Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(26)

“If I could dance with him but once, I know he would love me….One waltz in the sand; I would be free…. I don’t know, it’s really not so great. Not much to write home about. The sand, I mean. It gets positively everywhere and feels nasty in your foldy bits.”

When Vanessa stopped singing and lapsed into her own editorial comments, the cognitive dissonance was almost overwhelming. Ariel’s voice was higher than the sea witch’s and lacked the burrs and tremolos the cecaelia was fond of throwing in when she was being dramatic. Yet still the tone and nuance was all Ursula.

Ariel edged silently out onto the mezzanine and peeped over the side.

Vanessa was clearly enjoying the bath. Her brown hair flowed around her in slippery wet ringlets that very much brought to mind the arms and legs of a squid. Great quantities of bubbles and foam towered over the top of the tub and spilled out onto the floor, slowly dripping down like the slimy egg sac of a moon snail.

Vanessa was splashing and talking to herself and playing in the bath almost like a child. Ariel remembered, with heat, when she had been in that bath, and was introduced to the wonders of foam that wasn’t the just the leavings of dead merfolk. The whole experience had been marvelous and strange. Imagine the humans, kings of the Dry World, keeping bubbles of water around to bathe and play in. There was no equivalent under the sea; no one made “air pools” for fun and cleanliness.

For just a moment—so quickly that Ariel could have dismissed it as a shadow or a trick of the light and bubbles if she didn’t know better—a tentacle snaked out of the water, then quickly back in, like it had forgotten itself for a moment.

Unthinking, Ariel reached for the comb hidden in her hair. True, the trident’s power wouldn’t work on dry land. But she didn’t need its power. With barely a thought to nudge it in the right direction, the comb melted into fluid gold and reformed into something with heft: a three-pronged dagger, deadly and sharp.

If she had been human born and raised, she would have attempted to hurl it into the witch’s heart. She had a perfect view and the advantage of height.

But she had been raised in a watery world where friction was a constant enemy. Except for the strongest, no one ever threw things across or up; stones slowed down and sank almost immediately.

Ariel crouched down, preparing to sneak and then run, driving the dagger into the witch’s flesh with her own hands.

She lifted one delicate foot….

“What’s that?” Ursula suddenly demanded.

The mermaid froze.

“Did you hear…? Was that a…”

Ariel put her back flat to the cabinet that was right behind her, sucking in her stomach and trying to shrink.

There was splashing, frantic. It sounded like far too many appendages or people were in the water for it all to be one person.

“No one is supposed to interrupt my baths!” Ursula shouted.

Ariel could tell by the change in pitch that the sea witch was standing up now, possibly on six of her legs.

The mermaid tried to slide along the cabinet toward the dressing room door, but the revolting carved-ivory handles and drawer pulls kept tangling in her ugly dress. One particular thread pulled tightly across her legs until she couldn’t move.

Ariel gritted her teeth and forced her hip slowly out—and the string popped with a heart-wrenching twang.

She stopped breathing.

“Vareet! Vareet!” Ursula called out. “What is that? Go investigate!”

What if she just got up and ran? Would Ursula be able to see who it was? Would they send the guards after her? Would she be able to make it out in time?

Ariel worked muscles that were still new to her, stretching and bending her foot, trying to silently move her thighs so she could crab-walk to the door.

“Maaaaaaax…” came a lilting voice from the distance.

The same infuriating maid from before.

“Ugh,” Ursula swore, strangely echoing her own feelings. “If that stupid dog comes in here I’m having it muzzled. And Max, too.”

There were more splashing and sloshing noises; the sea witch was settling back down into the water. Ariel could once again hear her own voice, muttering and grumbling to herself. A pail of water was poured, a tap turned, the tub refilled.

Relief and disappointment and continued fear competed like braids in a lock of hair hanging from Ariel’s soul. She fell back against one of the cabinets. What am I doing? She was nothing like the warrior merfolk some of her ancestors and relatives were. She never cared enough to train for the Mer-games and win the golden crown of sea heather. Cousin Lara, with her mighty spear, was better made for this sort of thing.

Ariel was here to find her father. And so far, she had failed. She had been utterly distracted.

She should go back and thoroughly search Vanessa’s room while she had a chance. If ancient plays, poems, and songs taught nothing else, it was always one of these two repeating themes: one, don’t ever fool around with a god’s wife or husband, and two, revenge always leads to sorrow. And while she had never been the most diligent student as a princess, she loved a good story.

She dipped her hand and the dagger turned into a comb once more. She set it carefully back in her hair.

How much more time did she have to search the bedroom? Had that interruption lengthened or shortened Vanessa’s bath ritual?

Ariel risked another peep to see if she could tell.