Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [46]
“I am ready,” she said, more loudly now, trying to keep her voice from quivering. The thought shocked her that these could be the last words she would ever speak.
“Then I must take your payment now.”
“Wait!”
Sybil’s eyes widened, hopeful.
“Can you tell my sisters what I did? They will come here, at least Vela will. Tell her, please, that I chose this, and that I am happy.”
Sybil nodded. “Of course.”
“And that I love them all. Please.”
“Yes.”
“I am ready.” Lenia swallowed and made herself very still. Sybil reached out to the plant next to her and withdrew a long silver knife. Lenia opened her mouth. Involuntarily, she cried out. She was shaking, she realized.
“You are sure?” Sybil whispered.
Lenia nodded. Closed her eyes and imagined webs of light.
Sybil’s voice was gentle, loving, like a hand stroking her hair. “Open your mouth as wide as you can.”
Lenia opened her mouth, keeping her eyes closed, every part of her body tensing in anticipation. And then she felt Sybil’s fingers clutching her tongue, moving her head back farther, and Lenia could feel all the witch’s sadness, as if it were that grief and not the knife about to slice into her. But as she felt the sharpness of the blade, Lenia thought only of the man’s soft skin, his heart beating under her palm, the heaven they would go to after death.
She felt pain, real, searing, physical pain, in a way she never had before, as the blade sliced through her tongue. She clenched her fists and screamed, yanking her head back involuntarily, but Sybil kept hold of her tongue, and then, a moment later, Lenia was free, falling back in the water, opening her eyes to see Sybil floating there with a bloody tongue in her hand. Lenia reeled with pain, falling until she hit the black wall. She could feel the pain all the way down her spine, to the tips of her tail. Her mouth became a wound, and she clamped her lips shut, swallowed blood. Pressing herself against the wall as if she could disappear into it.
The walls changed to a deep, smoky gray. As if from a great distance, through slitted eyes, Lenia watched Sybil take the tongue—red, like a bleeding, pulpy fish—and drop it into the cauldron. After, Sybil took the knife to her own palm and cut into it, squeezing her own blood into the pot.
“What are you—?” Lenia began to ask, but no sound came out. She clamped a hand over her mouth, then pulled it away, saw it was covered in blood.
Sybil looked at her. “It always costs me something as well. But my blood is the least of it.”
Lenia knew then—she was not sure how—that Sybil had once been in the upper world, and that it had brought her only pain and grief. Somehow, in the magic between them, their mingled blood, she could see it. But Sybil had not fallen in love with the prince, she thought, had not saved him in the middle of a nighttime storm and brought him to land. It would be different for her.
Sybil brought out a small bottle and dipped it into the cauldron, filling it with potion. Small bubbles swirled up from the bottle, through the water. As Lenia watched her, the pain began to lessen, mute down to a throbbing ache.
She could do this, she thought.
“I hope you find what you are looking for,” Sybil said, capping the bottle and handing it to Lenia. Lenia took it, and the witch leaned forward and touched Lenia’s face, her eyes brimming with feeling. “Remember everything I’ve told you.”
Lenia nodded, swallowing blood. It was all starting. There was no way to go back now.
“Now go,” Sybil said, “to the other world, to him.”
CLUTCHING THE BOTTLE in her hand, Lenia left the sea witch’s cavern and began to swim. The pain made her numb, and she just flexed her body, racing through the water, trying not to think or feel anything at all.
She had a long way to go, and eventually, as her body calmed, she let herself relax into it. She knew more what to expect