The Mermaid's Sister(19)

“Enough flirting,” O’Neill scolds. “Get on with the story, old man.”

“Yes. Well. Where was I? Oh, yes, Bremen. I was a strapping lad then, you see. Sixteen, and just back from a year at sea. I’d seen such things on that ship! Six-headed sea monsters that would give your Osbert nightmares! Squid bigger than the ship itself. And even mermaids, though none as lovely as our Maren.”

Maren blows him a kiss. He pretends to catch and pocket it.

Scarff clears his throat and continues. “I was feeling poorly, so my grandmother sent me to Albruna’s place on Otto Strasse. Now as world-traveled as I was, my first sight of Albruna gave me a fright. The tallest woman I’d ever laid eyes on, broad shouldered as the most strapping seaman, wild haired as Medusa, with eyes like two spheres of polished coal afire. I trembled in my boots. My mouth went dry and my pulse roared in my ears. Ready to die standing up, I was. And then a sweet voice came from behind the dreadful woman, saying, ‘Who is it?’ Like music, those three words. A second later, a face peered around the dreadful Albruna, and my poor heart stopped. Just stopped.”

Auntie grins. “It stopped, and he fell like a sapling before a woodsman’s ax. Flat onto Albruna’s enormous feet, squashing her new doeskin slippers.”

Scarff’s chuckle rumbles like far-off thunder. “When I awoke, there was that beautiful face, peering into mine. My heart was beating right as rain, but it no longer belonged to me, and never would again.”

Auntie chimes in, “And I felt the same, from the moment I saw the scrawny blond boy all aquiver on Albruna’s doorstep. Albruna knew it, too. She never said a word about it, but after we’d dosed our patient with tonics and tisanes for three days and nights, and the color had returned to his cheeks, she handed me a satchel holding all my earthly goods, placed a gold ring in Scarff’s hand, and shooed us out the door as if we were a pair of trespassing chickens. I looked back from the street to see her wipe away a tear, and we waved good-bye to one another. I never saw her again.”

Scarff lifts Auntie’s hand to his lips and kisses her knuckles tenderly. “Before we took to the roads, we visited the old priest. Poor Father Matthias, as ancient and holy as he was, he greatly feared Albruna and her pupil, and so did not refuse to marry us—even though it was midnight, with only a pigeon in the chapel rafters as witness. Afterward, he gave us woolen blankets and a lantern and the room above his stables for the night.”

“Married?” I exclaim in wonder and delight. “All this time!”

“You rascal,” O’Neill says, poking Scarff in the shoulder. “Keeping such secrets from your own son!”

“Wait,” I say. “Why have you not lived together? Why have we not all lived together? What fun we could have had!”

“If I could continue without you children interrupting, perhaps you might learn the answers to your questions.” His tone is serious but his blue eyes merry.

“Do go on, forgiving us our rudeness,” O’Neill says with false penitence.

“We wandered for years, my bride and I. I did odd jobs in the towns we visited, and Verity (no longer Veritude, since I changed her name on our wedding night), Verity earned coins aplenty healing the sick. A happier couple there never was. We had each other, a fine tent, a cooking pot, and all the world before us.”

“Until?” offers O’Neill.

Caressing his fluffy beard thoughtfully, Scarff continues. “Until, my boy, until Verity and I took a notion to see the New World. The ships bobbing in the ocean in an English port sparked in her a longing to sail the seas. Remembering my seafaring youth more fondly than I should have, I agreed. Besides, I could deny the enchantress nothing. She might have slipped me a potion and made me into a hairy toad.”

Scarff’s wife (what a grand thing for Auntie to be Scarff’s own wife!) slaps his arm playfully. “If only I could, you old buffoon!”

“Silliness aside,” he says, “the crossing proved a nightmare. Half the passengers perished from a fever, and a third of the crew, as well. Verity nursed as many as she could, using up the box of herbs she’d brought, and much of the captain’s own supply. Yet each morning brought the sounding of the ship’s bell and splash after splash of shrouded bodies slipping into the sea. And days from America, the sickness ceased. For all but my wife, that is.” He stops speaking and squeezes Auntie’s hand.

O’Neill, ever the tease, says nothing. Maren rests her head against the back of the tub. Even Osbert and Pilsner seem to hold their breath in anticipation of Scarff’s next words.

Finally, quietly, he continues. “My Verity fought the fever tooth and nail, and lived. But the child she bore did not. So tiny, she was, our daughter. Verity named her Violet and wrapped her in a length of snow-white silk. The sailors wept as the waves carried her little body away. We were all so heartsick that not one person cheered when we dropped anchor in Boston the following morning.”

“Your only child,” I whisper.

“Our first child, my dear,” Auntie says. “The seashell, stork, and the apple tree gave us three more.”

Standing and stretching like a bear fresh from hibernation, Scarff says, “It’s late. I believe the rest of the story can wait until tomorrow.”

O’Neill and I groan in unison. O’Neill says, “You didn’t explain why you’ve lived apart. You can’t leave us wondering!”