The Surface Breaks(17)
Every time I return, I am struck by how small our world is. How insignificant it seems, and by extension, how insignificant we are. I bite my lip at what my father would do if he heard such traitorous thoughts. I bite so hard that I taste tin-blood.
In my bedroom, I run my hand across the statue, pretending that it’s Oliver and that he has reached my tower; that he has somehow found a way to breathe in water, his ears morphing into gills. I imagine the two of us, and a life on-the-swim, always trying to stay out of tails-length of my father, but happy because we have each other, and that’s all we need. I sit in front of my mirror, folding my hair under until it resembles her neat bob, imagining my skin as brown as hers. Viola.
“It doesn’t suit you like that.”
I start, allowing my hair to fall around my shoulders. And then I see him, in the shadows by my door, his eyes hungry. He always seems to be watching me, ever since I was a small child.
“How long have you been there?” I ask.
“I’ve been waiting for you. Where have you been?”
“Zale, you shouldn’t be in my bedroom,” I say, my mouth dry. “The Sea King would be furious if he knew you were here.”
“The Sea King approves of me, little one. We have been the closest of friends for decades now,” Zale says, moving behind me and resting his hands on my shoulders, forcing me towards the mirror again. I look so young next to him, as if posing for a portrait with my grandfather. “And we are betrothed, are we not?”
“We are betrothed, Zale, but we are not yet bonded.” I do not want him touching me. Ever since he decided that it was the sixth daughter of the Sea King he wanted rather than the fifth, I have felt his fingers on my skin. Just a light touch to the waist or the cheek, trailing across the small of my back. Nothing that he could be reprimanded for. Just enough to remind me who I belong to.
“We shall be bonded on your sixteenth birthday,” he says, and I look away. I do not want him to see my fear. “So soon, little one.” It is tradition in the kingdom that maids are not to be bonded before their twentieth birthday, but it seems that rules can always be broken by powerful men. They created the laws, after all, and they uphold them, therefore they can shape them to their own desires.
“Regardless of that fact,” I say. “It is an invasion of my privacy to come into my room like this. And at such an hour.”
“Oh, I do apologize, young Muirgen.”
“Zale, I’m serious. My father—”
“Your father? I’m sure your father would be interested to hear about how often his youngest daughter has been travelling to the surface.”
How does he know that? “I am fifteen now,” I say, trying to ignore my uneasiness. “I will have you remember that.”
“Yes,” Zale says, and his eyes drift down my body. My heart beats too quickly, like a song made up of broken chords. “You most certainly are.”
Watch the fish, my grandmother had told me when I came of age and I began to ask questions of an intimate nature. Watch the fish and you will understand. And so I did. The male fish chasing the female fish around and around, biting her fins, nipping at her tail, waiting for her to fall down in exhaustion so he could claim her as his own. I could not tell if they were fighting or making love. Perhaps it is all the same, in the end.
“Fifteen,” he says. “And I have been so patient these past three years. I feel like I deserve a small reward, don’t you agree?”
I swim away from Zale, floating up towards the surface. My breath feels leaden, as if it wants to break my ribs. I wish Oliver was here to rescue me, take me away. I wish my mother was still alive. I wish someone would ask me what I want, just once. I wish for so many things, and I know that none of them are possible for girls like me.
“Always looking up,” Zale says, floating easily beside me. “Tell me, what is it about up there that fascinates you so much, Muirgen? Is there anything you would like to tell me?”
“What do you mean by that?” (Does he know? How could he know?)
“Nothing,” he says. “I was just wondering.”
Zale has never even been to the surface; it is a point of pride for him. Why would I? he says. Why would I even want to be near those disgusting creatures?
“And all of this nonsense,” he says now, pointing to the statue and the precious things on my table. “This human rubbish. I don’t know why your father indulges this obsession of yours.”
“It’s not an obsession.” And my father does not know anything about me. “I just think they’re pretty.”
“Typical girl,” Zale says. “Distracted by shiny trinkets, regardless of their provenance. Things will change when we are bonded. These visits to the surface will come to a stop, for one. It’s too dangerous, your risk of capture increases with each return. Perhaps you should heed what happened to your mother. There’s a lesson in that, isn’t there? A lesson I’m sure you would do well to remember, especially when you belong to me.”
What he says is true; I will be his. I belong to my father, and my father has chosen Zale for me. I shall be passed from one man to the next, ownership transferred with the ease of a handshake, and I will be expected to smile as the deal is done.
“Do you mind being bethrothed to Marlin?” I had asked Nia a few months before my last birthday. The others had gone on a rare trip to the surface to watch a lightning storm (Don’t tell Father, Talia warned me. You know how he would get if he heard we were going up there.) and I had to watch jealously as they swam away from the palace. Bored of sitting in the tower for them to return, I found Nia in the dormitory, staring out the window.