by Liz Braswell
She deepened her voice and put her hands on her hips, made a frowny face.
Flounder couldn’t help laughing. Jona leapt into the air for a moment, letting out a squawk.
She wrung the water out of her skirts and prepared for the walk back to face a castle full of sea witches and soldiers who were probably waiting to grab her.
“Hey, Ariel,” Flounder called shyly. “Before you go…could you…could you sing that lullaby? The one you used to sing to me after I lost my mother?”
Her eyes widened. “Flounder, you haven’t asked me that in years…even before I lost my voice.”
“And I won’t ask again! It’s just that”—he looked around. Jona politely pretended to watch something out in the sea, over by the far rocks—“we’re alone here. No one from Atlantica is going to hear us. I don’t know when you’re going to have another chance.”
And Ariel, who lost her voice for years and had mixed feelings about singing for others, sang more sweetly than she ever had before, or ever would again. And no one heard but one fish, one seagull, the sand and the water and the evening breeze coming over the waves, and the rising moon.
“I have been waiting over a week now for an answer!”
A barracuda towered over the throne in a way Sebastian was pretty sure he wouldn’t have if Ariel had been sitting there, voice or no. The little crab glanced nervously at the guards: one a mer, one a surprisingly large weever fish with venomous spines. The two exchanged a look that was certainly not respectful, but nevertheless leaned in protectively, the tips of their spears coming close enough to touch above his head.
The barracuda scooted backward—but recovered himself quickly.
Fortunately there weren’t many there to observe the scene; it was late in the tide and even the most dogged petitioners had gone home to wait until the next day. Or have dinner.
Or do something civilized, because they are civilized people, unlike this shiny-scaled bully.
Threll and Klios, the dolphin amanuensis, floated on the dais, but otherwise the throne area was empty except for a few cleaning sardines and some planktonic jellyfish that couldn’t fight against the current enough to leave. Dark water curved overhead in a deep turquoise dome, full and empty as the sea always was before a storm. Despite the guards, Sebastian felt very, very alone.
“My boys took care of the wreck,” the barracuda said defensively. “We cleaned up everything real good. Now it’s time for you guys to hold up your end of the deal.”
“Royalty doesn’t ‘hold up’ ‘ends of deals,’” Sebastian said haughtily, emboldened by the sharp spears overhead.
“Especially when the vendor is asking for far more than what was originally agreed,” the amanuensis muttered, looking over a row of figures on his tablet.
“If Ariel was here, she would deal with me fairly.” The barracuda opened his mouth a crack, a move that usually foretold a strike.
“Oh, she would deal with you fairly, all right,” Sebastian said menacingly, snapping a claw at the fish. “Be glad it is me and not her dealing with you. Now go away, and maybe if you’re lucky I’ll see you another week.”
The barracuda gnashed his teeth, and with a last warning flip of his tail, angrily swam off.
The moment he was gone Sebastian collapsed on the armrest, a little tickticktick pile of exoskeleton and claws and sad eyes.
“What are we going to do?” he moaned. “If Ariel doesn’t return soon the whole kingdom is going to collapse.”
“One annoyed barracuda does not a collapsed kingdom make,” Threll said with a sniff.
The amanuensis saluted them and swam off into the depths, done for the evening. The little seahorse followed suit. Sebastian raised a weary claw in goodbye.
“What’s with everyone being so mopey-looking?” Flounder asked, scooting in from the side.
“FLOUNDER!” Sebastian leapt up in excitement. He looked behind the fish, back and forth, eagerly scanning the sea. “How is she? Where is she? Does she have King Triton?”
Flounder stopped where he was in the water, hovering there. “Uh…no. She hasn’t found him yet. And she’s not with me. She’s…um…made progress, but still has…some work to do….”
Sebastian frowned at the large, brightly colored fish.
“Flounder. You are lying to me about something.”
“Me? No. Nope.”
Sebastian clicked slowly, sideways, up to the fish. Hunting.
“Is she…really all right? Did you lose her? Has something happened?”
At has something happened, Flounder’s face began to swell. He felt all the blood rush to his front and swished his tail to try to stay calm. He wouldn’t betray her. He wouldn’t.
“I didn’t lose her,” he said tightly. That was true, at least.
“Yet you are not with her. You are supposed to be with her. If she is not here, you should not be here, either. You should be there. With her. Protecting her.”
“I don’t know how much good I could do protecting the Queen of the Sea,” Flounder said, a little archly. “She sent me back to give you an update, Sebastian. Scuttle and his, uh, great-grandgull are keeping an eye on her on the land.”
“YOU LEFT HER FATE TO A PAIR OF SEAGULLS?”
“Settle down, Sebastian. She’s fine. More than fine. And she’s not a helpless little mer anymore—even you should see that. These things just take time.”
“Well, I hope they don’t take too much more time,” came a voice from behind them.
Attina hovered in the water, arms crossed. The look on her face was as spiky as the decorations that stuck out from her thick auburn hair.
“I want Daddy back,” she announced grimly. “And failing that, I want someone ruling the kingdom who can actually command a little respect around here.”
At this Sebastian looked utterly defeated. Flounder saw his friend shrink into himself and frowned.
“Princess Attina, perhaps what is needed is an actual member of royalty ruling the kingdom in their absence,” he suggested coldly.
Sebastian gawked at Flounder. It was so…not…Flounder.
Well, old Flounder, anyway.
The mermaid glared at him.
“Nice try, Flipper,” she said with a sniff. “But you know that being queen was part of Ariel’s punishment for losing our father. She can’t escape it by turning into a human and running away to the Dry World forever.”
And for the second time that evening, a tailfin was flipped and someone swam angrily off.
Sebastian and Flounder exchanged weary looks.
“This is all…very hard,” Sebastian said, without his usual loquaciousness.
“I know,” Flounder said with a sigh. “But the moon is waning and we’re approaching the neap tide—when the ocean is pulled farthest back from the shores.”
“Flounder, I know what a neap tide is.”
“My point is that the trident’s power will also be at its lowest, so she has to come back soon! With or without her father. Or she’ll suddenly turn into a mermaid, flopping around on the land.”
“That would be a sight,” Sebastian said thoughtfully. “A very, very bad sight.”
And for once, the fish didn’t disagree with the crab.
The first part, at least, was easy. There was no issue trailing along with the other servant girls and boys as they finished up their errands and returned to the castle; many were already gossiping and flirting, done with work whether or not they were officially done. A couple of young men were definitely looking at her. She tried not to smile.
But then…several girls were looking at her, and whispering to each other. And they didn’t look appreciative or jealous.
Ariel began to feel uneasy.
She had filled her apron with pretty shells, thinking her excuse could be that Vanessa wanted them to decorate her bath. She had thought that she fit right in with the other servants carrying piles of wood, bins of garbage, baskets of eggs…But maybe not?
There were
four guards flanking the servants’ entrance this time. Had they been there previously? She couldn’t remember. They definitely looked more alert than when she had snuck in earlier—these scanned each and every person who passed, sometimes directly in the eye. Ariel hesitated.
One of the guards spotted her and frowned.
As casually as she could, Ariel turned around and walked back against the flow, peeling off to the strip of beach right in front of the castle in case she had to make a quick getaway into the waves.
What she saw there stopped her dead in her tracks.
At first glance, it seemed silly—no, insane. Royal guards were using long poles to draw things in the sand, over and over again, like children punished by a teacher for spelling something wrong.
Why would Ursula do this to them? Had she gone completely off the deep end? Was it some sort of weird disciplinary thing? But then Ariel stood on her tiptoes and saw what they were drawing: runes.
Atlantica runes.
Upside-down from her perspective, because they were facing the sea.
THE MOMENT YOU ARE SPOTTED ON THESE GROUNDS YOUR FATHER DIES
Ariel backed away slowly as the letters burned themselves into her eyes.
Then she turned and ran—
—and slammed chest-first into Carlotta, who grabbed her by the arm and pulled her into the shadow of a pine.
“I saw you try to get in just now…What are you doing here?” she hissed. “We’re on high alert because of what you’ve done. I assume it was you who took the necklace? Vanessa is in a murderous snit! Surprised she hasn’t locked up poor little Vareet…She’s rampaging around, doubling the guards, offering rewards for information…and doing strange witchcraft. Those symbols of hers…”
Ariel shook her head. “That is a message for me. She is threatening to kill my father if I come looking for him…which I have.”
The maid blinked at her.
“Oh, yes, I can talk now,” the mermaid added.
“Does this have something to do with the…” Carlotta said, indicating her neck. The nautilus. Or possibly a voice.
Ariel nodded and held up her wrist so the maid could see the leather band, the broken bit of shell attached to the golden bail. “I smashed it, breaking the spell, and now I have my voice back again—and she has none. Or her own, rather.”
“That would explain the whispering and the muffler and the talk of colds,” Carlotta said, a little desperately, as if that one bit of logic were her lifeline.
Ariel felt bad for the woman, who was obviously having a hard time dealing with it all, directly confronted with the truth of magic.
“Everything’s clearer now, you know,” Carlotta said, falling heavily onto a tree stump. She waved her hand around. “That day. The cake I helped make. The lightning. I may…have even…seen you…your tail.”
She looked Ariel up and down, as if for the first time. Then her eyes rested on the apron full of shells.
“What in the name of all that is good and holy is that? Something for a spell? More magic? More…sea stuff?”
“No, it’s part of my disguise,” Ariel said. “If anyone asked me what I was doing I would say it was for Vanessa.”
“Shells?” Carlotta asked, starting to laugh. Ariel recognized that laugh. It was the beginning of hysteria. “From the beach? And driftwood?”
“They’re beautiful,” Ariel protested.
“Oh, oh, I know,” Carlotta said, laughing and wheezing. “I’m sure you think so. But nobody wants those. Not a princess—not even a fake one, like Vanessa. There was a fad for a bit where fancy girls with nothing better to do would glue lots of tiny shells to boxes or frames like mosaics…hideous, really…but those were tiny shells. Dear, you wouldn’t have lasted a moment even if you’d made it inside the castle. Oh, what are we to do?”
“I have to find my father,” Ariel said firmly. “He is the King of the Sea and Ursula’s prisoner. She turned him into a polyp. She has him hidden here somewhere. I need to find him and free him. Then, together, we can defeat the sea witch and free Tirulia from her rule forever.”
Carlotta just stared at her as she said all that.
Then the maid shook her head vigorously, as if she could physically thrust away all the crazy things she had just heard.
“Whatever else, you can’t set four steps inside that door without someone stopping you. You sound exactly like Vanessa! And believe me, everyone knows what she sounds like. Even if you disguise your voice, you still don’t sound like a servant girl. I need to think about what to do. Who could help us? Who could be clever and figure out a plan? You need someone on the inside, more connected than me. Someone like…”
She looked up, her eyes suddenly set and certain.
“Grimsby.”
Carlotta led Ariel by the hand into the castle, screaming nonsense at her and waving a hand in her face at just the right time when people looked too closely—especially the guards. The Queen of the Sea just let herself be dragged along; she was too terrified just being in the castle to do much else. Ursula could always be counted on to make good with her threats; Triton’s life was definitely being put in danger by this. And Carlotta had only slightly eased her fears, bragging about the number of secret lovers’ trysts she had covered for.
Ariel was also strangely embarrassed—and it wasn’t just because she was being pulled along by the housemaid like a girl in trouble. They were going to see Grimsby. Although the butler bore no real resemblance to her father (and was, moreover, a servant) he nevertheless possessed an air of ancient patriarchal wisdom. His was the final and correct word in the castle. Sometimes more so than his master’s.
The butler was downstairs in his tiny “office,” little more than an upright desk in an oversized closet. He was admonishing a footman for some indiscretion. The young man was handsome, olive-cheeked and blushing fiercely. While Grimsby spoke mildly, his eyes were ironic and cold.
But when he saw the look on Carlotta’s face he changed his tone, hurrying the whole thing along.
“Yes, well, don’t do it again. Am I clear? You’re dismissed.”
“Yes, Mr. Grimsby, thank you. Thank you, Mr. Grimsby….”
The youth, overwhelmed at the shortening of the lecture and cancellation of whatever punishment he had assumed he would get, practically fell over himself to get out of the room. In doing so he tangled with Carlotta and caught sight of Ariel, who was hiding behind the maid. She smiled at him. A dazed expression came over his face: one of utter rapture. It was a full moment before he recovered himself and ran down the hallway.
“Carlotta, what is the matter?” Grimsby demanded.
She didn’t say a word, just stepped aside to reveal Ariel.
Ariel found herself shy, unqueenly, overcome with the urge to look down at the ground. But she didn’t.
Grimsby’s eyes, sunk deep behind veils of skin like parchment, widened like a child’s. There was recognition, and for the most painful fraction of a moment, delight.
Then all too swiftly his face hardened and his eyebrows set like thunderheads over a cliff. The change was like a spear of ice thrust into Ariel’s heart. She hadn’t realized how much she had looked forward to seeing the old man again.
“Ariel, you look well,” he said coldly.
“And you look as dapper as ever,” she responded.
The thunderheads shot up, high into the sky of his brow in surprise.
“Yes, I can talk, and please”—she stepped forward and took his hand in both of her own—“I know things are…confusing, and they ended poorly, and involved me, but I’m here to try to make it right.”
“You have Princess Vanessa’s voice,” he said, seizing the one thing that he could comment objectively on.
“She’s not a princess, she’s not Vanessa, and it’s my voice. That she stole. If you allow me, I’ll fill in all the details of the story that both of you are probably just remembering.”
Grimsby shook his head, obviously unhappy with the
untidiness of it all. “Well, come in, shut the door, and tell me.”
It was more than a little cramped in his tiny space; Carlotta’s breathing seemed to take up most of the room. Ariel told her story as quickly and succinctly as she could.
When she was done there was silence but for the forlorn calls of a gull outside somewhere.
I’ve got to make myself seen through a door or window before they get too worried, she thought, imagining an all-out gull attack on the castle.
“You see?” Carlotta said. “That’s why I figured she had to talk to you. It’s all…very complicated.”
“So—Ariel. You fell in love with Eric and became a human, and this…sea witch also became human, probably to make sure you failed in your quest,” he recited the facts in his clipped Bretlandian accent, as calmly as a teacher lecturing history.
“Yes,” Ariel said.
“But the sea witch never returned to the sea. She…stayed. And became our princess. And now rules Tirulia. With an iron fist.”
“Yes,” Ariel said, a little less certainly.
“And you’re here to find your father, restore him to his rightful throne, and depose the sea witch.”
When you couldn’t speak, you couldn’t say ummmm or errr or use any space-filling noises to indicate thinking or forestall potential embarrassment. All of which would be very nice right now. But queens don’t do that, either.
“I came to find my father,” she answered as truthfully as she could. “Everything else depends on that. We will do all we can to free you from the sea witch, afterward.”
“Yes…about this ‘sea witch.’ Do we have proof that she is indeed a…cecaelia?”
“Cecaelia?” Carlotta interrupted.
“Half human, half octopus,” Grimsby explained. “Like a mermaid, but with tentacles.”
“Half in the form of the gods,” Ariel corrected gently. “We are not humans who are half fish, the way you people always say. We are children of Neptune and are not like you—even half you—at all.”
Both Carlotta and Grimsby looked surprised and a little confused. All right, maybe not the time to get into ancient prejudices, Ariel decided. Someday if she stuck around in the Dry World she would set it straight.
