Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [25]
She watched the girl’s eyes widen, heard her pull of breath as she stopped halfway across the shore. For a moment they just stared at each other. The girl’s dark eyes moved up and down Lenia’s body, sweeping over her long tail, her torso and bare breasts, her long, ropy hair. When her eyes rested on Lenia’s, the girl looked away quickly, embarrassed. And then back again.
Lenia tilted her head. She could feel the emotions of the girl. So strange, how they affected her … in ways the air and the cold could not. But the girl was shivering, like she had no skin at all. Was this a soul? This fragility, this absence? And that smell. Cold and wind, but, under it, other things. Spices, warmth, blood.
Lenia tried to calm her. Talk to me, she thought, concentrating. Tell me who you are.
After a few moments, the girl stepped forward, then knelt down on the rocks. “My name is Margrethe,” she said.
Lenia smiled. “My name is Lenia,” she said. “Len. Ee. A.”
“Lenia,” Margrethe repeated. “You are not cold?” She gestured awkwardly at Lenia’s torso.
“No.”
“I’m so cold my skin burns.”
“You are softer than I am,” Lenia said, smiling, touching her own skin self-consciously.
Margrethe smiled back then and seemed to relax. “Yes. I’ve never seen a …”
“A mermaid?”
“Mermaid.” Margrethe repeated the word, whispering. “I wasn’t sure if you … I wasn’t sure if you, if your kind, even existed. I heard stories, when I was a child. But I thought they were only stories.”
Lenia cocked her head. How strange. She’d always imagined that humans thought about her kind, too. They were always taking off to the sea in their giant ships, after all. “Well,” she said, “we are not supposed to come to your world. We are allowed to visit when we turn eighteen, but we’re supposed to remain hidden, not let you see us.… A long time ago, things were different.”
“But you came … to save him?”
“Yes. I suppose I did.”
“Why?”
Lenia stared up at the girl’s open, curious face. Why? “I just … I saw the men, they were dying. It was my first time. In your world, I mean, above the ocean’s surface. Men were dying all around me. And then I saw him, and he was dying also. I knew I should save him. I couldn’t let him die.”
And because I loved him, she thought.
“Why here?” Margrethe asked.
Lenia shrugged. “I just knew to bring him here.”
“To me?” Margrethe asked, shyly.
Lenia hesitated. It seemed important to this human girl to think that the man had been a gift, from Lenia to her. She spoke slowly. “Well. I saw you standing there, and I called to you.”
The girl leaned back, seemed to let the information sink into her. “I heard you, I think,” she whispered. “A voice, in my mind. Did you do that?”
Lenia nodded. “Yes.”
Margrethe’s face changed, and she visibly relaxed. “I’ve been waiting for you. I thought you might come back. Maybe to see him.”
Lenia looked down at the icy rocks, and then up again. “Is he still here?” she asked.
“No. He is … He was in danger here. From an enemy kingdom. And so he left.”
“He is your enemy?” Lenia asked.
“Yes.” Margrethe paused and then continued rapidly, explaining. “I’m in hiding here. My father is the king of the North. The Southern king is his enemy, and they have fought great wars against each other. They both feel this land is theirs.” She paused then. “I don’t know why I am saying this to you. I cannot talk to anyone else. I mean, I am not myself here.”
Lenia took it in, what this girl was saying. A princess, she was. Lenia imagined that, in the human world, this was something even more fine than in her own. She thought of all the treasures glittering under the sea—the jewels and gold, the chandeliers and giant ships, the glass bottles of amber liquids. A thousand different wonders.
Margrethe leaned forward. “What did you mean when you said things were different a long time ago?”
“When we were