Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [0]
“Magical and mysterious, Mermaid’s twist on a classic tale is as ingenious as it is delightful.”
—CAROLINE LEAVITT, author of Pictures of You
“There is a part of every reader that longs to return to the days of reading fairy tales and myths, when imagination had no limits and stories were spellbinding. Carolyn Turgeon’s Mermaid evokes just that feeling. She is one of my new favorite writers.”
—JO-ANN MAPSON, author of Solomon’s Oak and the Bad Girl Creek trilogy
“This Mermaid is resplendent with shimmering details, the dark and thrilling story behind that comforting childhood memory. At once fresh and familiar, heartbreaking and full of hope, this dark retelling of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Little Mermaid is like a gorgeous dream remembered.”
—JEANINE CUMMINS, bestselling author of A Rip in Heaven and The Outside Boy
“As moody and atmospheric as a Gothic novel, Mermaid is a heartfelt portrait of young love and all its sweet complications. Sweeping and lush, an inspired and imaginative reimagining of my favorite fairy tale.”
—TIMOTHY SCHAFFERT, author of The Coffins of Little Hope
“Turgeon’s ability to breathe new life into the old bones of a beloved story we all think we know is unparalleled.”
—ANTON STROUT, author of the Simon Canderous series
ALSO BY CAROLYN TURGEON
Godmother: The Secret Cinderella Story
Rain Village
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2011 by Carolyn Turgeon
All rights reserved.
Published in the United S All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Broadway Paperbacks, an imprint of the Crown Publishing Group, a division of Random House, Inc., New York. www.crownpublishing.com
Broadway Paperbacks and its logo, a letter B bisected on the diagonal, are trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Farrar, Straus and Giroux, LLC, for permission to reprint an excerpt from “Fable of the Mermaid and the Drunks” from Extravagaria by Pablo Neruda, translated by Alastair Reid. Translation copyright © 1974 by Alastair Reid.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Turgeon, Carolyn.
Mermaid: a novel / by Carolyn Turgeon.—1st trade paperback ed.
p. cm.
1. Mermaids—Fiction. 2. Princesses—Fiction. I. Title.
PS3620.U75M47 2011
813′.6—dc22 2010017038
eISBN: 978-0-307-58998-9
Cover photograph © Andrea Buso/Gallery Stock
Mermaid’s tail © Gary Braasch/Corbis
v3.1
For my parents and sister
Contents
Cover
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
Epigraph
Chapter One - The Princess
Chapter Two - The Mermaid
Chapter Three - The Princess
Chapter Four - The Mermaid
Chapter Five - The Princess
Chapter Six - The Mermaid
Chapter Seven - The Princess
Chapter Eight - The Mermaid
Chapter Nine - The Princess
Chapter Ten - The Mermaid
Chapter Eleven - The Princess
Chapter Twelve - The Mermaid
Chapter Thirteen - The Princess
Chapter Fourteen - The Mermaid
Chapter Fifteen - The Princess
Chapter Sixteen - The Mermaid
Chapter Seventeen - The Princess
Chapter Eighteen - The Mermaid
Chapter Nineteen - The Princess
Chapter Twenty - The Mermaid
Chapter Twenty-one - The Princess
Chapter Twenty-two - The Mermaid
Chapter Twenty-three - The Princess
Chapter Twenty-four - The Mermaid
Epilogue: The Princess
Acknowledgments
Reader’s Guide
Scarcely had she entered the river than she was cleansed
gleaming once more like a white stone in the rain,
and without a backward look, she swam once more,
swam toward nothingness, swam to her dying.
—PABLO NERUDA
CHAPTER ONE
The Princess
IT WAS A GLOOMY, OVERCAST DAY, LIKE ALL DAYS WERE, WHEN the princess first saw them. The two of them, who would change her life. There was nothing to herald their appearance, no collection of birds or arrangement of tea leaves to mark their arrival. If anything,