have wanted us to drift so far apart. I’d like to call upon you tomorrow evening, if I may.”
My heart sank a bit. Did Oliver want more than to reconnect with an old friend? He’d never indicated interest in anything more than friendship in our correspondence, but he’d mentioned speaking to my mother before coming to Widdershins.
And if he did want something more, what would I do?
I was being foolish. Mother’s letters had me questioning Oliver’s motives, when he’d given me no reason to do so. He simply wanted to spend time with an old friend, before his work took him away again, for who knew how many years.
“Yes,” I said. “I’d be happy to receive your visit.”
*
A low moan woke me during the night.
I opened my eyes; the bedroom appeared in shades of dark gray. The waning moon was less than half full, and light leaked through the drawn curtains. I sat up, listening intently. Where had the sound come from? The window?
My treacherous heart leapt at the thought. But Persephone wouldn’t come here two nights in a row. She was a chieftess beneath the sea, after all, and had far better things to do than visit her brother’s secretary.