Part of Your World (Twisted Tales)(37)

(All wrong, as the mute Ariel couldn’t explain to Eric at the time. Neptune had lost the fight, because he’d made a useless salt spring while Minerva/Athena had made the olive tree. Oh, and it took place in Athens, because, well—Athena.)

Besides monumental art and kings and queens, humans were very recognizably similar to mer in their normal, everyday lives. The women over there, heads bent together, were obviously gossiping. The men over there, heads bent together, were obviously discussing something they thought was very important and that they had great influence over—but which, of course, was also just gossip. A mother breastfed her baby, a beautiful fat-faced thing with the cutest feet.

How many other races were there on Gaia, more similar than different? Who would get along if just introduced properly? All they needed was a voice: the right voice, an understanding voice, a voice of reason that spoke everyone’s language.

Ariel felt she had something there, the wisp of an idea, when something caught her eye and distracted her. Like a flash of sunlight that somehow manages to make its way, unobstructed and successful, to the seafloor and sparkles on a glistening white structure there.

Apples.

A tower of them. Bright red, red like blood, red like precious coral. Shining in the light. Some were half-green, which was both disappointing and yet more entrancing: did they taste different?

She would buy enough for all her sisters. Wouldn’t that be a treat! Several for herself now, and a sack to present upon her return.

Not even realizing she was salivating, Ariel approached. The vendor was old enough to be a great-granny, but large and strong-limbed, and her black eyes sparkled, full of intelligence and interest in the world around her.

“I would like those, please,” Ariel said, pointing to the apples.

“‘Those’? Which ones?”

“All of them, please.”

The woman laughed. “All of ’em? That’s a pretty penny, girl. I’m expecting that poncy little buyer from the castle over here in a moment—I’m going to haggle her up good. What could you offer me?”

Wordlessly Ariel pulled out her little satchel again and poured its contents into her hand. This time she let the pearls and gems spill out with the golden coins: surely treasure enough to buy all the fruit.

The old woman’s eyes widened.

“I’ll take this,” she said, choosing a gold coin, “and this,” she said, choosing a pearl. Then she took her large hand and closed up Ariel’s hand with the rest of the things. “And you just put that away. I’ll get you a sack.”

The woman rummaged around her stand and managed to fish out a dirty but sturdy burlap bag. With a sweep of her arm she guided the apples into the sack like a magician; not a single one spilled. She shook them down and then tied it with a piece of twine.

“Don’t know how useful it will be, underwater, but it should hold for a while,” the woman said.

“Thank you, I…what?”

“It’s a marvel….Your kind do like fruit of the land.”

“I haven’t the foggiest notion what you are talking about,” Ariel said with great dignity.

“Those coins haven’t been used in two hundred years,” the woman said, nodding her chin at Ariel’s satchel. “And those pearls and gems didn’t come from no stronghold, no stolen purse. By the smell of ’em, they came straight from Davy Jones’s locker.”

“I…found…a chest…when I was walking…on the beach…and…”

As queen and as girl, as someone who could sing like the gods and someone who had been mute as a stone, one thing about Ariel had never changed: she was a terrible liar. Most of the time it didn’t even occur to her to lie.

Which, now that she thought about it, would have made things a lot easier with her dad.

“Oh, a treasure chest found on a beach, like a pirate left it there,” the old woman said, nodding seriously. “To be sure.”

Ariel tried to think of something else.

The old woman leaned forward.

“Your secret’s safe with me, seachild. I would give you all my apples in return for a favor someday instead, if I didn’t need the money.”

“What would you ask for?” Ariel asked, too intrigued to bother pretending further.

“I’d ask…well, if no emergency popped up to use it on, like ‘I wish for someone to save my grandgirl from drowning’ or something, well…” The old woman looked faintly embarrassed. “I’d ask to see you, in your true form, swimmin’ out to sea. If I could see that, I’d know all the tales were true, all the good ones and bad ones. That there is more to the world than I see with my old brown eyes every day, and I’d die a happy woman, knowing there was magic.”

Ariel was silent, overcome by the woman’s words. The mermaid had probably been a little girl at the same time as this old woman. And the woman would die, happy or not, many hundreds of years before the Queen of the Sea had to begin contemplating her own mortality.

Ariel put her hands on the woman’s and squeezed them.

“There is magic,” she said softly. “There is always magic. Even if you can’t see it.”

The old woman looked at her for a long moment. Then she laughed. “Ah well, ye already paid, so no favor’s necessary. But it sure would be nice to see you anyway—I’ve never inked a mermaid from real life! And I do them all the time….Used to, leastways…”