Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [75]
Prince Christopher sent for Lenia every night, when her maids helped her out of her stiff layers and into a thin robe, and combed her long hair until it hung in a stream over her shoulders and down her back.
When she was not with him, she thought of him. Even now, she could not wait for the seamstresses to finish their task, leave her to prepare for dinner in the great hall, and him.
The sun was beginning to set, and the smell of the sea came in through the windows. Outside, its surface shone black, like oil, reflecting the sun above it, revealing nothing of what it contained. Lenia scanned the water, as had become her habit. She thought of her sisters, there, beneath those waters. What were they doing, right then? She tried to bring them to her mind—Thilla with her wise face, beautiful Nadine, the flame-haired twins Bolette and Regitta, Vela with her exotic sea creatures—but they seemed so far from her. Her heart ached as she imagined them searching for her, the panic they must have felt when they discovered her gone. She wondered how long it had taken one of them to go to Sybil, who would have told them about what she had done.
Would they understand, eventually, and forgive her?
She thought of the necklace they’d found for her, within the prince’s wrecked ship, and about how she’d tossed it angrily back in the water after hearing the prince speak about the human princess Margrethe. The woman he thought had saved him. Had one of her sisters found it, and taken it as a message from her to them? I love you, and I am well, here in the upper world.
“Are you feeling all right, lady?” one of the women asked.
She was swaying, she realized, off balance. A strange feeling rose from her belly. She tried to steady herself.
She nodded, but then the feeling swept through her, like a giant wave, and it was as if her body were turning inside out, and she was falling from the stool and one of the seamstresses was catching her and the other running for the chamber pot, and then they were both helping her to the bed.
She opened her mouth, and her insides came out. A hot liquid, a terrible sensation, like her body was being flipped over, everything contained inside her skin being pushed out. She remembered the feeling of her tail turning to legs, and for a moment she felt sheer panic. What if the potion was wearing off? What if she were becoming something else, something between mermaid and human?
As quickly as it began, it passed. She sat breathing heavily, rocking back and forth, not sure what had just happened.
“Here,” one of the women said, handing Lenia some water, which she drank gratefully.
And she saw that, rather than panicking, the two seamstresses gave each other an amused look before going back to their work.
SHE TOOK TO her bed for the rest of the evening, to recover from the sickness that had overcome her. Never, in the sea, had she felt anything so awful and unnerving.
She lay alone and naked on the soft bed, with the curtain closed around her, clutching this strange torso she had, this curving belly. Slipping in and out of sleep. Wishing there was a shell she could crawl into, the way ocean creatures did, burrowing into a smooth recess of pink.
Every smell suddenly bothered her, even more than before. The spice from the tea the servants brought. The lavender from the water that scented the fabrics. The vague odor of fowl coming from the castle kitchen.
She sobbed under the covers. Slick with sweat, with tears. She was like a raw, disgusting sea