The Mermaid, the Witch, and the Sea Read online

  “What happened to her?”

  “Died before we reached port.” Flora fiddled with her bandage, tried to focus on the pain. If she could just focus on that, she could ignore the feel of Evelyn’s eyes on hers, the pressure of her concern. “We don’t know what they eat, see.”

  “So she starved to death?”

  “Yes, milady.”

  “Please don’t call me that.” Evelyn sighed. She lifted the biscuit she meant to eat, but let her hand fall away before it reached her lips. “I thought mermaids were supposed to be beautiful,” she mused. “Not like that poor creature flopping around. Nothing is as lovely as I might have believed.”

  “They are pretty.” Flora grinned when Evelyn’s eyes met hers once more, narrowed in deep doubt. “Not how she looks now. But in the water. I’ve seen a couple. It’s only once we pull them out of the sea that they look so . . . like that.”

  “We could care for her, you know. Figure out what she needs. Keep her safe.”

  “No one ever has.”

  “So?” Evelyn’s eyes glittered in the dim light of the galley, twin stars improbably risen belowdecks. Flora felt her heart as though it had escaped into her throat, drumming a mad and impossible song. “Just because it’s never been done doesn’t mean it can’t be.”

  “Believe me, mil — Evelyn. If there were a way to keep them alive, then men’d have found it. Worth more, you know? Gold’s a solid incentive around here.”

  “But we have an even better incentive.”

  “What’s that?”

  “To do what’s right.”

  Flora choked back a scoff. When had right and wrong ever had any bearing on anything?

  “The right thing would be to toss it back in the sea. But I promise you, Evelyn, you do that and I’ll be missing my head instead of my finger. My life is worth less than hers.”

  To her shock, Evelyn placed a hand on Flora’s arm. She felt her skin tingle with heat where their skin met.

  “I’ll never put you in any danger again, I promise. But you say she’ll be worth more alive, yes? Certainly, none of your colleagues will be angry at you for doing them this service. And we’ll have done, if not the right thing, at least the thing that’s closest to it.” There was a pause, but the Lady did not move her hand. “And your life is worth more. To me, anyway.”

  Her hand was so warm on Flora’s skin. Her hand. Flora gulped. “Fine.”

  At her words, Evelyn’s face erupted into a wide and beautiful smile.

  I’ll try.

  It had been only a week, and already the mermaid looked close to death. She hadn’t been a lovely thing to start, but now her scales were inflamed and tinged with red, her strange fishy cheeks sunken from hunger. Fawkes kept her barrel with all the other stores, belowdecks, in the stagnant air of the ship.

  She bobbed in her barrel, despondent.

  Flora looked at the mermaid. The mermaid looked at nothing.

  Flora had brought Evelyn to the barrel when she could, and each time the Lady dropped bits of food into it. Always, the mermaid let the nibbles sink to the bottom, and always Flora could see Evelyn’s heart break for it. Flora had taken to sneaking off at night to see to the mermaid while the Lady slept, though she could tell the mermaid did not much appreciate the visits. She did, at least, let herself float to the surface when Evelyn came to visit. They had taken to doing their lessons in the stores, so that the mermaid could share in the stories they took turns reading aloud.

  A few times the crew had managed to keep a mermaid alive until they reached port. But always those had been the ones caught close to the end of a voyage. A couple of times the captain had bought them off the sailor who hauled them in, on the spot. They were, after all, his favorite treat, and he always gave a more than fair price for them.

  Flora remembered the first, who was even uglier than this one, if it were possible. That one had thrashed in her barrel of seawater for more than two weeks before she died. They’d tried to bleed her dry as soon as they realized, but it was too late. Her blood had congealed, rendered undrinkable. They pitched her useless carcass overboard.

  She’s just a fish, Flora told herself. Just like your dinner.

  She tried not to think of the tales she’d heard, of the Sea and her anger. The mermaids were, according to numerous old sailors who drank too much rum and then shot their mouths off in pubs and taverns, the Sea’s own daughters. And that stealing them from the Sea was a crime, punishable by death.

  She tried not to think of Evelyn’s tears.

  But still, the captain sailed on. And still, he caught the mermaids in his cruel nets. No punishment ever came to him. Much though he may deserve it, Flora thought, and then shook her head to rid herself of such mutinous ideas. She hated the captain, but it did not do to dwell.

  Flora let her fingers trail in the water. The mermaid skittered to the other side of the barrel and watched her with open suspicion.

  “No way she survives this voyage,” Rake said. It was as though she had conjured him with her mind. She had not heard him coming, had not heard anyone coming. How was it he could be so quiet? It was the second time he’d snuck up on her in a week, and this time she was idle. She braced herself for a tongue-lashing for abandoning her post, but it did not come.

  “They say the man who figures out what mermaids eat is a true servant of the Sea.” He peered into the barrel. Sensing his shadow, the mermaid stirred and swam closer to the bottom.

  “Do you know what they eat?”

  “If I did, I’d feed her, wouldn’t I?”

  “The Lady Hasegawa is bent on solving it.”

  “Is she.”

  “Drags me here every day so she can try different things.”

  Rake said nothing.

  “Mermaid likes her. Always comes to the surface when she sees her coming.”

  “They do prefer women.”

  This time, Flora said nothing. The spell of safety Florian cast over her life was slipping, and yet she did not seem to be a female anymore, either. The loss stung. She was neither, it seemed. Or at least, she didn’t reap the benefit of either.

  Silence stretched between them. Flora could feel their strange bond slipping away. Rake hated all Imperials, Evelyn included. But Flora wanted him to tell her that everything would be all right, that he understood her, understood the Lady Hasegawa, that there was justice and that the Pirate Supreme would see to it. Of course, Rake would never make any such claim. Comfort was not in Rake’s tool kit. He was, she reflected bitterly, the closest thing to a father she’d ever had. He had taught her to tie knots and had struck her when she was wrong. But she could hardly muster the courage to speak with him.

  Rake looked into the barrel and watched the mermaid, who cowered away from them both.

  “Have you ever drunk the black blood?” The boldness of her question surprised even Flora.

  Rake drummed his fingers along the side of the barrel, as though considering his response.

  “Yes,” he said finally.

  “Did it work?”

  Rake smiled his not-quite-smile. “Depends on how you measure it,” he said. “I saw things. I forgot things.” He said nothing for a moment, watching the mermaid as she lurked in the depths of the barrel.

  “Men can’t understand what they see when they drink the blood. It’s too big for us, I think.” He rapped his knuckle against the barrel, startling the mermaid. “What she has to give — we can take it, but we aren’t meant to. Not at that price.”

  Flora repressed a shudder.

  “Captain says a good sailor takes any gift the Sea will give him,” Flora said.

  “True.” Rake stepped away from the barrel and held Flora’s gaze unblinkingly. “But I think Florian is man enough now to question what’s a gift and what’s a curse.”

  Florian. She wished she had his confidence now. His sense of sureness. Flora had never spoken at such length with Rake about the mermaids. He never stopped anyone from bringing them in — but then, h
e never partook in them, either. Never ordered nets to be knotted for their capture. Never took a cut from their sale. She wondered what Rake believed. Likely, whatever was most sensible. It was his way.

  “Why let Fawkes keep her, then?”

  Rake laughed, the ugly, barking laugh of a man who has killed. “Men like Fawkes will do as they do. He’s not seeking any wisdom from me, nor would I be inclined to give it to him.” All the other men aboard the Dove loved Fawkes — finding that Rake did not surprised Flora, and emboldened her.

  “Why did you let him do that to Alfie?” she asked.

  Rake shook his head but did not answer. “Keep your head down, Florian. See to your duties. It’s all you can do.” He gave her an awkward pat on the shoulder, then left the way he came, his footsteps heavy.

  The mermaid, sensing Rake’s exit, pulled herself to the edge of the barrel so her strange fishy eyes peered over the edge.

  She was looking for someone. For whom was no mystery.

  Evelyn was at a loss.

  She hated the way the food stores smelled, as though they had gone to rot. She hated the slippery walk down the many staircases that led to them — she had not even realized how tall the Dove was, how deep it went, until she’d had to visit its bowels on a regular basis. She hated the grime of wet wood that found its way beneath her fingernails from the railings she had to grip in order not to fall to her death during each descent.

  She hated the hopeful way the mermaid looked at her each time she returned, as though Evelyn would free her. As though Evelyn would care for her. Which, of course, Evelyn didn’t and hadn’t and couldn’t.

  But more than anything, she hated seeing Florian’s face as he watched her try, again and again, and then fail again and again. As he watched her, his face would still, like the sea without wind, like a mask of pity.

  She’d brought soba noodles with her this time, slippery and sticky in the handkerchief she’d wrapped them in. It seemed unlikely that the mermaid would prefer noodles. But she’d tried fish — raw and cooked — and crabmeat, apples, and nori. A hunk of hard cheese. And the mermaid had eaten none of it.

  The mermaid bobbed close to the surface upon recognizing Evelyn, her strange green face turned upward toward her impotent savior. Evelyn extricated a single noodle and dangled it in the water. Annoyed, the mermaid batted it away, then swam sluggishly lower as if to be free of the offensive offering.

  “Please eat,” Evelyn pleaded. But of course, the mermaid didn’t. She looked like she could die at any moment, the way she floated listlessly, the way her eyes had started to go cloudy.

  Behind her, Evelyn heard Florian shift from foot to foot nervously. He could clearly sense her growing desperation, and it seemed to frustrate him.

  “Please,” she said again. She was surprised to hear tears in her own voice.

  “Milady,” Florian begged, “let’s go read, maybe, huh? Go for a stroll on the upper decks? You could use a distraction.”

  “No!” She whirled on him, angry now. He might be willing to live a life of constant disappointment, but she could show him — she would show him. There was more for him. For the mermaid. Something better. “I won’t give up on her!”

  It was not all she wanted to say, but it was what came out. Florian heaved a sigh. Evelyn could not bear to look at him, could not bear to see his knowing face.

  In the barrel, the mermaid watched her closely. Evelyn placed her lantern on the floor. Its flickering light cast eerie shadows around the stores. She could not say what made her submerge her arm, to the elbow, in the mermaid’s barrel. Maybe it was her desperation. Maybe it was her fierce desire to prove to Florian, to prove to herself, that the mermaid could be saved. Whatever it was, it drove her to stick her open hand into the water. It was cold.

  “Evelyn,” Florian hissed. “Don’t.”

  But Evelyn didn’t listen. “She needs to eat,” she said simply.

  And even though some distant part of her was expecting it, Evelyn still had to hold herself firm as the mermaid took her wrist in her small hands.

  “She’s going to bite you!” Florian nearly shouted.

  Which was true. The mermaid pulled her lips back to reveal two rows of tiny, sharp teeth. When she bit down on Evelyn’s wrist, it was all Evelyn could do not to cry out from the pain of it. Florian made a noise of disgust and tried to pull Evelyn back, but she silenced him with a withering glare. “I’ll be fine,” she said. “And so will she.”

  The mermaid drank her fill, and when she was done, she looked less deathly than even a moment before, her scales flat against her body and her eyes clear. Before releasing Evelyn, she kissed each of the wounds her teeth had made — and to both Evelyn’s and Florian’s amazement, each cut stitched itself closed. When Evelyn did finally pull her arm from the water, it was as if nothing had happened at all.

  You see me.

  The voice came from nowhere and everywhere, or else from inside Evelyn’s own mind.

  “Did you hear that?” she asked.

  But Florian shook his head. He was examining Evelyn’s wrist, his rough hands gentle on her skin. For a moment they stood together in silence, each pretending that it was perfectly normal to dwell like this, a sailor’s hands on a lady’s bare skin. Florian gulped. His neck, Evelyn realized, did not look like a boy’s neck.

  You see me, Evelyn.

  The voice was distant and soft, like the sound of waves caught in a seashell. This time, Evelyn knew Florian had not heard — his eyes were still focused on her skin, where the wounds had disappeared. It was, Evelyn realized, the mermaid. The mermaid who knew her name.

  As if in a trance, Evelyn gazed back into the barrel. She looked at the mermaid. The mermaid looked at Evelyn, her strange fishy eyes unblinking.

  “You did it,” Florian said. Evelyn turned and was surprised to find him smiling. He didn’t smile often. A single dimple pressed in on his left cheek. “Men here’ve seen mermaids a hundred times and never figured it out. But you.” He laughed so quietly she could barely hear it. “Blood. No one ever. You’re too smart for this ship.”

  Evelyn’s ears flushed red. Something like pride bubbled inside of her, and she found it was most uncomfortable to look directly at him. She looked instead back at the mermaid, who was now gripping the side of her barrel so her head was out of the water.

  Home, the mermaid said.

  “Maybe I could set her free,” Evelyn replied. “They can’t expect you to physically stop me, can they?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I’m a Lady of Crandon,” she said. “You think these men would dare touch me? It’s not their place to lay a hand on me. Why not use that for something good?”

  Let me save her, Evelyn thought. Let me save you. But Florian did not answer.

  “Let’s get you back to your cabin,” he said. “She’s well enough for now.”

  The Lady Ayer was shocked.

  Not that a mermaid was being kept in a barrel aboard the Dove, nor that she drank blood, nor even that her kiss had healed Evelyn’s wounds. Not that Florian had had his finger chopped off for disobeying orders, not that the captain had menaced Evelyn with his violence toward the mermaid.

  Instead, the Lady Ayer was angry that Florian had allowed Evelyn down to the stores in the first place.

  “The sea is full of foul and strange creatures,” she said. “And I haven’t the width of mind to contemplate the many perversions of men. Thanks to the Emperor, it is not my place to. But you must be vigilant here. You’re not in Crandon anymore, little miss. Your mother’d break every single one of my porcelain plates if she knew I’d sat by and watched you wandering off into all kinds of dangerous places.”

  The flame between them flickered, casting shadows across the Lady Ayer’s face. The Lady was so like Evelyn’s mother. It was no wonder the two were friends. So uncaring, so cruel.

  The Lady topped off Evelyn’s tea, even though she’d scarcely had a sip. Evelyn had to concede, the Lady Ayer’s setu
p was enviable. Where her mother’s style was expensive, it was very plain, prone to whites and ivories. The Lady Ayer, on the other hand, decorated with flair befitting a country estate: tapestries with yellow flowers, ribbons, and whimsical embroideries of sheep. Saccharine though it certainly was, it did brighten the otherwise dingy quarters. She’d even brought a heavy bookshelf along, though it stood half-empty against the wall of her cabin.

  “Your doilies certainly are . . . impressive,” Evelyn said. She was in want of a change of subject, and doilies would do if they must.

  Behind the Lady, her pet dove jumped from rung to rung in its copper cage. It was a lovely cage, but a cage all the same. Evelyn had the mad notion that she should set the dove free.

  “All the trappings of comfort a man would never think of,” the Lady Ayer replied. She sounded very pleased with herself. Rightfully so, Evelyn thought grudgingly. While the rest of the Dove was wet, drafty, hard, and bore the scent of fish and feet, the Lady Ayer’s berth somehow always smelled of freshly laundered blankets and lavender, and boasted an excess of soft fabrics and pillows. It was nothing short of miraculous.

  “It didn’t occur to me, either.” Evelyn had not had the foresight to pack her own tea set, though she found the ritual of its use most reassuring. She thought fleetingly of her mother’s insistence upon high tea but shook the thought away. There was nothing comforting about those memories.

  The Lady Ayer offered a gentle pat to Evelyn’s knee, so light Evelyn hardly felt it. “You’ll learn.”

  The Lady rang a dainty silver bell, and her lady’s maid, Genevieve, reappeared. All the judgment Genevieve had passed on Evelyn was cleverly disguised from her face now. She looked for all the world like a simple lady’s maid. It took a clever person to pretend to be so dull so convincingly. Evelyn was impressed.

  “Yes, my lady?”

  “The gelées, please.” The Lady Ayer gave Evelyn an uncharacteristically mischievous smile. “They are my most special indulgence. You’ll love them, or I’ll eat my doilies.”