The Mermaid's Sister(65)

He kneels before me and slips a ring onto my finger. “Will you be my wife?” he asks. The Sea King’s rubies and gold glimmer in the firelight, and O’Neill’s eyes reflect the flames. “After your forward behavior this evening, you must say yes.”

“Yes,” I say. “In the next town, at the next church.” I kiss him again, and I swear I can hear the mermaids’ sweet songs even though we are miles from the ocean. How can one heart be so full and so empty at the same time?

I shove him away suddenly. “O’Neill,” I say, panicking. “I cannot marry you! What if I become a stork? It could happen at any time, perhaps even tomorrow.”

He laughs. “You are no stork, Clara. You are no more a stork than I am an apple.”

“But Auntie said a stork brought me to her. And after what happened to Maren . . .”

“It was Scarff,” he says. “It was Scarff who found you and took you to Auntie.”

“But Auntie cannot lie, and she said it was a stork.”

“Scarff’s given name is Ezra Corraghrian Scarff. Corraghrian means stork. It was his Scottish mother’s family name. He found you on the steps of an abandoned orphanage.”

“Why did they never tell me? All this time I have dreaded growing feathers and a bill!”

“Your story was so unromantic compared to Maren’s and mine. They wanted you to feel special, too. To have some magic of your own. None of us thought you actually believed you would become a bird. How could you have kept such a worry to yourself all these years?”

“I did believe it. I was resigned to it, in fact. But I would much rather be your Clara. I have seen enough magic,” I say. “And what does it matter where my journey began, as long as I end it with you?”

O’Neill takes both my hands. “I feel foolish, you know. Almost as if I ought to ask for your pardon.”

“For what could you possibly require pardon?”

“I swore to save Maren and to protect you. But you were the hero, weren’t you? You were the one who made me brave when I might have given up. You were the one who stood up to Jasper—without knowing Osbert would come to your aid. You used the healing blade to save me. You made sure Maren reached the ocean alive. You were your sister’s hero, and you are mine. My brave, brave Clara.”

A blush warms my face, and for once I do not mind. “How could I have been brave if you had not been beside me?”

“You would have been.”

In silence, we watch fireflies rising up from the grass like little freely moving stars. And I think about not being a stork, about never becoming a stork. Yet I have changed. I have left childhood behind, and it is true—I have been braver than I thought I could be.

“It is all fine and good being brave,” I say as the moon peeks out from behind a cloud. “But could we take turns at being the hero? It is a lot of work, you know.”

“I rather like being the damsel in distress,” O’Neill teases. “I was about to ask to borrow a dress.”

“Never!” I shove him hard and he rolls into the grass. And we laugh as we have not laughed in months, as I never thought we’d laugh again.





CHAPTER THIRTY





With one hand, O’Neill raps the brass doorknocker against the wooden parsonage door. With his other hand, he clenches my hand. His palm is damp, and I suspect it is not from the heat of the day. Even a willing groom is likely to have nerves just before his wedding.

He knocks again, and we wait. “What if no one is at home?” I say. “Perhaps someone else in the town could marry us. A judge or a justice of the peace.”

“Hello,” a voice calls from behind us. We turn around to find a black-robed priest carrying a basket brimming with blueberries. “I was in the gardens and did not hear you arrive.”

“Good afternoon,” O’Neill says. “My name is O’Neill, and this is Clara. We would be most grateful if you’d marry us, Father.” His words come out in a rush. His nervousness is most endearing.

“O’Neill, you say?” The priest grins, showing all three of his teeth. “Isn’t that a wonder? My name is O’Neill, Patrick O’Neill, although I’m called Father Patrick by most.” He brushes past us and opens the door. “Come in, come in. My housekeeper’s gone away to see her son, so don’t mind the dust.”

He takes us to the kitchen and gives us cups of cool water and bowls of blueberries doused with cream. “Lad,” he says, leaning close to O’Neill. “You put me in mind of someone.”

“Perhaps we have met before. My guardian and I are traveling merchants and might have stopped here, although I do not remember it,” O’Neill says. He spoons the last of the blueberries into his mouth. Cream runs down his chin, and he wipes it away with his hand.

“Glory be!” the priest says. “That birthmark! Now I know you, lad.”

O’Neill fingers the heart-shaped birthmark on his chin. “I was an orphan.”

“Yes. Yes, you were. It was in Virginia, my parish. Near my childhood home. And I found you under the apple tree where my brother was buried, a babe with a birthmark just like he’d had.”

“Your brother Seamus,” O’Neill says. “My guardian has told me the story many times. He named me O’Neill for your brother because he did not think I looked like a Seamus.”