The Mermaid's Sister(57)

“I will change out of my costume and help you,” I say to O’Neill. Through the open window, I glimpse Osbert in the treetops, and I wonder if he would have swooped down to save me from the shoemaker if O’Neill had not intervened. Who can know the mind of a wyvern?

“I must speak to you,” I whisper to O’Neill as I brush past him.

But Jasper joins us and keeps close as a shadow until the last item is packed. And then he commands O’Neill to take the driver’s seat of the smaller wagon. It seems that Jasper is as anxious to leave the elven folk as O’Neill is. So we set out in the dark, traveling slowly by the light of the moon.

Come morning, I will tell O’Neill of my plan to rescue Maren.



The moon is now on her slow slide down the sky. Morning will come very, very soon, and someday I will tell the tale of this new day: the day of our escape.

I wish I could say for certain that my tale will be a good one.





CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN





The river rushes by, tumbling over rocks and around the skeleton of a fallen tree. The sun hides behind a veil of clouds. Near where I sit on the stony beach, Soraya boils her latest pot of miracle cure. This one stinks worse than any of its predecessors. Stewed seven-needle root smells like an angry skunk bathed in sulfur.

The water moves fast. Would it carry my sister to the sea if I asked it to? She weighs very little and would be so willing to ride its currents. She would cause it no trouble at all.

I hug my knees to my chest. Grief has its fingers about my throat and I can barely breathe. Should I place Maren’s body in the river? At least then she would be free. And perhaps she would make it to the ocean. Perhaps she would live.

If she remains ensconced in that jar, she will, undoubtedly, die before the week is out.

Can I make it to the ocean in time? Is it possible?

For a moment, O’Neill’s spicy Christmas scent eclipses the stench of Soraya’s medicine. He crouches next to me. “Something is going to happen tonight,” he whispers. “I think we will take our leave.” His gaze is fixed on a heron standing on twig-like legs in the shallow water near the opposite shore. I study his face, admiring the shape of his nose, the color of his eyes, the certainty of his jaw, the little heart-shaped birthmark on his chin.

“How do you know?” I watch the heron dip its bill into the dark water.

“It is a feeling I have. An intuition the gypsies taught me to respect.”

“What should we do?”

“Nothing, for the moment. Things will unfold, I think, without our interference.”

“I was planning to go today, to take Maren, no matter what,” I say. “But I trust you. I will do as you say, as long as it is today.” In the trees above the heron, I glimpse the wing of my pet wyvern. “Osbert,” I whisper.

“I see him,” O’Neill says. He picks up a small round stone and rolls it in his hand, and then he makes it disappear. “Clara,” he says softly, somehow making the two syllables of my name as beautiful as any sonnet.

I remember his kiss.

“What?” I do not know what else to say. My knees begin to tremble and I hug them more tightly. The memory of his mouth touching mine is the strongest memory I have, so strong that it makes my chest ache.

“If we fail, if we die here—”

“You must not say that,” I say. “It is bad luck.”

“Well, then,” he says.

“Come, Neelo,” Soraya beckons from behind us. “Come hold this bottle for me so I may fill it.”

He looks into my eyes and I think he must see my soul. He must know what I have tried so hard to deny. He must know that I love him beyond all reason.

But he stands and leaves me without another word.



Dinner is over, the dishes have been wiped clean in the river, and Soraya has gone into the wagon to tend to the doctor.

With O’Neill’s help, Jasper sets Maren’s jar beside the fire, regarding me as though he expects me to repay him with adoration. In the firelight, Maren looks like a cursed and feverish fairy-tale creature. Her eyes are glassy and she lies very still upon her bed of pearls.

I hang the kettle over the fire, pretending to make tea. With my back to Jasper, I empty my packet of mixed herbs into the water. I pray that this concoction does not betray me by creating a foul stench. And I wait for it to boil.

I turn and catch O’Neill’s eye. He nods, signaling that he has seen my furtive activity.

“Sing something, Neelo my lad. Make us swoon with your grand talents,” Jasper says as he sits down on the wooden chair closest to where I stand. He reaches beneath the chair and brings out a black bottle. He uncorks it with his teeth and takes a swig. “Come sit beside me, Clara. Better yet, try my lap.”

“I will sit when this tea is done,” I say.

O’Neill taps on Maren’s jar. “This was your favorite when we were young,” he says. He sings to her as if she is the only person—or mermaid—in the world. The song is an old English ballad (or so Scarff has always claimed) about a young husband who goes to sea, promising to bring back treasures for his bride. Instead, he falls prey to a siren whose song makes him steer his ship into a whirlpool. Of course he dies, but he does so with his true love’s name on his lips.

“La, that’s an awful song!” Jasper says, slurring his words. “Truly dreadful.”