by Maya Chhabra
He couldn't say it. The words would save his life and soul—and quite possibly the princess's as well, for who knew how far the strange woman would go at this extremity?— and he couldn't say them. The princess looked at him, baffled, and he couldn't say it, even though he knew that if he died now, in a state of mortal sin, he was damned.
Before he could pull himself together, she had challenged the strange woman.
"And what manner of witch are you? We don't wish to have dealings with you, so what are you doing here?"
"I'm here," said the strange woman, and she was shorter than the princess, yet as she sidled forward the princess backed away, "because a girl is dying for lack of your husband's love. A girl he took up, and then abandoned for you. As though you were worth her smallest fingernail."
"It wasn't like that," he protested.
"Wasn't it?" she spat. "Did you know she gave up everything for you? Sold her voice, her body, her every second without pain. And you chose... this. What she saw in you, I'll never know."
"What the hell are you talking about?" The princess had stepped between them. The strange woman's glare when she saw her dripped venom, and now he was truly afraid.
He tapped the princess's shoulder. She spun around, and he read in her face the conviction that it was the two of them against all enemies. He was looking at her, and not at the strange woman, when he said it, so that he could hold till the last instant that look of willing complicity, that trust he was about to shatter.
"You're wrong. I know all about this mess. I heard every word you said to her when you plotted my death. And I—"
"Leave him be!"
"—married her," he finished, but the strange woman wasn't listening anymore. Only the woman who would have been his wife heard.
*~*~*
She heard without believing. Heard the cry, saw the little mermaid—could not connect the two. Didn't dare.
"I'm not going to die," the voice went on. "At least, not yet."
Hope struggled up in her on broken wings.
"How? Your voice?" Incredulous fragments of inquiry.
The little mermaid threw a last tormented glance at the prince and princess, and said, "I think I should tell you somewhere else." Her high, smooth voice seemed made for song. The little mermaid stretched out a hand, then checked herself.
The strange woman followed her, indifferent to their destination.
*~*~*
The stuffy cabin with its single porthole at least offered them some privacy. Not, the little mermaid thought, that they could do much to take advantage of it. The bitter aftertaste of her previous experiences made her long for the simplicity of love without transaction.
Perhaps it was too much to ask. She had been blessed beyond her wildest imaginings already. Assuming the strange woman still cared for her, after the spectacular rejection of the night before.
But she had returned.
"Tell me what happened. I don't understand."
The little mermaid recounted all that had happened since they had met on the deck, surrounded by moonless night. When she finished, the strange woman was staring moodily at the floor. The little mermaid braced herself, still as a jutting rock awaiting a breaking wave.
"Is it utterly disgusting that I'm jealous of him?" The strange woman's voice grew thick and wobbly. "Yes, it is. He saved your life, when I couldn't. And I envy him the saving, and I even envy him the touch… It's disgusting."
There was no trace of her old majesty. But her eyes still smoldered when she raised them. "You're alive. That's what matters. The rest is so much human foolishness."
"So's love," the little mermaid said. They were sounding each other out, like dolphins, trying to fathom what the eyes alone could not see.
"I suppose he'll take up with you again. It can't last, between him and the princess. Not after my idiotic meddling."
"I wouldn't, even if he did offer."
"Listen to me: don't let pride come between you and love."
"I won't," said the little mermaid, and she missed the days of her muteness, for a gesture would have been enough now. It would have said everything, if she'd drawn close and tilted her head for a kiss.
"Good," said the strange woman, rising from the small desk she had turned into a seat. "Farewell." And the little mermaid knew that in an instant she would be gone and that there would be no second chances, that this was her last opportunity, fool that she was, to snatch at happiness.
"It's you I love," she half-shouted, with no gaps between the words. The strange woman paused, her eyes widening. The little mermaid rushed on, "And it's you that's loved me, and I couldn't see it, I was too blind. When you offered me the slippers… I thought you were like the sea-witch, making a deal, I didn't realize…"
"I was an idiot," the strange woman cut through her babbling. "I should have known better, knowing what you had suffered at my sister's hands, but I didn't think it had truly hurt you… I was wrong. My body is a tool to me, but to you it's your own self."
"I wish I could share myself with you…" the little mermaid's voice trailed off wistfully.
"I'd rather share your life."
*~*~*
The princess heard him out. That much he was grateful for. But when she spoke, her voice was rock-hard.
"You betrayed me."
"I know." He felt the barge move under him. "I'm sorry."
"That's not enough to build a life together on. Especially since I know you'd do it again in a heartbeat."
"I couldn't let her die!"
She shook her short hair like a wet lion and an annoyed growl escaped her. "Of course, you couldn't. But you could have told me. Not left me to find out from someone else."
"I was afraid—"
"Of what? That I'd say no? That I'd let that girl die from pure selfishness? What do you think of me, really?" She lowered her voice. "Why don't you trust me?"
He had stopped trying to justify himself and retreated into the place he had gone when he was a child and his father scolded him—wordlessly waiting for it to pass. And yet her questions struck home, and he knew she deserved better than that.
"Well," she said into his silence. "It's a good thing we're not really married."
*~*~*
When the barge came ashore, the strange woman and the little mermaid broke off from the rest, running up the beach to the little cottage. The summer-baked sand felt cool as glass to the little mermaid's bare feet. She thought how they must look to the others—two quite ordinary human beings—and she smiled.
She reached the cottage first, but waited by the threshold. The strange woman caught up.
"You know I can't carry you over."
"I know," said the little mermaid, laughing. "But I was always told never to intrude on a witch's lair without being invited."
The strange woman faltered. "You know I'd never hurt you."
"I know nothing of the kind. Everything that's worth anything hurts… The poor prince."
"He'll survive."
"I don't know," the little mermaid said, looking away to the sea. "I don't think so. He told me he was going to commit sacrilege. What if he's damned?" She had been afraid to say good-bye, afraid of doing more damage. Afraid of facing what she had wrought.
The strange woman moved into her line of sight, blocking out the waves. "Does that sound very like your God? The prince believed he was risking his soul to save you, and did it anyway. I can't help but think no one is worthy of Heaven who wouldn't."
Their eyes met.
"Do you really think so?" The little mermaid's voice was nearly inaudible.
"I'm sure of it. Now come into our house."
*~*~*
The little mermaid disappeared into the cottage, but the strange woman lingered outside, listening to the breath of the sea. The wind kissed her, and the sun's rays, and even the centuries-old light of the hidden stars. But the little mermaid could not.
"Oh." A gasp came from inside the house. "Here are the shoes you made me!" The litt
le mermaid rushed over to the doorway, the slippers dangling from her hands.
"What's wrong?
The strange woman looked at her lover, looked at the shoes, looked at her lover again. She held her hands out for them, and thrilled as they touched the same object.
"Give those to me. I have an idea."
*~*~*
She pulled out the stitches, not one by one but many at a time, slicing through them with her knife and then plucking bits of fluff and thread out. Away went the daffodil embroidery. At last she had in her hands the leather soles—the satin tops were too frayed to reuse. She traced their shape onto a bolt of raw silk; she couldn't measure the little mermaid's feet directly.
She wanted to rush, but the magic demanded she go slowly. Re-stitching, she folded in old caresses, imaginings of kisses, the way she'd touched the little mermaid's feet once, to slide these very slippers on.
These things were difficult to pinion and still more difficult to pierce. So the work proceeded at its own pace.
*~*~*
The little mermaid lay half out of the water, sunning and cooling herself at once. The night she had found the prince, she had lain like this on the shore where she had deposited him, full of unknown longing, and sung the songs of the sea.
A shadow over her interrupted her reverie. And beyond the shadow, the solid, substantial shape of her love.
"I've brought you a gift."
She arose slowly, and with a solemn delight, for how often did one have the opportunity to make things right, she took the slippers from the strange woman.
"Thank you." And then she hesitated, because she did not want to repeat her mistake. "You know my feet are fine, now. Are these a keepsake?"
The strange woman seemed to bloom in her excitement. "Try them on."
The little mermaid rinsed the sand off her feet as much as she could and ran into the cottage, dirtying them again, to pat them dry. She was too eager to wait for the sun to its work.
When she stood in them, her knees bent, and her mouth opened in a silent O. Pleasure robbed her of words, but the strange woman understood perfectly; she smiled at her handiwork.
The cottage couldn't contain this rapture. The little mermaid took off running across the beach. She didn't know where she was going, but she knew exactly to whom she would return.
FIN
About the Author
Maya Chhabra graduated from Georgetown University in 2015. Her poetry has appeared in fantasy magazine “Through the Gate” and her reviews have appeared in “Publishers Weekly” and “Strange Horizons”. She lives in New York City. She can be found on Twitter as @mayachhabra and on WordPress at http://mayareadsbooks.wordpress.com.
