by Lucia Ashta
Someone was talking in the room next to me, perhaps in an antechamber or perhaps out in a hallway; I had no idea how this castle was put together. The voices were purposefully low, and I strained my ears to make out the words. I realized I overheard the voices because their volume had risen. It sounded like Marcelo and the brothers were arguing.
“Keep your voice down,” I heard Marcelo say, anger edging his voice. “You’ll wake her up.”
I willed my ears to work their best as I prepared to hear a softly spoken response.
But I needn’t have bothered.
Albacus’ voice thundered through the stone walls as if Marcelo hadn’t spoken. “You cannot blame us for what happened. We are not the ones who held her captive.”
“No, you aren’t. But you’re not free of blame either. You had a responsibility to warn her of the dangers of the castle. She had no idea what could happen to her. How could she? You didn’t tell her anything. You left her completely on her own, aware that she knows next to nothing of the magical world,” Marcelo said.
“Well, at least it wasn’t any worse. It could’ve taken us even longer to find her if she’d stepped into a few particular vestibules on the third floor,” Mordecai said.
“Yes, you’re right. It could’ve taken me even longer to locate her.”
Marcelo obviously didn’t believe the brothers did enough to extricate me from an apparently grave situation. I was anxious to speak with Marcelo about it. What had happened to me?
“But don’t you think the time that was wasted is more than enough? Much too much, really.” Marcelo’s voice had grown soft, regretful.
How long had I been with the merpeople? Enough time must have passed to allow Marcelo to break loose from the fever and fully recover his strength. I realized now, with a heavy sense of foreboding, that he had none of the abrasions or bruises I would have expected to find on his face. Winston had beaten him horribly, yet Marcelo’s face was smooth and bright. He seemed as healthy now as he’d been when I first met him. With as ill as Marcelo was, on the brink of death when I brought him to Irele, complete recovery would have taken several weeks, if not more.
My stomach sank, and I waited in anticipation of the magicians’ conversation drawing to a close.
I didn’t have to wait long. They said something brief to one another that I couldn’t readily recognize. Then I heard the latch of the door clicking as Marcelo opened the door and stepped inside.
Chapter 9
I watched Marcelo’s slow approach. The room was dim in the gloom of the day, and not wanting to disturb my rest, he stepped softly toward me until he drew close enough to see my eyes were open.
The crease furrowing his brow relaxed, and he smiled. It was a timid, tentative smile. He didn’t know how I’d react to him after our brief, evanescent kiss. But I was too preoccupied with discovering the truth and exhausted from my experience to respond to his probing hopes.
He’d changed out of his wet pants. His dark hair was dry, though disheveled, and it brushed the collar of a thick woolen sweater. He moved with decisiveness, his eyes focused on mine while my eyes roamed over his approaching form.
My hair dried while I slept, and it fanned out in lush, red curls across the top of the settee. As I became aware of myself through Marcelo’s studying gaze, I realized that my hair was much longer than it had been. Although I’d worn it long as far back as I could remember—“Potential husbands will want their bride to have long, feminine hair,” Mother would say—it must fall far past my bottom now. Draped across the wooden edge of my seat, it brushed the floor.
I resigned myself to what I suspected must be coming. My hair had grown quite a bit. That took time and quite a lot of it. How long was it since I made that magical climb up the steep side of the mountain to deliver Marcelo to the brothers?
Marcelo sat beside me, careful not to reach out and touch me. He knew all too well that I was undressed beneath the coverings.
He looked at me with tender compassion, and I thought I could get used to this new way of being with Marcelo. Before, he would push me away. Something changed within him while I was in the underwater world. The barriers I’d come to expect between us had fallen away.
“How are you feeling, Clara?” His blue eyes were big and deep, rimmed with worry and dark lashes.
“Much better.” There was a lot I could say about how I was feeling, but that’s not what I wanted to talk about then. “What happened to me?”
Marcelo sighed as if he’d been dreading the moment when he would have to tell me the truth. “The merpeople set the trap you fell into. Then waited for you to sink down to their depths. Once you did, they took you captive, although they’re very good at making you believe you’re choosing to be there. Everything seems perfect. You’re happy, and soon you begin to forget all the loved ones you left behind.”
I nodded, my eyes growing bigger. That’s exactly what it was like.
“They make you feel like you’re one of them, that they’re happy to have you with them. They treat you as if you’re special, and you are, just not in the way you think. The water’s beautiful. The fish are beautiful. Your tail’s beautiful. Your oyster shell home’s welcoming. You lack nothing, and everything’s as you wish it.”
How could Marcelo know all this? Was he watching me, even though I couldn’t imagine how?
“That’s exactly how it was.” My voice cracked, weighted with emotion. “I completely forgot about the human world.”
Marcelo nodded his understanding.
“How long was I gone?” I asked and quickly looked away from him, toward the fire. I couldn’t meet his eyes when he told me. I feared his answer, yet I had to find out. More than anything, I needed to know, so I could begin to accept what the merpeople had done to me.
“Your birthday was last month. Spring’s starting to show its signs. Buds are beginning to form on the trees, though they haven’t yet sprouted.”
I breathed out in relief. Then it hadn’t been that terribly long! My birthday had only been a few weeks away when we arrived in Irele. I was able to look at Marcelo now, but my relieved smile faded as soon as I saw his sobriety. “So I’m seventeen?” I hedged.
Now it was Marcelo’s turn to avoid my gaze. He looked down. Then he shook his head.
“No?” I asked. “How old am I then?”
“It’s been twenty years since your birth.”
I sucked in air so rapidly that I choked and started to cough. When I recovered, I asked, “Are you certain?”
He nodded, visibly heavy with regret.
As it dawned on me that I’d lost more than three years of my life to the merpeople and their conniving trickery, tears burned in my eyes. I turned to watch the fire until I could gain control over my emotions and contain the tears.
“It happened to me too,” Marcelo said, and my head whipped around to look at him despite the tear that slid down my cheek.
“It did?”
He nodded. “I’d been here at the castle training for many years already when I fell into their trap. Albacus and Mordecai didn’t understand what happened to me. They didn’t know about the merpeople, and so they didn’t try to find their world. It took me five years to get out of there on my own.”
“But how did you? I didn’t even remember I’d once been human at the end of how long”— I couldn’t bring myself to say it yet: three years—“I was there.”
“I got lucky, I suppose. Because if it hadn’t been for me getting out on my own, I’d probably still be there.” He offered me a sad smile. “We’d be down there together.”
I doubted it, since I wouldn’t be in the castle if it weren’t for him. But there was something about the idea that was equally repulsive and appealing. It would perhaps be nice to share a world where there was always peace, even if that peace was illusory.
“I’ve pondered this for many years since then, trying to figure out what happened, but I’m still uncertain. I’ve deduced that the merpeople weren�
��t able to completely annul my magical powers since I’d been training in magic so heavily at the time I fell into the water. I think my magic was too strong, and they didn’t realize this. Their deceptions worked on me readily and quickly, but they never took deep root. There must’ve been a part of me that wanted to escape, even though I was never consciously aware of it. I knew I had to leave only when I began understanding what the merpeople were saying. Once the music became words that I could follow, I had to leave.”
“I never understood what they said. I heard only the most beautiful melodies of my entire life. I haven’t spoken—before talking with you of course—since I first fell in the water. I didn’t use my voice for over three years,” I said, amazed at the fact. “What did they say about you?”
“I’ll spare you from exactly what they said, because it’ll only cause you pain. Suffice it to say, they were cruel and mocking. They laughed at my ignorance of the truth of the situation, and they boasted that they’d keep me there forever. Their leader was particularly terrible and vicious. Ironically, she was also the most beautiful.”
“Did she have hair the same color as yours and a striking turquoise tail?”
“Yes, she did. Her name’s Mirvela. She almost managed to take you from me. She actually touched you before I could build enough strength to repel her away.”
I shuddered. “Did she recognize you?”
“I’m certain she did, although I barely recognized her. She looked hideous as she chased after us. She looked like a serpent beast.” Now it was Marcelo’s turn to shudder. “Once I began understanding what they were actually saying about me, it was only a matter of time before my memories returned. Their illusions could only hold if I was unaware of what they were actually doing. It was tricky. I had to pretend that everything was the same, that I didn’t know what was going on, all the while hearing the terrible plans they made involving me.”
“What plans? What’s the point of capturing us?”
“Merpeople live forever, or at least they can. But their magic depletes itself over the course of an average human lifetime. I think this is when they, along with their magic, are supposed to die. But they fight it. And since they can live as long as they have magic to sustain them, they find external sources of magic. In other words, we were power sources for many of the adults of the merworld. Probably not the children, but likely many of the adults, including Mirvela, drained our magical energy to survive.”
“But I don’t have magical energy,” I said.
“Of course you do. It’s only you who doesn’t admit it yet. All of us at the castle agree.”
“You do?”
“Yes. Albacus, Mordecai, and I’ve been discussing you often over the last several years. We’re all certain you possess great magic within you. Since I woke up from my fever and figured out what must have happened, I’ve been searching for you. The merpeople move the connections between our world and theirs all the time. I knew the door to them must be somewhere in the castle, yet I had no idea where. When I escaped, I came out on the opposite end of the castle, and so I began my search for you there.”
“How did you escape?”
“It was difficult, and I almost failed. I planned to wait for a night when there was no revelry of any sort, and everyone was asleep, tucked away in oyster shells. When the night came, I discovered I couldn’t get out of my oyster shell. I’d never tried at night before; I always exited after a full night’s sleep.”
I was nodding along with his story. This was how it had been for me as well.
“It didn’t occur to me that I wouldn’t be able to get out when I wanted. But, when I pushed on the shell, it didn’t move at all. I had to pry the shell open enough so I could swim through the crack. When I got out, I thought no one had noticed. I hadn’t counted on a guard making rounds that included my sleeping location. I started swimming immediately. All I knew was to go up. Remember, I had a tail just like the merpeople, so I could swim rapidly. Still, it wasn’t long before the guard discovered my absence and sounded the conch shell horn. Even though I never looked down—I was certain I shouldn’t spare a second; that one second might be the difference between my freedom and a lifetime in captivity—I sensed the anxious swarm of merpeople banding below me. They pursued me mercilessly. And, just as with you, it was Mirvela who almost caught me. She didn’t manage to pull me back down to their world, but she definitely left her mark.”
Marcelo lifted his shirt and sweater. “The scars you were touching when you came out of the water are the marks Mirvela made by cutting me with a trident, over and again. I managed to kick her in the head in such a way that it stunned her. It bought me just enough time to get away from her, and she’s their fastest swimmer. The others weren’t able to reach me in time. When I dragged myself out of the water, I could still hear their piercing screams and see Mirvela’s hideous face as she screeched, her prey barely missed. But I don’t think the merpeople can come out of the water, because nobody came after me, and so I was safe from them, though it was several more days before one of the servants discovered me, slowly bleeding out on the floor. Albacus and Mordecai had given up looking for me long before.”
“I’m very grateful you didn’t abandon me. I’d never have escaped without you.” I looked him straight in the eyes. “Thank you.”
“I had no choice but to look for you. Even so, it took me so long to find you that I feared I never would. Albacus and Mordecai tried to convince me to let you go many times. But once I discarded every other possibility, the only likely one left was that you were a prisoner of the merworld. I became nearly obsessed with finding the yellow-tiled floor. But the castle played tricks on me. It rearranged itself and moved rooms and passageways, erasing some, adding others.”
His voice softened. “I thought of you nonstop since the moment I realized you were missing. A lot of things have become clear to me since then.”
The look Marcelo gave me then said what he didn’t dare to put into words. When he almost died, he understood what I meant to him, and he wanted me in his life. But he was being careful with what he said. He didn’t know how I felt or what I was ready for, and neither did I.
“Besides, you’d saved my life, and I haven’t thanked you for that.” He looked me in the eyes and said, “Thank you.”
I smiled. “It was my great pleasure to be able to save your life. There were several times when I wasn’t certain if I’d be able to. Albacus told me that if I hadn’t brought you here, you would’ve died.”
Marcelo nodded. “I would have. Without a doubt. I think perhaps only Mordecai and his healing skills could have saved me this time.”
This time? There was obviously much more to his past than I had the energy to discuss. I wondered hazily how long it would take me to recover from this ordeal.
“Marcelo, how long ago did you escape from the merworld?”
“It’s been five years.” And it seemed like the experience still haunted him.
“And how old were you when you fell into their waters?”
“I was fourteen.” He smiled because he thought he’d guessed what I was up to. I did too because Marcelo wasn’t usually this forthcoming. I had to remind myself that this Marcelo was much different from the one I’d known before.
“If you’re trying to figure out how old I am, I’m twenty-four.”
I wasn’t in that instance, but I had on many past occasions. “You don’t look like you’re twenty-four.”
“That’s because we don’t age when we’re in the merworld. My body’s only aged nineteen years.”
To me, he looked even younger than nineteen. The only thing that gave away that he was older than he looked was the wisdom in his eyes. His eyes spoke of experiences much more extensive than even twenty-four years could contain.
“What are we going to do about the merpeople? They shouldn’t be allowed to get away with what they did to us. We have to stop them from doing it to anyone else,” I said.
“I thi
nk they’ve already done it to others, perhaps to many others.”
I arched my eyebrows in question.
“I’ve often reflected on that night I escaped. I believe the guard was watching out not only for me, but also for others. He seemed to be in charge of many shells in that same area.”
I gasped. “Oh no.”
“Yes. I’m sure that many of the others that looked and acted like merpeople were humans who’d been down there for a long time. There’d be no other reason for a guard to watch only one sector of the community. They probably grouped all of us native humans together to make it easy to ensure we stayed obedient.”
“It would make sense that, over extended time, humans would learn to speak the merpeople’s language,” I said. “They’d begin to think like them too. And they’d have grown tails just like we did, so they would’ve looked like them.”
Marcelo nodded. “I agree. Once the merpeople used magic to replace our legs with tails, there was little left to distinguish us from them. And with the language barrier no longer there, the once-humans probably had no idea they weren’t born underwater.”
“The same would’ve happened to me if you hadn’t rescued me. We have to do something to help those people, Marcelo.”
“I agree. But we can’t do anything about it now. We have more urgent matters to take care of first.”
I looked at Marcelo and waited. I didn’t want to ask what would be more urgent than saving innocent people from a lifetime of deceit and manipulation. I didn’t even want to know.
Marcelo told me anyway. “As soon as you’re recovered, we need to train you.”
“Marcelo, I can’t even contemplate magical training now. I may not want to train in magic anymore, if these are the kinds of things that can happen in a magical world.”
Marcelo’s face drew long and sad. “I wish the magical world wouldn’t put you in any kind of danger. But you don’t have a choice anymore.”
