Lady Richard, who was not having any of this, went to her room below deck to get over her sea sickness. Most of the other men went back to work on the ship, humming new tunes. They would have hell to pay from the Count later, but they considered it worth it.
William remained rooted to the spot, her head so light and her feet so heavy she wondered how she hadn't fainted yet.
The Sea Witch was… the Sea King's sister? And she yearned for power? How did these sailors know? They knew of Triton and his daughters and the merpeople he ruled. How could they…?
One of the sailors spotted her face and laughed, "Looks like she's seen a ghost, this one!"
Another one of the sailors stoutly patted her on the back. "Don't let the things he say scare ya, lassie. There ain't no witch under the sea."
William looked up at them curiously. "They're all just stories, lass. Stories and songs we sailors sing to each other to make the long voyages pass more interesting, like."
William was a little relieved and disappointed to learn that most of the sailors didn't really believe in merpeople or sea witches. They'd only pretended to annoy Lady Richard—all but the old, one-eyed Scottish sailor, who truly believed from the bottom of his heart. Most of the other men laughed him off, but good-naturedly so since he was so old and respected despite his kookiness.
"Don't you worry about it, lassie, there ain't no sea witch under the waves," one of the men winked, "An' even if there were, she can't reach you up here."
And they shuffled along with their work, leaving William to gaze at the sea foam that lapped up at the keel of the ship. Her heart pounded fearfully, and it felt like every beat was pressed in by knives, and her feet felt as though they stood on blades as she gazed at the watery foam.
'If only you knew,' she thought.
William eventually decided that it couldn't be true. The men had been mistaken about Triton and how many daughters he had, so they had to be mistaken about Linda too. And even if they weren't, it had nothing to do with her. Even if Linda was the Sea King's sister, it shouldn't be surprisingly since the Sea King's father had so many progeny it was impossible to keep track of them all—what was one more? And even if she did scheme for his crown, it was not as though she was going to try to use a former chamber maid to get it. William was just another one of her countless "poor unfortunate souls" that she had tormented and turned to a polyp or foam, William decided. That had to be it.
So why couldn't she untangle the knot in her belly?
Eventually the ladies and gentlemen recovered their "sea legs" enough to come up and about on deck. Most of them walked and chatted as though this was another amusing garden to stroll through, though most spent the bulk of the voyage below deck in their richly furbished cabins. William stayed on deck the whole time, hovering close to the starboard bulwark. She did not want to go down in the dark cabin, shut off from the sea and the sun and the breeze.
The sailors seemed to enjoy her company, and they often talked to her in a friendly manner as they went about their work. This was a great change from the men who used to mock and sneer at her at the Count's castle, and who once spooked her horse on purpose so she hit her head. The man who had done so even apologized for it, so what changed?
Sometimes they asked her to do little things for them, like fetch a bucket from the main cabin here or use her little journal to run a message there. William was happy enough to help out, as it kept her mind busy, though the captain was less amused.
"You know we have cabin boys to run these errands, right?"
"Aw! The girl likes helping out, don't you, lass?" one of the men grinned good-naturedly. "She'd make a good cabin girl, don't you think so, lassie?"
She grinned, and they considered the matter dropped. The Captain smiled sardonically, and let it slide.
It took a few days to reach Amsterdam, and William spent every moment she could above deck, where she could be a part of the action. She was the last to go to bed each night, till just about the first night watch, and she rose each morning just when the sun streamed in from her little round cabin window.
She enjoyed listening to the deep, low rumble of the men's conversations, and often grinned and nodded along as she heard them tell stories and sing songs.
The Captain spent time with her too, though it was not as much as the crew since he had more to do, and he told her stories of storms, of ships becalmed, of strange deep-sea fish, and of the wonders that divers have seen. She smiled at such stories, for no one knew about the bottom of the sea as well as she did.
He laughed. "What?" he challenged playfully, "You think you know more about the sea than we sailors?"
She grinned.
"All right then! Why don't you tell us all you know of the sea?"
If they meant to tease her about her muteness, she was unfazed.
William thought for a moment, and then used her hands to paint a picture. She cupped her hands together and had them bob up and down like a ship on the sea. She then held up a finger as though to say "But! One moment," and then had her hand dive under imaginary water, and had her whole arm swim around like a slithering sea serpent, far below the ship that still bobbed on the wavers. The sea serpent then moved upwards, and William brought both her hands together to act as giant tooth jaws, which opened wide around the now invisible ship and she clapped her hands together far above her head, to mime a giant sea monster springing far out of the water with the giant ship clamped tight between its jaws. She then brought her hands down in a giant splash, and mimed water spraying every which way, showing that the sea monster vanished between the waves.
The moral of the story was there were giant sea monsters and sea snakes far below the surface, big enough to devour whole ships and ripples the size of tidal waves if they wished.
The men laughed. "Looks like we've got a little sea expert on board, don't we, captain?"
"It'd make sense since you found her on sea. Eh, captain?"
He grinned sardonically. "Ja, ja."
"Maybe she's that mermaid you been tellin' everyone about."
William' heart stopped, and her face turned white. What mermaid?
One of the men laughed, "See? Even she thinks yer mermaid stories are crazy."
"All right, that's enough," Captain Bernadotte exclaimed in his captain voice, "Back to work, all of you."
But William couldn't forget the conversation. Something troubled her about it. She knew she should leave well enough alone, but she had to know.
One lazy afternoon she worked up the nerve to write the question in her journal, but when she handed it to the sailor he frowned and said he couldn't read. To her mortification he called, "Oy! Captain! The lassie here wrote me a note I need you to read."
Before she could shake her head or pull it back he pulled it out of the sailor's hand and read out loud, "Why do you always snicker and wink at each other when you mention mermaids around the captain?"
The whole deck burst out laughing; long and roaring loud. William felt mortified, and tried to hide her burning face in her hands.
The Captain smiled sardonically, "Don't worry, cher, this has nothing to do with you."
"It's because we all know he believes in mermaids," one huge, burly, stout man said. "A gypsy fortune-teller in Prague once said 'a mermaid will sing for thee.' "
"We all thought she was crazy," Captain Bernadotte said.
"And he said he saw a mermaid on a side of the ship, the night our ship was wrecked in the storm."
William' heart stopped. So he had seen her.
"I said I thought I saw someone looking in from the side of the ship that night," Captain Bernadotte said. "It could have just been the night playing tricks on me."
"Ay, or it coulda been a mermaid looking in from the bulwarks," they grinned.
"That same mermaid you claim saved your life when the ship went down."
"Of course it was a mermaid, laddies," the old Scottish sailor said. "You know as well as I that half you would have dr
owned had you not felt firm hands untangle you from sinking lines or pull you away from sinking debris as the ship went down."
"Lots of people hallucinate things as they die," one of the men said doubtfully.
"Not me, laddie, I saw her," the old sailor said. "Though it be dark and I be underwater, I saw by the flames of the sinking ship and the flash of lightning as she swam by. I still remember like it was yesterday. She was a buxom lass with short hair and the tail of a fish. I saw her dart through the water quick as an eel, she hovered above me for but a moment, and then she was gone."
"It coulda just been a seal, or a dolphin."
"What dolphin would swim through burning wreckage to save wrecked souls such as we?"
"Or swim up the river to get a look at your handsome mug, eh, captain?" one of the men grinned.
"Yeah, didn't you say you saw a mermaid of that description in the river a year later," they sneered.
So he had seen her then, William thought. The Sea King had said the humans by the castle had talked of seeing mermaids in the river near the castle, and after her run in with Captain Bernadotte that time in the river, she felt certain he had seen her.
"I said I saw a girl hide in the water, but I didn't see her come up," the captain said. "It's very likely I ran in on some bathing maiden and she swam away when she saw me, or she never existed at all."
"The way he described it, she looked a bit like you," one of the men told William.
"All right, that's enough," Bernadotte barked in his captain voice. "Do any of you men want to scrape barnacles off the keel of the ship with yer backs?"
"Nay, captain," they said sheepishly.
"Then get back to work!"
And that was all they said on the subject.
William was left to stand there, looking over the starboard bulwarks. Their words gave her a lot to think about, and dread over. So she had been seen, when she'd gone in to save the life of the Count when the ship sank. She'd saved every sailor she could along the way, but never stopped to make sure they were all right as she swam among them. She would untangle one here and pull one up there until they were free to swim for themselves, and she darted around them. She had thought it was too dark for any of them to have seen her, but apparently… she'd been mistaken.
She was afraid to look at Captain Bernadotte now; she waited till he was occupied with something else, and watched him timidly from the corner of her eyes. So he had seen her that night, when she first gazed on the Count. And now she knew he had seen her in the river when the hunting dogs ran up to her from the water. How she had hidden in a watery shrub to avoid him, and then darted past him under the water to avoid his gaze. How his discerning eye had searched the water for her for several moments, while she huddled down in the center of the river, afraid to move lest he see her, as she waited for him to go away.
But, if he had seen her… how could that be? She'd always been told that a human's gaze was agony to a mermaid. That when a human looked upon a mermaid and knew her for what she was, a mermaid felt as though their skin was being scorched and their blood was being boiled under their skin. If fishes cooked in the sun, then mermaids smoldered under a human's gaze. Being seen by humans and having them know them for what they were would bring nothing to a mermaid but a smoldering death.
This was why William had been so afraid to tell the Count what she really was, because she could not build a life with a man whose very gaze caused her intense agony every time he looked upon her.
William had always suspected that Captain Bernadotte… at least suspected her of being what she was, because it was very possible that he had seen her twice before she became human (on the side of the ship and in the river), and every time he looked at her she had felt intense discomfort. She had believed that discomfort came from him suspecting her of what she was, and it was part of why she did not like being around him for so long.
But, if he did know… and he did suspect her… and nothing bad was happening… had she been wrong? Did-did they lie to her about mermaids feeling intense agony from a human gaze? Had she carefully guarded her secret for nothing?
William thought this long into the night, as the guests went to sleep and most of the sailors went below deck "for some shut-eye" too. William declined to go to bed, and stayed up for a bit to keep the first watch company. He seemed to enjoy her company and pointed out several clusters of stars which he called "constellations," as well as the North Star that sailors used to help find their way home.
Eventually the moon rose, and he told her the light was so bright it hid most stars. That seemed about right, William thought as she remembered the Count's fondness for the moon. With nothing else to teach her, the first watch focused on steering the ship while William went to enjoy the night.
In the clear moonlight, when everyone except the man at the helm was asleep, she sat on the side of the ship gazing down at the dark water, and fancied she could catch glimpses of the sparkling Sea King's palace. Then Harkonnen and his stage girls rose to the surface. They looked at her sadly, and wrung their white hands.
"William… William Hanna…" they whispered in sweet, low, ghost-like voices from beneath the waves.
"We've heard what happened…"
"Schrodinger told us…"
"He said the count is to marry another…"
"He said the witch went back on her promise…"
"Is there anything we can do…?"
She smiled and waved, trying to let them know that all went well and that she was happy.
They looked at her sadly. "Liar!"
But along came the cabin boy, and her friends dived out of sight so quickly that the boy supposed the flash of white he had seen was merely foam on the sea.
Next morning the ship came in to the harbor of Amsterdam. It was a beautiful city port that seemed to float on the water, with docks that lined right up to the streets, with lovely Gothic buildings just on the other side of the streets. And, indeed, right on the water Captain Bernadotte helpfully pointed out the Basilica of St. Nicholas. It was indeed a grand cathedral whose steps seemed to disappear into the water.
As they pulled into port that early morning all the church bells chimed, and clock towers sounded from all the high towers, while the citizens lined up the streets with little market baskets and fashionable clothes.
Her dread returned as she descended the dock, and she became deaf and dumb to the world as she knew every proceeding second sped up her demise.
On the day of their wedding church bells rang out to announce the wedding. Within the cathedral rainbow light poured in from grand stain glass windows, and upon every altar sweet-scented oils burned in costly silver lamps. The priests swung their censers, the bride and the bridegroom joined their hands, and the bishop blessed their marriage.
The little mermaid, clothed in silk and cloth of gold, held the bride's train, but she was deaf to the wedding march and blind to the holy ritual. Her thought turned on her last night upon earth, and on all she had lost in this world.
She half-expected the siren Rip Van Winkle to burst in with an army of birds and sea creatures to stall the wedding, or to bring in her voice in a shell so that she herself could object to the vows. But no help came. For the first time, she felt how truly alone she was.
When the happy couple exchanged their vows and their kiss, she felt as though her heart was ran through with a sword. It was all over.
That same evening, the bride and bridegroom went aboard the ship. From within the ship, cannons thundered and banners waved. In the huge cabin at the stern of the ship, traditionally the captain's quarters, a honeymoon suit was set up with a great canopy bed draped in silk of purple and gold was up, and furnished with luxurious cushions. Here the wedded couple were to sleep on that calm, clear night. The sails swelled in the breeze, and the ship glided so lightly that it scarcely seemed to move over the quiet sea. All nightfall brightly colored lanterns were lighted, and the mariners merrily danced on the deck.
&nbs
p; The little mermaid could not forget that first time she rose from the depths of the sea and looked on at such pomp and happiness. She had been so happy that first time she had gazed on them, and had wanted nothing more than to climb on deck so she could dance among them. Now her heart was too heavy and her feet were too pained to move.
A short, fat sailor then danced by while playing the accordion, and he noticed her standing off by herself.
"What'cha doin' standing' over thar by yerself, lassie?" the man cried. "Come! Join the celebration!"
"Yeah!" the rest of the crew cheered.
"Come on, lass!"
"It's not the same without you!"
"Come! Show these ladies how a real maid dances!"
Touched by their encouragement, William laughed and shed her sorrow like a shroud. If she was to die, she would die after having the best night of her life.
Light as a swallow pursued by his enemies, she joined in the whirling dance. Everyone cheered her, for never had she danced so wonderfully. She used her gliding fishy movements to her best advantage, and she glided and whirled so lightly she felt she could fly.
Her tender feet felt as if they were pierced by daggers, but she did not feel it. Her heart suffered far greater pain. She knew that this was the last evening that she ever would see him for whom she had forsaken her home and future, for whom she had sacrificed her lovely voice and suffered such constant torment, while he knew nothing of all these things. It was the last night that she would breathe the same air with him, or look upon deep waters or the star fields of the blue sky. A never-ending night, without thought and without dreams, awaited her who might not have a soul and could not get one.
She did not dwell on these thoughts though as too many men laughed and sang and cheered her on. All of her favorite sailor's songs played as happy dancers swayed to the melodies. William herself happily twirled through with many a partner, as most of the sailors took turns dancing with her. They danced lively, cheerful ditties that brought shining smiles from her face.
She bounded happily with an old sailor with all his teeth missing until the moment it was time to switch, and he exclaimed, "All yours, laddie!" and passed William off into his arms.
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