She’s not getting better,” Levi said.
Dr. Graham had exited Amelia’s sickroom with such a sober expression that Levi didn’t need to hear what the man had to say. Charity stood beside Levi, her fingers twisting in a handkerchief. She hadn’t stopped crying in the three days since Amelia was shot.
Caroline had taken to her room, where she did nothing except lie on her bed and stare at the ceiling. She refused to eat more than a few bites of toast and would not speak to her father at all.
This, Levi thought, was because Caroline had come upon Charity shouting at Barnum that this was his doing, and that if he’d only taken Charity’s concerns seriously, Amelia would never have been out at that hour so that a madman could shoot her.
Barnum had stuttered and stammered and tried to tell her that he’d done everything he could, but Charity felt the shooter would never have had his opportunity if only Barnum had listened to someone besides himself.
Caroline, who always sided with her mother, had given Barnum such an unforgiving glare that he’d subsided into silence and not attempted to defend himself since.
The doctor shook his head. “Her fever is still too high. I’m afraid to bleed her. I don’t know what it would do to a mermaid’s body.”
Dr. Graham had removed the lead ball from Amelia’s stomach, but he’d been reluctant to do much more than that. Levi didn’t know if this was because he was genuinely worried about the effect of human medicine on Amelia or if he was genuinely worried that Barnum would blame him for any negative outcome. The doctor seemed to think that Barnum might become litigious if Graham were somehow responsible for Amelia’s death.
He was also under the misapprehension that Amelia “belonged” to Barnum. Neither Levi nor Charity bothered to correct him on the subject. Levi, for one, didn’t care at all what the man thought as long as he made Amelia better.
But he didn’t make her better.
“I changed the poultice, and I left a bottle of laudanum if she wakes and has any pain,” Graham said, putting on his hat and coat.
“Do you think that’s likely? That she’ll wake?” Levi asked.
Dr. Graham looked at Charity, who was watching him with a hopeful expression, then shook his head.
“I think you should prepare yourself,” he said. “I don’t know what can be done for her.”
Charity sobbed into her handkerchief and left the hall. Levi saw Dr. Graham to the door. He managed to remain polite to the man, but Levi felt unreasonably angry with the doctor. He thought Graham could do more, try harder . . . what did it matter that he wasn’t a specialist in mermaid biology? There was no one on land who had such a specialty. Was it better to let Amelia die because he was afraid?
Levi went into the bedroom where Amelia lay with her eyes closed. The room smelled of sick, sickness and death, that sour-sweet decay that made Levi think of rotting leaves.
He lifted the bandage and poultice the doctor had applied so he could check her wound. A foul-smelling greenish ooze emitted from the hole in her stomach. Dark lines radiated away from the wound, covering her skin. They were spreading like tree branches, growing longer and longer each day.
Her skin was covered in sweat, soaking her hair, but her lips were dry. Amelia’s whole face was sunken, the bones of her face sharp like the man who had shot her.
His name was Elijah Hunt, and the newspaper reporters who’d waited night after night in the Park Hotel for a story had been rewarded when they heard Charity screaming. The reporters were there before the constables, before the doctor, even before Levi had finished beating Hunt senseless. They saw Amelia on the ground, covered in blood, and the “eyewitness reports of the mermaid’s condition” resulted in several gruesome and tasteless drawings on the front pages the next day.
The night watch arrived after Barnum lifted Amelia and took her into the apartment, firmly closing the door on the crowd of reporters outside.
In lieu of Barnum or a bleeding mermaid, they had crowded around Levi and the unconscious Hunt, but Levi wouldn’t tell them anything. He only hung on grimly to Hunt’s arm until a watchman arrived, and then the watchman sent a runner for a constable.
In the meantime, Hunt regained consciousness enough to start talking again. Levi heard a lot of nonsense about the wages of sin being death and the temptations of women’s flesh, so he shook the man hard and told him to shut up.
The reporters all complained and told him to let the man speak, that he had a right to tell his story, and they asked Hunt, “Why did you do it?” but the man only repeated that the wages of sin were death and that the mermaid had been sent by the devil to tempt man to unnatural lust.
“Unnatural to want to fornicate with a sea creature, an animal with half a woman’s form,” Elijah Hunt said. It made Levi sick to be near him, this madman with spittle on his lips and the light of righteousness in his eyes.
Elijah Hunt had been taken to the Tombs, where he was to be held until his trial for attempted murder. In the meantime, a few enterprising writers paid off the guards to have a chance to talk to the man who’d shot the mermaid. The reporters were practically slavering for the trial—a murder trial (even if it was only an attempted murder trial) was worth thousands of newspaper sales.
It didn’t matter if all the papers put the same information on the front page. Readers loved tales of blood and scandal and madness, and this case had all of that plus a mermaid and P. T. Barnum.
Levi didn’t care about Elijah Hunt or his reasons. He didn’t care about the man’s trial, either, and he hoped like hell it wouldn’t be for murder. If Elijah Hunt was tried for murder, that would mean Amelia was dead, and he couldn’t bear the thought of it.
And Levi was sick to death of the reporters. As Dr. Griffin he’d performed for them, manipulated them. As Levi Lyman he was tired of the way the newspapermen hovered and buzzed and pressed, the way they refused to leave even if you refused to speak.
Barnum cared about Hunt, though. He cared because the man’s zealotry had brought, as he put it, “all the other Bible-readers out of the woodwork.”
Every day now there was a demonstration of good Christian men and women outside the museum, reading scripture passages and holding signs condemning the museum for propagating sin. Letter writers wrote passionate invectives excoriating Barnum for showing what amounted to a naked woman in his museum.
A fair number of letter writers also wrote in defense of the mermaid, citing the wonder they’d felt at seeing one of God’s truly magical creatures. Barnum liked these letters, but the tally pile for them was a great deal smaller than the angry ones.
The museum had been closed indefinitely, because it was impossible to keep out the chanting righteous crowd of Christians. They kept pushing into the front doors and dispersing without paying the fee. They would run about the museum and disrupt the enjoyment of the customers. Barnum decreed it all past bearing and shut the museum down entirely.
The next day there was a headline in the Herald that read, GRIEVING BARNUM CLOSES MUSEUM IN HONOR OF MERMAID FRIEND.
Barnum had snorted at this but reflected that at least it put him in a good light. Everyone else seemed determined to paint him as some kind of purveyor of sin.
Levi reached for Amelia’s hand. It lay limp in his own, no spark to be found. Her breathing was so quiet that he had to check several times that she was still alive, leaning close to her face and listening for the faint whistle of air.
She was so thin and small and still. This wasn’t his mermaid. This wasn’t his Amelia.
And it might never be again, for the doctor would not help her as he should. Levi should have studied medicine instead of law; he might have been able to do something useful for Amelia now if he had.
The door opened, and Levi hastily wiped his face with his sleeve, expecting it to be Charity. Instead, Caroline stood in the doorway, her small face so serious it broke his heart.
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“Mama is crying again,” Caroline said. “She won’t stop. Is it because Amelia is going to die?”
Levi never lied to Caroline. Something about the little girl demanded the truth. Amelia said she’d felt it, too, the first time the mermaid met Barnum’s eldest child. Caroline had demanded to know if she was a mermaid, and Amelia had to tell her yes.
“The doctor doesn’t think Amelia will live,” Levi said.
Caroline approached the bed, taking Amelia’s other hand. “Why?”
“He can’t fix what’s wrong with her. He doesn’t know how.”
“If Amelia was with her own people I bet they would know how,” Caroline said. “Mermaids have to have doctors, don’t they? Maybe we should just put her back in the ocean and they will come and find her.”
Levi smiled a little at this, the thought of a whole parade of mermaids appearing out of the depths of the ocean, perhaps with a stretcher to carry their lost daughter back home. Then he stilled.
Put her back in the ocean.
Put her back in the ocean.
Put her back in the ocean.
Of course! He was a goddamned fool. He’d seen for himself that when Amelia changed from woman to mermaid, her skin seemed to fold itself inside-out, like there was a completely different creature inside her body. And Amelia had told him that she thought the change from her mermaid form to her human form kept her from aging.
If they returned her to the ocean, she would change back into a mermaid. And if she changed back into a mermaid, her sickness might heal. It might be as if the shooting had never happened at all.
Caroline was watching him, and he realized she’d solved this problem before he had. It was the reason she’d gotten out of her bed in the first place—to explain to the foolish adult that to mend a sea creature you needed to return her to the sea.
“We can’t tell Papa,” Caroline said. “He’ll make objections.”
Yes, he likely would make objections. Levi was too tired to think of what those objections might be, but Barnum was sure to invent something. Barnum always objected if the idea wasn’t his in the first place.
“We can trust your mother, though,” Levi said.
“Of course. We can’t do it without her in any case. She’ll need to hide the fact that we’re gone,” Caroline said.
She appeared very grown-up to Levi all of a sudden, not at all the little girl who’d thrown a tantrum when Amelia first arrived.
“Someone will have to pay for a carriage,” Caroline said.
“Don’t worry,” Levi said. “Your father is not the only one who makes money around here.”
* * *
• • •
When the time came it was the easiest thing in the world to get Amelia out of the apartment right under Barnum’s nose. Barnum had taken to spending most of his days at his desk inside the museum, and that particular day he did not return for supper. They did not have to worry about hiding their plans from him if he wasn’t present.
Charity arranged with their cook to go out and hire a carriage that would meet them after midnight three blocks away. Though they would be leaving the museum very late at night, there was always the chance some reporter might be lurking about. The good Christians all went home to pray after dark; Levi had yet to see one who lingered much past the dinner hour.
Charity and Caroline dressed in their darkest clothing and covered their hair. Levi wrapped Amelia in a blanket and pulled it up over her face so that her pale skin would not gleam in the moonlight and give them away. The wound in her stomach stank, and once they were inside the closed coach, the smell was unbearable.
Levi kept Amelia in his lap, holding her tight so she didn’t roll away from him as they clattered over the cobblestones. She had not stirred at all or made a single sound when he moved her. He was afraid their cure would come too late, and when he saw Charity’s worried expression, he knew she had the same fear.
The coachman stopped a short distance from the dock. It was the same one where Levi had found Amelia after the first performance at the Concert Hall. He had a strange and superstitious idea that the place held more magic because of this, that it was their place and that Amelia would know and wake up from her deathly sleep.
Levi paid the man and then asked him to stay.
“Whatcha got there? Dead body?” the man asked, indicating the too-still Amelia inside the blanket.
“No, a sick woman,” Levi said.
The driver raised his eyebrow, as if to say he didn’t believe Levi but it wasn’t any of his business. Then he shrugged and pulled a bottle out of his jacket. Levi hoped this meant that he would stay. He didn’t fancy walking through the streets of New York this late with Charity and Caroline in tow. He didn’t know how he would explain such a thing to Barnum, especially if their attempt to cure Amelia did not work.
He carried her to the edge of the dock, Charity and Caroline trailing silently behind him. When he reached the end, he unwrapped Amelia. They had removed her nightgown before taking her out of the apartment, for Caroline had been insistent that any clothing would only be in Amelia’s way when she changed back into a mermaid.
Levi looked at Caroline, who nodded. He lifted Amelia up, kissed her damp forehead, and threw her into the sea.
He took two steps back then, and Charity and Caroline each grasped one of his hands.
“How will we know?” Charity said. “How long might it take?”
Levi shook his head. “I don’t know. The change . . . you saw it. It happens as soon as she’s in the water.”
“And if she’s in the water and she’s turned into a mermaid then she’ll get better,” Caroline said. “She won’t leave us here to worry about her, so she will come back up right away.”
“How can you know, Caroline?” Charity asked. She sounded desperate.
“Because I know, Mama,” Caroline said.
They all three stared at the dark water, shifting in the half moon’s light, and waited.
Then something broke the surface a few feet from them, something long-haired and sinuous and beautiful, something gleaming silver as it splashed out of the water and arced up in the air.
For a moment her whole body was visible from tail to head, and Levi saw that her eyes were closed, her whole expression one of absolute bliss.
It had been a long time since she’d swum in the ocean, he remembered. A very long time.
Amelia splashed down into the water and disappeared again.
Charity ran to the edge and called out her name. “Amelia! Amelia!”
Levi put his hand on Charity’s shoulder. Her body was taut, as if she might break apart at any moment. There was no relief that Amelia was alive, only the distress of a mother bird whose chick has not returned to the nest.
“She’ll come back to us, Mama,” Caroline said. “You don’t have to worry anymore.”
“But how do you know?” Charity asked, the desperation not yet gone from her voice.
“I told you, Mama—because I know,” Caroline said. In contrast with her mother, Caroline seemed supremely assured.
“She’ll want to swim for a few hours,” Levi said. “Let’s get you back to the apartment before Barnum finds you missing.”
“He won’t notice,” Charity said. “All he can see are his dreams crashing down around him with the museum closed.”
Levi handed Charity and Caroline up into the coach.
“Left your sick woman in the water, eh?” the coachman slurred. “Costs a lot less than a funeral.”
Levi didn’t bother answering. The less he spoke to the man, the better. If they were fortunate, he would forget he’d ever seen them when he woke with a headache the next morning.
“Well, now that Amelia is well, Barnum will be able to open the museum again. That ought to make him happy,” Levi said.
Ch
arity shook her head. “He won’t be able to open the museum again as long as those dour-faced scripture readers are outside telling all and sundry that Barnum’s is a den of sin.”
“That damned Hunt,” Levi swore.
“You watch your language around my daughter, Levi,” Charity said.
“I apologize,” Levi said.
“Although I am inclined to agree with you. The man has caused more trouble than we could have imagined.”
“Barnum can’t afford to keep the museum closed indefinitely,” Levi said.
“No, he cannot,” Charity said. “He feels very strongly about the responsibility of the loan he took out to buy it in the first place. I know it seems sometimes he’s only interested in profit for profit’s sake, but he doesn’t want the loan to go into arrears.”
“I know,” Levi said.
He did know. Barnum talked about the loan often, especially in the early days of the museum. And Levi also knew that the tripled attendance had gold coins dancing in Barnum’s eyes, as he dreamed not only of the end of his loan but the luxuries to come after so many years of thrift.
“He’s not going to be able to open the museum with Amelia in there again, at least not right away,” Levi said. “As long as there is a mermaid, there will be someone to protest her presence.”
Elijah Hunt had drawn all the creeping things out of the dark and into the light, Levi thought. Without his spark to light the flame, there might have been some grumblings or the occasional editorial, but his shooting of Amelia had made it impossible for the mermaid exhibit to go on.
“Will Amelia have to leave if there’s no exhibit?” Caroline said. “I don’t want her to leave.”
“Someday she will have to,” Charity said. “She belongs to the ocean, not to us.”
“I want her to belong to us a little while longer,” Caroline said.
“So do I, my love,” Charity said, stroking Caroline’s hair.
So do I, Levi thought.
After seeing Charity and Caroline safely back home, Levi collected some clothing for Amelia and returned to the dock. It wasn’t so very far to walk, really, especially when he was alone.
The Mermaid Page 19
