Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [60]
Though she was focused on eating, adjusting to this mouth with no tongue, this cooked animal flesh, the moment the prince entered the hall, Lenia knew. All her fears had been unfounded. Every cell of her body felt him.
She looked up, and there he was, the same man she had seen drowning in the water, so helpless and afraid as his men died around him. But now he was strong, ferocious. He was tall, his body full and muscled, his skin and hair touched with sun gold. There was not an ounce of fear in him now, not an ounce of dying. He looked like the son of a king.
Any glimmer of the sea left in her, everything she was now and had ever been—all of it turned to him. Do you remember me? she thought. In the water? Do you remember? It is me. I have come here for you.
His eyes went to her immediately, and he stopped, stood frozen. He was dressed in hunting clothes, his hair disheveled. On his skin, she could see the shimmer she’d left. It was barely there, but she could see it. Where she’d kissed him, where she’d moved her palm over his skin.
Everyone turned to watch the prince as he stood unmoving. After a long moment, he seemed to become conscious, suddenly, of how awkward he looked and how much attention he was attracting.
He laughed it off. “And who is this mysterious new lady who has so bewitched me with one look?” he asked, addressing the room at large.
“Ah, Brother, I expected no less,” Katrina said, leaving the king’s table and marching down to meet him. “This is my new friend. She cannot speak, see. Which makes her perfect for one so rich in words as yourself.”
The king laughed, and everyone followed suit. “It would seem your sister knows you and your needs better than the king and queen do,” he said.
Lenia watched as Katrina took Christopher’s arm and led him to her. “And this is … Well, since she cannot speak, she cannot tell us what her name is. If she has one at all. What shall we call her?”
Christopher laughed along with the others, good-naturedly. “It is as if you emerged from my deepest heart,” he said to Lenia, in an exaggerated manner, going along with the game, as he neared her. “I am certain that I have dreamt you here.”
Yes, Lenia thought. Hadn’t he?
He looked at her, tilting his head. “Would you like me to name you, O fair-haired one?”
She smiled, nodded. Yes. Without thinking, she held out her hands to him, and he smiled, surprised at her forwardness, and took them, kneeling down beside the table.
“I say we call her Astrid,” he said. “Because she is so fair, and beautiful.”
“Perfect,” Katrina said. “Astrid it is.”
Astrid, she repeated to herself, turning the name over in her mind.
His skin on hers felt electric, magical, shrinking her body to the one place where they touched, then expanding it again as the feeling moved throughout. The rush of excitement and love. And through his playfulness, through the laughter surrounding them, through his own brilliant smile, she could see that he remembered. Maybe not consciously, but there was something inside of him, a knowledge that they’d met before.
Do you remember how I carried you through the sea? How strong I was then?
“Is it true you cannot speak?” he asked. His was voice soft now.
Lenia nodded, overcome. Even being in love felt different now. The sensation of his hands on hers … He was no longer overwhelmingly soft and warm and fragile. Now he was strong, beautiful, alive. She could smell him, feel him. Her body reacted to him the way it had to the dinner feast, with a need she could