by Andrea Jones
Around them loomed the towering walls of the Lagoon, emerald with moss and too slippery to climb. A series of crevices opened off the shelf of rock at their base, caves waiting for the wash of tides at sunset, when no mortal man might survive here. At the cliff top, birds of majestic proportions circled with their wings spread wide, as if surfing the currents just for fun.
Lying on his back, Tom explained, “Mermaids’ Lagoon is a powerful place, Guillaume.” He pointed skyward. “See those eagles up there? When Nibs and I were boys growing up in Pan’s hideout, we watched Wendy fly the very same way in the very same spot, the day Hook first set eyes upon her.”
Guillaume wagged his head as he imagined a girl flying among eagles. “Another instance of this Island’s magic, non?”
“Oui.” Shifting his sturdy frame, Tom looked earnestly at Guillaume. “The Lagoon often alters men who visit here, but no mermaid changed anyone as drastically as Wendy changed our commodore, even before she became Red-Handed Jill.”
“Was Monsieur so very different then?”
“Hook was a pirate captain, and a damned successful one. But before Jill, he was like a monster, living only for revenge. We boys were terrified of him.” Tom rubbed the mark at his temple, a relic of Hook’s discipline. “Even his own men had to keep their distance. I hate to think what he’d become if he lost Jill now.”
In spite of the warmth of the morning, Guillaume shivered. “I hate to think what Captain Cecco will become, if he does not win her back. His men must keep their distance, too. His temper has worsened even, in these last few days. Since visiting the Island, he has broken his spyglass and damaged his cabin. Mr. Yulunga and I handle him with, how do you say? The gloves of a goat.”
Tom laughed, and the walls of the Lagoon tossed his merriment back. “You mean you have to handle him ‘with kid gloves.’ Aye,” he said, more soberly, “I respect Captain Cecco, and I surely regret the misery he must feel. Let’s hope the Island makes some magic for him, too.”
With a passing cloud, a breeze kicked up, but the sun burst out to cheer the air again, and soon after, arching from one end of the Lagoon to the other, a rainbow bloomed, as if painted by an invisible brush.
Watching it, Guillaume gazed in wonderment. “Is there no end to the marvels of this land?”
“If you dream it, it can happen here,” said Tom. “Nibs and I got our wish to be pirates. Lightly met up with Rowan, and got adopted by the Indians. Your dearest wish might be granted, too, once on this Island.”
Climbing onto the rock, Lightly had overheard. He smiled as he tossed his wet, fair hair from his face and said, “After our experience this week, Rowan and I can testify that wishes come true here.” The others clambered up, too, heaving themselves on the rock to join Tom and Guillaume, shaking off seawater and flopping down to dry on the sun-warmed surface. Now that their games had ended, the sound of the sea prevailed, licking the rock and peppering the shore.
Tom inhaled a lungful of the breeze, relishing the place again, then his hearty voice broke the tranquility. “Finish the story you started, Lightly. Are you getting married or not?”
Lightly obliged. “Panther kept us in suspense for three days, taking time to consider Ayasha’s wishes and determine her future. After weighing the portent of his dreams, he delivered a gracious refusal on her behalf. So now all the tribe know that wherever Rowan goes, I follow. Fathers will think twice— literally— before asking one of us to marry their daughters again.”
“Our own mother took two husbands,” Nibs said, “but I don’t suppose your tribe sees Jill as an example their marriageable women should follow.”
Lightly sighed. “My heart stopped when I heard Rowan say yes to Panther.”
Nibs returned, “But Rowan was wise to answer Panther as he did. Neither father nor daughter could be offended, but neither was likely to accept such an unconventional counterproposal.”
Rowan looked grave. “Yes, Panther and his family seem satisfied, but I now read disapproval on the faces of the elders, especially Walking Man. As the Old One warned us, change is frightening, and tradition is not easily breached. Pledged to one another, Lightly and I risk our place among the People. We may even be banished.” Rowan made a wet handprint on the rock, and watched as it began to evaporate.
Lightly said, “If it comes to leaving the People, I’ll regret it mightily. But if I’m with Rowan, I’m at home.” Lightly set his own handprint next to Rowan’s, resting his head against his partner’s while the two prints vanished together.
Guillaume shrugged. “I do not understand this trouble. When my papa abandoned his children, ‘tradition’ did not feed me. But Captain LeCorbeau did. Conventional or no, his affection offered survival.”
Tom said, “You were loyal to LeCorbeau, Guillaume, and that’s commendable. But we could see that your captain wasn’t always good to you. I’ll never forget that he ordered you into the sea to sabotage the Roger, knowing full well that you can’t swim.”
“Aye,” Nibs said, and the crease between his brows returned. “LeCorbeau tried to do to me what he did to you. He took what he needed from you, pretending to love you like a son.”
“I have no father,” shyly, Guillaume smiled, flexing his hand to see his scar stretch, “but I am lucky now, to have friends.” He gestured to Rowan and Lightly. “As of this morning, I count the two of you among them. May I invite you to dine with Mr. Nibs and Mr. Tom and me on the Red Lady this afternoon? Our chef’s cooking is superb.”
“Believe it, mates.” Tom rubbed his tummy. “When I served on L’Ormonde, Guillaume smuggled officers’ fare to me. I can’t wait for lunch.”
“Thank you, Guillaume,” Lightly replied. “We gladly accept your friendship, but we mustn’t visit the ship. We’ve promised the council that we’ll keep our distance from pirates, family excepted, and meet only at neutral locations like the Lagoon. While the elders are granting us their trust, we won’t take chances with it.”
“Then stay clear of the beach tomorrow,” Nibs warned. “It’ll be awash with pirates. Hook’s hosting both his crews, and the People of the Clearing, too.”
“My mother will like that,” said Rowan, his brown lips smiling at last. “Maybe Lightly and I will host a smaller party at the Clearing then, for my baby sister and the other children.”
Tom snorted. “Do you two even know which end of an infant is up?”
“Of course,” Lightly laughed, “I was one myself once, back in London. And I just saw a new baby at the village. White Bear is the proud papa of a girl-child. She’s three days old, and I saw him smiling for what I believe to be the first time ever when he showed her off to the People.”
“Lean Wolf is cheerful, too,” Rowan interjected, more seriously. “He hopes White Bear will give his widowed sister-in-law to him, now that the baby is born. Red Fawn was distressed when we told her. As Lean Wolf’s former wife, she says Raven would do better with White Bear, even if she must become only his second woman.”
Lightly nodded. “I’ve never seen Red Fawn so upset. But I don’t blame her for feeling that way. Lean Wolf seems conceited, to me. Almost as cocky as Pan.”
“Pan can be managed,” Tom replied, “now that Hook’s appointed Jewel to keep him out of mischief. I’m sure that, as the council’s Messengers, you and Rowan keep an eye on him, too.”
“Yes,” Rowan said. “And after you sailed, we saw three new boys join his band.”
“Four, now,” corrected Nibs. He fished his orange kerchief from the boat and knotted it round his head. “You’ve probably seen the lad Jill sent to him. That cabin boy from the Unity. I saw them all diving off the cliff near Neverbay yesterday, trying to teach him to fly. Jewel looked almost dim, she’d sacrificed so much fairy dust.”
Tom rolled onto his barrel chest, still scanning the surface of Mermaids’ Lagoon for inhabitants. “David’s nearly too old to be a Lost Boy. He’ll outgrow the entrance to the hideout before long, and Pan will deliver him to the House in the C
learing. And I’m guessing that that was Jill’s plan from the start. It’s obvious that David adores Jill, but he’s too young to be of interest to her. After the eight of us, I think she’s had enough of mothering boys.”
Guillaume had heard the story of the tiger hunt. “Why did the lady trouble to rescue that boy from the beast? The tiger might have mauled her!”
“It was an adventure, wasn’t it? And David was wearing Hook’s jewels. That’s our Jill.”
Nibs looked suspicious. “Take it from me, she’s got some use for David. She’s sure that the Island washed him ashore for a reason. David himself says so, but she sent him away before he could explain.”
Guillaume said, “The Roger has a boy to deal with, the Lady has a girl. As you predicted, mes amis, Mrs. Hanover is causing the troubles.”
Nibs’ countenance darkened. “Who’s she after now?”
“Poor Pierre-Jean. Mr. Yulunga was to whip him, but, after discussion, he and the captain decided, best not to make a romantic figure of him in Mrs. Hanover’s eyes. He is confined to the brig, on bread and water.”
Tom smirked. “It’s for his own good, Guillaume. I speak from personal experience,” he tapped at his scar. “Pierre-Jean will be safer locked away from that— Guillaume?”
Guillaume’s jaw had dropped all the way open. As he gawked at the foot of the cliff, everyone spun to see what he saw.
Without a sound, a dozen mermaids had slipped from the water to perch upon the rock shelf. Little pools of damp spread around their hips. They sat in various attitudes, leaning back on their hands, trailing tails in the water, or resting on their elbows, relaxed in their own environment regardless of intruders. Some of the sea-maids smiled, others just angled their heads, but all of them stared with large, liquid eyes at the naked men who goggled back at them from the islet of Marooners’ Rock.
Like a painter’s palette, the mergirls presented an array of color. Their tails were as varied as glints of sunshine on the sea— rose, gold, gray and green, turquoise and indigo; their hair fell over their shoulders in lush, wet locks of yellow, auburn, chestnut, black, covering their bosoms only so far as to make those bosoms more evident. Scales of a delicate tissue rose from fins to midriffs, with V-shaped dips at the front, leading the men’s eyes toward mystery. Smaller scales, like sequins, bedecked the backs of their hands and arms, as if they wore gloves that ended near the elbows. A few of the maids consulted mirrors. They wore necklaces of seashells, pearls, and even of gold gleaned from sailors, with gems that winked in the light. One or two exposed shell-like ears where they’d pinned their hair back with combs carved from mother-of-pearl. Each of these beings comprised a sailor’s dream, so exquisite, so perfect, that it was painful even to view them.
The men on the rock held still, soaking up the vision. They salivated, their stomachs gnawed with hunger, and their loins began to pulse. Those who, as boys, had met up with mermaids were no more prepared to meet them than their fellows. They had underestimated the creatures’ effect upon grown men. With blood rushing to their heads, Nibs and Tom forgot Guillaume and the hopes they’d held of witnessing his response. They were entangled in their own reactions. Rowan and Lightly clutched each other’s arms and held their breaths, astonished at the wealth of beauty displayed along the shore, and stunned by its physical effect. Guillaume, utterly aghast, forgot every English phrase he knew, yet his words spoke for his friends. “Mon Dieu,” he uttered under his breath. “Mon Dieu. C’est vrai, mais ce n’est pas possible.”
The company descended to a primitive level of consciousness, and, slowly, Nibs and Tom slid into the water. With their eyes fastened on the row of mermaids, they stroked toward shore. Rowan and Lightly followed, still holding one another, to tread water at a distance of discretion, panting to draw enough oxygen. None of them spared a thought for Guillaume. He sat as if petrified where he’d begun.
Petrified, until a motion at the edge of Marooners’ Rock made him jump. Two hands emerged from the water to grasp the stone. No delicate hands these: they were large and strong, attached to muscular arms that easily hefted the weight of a man dripping with water. He swung himself upon the rock. Yet this entity proved to be no man. As he beached his body, a tail of silver flashed in Guillaume’s eyes. When the being had settled, he breathed in, expanding a noble chest. He flung his wealth of silver hair over his shoulders to cascade down his back, dripping seawater over the rust streaks on the rock. His hair was plaited, lifted from his face by many little braids, knotted with seaweed. The merman transfixed the landsman with intelligent eyes, so bright a gray as to match his silvery tail.
Those eyes cast a glance at the swimmers, then, benevolently, the merman smiled at Guillaume. His voice flowed, fluid and musical.
“Your friends are in the sea. Why do you not join them?”
Guillaume gulped, and fumbled for his power of speech. He’d been warned not to trust mergirls, but this encounter with a merman, so unexpected, confounded him. “I— I—” He blinked, he swallowed, then he tried again. He felt as if he were addressing a creature from a dream. “I cannot swim.”
“You are a sailor?”
Nodding, Guillaume answered, “Yes. Yes, Monsieur, I am.”
“And,” the merman gestured to the uniform lying slack on a bench of the boat, “an officer?”
Guillaume’s cheeks pinkened as he became aware that this merman had observed him shedding it. “Indeed. Yes…second mate of Red Lady.”
“Ah, the beautiful newcomer lying moored in the bay. We’ve heard quite a bit of gossip about her. Now, perhaps, I shall discover the facts. It is the merfolk’s boast that we learn all that comes to pass upon the Island.”
In a trance, Guillaume watched and listened. This male of the species was as compelling as the females. In self-defense, Guillaume clung to the courtesy that his faux father, Captain LeCorbeau, had instilled in him. “Of course, yes, I am most happy to oblige.” He couldn’t keep his gaze from roaming the handsome physique.
With his silver-gray eyes, the merman observed Guillaume. “You are not like the other landsmen.”
“Monsieur?”
“The others, when my daughters appear, become unable to speak.” He smiled. “Of course, my daughters do take pride in their capacity to stop men’s speech.” His smile faded. “I will caution you. My daughters also take pride in their capacity to stop men’s breathing.”
Realizing that his own breath had stopped, Guillaume refilled his lungs. “Thank you, Monsieur. I will remember what you say.”
“What is your name, my son?”
“I am called Guillaume.”
“Well met, Guillaume. I am Zaleh. But tell me, isn’t it odd that a sailor and an officer, who spends his life upon the sea, should be unable to swim in it?”
“If you please, Monsieur, it is no more odd than a man of the land living his life upon the water.”
Merrily, the merman laughed. The sound pealed out like the trumpet of a conch. “Indeed! Not only are you polite, my boy, you are clever. Come,” Zaleh said, and he stretched out his hand. Where men’s arms might have hair, the merman showed iridescent scaling, reflecting the sky. “Come with me, my son, and I will teach you.”
Hesitant, Guillaume reached out. The merman took his arm firmly in his grasp, and coaxed the young man toward the edge of the rock. Guillaume was surprised to find that Zaleh’s touch matched the temperature of the air. His grip was wet, indeed, yet neither cold nor soggy. But, as a sailor, Guillaume had been cautioned. “Zaleh?” he questioned.
“You may call me ‘Papa,’ as my daughters do. We’ll soon have you diving like a dolphin. Just keep hold of my shoulders. I won’t let you sink.”
“But, your daughters? They will drown me?”
“They’re much too busy with your friends.”
“I do not want my friends to drown, either!”
Zaleh laughed again. “Sea folk are judges of character. I perceive that you are a good man, Guillaume.”
“A
nd my mates are good men, also. Please, will you protect them?”
The merman frowned. “It is not our nature to care for human life. We play or we punish, as the whim comes upon us. Our moods are as changing as the moon.” He studied Guillaume, registering his concern. “But we do admit to self-interest. What will you give me, if I agree to your request?”
Dismayed, Guillaume sought for an answer. Self-interest had motivated LeCorbeau, too. But Guillaume owned nothing that could be of value to this denizen of the sea. He owned nothing valuable at all. He held only one treasure, which Tom Tootles had given him when he first offered friendship. Guillaume valued it enough to hope that this merman might value it, too. If Mr. Tom and the others perished under the spell of sea sirens, Guillaume would lose that treasure anyway.
He looked Zaleh full in the face and answered, “I will give to you what I have given to my mates. I will give you my trust.”
“Then you are not just a good man. You are a generous one.” Zaleh nodded. “I accept your trust, Guillaume. Since you wish it, I will see that your friends remain above the surface.”
Smiling at last, Guillaume answered, “Thank you, Monsieur.”
“Bah!” Zaleh looked stern again. “How did I instruct you to address me?”
“Thank you…Papa.”
Guillaume looked up into Zaleh’s eyes. He liked who he saw there. He took a tight hold, and, trusting, plunged into the depths, under the protection of…Papa.
Mr. Tom was right, Guillaume decided as the bubbles swarmed up beside him, tickling his ears. Mermaids’ Lagoon was a powerful place. The currents pressed around him as Zaleh’s tail pushed the sea aside, forcing the two of them upward, toward the surface and the sun-blessed sky. Guided by a father’s arm, Guillaume’s trust in Tom Tootles deepened, too. He believed what Mr. Tom had told him.
This Lost Boy’s wish was coming true.
