The Surface Breaks(41)
“Wait,” Charles says. “Do you mean mermaids?” The Captain doesn’t respond, and Charles bangs his fist off the table with glee, causing Henrietta and Eleanor to jump. Eleanor doesn’t look at all well, and I wonder what is wrong with her. “You do mean mermaids,” Charles says and time winds down, the clocks softening their ticking.
All I can hear is my breath, shallow. Mermaids don’t lure men to their deaths, I want to say. We are not Rusalkas. And then I think, maybe this man knows about my mother. Maybe he was on the boat that captured her. I look at his strong hands and I picture them knotting around Muireann of the Green Sea’s neck, so thin, so pale, and I shudder.
“Tell us more, Captain,” Charles says, perching on the armrest of the chaise longue. “Are they very beautiful, as the legends always say?”
“Some of them are,” the old man says. “Some of them possess beauty of an inexplicable nature, beauty that would never be seen on earth.” He looks at me as he talks, his eyes narrowing, and I edge back into my chair to make myself inconspicuous. Could he know my secret? I should rise, indicate tiredness and go to bed, but somehow I feel unable to do so. This is the closest I have ever been to discovering the truth about my mother. I cannot leave. “And then there are others who are plain eerie,” he says. “Green hair and jagged teeth, wild eyes. Hungry, those ones are. Ravenous.”
“Interesting,” Charles says. “Of course, stories about mermaids have been around for centuries, and in many different cultures around the world, do you know. I read a marvellous book a few years ago and it said the first mention of these creatures was in Greek mythology and it dates to around fifty BC—”
“One thousand BC, darling,” Henrietta says.
“— when a goddess called Ataractic fell in love with
a—”
“Her name was Atargatis, darling.”
“All right, Hen,” Charles continues. “I just thought everyone might like a bit of background. It’s all guess work anyway, really, what would happen if cross-species, eh, copulation, took place.” He chuckles as if my kind are nothing but a fanciful joke to be bandied about at parties. “Shouldn’t make such rude comments with young girls present, now, should I?” he says, and looks at me. I wish he wouldn’t. I need the Captain to keep talking, to tell a story of a mermaid caught many years ago. A mermaid who looked just like me.
“Yes, Charles,” his wife says, re-arranging her skirt. “I wrote my thesis on folklore and fairy tales, don’t you remember?”
“Inter-species copulation, this book said,” Charles repeats, as if Henrietta hasn’t spoken. “I wish I could tell you all the author’s name; he sounded a terribly clever chap.”
“Rachel Conlyons.”
“What?”
“The author’s name was Rachel Conlyons,” Henrietta says again. “And it was my book, Charles. You took it from my nightstand.”
“Hmm, yes. But it would make you wonder, wouldn’t it, Captain?” Charles says. “Bit of a coincidence, the similarities between all these myths. So, you think there could be some truth in it, then?”
“I don’t know anything about coincidences, sir,” the Captain replies, back to staring into the fire. The humans do this, I’ve noticed, with fires and with water. They stare into the elements as if they hope to find a missing piece of themselves within. “There have been stories, but none proven as no mermaid has ever been caught, not in living memory.”
No mermaid has ever been caught? My breath catches, elbowing the sides of my throat. But what about—
“I have heard of men who have fallen in love with the maids from the sea,” the Captain says. “But it does not last very long. How can it? These creatures will always pine for their homes and, one day, the lure of the sea will prove too much for them. They will abandon husbands, children, it does not matter what attachments they have formed; they will throw them aside for the trace of salt upon their skin. These beings are not the same as you or me.”
“No,” Eleanor says, standing up. She places the wine glass carefully on the table. “They are not.”
“Eleanor,” Henrietta says. “Are you quite all right? You’re as white as a ghost.”
“I’m tired,” Eleanor says. “I do believe it’s best we all retire now.”
Another two days pass.
No mermaid has ever been caught, not in living memory.
The Captain’s words sharpen in my mouth, seizing in my gums. They are all I can taste now.
No mermaid has ever been caught, not in living memory.
Then it is three days since the dinner, and the last time I saw Oliver.
I try and sleep but my sisters whisper in my ears as I drift into unconsciousness. I see Cosima and Zale, my father wrapping black seaweed around their wrists, bonding them together. Come back, Muirgen, my sisters cry. Help us, Muirgen.
I wake, sweating, unwilling to go back to that state, down in the depths of my dreams where I have no control over what I will hear and see. Instead, I have begun to walk to the sea at night, my heart thirsty for the salt water. This world is awe-inspiring to look at, that cannot be denied. Every day there is something new to see, to smell, to hold between my fingertips to make real. But I had not realized that this world would be so loud. It seems as if people surround me constantly, wanting to touch my hair, to comment on my dresses, to tell me that I am beautiful. Their piercing voices, scratching at my ears; and before long I am tired of all this newness. And so I go to the sea. The sea is familiar. The sea is easy. The sea is quiet. I sit there and I watch the moon track the sky, warning me. No time. No time. No time left, little mermaid.