Allerleirauh

by Chantal Gadoury

  Carrick had long since gone to bed, but Lena and Javelin remained awake, tucked into a hidden alcove of the cavern—their grotto. It was a natural dome of echoing stone, where the best of their scavenged treasures were stored. Much of what they found in shipwrecks was forbidden or scandalized at the market, human artifacts that couldn’t be refabricated to suit merrow needs. Whatever they couldn’t bear to abandon, they kept here.

  This was their special, secret place. Anyone might have entered it, unbidden, through a slim hole rung by moss and carved into the ceiling. But the cavern was so remote. There were no neighbors passing curiously by, no children wandering too far from home who might happen upon the grotto by mistake. At this time of night, its only spies were sea life. Broad-shelled turtles peeked in as they ascended to the surface to sleep. Eels twined together, massaging their slippery skin on the moss. Occasionally, a shark drifted by, gliding slowly through the relaxed current in a slumberous, mesmerized state. Otherwise, the grotto went unseen.

  Lena pulled her aquamarine tail closer to her chest and wrapped her arms around it, listening attentively as Javelin recited the last lines of a familiar merrow story—a favorite of children in the capital city.

  She wasn’t in the mood for safe stories tonight. Talk of humans was discouraged throughout the Skagerrak Sea, but here, they could tell whatever tales they liked, imagine whatever they wished, dream their most precious, forbidden dreams.

  “Tell me the legend of the Skagerrak queen.”

  Javelin lifted a brow. “It’s hardly a legend, Lena,” he said. “It’s barely been a decade.” His voice was easy, unbothered by the possibility of being overheard. They were alone in this place. There was no need to whisper or scold or shush. Still, he groaned. “I’ve told that one a thousand times. You should know it by heart. Aren’t you tired of it yet?”

  “Come on,” Lena urged him. “It’s my favorite. Tell me again.”

  He rolled his eyes, but his mouth curved into a grin. “Fine.” His scooped a clam shell out of the sand and began sliding the sharp side of a rock against its grain. “The queen fell in love with a human man,” he began, his strong fingers holding the clam firmly in place. “Every full moon, she used her magic to travel ashore to see him.”

  Lena settled onto her elbows, relishing the smooth sound of her brother’s voice as he recited the tale. A dreamy smile spread over her lips.

  “I wonder how she met him,” she murmured softly, tilting her chin up and letting her lashes flutter shut.

  “Likely the same way any merrow meets a human,” Javelin teased. “Shipwrecked during one of Poseidon’s storms. She should have drowned him immediately.”

  “But she couldn’t!” Lena’s eyes pinged open. “For he was devilishly handsome, even soaking wet. The most handsome man she’d ever seen.”

  “Devilish is right,” Javelin allowed. “Whether he was handsome or not, I’ll let your imagination decide.”

  “Oh, he was.” Lena was smiling widely now. “He was, perhaps, the most beautiful human man in existence, and desperately enraptured by the queen. Each full moon, he waited for her, pacing the beach like a madman. And when she would emerge from the sea, he’d run hip-deep to meet her, unable to spend one more moment apart. He’d wrap his muscular arms around her—”

  “For Poseidon’s sake, Lena.”

  “And they’d dance together,” she pressed on, giggling, “as only humans can do. They’d dance and dance the hours away, bathed in starlight, humming songs into one another’s ears.”

  “Until one night. . .” Javelin prompted smugly, and Lena rolled her eyes.

  “Until one night,” she sighed, “something overcame the queen’s lover. Greed.”

  “Human greed,” Javelin corrected. “Human nature. It was only a matter of time.”

  She glared at him, but didn’t interrupt as he continued. This was the best and the worst part of the tale, and Javelin—damn him, was good at telling it. And he knew.

  “That night, the queen swam toward the surface, impatient as ever she was. Ready to be rid of her tail. Ready to be human again. Her magic was a gift from Poseidon himself, contained in a delicate shell which she wore around her neck on a gold chain. It gave her the ability to explore the shore, and to control the storms and seas.”

  Lena leaned in.

  “As she swam, the queen began to change. Faint sobs faltered over her blue-scaled lips—cries of pain, lost to the rushing lull of the waves and the urgent beating of her fins. Swiftly, her tail separated into two perfectly shaped legs, and she rose out of the sea.”

  “Don’t leave out the good parts,” Lena whispered. She knew her brother would skim over the romance just to annoy her.

  Javelin gave her a pointed look. Then he grinned. “The moon was high that night,” he said, lowering his voice to a hush for effect. “The land was illuminated by an eerie, silver glow. Beneath its light, the queen’s new flesh was creamy and soft. Her hair became one with the wind, and her body shivered against a violent, uproarious breeze. Perhaps it was a warning from the gods, but the queen didn’t see it as such. The human lands were cold, suffering a new, frigid season, but her heart remained warm. She smiled, though her transition had been agony, when she heard the sound of water splashing and saw her beloved moving toward her through the shallows.

  “She sang his name as he brushed chaste kisses against her neck, and relaxed fully against him, trusting him completely. She was blind to the wicked yearning which had wrapped around his heart. Which made his body tense, which crushed his lungs till he could hardly breathe. He wanted her shell, for he’d discovered what powers were locked inside that delicate charm. Powers gifted to whomsoever possessed it. His fingers dipped to her throat, caressing the shell which had allowed her to return to him, again and again. The queen eyed him strangely, and he dropped his hands to her waist, tugging her against him, kissing her deeply.”

  Lena sighed, and Javelin smirked.

  “She was a fool,” he said.

  “She was in love,” Lena amended.

  “She was both,” he conceded. “And that foolish love consumed her. Deceived her. Seduced her. Clouded her eyes, so love was all she could see. But that fateful eve, her beloved’s affection was not what it seemed. He’d seduced himself too, with all the prospects of what might be. His own love had been replaced by a lust for riches unknown. For control of the land and sea.”

  Lena winced, for she knew what came next.

  “He pressed his mouth against the queen’s skin, whispering sweet words, distracting her. She was smiling as he sent a knife into her back. Smiling, even as her eyes went wide with shock.”

  Lena shuddered, picturing it. A joyful mouth, frozen in place. Bulging, horrified eyes going dim.

  “The queen’s lover twisted his blade, releasing her cold merrow blood to the sand. He reached for the shell, yanking on its golden chain. But in the last throes of breath, the queen resisted him and threw the shell into the crashing waves, bidding Poseidon to wash it away.

  “With a promised curse on his lips, her lover trailed back into the night, determined to one day possess the world between the sea and stars, and all who dwell beneath the earth, in the ocean’s depths. Our people.” He glanced sidelong at Lena, his meaning clear. “The merrows.”

  “And the queen. . .” Lena murmured, though she already knew how the tale would end.

  “He left her to dissolve into sea foam. She was washed away forever by the waves.”

  Lena released a long breath and gazed at her hands, trying to imagine what it would be like to watch herself slowly disappear; what heartache and betrayal the queen must have felt in her last moments. She knew this was a gruesome tale, but a part of her thought the better parts, the magic and romance, were worth the gruesome bits.

  “What do you think it would be like, to walk?” she wondered aloud. “Would it be like having two tails?”

  “I don’t know,” Javelin chuckled. “I suppose it might be.”

&
nbsp; “Where do you think the shell is now?”

  Javelin shrugged. From a stony shelf above his head, he retrieved a slim, wooden railing he’d found in a ship a few days before and carefully tied his sharpened clamshell to its jagged end.

  Lena smiled, realizing he’d made her a hunting spear.

  “Poseidon is said to have hidden the shell before the human lover, or any human, could steal it. It could be anywhere.”

  “If you could go to the surface, would you?”

  Javelin pinched his lips together and didn’t speak. It was a silent reprimand. He knew how Lena longed to break through the waves, to see the human world with her own eyes, to know the uses of all the odd objects they’d collected over the years. But the laws of the sea were strict, and the king’s leniency had all but vanished in recent years.

  Any merrow caught peeking at the shore was punished. Some were even struck down by Poseidon and reduced to sea foam, just like the queen.

  “This is where we belong, Lena,” Javelin said softly, firmly.

  “But how do you know?” She swirled upright and swam along the edge of the grotto, brushing her fingertips over cups and spoons and heaps of sodden fabric. Over small chests and tarnished, palm-sized figurines and other mysterious, unnamed things. “Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like, to live on the land? To live among them? To be one of them?”

  “Not as much as you have, I can see.”

  She groaned, and sank to her brother’s side, resting her head on his shoulder. “It can’t be as bad as everyone believes. Humans can’t all be the same. We’re not all the same,” she reasoned quietly.

  She curled her fingers around the shell at her neck. For all his scolding, she knew why Javelin had gifted it to her—because he’d known it would remind her of her favorite story; of the queen. “Where did you find this?” she asked, breaking the silence that stretched uncomfortably between them.

  “I went toward shallower waters today,” Javelin answered, and she stared at him, shock and envy warring in her gaze. Since the queen’s death, few traveled out of the deep. Too many merrows were worried of being caught in a riptide, of unwittingly exiting the Skagerrak Sea.

  Javelin ignored her look. “There was an old chest mounted just on the edge of a deep canyon. I almost didn’t notice it. It was so overgrown by coral and seaweed. Inside, I found a few odds and ends that I ended up selling, and this.” He thumped the charm at her neck. “I’m sure I could have traded it for something small. Poseidon knows there’s always something we need. But I thought of you.”

  Guilt slipped into Lena’s heart. “Perhaps… perhaps we should sell it,” she forced herself to say. Javelin shook his head, and she couldn’t help but feel relieved.

  “You’re a young woman, Lena, and you’re of age. You should be covered from head to tail in pretty things.”

  “So I can entice a man and be married off?” she teased. “So you’ll no longer have to worry about feeding me?”

  “You’re the one who feeds us most days,” Javelin replied. He passed the spear into her hands. “Father and I would have gone hungry more than once if not for your hunting prowess. But you shouldn’t have to hunt, shouldn’t have to worry that we’ll starve. You deserve to feel safe, content, taken care of. You deserve to simply. . . be.”

  Lena wasn’t sure she wanted to be content. It sounded an awful lot like being bored to death, the way Javelin described it.

  She didn’t say so. Just curled her lips into a playful smile and bumped her shoulder against his. “Good luck to the man who tries to take a spear like this from me,” she winked.

  She swished the spear back and forth in front of her chest, testing its durability. Then she moved into a sitting position, hunched over as if she were about to stab an unaware crab. With a sure arm, she plunged the spear into the sand, then yanked back, pleased by how light and swift it was.

  “It’s perfect,” she affirmed, already thinking of the deep, narrow crevasses where the larger, meatier crabs were hard to reach.

  Javelin’s eyes glowed against the increasing darkness. In spite of his talk of Lena trading her hunting skills in for a husband, he was clearly pleased.

  “Let’s get some rest.” He straightened and glided toward the darkened passageway which led back into the cavern. “It’s been a long day for both of us.”

  He swam ahead of her, his broad body weaving through the water effortlessly, and paused beside the arched entrance to her room. “Rest well, sister.”

  Lena pressed a kiss to his cheek.

  Javelin disappeared into his wing of the cavern, and Lena dipped into the area she’d claimed for herself. It was spacious. Compared to the grotto, it was. . . empty. Gaps in the walls beckoned watery panels of moonlight to glisten upon the floor and welcomed the gentle music of the mostly sleeping sea.

  She swirled onto her back and hovered just above the jutting stone that served as her bed. She lifted the pink conch in front of her eyes, considering it carefully. What if it was more than just a pretty piece of jewelry? What if it contained Poseidon’s magic?

  A silly thought. She giggled. Still, somewhere in the ceaseless, ever-deepening sea, the queen’s lost shell was hidden. Why not in a camouflaged chest dangerously close to the shallows?

  She grinned to herself, and strapped her arms across her stomach, imagining that she was the queen. That a handsome lover had wrapped her tight in his embrace. A human lover, reckless and helplessly enamored; his body dyed by the sun and his heart free of deceit. She could almost hear him whispering into her ear, promising to take her further inland. Promising to show her the world above. Promising her a gloriously endless everything.

  That night, she dreamed of the shore.

  Of the moonlight glowing upon her face.

  Of warm fingers skimming her skin.

  Of peering down at herself and discovering feet where there should have been only fins.

  THREE

  L ena darted her newly crafted spear into the sandy ocean floor, startling a brightly colored crab, which scuttled from its hiding place beneath a layer of rock and sand.

  She chucked the spear again, sending the creature scampering into a stony crevasse as quickly as its claws could muster.

  She groaned. Her arm was sore and her pack was nearly empty. The morning was not turning out to be a plentiful one.

  Exasperated, she tugged her spear free and settled upon the soft sea bed, tucking her aquamarine tail underneath her. She laid the spear at her side and lifted her fingertips to the conch hooked around her neck by a thin string of braided kelp. With curious violet eyes she examined the conch again, raising it from between her breasts and twirling it slowly between her forefinger and thumb. From end to end, it was perfectly intact, vibrantly pink, and glassy-smooth as the inner nest of an oyster.

  There was something extraordinary about the little shell, something Lena couldn’t quite put her finger on. She tilted it to her ear, marveling at how it hollowed the sounds of the sea—kelp rustling, fins slicing through the gentle current, a lone whale calf singing in the distance, searching for its pod.

  She smiled. Perhaps this was the queen’s shell. Was there really so much harm in pretending?

  On a sigh, she imagined what Javelin would say: Doubtful. It’s just a story, Lena.

  Lena rolled her eyes. For most, the whispered legend of the queen served as a warning against humans and their dry, waterless world. A story to smother the wonder and angst from a young merrow’s girlish imagination.

  Lena had never quite fit in with the other merrow women. Had never slipped starfish into her hair and batted her eyes at the handsome mermen in town, or dreamed of a tidy, cavern home to call her own. She’d always wanted something. . . more.

  Now, she tilted her gaze to the glittering surface. She clutched the shell in her palm as a painful yearning seized her heart. Had the queen felt this way, long ago? Was that why her eyes had wandered to the shore? Why her heart had been so easily romanced by
a human lover?

  On an exhale, Lena unfurled her fingers, letting the conch collapse against her chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a crab crawl out from beneath a large clamshell, its speckled back still blanketed by sand.

  With her spear, she pierced its shell and skewered it. The crab’s blue legs writhed as she tore its largest claw from its body. This would serve as a meal, and the other crabs collected would be saved for her trip home.

  As she sucked the white meat from the crab’s hard shell, Lena caught sight of a hazy figure moving toward her. She lowered her spear to her scaly lap and strained to see who it might be. It certainly wasn’t Javelin, who’d gone to the far side of Sogen Hav to scavenge. This figure seemed to be frail, perhaps elderly, slow-moving and hunchbacked. Her tail was silvery white, a faded, ashen shade.

  “Don’t be alarmed!” the merrow woman called, her voice curdled by age. She raised a rigid arm in greeting and signaled for Lena to wait.

  Lena tugged the crab from the end of her spear. Perhaps this older merrow simply required food. Javelin might scold her for giving away her sparse catch, but she’d caught enough yesterday to tide them over till morning. She could always rise early and hunt for breakfast before the dawn.

  “May I come sit with you?” the merrow woman asked. Her sagging skin was adorned by worn and crumbling shells. Barnacles sprawled over her collarbone and clung to her breasts. Twisted strands of kelp were wrapped around each of her arms, from shoulder to wrist.

  Lena nodded, her curious gaze drifting over the sickly yellow tint of the stranger’s complexion. With a small tilt of her chin, she gestured the woman to a large boulder nearby.

  “A hunter, I see.” The merrow woman’s thin lips curled into a smirk. She brushed a wisp of dark gray hair from her face and raised a brow at Lena’s spear.

  “Are you hungry?” Lena asked, and extended the half-eaten crab to her.