The Mermaid's Sister(43)

Maren shakes her head sadly. I do not think she remembers the taste of any food. She has not eaten in months.

“We ran our spoons around the edges of the pudding to scoop up the part that had cooled from scalding to merely hot. O’Neill giggled when he took his first bite. He said it tasted like purple heaven. He said that even without the grape pudding, it had been the best day of his life—although the day Scarff had found him under the apple tree must have been quite monumental as well. He used that word, ‘monumental,’ an odd word for a ten-year-old boy.”

Maren is smiling again. She combs her fingers through her floating hair.

“Yet despite the joy of that day, O’Neill wept all night for Scarff. I think he wanted both worlds. But wouldn’t we all have liked that—to have lived with Auntie and Scarff, together as a family? But we know now that it was the curse that kept us apart.”

In my mind’s eye, I can see him, the boy O’Neill. Almost always grinning, almost always up to some sort of gentle mischief (for which he would receive instant forgiveness from all—except the grudge-holding cat). My memories show me the unruly crop of blond hair that sprouted from his head like stalks of grain sown in crooked rows, the gap between his front teeth, and the way he’d usually forget to button half the buttons on his shirt. A bit of a wild thing he was, a creature raised by an absentminded traveling merchant. The hours Auntie spent trying to teach him manners! The hours he wriggled and played dumb just to tease her!

But we loved that boy, and he loved us.

He loves us still. And he loves Maren most of all.

“Maren, what if this had not happened,” I say slowly, “and you had not become a mermaid? What if O’Neill—”

“Clara!” Jasper calls from the doorway. “Are you bothering the mermaid again? You should be on your box, preparing to bask in the adoration of our guests.”

I slip out from behind the curtain. “She is my sister. I do not bother her.”

Dressed in a ridiculous pirate costume, Jasper strides toward me, hands on hips. “Stare if you must. I know that I am handsome,” he says. “Practically irresistible, truth be told.”

I ignore his comments and step onto my box, careful not to snag the sumptuous fabric of the kimono. “There. I am in place. No harm done.”

“I must say that you look almost as irresistible as I do,” Jasper says. He fingers my sash. “It suits you, you know. You should always wear silk, day and night.”

“Jasper!” Soraya scolds from just outside. “Take your place to collect the money, son. The customers are coming.”

He struts away as if he truly believes himself a dashing seafarer.

“Stand up straight, Clara child,” Soraya commands from the doorway. “You are a princess, not a farm girl. Keep your eyes to the floor, and do not speak, no matter what anyone says to you.”

The patrons begin to file in, brushing past Soraya. They ooh and ahh as they peruse the oddities laid out before them on tables and shelves.

As instructed, I gaze steadily at my hem.

I think about the snowy Christmas, and the three snow angels we pressed into the whiteness beside the red barn. As we raised and lowered our arms to create wings, the tips of our mittens brushed together and we were one instead of three. Not orphans or foundlings, not friends or siblings, but one entity. Cold and wet and happy beyond description.

A tug on my sleeve shocks me out of my daydream.

“Pretty little thing, ain’t you?” a gravelly voice says, too close to my painted face. “I heard what your kind is good for, and I’ll pay you more than five cents for it, sweetheart.” His breath reeks of sour tobacco and moldy cheese. His hand moves in a circle on my shoulder, then begins to slip lower.

I bring my knee up swiftly. Amid his agonized yowling, I resume my statue-like pose, eyes downcast, smile faint and demure. He ought not to have insulted this princess.

Dr. Phipps appears out of nowhere and, grabbing the lout by his coat collar, drags him toward the door.

“Dear me, folks,” Phipps declares dramatically, “this poor gentleman seems to be having an attack of the bilious fever! But do not panic, for I have the cure for that very ailment. Yes, sir. Right this way. I will have you fit as a fiddle in the blink of Zeus’s great eye!”

Then and there, I resolve to learn to juggle live rats if that is what it takes to be removed from the role of Princess Hatsumi.

“Line up here, if you please,” I hear Soraya say. She is at the back of the tent now. “Single file. You will each be granted a one-minute visitation with the beautiful divinity awaiting you behind this curtain. You will never forget her, even if you live for a thousand years. Come, come! For just five cents, you may behold the splendor of our live mermaid!”

A hush falls over the room but lifts quickly. Many voices speak at once.

“Did she say mermaid?”

“It’s a trick. All paste and horsehide.”

“My uncle saw a mermaid when he served in the British Navy.”

“Can I have the money, Mama? I want to see it. Please?”

“If it’s alive, I’ll eat my hat, Mabel!”

I tilt my head slightly so I can watch that end of the tent from the corner of my eye. The first person in line is a teenaged boy. He drops his pennies into Soraya’s coin box and steps behind the curtain.