Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [21]
He continued. “I felt you, you know. In the water. I saw you. You coming up under me and lifting me, carrying me to shore, and when I opened my eyes and saw you, I thought you were an angel. I thought I might have dreamed all of it, but I remember now. You carried me. You told me to look at the sky.”
She stared at him, stunned. He did not remember the mermaid, only her. She didn’t know what to say. Part of her wanted to correct him, tell him the truth. But another part of her loved the words he was saying. The vision of herself, in the water.
He knelt down then and looked up at her. She watched the snow fall into his hair and furs, then disappear. His eyes like weeds, those strange lips. “I owe my life to you,” he said. “I’ve seen many things in this world, Sister. But I never thought one day I’d be rescued from the sea by a creature like you, an angel.” He smiled then. “I was starting to think there was no holiness left in this world. There has been so much hatred, and war. It had begun to feel like there was no beauty left, no bit of God left.”
“Please stand,” she said, her voice shaking. “If I did anything at all, it was only a stronger force working through me.”
“I will always be indebted to you,” he said.
“You’ve healed so quickly,” she said. “I will be sorry to see you go.” The words beat at her lips: Why were you brought to me?
He took her hand then, and it shocked her, the feeling of his skin on hers. Before she knew what was happening, he was turning her hand and pressing his lips into her palm and wrist. The wind lashed around them, and the snow fell harder, blocking the sun and turning the world to white.
And before she could react, he stood. At his full height, he was nearly a foot taller than she.
She stepped closer. She had these few moments, and then he would disappear. Suddenly she didn’t care about his answer, why he was there. All she wanted in the world was to kiss him. Her first kiss, right here, and she a girl who’d never dreamed of such things the way other girls did. She was a princess after all. Her father’s sole heir. At her birth, a prophet had announced that she would raise a great ruler, one who would bring glory to their kingdom. Yet without even thinking she lifted her face, and he bent his to meet hers. His eyes right next to hers, and she could not help but think that it was this, this was rapture, right now, and she felt like a mermaid lying on the beach, her body exposed to the sun and her tail gleaming.
There was yelling suddenly, from inside, and Margrethe pulled quickly away from him, feeling her cheeks flush with shame. A moment later one of the senior nuns appeared at the door to the garden. Margrethe could see the abbess coming up behind her.
“Your horse is ready,” the nun called out. And then, looking at Margrethe: “Perhaps you should come in now, Sister.”
He tightened his grip on her hand. “I must go,” he said. “But I am eternally grateful for all you have done, all of you. I am forever in your debt. And I hope I may one day see you again, Mira, though I know your heart belongs only to Him.”
“Mira!” the abbess called from the doorway, and Margrethe could hear the hint of panic in her voice.
He paused, waiting, it seemed, for some sign from Margrethe, and the moment pressed down on her. She wanted to stop time, keep him there until she knew how to respond, what to feel, how to behave with him for this moment, this one moment she had left, but then he let go of her hand.
“Good-bye,” he whispered. “I will not forget you.”
“Good-bye,” she said.
He was already moving away, the snow dropping all around.
CHAPTER SIX
The Mermaid
THE SHIP JUTTED UP FROM THE OCEAN FLOOR LIKE A strange, otherworldly creature tilted on its side, its masts and sails stretching in every direction, like misshapen limbs. Small sea animals had already attached themselves to the rotting wood on the prow. Schools of fish glimmered from the wreckage, streaming in and out of it, attracted by decaying flesh. All