Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(21)

The Queen of the Sea meekly obeyed.

They went through the ballroom, over the beautiful inlaid floor covered in meaningless brown and golden curlicues. Ariel wondered what it would be like to glide over the slippery polished boards, music swirling around her. She had only danced with Eric once, on a cobbled plaza to an amateur violinist, but even that had been incredible.

The ceiling was a frescoed masterpiece: a sky with little fluffy clouds at the edges, winged putti peeping out among them. Giant glazed windows let in sea light, sparkling off the water as well as from the sky. Circling very deliberately was a single white gull, who managed to keep her head pointed at the castle wherever she was in her revolutions. Jona.

Carlotta hurried on through the great room into a white corridor at the end and pulled Ariel into a small space lined with benches and tables. It looked like a staging area for servants to plate hors d’oeuvres and wine before bringing them out to hot and thirsty dancers, very much like at the palace in Atlantica—but this one had a ceiling, and the tables were all at one level. Under the sea, you could swim to whatever height you needed. How limited humans are….

But she didn’t have time to ponder such things. Carlotta stood in front of her, arms crossed.

“It’s you!”

Ariel nodded and shrugged. Well, obviously.

“Where have you been?” Carlotta demanded. “Where did you go?”

The mermaid winced. How could she explain?

“Eric loved you. You two would have been so happy together…” the maid continued accusingly. Ariel wondered if she had been spying on them any of the times they almost kissed. “And then you just…disappeared! And he married that horrible, horrible Vanessa, and now she’s ruining the kingdom and he’s…he’s not the prince he was. Not the boy he was. That boy’s gone. Where did you go?”

Merfolk and humans and fish and all those who spoke seemed to be the same: they wasted language, throwing out words like chum, hoping some of them would land accurately and truthfully convey what they were thinking or feeling. Ariel paused, carefully weighing and measuring the other woman’s words while she figured out how to answer.

Eric married Vanessa. This was an objective fact; Ariel had seen that happen.

Vanessa is ruining the kingdom. Interesting! So the changes in the castle were probably due to her.

Eric is not the boy he was. Also interesting, and terrifying. He was still under the spell Ursula cast to put him under her power. That would certainly explain the haunted, hunted look on Eric’s face when she had seen him earlier. He probably knew something was wrong, but not precisely what.

Ariel pursed her lips. Then she mimed a formal walk, hands together.

She drew her hand gracefully down her hair, indicating a veil.

She put her hands together again: flowers.

Vanessa marrying Eric.

“The wedding, yes, yes, the wedding. They got married,” Carlotta said, impatiently.

Ariel tapped her head, pointed at the maid.

“I remember it! What do you mean? Think about it? It was just the wedding on the yacht. Beautiful. Hideous. At the same time. There was nothing…”

Ariel shook her head. She tapped her head harder. She rotated her other hand: Come on, there’s more.

“What are you trying to say…? They were married, and Max ruined the lovely cake, and oh…” Carlotta’s vision went cloudy; she stopped focusing on the girl before her. “He ruined the cake because…he was scared. There was a storm. No, the sky was clear. No—but there was lightning. Lightning…from…a man in the water. A man with a beard, and a crown, naked…like Neptune himself…”

Carlotta frowned, rubbing her head.

“What is this nonsense? Why is it coming to me now, clear as day? Clear as a picture: the man in the sea wasn’t drowning. He was throwing lightning. And Vanessa…he and she were…fighting? They were fighting like…titans, from the old stories. There was magic. All around. Dangerous and violent. And then you—and then he…And then you and the naked man were gone. Both gone. But Vanessa stayed….”

She sat down heavily on a stool. Her skirts puffed up around her, almost as if in sympathy. “I…haven’t thought about that in years. I know I’ve thought it before, or dreamed it before. I haven’t wanted to. It’s like it hurts to remember. I couldn’t remember.”

She looked up at Ariel.

“Some funny business about Vanessa, isn’t there?” she ventured. “That man—he was your father, wasn’t he? He really was Neptune—or someone out of the Old Testament. A patriarch. He wasn’t evil—I never felt that for a moment. And then you disappearing…into the sea. Eric acting strange and moony around Vanessa. She isn’t…she isn’t a good…person, is she?”

Ariel shook her head very slowly. No.

“She isn’t like…us, is she?”

No.

“And what does that make you, then?”

Ariel hesitated. Would knowing the truth put Carlotta in danger? She already knew half of the truth. The main truth. That Vanessa was not a good person. That there had been a battle. And all the strange and terrible things that had happened on her prince’s wedding day. So how would knowing this little extra bit make a difference, really?

Ariel looked around the room, searching for the answer. She didn’t have a sign for it.