Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [81]
Margrethe turned, in her most regal manner, to the guard approaching them. “Where is the prince?” she asked. “I must speak to him at once.”
“I believe he is with the king, madam.”
“Take me to him.”
“As you wish,” he said, nervous but unwilling to disobey a princess.
She followed the guard down a corridor that led to the king’s chamber, thinking about what she would say to the prince. You know me, she wanted to shout. You kissed my hand at the end of the world! I saved your life, remember? You called me an angel. Don’t you remember? You would have died without me. She did not care if it was true. I carried you through the water!
As they approached the king’s chamber, the door was suddenly flung open, and the prince himself stormed out.
He brushed past them, his face flashing with anger.
“Christopher,” she said.
He turned, ferocious.
“You,” he said.
Her heart was pounding. “Yes.” She shrank back.
He stalked toward her, and she watched him with wide, terrified eyes. “You. You made a fool of me. I thought you were a woman of God, and you were … You’re …” He gestured at her in frustration.
“But I …,” she began. No one had ever spoken to her this way. Tears sprang to her eyes, to her horror. She wiped them away angrily. “I did not know who you were, either!”
“You tricked me! You let me stand there and practically profess my love for you, Margrethe.” He emphasized her name angrily. “Like a fool.”
“But I was in hiding,” she said. “Nobody knew who I was there. I was not supposed to tell anyone. I don’t understand what you think I should have done!”
“You should have told me your name. Who you were. I was nearly dead, what do you think I would have done to you? We were in a house of God!”
She gaped at him. The strength of his anger confused her. “What do you mean?” she said. “You … were my enemy!”
“Exactly,” he said, quietly, and for the first time she saw the hurt in his eyes. He thought she had betrayed him. Had she? It made no sense to her. None of this did.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
For a moment, his face relaxed, and she saw a glimmer of the man she’d met by the sea.
Just then, a guard appeared from the king’s chamber. “May I be of any assistance, Your Highness?” he asked, and Margrethe and Christopher both turned to him at once.
He had been talking to the prince, who nodded. “I am just going back to my rooms,” Christopher said.
“You know me,” she whispered, trying to get the moment back.
He looked at her coldly. “I knew a holy woman. I do not know the daughter of the Northern king.” He nearly spat the words before storming off, leaving her there alone with the guard, who was gentlemanly enough to pretend not to have seen anything that had just happened.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
The Mermaid
WITHIN DAYS OF MARGRETHE’S ARRIVAL AT THE castle, the healer woman, Agnes, visited Lenia and confirmed that she was indeed pregnant with the prince’s baby, that he had filled her with his seed and that the seed would become a child. His child. Her child. Agnes had told Lenia that the baby was growing at an unusual rate, that she’d never seen anything like it.
“I can feel its heart,” Agnes had told her, and Lenia had had to swallow to keep the sickness down. “I would’ve thought you’d arrived here already pregnant if I hadn’t seen for myself that you were a virgin. I don’t understand it, but you and the baby seem healthy enough.”
Now, more than two months after drinking Sybil’s potion and coming to the upper world, Lenia stood by the sea, staring out at the water, remembering the witch’s words: If he marries someone else, the next morning at dawn your heart will break, and you will turn to foam.
The waves crashed, rising and cascading down into foam, and then turned to nothing, as if they were never there at all. All her life, in the sea, she had dreamed of this, the world above. And now that she was here, she yearned instead for the sea and for all she’d left behind. Would it always be like this for her?
She spoke to her child in her mind. This is the sea, where your aunts live, and your grandmother