Bride of the Sea_A Little Mermaid Retelling

by Emma Hamm

  It had been weeks of waiting. Weeks of trying her best to act human, to be the mistress of a grand house and learn their ways.

  Weeks of failure and wasted time.

  She had given up. No matter how much she tried to be a lady, there was always something wild in her that rebelled. The women here might hide behind fans, but their fangs were blunt compared to hers. She wanted to tear them apart, to curse them, to fling their pieces to the sharks.

  A ragged voice broke through her thoughts. “I am growing weary of your tumultuous emotions, merrow.”

  “Then stop prying, leprechaun.”

  Declan crunched through the gravel to reach her. He paused just behind her, his great bulk a wave of heat carrying the metallic scent of gold. “What are you doing out here?”

  She didn’t respond, merely handed him the letter she held in her hand. The folds were deep, the edges ripped, but she had taken to carrying it, nonetheless. It was the last bit of him she had. And the only thing fueling her anger.

  Declan read the words and swore. “That bastard.”

  “He did what he thought was right.”

  “You’re still justifying his actions? He left you.”

  “And I am still standing.” She squeezed her arms to hold in the shiver that rocked through her body. “This was the life I chose, Declan. This and no other.”

  “You chose it, yes, but you can still change your path. One decision does not create a cage.”

  “It has for me,” she murmured, staring out at the waves. “We are bonded, he and I. There can be no other.”

  Declan crossed his arms firmly over his chest. “You went through with that nonsense, did you?”

  “I didn’t think there was a way to stop it.”

  “Well, you could have just…not bonded with him.”

  She gave him a censuring look.

  “Sorry, love. I know it’s probably a sensitive subject.” He held out the letter for her to take. “What are you going to do?”

  “I don’t know.” She crumpled the letter and tucked her hands back underneath her arms. “The temptation will always be there. I’m coming to realize that no matter what I do, I will always miss the ocean. And no matter what I say, Manus will never let me near it for fear I will disappear forever.”

  Declan walked around her, blocking her view of the sea. He filled her gaze with a broad chest, strong arms, and golden rings flickering as he cracked his knuckles.

  “Look at me, merrow.”

  She squared her shoulders and met his gaze.

  “If you had a chance, if you were freed from all your ties, would you slip back into the ocean?”

  She bit her lip. Would she?

  Her shoulders curved forward and her expression fell. “Yes,” she whispered. “I would.”

  “It’s not a bad thing to admit it. You should never feel guilty for being as you truly are. Faeries weren’t meant to remain in the human world.”

  “That’s not true. This is, and always will be, our first choice.”

  A flash of anger sparked in his eyes. “They drove us out. We created something better in response.”

  “Did we? Funny, that’s not how I remember the tale.”

  Declan gestured at the manor behind her. “Is this what you thought it would be? Is this what you wanted? Because I cannot believe that deep under the sea you knew everything this life would bring with it. Responsibility. Servants. Money. Noblemen and their wives staring at your every move and judging you harshly based on them.”

  “No!” Saoirse shouted. “Is that what you want to hear, Declan? All I wanted was him. I didn’t care if we had four walls around us. I wanted his love, his attention, his laughter. I wanted to shape my life around him, have a family, grow old together.”

  “It doesn’t look like that’s what you’re doing. It looks like you’re standing on the edge of a cliff, wondering just how long it would take you to hit the water and disappear forever.”

  He saw right through her so easily it frightened her. Saoirse hadn’t even felt herself inching towards the edge of the cliff, but that was what she had done. Step by step, closer and closer to the freedom of the waves.

  And the bitter loneliness. The painful end as heartbreak slowly ate away at her sanity until she sank to the bottom of the sea.

  A tear slid down her cheek. “Oh, Declan. This isn’t the life I thought it would be.”

  He opened his arms to her. “Come here, merrow. Dry your tears.”

  She rushed forward and let his warmth envelop her. It wasn’t the same as Manus, but she supposed she shouldn’t have expected that. No one would ever measure up to the man who filled her heart, no matter what mistakes he made.

  Declan smoothed his hands up and down her spine. “It will be okay, Saoirse.”

  “How could you possibly know that?”

  “There’s only two options for you. To remain the wife of a human who disappears for months on end or return home.”

  “I have no home.” She sniffled. “I cannot return to my family. They will either lock me up forever or chase me from their waters.”

  “They are not the only merrows in the ocean.”

  Saoirse pulled back. “What?”

  “There are a few groups around here, they call themselves pods. They’re kinder than their deep water cousins. If you ask, they’ll take you in.”

  “My mother mentioned a cousin,” she mused. “I didn’t know what she meant but perhaps it has something to do with the merrows who live here.”

  “You’ll likely never know. But you’d be with your own people. Safe and sound.”

  “Do you hate them?”

  “Who?”

  “Humans. You don’t trust them at all.”

  “When you’ve seen what I’ve seen, you can’t trust them anymore.” He released her and stepped back. “They lie, cheat, and steal. Humans aren’t the paragons we once thought them to be, and every single one of them has the capacity to be cruel.”

  “I can’t believe that. I have seen so much good in them.”

  “Who? Your little artisan? He’s more Fae than human now.” Declan lifted his hands and wiggled his fingers. “Or did you think those were human hands they put on him?”

  “Now you’re just being cruel.”

  “It’s in my nature.”

  She didn’t want it to be in hers. Saoirse understood that many of the Fae were jaded. Most were power hungry, and the humans stole so much from them. But she had thought Declan would have seen the good here as well as the bad.

  Although she had seen throngs of people with judgmental gazes, she had seen them help each other as well. A woman handing a piece of bread to a hungry child. A servant helping sweep after a long, hard day. Even elderly men and women passing down traditions and knowledge.

  All these things made humans worthwhile. They were good people, and she wouldn’t forget that.

  Her ears burned with the desire to hear true silence once again. She wanted the ocean to press down on her chest. Maybe that would ease the anxiety that stole her breath away.

  “My place is here,” she croaked. “This is my choice. These are my people now.”

  “You’re fooling yourself if you believe that.” Declan shook his head. “I’ll stick around for a while. It looks like you may need a man of the house.”

  “It wouldn’t be appropriate.”

  “We aren’t proper, Saoirse. You and I were creatures born of midnight and monsters. The Wild Hunt approaches. We’ll need each other if we want to survive it.”

  He sauntered away, leaving Saoirse to gape at the open sea.

  The Wild Hunt. She’d forgotten the Lord and his people who rode across the human lands and collected faeries who should not be there. Would he try to take her?

  Would it matter?

  She shivered and wrapped her arms back around herself. She should go inside, introduce Declan to the servants, answer the questions they would inevitably have.

  Waves crashed against th
e cliff. Seagulls cried out overhead. And Saoirse remained frozen on the edge of the cliff, listening to the song of the sea.

  Great bangs echoed through the halls of the manor. Plates and vases shattered on stone. A few murmurs raised in a sudden silence, questions that would not be answered as further bangs rocked the manor.

  Saoirse had already shredded her own room. She had tossed the sheets off the balcony, shattered the mirror, ripped apart the bedding in her desperate search. She had stalked across the hall, shoved aside the butler, and started in on Manus’s room.

  Some might say she wasn’t thinking straight. She could hear the servants whispering that she’d lost her mind. It was a shame the mistress was too delicate to live without the master in the home, and who should they contact? She had no family they knew of.

  The poor dear needed help.

  She snorted and tore through a pillow. Help. As if they would have any idea how to begin to help her.

  “My lady?” The butler said, clearing his throat. “You have a visitor.”

  “I don’t have time for visitors.”

  Clunking footsteps marched into the room. She heard the butler argue as he was pushed from the room, and then the door slammed in his face.

  “What in the devil are you doing, Saoirse?” Declan growled. “I’m supposed to be here to keep their attention off you not explaining your eccentricities!”

  “I lost something,” she murmured, searching the room for her next victim. “I don’t know what it is, I can’t remember. It’s like my mind remembers something but won’t tell me what.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “I know that!” she shouted. “I can feel I’m not making sense, but I also know I don’t feel like myself. There’s something missing. Something I should have.”

  Declan grabbed her hands. “Saoirse, sit down. Come on, no, you will not look anymore. Sit down.”

  She slowly sank onto the edge of Manus’s ruined bed. Her heart raced, and her eyes flicked around the room, attempting to find yet another hiding place where he could have put… something.

  “Saoirse, what have you lost? Focus.”

  She shook her head frantically. “I don’t know. I can’t remember, it’s like everything I knew is filtering out of my head. My memories. My family. I can’t… Declan, I can’t.”

  Saoirse buried her face in her hands, sobbing. She was shaking and afraid of the changes she couldn’t control. Her mind was supposed to be a temple.

  Now, it felt like a prison.

  He folded her hands in his, shifting them back and forth until a golden light appeared between their fingers. She watched the soothing movements with rapt attention. Her heart slowed, her head bobbed, and slowly her mind cleared.

  Declan opened their hands. A gold coin sat in the center of her palm. The very coin he had given her long ago in the pub.

  “Focus on the coin, Saoirse. Let your mind wander. You might not know what you lost, but you know where it is.”

  She followed the coin as he danced it across his fingertips. The coin wasn’t what she desperately wanted, but perhaps he was right. If she relaxed, breathed, centered herself, then perhaps she might feel what she wanted.

  Saoirse’s mind calmed into a trance-like state. Declan skillfully rolled the coin over and over his knuckles.

  It was from her home, whatever the item was. She remembered rolling waves, seagulls, but most of all the taste of salt on her tongue. Her family was far beneath her. Hundreds of children, all with tails like fish and hair like kelp. They gathered to sing, but they were horrible at it.

  Her lips curved in a soft smile. Not a single one of her sisters could hold a tune. They said they would leave it to the sirens, but she knew it bothered them.

  Songs were sacred to merrows, and they dearly loved to listen to music. Sometimes, they would swim towards the surface, hovering together and waiting for the whales to pass by.

  Once, when she was very little, Saoirse had swum away from the sounds to explore. And in the darkest depths of the sea, she met a very young guardian who sang a song so pure that it rattled her soul.

  “Oh,” she whispered. “I remember.”

  “Where is it?”

  “I had it with me when I arrived. But I don’t remember where I put it.”

  “Think harder, Saoirse. Where could it possibly be?”

  And then she remembered. Manus had shown her a small music box, his mother’s favorite trinket. The song reminded her of the guardian’s, so she’d placed it there for safe keeping.

  Saoirse sighed. “A music box.”

  “This one?”

  Her eyes snapped open, although she did not remember closing them, and saw Declan held the box in his hand. “How did you know?”

  “There’s only one music box in the house.”

  “But where was it?”

  He winked. “It’s gold, darling. Anything gold speaks to me.”

  “Open it.”

  The bright music twinkled from within as soon as he twisted the base. The lid lifted and revealed a tiny dancer spinning in a circle. At the end of the song, a drawer opened at the bottom.

  Hidden within was a small spiral seashell.

  “Now I remember,” she breathed. “This was the gift my mother gave me before I left. How could I forget so easily?”

  “The farther he is away from you, and the longer he is gone, the worse you will get.” Declan reached out and ran a hand over her head. “Your bond will make you deteriorate even further.”

  Sudden panic made her push up from the bed and sprint out the door. She careened into the shambles of her room. Sheets tangled in her feet, but she safely stumbled to the balcony.

  Breathing in the salt air, she twisted the shell in her ear where it was meant to be.

  Song filled the ocean and the sky above it. The guardians cried out for their lost child, mourning a merrow girl who had not returned to their waiting arms. They screamed in rage, sobbed in sadness, and then fell to sudden silence.

  Saoirse waited the long heartbeats until they began wailing again.

  Declan placed his hand on the balcony next to hers. “He will not return for at least another six months.”

  “Will I even last that long?” she asked.

  “You have a choice. Do you wish to die here, waiting for your human to return? Or do you wish to die in the arms of your own kind?”

  “I can’t make that decision.”

  “You will have to soon enough.”

  “Captain?”

  Manus turned, tearing his gaze from the waves for a mere moment to glance at his first mate. “What is it?”

  “We’ve a stowaway.”

  His curiosity peaked, Manus tilted his head to the side and watched as a small boy was thrown to his hands and knees on the deck. Mangy and young, the boy was hardly of age to be on a ship.

  But he remembered being that age and wanting nothing more than to be a sailor.

  The boy whimpered as Manus thundered towards him. He’d have to get used to the commanding nature of a captain. Manus couldn’t make himself any less intimidating, or the other men would rise against him. Mutiny was something a ship couldn’t survive, no matter how new she was.

  “How did you manage to hide yourself on my ship, boy?”

  The child wiped his nose and glared up at him. “It wasn’t all that hard.”

  “No?”

  “I hid myself in a rum casket. Emptied the goods into the sea and your men loaded me on without even checking beneath the lid.”

  Manus arched a brow. “Really?”

  He heard the scuffle of nervous feet. Whoever had loaded the rum onto the ship was likely running off to hide himself for a few days. They’d seen the wrath of their captain already, and he knew they agreed he was a terrifying man. Fair, but lethal.

  “I ain’t done nothing to you or your men.”

  “No, you haven’t. But you are here without permission, and we are in the middle of the ocean. I metic
ulously planned to have enough rations for exactly the amount of men on this ship. You showing up means we no longer have the food and drink we require to survive. Do you understand?”

  The boy’s eyes were as large as dinner plates. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “No, I expect you didn’t.”

  “Are you going to throw me overboard?” The boy squared his shoulders and bared his teeth. “I’ll fight you.”

  “I don’t think you’d stand much of a chance. But no, I don’t intend to throw a child to the sharks.”

  Manus nodded to his first mate, ignoring the eye roll the other man gave him. The crew would get used to the idea of having a boy around. The child’s small fingers would prove useful in the coming months.

  “Come with me,” Manus ordered. “I have something to show you.”

  “You sure you aren’t going to toss me?”

  “We’ll give you a trial run on the sea. If you prove to be a good sailor, then I’ll allow you to remain. If you aren’t, we’ll revisit feeding the sharks.”

  “I’m a good sailor.” The boy straightened his shirt. “You’ll see.”

  “Surprisingly, I have no doubt of that.”

  He saw something of himself in the boy although he was loath to admit it. Manus noted the marks of hard work. Scratches on the child’s hands, leathery elbows poking through a threadbare shirt, the slight wince as he stood and the way he pressed his arm against his side.

  They walked to the bow of the ship. Manus kept his pace slow and leisurely, making certain to stop and speak with the crew. They needed reassurance just as much as the boy needed to breathe through what Manus suspected were broken ribs.

  Once they traveled as far as they could, Manus pointed to the masthead. “Do you know what that is?”

  “A merrow. Cursed faeries shouldn’t be on boats.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “My pa.”

  “He the one who punched you in the chest?” Manus chuckled at the boy’s startled expression. “I remember the feeling of broken ribs, it’s not hard to see it in another.”

  “What’s it to you?” The boy wiped his nose on his sleeve. “Ain’t nothing anyways. A bit of bruising is all.”

  “I’ll have the doctor look at you.”