More than anything she can promise me.
But I will need something more in return. The magic may no longer require a life, but it still demands a sacrifice. In the years since, I have learned this, and much else.
And I know what I must take.
“I must know that you will only tell the truth above,” I say finally.
The little mermaid is so surprised that it takes her a moment to understand what I mean: that I will help her. When she does, her reply is immediate.
“I will—”
“Do not answer so quickly. What you ask is a serious request.” The girl concedes, her lips drawing shut, thoughtfulness sewn tightly into her skin. Good. “Once you have become a human, you can never become a mermaid again. You can never see the palace again. Your father. Your mother. Your sisters. Everything you know and love—save for this prince—will no longer be yours.”
The girl blanches. Her blue eyes fade to the middle distance. For all the time she spent thinking before making her request, plucking those flowers from her garden, summoning the courage to swim past the polypi and above the turfmoor, this is something that never crossed her mind. I had heard that the sea king had destroyed the ledgers with the story of Queen Mette, hiding history so that it could not become the future. This girl proves that. If she could have researched more, she would have.
After several moments, her eyes return to my face. Resolute.
“I will do it.”
“Very well. But I must be paid also—and it is not a trifle that I ask.”
The girl lights up. “I can give you whatever you want,” she says. “Gems, jewelry, the finest pearls—please.” Privilege and things define the life she hopes to leave.
I don’t need pearls. The one from long ago had held enough false promises for a lifetime.
“I only ask for one thing: your voice.”
The girl’s fingers immediately fly to her throat. “My voice?”
“It is imperative that you do not tell a lie above.”
“I won’t lie.”
I cock a brow at her. “You won’t without a voice, will you? And if you write a lie while above, your fingers shall fall off.”
The girl swallows hard. “If the price is my voice—though I shall not tell a lie—how . . . how . . . ?”
“You’ll have your beautiful form, your graceful walk, and your expressive eyes,” I say, lowering my intonation in the way of Tante Hansa so long ago. “Surely, if you are willing to brave my dark magic and leave your family and friends without a word, you can communicate to your true love without a word as well.”
The little mermaid’s lips snap shut, her mind working furiously for another way.
My brow arches higher. “Unless you fear his love is not true?”
“It is! It is. He is my true love. Take my voice! Take it! It is worth the cost!”
I slither a tentacle to her face and tip up her chin. There is something else in her eyes—not just fear or longing or love. “Do you really love him or do you love the idea of being human?”
The girl’s pupils bloom and her jaw stiffens. Finally, brave thing, she speaks without looking away. “What is it like—to be human?”
I won’t give her a bag of saltlakrids and tell her a magnificent story—I am not her grandmother.
If I were, I could tell her that it’s like the tang of summer wine and the ring of voices as a new ship docks. Like the scent of salt and limes and the twinkle of a boy’s eyes just before a kiss in the moonlight.
But I don’t say that. I can’t.
If she loses her voice in proving her love, then so be it.
“Very well.” I slide my tentacle to her waist and pull her even closer. And suddenly it’s as if the girl’s voice is already gone, her lips dropped open, no sound escaping. I place my fingers to her bare throat, luminous and elegant even in the bleak light of my home—a pearl shining in the murky depths. Her pulse thrums beneath her warm skin, the first true heartbeat I’ve felt since Anna’s faded in my grasp. “Tell me exactly what it is you love about this Niklas.”
“You . . . you just want me to talk?”
“You will have your voice for only a few more moments, my dear. Use the time wisely.”
The girl swallows again and then takes a heavy breath.
“I first saw Niklas on the day I turned fifteen. It could be called love at first sight—but I’d seen his face before. In a statue I’ve had in my castle garden since I turned ten. Those red flowers I brought you, they grow—”
“Yes, the Øldenburgs love their statues,” I say, sounding again very much like Hansa. “There is yet to be love in this story. Only coincidence and horticulture.”
The girl licks her lips and recasts. “I stayed beside the boat all night, watching this boy. Then, after midnight, a great storm came, waves crashing down so hard, the ship toppled onto its side. The sailors were in the water, but I didn’t see the boy.” Here, her voice hitches. “I dove down until I found him. His limbs were failing him and his eyes were closed. I pulled him up to the surface and held his head above water. We stayed like that the whole night. And when the sun returned and the ocean calmed, I kissed his forehead and swam him to land.”
Reflexively, my tentacle tightens around her waist as I’m reminded of Annemette, even though I’ve read enough to know this story by heart. A storm, a shipwreck, a savior.
“And?” I ask.
“I placed him on a beach beside a great building. I stayed to watch, hiding among some rocks, covered in sea foam. Soon, a beautiful girl found him and sounded the alarm. I knew then that he would live. He awoke, and was smiling at the girl.”
“No smile for you?”
“No.” The determination returns to her voice. “But I wanted that smile—I want it now. I want him to know that I saved him. That I love him. And I want him to love me.”
Ah. She’s lied to me.
“But you said he already does.”
The girl looks away, caught. Finally, she continues. “For the past year, I’ve watched him. And I know if I could just be human, he would love me. He thinks he’s in love with the girl from the beach, but I saved him. I saved Niklas.”
Like Anna, this girl believes she deserves something and she’s willing to risk her life and all she knows for it. But this girl doesn’t crave revenge.
She wants a happily ever after.
And for that, I cannot blame her. Even after all these years, I still wish for my own.
“It is very stupid of you,” I say finally, “but you shall have your way.”
And so, I recall my mother’s dying spell. The one she used to save me from myself.
“Gefa.”
The little mermaid’s eyes spring open. She shirks back—getting nowhere in my tentacle’s grasp, pale fingers flying to her throat. An invisible heaviness settles within my hands—her beautiful voice weighing on the lines webbing across my palms. Heart, life, fate.
I release her and turn to my cauldron, fashioned from sand and magic.
In goes the girl’s voice, a brilliant white light in the dark.
The cauldron glows. I retrieve a swordfish spear from my cave, and hold it over the spring, sterilizing it. I am lonely, but I am clean. Then, leaning over the bubbling cauldron, I prick the skin of my breast, just above my heart. A life is no longer needed, true, but this dark magic still feeds on sacrifice. Like anything of power.
Blood as black as midnight oozes into the murk. Molasses slow, it slinks into the pot, slithering through the white light of the girl’s voice. As they mix and mingle, they heat the pot together, pushing the temperature up until the cauldron itself is a fireball, a comet come to rest at the bottom of the cove.
Steam rises, curling above the brilliance. As it does, it swirls and dances, forming shadows like the worst of night. The polypi forest parts for the horrid shapes, wanting no measure of their magic.
I prepare the words I’ve learned, the ones Anna used to regain her legs and seek reven
ge. Ones that won’t work for me, strange magic that I am, tied to this cove.
“Líf. Dau∂i. Minn líf. Minn bjo∂. Sei∂r. Sei∂r. Sei∂r.”
The cauldron begins to tremble, the contents swirling round and round under great pressure. Coming on like life itself.
An explosion like a dying star rockets forth, rippling through the cove with such heat the water evaporates in a plume of smoke and steam. White foam settles around us in a swath running the length of my home. It all smells of sulfur, the stench heavy enough that it burns my nose and the back of my throat. When the foam and light clear, I see the little mermaid has turned away, arms flung over her head in protection. I don’t blame her.
I dip a small bottle—another long-ago present from Tante Hansa—into the vat. The draught shimmers like moonglow and sunlight trapped under glass.
“There it is for you,” I say, holding it out to the girl. She drops her arms at the sound, whirling around, so afraid that she didn’t realize what was happening until I spoke. “Drink it down, and you will gain legs for four days. If your love is true, so much so that your prince loves you with his whole soul, you will stay in human form for the rest of your days. If you do not win his love, you will become but foam in the tide.”
The girl’s lips drop open to respond and her tongue begins to move. It takes a few moments before she remembers that no sound will ever come from her mouth again. Regret floods into my chest, but my tentacles float into view and the feeling immediately disperses.
Lies ruined my life as much as they ruined Anna’s. Nik’s.
With shaking fingers, the girl takes the bottle. Fear has returned to her eyes, but the deed is done. Only her determination and love will do.
“Take the draught in the shallows. It would be a waste if you drowned before you could get to land.” The girl nods. “Go now. Visit your family one last time. You won’t regret the good-bye.” Again, she nods, and I know she will do it. Losing them was more of a surprise than losing her voice. Maybe even her life.
She turns to go, but then I call out for her to stop.
No one knows me, it’s true, but I am still Evie. And for all my fearsome reputation, for all my years and loneliness, I’m not heartless.
I retrieve from my cave a gown from long ago—one from a trunk I found submerged in the cove after I arrived. Back then, the cool scent of Annemette’s magic still draped across the wood and latches, and maybe that was why the fabric remained undamaged. I quickly whisper a spell that will keep it dry until she surfaces.
“Take this with you. It will help if you look the part.”
It is all I can do.
Hopefully the magic is kind.
I know the magic well enough now not to expect a happy ending. The fairy tales of my childhood are the exception, not the rule. It’s a wonder there aren’t more creatures like me in this world.
And so, I return to my cave, the new silence ringing in my ears. Somehow, it’s more painful than before. As if hearing a new voice, regaining the shortest moment of humanity, has torn open the wound that is my loneliness. Leaving it gaping. Festering. Infected.
But in truth, I am not alone. No, the polypi are living and breathing in this murky place, fashioned from the spirits who tried to kill me. My dark life tied to their souls.
Lining the cauldron is a smear of shimmering light, what is left of my payment. The girl’s voice. Only a drop was needed for the draught, her body paying the price for the remainder of the magic.
I scour my hands across the cauldron’s belly, collecting the voice until its weight has returned to my palms. The white light dances, its glow reflecting across the cove, illuminating my forest, my cave, my own dark form.
It is truly something special.
Maybe it’s the new silence or the memories that swirl in the front of my mind. Maybe it’s simply that enough time has passed.
But I know exactly what I will do with this gift.
And so, I turn to the largest polypi. The one planted next to my cave. The last body to drift below.
When I give the command, I know the magic will listen. That it will know what I want. I feel its power surging from the tips of my tentacles to the roots of my hair.
“Líf. Líf.”
The girl’s voice sweeps forth, floating up, up, up, until it settles into the top of the strange tree’s trunk where the branches shoot off into the flat black murk.
It settles and becomes one with the polypi. And, after a moment, there is a deep breath, all the heads in the branches inhaling seawater in time. And then the little mermaid’s voice speaks with the thoughts of another little mermaid from long ago. One tied to me here silently, fifty years since I sprouted tentacles from my waist.
When the voice comes, it’s direct and focused on what just occurred. She has centuries left to dredge up what happened when we were human.
“She will fail. He loves another. That mountain will not move in four days.”
“I know.” And I do. I hope she will not fail, but I also cannot forget what my mother did for me. What I did for Nik. What Anna’s family would’ve done for her had they been given the chance. “But her family will not let her go so easily.” They’ll come begging for a way to save her.
When I return from my lair with a deadly length of coral, Anna understands. “Make it sharp. The blood must fall on her feet—if she will use it at all.”
And so, I prepare the knife. Because though magic can shape life and death, love is the one thing it cannot control.
Acknowledgments
Ever since my parents introduced me to Cat’s Cradle, I’ve always been drawn to the idea of Kurt Vonnegut’s “karass”—a group of people cosmically, inextricably linked together. Yeah, I know it’s a term coined as part of a fake religion and sort of silly, but I do think the fates put people together for a reason. Call it a karass or something else entirely, but the following human beings are in my life for a reason, and I love them in their own ways. Without them my life would be considerably less full.
To my lovely editor, Maria Barbo, whose magical imagination made Evie’s world possible. I can’t thank you enough for your faith in me.
To Katherine Tegen, our fearless leader; Rebecca Aronson with her queries and smiley faces; copy editor Maya Myers for her sharp eye and grace in weathering my hatred of the Oxford comma (journalists unite!); production editor Emily Rader for her steady hand; Heather Daugherty and Amy Ryan for their beautiful book design; Anna Dittmann for her stunning/haunting/perfect rendering of Evie; and to the rest of the Katherine Tegen Books and HarperCollins team.
To Rachel Ekstrom, my agent/cheering section/grounding force, who always greets myself and my work with enthusiasm and guidance. And to the rest of the IGLA family, most especially Barbara Poelle, for their support, humor, and belief in me.
To Joy Callaway, my ray of forever sunshine—you’ve made a difference for me every single day. You know exactly when to text, call, make me laugh. Your grace and friendship are truly inspiring.
To Renée Ahdieh, leader of my pack—wisest, chicest, most altruistic rock star in the world. You’re part sister, part fairy godmother, and 100 percent diamond dust.
To Rebecca Coffindaffer, who has a habit of murdering off my characters before I even realize there should be blood on my hands. To Natalie Parker and Tessa Gratton—my coven elders, who vetted my magical system with wisdom, wit, and cold LaCroix. Additionally, to all the Kansas writers I’m lucky enough to know. Our time together is like the best of college—nights spent dissecting the art of writing in the most delicate and interesting ways. Plus, you all have amazing taste in snacks.
To Julie Tollefson, Christie Hall, and Christy Little for the hours upon hours spent huddling with me in the freezing-but-delicious confines of T. Loft. To Marie Hogebrant for pinch-hitting in Old Norse.
To Kellye Garrett, my fictionally murderous sister-in-arms, always one text away. To Randy Shemanski, keeping me sane over email for twelve years and counting. To
Whitney Schneider, Nicole Green, Laurie Euler, Coleen Shaw-Voeks, Colinda Warner, and my passel of Trail Hawks for the endless sweaty miles and even sweatier hugs. To Jennifer Gunby and Cory “Cass Anaya” Johnson, who awoke my imagination early and never let me get away with a boring scene.
To Ricki Schultz, Danielle Paige, Zoraida Córdova, Dhonielle Clayton, Brenda Drake, the Sarahs—Lemon, Cannon, Jae-Jones, Smarsh, Blair, Fox—and everyone else in my life, for their various cameos during this journey over the hill and through the woods. In ways big and small you kept my sanity with humor, love, and light.
To my parents, Craig and Mary Warren, for being the best dream enablers out there. You kept me in construction paper when my “books” were stapled-together crayon drawings, and never let up when actual words found their way to the page. I’d be nowhere without you. To Nate, Amalia, and Emmie, and the stories you’re unfurling before our eyes. To Meagan, our missing piece. So it goes.
And, finally, to Justin. My IT department, my chocolate pretzel supplier, my kid-wrangler. My heart. Without you, literally none of this would be possible. I’m so glad you’re here with me on this journey. I couldn’t imagine setting sail with anyone else.
About the Author
PHOTO BY FALLY AFANI
SARAH HENNING is a recovering journalist who has worked for the Palm Beach Post, the Kansas City Star, and the Associated Press, among others. When not hunched over her computer, she runs ultramarathons, hangs out with her husband, Justin, and goes on absurdly long walks with her two adorable kids. Sarah lives in Lawrence, Kansas, hometown of Langston Hughes, William S. Burroughs, and a really good basketball team. This is her first novel. You can visit her online at www.sarahhenningwrites.com.
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Books by Sarah Henning
Sea Witch
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