The Surface Breaks(67)

Worth more than our pretty faces. (I remember Eleanor’s warning about beauty fading, and how she would have made her daughter strong and I knew my mother would have done the same, if she had been given the chance.) You needed us to stay quiet, and scared, didn’t you, Father? You pitted us against one another, forced us to compete with each other – and for what? Because you were afraid of what would happen if we worked together? Of how strong we could be?

“Strong?” he spits. “You? Daughters are not meant to be strong.”

Our mother wanted us to be more than your pawns, didn’t she? We meant so much to her that she was willing to sacrifice her freedom to be with us. My whole life, all I have had is my hope that maybe my mother was still alive, that maybe she was waiting for me to find her and rescue her. That hope is gone, but truth is mushrooming in its place, spreading its hands out to feel the sides of my body. I could climb on to the side of the boat, balance on the railing with my hands to the sky. Take me, gods, I would shout, for I am no longer afraid. Take me and do what you will with me.

“How dare you?” my father says, his left eye is beginning to twitch, I’m making him nervous. “And do not mention that woman in my presence again. She was a slut. She deserved her fate.”

Her fate? What fate would that be, Father?

“Oh,” he says, sneering at me. A flash of anger spikes through me. He will regret that. He will regret all of this. “Have you forgotten about what the humans did to her? The humans you love so much, the humans that you have abandoned your sisters for.” He brandishes his trident at them and they grovel. “The humans took your mother. They destroyed her.”

I laugh, a humming sound vibrating at the base of my throat until it explodes out of my mouth. It blasts against the water, charging waves like a tsunami against my father. He is left spluttering, wiping salt from his eyes, attempting to battle the water away from him with his trident. He should know at this stage that the sea always wins.

“How are you doing this?” he says. He is frightened. For the first time in my life, I have made my father frightened.

Looks like you’re not the only one with powers.

“Gaia,” Sophia asks, ashen. “Gaia, what’s—”

Don’t be afraid, sisters. I hold my hands up, so they will see that I am no threat to them. I want to protect them, to empower them. We are women. And women are warriors, after all.

“You should be afraid,” the Sea King says, but he licks his lips nervously. “Your sister has gone mad. The time with the humans has rotted her brain.” He picks up his trident. “We will retire to the kingdom, and leave her here.”

I can see Nia mouth, ten minutes, Gaia.

Why don’t we have a conversation about the humans, Father? Since you brought it up, after all. I lean forward against the railing, resting my chin on my closed fist, the very picture of nonchalance. I’m sure my sisters would love to hear all about them. One in particular. Alexander Carlisle.

“Girls.” He grabs Sophia and Cosima by the back of the neck, snarling at the others to follow him.

Not so fast. I narrow my eyes, feeling a ring of fire raze my pupils. My father jerks his hands away, steam rising from the palms in smoke rings. He douses them in the water, screeching with pain, and I cackle wildly. I sound like a witch, I realize.

“Who are you?” he says, staring at his singed hands.

I am Gaia, daughter of Muireann of the Green Sea. My voice is strong, and so loud. The louder I speak, the more unnerved Father becomes. Was that what he feared, all this time? That his daughters would raise their voices and refuse to be silenced? And I’m asking you to tell us what happened to our mother.

“Your mother was infatuated with the human world,” he recites the story that we all know so well. “She swam too close to the surface and she was caught. The humans took her and while I wanted to save her, I didn’t want to endanger—”

No. I am howling, voice cracking and splintering, the sky dimming even though the sun is climbing. I am making the darkness rain. I have the power. No. Tell us the truth.

“Muirgen,” he says. “Gaia, please.”

She was beautiful, wasn’t she? Muireann of the Green Sea. Beautiful but restless. Hungering for something more, something that she could not even name.

“She was unruly,” he says. “You have to understand that. She wouldn’t follow the rules. She was different to the rest of us.”

And what is wrong with being unruly? I look directly at Nia as I say this. Her eyes shine with unshed tears, and I know she understands what I am trying to tell her. What’s wrong with being different?

“I did it for her own good,” my father says. “For your own good. You needed a better example from your mother, you needed a role model who was pure. I did this for you. I did this for all of you.”

Shut up. I breathe out and a wind flares, blasting his beloved trident out of his hand. He tries to grasp at it, but I focus again, imagining a rope wrapping around his wrists. See how he likes being tied down. He cannot move. I will not allow him.

You killed our mother. The words split the sky apart, moulding into black clouds. No one says anything; my sisters are silent. Their faces are grey as if, on some level, they too knew this was the truth all along.

“Mama,” Talia says again and again, like a small child. “Mama.”