He made a frustrated sound. “So I had to leave that behind, didn’t I?”
“What? Me?”
“You, and—what I’m trying to say is, it was time for me to grow up and concern myself with proper Fandarsee things, and for you to do the same. I suppose we learned from our friendship, but just as your world has no books, my world doesn’t have the things your world has. Singing and dancing are for performers, and what you called ‘theatricals’ would be called ‘children’s games’ where I’m from.”
Esmerine regarded him fiercely. “How insulting you are! You enjoyed it at the time.”
“I did!” he snapped. “But I couldn’t keep coming to see you forever. You welcomed me, but the other merfolk looked at me with curiosity at best and quite often distaste.”
“Well, they—I don’t know—” She stopped, knowing it was true. Even four years after Alan left, she was commonly defined as the girl who played with the winged boy, with all that implied—the running around with legs, the writing on the sand. She had never been shunned, it was more of a mark—Esmerine’s a fine girl, very well behaved, but a bit odd. In fact, she always felt she had to be well behaved, to prove herself. If they thought her odd, they did their best to ignore Alan’s very existence. “I never realized you cared what they thought of you.”
“I don’t, but—” He stood, shaking his head slightly as he pushed in his chair. “We’re just different, Esmerine.”
She didn’t quite agree, but she didn’t argue either, because one thing was quite true—they were grown.
Chapter Thirteen
A few days can seem very long when full of new experience, but all the same, the end of the week came quickly. When Esmerine woke and Ginnia helped her into her stays and pinching shoes, she told herself that soon she would shed these things and feel water around her, recharge her magic and her soul. Her siren song grew weaker the longer she lived away from her element. At night especially she missed the water and her natural form so badly that she would wriggle and toss atop the blanket for hours without sleep.
When she sat with Alan at breakfast, it occurred to her that this might be their last breakfast together. It might be the last day she would see him. For all that he was nice to her sometimes, likely he’d be relieved when she was gone.
That was fine. She might have had a bit of a romantic image of him in her head when she arrived, but the more time spent in his company, the more she wondered why she had ever built him up that way.
“Swift could be back any moment,” he said, seeing the way she kept looking out the window.
“Yes. Oh, I hope the news about Dosia isn’t too awful.” Waiting for that was the hardest thing to bear.
“I suppose you’ll leave as soon as he returns?”
“Well … yes, of course.”
“Of course. Your family must be so anxious. But it’s a shame in some ways. Tomorrow is a holy day, and the start of the summer season. The bookshop will be closed. You could see a bit of the city. There’s a reason people come here from all over the world, you know … we have some of the most famous monuments in all human creation.”
“How would I see them, to begin with? I can’t walk.”
“Well, we’ve made such a nice profit this week—” He paused. “No, you’re right. Even if we hired a carriage to get around, you would still want to see things up close. That wouldn’t do.”
“Oh, well,” she said, but it was maddening to have come so far and be unable to tromp around the city like all the lucky tourists.
“Tonight is the children’s procession,” he said. “The churches all select children to sing and bear candles and walk the streets. Some will come this way. At least … you could stay and watch that. A nice way to spend what could be your last night here.”
“That would be nice.”
“Are you still good at climbing trees?”
The question took her off guard. “I think so—why?”
“If we climb on the roof of my house, we can see the fireworks from the square at the closing of the procession.”
“Oh—yes, I remember you telling me about fireworks. I’d love to see them.” Esmerine wasn’t so sure about climbing onto the roof of a two-story house, but she would figure that out later.
But there was no sign of Swift that day. It was too soon to worry, but Esmerine wondered what she’d do if he didn’t turn up. How long could she wait? Besides, it seemed callous to leave. A part of her hoped for an excuse to have a few more days to read books in the shop and see the surface world, and another part of her despaired at the idea of remaining here much longer. The thought of leaving her dirty clothes behind and scrubbing herself in the sand was delicious to contemplate.
“Don’t worry,” Belawyn said when she bid Esmerine good night. “Swift will be back any day now. I trust the boy is as good at getting out of trouble as he is at getting into it.”
After dinner, Alan and Esmerine went single file down the narrow alley to the back of the shop, where a solid old tree spread dark arms past the roof. The branches began just a foot from the ground. A perfect climbing tree, except that she had never climbed as high as a two-story house.
She kicked off her shoes and reached for a branch above her head while placing a foot on the lowest branch. The bark was unexpectedly rough on her toes. She sucked air through her teeth to avoid an exclamation of pain. Tree climbing had seemed easier when she was young. One would think her tolerance for pain would grow, but then again, it had never been so unrelenting …
The next branch was no better, although she masked it more easily. As much as she wanted to watch the fireworks from the roof, she was beginning to wonder if she could make it that far.
Suddenly Alan’s fingers were on her waist. “Stop,” he said. “Never mind. Come back down.”
“But—” With a sigh, she let her feet drop to the ground again.
They stood in the deep-blue shadow of dusk, but his eyes picked up the gleam of a torch burning a few buildings down. He had that expression again, that pity she disliked.
He turned his back to her.
“Put your arms around my neck,” he said, bending his knees a bit. “And hold on.”
Her arms? Around his neck? Was he—could he—fly with her? She obeyed, grabbing the collar of his vest in her fists. In one motion, his legs straightened, his wings spread, and it seemed that he simply jumped onto the roof in one great impossible leap.
“Alan …” Esmerine slid slowly off his back. Her hands shook from even that brief, tantalizing flight. “I never knew you could do that!”
“I couldn’t when we were kids,” he said. “I wasn’t that good at harnessing the wind. They don’t teach Fandarsee kids to fly with a lot of weight until … well, around the time I stopped coming to see you.” He scratched the back of his head.
“Oh, I wish you had been able to do it then! We would have had so much fun. Remember how you used to fly over the water and we’d grab your feet, and you’d pull us out and drop us?”
He gave a small laugh. “Of course! That was the best I could do back then.”
The bookshop roof was only slightly sloped with irregularly shaped, flat stones for tiles rather than the more common reddish tiles. As a walking surface, it proved no more difficult than the steps and ruts of Sormesen’s hilly roads. She settled herself near the point of the roof, bunching up her skirts for a little padding.
Alan crouched next to her. They faced the market square, a patchwork of roofs between the pillar where she had first seen Swift and the bookshop’s roof. The night air was humid and carried a fragrance of flowers. Down the road, the procession of children bearing candles approached like a slow-moving tide. Their sweet song rose high and pure above the other noise of the city.
She could not yet make out faces, just the lights. In the warmth and song of the Sormesen night, she felt closer to Alan than she had since those days spent on their little island. She looked at him, and for a moment, he looked back. His eye
s were warm in the sunlight, but at night they looked black and full of quiet intensity.
He started to say, “Maybe sometime I’ll come and—” then stopped and shifted slightly away.
“What?”
“No, it’s just—well, it is too bad I can’t send a book home with you. But—you know. It’s all right.”
“Yes,” she said quietly. He could visit her, she knew. She had seen his adult life now, and while it was busy, it wasn’t so busy that he wouldn’t have an occasional moment to fly to the islands and bring her a book. He had been about to suggest it, she was sure, but then what would the other sirens think if she was sitting on the rocks with them and suddenly Alan came flying by? People might have overlooked it when she was young, but she couldn’t spend her adult life set apart from other merfolk because she liked books and befriended a Fandarsee. He understood that.
It felt like the last night of her childhood.
“Look,” Alan said, as the procession drew near. “I’m not sure that boy is going to make it.”
One child was slogging, arms drooping, candle wax dripping, eyes half closed. Esmerine and Alan both laughed gently. It was a strangely intimate sound on the quiet rooftop, and it made her shiver.
He put his wing around her, very lightly, fingers barely touching her shoulder. “A little cold?”
“A little,” she lied. In truth, she felt like someone had started a fire in her core that was draining the heat from her fingers and toes, but leaving her warm within. Her heart was beating too fast. How could Alan make her feel this way? No merman had ever done this to her. What if this was the only time in her life she ever felt like this?
They both stared ahead, watching the slow march of the children and the soft glow of their candles. He left his wing around her, as if it were a casual gesture, but his body was stiff, and his toes clenched the edge of the roof tile.
Esmerine’s back started to itch, and she didn’t want to scratch it, in case he took the wing away. They sat very still for almost the entirety of the procession, moving only when they heard the slow flap of wings behind them.
Swift had returned. Alan jerked away from Esmerine, stood and stepped back, giving him room to land on the roof.
“What’s going on?” Swift asked.
“Nothing,” Alan said. “We’re just watching the parade. Esmerine’s cold up here. We should get her in the house, I suppose.”
“Did you find my sister?” Esmerine said, already trying to read Swift’s face for signs of the news.
“Yeah, I found her.”
“And?” Esmerine wanted to shake Swift to get answers out of his mouth faster.
“Where do I begin? She lives in this huge house. She has her own quarters all to herself, and maids, and these little dogs with long hair that’s always brushed, and this house …! Why, if you spent one night there you could hardly bear to come back to this. It has statues and a fountain.”
He continued, “And the food! I’d never seen so much meat, and it was full of spices and after that was this chocolate torte …”
“But … does she seem happy?”
“Well …”
Her shoulders slumped. “No? Swift, please tell me. Is she all right? I guess she’s well fed, at least?”
“Well, I never actually saw her …”
Esmerine felt like her stomach had dropped through the roof. “What do you mean? Why not? Where was she?”
“Well, she was traveling with her husband. Visiting friends. They said she’d be back in two weeks and I didn’t think you’d want me to wait around that long. But it doesn’t really matter. I mean, I could see her fancy rooms, and I know she’s well taken care of. Anybody would be with all that chocolate torte.”
Esmerine struggled to breathe. “You can’t really know if she’s well taken care of if you never saw her! Two weeks?” Two weeks with a strange husband? Where was Dosia now? What was she enduring?
“Who was there?” Alan asked.
“Her husband’s sisters. Proper human ladies with fancy gowns and all that. They said I could stay longer, but I had to get back. Besides, I’m not sure I really like rich people’s houses.”
“What was wrong with it?” Esmerine asked.
“Well, I couldn’t sleep at night. I had this bed that was huge and the whole place feels sort of haunted. Plus, it’s cold up there, even in summer.”
The picture in Esmerine’s mind filled with images of cold, clammy rooms and ghosts, and Dosia lying awake and terrified in the darkness—beside some horrible human man who had kidnapped her—dreaming of home and bound by her belt.
Esmerine burst into tears. Ahead of her, the sky lit with a spear of sparkling light, followed by a group of colored blooms, but the beauty of the fireworks was lost on her.
“I’m sorry,” Swift said.
She shook her head.
“I’ll take care of her, Swift,” Alan said. “You go and rest; it’s a long flight.”
Esmerine didn’t even care who saw her cry. She’d been gone so long, and tomorrow she’d have to leave this place anyway, and none of it would matter. She’d known Dosia would be bad off—why couldn’t she pull herself together?—but it was worse hearing it than just imagining it. Oh, waters, why why why? So many tears trailed from her eyes that she tasted the salt on her lips.
“Esmerine, shh,” Alan said.
“I won’t shh! I don’t care, I don’t care. That human bastard took my sister!”
“Let’s just get you in the house. Put your arms around my neck.” He took her hands and pulled them around his shoulders, and she tightened her grip, sobbing into the collar of his vest while he flew them to the ground.
She slid off his back and just stood there, still sobbing, feet stinging and aching with pain. She had cried for Dosia many times, but this felt like the first time, and there were other things mixed in too—the books, and Alan, and his wing around her shoulder on the roof, and how much she missed the sea and her family—
He slipped one wing under her arm and the other under her knees and scooped her up with surprising strength. His wings had always looked too fragile to carry her, but she realized now it was somewhat of an illusion. He marched her up the stairs and put her in bed, and sent Ginnia in to help her out of her clothes before he left.
“You rest now,” Ginnia said when she had attended to her duty, leaving Esmerine alone on the bed in her sweat-drenched chemise. Her tears were running out, and she was quiet. Would Alan come back to see how she was? She wanted him to, but she wouldn’t call out to him. If he had a heart, he would know she needed him.
She wanted her mother and father. Thinking of them set her whimpering again.
Alan did come back. He stood beside the bed a moment. “What do you want to do?” he asked.
“What can I do?” She wiped her nose on her sleeve. “I can’t go after her. There is nothing to do.”
“Well …” He sat on the edge of the bed. “If Dosia could get her belt back, she could be free.”
“Yes, but we know that already, and it’s useless information. She’s north somewhere, I’m here, and where her belt is, nobody knows.”
“What if you could go to her? Would you try?”
Esmerine pushed herself upright and leaned back against the pillows. “Why? How could I?”
“If we could fly together …”
“Surely you’re not suggesting you could fly us both to the mountains?”
“It would be very far. I would need more magic than I possess.”
Esmerine couldn’t imagine flying to the northern mountains. It was almost too fantastical to consider even in a dream. “Does anyone have that kind of magic?”
“My father might,” he said, his tone short. “Magic can be shared through an object. Just as your siren’s belt is enchanted with magic you built up over time. He may have something … I’ve heard some Fandarsee are even hired to fly humans around in other cities. Most of the Fandarsee here would consider it beneath their
dignity, but you are a different case. You’re not just some traveling human.”
She had had so many dreams where she could fly with Alan. In those dreams, she had flown all by herself, like she was swimming through the clouds instead of the sea. But this would be close. She could wrap her arms around him and see the things he used to tell her about. The red rooftops, the bell towers, the mountain peaks …
“But it’s my father,” he said. “He’ll never agree.”
“I couldn’t anyway, I mean … my family expects me back, and—” But if she could bring Dosia home, what a triumph it would be. The joy it would bring the whole family was beyond imagining.
But it was an awfully generous suggestion for Alan to make.
“Besides, you can’t just leave the shop,” she said.
Alan scuffed his foot along the wooden floor. “My days here will have to come to an end sometime. My father wants me home. If I agree to that once this is over, I bet he would assist us.”
It still seemed far too abrupt, and far too generous, for Alan to make helping her his last act before submitting to his father’s desires. “No,” she said, shaking her head. “Going home is one thing, but it’s another to take me on some impossible trek to the mountains. I’ve seen no evidence that you even missed me!”
“It isn’t … that I didn’t miss you,” he said carefully. “It’s that I’ve been trying so hard to forget you.”
To forget her?
“My visits to you were the most wonderful time in my life, but they were an escape. I couldn’t keep visiting you forever. Nothing could ever come of it. You know it as well as I do.”
Her breath caught in her chest. “But—”
“We had a proper good-bye. It was best ended there. So when you turned up again—I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t want to remember those days. I didn’t want another good-bye like that last one.”
Esmerine had never known if he really missed her. At their last parting, she had wept and he had been stoic, saying again and again that it was for the best. Now she saw it differently. If he couldn’t even tell his father he’d known her, he must have needed to act stoic, to go home and pretend nothing had happened.
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