The Mermaid's Sister(3)
The ocean is so very far away.
How will I live without my sister? She is the strong one, the outgoing one, the shiny-as-a-new-coin one. The one the village boys smile at, the one who charms extra pennies from the shrewdest of housewives when we sell our vegetables in the square.
What am I without her?
Just a girl left by a stork.
CHAPTER TWO
Osbert races back and forth in front of the cottage, shrieking and galloping like a crazed, two-legged miniature pony. His unruly pointed tail knocks the heads off the black-eyed Susans and tears up the grass by its roots.
“Osbert, hush,” I say. “Go inside, you beast!” I do not know what has provoked him to act so wildly. It could be anything from a trespassing chipmunk to an approaching villager. And if it is the latter, he would do well to hide himself. Few people believe dragons still exist—especially not the practical folk of Llanfair Mountain. It is better for us all if his presence remains a secret.
When I hear the clanging, I know why Osbert is in such a state. Scarff and O’Neill are coming, and Osbert loves no one better, not even Auntie, who raised him from an egg.
Pots and pans bump and bang together as they swing from hooks under the eaves of the brightly painted house-wagon, above the sign that reads “Scarff and Brady, Merchants.” Funny wind chimes made of old spoons and knives, chimes crafted from bits of pottery and sea glass, and chimes created from pieces of copper pipe and tin soldiers add their notes to the music of the caravan’s approach. This symphony lifts my heart like no other, for it means the arrival of beloved friends.
Auntie steps out of the cottage, a wide smile on her round face. The unmistakable smile of a woman in love. For as old as they might be now, my dear Auntie Verity and Ezra Scarff have been sweethearts (according to Auntie) since her hair was chestnut-brown and his beard was the color of dandelions.
From his seat behind his faithful horses, Job and January, Scarff waves with both hands. Before the caravan stops, a young man leaps out its back door, turns a somersault in the air, and lands squarely on two green-shoed feet.
“O’Neill!” Maren shouts, in a most unladylike fashion, from across the garden. To reinforce her lack of manners, she runs to him and embraces him with such vigor that they both stumble and fall into the dusty road.
I blush in embarrassment for my sister. She would not consider being embarrassed for herself.
And then I pick up my skirts and hurry to meet O’Neill. “You’ve grown taller,” I say as he regains his footing and brushes the dirt from his tan trousers and brightly embroidered vest.
“Scarff tells me that he absolutely will not buy me another pair of trousers till next spring, even if they’re at my knees come New Year’s Day,” the blond young man says, laughing. He embraces me before I can object. Not that I would have, truly. He smells of spices and strong soap, like Christmas morning come early. “There now,” he says. “Now I am made welcome.”
Osbert leaps the garden gate and tackles O’Neill, licking his face with a forked and silvery tongue.
“Ha!” Maren says. “Now you are made welcome, indeed!” She puts a hand over her mouth and giggles. The webbing between her fingers extends almost to her knuckles, a pale, translucent green.
“Osbert! Get off me, you behemoth!” O’Neill does not laugh with Maren. His eyes are fixed on her affected hand.
Noticing, Maren slips her hands into the pockets of her skirt. “What are you staring at, peddler boy?” Her teasing is accompanied by the batting of eyelashes, a blatant attempt to distract O’Neill from what he has seen.
With a scowl, O’Neill pushes Osbert aside—and it is no small feat to move an agitated hundred-pound wyvern. He stands up, filthy and frowning. “Show me your hands, Maren.”
“No.” Her lower lip protrudes in an unusually charming pout.
He grabs at her arm and tries to pull her hand from its hiding place. She lets out a shriek.
“What is all this?” a voice booms, silencing everything, right down to the last bird in the hedges. Scarff approaches like a slow-moving thundercloud, his typically jolly expression absent from his bushy-bearded face. “O’Neill! Have I brought you up to accost young ladies and thereby cause them to rent the air with tones befitting a tribe of banshees?”
“Not at all, sir.” O’Neill steps away from Maren and stands as straight and solemn as a soldier.
Scarff taps O’Neill’s elbow with his ebony walking stick. “What have you to say to the lady?”
“I beg your pardon, Maren,” O’Neill says crisply.
“Now, boy, since you are remembering your manners, perhaps you could show the ladies our recent acquisitions. The Turkish collection would certainly spark their interest.” Finally, a smile blooms between Scarff’s fluffy mustache and beard. “How we have missed you, dearest girls!” He lays a hand on one of my cheeks and one of Maren’s and sighs like a king over his treasure hoard. “In all my days, in all this wide world, never have I seen such lovely girls. Except for one.”
“Auntie Verity,” Maren volunteers.
“Intelligent as well as beautiful, so you are.” His laugh is a low rumble.
“Enough of your blather,” Auntie says from behind her beau. “Come now, Ezra, and have tea with me while the children look at the wares.”