The Mermaid's Sister(55)

He wipes my face with his fingertips. “You see how we take turns despairing and then encouraging one another? Neither of us could have come this far alone.”

He has that look in his eyes, the boy-stupefied-by-mermaid look. But he is looking at me.

“O’Neill!” Jasper shouts from the far side of the camp. “Are you bringing the liniment for the horse or not? I haven’t got all day!”

“Coming,” O’Neill says. He kisses my forehead in a most brotherly, most comforting way. “Hope, Clara. And be patient for just a little longer.”

He leaves me with a hundred questions whirling in my mind.

I wish I could answer even a handful of them, and that the answers would be good and pleasing and peaceful. I wish that wishing would bring the best ending to us all, with the least amount of suffering.

Soraya calls me to the wagon and I hasten to serve her. Very soon, I will no longer be her servant. I will give O’Neill one or two more days, and then I must act—with or without him.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX





I wish that we would travel east, toward the ocean. Instead, Jasper insists upon a northward route. His fondest dream, he says, is to perform for the Eskimos. If he is joking, I cannot tell.

But before we go to Canada, Jasper says we must make a detour to call upon the apothecary who bottles Dr. Phipps’s formulas. Record sales have depleted the show’s supplies. Jasper gives the credit for this to “our good-luck mermaid.”

Another steaming day oppresses those of us who must ride inside the wagon. I am most seriously considering stripping to my chemise—and then huddling behind boxes so as not to provoke Jasper’s lust.

Soraya naps and Dr. Phipps mumbles. I am not sure whether he is awake or asleep. Perhaps he cannot tell, either. Few of his ramblings are comprehensible, but from what I have managed to glean, he is dreaming again of the visitation of a gigantic winged monster. Sometimes he wails and cries as if the thing were eating him alive.

In her jar, Maren floats like a dead leaf, just below the water’s surface. I keep my back to the jar. The sight of her rends my heart, and I cannot bear to look upon her often. If I am to lose her, I would rather remember her as she was: vibrant and sparkling, her shining hair suspended about her like a halo and her face aglow with delight, swishing her silvery-green tail. Or as my two-legged sister, riding her pony bareback and frightening the hens out of the yard with her wild yelping.

“Soraya,” I whisper when she stirs. “Could you help my sister? She is not at all well. Perhaps if you made more of that liquid you first put her in?”

“I cannot help her,” she says, yawning. “Sometimes they live long, and sometimes they do not. Mermaids are unpredictable. If she dies, we will find another. Eventually.”

“Another? I have no other sister. I will never have another sister.”

“Well, that is no fault of mine,” she says, closing her eyes again.

If I were a fighter, I would beat her bloody with my fists. If I were a stork, I would stab her with my bill.



The day of travel seems endless. I poke my needle into my latest mending project and sew crooked seams that must be ripped out and restitched. And the wagon sways and squeaks, and the doctor snores, and Soraya sighs and flutters her fan back and forth, back and forth.

Through the window, I see a steeple and then a series of slate-shingled roofs. Finally, we stop, thanks be to all that is holy.

Jasper meets me as I climb down from the wagon. Or, rather, as I practically throw myself out of the wagon.

“This is Edgemere,” Jasper says. “You may visit the shops on the main street. I’ll be over there.” He points across the street to a building marked “Apothecary, B. D. Hobart.” He tosses a purse my way. I catch it and it jingles. “Buy a new dress, will you? And throw that outfit into the trash. It is not fit to be seen.” He smiles as if he is doing me a great favor, as if he does not owe me a hundred dresses for all the work I have done for him and his parents.

I summon a polite smile. “Thank you,” I say. I will use the manners Auntie taught me, no matter how rudely Jasper speaks to me.

“Just be back here in two hours. Don’t make me come looking for you.” His tone is jovial, but as he walks past me, he squeezes my arm hard enough to bruise it. I do not mistake his meaning.

O’Neill speaks to the horses in front of the small wagon, praising their diligence and promising them treats. We exchange a solemn glance. I believe he is silently reminding me to be patient, and not to stir up trouble with our captors.

Clutching the purse, I make my way along the street. Beebe’s General Store, The Fern Hotel and Tea Room, and the offices of The Edgemere Gazette occupy one side, and on the opposite side are The Red Hedgehog Tavern, a bakery, and a dressmaker’s shop. The tea room tempts me greatly, but Jasper was right about my attire; my bodice is stained and worn thin in spots, and no two buttons are exactly alike. Not at all fit to be seen.

Inside the dressmaker’s shop, Mrs. Smith, the elderly proprietress fusses over me. She carries no ready-made garments, but offers me something she has just finished fashioning for herself—a practical and modest green dress embellished with black lace. With nimble fingers that belie her age, she quickly tailors it to fit me.

I insist on paying her all the money Jasper gave me—a very generous sum, indeed.