The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea Read online

  They had spent the first several weeks of the voyage with the syllabary and Florian’s reluctance, but now, now they were already on to books. The days were passing so quickly that Evelyn feared the voyage would be done and she’d be turned over to her husband before she had time to blink.

  Florian was reading aloud from Evelyn’s favorite book of fantasies, the two sitting elbow to elbow on Evelyn’s bed. She liked the warmth of him next to her, and noticed he did not pull away when their skin touched when they were jostled by the ship. His nervousness around her seemed to be fading.

  They had just gotten to the part where the princess — afraid and alone — had sunk in her despair to the floor of the dungeon where she was being kept.

  “What a ninny,” Florian said with a chuckle.

  Evelyn looked to the page. She’d always related to the princess, had felt her imprisonment as if it were her own.

  “She’s been captured.” Her voice was defensive, but Florian did not notice.

  “Sure, but that’s no excuse to be useless.”

  “Useless,” Evelyn echoed quietly. She could feel her ears burning with embarrassment. She made to pull the book away from Florian, but he held tight to it. “You don’t have to read this stupid story if you don’t want.”

  “I’m sorry, milady,” he said. “I don’t mean to . . . I’m not insulting you.” He pulled in a deep breath. “And for what it’s worth — smart lady like you? You’d be out of that dungeon like that.” He snapped his fingers.

  Evelyn smiled ruefully. “I doubt that,” she said. She couldn’t wield a sword. She couldn’t fire a pistol. “Very sincerely. But thanks. It’s a nice thing to say.”

  An ocean of very uncomfortable silence stretched between them. Florian turned pages, searching out the periodic pictures each story offered. He stopped at one of a mermaid and a sailor. The sailor stretched out his hand toward the mermaid, who reached back for him. All around them the waves crashed against the rock the sailor was perched upon.

  “Sad,” Evelyn said.

  “What is?”

  “They’re stuck like this forever.” She ran a finger over the page, between the mermaid with the long, flowing hair and the sailor in his smart uniform. “Reaching out for each other, but never together, I mean.” She blushed. “This picture has always made me sad.”

  Keiko’s face, red and tearstained, surfaced in Evelyn’s mind. It was blurred now, as though the memory of Keiko could not withstand their growing distance.

  “That’s the way of it, though.”

  Florian shrugged. His hand rested on the opposite page of the book. “But maybe that’s focusing on the wrong part.”

  Evelyn said nothing but looked at Florian. His eyes were still on the page when he spoke.

  “They’re reaching. Right?”

  When Evelyn was eleven, her mother had taken over the duty of her historical education. It was not, the Lady Hasegawa said, for lowly scholars to tell the Hasegawas how to regard the Empire. And so, much to Evelyn’s chagrin, her beloved history teacher was sent away, and instead she was forced to suffer daily lessons in her mother’s chambers.

  Her mother’s chambers were as formal as they were stiflingly hot during the summer months. She did not favor open windows, fearing that the pollution from the Crandon port would give her wrinkles, and so it was insufferably stuffy. Yet somehow, Evelyn never once glimpsed a drip of sweat on her mother’s brow.

  One day, her mother had laid out the architectural plans of the 900th Emperor’s palace on the table for the two of them to go over. Evelyn entertained a panicky fantasy about running away, right there and then, but before she could act on it, Keiko had shut the door behind her and left Evelyn alone with her mother. The Lady Hasegawa beckoned for Evelyn to come take a seat on one of the embroidered silk cushions around the table.

  “Do you see this?” Her mother’s perfectly manicured finger pointed to a series of secret passages within the walls of the palace.

  Evelyn nodded.

  “They say that the 945th Empress — Elizabeth — conspired to have her husband assassinated. Thanks to the Emperor, she failed and was executed. Do you know why that is?”

  “Because wives are meant to be dutiful,” Evelyn recited. The truth was that she didn’t care what any Empress did. They had gardens planted and held balls. They rarely had any bearing on history, unless they bore a multitude of sons. But whenever Evelyn recited that wives or daughters were meant to be dutiful, or pious, or meek, it pleased her mother and her lessons were over with sooner, so that was what she said.

  But this time, the Lady Hasegawa was not fooled. She took her daughter’s hand in hers and gave it a hard smack. Hard enough to sting, but not hard enough to bring tears to Evelyn’s eyes.

  “Incorrect. Don’t be lazy.” She released Evelyn’s hand. “She failed due to a series of mistakes and miscalculations. First, she thought her servants to be her friends.”

  Aha.

  This was a favorite lesson of her mother’s, one she repeated frequently. It was meant mostly as a warning against her friendship with Keiko, Evelyn knew. But what did she expect? That Evelyn wouldn’t become best friends with the girl she spent nearly every hour of every day with? That was stupid, so Evelyn ignored it.

  “Which, of course,” her mother went on, “they were not. Second, she underestimated the great reach of the Emperor’s power. From his own palace to every colony in the Known World, his eyes see. Just as there are secret passages in the hallways of his palace, there are secret corridors and channels through which the Emperor is given information from all around the world. He knows who plans an insurgency in the Graveyard Nation, just as he knows which merchants have been pious in the Floating Islands.”

  “If an Emperor knows everything, then why did he marry someone who wanted to kill him?” Evelyn knew immediately she’d said precisely the wrong thing. Her mother closed her eyes in silent exasperation. She kissed her fingers and touched her chest, as if in prayer to ward off her own daughter’s idiocy. She continued as though Evelyn had not spoken.

  “The third reason she failed is the most important.” The Lady Hasegawa held her daughter’s eyes then, and Evelyn could tell from the way she would not let Evelyn look away that this was serious. “She failed because she overestimated her own power. She may have been the Empress, but she was still a woman. And as such, she was replaceable.

  “Hear me, Evelyn. Wives are replaceable. You are replaceable. And if you ever fail to remember that, it will be your undoing.”

  The Lady Hasegawa stood on the deck with the Lady Ayer, both leaning daintily on the gunwales, chatting. Behind them stood Flora and the Lady Ayer’s girl, Genevieve, holding parasols over the two ladies’ heads. Flora felt like an idiot. Sporadically, her fellows would walk past, plainly laughing at her. After all she’d done to become Florian, and here she was, holding a delicate yellow parasol.

  Still.

  At least she wasn’t burning in the sun. While Flora’s complexion could take it, Genevieve’s could not. Already her nose was a deep, angry red.

  Though Rake’s hair was a startling red and Genevieve’s was a stark black, their roots in the mountain country of Quark was clear in their skin. While Rake had been burned so much and so often that his skin was more leather than face, Genevieve was still pale as a cherry blossom, and likely as tender. Flora eyed the girl with pity. No doubt she’d soon be burned and peeling. Her lady hardly seemed to notice.

  “As I was saying, the porcelain I’ve brought is the finest. You should settle for no less from Mr. Callum.” The Lady Ayer beamed at the Lady Hasegawa. For her part, the Lady Hasegawa seemed brutally bored. She kept catching Flora’s eye with a look so obviously exasperated that Flora had to hold her breath to keep from laughing. “It was imported from the Skeleton Coast, you know, but painted by the finest artisans in Crandon. You just can’t rival Imperial artistry.”

  Genevieve’s grip on the parasol faltered and she accidentally brushed her la
dy’s head with it, mussing the complicated knot in which her hair had no doubt been painstakingly arranged. The Lady Ayer whirled on her.

  “Careful, girl!” she spat.

  “Anyway,” Evelyn said quickly. “Thanks for the, er, advice. It’s all . . . instructive.”

  “You are your mother’s daughter,” the Lady Ayer said approvingly. “I am sure you will develop taste as fine as hers in no time.”

  “Indeed.” Evelyn’s voice was colder now. “Well, Florian?” She turned to Flora, and the full impact of her attention was startling. “To my cabin, I think. I have so many, um, letters to write.”

  “Ah, do send your mother my love. And do come by my cabin more often, young lady. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say you were trying to avoid me!”

  The Lady Ayer gave the Lady Hasegawa a polite bow and a simpering smile to match. The Lady Hasegawa bowed back politely and then hastened with Flora down the great wooden staircase that led to the finer cabins.

  “You are your mother’s daughter,” Evelyn mimicked once they were out of earshot. She had, Flora thought, nailed the pompous lilt of the Lady Ayer’s accent. It sounded rather like the one Alfie did when the two mocked Imperials. Flora snorted a laugh, then clapped a hand over her mouth, embarrassed.

  “Milady.”

  “I mean, really!” Evelyn went on, though she was smiling at Florian now. “She’s everything I’ve never wanted to be. Blathering. Blithering. And do you see the way she treats her maid? Poor thing was burned to a crisp. She looks like a ham.”

  She pulled the door to her cabin open and stomped inside. Flora stood at the precipice, ready to stand guard. That was her duty, after all. But the Lady Hasegawa peeked her head out and regarded her with warm annoyance.

  “Come on, Florian. I found a story I think you’ll really like. It’s got pirates and everything! You’ll love it.”

  Flora gulped. The word love hung heavy in the air between them. “Milady, I —”

  “Evelyn. For the last time, silly, call me Evelyn.” She pulled Flora into her cabin by the arm. The reading lessons, the physical contact. It was all too much. Soon all the passengers would be taken down, down, down to the brig, Evelyn among them. The thought of Evelyn behind those steel bars sent an ache through Flora’s stomach, her heart.

  In her jumble of feelings, Flora forgot to close the door behind them. Perhaps it was an accident. Perhaps not. But the effect was the same.

  She had her face buried in the book and was trying to read a big word (tumultuous, it turned out, a word Flora thought made perfect sense in a story about the sea) when she heard a deep, ugly chortle from the hallway. It was more like a cough than a laugh.

  “What’s this, then?” Fawkes boomed. “Learning your letters, Florian? What were you saying? About a pirate’s code?”

  The blood drained from Flora’s face. A quick rejoinder may have saved her, but instead she sat, stuttering like an idiot on the Lady Hasegawa’s bed. It was perilous, she knew, to be visible to Fawkes. It was everything Rake had ever warned her against.

  “As a matter of fact, he is.”

  Flora would have given anything in the world — all her fingers, Alfie, the moon — to have kept the Lady Hasegawa quiet then. Fawkes turned his beady eyes to her. He hadn’t even noticed her before, not really, but now that she’d gone and called attention to herself, his eyes devoured her.

  “Ah. Well. He’s a lucky man, then, ain’t he? Learning them from a girl as pretty as you.”

  Evelyn’s ears flushed a deep red. Anger burned in Flora’s chest. There was nothing his greed would not sully. She shot to her feet, knocking the book to the floor.

  “Captain be needing you, then, Fawkes? Maybe Rake?” It was a threat, and they both knew it. Flora let her hand drift casually to the pistol she kept at her back.

  Fawkes luxuriated in another long, lascivious leer, then lumbered off, still laughing to himself.

  Flora closed the door. “I’m sorry, Evelyn.” Her mind was a mess, a messy thing, and she could not seem to bring it to order. She picked up the book from the floor and brushed it off. “He’s a monster.” She handed the book back to Evelyn and listened after Fawkes to ensure that he was truly gone.

  “Thank you, Florian.”

  “For what, milady?” A strange flame of anger licked at Flora’s throat. And oddly, it was directed at Evelyn. Why had she called attention to herself? Why was she so ignorant of her own peril? It was just like an Imperial to assume her own safety. Did she not realize what she was risking? If the Lady Hasegawa thought Flora could keep her safe from Fawkes, from anything . . .

  “For finally calling me Evelyn.”

  Flora lay in her hammock, listening to the creaks and moans of the Dove as she sailed. All around her, men snored and murmured in their sleep. But rest eluded her, taunting and teasing and just out of reach. She turned over angrily, unable to find anything resembling comfort.

  “What’s with you?” Alfie hissed. “You’re keeping me up,” he added a little haughtily.

  “Can’t sleep.”

  “Rum?” Alfie raised the bottle he kept in his hammock — he always had a bottle — but Flora shook him off. She fought back the anger that burned in her throat. She had seen what the drink did to him, and it was a road she didn’t care to follow him down. She’d tried to love him out of it, nagging and begging and pleading with him. But there was nothing she could do, and she’d long since lost the energy to fight the currents so bent on drowning him. It didn’t make it stop hurting to watch, though. It never stopped hurting.

  “If you’re going to keep tossing, you might as well talk to me, then,” Alfie said. She could tell from the blurry edges of his voice that he’d been asleep and she’d woken him. And she could also tell that, before that, he’d been drinking.

  “You wouldn’t understand.” Which was true. He’d never understand why his drinking bothered Flora. To him, it was just a thing that had to happen, like sunrise, or death. And he’d certainly never understand Flora’s tempest of contradictory feelings that swirled around the Lady Hasegawa, whose fate — to him — was also another simple inevitability.

  “Oh, look who’s such a big complicated man, then.” He spoke in the silly voice he knew made Flora laugh. It was, secretly, his impression of the captain, though neither would ever say so. Men had been stabbed for less. Alfie went on. “Outgrown me, have you? Suppose I should have seen it coming, now that you’re a big important man, taking orders direct from the captain. Think your dumb old brother Alfie can’t wrap his simple wee head around your big, profound, existential — ?”

  “Bugger off.” Flora tried her best to keep the laughter from her voice but failed. He was always like that, always able to disarm her. It was infuriating. “Where’d you learn that word?”

  “What, existential?” Alfie laughed. “Don’t actually know what it means.”

  Flora turned in her hammock so she could look into his eyes. She needed his help. Now that the anger had ebbed, she could see herself as she truly was. She wasn’t angry.

  She was drowning.

  “Alfie,” she whispered. She could hear the feeling in her voice, and much as it embarrassed her, she didn’t have the fortitude to hide it. Not anymore. “I don’t think I can do it. Not this time.”

  Alfie’s smile faded immediately. “Hush. Someone could hear you.” They both knew which someone he meant. His eyes darted to where Rake slept, just one hammock over.

  Tears welled in Flora’s eyes. When had she last cried? She couldn’t even remember. “She’s not like the others, Alfie.”

  Their history hung between them, heavy and terrible. Neither needed to reminisce to recall each of the long and hungry days of their childhood in Crandon, begging for food only to be kicked and shooed, the miraculous nature of their survival in the face of Imperial indifference. There was no love lost for those people, the rich and the pure of Crandon, between Flora and Alfie. But still. She wanted to make him understand.

 
Evelyn was not like them, not like those who had seen them starving and just kept walking. She was sheltered and silly, but she was whip smart, and kind, too, and far too soft for the fate that was coming.

  “She is, though.” Alfie’s voice was quiet but firm. “There’s been good people on every voyage we take, but they’re not our people.” He reached out a hand, wrapping his fingers through the net of Flora’s hammock. “Tell me what I can do to help.”

  Flora felt tears falling and cursed herself. For her weakness and her foolishness. He was right, of course. What could she do to save Evelyn? Nothing. She couldn’t save her. And trying would only kill her and Alfie both.

  “Trade me shifts? I don’t think I can be around her anymore.”

  Alfie nodded. “’Course, Florian.”

  Florian. She would do well to remember who she was. What she had become. What it took to survive. She lay back in her hammock, and in her mind she said the name over and over again. An incantation against her own weakness.

  There was a creak of shifting weight as Rake rolled over in his hammock.

  She prayed he was asleep.

  When she returned to her cabin, Evelyn noticed that she had a new guard. He was tall and gangly, and not nearly so graceful in his attempts to disappear into the shadows as Florian had been. He nearly tripped over a fellow sailor who was busy knotting nets.

  She turned to face him, startled. “Are you my new watchdog?”

  “Some kind of dog, miss. At your service. Or milady. My lady. Which is it?”

  Evelyn smiled. “My lady, if you want to be proper.”

  “Oh, totally. Yes. I’m always aiming to be proper. It’s just I’m a lousy shot.” He offered his arm, which Evelyn took. “Let’s take you up to the half deck. The sun’s out, but not too out, if you know what I mean, and we’ve seen more than one pod of dolphins swim by.”