Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [9]
“Please,” Margrethe said. “We have to go to the beach, to help him. I told him I would go back!” She knew she could not let the man die. The mermaid had brought him to her, to save him.
One of the nuns ran in, breathless. “Mother, there is a man on the shore.”
“Go to him.” the abbess said. “Get him inside before he dies. A group of you, go!”
As the cloisters erupted into chaos behind her, the abbess leaned down and looked into Margrethe’s face. “You cannot risk yourself like this, no matter what. You are not like the rest of us. Don’t forget that. I promised your father you’d be safe here. Think of what would happen to us, if any harm were to come to you.”
Margrethe nodded, woozy. The abbess was an imposing woman, with snow-white hair and pale eyes, and there was a stricken quality about her face, as if she’d just witnessed something awful. “He is down there dying,” Margrethe tried to say, but her words came out in tiny gasps. “I saw …”
“Shhh. Drink.”
Liquid burned down her throat. Vaguely, she sensed others coming in, wrapping her in blankets, leading her back to her cell. The abbess helping her as she lay on the pallet. Outside, the wind howled and howled. Suddenly, she was exhausted. Maybe there was something in the drink, to calm her and make her sleep.
WHEN SHE WOKE, the room was bathed in darkness. Outside all she could hear was wind, the crashing of rain. Bells were ringing for prayer. It took her a moment to orient herself, remember where she was. Was it Vespers? Had she missed the whole workday? She rose, pulled on a clean tunic. Her fingers shook as she secured the scapular, then attached her wimple and veil.
She’d been dreaming of her mother, she realized. She was a child again, curled up in her mother’s arms, taking in her lavender scent, the warmth of her voice, the softness of her palm as she smoothed down Margrethe’s hair. A terrible sense of loss moved through her. And there was something else …
A mermaid, yes. And a man.
Margrethe shuffled down the corridor, still groggy from her long sleep. Her body felt like it had been wrought from flames. Slowly, she made her way to the chapel—stopping, for a moment, to peek outside, into the convent garden. She pressed open the door, and the wind rushed around her. It felt good, the cold. Rain lashed at her face, and she could hear the crashing of the sea.
It was dark. The stars were visible past the veil of white that covered them. The sea shone black in the distance, all its secrets hidden away.
She shook her head. What dreams she had had! The mermaid on the rocks, bent over the dying man. Her mother, singing her to sleep. She must have fallen into a fever, the way the abbess had only the week before, taken ill from the cold. Margrethe laughed, but not without a tinge of longing. She had been raised in a court where troubadours seduced them with magical tales, where she spent afternoons with her tutor, Gregor, reading long, ancient stories of heroes and conquerors, the dead come back to life. Now here she was, living against the most desolate sea, with women who spent hours each day speaking to heaven while she herself made up fantastical creatures.
She closed the door and hurried to the chapel, already late, taking her seat in the choir stall next to Edele, her old friend and most favored lady-in-waiting, who caught her eye and gave her a look of barely contained panic.
“Are you well?” Edele whispered, ignoring the sharp looks from the others.
Margrethe nodded and put her hand on Edele’s to reassure her. She felt more than ever that she was at the end of the earth, where dream and reality mixed.
She mouthed the words along with the others. She closed her eyes, felt the sweat collecting at her brow. She had dreamed the wonders she’d seen earlier, she thought, but things were still lovely in this part of the world—these women, this place, the feeling that every moment contained something of the miraculous. And Edele, sitting beside her, one lock of her wild hair peeking out from the wimple that covered it.
After the service,