Secondhand Charm

by Julie Berry

  “Come with me, Evelyn,” she repeated. “You are a serpentina, the daughter of a proud and ancient family, and heir to powers unknown among men. It is time to claim what is yours.”

  “But what kind of powers?” I asked, feeling once again like the schoolgirl, face-to-face with a goddess.

  “You will see.” Annalise took a step toward the water.

  I wasn’t ready to let go of solid earth yet.

  “What is that around your neck, Annalise?”

  She smiled and showed me the ornament she wore. “It’s an unopened oyster,” she said. “Inside is an exquisite pearl of unequaled size and beauty.”

  “How do you know, if it was never opened?”

  “I know,” she said. “The ocean keeps no secrets from me. Nor will it from you.”

  “Why do you wear it?”

  She bent and scooped up a handful of sand, which she let filter through her fingers. “Each serpentina, as she approaches the age of womanhood, fashions herself a talisman. It symbolizes the gift she has inherited, and what she hopes it will make of her.”

  “Is that when she becomes a serpentina?” I asked.

  “That is when she becomes a woman,” Annalise said. “She is a serpentina born.”

  “Does the talisman … do anything?”

  Annalise shrugged. “Perhaps. People do tell their strange stories. But I would rather think of it as the serpentina who does something.”

  “Do I need to make one?”

  “I think, instead,” she said, “you bought yours from gypsies.” She parted the collar of my cloak with one hand. “There’s another one, now,” she said, looking puzzled. “What is this?”

  I placed my hand over the bone charm. “It wards against snakebite.”

  Annalise threw back her head and laughed. “Snakebite? You bought that?”

  I didn’t see why this was so amusing. “Yes.” I was glad she hadn’t seen my love charm.

  “You sweet child,” she said, “don’t you know that no snake alive can harm you? Serpentinas are completely protected from snake venom. Snakes on land or sea will adore you.”

  I thought of the little snake in Grandfather’s apple tree. And then, I thought of Grandfather. Who was I? Lem Pomeroy’s granddaughter from Maundley, or the lost daughter of an alien clan of snake women from over the sea? How could I be both?

  “We waste time talking,” Annalise said. “Come into the water, sister serpentina, and swim as you were born to do.” And without a further word she turned and ran toward the water, neither hesitating as she neared the waves nor pausing to shiver as she entered them. As soon as the water reached her waist she dove under its surface.

  I watched and waited. Far out in the deep sea, flashes of silver and gold showed me the leviathans at play. But where was Annalise?

  I hurried toward the edge to watch for her, dreading to see her drowned body drift to the surface. I was back on the beach by the sunken White Dragon all over again, and drowning in my own fear.

  “Evelyn!”

  I scanned the whole wide beach, looking for the source of her voice. A hundred yards or more away her wet head appeared, and her long white arm waved to me.

  She swam that entire distance without coming up for a breath!

  She dove under again, aiming back toward shore, and soon rose dripping from the water. Even soaking wet, her poise and grace were undiminished. She stood knee deep, holding out her hand to me.

  “Join me in the water, cousin,” she cried. “This is your initiation.”

  “A bath in the sea is my initiation?” I called back to her over the waves.

  “Knowledge is your initiation,” she cried. “Knowledge of what you can do, and showing the courage and faith to do it. Throw yourself into the water.”

  “But I can’t swim!”

  “Yes, you can.”

  My leviathan raised his whiskered head from the waves.

  It’s true, Mistress, he said. You can swim as well as I can.

  But I nearly drowned before, I told him.

  You didn’t know before. I will be here to help you, but you won’t need my help.

  I don’t want to be a serpentina, I thought, looking at the inky black water and at Annalise’s outstretched hand. I don’t want to swim, and I don’t want to spend my life alone, cast out from society. Nor do I want to spend life trying to hide my secret. I don’t want to be a strange woman with strange powers. Once upon a time, a thousand years ago, all I wanted was to be a doctor and healer.

  You are a healer. Because you’re a serpentina.

  I looked up, surprised. My leviathan, it seemed, could hear more of my thoughts than I realized. His emerald-cut head tilted to one side, and his jewel green eyes watched me without blinking. Wise eyes. Loving eyes.

  You are magnificent, I told him, even if this was not what I wanted.

  You are magnificent, Mistress, he said. Swim with me. And, please. Give me a name.

  I took a deep breath, and placed one foot in the surf. It was cold, but soon I didn’t feel it. I placed another foot farther in.

  A name. What kind of name did one give a mighty sea serpent? Names like John and Harold didn’t seem to fit.

  I took another step in. Water reached the legs of my garment.

  I reached Annalise and took her hand.

  “If we were on Merlia, your initiation would include a swim at sunrise with the entire sisterhood of living serpentinas,” she said. “What a thrill that would be for you. But for serpentina girls on Merlia, the initiation is mostly ceremonial. They swim before they can walk. They name their leviathan as soon as they can speak. They know their powers from an early age by watching their mothers. But for you, today, this is a true initiation. You face your fears, you claim your identity, you leap into the sea. It’s an honor to share this moment with you.”

  Well, Evie, I told myself, you can either stand here with wet ankles or you can take the plunge. My leviathan, watching me, did a sudden sideways roll, coming up dripping. I envied him his freedom in the water, his complete power and confidence. And suddenly I was sick of standing on the shore.

  I let go of Annalise’s hand, counted to three, and then to four for good measure, and finally launched myself out into the water. My dive wasn’t graceful like Annalise’s. I more or less fell forward. But the water received me softly. I rose up with my hair plastered over my face, and sputtered out water.

  “Take a deep breath, love,” Annalise said, “and go under.”

  “I need to breathe, do I?” I said. “I thought perhaps I’d sprout gills.”

  Annalise laughed. “Your leviathan needs to come to the surface to breathe too,” she said. “But watch and see what you and he can do.”

  My leviathan slid over the surface of the water to me and rubbed against my legs.

  Ride my back, Mistress, he said. Let me show you the ocean.

  “But what happens when I need to breathe?” I insisted.

  When you do, I’ll bring you up.

  I threw one leg over his back and leaned forward, wrapping my arms around him.

  I’m trusting you, leviathan.

  I know.

  Chapter 31

  He shivered with delight, reared up his head, and dove under the water. I rode the curve his body made, rising high over the water, then plunging in.

  It was a shallow descent at first, then I felt him turn sharply downward. His muscles rippled under my body, and I held on for dear life, my eyes clamped shut, my ears ringing with the pressure. Water rushed past my face, pressing my cheeks into my teeth. With each powerful beat of my leviathan’s long body we went lower and lower into the black underworld of the sea, farther from the surface, and from air.

  Then his pace slowed.

  Open your eyes, Mistress.

  What good would that do? It’s night at the bottom of the ocean. But I obliged him.

  At first I saw only darkness. My leviathan’s body gleamed, and from that faint source of light I gradually m
ade out more. My vision changed, and things became clearer, sharper. A small gray fish fluttered before me like a blowing leaf, and then another, chasing the first. Craggy rocks covered with moss descended below me, a mountain range beneath my feet. I felt a moment’s vertigo. Was this how eagles felt?

  A school of fish swam past in perfect coordination, each one longer than my arm. They took no notice of us—except for the one that my leviathan snapped between his jaws and gulped down his great maw. Part of me—the schoolgirl—wanted to be revolted by the sight, but down here, in my watery home, I was glad he found a proper meal.

  We descended until my toes skimmed the surface of the rocks, and I bent over to study their surface. They teemed with life and movement, with swaying fronds of undersea plants and small creatures I couldn’t name, crabs scuttling and tiny fishes darting through plants and crevices. I reached down my hand to touch a clamshell and saw tiny things retreat, close, and fold in on themselves. What a world! I would have to find a book about sea creatures, if there was one, perhaps at the university.

  Annalise, riding on Bijou, swam into my view and waved to me. A pocket of air escaped from her lips and rose through the water.

  That’s when I realized I hadn’t taken a breath in a while.

  Air, please, I told my leviathan. Quickly!

  It’s all right, Mistress, he said. I’ll take you up. Stay calm.

  Slowly, leisurely, we drifted up in lazy circles, watching bubbles rise faster than we did. I fought back fear until I realized, I’m all right. I’m still all right.

  The sea grew darker and more cloudy the higher we went. Pent-up air burst from my mouth, leaving me empty, utterly empty, and now truly afraid.

  And then we were on top of the waves, filling our lungs with sweet air.

  Annalise and Bijou surfaced too, and Annalise slipped off her serpentine mount. “Swim to me, Evie,” she said. “Kick and stroke, and be calm in the water. You’ll be fine.”

  “No, wait, I … ”

  But my leviathan wriggled out from under me, and I had no choice but kick and stroke or sink. I tried to mimic Annalise’s smooth strokes, but my arms were unused to this. At least I was able to keep my lungs filling with air now and then.

  “Well done.”

  I had reached Annalise, to my astonishment. She grabbed my hand and squeezed it.

  “Oh, Evelyn, Evelyn, what a day this is for you!” she said. “And for me. I feel I’ve gained the sister I’ve wished for. I thought, when I left my native land, I would always be alone. But now you’re here, and there’s nothing we can’t do.”

  I pumped my arms and legs, trying to keep my head up.

  “You’re learning quickly. We’ll swim again soon. Let’s go to shore now, and talk.”

  We swam to the shallows and walked up onto the sand. Annalise helped me into my robe, then put on her own. She gathered bits of dried driftwood and in no time had a small fire blazing. We sat in the sand, toasting our ankles, and watched the shifting light of the fire, while beyond, out over the dark waves, our leviathans frisked and fought mock battles in the shallows. I couldn’t stop thinking about the ocean world beneath the surface. Could I really go there and explore whenever I wished?

  Annalise interrupted my thoughts. “Can you keep a secret, Evie?”

  I nodded.

  “Once I’m queen, things will change here in Pylander,” she said. “And wherever I go, you’ll be beside me.” She lifted a lock of my wet hair and twined it over her fingers. “You’ll have dukes and princes clamoring for your favor.”

  “I’m not sure what I would do with that,” I said, pulling back. My hair slipped out of her fingers. “I came here to pursue my studies.”

  “Of course,” she said. “All in good time. We’re young, Evelyn. There’s time for everything we want to do. If learning amuses you, by all means, you shall.”

  I flexed my toes in the firelight. Out of the water, being wet made me cold.

  “It doesn’t amuse me,” I said. “It inspires me. There’s so much I want to know. Especially about the body. I want to understand how it works. Like my father tried to do.”

  Annalise tossed a bit of bark onto the fire.

  “There’s so much I want to know about you, Evelyn,” she said. “Your background, your hopes. If it’s knowledge you want, then knowledge you shall have, more knowledge than mankind has ever comprehended. You don’t yet know all that a serpentina is, my love.”

  I felt a flash of annoyance. I knew that I didn’t know, and I wished she’d stop reminding me. “What are they, then?”

  “What are we, you mean,” she said. “Legend has it that our first ancestor was a Merlian princess who fell in love with a sea god. She sneaked out of her room each night to meet him in a cave near the sea, and they would swim together.”

  I was glad that in the dark, Annalise couldn’t see my reaction. Who could believe such a preposterous tale?

  Then again, who could believe in serpentinas?

  “Her father forced her to marry a prince. From Pylander, as it happens. So she wed the prince, but refused to leave Merlia and her true love.”

  A scandalous beginning. I leaned forward to hear more.

  “The sea god was jealous of the prince, and the prince knew he did not own his wife’s affections. He followed her to the cave one night and challenged the sea god to a duel. Naturally, he was a fool.”

  “Naturally?”

  She laughed. “Men can be such fools, love. Especially jealous ones. The princess tried to stop the duel, for she felt no malice toward her husband, but neither the prince nor the sea god would listen. She threatened to leave them both if they didn’t desist.

  “The prince stood no chance against his opponent. His body was found dashed in pieces against the rocks in the cave. But his sword was missing, and the legend has it that before he died he managed to get a disfiguring stroke in, destroying one of the sea god’s eyes.”

  “How would that be possible?” I asked. “If any of this were possible. How could you hurt a sea god? If there were sea gods, which I don’t believe, wouldn’t they be beyond injury?”

  “So you would suppose,” Annalise said. “Perhaps it had something to do with justice being on the prince’s side. I wasn’t there. This is only how the story is told.”

  “Well, go on, then.”

  “The princess returned and mourned her dead husband, even though she’d never loved him. She called to her sea god, but, ashamed of his disfigurement, he refused to appear before her.

  “Soon it became known that the princess was carrying a child. Naturally everyone assumed the child’s father was the dead prince.”

  Ocean breezes from the west—from Merlia—blew across my cold skin. Whether this myth had any truth to it or not, I took no pride in descending from such a dark, gruesome legacy.

  “But of course, the prince wasn’t the child’s father.”

  “The princess gave birth to a girl with hair as black as ink,” Annalise said. “When the child could barely walk, her mother took her to the beach to play in the waves. A leviathan appeared and wrapped itself around the girl. The princess ran to rescue her daughter, but the leviathan pulled the child out to sea. Instead of drowning, the little girl swam easily, and played with her serpent all afternoon while the helpless mother watched. The child returned to shore and asked for her dinner, and the leviathan swam back to its home in the depths. It was then that the princess realized that the creature was a gift from the sea god to his daughter. A protector. An eye, so to speak, symbolizing the one that was lost, to keep watch over his child.”

  “So she was the first serpentina?”

  Annalise nodded. “Wise as a serpent, cunning as a god, radiant as the moon. She grew to be queen of Merlia and queen of the sea. And so her daughters have been ever since.”

  Driftwood on the fire hissed and sputtered.

  “Surely you don’t believe that,” I said. “Does everyone in Merlia believe it?”

  Anna
lise watched me from far away, as if she could see past me, and far out to sea.

  “This is the legend of how we began, Evelyn,” she said. “And here we are now. It matters little whether the facts are facts.”

  I turned away. If this was supposed to be my initiation, why did I feel more confused than before? I was a scientist. At least, that was how I tried to think.

  I picked up a handful of sand and flung it out onto the sea. The grains sprinkled into the surf, sounding like rain on a rooftop.

  “You can dispute the legend all you like, Evelyn. But how can you dispute your leviathan? Present knowledge forces you to think twice about strange old stories, doesn’t it?”

  I felt sulky and cross then. “What present knowledge?” I said. “I still know nothing about serpentinas. Nothing!”

  “Ah,” Annalise said. “And so, to business. For starters, serpentinas do not grow sick.”

  “I’d pieced that one together.”

  “You can speed healing where sickness is present, and your touch can help send the mortally ill or wounded to a swifter, sweeter death.”

  I thought of Jeremy Thorndike, the coach driver, and felt again that bitter sadness. Send him to a swifter death? Had I killed him?

  No. I remembered his wounds. It wasn’t I who killed him. It was that ruthless highwayman, may his gold canker and may rust corrode his soul.

  “You possess, as your companion and protector, a wise and loyal and mighty creature, the king of the deep, a master of concealment, a creature whose bite can kill or revive, even from the brink of death, as he wishes and as you command.”

  I’d seen that firsthand. Remembering that morning Aidan died gave me chills.

  “You will have influence over things. Influence over others. In a room full of people, eyes will turn to you. Where decisions must be made, your advice will be sought.”

  “That sounds like all sorts of people,” I said. “In Maundley, there’s a little widow woman who runs the entire town. Wives would scarcely change their stew recipes without consulting her first. And I’m quite sure she has no serpent.”