The Mermaid's Sister(61)

How can I choose between the two people I love most?

But if I choose healing for Maren, she would still be a mermaid, for there is no dagger in the universe that can make her a girl again. This is the truth I know and believe, although O’Neill continues to reject it again and again.

In choosing Maren, I would likely lose them both, for Maren would regain her size—and without O’Neill, how could I carry her and keep her concealed until we reach the sea?

There is no choice to be made. O’Neill must live or the mermaid will surely perish.

My hand trembles as I press the blade into his wound. What if Mrs. Smith was mistaken? What if I kill my dearest friend?

He coughs and wheezes. His eyes roll back and he shudders.

I cut him, tracing the bullet hole with the razor-sharp tip of the dagger.

O’Neill whimpers, and then he is quiet and absolutely still.





CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT





I am certain O’Neill is dead.

I have hastened his death, and Maren’s death will follow swiftly.

“I am sorry,” I say. I lift his hand to my lips and kiss his cold skin. There is so much I want to say, but I do not think he will ever hear another earthly thing.

I lay his hand upon his chest, inches from the ugly, seeping hole I helped create.

The wound hisses and glows. The skin stretches to cover the wound, and all traces of blood evaporate in a pink puff of air.

A crooked smile spreads across O’Neill’s face just as the moonlight breaks through the clouds of smoke.

If every joy of my life could be combined into one great joy, it would still be nothing but a shadow compared to this: my dearest O’Neill, living and breathing—and attempting to wipe away my flooding tears with his beautiful, filthy fingertips.



The dawn is dim and misty, holding all the promise of another stifling day. The horses whinny as I untie them from their posts. I am glad that O’Neill tethered them away from the camp last evening. I am glad they are not now cinders like the Phippses’ many treasures.

From the six horses, O’Neill chooses Plato and Cleopatra for our journey and sells the other four to a local farmer for much less than they are worth. We then return half the money to him in exchange for saddles, blankets, a sack of salt, and his promise to bury Soraya and Dr. Phipps, “victims of an unfortunate accident.”

With all of his former vim and vigor, O’Neill vaults onto the back of the piebald horse. I hand him a large bucket covered with a piece of burlap, and he receives it as the priceless gift it is. He ties a length of strong rope about his waist and the bucket and makes a good, tight knot.

“I will not lose Maren now,” he says. “Not after all we have been through.”

I force a smile and use the fence to climb into the saddle of the chestnut mare.

“Ready?” O’Neill asks. His face is so bright and eager that I wonder if the healing blade contained some kind of mood-lifting magic.

“Yes,” I say. It is half-true. I am ready to deliver Maren to her home, but I am not ready to part with her. I will never be ready to be parted from my sister.

O’Neill commands his horse to walk, and my horse follows.

We take the road to the east.



My sister is a mermaid. She is small enough to sleep within a two-quart jar of salt water.

Yesterday, when the sun was noon-high, I bought the jar from an old woman we met along the eastward-leading road, filling it with fresh, clear water from her well and salt from her pantry. O’Neill guessed the woman’s favorite song and sang it through three times, making her laugh and cry simultaneously. For this, she gave us a loaf of warm bread and a thick slab of cheese. As we left, she asked O’Neill to marry her. He declined, of course. “Alas,” he said sweetly, “My heart is not mine to give.”

Today, the horses carry us as if we are no trouble at all, as if they are merely going where they please. O’Neill rides Plato with the grace of a prince, and I manage not to fall off Cleopatra’s muscular back.

O’Neill keeps Maren’s jar tied to his body as we travel. He talks to her often, although she rarely responds. He sings to her until his voice is hoarse. Let him cherish her while he may. She is almost home now.

The soil becomes sandier with each passing mile; the trees here are not like Llanfair Mountain trees. They are silly-looking pines: skinny, knobby trunks—and branches with sparse tufts of needles. And when we stop to rest the horses, O’Neill points to the cloudless sky. I recognize the white and gray bird above us; it was Maren’s favorite in Auntie’s bird book, the ring-billed gull.

O’Neill loosens the knotted rope and lifts Maren’s jar. “Look, Maren,” he says with the radiant joy of a little boy, “A sea bird!”

Her eyelids flutter and she nods. She is so small now, just a handful. A miniature doll with tiny scales and smooth, pale, blue-gray skin.

“We will be there soon,” he says. “You will finally have what you have been longing for, dearest.”

She is asleep again before he finishes speaking.

My heart aches for his loss, and for mine.



We sit in the rough, dry grass beside the road. I scan the sky for sea birds while O’Neill holds Maren’s jar between his knees and stares at her wistfully.

“I will ask the Sea King to release her,” he says. “I will demand that he restore her to her human family.”