The Surface Breaks(31)

Oliver. I am so relieved that I have found him that I reach out for him. It’s me. I am the one who saved your life, I want to tell him. But no words can come. All I can do is stare at his face, and wonder how I ever thought I would be worthy of him.

“Cat got your tongue?” the tallest man asks, pushing a swoop of dark red hair off his face. He leans against the steps as he inhales on a small stick of some sort, blowing smoke through his nose like he is a demon.

“Here,” the man with the bitten nails kneels down too. “Have some of this,” he says, offering me a glass bottle. “It’ll help.”

“George,” Oliver frowns. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“It’s medicinal, isn’t it?”

I push my hair away and drink, wincing as it burns my throat, still scalded from the witch’s potion. The tall man whose name I do not know yet starts to laugh.

“Well, well, well, look at what was hiding underneath all that hair,” he says, clapping slowly. “I wasn’t expecting a peep show. Not that I’m complaining.” And I look down in dread, and I see not a monstrous tail but two legs. I run my hands across the soft skin. The spell worked.

“Here,” George says, taking off the navy material from his body and handing it to me. “Wear my blazer.”

So it is not my legs the tall man finds amusing, but my nakedness. Everyone was naked under the sea, man and maid alike. I didn’t understand that my body was something I should be ashamed of before now. The redheaded man’s eyes are hungry, like Zale’s used to be, and I pull back in fright, crouching behind Oliver’s legs for protection.

“Oli, it looks like you have a new pet,” that man says. “What will you name her? Gingernut biscuits?”

“You’re one to talk, Rupert,” George says, ruffling the tall man’s hair.

“Fuck off, George.”

“Boys, be quiet.” Oliver says. He takes off his own … blazer, they call it, and wraps it around my shoulders. It is warm and it smells of sand and salt and musk, the smell of him, and I want to breathe it in for ever. “Up you get,” he says, and we look into each other’s eyes. Something sharp in my stomach, a drop, then unspooling slowly. How is he doing this to me? I smile and then I put my weight on these feet for the first time. The pain slashes through me, fast and true, as if it might gut my eyes.

“Shit,” he says, as my knees buckle. “Let’s get her inside. My mother will know what to do next.”

We take one step, then another, my eyes watering from the ordeal. I look down at these legs, sure that they must be bleeding. Like Makara and Ondine, the children in the nymph-tale who were left in the foreign seas by their father and their wicked stepmother, dropping seashells in their wake so they could find their way home. But all I can see is flesh, ten toes. Feet. My feet.


Oliver bursts through the arched doors of the mansion with George and Rupert close behind, calling for help. I had collapsed on the marble steps outside so Oliver carried me in his arms as if I was a child. He runs into the centre of the room, placing me on a chair made of the softest cushion. I want to pull him down, nestle on his lap and curl into his body, I want to make us one. But he steps back, staring at me with an uncertain expression on his face. Oliver. Oliver, come here. I need you to touch me. I blush. These are not thoughts that a nice young maid should be having about a man.

“My god,” a woman says, rising to her feet. She is older, her black hair twisted into thick coils wrapped into a bun at the nape of her neck. “Oli, what happened? Who is this girl?”

The room I find myself in is of considerable size, the ceiling decorated with paintings of plump, winged babies, the narrow windows covered with that same painted glass that I had seen from outside. I am entranced by the sun shining through it and dancing in vivid swirls of reds and blues, ghosts of colour on our skin. There are other humans there, men and women dressed in black like the older woman was; dark netting shadowing the women’s faces, scraps of white material pressed to bloodshot eyes. They are all staring at me, aghast.

“I found her on the beach, Mother,” Oliver explains. “She was, well. She wasn’t wearing any clothes.”

His mother takes a step back. “You found her on the beach?” Her voice is hushed but I can sense the sharp-edged apprehension in it. “Unclothed? And you carried her?”

“She couldn’t walk, Mother. She was too weak, from the shock no doubt.”

The woman comes over to me. “Who are you?” she says, and she visibly flinches when she sees my face. “Who are you?” she says again, something else in her voice now, a hand covering her mouth, as if she doesn’t want to breathe the same air as me. “Answer me immediately.” She grabs my shoulders and shakes me savagely, the crown of my head hammering against the back of the chair.

“Mother!” Oliver says, pushing between the two of us. “What’s wrong with you?”

“Why doesn’t she answer me?” Her face is contorting, but not in anger. She can barely contain her fear, I realized. Why would she be afraid of me? She weaves around her son, trying to grab at me. “Answer me, girl!” she shouts. “Where are you from? Who sent you here?”

“What is wrong with you?” Oliver says again. “You’re acting like a total lunatic.”