The Surface Breaks(45)

He looks at me and his eyes are soft and something inside me melts too. I think he’s going to claim my mouth with his again. I lean in, just a fraction. “And I’m sorry for kissing you the other night,” he says.

No. That’s not what he’s supposed to say. “It was wrong of me. You looked beautiful, and I – I got carried away, I guess. I’m sorry.” He groans. “I’m embarrassing you now. I’m embarrassing myself.” He watches me. “I wish I knew what you were thinking right now,” he says. “It would all be so much easier if you could talk.”

I watch him stand. He reaches down to ruffle my hair as if I am a child, or a pet. “Goodnight, Grace.”

He walks away from me. And whatever hope I had breaks inside of me.

Muirgen.

My spine straightens at the sound of my old name, as if on reflex.

Muirgen.

I push myself forward, as if to propel myself into the water, dive in to find whomever is calling my name. But I cannot do that, I realize. I would drown, these weak lungs howling for forgiveness. I have seen what becomes of humans who have tried to find mermaids.

Muirgen. Come back. We need you.

I think I see a hand stretching from the water, urging me to approach. Grandmother? Sorrow cuts through me, like a scythe through kelp.

I must run from the sea, before I give way to temptation and annihilate myself beneath the waves. My desire to taste salt is too strong.

I try to stand but I fall, the ground tearing my knees open, more blood spilled, washing the stone bright. And I cannot call for help. When the Sea Witch asked for my voice, I did not think of an eventuality where I would need to scream for someone to save me. I crawl up the steps, pulling these decaying legs with me. I can hear the sea behind me, someone calling me, my name; begging me to come home.

But how can I? It is no home for me any more.





CHAPTER FIFTEEN

In my dreams, I go to the sea again.

I was naked there but I wasn’t ashamed, not in the way the humans have taught me to be. Gaia, the water whispered, and I could hear its voice again. Gaia, come home.

I saw my sisters. My grandmother too, a shadow bleeding black around one eye as she sank beneath the surface, like she had forgotten how to float.

And I saw the Sea King. He was further out than the others, Zale by his side, an army of mer-men behind them. They were armed with spears, slain Rusalkas spiked upon them, their swollen eyes shot through with veins of scarlet. We are coming for you, my father said. I promise fire and fury the likes of which the human world has never seen. And I shall kill that man if he has dared to place one finger on the daughter of the Sea King.

No, I said and in the dream I could speak again. My voice was clear, strong. I had forgotten how good it sounded and I cannot believe how easily I allowed myself to be silenced. You cannot harm Oliver.

She loves him, Father, Cosima cried.

Love? my father said. Do you know what I do to little mermaids who fall in love with humans? A baby herring scurried away from the shoal and my father didn’t break eye contact with me as he thrust the trident deep into the fish’s back. Be careful, my father said as he cracked its wriggling head off. And I watched it die.

I woke then, trying to call out. I clutched my throat, forgetting that I had lost my voice, that I will never be able to say my mother’s name ever again. I folded my knees into my body, pressing them against my heartbeat. I was sure I could hear it faltering inside my chest.


Something shifts after that night by the sea. Oliver becomes comfortable in my company again; he stops hiding from me. And as hope, oh that treacherous hope, rises in me again, I realize that I need to work harder if I am going to win his love in time.

I begin to smile at all of Oliver’s jokes, whether I understand them or not. I laugh with bright eyes, the way I see ladies at dinner do.

I wait by his door in the morning, holding a glass of fresh juice for him. “Thanks, doll,” he says, as if he can’t quite decide if I am a sister or a servant. Too pretty to be ignored, too silent to be enjoyed. Thus, I must become indispensable.

“Grace,” he says in surprise when he opens his bedroom door one morning and finds me waiting for him. I nod at the stairs. Will we go to breakfast together? I walk with him to the orangery, where Eleanor is detailing the seating plan for that night’s dinner. “No,” Oliver says when he sees the chart in her hands. “Grace is to be by my side.”

“But—”

“Mother, if you want me to attend this thing, then Grace will be sitting next to me. If not, I can easily find other ways to occupy my time. What will it be?”

Eleanor nods, but I see her jaw clench in a way I know means she is furious. She has always watched me, but I have begun to watch her in my turn. What do you know about my mother, Eleanor Carlisle? What do you know of a woman with hair as red as mine?

Oliver has allowed me to re-join his afternoon excursions, insisting that I accompany “the boys” to their parties. This time I don’t get tired, no matter how late they finish up.

“Does she always have to be here? She can’t stop staring at you, it’s creepy,” I overhear Rupert complaining as he and Oliver saddle their horses in the stables. “Besides, I thought this was a girl-free zone.”

“You never minded when Vi joined us,” Oliver says. “Anyway, Grace is different,” he continues when Rupert doesn’t respond. “She’s not like other girls.”