Into the Hourglass

by King, Emily R.

  Osric chews another bite of apple while he weighs the question. “If we take the underwater highway across Skull Reef, we should be back within the day.”

  Laverick twists toward him. “How do you know so much about it? Have you done this before?”

  “I went to Everblue using the bubble tonic once to settle a dispute with a merrow trader. The journey was . . . unforgettable.”

  Muriel jabs her fork into the eyeball of the fish and lifts it out. “The depths of the seas are directionless and bottomless and lonely. A stranger to the currents could be easily disoriented. You won’t even notice you’re being swept away until you’re lost. But with Osric as your guide, you have a real chance.”

  Her lukewarm encouragement scrapes at my throat. I cannot think of another plan, and apparently neither can Jamison because he doesn’t argue. Or perhaps both of us have had too much grog to argue effectively. It does seem odd that Muriel should present this option now, yet it’s plausible that it didn’t occur to her until I spirit jumped.

  Laverick swallows a forkful of fish. “It’s settled. At nightfall, we go fishing.”

  We row out of the grotto between low tide and high tide, racing the sunset back to land. I’m grateful to leave the sea hag’s lair. I was beginning to smell like a cat.

  The sea hag’s gnome ties off our skiff. Osric continues to row the other boat, traveling by water with our supplies while the rest of us trudge toward the spit on foot. Muriel suggested we go there, since merrows are often seen lounging on the rocks. Radella stayed behind to help Muriel prepare for the transference, plus her glowing light could have given us away.

  Laverick and Jamison pull ahead, him with the short sword and her with fuses and the lantern. I carry the fishing pole and brush tufts of white cat hair from my cloak.

  The lavender sky to the east darkens, and in the west, the heavens around the sinking sun are a wash of fiery oranges and yellows. We go straight to Hangman’s Tree. The finperson we saw the other day still hangs there, strung up by a noose. Its rotting scent wafts toward us on the breeze, and I struggle not to gag. Our plan involves getting much closer, for me, really close. This is the only way we could think of not to scare the merrows away.

  While the flashy colors in the sky deepen to dusk, Osric casts the weighted nets he brought. The nets fade into the water until I lose sight of them.

  Jamison treads up to the dangling body of the finperson and rips the sack off its head. It would look like a man, considering it has legs, if not for its bulbous fish head. The finperson has begun to decompose, yet not to the point where any of us change our minds. The flesh on the finperson’s bottom half is in worse condition than its scaly head, and even its eyes are still intact.

  Laverick goes to meet Osric, who is rowing to shore. I step back from the tree. Jamison swings the short sword at the rope, severing it, and the body drops to the ground.

  I wave away pesky corpse flies from my face and then start up the tree. Jamison undoes the noose and moves it to the finperson’s feet, then throws me the rope. I grab the end and heave while he lifts the body off the ground. The dead finperson leans against him while I tie the rope to the tree.

  “You can finish anytime,” he grunts.

  “I’m going as fast as I can.”

  Jamison wriggles a little, shifting the rope.

  “Stay still!” I say.

  “I had a fly on my nose.”

  “There,” I say, finishing.

  Jamison lets go of the body, which now hangs by its feet instead of its head. I climb back down to the ground. He has already started the skinning process, cutting a line from the finperson’s knee, where its scales begin, straight up to its groin, and then back down to the other knee. The body swings too much, so I have to hold it steady.

  I turn my face away. “This is the most disgusting thing I have ever done.”

  “That may be a premature sentiment,” says Jamison.

  Laverick and Osric work by the shore, tying the fuses to the black-powder bags they found in Muriel’s storage. They’re very careful as they put them together and then stack them up from the waterline in the rocks.

  Jamison finishes his strategic cuts and then grabs the loose skin around the knees of the finperson and begins to peel down. I watch the fading sky to mitigate my revulsion as he disrobes the corpse, skinning it like he would peel off an undergarment.

  The skin drops to the ground, and Jamison sets to work gorging the eyes out of the finperson’s sockets. He pauses to wipe his brow and smudges his skin with something yellow and oily. I clean it off with my sleeve, unenthused about the next step of this process.

  Osric finishes helping Laverick with the black powder. Before we left the grotto, he explained that Hangman’s Tree is where patrons of Eventide are executed. Few rules exist in this mostly lawless world, but stealing someone else’s slaves is punishable by death.

  Jamison washes the finperson’s skin in the sea and then lifts it up and frowns. “You don’t have to do this, Everley. We can manage without you.”

  “No, we can’t,” Laverick calls out in reply. “The plan doesn’t work without all of us.”

  We all have roles, but my clock heart limits mine, so I draw on my hatred for Markham and gather the courage to touch the skin. The outside isn’t slimy, but what the exterior lacks the inside more than makes up for. I slip out of my trousers, down to my knickers, and then lift my arms over my head.

  “Let’s get this over with,” I say.

  Jamison tugs the skin down over me, putting it on as he would a frock. The thickness reminds me of wool, but the similarities stop there. The inside feels like oily fish skin. I may never get this rotten scent out of my hair.

  I hold my breath as long as possible, and when I inhale again, fresh air pours in where Jamison cut a slit for my mouth. He works to fit the tight skin over my arms and hands. This finperson had a much larger head and thicker chest, so the skin sags in spots, but its arms and hands were smaller. Finfolk also have no fingers, so I squish mine together as though I am wearing mittens.

  Jamison finally finishes and steps back.

  I hold out my arms to show him how I look. “Well?”

  “It’s disturbing how well this may work,” he replies.

  Laverick finishes stacking the black-powder bags and then puts the lantern near them. Osric passes pieces of beeswax from the sea hag’s storage room to Jamison. With the skin covering my whole head, Osric didn’t think I would need any. Jamison plugs his ears and picks up the fishing pole.

  “Can you hear me?” I ask.

  “What?” Jamison replies.

  “You’re ready.” I place my hand over his heart. It’s pounding so fast I can hardly count each beat. If this plan goes awry, he will be the first person we lose. I didn’t know such terror could exist. He lays his hand over mine. I let that little act of comfort be enough, and then leave him to crouch behind the rocks with Osric.

  Laverick gets into the skiff and lies down at the bottom. She wanted to stay on shore, but Osric is too large to hide in the boat, so he will run the explosives according to her instructions.

  Jamison sits at the water’s edge, by all appearances a lone fisherman who rowed out here, anchored his boat, and came ashore to hook his next catch. My anticipation simmers as I watch the sea. So much life hides below its surface; the sea is like a big secret I want to be part of yet don’t want to carry the burden of knowing.

  The finperson’s skin has begun to itch, and my ears are folded where it clings too closely. I gag down my nausea and force myself to think of something other than how close I am to vomiting.

  “Why are the finfolk helping Markham?” I whisper to Osric.

  “I suspect he promised them your seas.”

  “Our seas?”

  “Killian will allow them to migrate to your world. The finfolk have been at odds with King Dorian for centuries. Without the merrows to compete with for territory, they would be unchallenged.”

 
I want to dismiss his theory, but it would be typical of Markham to offer such a bargain. He thinks the worlds are his to control. “What gives Markham the right to trade away our seas?”

  “Elves are appointed overseers of the Land of the Living. One could argue that your world falls under our dominion as an independent territory.”

  “I hope you’re wrong.”

  Laverick shushes us from the boat, and we quiet.

  The waves lap against the shore, mimicking the soft beat of my ticker. The ticktock isn’t slowing or winding down, like one would think a clock on a countdown would do. I fear its beat will grow fainter until, eventually, without warning, it halts midtick.

  Osric perks up beside me. “They’re here.”

  A soulful voice begins to sing offshore. The merrow’s head, a bump on the surface, rises directly in front of Jamison, a distance off the beach. She slides closer, moving like a water viper across the surface. Her hair floats around her pale-green shoulders, and a string of pearls sits atop her head, reflecting the starlight like miniature moons.

  Jamison bobs his fishing pole, playing his role as her bait.

  Another merrow swims into view, flanking the first. Jamison waits to respond, giving the second merrow time to come nearer to the skiff and net. The two merrows combine their voices, their harmonious duet a far-off noise to my covered ears.

  Jamison drops his pole and rises. He wades into the water with all his clothes on, soaking his boots and trousers. His movements are slow and weighted, as though he’s made of solid wood. My ticker beats faster, and although my pulse is harder to detect, my chest aches from the speed.

  Osric creeps around the rock pile to crouch low near the black-powder bags and lantern. He holds up two fingers. Then three.

  We have three merrows in total.

  He holds up two more fingers. No, five.

  The combined force of their singing presses through the scaly skin covering my ears. A slight buzzing from their enchantment starts to hum through me. I press down on my ears, sealing the skin tighter and lessening the noise.

  Jamison wades up to his waist in the sea. The merrow with the pearls on her head grabs a hold of him and pulls him out into deeper water. All five merrows surround him and pet his shoulders and face. He floats with his head above the water along the surface, relaxed and motionless. His submissiveness is so convincing I cannot tell if the merrows have enchanted him or if he’s brilliant at pretending to have fallen under their influence.

  Laverick stays low in the skiff, hidden from view, and Osric waits for more merrows to surface. He must think this is all of them, because he signals that it’s time for me to make my entrance.

  I loosen the finfolk skin around my head so I can hear better and step around the rock pile into open view. The merrows’ singing quiets to one voice, and they all direct their luminous eyes at me. Osric assured us that the merrows would never run from a lone finperson, yet the merrows scan the spit for my possible accomplices.

  One merrow addresses the group. “It’s a scout. The others must be coming.”

  “No,” says the merrow with the pearl crown, “he’s alone. He must be a messenger. What message do you bring?”

  She speaks our language even though her song is in another dialect. Muriel told us before we left that the finfolk and merrows can communicate as humans do.

  “Um”—I clear my throat so my voice is deeper—“have you ever heard black powder go off?”

  “Go off of what?”

  Osric lights a fuse and tosses the black-powder bag out into the water, away from the merrows. Laverick measured the powder perfectly, so it explodes in midair before it hits the sea.

  The merrows cover their sensitive ears and gape at the raining ash. While they are overwhelmed, Laverick slides out of the boat and into the water. The merrows don’t appear to notice, but their confusion won’t last long. Laverick needs to close the net from a U-shape to a circle without detection. If the merrows catch sight of her, they will try to return to the safety of the deep sea.

  “What sorcery is this?” one of the merrows asks.

  The one with the pearls has already lost interest in me. She presses her lips to Jamison’s and sinks low in the water, an anchor pulling him under.

  Osric throws another lit black-powder bag, and it explodes closer, startling the merrows so much that they shriek. The one clutching Jamison resurfaces, bringing him up for air. He doesn’t gasp or sputter.

  Bloody bones. Their enchantment has him.

  Laverick is a third of the way done closing the net, but the merrows are so startled by the explosion that they start to swim out to sea, taking Jamison with them. I grab a black-powder bag and draw all eyes to me. Osric hisses at me to be careful as I light the fuse and toss the bag high into the air. It explodes above the water, directly over the merrows’ heads, and ash smears the sky.

  “If you run, we will capture you!” I shout.

  They all halt. I quickly pick up another black-powder bag, and the skin around my wrist tears straight up to my elbow, revealing my real arm.

  The merrow wearing the pearl headpiece spots my skin through the rip and glares. “I can see you’re human,” she says. “Who are you?”

  I tear the finperson’s skin off me and stand before them as myself. “I’m that man’s wife. Let him go.”

  The merrow peels her green lips back over her pointy teeth and shoves Jamison underwater. He doesn’t struggle or flail, nor does he send up strings of bubbles. “Come and get your man, woman.”

  Laverick swims faster with the net, near to closing it. Osric holds on to the other end where it is staked into the rocks and waits for her to finish. Laverick pulls the net shut all the way, completing the circle, and hollers, “Now!”

  Osric yanks on the other end, and at the same time, Jamison leaps from the water and wraps his arms around the merrow’s neck and his legs around her middle.

  The other merrows take off for the open sea. Laverick and Osric hold the line, tightening the net. Osric goes into the water for a better hold on his end. I light the black-powder bag and toss it over the net to the other side. The explosion scares the merrows back, and our friends begin to gather the netting, narrowing the circle and pushing them toward shore.

  Jamison hangs on to his catch as she tries to buck him off. He will not let go, so she bites his arm and holds on like a mongrel. He elbows her in the head again and again until she goes slack. Laverick gathers in the netting, tightening it around Jamison and catching him too.

  Before Laverick and Osric close the net entirely, two merrows thrash and wriggle over the top. The last I see of them are their fins as they dive for open water.

  I run down the shore. Osric tows the bundle of netted merrows toward the boat. Laverick climbs in and begins to tie their netted catch to the side of the watercraft. The two conscious merrows screech and thrash, tossing water over Laverick and into the boat. Osric knocks each of them over the head with a mallet. Their sudden quiet is jarring.

  Jamison untangles himself from the netting with Osric’s help and wades to shore. The merrow’s teeth tore into his arm, and the wound bleeds heavily, soaking his shirt. He drops on the sand and lays his head in my lap.

  I remove my waistcoat to use as a bandage. “I believed you were under their enchantment.”

  “I tried to be convincing,” he pants.

  His flippancy exasperates me. I don’t know whether to cuff him or kiss him. I settle for smoothing his wet hair from his eyes.

  “I heard you shouting,” he says, clutching his sore arm. “What did you say to them?”

  “I told them I’m your wife and to let you go.”

  He blinks up at me. “You’ve never said that before, that you’re my wife.”

  I sense that he wants me to say it again, so some part of me is annoyed that he’s making this more significant than it should be. “I’m your wife, and you’re my husband. What else was I supposed to say?”

  “I like how
rosy your cheeks get when you’re annoyed.” He grins and then wrinkles his nose. “You smell horrendous.”

  “Oh, get off my lap.”

  I gently push him away and help him stand. Osric heaves himself into the skiff beside Laverick. The bundle of netted merrows is tied shut and tethered to the back of the boat.

  “Return to the grotto,” Osric says, “before the others come back with reinforcements.”

  Jamison and I start off on foot, while he and Laverick row slowly down the coastline, dragging our catch behind them.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Radella hovers in the archway of the sea hag’s cave. Osric and Laverick rowed straight to the grotto, while Jamison and I walked to the second skiff, dodged growls from the gnome, and traveled the last leg of the trip by water. The pixie darts back inside the cavern ahead of us.

  Our friends are tying off their docked skiff, our netted catch still in the water. One of the merrows has woken up, and she is livid.

  “My father will kill you for this, Muriel!” Her voice bounces off the stone ceiling, amplifying her rage.

  “Osric, do you know who this is?” Muriel asks.

  The elf studies the screeching merrow in the torchlight and blanches. “Princess Nerina?”

  “We kidnapped the king’s daughter?” asks Laverick.

  “His eldest,” replies the sea hag, “the crown princess and two of her closest friends.”

  For a moment, no one moves. We are collectively undecided about what this means for our next venture. Should we let her go or continue with the transference?

  “Well,” Muriel says, “let’s get on with it.”

  Osric binds the merrows one by one, and then he and Jamison drag them out of the water. Princess Nerina lies on her side, her arms behind her and her long tail flopping. Her pearl crown has slipped and is now sitting crooked on her head. She is more human looking out of the water, despite her furious hissing. I will never again struggle to carve a merrow figurine.

  In the grotto, the cats begin to yowl. Their forlorn sounds echo down the narrow tunnel and off the ceiling. Muriel ushers us into her grotto and shushes her felines.