The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea Page 7

  “Do you know, little Florian, what your mother’s intestines look like, spilling out of her belly and being picked apart by dogs?” Rake hissed. “Because I do. I know what it looks like, what it smells like. I know what it sounds like when the dogs start fighting over what little is left. See this?” He drew his finger along a scar that cut down his cheek. Flora had always assumed he’d sustained it during his life at sea. “I got this for trying to take her body. To bury her. I was just a boy, and they whipped me for trying to put my mother to rest. Do not tell me of Imperial kindness. I’ve seen it.”

  “But Evelyn . . .” Flora croaked. She tried to catch her breath. She’d lost so much blood, and she could feel the weight of it missing. As if she were untethered from a body that did not want her anymore. Still. Rake had to know.

  “Oh, it’s Evelyn now?”

  But before more could be said, Cook came back into the kitchen. Seeing Flora and her bloody hand, he sighed his curmudgeonly sigh.

  “What’d you do, then?” he asked. He stuffed some bandages into a pot of boiling water.

  “Doesn’t matter,” Rake said stiffly. “Just see that Florian here is fixed up in time to attend to the Lady Hasegawa by the end of dinner.”

  And without another word, he left.

  In this moment alone, a gray whale has beached itself on the Red Shore.

  A fishing ship pulls in more than a thousand haddock in its tightly woven nets.

  Off the coast of the Floating Islands, a young boy in his mirth and carelessness as he swims has kicked a tower of golden coral, toppling it and drawing his own blood.

  In her depths, in her darkness, a monkfish in search of prey illuminates a lure.

  She is aware of all of this, but she is focused on the hollow edges where her mermaid belongs.

  She feels the absence like she feels a rock, corporeal and painful as it rubs against her.

  It is an ache; it’s angry and raw.

  She has no special communion with a shark.

  No moment of clarity shared between herself and the eels. They are all just denizens in her midst.

  But a mermaid is at once her child and her possession, a piece of herself and something entirely unto herself. She knows each of them by their secret name.

  Entrusted as only mermaids can be, each holds her memories, for she is too old and too great to hold them all herself. For when a new memory rises and demands to be held by the Sea, a mermaid is born. Rising from her depths, full and whole and beautiful.

  But one is missing.

  And though she cannot say what memory she no longer holds, she knows something is gone. What pain it is, to know a memory is gone but not what it is.

  She reaches out her infinite fingers, grappling in the dark for what she has lost.

  She howls.

  When she reached her cabin, Evelyn was not surprised to find Florian at her guard once more.

  What did startle her was the wan cast to the boy’s face. While typically his face was, if not congenial, at least robust with health and strength, it was now as gray as the mysterious meat chunks Evelyn had just spent the last half hour pushing around her bowl with a spoon. His eyes held a strange and pallid half cast, as though he could just barely keep them open. He cradled his hand, which was freshly bandaged.

  “What have they done to you?” Her voice was unrecognizable even to herself, so wrought with strange new fury. Her field of vision narrowed. All she could see was Florian, poor Florian crouching over his mangled hand.

  “Just an accident on deck,” he murmured, but his voice was blurry with pain and untruth.

  “Liar.” She helped him to his feet, carefully. He winced anyway. He smelled of the ocean, not unpleasantly. But he also smelled of blood, coppery and unmistakable. Like heated metal and fear. Gently, she held his wrist in order to see his bandaged hand — and nearly fainted. His pinky finger was gone.

  “It’ll be fine, milady.” His eyes would not meet hers.

  “Oh, Florian.” Guilt stacked like bricks in her chest. She would never know a life like his, never have to suffer as he did. The sternest punishment she’d ever received was a spanking. It had happened only once and was delivered by her elderly governess. How merciless poor Florian’s life had been, how acutely unfair. The awareness hit her again and again, wave after wave, rocking her.

  “Please, milady. Don’t make a fuss.” His voice was so tired.

  “OK,” Evelyn said. “OK.” A wild desire to kiss him came over her. To make him or herself feel better, she did not know or even understand. It wasn’t pity. It just seemed like the right thing to do. Evelyn said nothing for fear of saying something silly. Something unhelpful, something burdensome.

  Instead, she pulled a stool and a pillow from her messy cabin and arranged Florian upon them so he might stand watch with more comfort. His lips twitched into a momentary smile of gratitude, then fell once more into a grimace. Once she was sure he was as comfortable as was possible in the narrow space outside, she returned to her cabin.

  A ridiculous tear fell down Evelyn’s cheek, and she brushed it aside angrily. It was not her right to cry. She had not lost a finger. Florian probably hadn’t cried, so why should she? Her tears wouldn’t help him. There was nothing she could do to help. To protect him.

  On the floor, her casket lay open, the expensive silks of her various kimonos spilling forth, a cascade of wealth. To think how angry she’d been to be sent away. It seemed at the time like the greatest injustice ever to be thrust on a person. To be taken from home, to be wrenched from the only life she’d ever known and shipped off to a distant shore. Where . . . what? Where she’d be the lady of a keep that was famous in Imperial circles for its luxury. To be married to a man she’d never met. And even though she did not want a man, any man, she had all her fingers. She need not fear for her life.

  She did not want any man, she reminded herself. Not even the boy on the opposite side of the door.

  Right?

  She lay back in her berth and stared at the whorls of wood in the ceiling that she could just barely see in the dim candlelight of her cabin. The patterns in the wood had no reason, no symmetry, no order.

  She slept restlessly.

  The Dove creaked as she plodded through the sea, and it sounded as though the ship were groaning with discontent. Evelyn abdicated the night to insomnia, extricated herself from her nest of sheets, and snuck out of her cabin.

  Florian slept at the door and did not wake when Evelyn opened it. His face was furrowed even in sleep, an almost imperceptible crease between his eyebrows. He was beautiful, she thought, in the way the sea was. The lamp outside her cabin cast shimmers of gold across his dark skin, calling to mind how the sun sometimes cast shimmers of gold across the surface of the sea. She tiptoed past him so he could rest.

  Still unused to the rocking of the ship, she stumbled up the stairs to the deck. The sun had only just started to rise, though she’d have never known it in her berth, which was still embraced by darkness. Maybe it was always dark there. On the deck, a handful of the crewmen were circled, yelling and hooting at something Evelyn could not see.

  Sidling up to the group, unnoticed in their frenzy, she saw it: a mermaid. The creature gasped for air and thrashed upon the deck, her silver-scaled neck caught in thickly wrought net.

  Evelyn had never seen a mermaid before. She’d heard stories about them, of course, knew they were real the way that dragons and magic were real: distant and exotic, denizens of the world outside Imperial reach, outside the bustle of modern colonies. There was a dragon skeleton in the Imperial Palace. She’d seen it. She thought of the drawing in her book of fairy tales, of the mermaid who reached for the sailor. It looked nothing like the one that flopped on the deck before her.

  Where the illustrations always showed gloriously beautiful women with clear skin and long, flowing hair, this mermaid was small, stubbed, the size of an infant, with green and silver scales all over her body. Her eyes were awkwardly far apart on he
r face, more like a fish than a human, and gills flared in her cheeks. Green hair like seaweed wrapped around her neck. Her mouth gaped in silent terror.

  A thickset sailor with dense arm hair nudged at the mermaid with his foot and said, “Keep it alive and we can sell it for a fine price.” It took a moment before Evelyn recognized him as Fawkes, the man who’d come and harassed Florian as she tutored him. A swell of dislike rose in her throat.

  Alfie shook his head. “They never make it.”

  “Let’s just have it now,” chimed in another.

  “Throw her back,” Evelyn said. None of the men heard her, too engulfed in argument as they were. She took a deep breath and shouted, “Throw her back!”

  The crewmen turned and regarded Evelyn with equal measures of surprise and amusement, their faces curled into question marks. Fawkes stepped toward Evelyn, his eyes shining. Evelyn took a reflexive step back. Fawkes smiled, baring his broken, tobacco-stained teeth.

  “Aw, milady, you wouldn’t begrudge seamen like ourselves a bit of extra on the side? Not all of us is so fortunate as to sleep on silks every night.” He reached out as though to touch her arm, but Evelyn flinched away. A flash of annoyance burned in his eyes. “If you’ll pardon me saying so, miss, but all sailors is desirous men.”

  The mermaid’s tail thrashed against the deck with a wet smack.

  “She’s scared,” Evelyn said.

  A wave of chuckles passed through the crewmen. “Yep.” The sailor nodded. “So is the pike we meant to pull into this here net, but then, you wouldn’t beg clemency for them, would you?”

  Tears pricked at Evelyn’s eyes and she looked away, embarrassed. How naive she must seem. Distantly, she was aware that several of the crewmen were already working to hoist a barrel full of seawater onto the deck, presumably to keep the mermaid in.

  She felt a gentle pull on her elbow and turned to see that Florian had woken up. His eyes were still clouded with sleep and pain, but clearly he would not be caught away from his ward again.

  “Come on, milady,” he whispered. “There’s nothing here that can be done.”

  The defeat in his voice was like an anchor that held Evelyn fast. She would not let these men, these terrible men, keep or kill or touch this wonderful creature. She squared her shoulders to Fawkes. They may be bigger than she was, may better know the sea, but Evelyn was an Imperial lady. And that had to be good for something. For once.

  “Throw. Her. Back.”

  No one laughed this time. All recognized the tone of command. Evelyn held the sailor’s eyes, let him see her fury. She didn’t care what he thought of her. Didn’t care if she appeared foolish. She would protect this mermaid. At least.

  “What’s all this, eh?” The voice had the arrogance of privilege. Evelyn whirled to see the man she’d been told was Captain Lafayette. The men immediately straightened. This, she knew, was the man who had taken Florian’s finger. She fought the desire to push him overboard.

  “Mermaid, on the deck, sir. We pulled it up with the fishing net,” said a crewman. “Fawkes has laid his claim to it.”

  Fawkes nodded. “It’ll fetch a fine price.”

  Captain Lafayette did not respond. Instead, he looked to Evelyn. “Have you ever seen a mermaid before, Lady Hasegawa?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Come.” He took her by the elbow and guided her to the barrel filled with seawater where the mermaid now bobbed, looking forlorn. “They’re never so lovely as you might hope, the mermaids. Hardly worth the trouble they’re said to cause. But Fawkes is right. She’ll fetch a good price for him, nonetheless.”

  “You’re going to let them keep her?”

  Captain Lafayette smiled in a way that did not touch his eyes. “The sea does not impart many gifts, my lady. A good sailor knows to take what he can get.”

  The mermaid wrapped her tiny fingers around the edge of the barrel and attempted to pull herself out. Captain Lafayette took a spyglass from his red doublet, pulled it to its full length, and smacked it, hard, against the mermaid’s hands. She let go immediately and cradled them to her chest. A splatter of black blood remained. The captain dipped a finger in the blood and, to Evelyn’s horror, licked it clean.

  Evelyn gasped.

  “Florian,” called Captain Lafayette.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Take Lady Hasegawa to the galley and see that she’s well sated. A little midnight snack. Something sweet. Her unease is nothing a treat can’t assist.”

  Florian’s eyes flickered to Evelyn, then back to the captain. “Yes, sir.”

  The captain smiled his beatific smile again and rested his thick hand on Evelyn’s shoulder. “Go on, young lady. There’s a tin of butter biscuits in there. Tell Cook I said you could have as many as you desire.” With a wink and a pat on her back, Captain Lafayette was gone.

  The mermaid looked at Evelyn. Evelyn looked at the mermaid.

  You see me. A whisper in Evelyn’s ears, like the echo of waves in a seashell. You see, you see, you see. And without a doubt, Evelyn knew it was the mermaid.

  “Shall we, milady?” Florian asked.

  Her blood is black,” Evelyn said. “I didn’t know it’d be black.”

  Evelyn stared off at nothing as she and Flora sat next to each other in the corner of the galley at Cook’s table. He’d dropped a cloth full of sweet Cold World biscuits between them, muttering to himself. They were, Flora guessed, from his personal store, and he wasn’t pleased to share them. For her part, Evelyn noticed little, her mind clearly still on the mermaid and the mermaid’s fate.

  “Only while she’s alive,” Flora said. Her finger throbbed beneath the bandages, and she found she lacked the energy for niceties. She should lie to Evelyn, should tell her the mermaid would be fine. Which, of course, she wouldn’t be. “Once she dies, it’ll fade to brown and congeal, and it won’t be worth anything.”

  Evelyn put down her cookie. “It’s her blood that’s valuable?” The disgust in her voice was unmistakable.

  “Yes, milady.”

  “Why?”

  “They say drinking the black blood of the mermaid shows a man visions. Beautiful things, strange things. Lets them in on secrets only the Sea knows. They say it’s like talking to gods.”

  “Gods.” Her voice was so dubious, Flora nearly laughed despite everything.

  “Makes you hallucinate anyway.” And forget. But she did not say this, not to the Lady Hasegawa. What could she understand about needing to forget?

  “That’s the foulest thing I’ve ever heard.” Evelyn gave Flora an appraising look, her dark eyes narrowed. “Have you ever drunk the black blood of a mermaid?”

  Flora couldn’t help it — this time she laughed. As if she could afford it. She shook the memory of Alfie in the pub away. “No, milady.”

  Evelyn smiled, her pink lips pressed together in a soft line of amusement. “Oh, good. I guess we can still be friends, then.”

  Friends. It was a kind word, but it stuck in Flora’s teeth.

  “Yes, milady.”

  Evelyn smiled again, picked up a biscuit, and handed it to Flora. “Really, Florian. Eat. You’re so skinny, it hurts me.” There was something undeniably flirty in her tone, in the tilt of her head, and Flora felt her cheeks blazing. It felt so hot then, in that small, small space with Evelyn. Their knees touched just barely beneath the shabby wooden table. Did she even realize their knees were touching? Probably not.

  Flora wiped a droplet of sweat from her brow.

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” Evelyn said, firm now. “It’s a biscuit. What’s the worst that could happen if you took a —” She stopped herself, her ears coloring a dark, ashamed red. But Flora smiled and lifted her bandaged hand in a mock salute.

  “I’m so sorry.” Evelyn shook her head at herself. “I didn’t mean to. I just —”

  “It’s OK,” Flora cut across her. “It doesn’t do to pretend this life isn’t what it is.”

  Instantaneously, she knew she had said
too much. She looked away, because Evelyn’s eyes were filling with tears.

  “No,” Evelyn said. “It doesn’t.”

  A thick silence descended between them. To break it, Flora reached out and took a biscuit with her good hand. It tasted of sugar and butter.

  “Why do you stay?” Evelyn asked.

  Flora choked a little. She thumped herself on the chest. In all the time she’d spent with the Lady in the last month, she had never asked anything quite so pointed. And she asked a lot of questions.

  “It’s a place to live,” Flora said. Which was true. She could not quite bring herself to lie.

  Evelyn’s eyes scanned Flora’s face, and in her gaze Flora could hear the questions the girl did not voice: Where did you live before that this is better? What have you done to survive? And what could Flora say that would make sense to someone like Lady Evelyn? Nothing, she knew. Nothing. Those weren’t even the right questions. The right questions would be: How can you live this life? How could you let them do this to me? To the passengers before me?

  The fog of silence was practically opaque.

  “Have the men caught mermaids before?” Evelyn asked.

  “Only one since Alfie and I got here. They’re hard to catch.” This was not true. They’d caught many. Catching mermaids was one of the captain’s great pleasures. It was why the men kept the nets freshly knotted. But Flora had only ever seen one. One had been enough. The sight of it, shriveled and diminished as it was, was more than Flora could bear. After the first time, she took careful steps to avoid the sight of them.

  She wasn’t alone in this. The mermaids made many of the men leery. The Pirate Supreme, they whispered. The Pirate Supreme will find us, and we’ll hang for it. But the Pirate Supreme never found them, never brought down the hammer of justice upon the men who pulled the mermaids from the sea. The men who either drank their blood or sold it.