Mermaid_ A Twist on the Classic Tale - Carolyn Turgeon [96]
Thilla came toward her then, and the others followed. Lenia stood and walked slowly into the sea, and one by one her sisters said good-bye. Thilla, Bolette, Regitta, Nadine, and Vela. Her beautiful sisters, who would have done anything to save her but could not convince her to shed her beloved’s blood.
A peacefulness came over her. Soon she would become nothing at all. This was the thing she had been most afraid of. She had given up everything she’d ever known for the possibility of love and eternal life, a soul. She stared up at the stars. The mystery of them, as mysterious as the ocean was, here in the upper world. None of these people could ever know what she knew, the world that lay deep within the sea. And she would never know, not now, the mystery that awaited them after death.
She would return to the sea, where she had always belonged, like all who had come before her.
BUT SUDDENLY THERE were sounds behind her on the beach, footsteps and voices and crying. She turned to warn her sisters, but they had already cloaked themselves in mist.
It was Margrethe, with Edele just behind her. And in Margrethe’s arms, Christina.
Lenia felt her whole body lurch with horror. No! Lenia gestured to them. Go back!
Even as she tried to stop their approach, Christina saw her, her blue eyes resting on her mother, and she reached out her tiny, shimmering arms.
No!
The sky was shifting, illuminating the mist that surrounded her.
“Lenia!” Margrethe cried. “I know what is happening. I know you are waiting to die here.”
Lenia looked at Margrethe, confused, as Margrethe pulled something from her pocket.
“You do not have to die!”
The knife shone, like a sliver of the moon fallen to earth.
Lenia tried to scream, opening her mouth. No! All she could see was Margrethe, the knife, and her own daughter so helpless in Margrethe’s arms. Panic rose in Lenia, sweeping through every vein.
“Lenia. I am a married woman now. His soul is my soul. His blood is my blood.”
Just as Lenia launched her body forward, reaching for Christina, even as her own body began to shift and change with the first rays of the sun … Margrethe carefully handed Christina to Edele, then dropped to the ground, took the blade, and pressed it against her thigh.
His soul is my soul. His blood is my blood.
Edele screamed as blood flowed down Margrethe’s legs.
“I will take care of Christina,” Margrethe gasped. “I will raise her as my own child, and she will know her father, and she will grow up to be great and strong. I promise you this.”
Lenia ran forward and dropped next to the princess, taking Margrethe’s head in her hands.
“Why have you done this?” Lenia cried. And her voice, the words, rang out clear and bright in the air. Her voice. She clutched her own throat, nearly choking on the sound. She looked down. Saw Margrethe’s blood falling on her own legs. A wound glistened from Margrethe’s thigh, and her blood, bright and shining, spilled over her, soaking her dress, dripping at Lenia’s feet.
Christina was crying, Edele screaming for help.
The sun rose in the sky.
And then it came. The searing pain of her body dissolving. The sky was orange and pink and blue, a million colors melting together. She stared up at her crying daughter, and everything broke all at once: her heart, her skin, the sky, the whole world, shattering, and her daughter’s cries above all of it.
She prayed then, for the first time, for nothingness. To turn to foam, become absorbed by the great ocean, and forget.
And then everything went black and, finally, her body was free from pain.
SHE OPENED HER eyes onto the sky. Blinking at the sky. The sun on the horizon, glowing. She felt the earth beneath her. The sky an array of orange and yellow and blue. Long streaks across it, the stars hidden now.
She closed her eyes. She felt she was in a dream, wondered if these were the in-between moments as she left one realm and entered another, as her body melted to foam.
But nothing happened. The earth remained hard under her back.
She opened her