The Surface Breaks(63)

Why did you help me? I need to know, my whole body tense as it waits for her to respond.

Her smile fades suddenly. “I failed your mother. I couldn’t fail you too.”

My mother. Two steps, and I am in front of her. I catch her by the throat, cat-quick. Squeezing hard, for I am not afraid of her anymore. I will have the truth, at last. Tell me. Tell me everything.

She removes my fingers, her touch gentle. “I knew Muireann of the Green Sea. Not very well. She was just a baby when both my brother and I were into our fortieth decade, but her father was a favourite of the court so she was in the palace often as a child. She was like you, that same red hair, that same beautiful voice. A sensitive soul.” You’re so like your mother, young Muirgen. So like her in every way. “My brother was obsessed with her, ever since she came of age at twelve.” Ceto shudders. “He kept badgering Muireann’s father for permission, and he was told to wait, that a few years wouldn’t hurt. Your grandfather wasn’t afraid of the Sea King. Mac Lir was too well respected in the kingdom to be bullied into submission.”

But my mother agreed to marry the Sea King. To end the war.

“She came to me first, arrived in the Shadowlands demented with grief over her brother, demanding to know which of the Salkas had slain him. As if it was the Salkas’ fault!”

But it was their fault. They killed Uncle Manannán, and they did it with glee. It was their fault that all of this happened.

“You still believe that to be true?” Ceto says. “I don’t know what happened to your uncle, but my Salkas swore to me that they had no knowledge of his death. It did seem rather convenient, I always thought. Manannán disappears, the person Muireann loved most in the world. People do funny things when they’re grieving, don’t they? And the Sea King knew what Muireann was like, he knew that she didn’t have a taste for war. I think he bet upon her doing anything to regain peace in the kingdom.”

I try and connect the jagged edges of her jigsaw, assemble them in a way that makes sense. Is she saying that—

“I’m not saying anything,” she cuts across me. “All I know is that the Salkas just wanted to be left alone in peace to live their lives, and yet their mere existence was enough to inflame my brother.” The Sea Witch exhaled loudly. “I tried to explain to Muireann that this war was not of my doing, nor of my desire; and thus I could not end it, no matter how hard she begged me. I did not know the measures she would take next.”

She married the Sea King. I try and imagine her, fifteen and wild with sorrow, betrothed to a man old enough to be her father. The poor little mermaid.

“She was reasonably content for a time,” the Sea Witch says. “She had children, you and your sisters. Word reached me in the Shadowlands of how much she loved you.”

But not enough. It was bad enough, as a child, knowing my mother had been reckless. But since learning of her relationship with Alexander, it has become clear that she was heartless too. My father was right all along. She did abandon us. She did. The melancholy that has been my shadow since the day my mother left me tugs at my hand like a small child demanding attention.

“That’s not true,” Ceto says fiercely. “She didn’t mean to fall in love with a human; she meant to save his life. There was an accident, you see, and Muireann found this man in the wreckage.”

It was Oliver’s father, wasn’t it? The paintings, my mother’s face replicated over and over again. Hair so red and eyes so blue.

“Yes,” the Sea Witch says, watching me closely. “The shipwreck occured a few months after you were born. The man, Alexander, found himself rescued by a beautiful woman. They were attracted to each other, certainly, and like so many before them they mistook their lust for love. My Salkas said they saw her regularly sneaking away to the surface after that to go and meet this man, all the way up to your first birthday. They had decided to make things more permanent when…”

When what? Tell me more.

“What else is there to tell? He wasn’t good enough for Muireann either, this Alexander.” She gestures at Oliver, still asleep. “This bloodline does produce weak men, but I’ve found that weak men are often attracted to strong women. In the beginning, anyway. In time they come to resent that same strength they professed to love. They try to put you back in your place.” Just like Eleanor said, in that room of paintings.

Was it you? The questions are tearing through me. Was it you who gave my mother legs, so she could seduce Oliver’s father? Did you take her tongue as payment too? I picture my mother travelling to the Shadowlands, her fear pressing her forward as my own has done. My mother, on a beach with Oliver’s father, dancing rings of blood around him.

“No,” Ceto says. “Muireann of the Green Sea had no need of such help from me.”

I don’t understand. I bang one of my fists against the door behind me in frustration.

“Muireann could do it herself. Your mother was able to shed her tail like a snake when she reached the shore, and transform back into a mermaid the moment that her temporary legs tasted salt.”

What? I sink to the floor, pulling my knees into my chest. You mean—

“Yes.” Ceto remains still. “Your mother had powers. Impressive ones, at that.”

But that’s impossible. I shake my head. Muireann of the Green Sea was only a mermaid.