The Surface Breaks(3)

“Not yet,” I reply. “I will go at first light tomorrow morning.”

“Goodness,” Cosima says. “I assumed you would have been racing up there at the earliest opportunity. Perhaps you are not so like that ‘mother’ of ours after all. It would have been a terrible shame if you had inherited that woman’s sickness.”

“Don’t talk about our mother like that,” I say, anger flaring.

“Why not? She abandoned us, didn’t she?”

“She didn’t abandon us.”

“Muirgen,” Cosima sighs. “She knew the dangers and yet she kept going to the surface, day after day. She was reckless. She might not have meant to be captured, but she still brought it upon herself. She abandoned us.”

What can I reply to that? Perhaps we were easy to abandon.

“Come now, Cosima,” Sophia, my third eldest sister says. “Leave Muirgen alone. Have you forgotten that it’s her birthday?”

“Forgotten? How could any of us forget what day today is?”

“Okay, Cosima,” I snap. “I get it. Today is a cursed day and I am a cursed mermaid. Are you happy now?”

“Hush, sister,” Sophia says. “This is your birthday and we are happy to celebrate it. All of us.” She swims towards me, her waist-length brown hair floating behind her. She hugs me, smelling of salt and tin, of weeds draped around her neck and wrists. She smells the same as all of us do. (Up there, the women wear the fragrance of flowers on their skin; they smell of rose and lily and jasmine. Up there, flowers carry scent, seeping perfume from their buds.)

“I know it’s your day, Muirgen,” Talia says, biting her nails. She is always tense on my birthday. She was seven the year I turned one and thus she remembers the infamous party. Talia remembers everything. “But that doesn’t excuse you being late. We’ll all get in trouble too, you know.”

“I’m not late, Talia.”

“You’re late,” Talia insists. “Isn’t she late, Nia?”

Nia is by the window, fingers pressed against the clear green glass, staring at the fish drifting past. “What?” she says. “Yes. Yes, you’re right, Talia. You’re always right.” She attempts to smile at me. “But happy birthday all the same, Muirgen.”

“How many pearls did you get?” Cosima asks. “It looks like Grandmother gave you seven pearls. Did she give you seven pearls? Why would you get seven pearls when the rest of us only have six?”

“I only got six pearls too, Cosima,” I say as Sophia takes my hand, holding back the gossamer curtain wrapped around her bed so I can swim through. “The same as the rest of you did. Grandmother wouldn’t have it any other way.”

“Oh, I’m sure you did. Precious Muirgen,” she mutters under her breath, returning to the mirror that is mounted at the head of her bed, decorated with cockles and red algae. “Typical.”

“To be perfectly honest, the concept of wearing pearls is archaic,” Arianna pipes up. She is lying on her stomach, her mint-green tail folding over to skim her back as if scratching an itch. “If any of you bothered to come with me and Sophia and Grandmother when we visit the Outerlands, you would understand what a horrendous waste of resources it is. We should be spending palace money on improving conditions for those folk rather than this frivolous vanity.”

“Yes, Arianna, you’ve mentioned that before,” I say. About a hundred times. Grandmother visits the Outerlands every week, to where my father has sent the “undesirables”, the mer-folk that he cannot stomach to see within the palace walls. She brings them food, and unctions the healer has prepared, and while the Sea King does not approve of our grandmother’s demonstrations of good will, he does not forbid it either. I think he might be wary of what could happen if the folk in the Outerlands got too hungry.

“But it’s not like it’s our decision to wear the pearls, now, is it?” I ask Arianna. Nothing is ever our decision.

“And that’s why I don’t wear decoration in my everyday life, out of principle,” Arianna continues, ignoring me. “But, then, I’m not as obsessed with this nonsense over pearls and mirrors and which comb belongs to whom and whose hair is the curliest. I mean, really, if you just came with Grandmother and me the next time we go on a charity mission then you would see how terrible the conditions are, those poor folk are—”

“The mer-folk in the Outerlands are fine,” Cosima interrupts. “Better than fine. They’re lucky that we allow them to remain here at all. Unnatural creatures.”

“Unnatural?” Nia asks, her voice sharp. I glance at her in surprise; Nia never gets involved in arguments. “They can’t help being the way they are.”

“Please.” Cosima rolls her eyes. “They could change if they really wanted to. And, anyway,” she turns her attention back to Arianna, “you’re wearing your pearls today, Ari, for all your talk of principles.”

“Today doesn’t count. You know that I can’t…” Arianna doesn’t finish her sentence. But I know what she would say.

I can’t because there is a ball at court today.

I can’t because Father will be there, and he will expect us to be properly attired.

I can’t because the Sea King will be angry if we do not do as he wishes. He will not stand for female insubordination, today of all days.