A pleasant warmth spread through her chest, though her heart throbbed and her face burned. She felt embarrassed, content, restless, relaxed, all at once. Part of her wanted to get up and run, another wanted to dance in the water under the moonlight, another wanted to hide under her own skirts, another wanted to just stay right where she was but avert her eyes, another wanted to look into his eyes all at once.
He'd always been so good to her (well, when he wasn't teasing her
Pip and William stared deep into each other's eyes, careless of where their little rowboat drifted.
As it so happened, it drifted right toward the weeping willow by the lake's edge, and the merfolk who had William' best interests at heart parted the branches so they could drift smoothly inside.
Now's your moment
Floating in a blue lagoon
Boy, you better do it soon
No time will be better
The mermaids all hopped in and out of the water, swiftly and silently as little fish.
"Ja!"
"Ja!"
"Ja!"
"Ja!" they each sang in their sweet little voices.
She don't say a word
And she won't say a word
Until you kiss the girl
The mermaids all swam swiftly under the boat, then around and around in faster and tighter circles until the little rowboat began to spin at a slow pace.
They pulled out all the stops for the final chorus of the song, singing loudly and playing quickly and spinning rapidly for the most romantic affect.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la!
Don't be scared
You got the mood prepared
Go on and kiss the girl!
"Whoa-whoa!" one of the stage girls exclaimed.
Fireflies joined the dance around the little rowboat, and they flickered and glowed around the couple. William looked especially enchanting by the light of the little glow flies, whose golden light reflected off her yellow hair to the best possible effect. This, along with the light of the full moon peeping between the branches of the willow to reflect off her pale white skin, shining from her bright blue eyes and her winning smile.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la!
Don't stop now
Don't try to hide it how
You wanna kiss the girl!
"Whoa-whoa!" all the stage girls exclaimed.
By now they had emerged from the water and sang and sang as loudly and as passionately as they dared without drawing the human's attention, but he was too lost in the spell and William' eyes to notice them.
Just then, the siren Rip Van Winkle jumped among them and tried to add her lovely singing voice to the chorus. Still in the throws of a chest cold (although she would never admit it), her wretched squawking nearly disrupted the enchantment. Not missing a beat, the other mermaids' melodies did not so much as waver as they grabbed her, wrestled her down, and covered her mouth.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la!
Float along
Listen to the song
The song say kiss the girl!
"Whoa-whoa!" they all sang together.
The mermaids used the last trace amounts of their magic to bring the fish along, swam around the boat and gushed steady streams of water into the air like little water fountains. The effect of the little water fountains, accompanied by the fireflies, accompanied by the willow branches and the full moon and the deep blues and violates of early evening created the best possible ambiance for a romantic evening.
Sha-la-la-la-la-la!
Music play
Do what the music say
You wanna kiss the girl!
Pip was completely entranced by the magic of the song. He could not have noticed something out of the ordinary even if it had been pointed out to him. He had eyes only for William, and how beautiful and sweet and enchanting she looked at that moment. William-beautiful, sweet, innocent, naive, trusting, infuriating, silly, ridiculous, gullible, excitable, exasperate-able William.
William herself was smiling shyly and demurely, which only added to her charm instead of subtracting from it. Part of her felt like she should pull away rather than encourage... whatever it was that was occurring between them, but that small part of her was drowned out by a new wave of feelings she had never experienced before. Actually, part of what scared and excited her was that these were not new feelings at all, but old feelings that had been a gentle murmur in the background of her heart, now brought to the forefront by the magic and romance of the song.
Long buried feelings flourished to the surface as they looked into each other's eyes, no longer checked by duty or propriety. Pip no longer thought of the class structure that separated them, with her being the boss's ward and a lord's foundling. William no longer thought of the loyalty she felt she owed a man who rarely seemed to notice her anymore.
"You've got to... kiss the girl..." they murmured.
Maybe this was not so bad, William thought as he leaned toward her, and her heart skipped a beat.
"Why don't you... kiss the girl..." they sang.
He was looking at her the way all girls want to be looked at some time, and her starving heart lapped it up. She had wanted so badly to love and be loved and to be treasured by someone as deeply as she treasured them that her heart forgot how her mind had made up its mind that it wanted someone else.
"You gotta... kiss the girl..." they murmured.
Far away she'd heard the call of a heart that sang a song like hers. From the moment she'd left her world behind and thought she had found that melody with the Count, part of her soul was aware of the lack of harmony; something her heart and mind were far from aware of. If she had noticed it at all, on some level she believed she was the one at fault, and that if she just kept trying to woo him and please him eventually the harmony she'd heart from far away would come back again.
Her heart had longed for such harmony, and found only trace amounts when she was near the stables and the evening rides. Only now, as the captain drew near, did she feel it again.
Her mind was far from aware of it, else she would have drawn away, but her heart and soul drank in the peace and ease of the harmony that she unconsciously drew closer, scarcely aware of what she was doing or what she was feeling.
Rip and Harkonnen were literally shaking in anticipation.
"GO ON AND...!" Harkonnen exclaimed.
"... Kiss the girl..." they all sang.
Pip leaned closer, and William' breath hitched. Whatever feeble protests her mind could possibly think of were drowned in the moment.
Then the boat tipped over, and they were both plunged into the icy cold water.
The mermaids all gaped in horror, and Harkonnen slapped his palm to his forehead.
The twilight birds screeched and flapped away, and the fish in the water all bolted from under the tree.
"Whoa, hold on! I got'cha!" he said when they emerged, as William struggled to catch her breath.
Deep beneath the surface of the lake, a pair of silvery-green eyes flashed in the dark, and Schrodinger snickered.
"Nice work, boy!" Linda exclaimed as he appeared beside her.
"Please, it's what I do!" he said, "I am everywhere, und nowhere."
"And it's a good thing you were there!" she growled.
They watched the young couple emerge from the lake with her magic mirror. The man stood tall and steady, and offered his hand to the girl, small and buxom and dressed in light blue, who accepted demurely and gratefully.
"That was a close one," Linda snarled, "too close! The little tramp!" She rounded on Schrodinger. "I thought you said she loved the Count!"
"She does," Schrodinger said easily. "But he does not love her back, und she could only be expected to pine after him forever. Sooner or later her wounded little heart will yearn to heal! Und she'll seek out some other fine gentleman who could ease her pain, und return her love!"
"Faithless little whore!" Linda spat.
Schrodinger smiled easily. "You'd better hurry, Lin
da," he mocked, "Soon her affections will begin to shift, und you cannot expect her delicate little heart to break und her mermaid's tail to reform if the new man she loves returns her feelings the way the old one failed."
It was a loophole in Linda's spell that they both knew too well. As long as William loved the Count, her stay on land hinged on his affection for her. If he returned her love and married her, so that his soul poured into hers along with his wedding vows, she would remain human forever. If he married another, then her heart would break, her human body would "die," and then it would melt away and her mermaid's tail would reform.
And Linda had made sure that William had no chance of falling in love with another man, and that the Count had no chance on returning her affection, before she had even agreed to this spell.
She had grilled Schrodinger on the strength and devotion of the little mermaid's love for the Count before agreeing to see the girl, and had sent Schrodinger to spy on the Count for a long time to ensure that his devotion to another girl (the little church girl) was steadfast and absolute.
Only when Linda felt certain that her plan would work did she agree to it. So Schrodinger had tattled on William to the Sea King, knowing he would be furious and destroy her things, and Linda had sent the eels to comfort William in her darkest hour, and bring her to her home when she was most vulnerable. Schrodinger knew that only when William was on the brink of despair and felt her life on the sea floor was over would that she would risk everything for the Count... and only when her heart was broken by the Count would she forget all this nonsense about the surface and graciously return to her old life in the sea.
"Don't you think I know that, you stupid little boy?!" Linda roared so loud the bones of her little cottage rattled.
Anyone else in the sea floor would have trembled at Linda's rage, but Schrodinger shrugged indifferently.
"Perhaps it's time you used some magic to hurry things along," he said airily.
"Perhaps you are right," she said, and then the rage of admitting it caused her to snarl and swim forward.
"We've waited almost a year and still that little church whore has not put out!" she exclaimed as she threw open her cabinet of potion vials and ingredients.
In her rage, she shoved a few vials aside so that they shattered against the wall, then furiously swiped the ones she needed.
"Well, it's time Linda took matters into her own tentacles!" she shouted, then chucked them into her cauldron so hard they shattered, burst, and boomed.
"Triton's daughter will be mine!" she said in the glow of her potion, "And then I'll make him writhe… I'll see him wriggle like a worm on a hook!"
She laughed maniacally as the potion did its work.
Schrodinger watched all of this with a secretive smirk.
Oh right, Linda still believed William was the Sea King's youngest daughter. And why shouldn't she? Schrodinger had told her.
She had sent him to spy on the Sea Palace many years ago, since most of her other spies had no power there. Of course, those magical wards did not affect Schrodinger, for he was everywhere und nowhere. And it was there that Schrodinger had met William, a common chamber maid who tidied the royal bed chambers of the royal princesses, and his whole world had changed forever.
Oh, he spied for Linda still, when it was still needed, but really, everything he ever wanted or needed was in William. She was everything to him, und nothing. She was his plaything, his playmate, his friend, his treasure, his sister, his mother, and his wife all in one. He could never want for anything as long as she was around. When they were together, nothing else in the world mattered to him except for her.
He floated over to Linda's enchanted mirror, and felt his heart flutter as he watched William brush water off her bodice.
He could have spent his whole life swimming beside her and been content. But then she had fallen in love with that stupid count, and then she was no fun anymore. All she ever did was moon and pine for him. Schrodinger had decided to set up this trick so William could go to land to join the count, then get her heart broken, then learn her lesson and decide to live out the rest of her life under the sea, and then she would be Schrodinger's again.
Of course, Linda would not be happy when she learned the truth, but what did he care? Linda would not have agreed to give William a potion that spared her life unless she thought she was getting a valuable slave, but once the damage was done there was no turning back. Once William was a mermaid again, Linda would either keep her anyway out of spite (and she seemed to like William' buxom figure as much as Schrodinger did, so he doubted she'd turn her into a polyp), or let her go. Either way, William would be under the sea again and with Schrodinger again.
The only problem was how long it was taking. Thankfully Linda had other schemes and clients to keep her busy while they waited, including the Sea King's real youngest daughter, who had fallen for a prince. With her to wait on, Linda had waited for William more or less patiently. Being without William for over a year was the hardest part for Schrodinger, but since he was everywhere und nowhere, he spent a lot of time visiting William' subconscious and dreams to pass the time. But now it was drawing close to a year, and he and Linda were both tired of waiting. It was time to close the curtains and bring this farce to an end.
He leaned so close to the mirror that he could touch it, and he touched William' cheeks so that the potion of the mirror rippled.
"Soon, mein Schatzi" he grinned, "soon you will be right where you belong."
William was furious with herself. From about the moment they emerged from the water she felt her brief infatuation for Mr. Bernadotte (only during the song, of course) wash away, and she returned to dry land wiser and sober for it. Her face was flushed with shame, and her blood ran hot with mortification. How could she be so faithless, so careless? She told herself she loved the count... no, she did love the count! So why did she behave this way? Like a... like a silly little star-struck schoolgirl?
She glanced over at Mr. Bernadotte... so tall and tan and handsome, so scruffy and casual, such rustic and earthly charm... then she caught herself and shook her head.
Snap out of it! Stop being such a foolish little schoolgirl! Don't be such a faithless slut! She said she loved the count, that her love was as deep and faithful and true as any love that any mermaid ever felt. They sang songs of a mermaid's love, under the sea and even up here on land. (That Hans Christian Andersen she had heard about captured it so beautifully in his story, although she had not read it.) She wasn't like the Sea King's daughters. She didn't swoon and coo over a cute boy for about ten seconds, and then swoon over another cute boy the second a handsomer one swam by. She was made of deeper stuff than them. Even if she wasn't royal, she wasn't spacy or flighty. When she loved someone, she loved them eternally, and she told herself she loved the count! She loved him! She gave up her whole world for him! It had to be him.
She didn't look at Captain Bernadotte all the way back to the party. She kept her eyes firmly on the ground, scowling and scolding herself internally.
She expected them to get in trouble when they returned to the party, but her master did not even realize she was gone! He was too busy mooning over his little church girl!
He barely seemed concerned that they were both fairly damp (they were no longer sopping since they'd had to return the boat and then walk all the way back), and quickly bought the story that she had fallen into one of the garden fountains, and Mr. Bernadotte had gotten wet fishing her out, and he thought it would be best to take her home.
"How dreadful!" the church girl said, and the count gave them leave.
'What a heartless cow,' William thought of the church girl as they left.
She refused to look at him during the carriage ride all the way home, focusing instead on her pity for the plight of the coachman and his horse who had to wait out front all night for nobles to return home, which probably wouldn't be till three or four in the morning at the earliest, even though his horse was sore and a
ntsy from having to stand out there in full harness for hours, and they had to get up early the next day to catch the morning rush. She knew all this because Mr. Bernadotte made casual conversation with him all the way home, and even shared a smoke with him. William listened to their conversation with interest, not daring to admit to herself that his friendliness and interest in the lives of others was another thing she liked best about Mr. Bernadotte. She refused to look at him even as they sat opposite each other in the coach, fearing her heart would flutter or her face would burn if she did.
The second they reached they reached the front of the flat, she bolted inside, not even caring how unladylike it was.
When she was finally able to get into bed (after the servants fussed and forced her to take a bath, which took forever because they had to start a fight and then warm the water and then made her scrub thoroughly to get all the pond water out), she fell face-first into the pillow and huffed.
What happened to her? How could she do this? It was one song-one song in a charming pond under a weeping willow tree. Her love for the count was steadfast and absolute... when did she become so weak that a single
William steered away from Mr. Bernadotte wherever she could help it. Whenever she saw him, she felt her heart give a leap or her breath give a hitch, and she felt flustered all over; her face burned so hard she feared her hair would catch fire. She felt shamed and embarrassed; just seeing him look at her felt like her insides were burning. She hated these new feelings she felt (or only thought she felt, she told herself) whenever she was around him, and tried not to be around them to feel them.
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