Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [14]
And carrying the man through the water, she had felt exactly like that: as if that light were entering her, too, the beginnings of an immortal life.
“That is what the sea witch says,” Vela said. “That they live forever.”
Thilla slammed the tray of crabs so hard on a rock that the water shuddered with it. “First humans, and now Sybil? What has gotten into you two? She’s a witch. She was banished by our own great-grandmother, Vela.”
“Some of the others have gone to her, for spells and potions. It’s not a big deal.”
“I can’t believe you,” Regitta said.
“She has tricks to make a merman fall in love with you,” said Vela.
“You don’t need tricks for that,” Bolette said, laughing. “At least not from a witch.”
“She was banished for a reason,” Thilla said. She banged the rock beside her again in frustration. “Don’t any of you care? She is dangerous, to all of us. And, Lenia, you’re lucky to be alive. If you think dying like a human is so beautiful, go back to them. Let them kill you. They will, you know.”
“I would, if I had a soul,” Lenia said, crying out. The others stopped and looked at her, surprised by the intensity of her reaction. “I would go back right now.”
“Lenia!” Bolette said. “What about us? The sea? You are a mermaid.”
“Souls aren’t even real,” Thilla said, raising her arms in frustration. “It’s just a pretty story Grandmother tells us, the way she tells us about sea fairies and talking flowers.”
“Stop it, all of you!” Nadine said, lifting a heap of jewelry from the chest and tossing it out at them. Heavy gold and silver, gems of every color, streaking across the water. All manner of sea creature appeared suddenly, from under rocks and amid the coral, attracted by the flashing stones. “It’s over. Lenia’s back. We’re arguing about nothing.”
Bolette laughed as a bracelet knocked against her cheek, then fell onto a tentacle of a passing squid. And then they all began to laugh, twisting onto their sides, batting jewels and stones and coins, hundreds of coins from the bottom of the chest, back and forth.
Just like that, the argument was forgotten.
Only Lenia remained quiet, watching as an eel slunk by, catching a twinkling silver ring in its open, gaping mouth.
CHAPTER FIVE
The Princess
MARGRETHE BARELY SLEPT BEFORE LAUDS, THE EARLY morning office. She lay in bed wrapped in furs, her eyes wide open, starting at every sound. The branches crackling outside, the pounding sea, the occasional soft footstep. She slept with a knife blade flat against her belly—the knife her father had sent with her which she’d kept under her bed until now.
She’d heard about the barbarians in the South for as long as she could remember. They had sharp, pointed teeth, her old nurse had told her, and would drink blood straight from an infant’s slit throat. She’d grown up having nightmares about being attacked in the forest, or the barbarians slipping past the city walls, across the moat and drawbridge, past the sleeping guards, into the castle and her private chambers. These people had killed her ancestors, her mother had told her, back when she’d told her stories at night, when she was alive—they’d slashed through villages, burning crops and houses, even churches, and danced among the flames. No one alive had seen these things specifically, but the stories had been passed on for generations now. Margrethe herself had spent countless nights lying awake, imagining these horrors, just like any peasant child.
She tossed in her bed. She rose, as she had done at least a dozen times, intending