Aurabel

by Laura Dockrill

  I kiss her toes. In white foam, I sprinkle and splash. I touch to show forgiveness. But she cannot feel me. They are artificial. They do not belong to her. It’s like holding a doll. The legs do not work. But then she inches forward. Lets her fingers stroke me. There we go.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she says. ‘I failed you, Lorali. I promised to bring you home and I couldn’t do that. And then you asked me for help and I couldn’t do that either.’ She drinks a little more. ‘Because I was jealous. Because you found a life here; you made a mark. You are important and precious and loved. It is me who is nobody.’

  She has no idea that Lorali is with me again. No idea at all. Silly billy.

  Above me, the sprinting blitz of a firecracker, a rocket, a champagne cork blissfully letting go. Raining down bubbles of yellow-white fire. I watch Opal.

  It gets me thinking about this story I am telling. About these three Mer and how they are all connected. All needing what the other has. Lorali with her tail but metal lungs, Aurabel with her lungs but metal tail, and Opal …

  Finishing the bottle, she throws the empty glass behind her shoulder, leaving a smeared hot-pink lipstick-kiss stain. It doesn’t have to be this way; she is still a mermaid. Isn’t she?

  Let’s find out …

  Cold. Icy. Salt. The salt crystals sting her wounds. She winces. She is sucking seawater in, trying to make the gills pump, the air rise, so that she may breathe like she used to. But the dummy legs are weighing her down. She is suffering, struggling, and I am too rough to fight. She panics. Flapping. Up, her head bobs, then back down under again. Water down her throat. She can breathe steady but she’s too fragile. She can’t swim, can’t move without her tail. Mannequin. Breathing now. But differently from Aurabel without the tail; she won’t let herself sink to the floor. Water, swallowing, down, treading water but too heavy. Crawl, crawl, tug. She sees rock in the distance. Through my waves she drags herself like a beetle through cream. Swim. Swim. But she’s petrified. They all hate her in the Whirl. Everybody hates her everywhere. Another half-baked idea in the split mind of Opal. She doesn’t know what she’s doing. She doesn’t know who she is or where she belongs. She sort of thought Lorali could help her out with that, which is why she came. Why does she have to be out? Living a life? Her security are searching now. Running towards me – flapping black jackets and ties that wave like flags.

  ‘No. Leave me. Let me be,’ she whispers. She goes under. She can breathe nicely in me; doesn’t that feel better? You don’t have to try.

  Wait. They are coming. Calling her name. She drags on the rocks beneath, where they can’t see her. Long enough for them to think she’s dead. Or gone back. They don’t know the laws of the Mer.

  Eventually she makes it to the cold stone. The land. It’s wet and slimy and moss-covered. Hair drenched, mascara black tears drizzling down her cheeks. As she finally stands to balance.

  Then I hit her. Hard. A little too hard, maybe. She topples. Slips. Into a cliff face. Her prosthetic legs smash, break off and sink down and away.

  She scrambles for them. ‘NO! MY LEGS!’ she screams. She cries. She sobs. Reaches for them. I eat them up. A smacking torso. Like a barnacle, she shrinks into the wall. Clinging to the slimy rock face. Her chipped nails cracking on the grimy green wash of weeds. She uses her arms to rake herself upwards. Turtle-like, she crawls, makes it to a semi-flat surface where the wind and me mix. Pounding and smashing ice-cold drizzle against her and she cries. Her make-up washed off. Her heart rinsed out. She wrecks and riots and screams and ruins. Just like a firework. She was once, for a moment, beautiful, but now she is burnt-out ashes, somewhere hopeless between land and sea.

  They always say that the opal stone, although a stone from the sea, doesn’t much like going back in the water.

  WATCHING A MONSTER KILL SOME MONSTERS

  I cannot not look.

  The landscape is silent. Still. The rides are ghostly. Desolate. Dilapidated, crumbling iron. Faded, miserable colours. In the silence I gulp. Think of Hastings. Alive on a weekend. A Saturday crowd, screaming. Aurabel. Where are you? What is she doing? The bright green leaves of plants sway lightly. But I fear they are dancing something deeply terrible. A school of foil fish dart away in an arrow of urgency. Something doesn’t feel right.

  And then I see the serpents; Sienna’s. Five of them. Scaled snake-like beasts. With their claws as sharp as railings and fangs for teeth that could puncture the body of a tank. Their eyes, slicing, glowing a horrible evil. My heart falters, sinking deep inside my metal chest; Aurabel is the strongest Mer I have ever met but can she take all of these monsters down … alone?

  Where are you, Aurabel? Come on …

  I almost can’t watch as the serpents pause. Twitch. Tune into their senses like they’ve heard a snap. Aurabel. And then I see her, lurking, behind the fallen arcade machine. She seems a monster herself right now. Her eyes a colour I don’t recognise; they narrow and slit. She is biting her lip, like she is about to pocket a snooker ball. She lunges back, leopard-like, and out of nowhere launches herself onto the back of one of the serpents. With her strong arms she wraps herself around the neck of the thing. It hollers some hideous high-pitched groan and then gags and she grits her teeth and, using the weight of her strong body, crashes her metal tail into the two neighbouring serpents hissing behind her.

  The knock blows them both to the earth as the weight of her tapestry is so heavy. Two left. Eyes on eyes. They dart towards her. One immediately rushes forward, gulps into her neck like a love bite. AURABEL!

  Aurabel’s blood swans into the water in ribbons. But she growls and spits and punches the very same serpent in the face. No. Like an actual punch in the actual face. Hastings pub-brawl fighting. The serpent wobbles and falls away. The second serpent rockets up and back down again, gushing Aurabel, throwing her body onto a metal fence. She smashes into metal spokes. The metal from her tapestry scrapes against the rusty rods. I feel the clang of the material run through my bones. My teeth grind all chalky. The impact. She groans. Her body scratches, bleeds. Her skull … a giant gash down the back. Spine, split. I want to help. But this is Aurabel’s battle. She’s got it.

  Now the other serpent has come too. Both are crawling up towards her, snaking closer and closer. Their talons creeping up her bruised flesh. Their teeth glinting, snarling. GET UP, AURABEL! GET UP! She scrunches together her whole face and, using her tail once again, whips up, cracking the serpents under the jaw and knocking them both to the ground. She whimpers.

  It is done. They’re defeated. She pants, bent over. She looks at me through the glass and winks. Grins, even.

  ‘Princess!’ she shouts. ‘I only went and did it, didn’t I?’ And she whoops and begins rallying up the dead striped lines on the ground: her trophies. ‘Come on, you weaklings, come on.’

  I see now that they are not dead, not one of them – she is that good. All are cranky, writhing worms on the floor but Aurabel is pleased. She has them as she wanted: half dead. Not to torture but to train, perhaps. She boots them with her fin, rolling them over, wrapping them up in fish wire. They are bleeding, eyes rolling, tongues lolling. Brave Aurabel, with her black eye and cut neck, her navy purpling flower bruises and breadcrumb dots of flecked, bleeding scabs. She smiles triumphantly; she is a step closer to her revenge. And I smile back. Glad to see Sienna’s beasts on the ground.

  But then I hear the twist of a chain. And it coils a wrenching knot in my gut. The water seems to suck back and the life within it vanishes. I feel the tremor of the bed below rattle through me …

  And out of nowhere Aurabel is thrown far into the hoop of the Big Wheel. Smashing against the spokes, she clatters into the carriages, the sides toppling down as the whole ring collapses into the bumper rails, broken jagged edges of trail as she thumps to the ground. I watch as bubbles tingle out of the debris. The shell of every clam seems to slam shut … I can almost hear my breath slithering away …

  She has been hit. Like a tsunami. By an u
nstoppable beast.

  This is not just any beast of Sienna’s. This is a beast that has been sent. This is the mother beast, Nevermind.

  NEVERMIND

  They have all heard of Nevermind but never seen her. She lives beneath the Sabre Tower under lock and key. A prisoner by a lifeline cuffed at Sienna’s wrist, wrapped around the beast’s body. Too dangerous. Even as she arrives now her body is still shackled to the wall of her prison; she fights Sienna’s battles, still with ball and everlasting chain. Stories of her weight and size send shivers down spines and fill Mer with fear. Her cave is known to be so dark and cold that black ice grows there, thorns of frost so robust they could burst through the fire-hot sun like a spear. Of course there are rumours that Sienna beats and whips her. Feeds her rancid ocean dregs, the rotten bones of Walkers. And when there is a storm in my waters, I hear Mer blame Nevermind – screaming, crying, bawling for her freedom. They say she crawls on all fours like a mammal, crushing everything beneath her, for she is the size of a small island. Could dwarf a cruise ship.

  Nevermind is a predator. She could effortlessly swallow a phone box. Nevermind’s tail alone is as dense and as heavy as a tree trunk, her palms like cars, each claw the size of a Walker. And the most fearful thing about her is that she hasn’t finished growing. She is always growing. Gaining size. Nearly everything she touches attaches itself to her body: rubble, rubbish, anchors, brick, stone, bones. Small fish and shrimp paddle about her, like flies on a cow, as she is a constant food supply. Little bursts of shrubbery bush and brambles of weeds harvest in her side. She is a walking landscape.

  And she is angry.

  The legendary myth, cast off as the reason for the glacial arctic spells that starve the Whirl of warmth, is no longer in the shadows. No longer fiction. But now here, before us, charging into the funfair, she storms.

  MEETING NEVERMIND

  On all fours, she staggers towards us. She lurches, like an elephant. It is impossible to see her features. To tell what belongs to her skin and what doesn’t. Plucking up squashed cans of drink, vending machines, rope, bottles, rags, carrier bags. It’s like the whole of Iris’s shop and Hastings pier is glued to her body, everything tangled in the knotted web of junk. Her face, impossible to guess, a swamped mass of mess on this horrific giant head. An overloaded donkey, a full rubbish truck.

  Where is Aurabel?

  I hold my breath. Have to. My metal chest, grunting. Nevermind clambers off, sniffing, towards the rollercoaster, to find Aurabel …

  But then she’s here. At the control box. I squeal. No sound. Duck down. Back under the counter. OK. OK. OK. Breathe. Just concentrate. But thinking of Aurabel. Out there. Me. In here. No. I slip up again. My fingers curl around the edge, lifting myself up to get another look. I gently rise. I hear the breath of her. Snuffling at the box. Which seems to rise, almost wanting to cling to her body too. I feel the box lift.

  In the corner of my eye.

  Right at the window.

  I jump. Hold.

  Shaking.

  Waiting …

  And then …

  The breath of the beast exhales at the window.

  Steams up the screen. A rich, musky mask of condensation.

  I gulp. Trembling.

  The thickness of her tail curling up, clamping up and around the control box with a bang.

  I slow my chest. I know that noise in my lung, that sound like old trainers thumping around a tumble drier.

  And the beast can hear it.

  I breathe slowly. Through my lips.

  Close my eyes. The box rattles.

  Cracking.

  Each scale of the creature caresses the control box.

  The junk accessorising her body decorated like the gypsy hands of a fortune teller in costume jewellery.

  Bulking. Bashing. Brushing. Eerily delicate now.

  Teasing.

  Nevermind toys …

  Takes her time.

  Locked down for so long it’s as though she wants to prolong the moment before the kill.

  Make it all worthwhile.

  Wrapping around me like a snake coiling around its prey …

  Face to face.

  Her nostrils snort, storm splashes of grey gunk.

  My body locks.

  The box begins to crush a little more.

  I scream. Tongue ridged, like a newborn baby.

  I can’t help it. Closer. Closer. Tighter. Tighter. The walls are coming in.

  And it is then that I see her eyes, deeply buried under the scrap. She is blind.

  I have an advantage over Nevermind.

  As the box begins to give under her weight, I rush my hand forward to the door seconds before the metal collapses around me.

  Darting out into the open water, I pick up a wedge of metal. It’s heavier than I expected. My wound smarts. I hover it above my head. It’s heavy against the sucking of the water. I throw it as far as I can, aiming for a carriage tilted on its side. It smacks with a ting. But it’s enough to make the blind monster’s ears prick.

  She prowls over to the echo of the noise, but begins to trip in the traps of the fairground. She is agitated as the metal loops and hoops grab to her, stumble her. She moans and roars. Frustrated. And I turn just in time to see Nevermind crouch backwards, up onto her hind legs. She walks like a Walker. Walloping the seabed in giant zombie strides. She is mammoth. Scooping up the ground with her stance. This time, I can’t find my tongue to scream even if I wanted to, as I watch the dizzying angry fish spin into a spell.

  I quickly dive down towards Aurabel, where I find her broken. Bleeding and cowering with her wounds.

  ‘Aurabel!’ I rush towards her, taking her in my arms. ‘Come on, quick, come on – we have to leave.’

  ‘I told you to stay in the box,’ she drones. She is tired, sleepy almost. Covered in blood. Her eyebrow is split, her lips purple, bruised. Her body is damaged. She looks like a broken toy.

  ‘I know you did. Sorry.’ I don’t want to tell her that the box crushed me and if I hadn’t got out we would both be dead. ‘Come on – we have to move! Now!’ I hear the staggering pounds of Nevermind behind us. Every angle of the fairground is shaking. Aurabel’s home, our home, ripped to shreds. Nevermind roars and it clamps my brain. Worse than any noise I’ve ever heard. I try to scoop Aurabel up but she is a deadweight.

  ‘This is me now, Lorali. I’m too weak. I’m a coward.’

  ‘No!’ I shake my head. ‘You are not weak. You are not a coward. You are the strongest Mer I know.’ I try to peel her off the seabed but her tail is refusing to move.

  She snorts. ‘Thanks, Princess, but it ain’t true. I fall to bits at every hurdle. Everything I touch turns to shit. I can’t do this any more. I don’t have the strength. I can’t keep fighting. Leave me here, will you?’ She lets the heaviness of her body slide her down so that she’s on her back. Bloody. Battered. ‘It’s not worth it any more. Look at us.’

  She is right. I feel just like she does. Tired. Hopeless. Weak. We are both the same, at the bottom of the dark, cold crack between tin, steel, metal and rock. Nature and mechanics side by side. Our bodies made of the same stuff. We have the same code. We are new sisters. Leaning on each other for survival. As the pounding paws of Nevermind stomp closer we resign to this ending. If we are to die, at least let it be on our terms. At least let it be at the hands of the biggest beast in the waters.

  I hold her hand. It’s limp and bloody. I grip it. Tight. Wait for the ending as the bellow of Nevermind gets nearer.

  And then I see it.

  I have never seen one in real life before. I’ve heard the myths about the luck they bring, the depths a Mer or human would swim to, just to find one. To hold it. Or sell it.

  ‘Aurabel, look …’

  ‘Princess, please. I know you’re only trying to be nice and that, but don’t. Just get out of here, please. Go and get your boy.’

  I lift it from the sand as it sits so perfectly, like the jewellery in a box
at Iris’s shop. We would’ve put this in the glass case, it’s so precious and beautiful. It’s got to mean something. You don’t just find a blood pearl relaxing on the seabed, especially not one that’s made for wearing.

  ‘It’s a blood pearl!’ I gasp. ‘On a string.’

  Aurabel suddenly turns to face me. ‘You what?’

  ‘Here, look.’ I hand her the string. The ruby-red pearl dangles perfectly – this isn’t one of nature’s accidents. This was deliberate. Something somebody made with intention. Just like my lungs; just like Aurabel’s tail.

  ‘My cod,’ she mutters. ‘Murray.’ She bursts into tears. Falling into me for not even a moment before strength hauls her back together as she sniffs. ‘This belongs to me. I thought I’d lost it.’

  ‘What are the chances? Must mean something.’

  ‘Do you mind helping me get it on?’

  ‘Course,’ I say and she wraps the string firmly around her wrist. I help her knot it tight.

  ‘Lorali, come.’ And then she bolts back up, the groaning cry of Nevermind breaking through the waves like a titan. Aurabel cracks her knuckles.

  Ready for war.

  FINDING NEVERMIND PARADISE

  Bloody hell she’s a big ’un. I can’t quite take her in. All that size. That beast. Big blind thing swiping the air, growling, tumbling, falling about. The sound coming from her is blood-curdling hell. This beast is too great for me. And I’m tired too.

  I have to think of something else.

  Watching the lumbering monster. The world sticking to the soles of her feet, her mass. That bloody chain, weighing her down, reminding her that she is a slave. I watch her. She’s a bit like me in a way. Rioting privately in the dark. We’re both prisoners. The hell I live in every day. The ball and chain of my new skin. That I had to learn to love because it was the only way. My tail. What am I grieving for? My old life that seems so distant I can’t even remember what I did, what I thought about back then. Now all I think about is freedom. I see myself in this beast. If I were chained to a wall all day, linked to a bitch like Sienna, I’d be pretty fucking pissed off too.