The Surface Breaks(26)
I’ve never heard a mermaid speak about that before. Maids are not allowed to feel in such a way; it cannot be desire which has hunted me to this place. It’s love. It must be love. Love is pure, and I want to be pure again. I want Oliver to help me forget everything that Zale has done to me.
“Am I making you uneasy?” she asks me. “Is there something about me that disturbs you?” She runs her hands down her own body, caressing it with a touch that is infinitesimally tender. “I am comfortable.” She sounds out each syllable clearly. “Do you know what it feels like to be comfortable in your skin? Have you ever known?”
No, I think. No, I do not know what that would feel like. I wonder if I ever will.
“That is not why I am here, Sea Witch,” I say instead.
“My name is Ceto,” she snaps, pushing herself out of the chair until she towers above me. “It is your father who has insisted on calling me a ‘witch’. That is simply a term that men give women who are not afraid of them, women who refuse to do as they are told.”
“I’m sorry.” My voice drops weak. What does the Sea Witch do to people who anger her? Has anyone ever lived to tell the tale? “I didn’t mean to upset you. Please,” I beg her, “please forgive me.”
“Do not apologize,” she says, sitting back down as if nothing has happened and I am over-reacting. “I am not upset.”
“Sorry,” I say again, glancing at the door to the cabin. If she decides to destroy me, how fast could I swim away? But where would I even go now? I need the Sea Witch’s help. She is my only hope. “I’m sorry, honestly I am.”
“Goodness,” she says, sounding amused. “You do realize that you don’t need to apologize for your very existence, don’t you? No matter what your father has led you to believe.”
“The Sea King’s word is law,” I say, as if worried that he has followed me and is eavesdropping outside the cabin. It’s hard to tell which is greater; fear of my father or fear of the Sea Witch. I have been told that one is all-powerful, the other is evil. Which is which? What is true?
“And here you are, in the Shadowlands, disobeying him. I hardly imagined a mermaid so young would possess such daring.”
“I am almost sixteen,” I say, irritation spiking through me despite my terror. “I am not a child. I travelled through the Outerlands at night and then crossed the whirlpools into your realm, even though it is expressly forbidden.”
“I am quite aware of the route you took, dear,” she says, yawning. “No need for the traffic update.”
“Yes, well.” Frustration gives me courage. “I am in the Shadowlands, am I not? Where no other mer-folk, maid nor man, has ever dared to venture before. I am the first to brave these lands, and I am here because I need your help so—”
“The first?” the Sea Witch says, mockery in her voice. “Little mermaid, do not be absurd. Many maids pass this way, more than you could conceive of.” Did my mother come here before she was taken? Did she need your help too? “Some come to Ceto to seek revenge. Sometimes they need help with wounds too deep for your healer to understand, wounds the Sea King refuses to even acknowledge. He never was a fan of ‘emotions’, particularly in women. Hysteria, he called it.” Her jaw tightens every time she mentions my father, it’s unsettling. “Some come to me because they’re afraid of being cast into the Outerlands for failing to breed,” she continues. “Help with virility too. There are so many mer-men who are afraid to be gentle. They are made afraid of their true selves, it is a tragedy. For what happens to men who are not allowed to be afraid? They become angry. Vicious. Feral. I believe you may have some experience with such men, do you not?”
(My father, raising his voice or his trident or his hand; blows raining down upon us, but we deserved it; we were too loud and too demanding. Too much. We would be better next time. Next time, he would find no reason to punish us. We would have to be perfect.)
“This can’t be true,” I say.
“And yet it is, little mermaid. But most who come to the Shadowlands are searching for something a little more…” she flashes her teeth at me. “Primal?”
Primal. She can’t mean… “But it’s forbidden for us to enter the Shadowlands.” I say. “If mer-folk have come here, then—”
Something cold winds around my tail and I look down to find two fat-bellied snakes leering at me. I scream, and the Sea Witch calls them to her side.
“My darling,” she says, as one twists around her waist, “and my baby,” she coos, as the other settles around her neck. “Oh, little mermaid. You would be surprised by how many mer-men come to the Shadowlands, and how frequently too.”
“But why would they?”
“So many questions. I’m surprised your father hasn’t beaten it out of you, he never did like chatty women.”
Was my mother chatty? There is an ache in my chest at the thought of her, and I wonder at how I can miss someone so much when I never even knew them. “They want me. A woman with power. Can you believe it?”
“But why would the men come to you for that?” I ask. “You’re fat.” I regret the words the minute they fall out of my mouth. “I’m so sorry,” I say in a panic. “I didn’t mean that. I didn’t mean to offend you.”