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“Oh, I am well. I am learning so very much. Father?—”
I squeezed her hand. “Alliyah. I won’t tell anyone what you say to me, I swear to you.”
She ducked her head, her curls clinging to her face like a protective shield.
I’d never been known for my patience. Nurse had frequently lamented that my temper could be outdone only by that of the Sea King—not something she ever would have dared to acknowledge in his presence. But nonetheless, I forced myself to swim in place, waiting for her. I could not have said how long it took, but eventually she became persuaded that I was not going anywhere and lifted her head to face me again.
“I am to marry,” she whispered through hardly moving lips. “And I hear he is a fierce merman.”
He would have to be, I realized, to protect the kingdom. But I knew such a union was not what my soft, gentle sister would have desired for herself.
“Perhaps he is only fierce to his enemies,” I suggested.
Right before my eyes, my sister began to tremble. “Ari, I… I don’t want this.”
And for a moment, I became the older sister. I took her in my arms, doing my best impression of Nurse, and held her, stroking her hair, and gently shushing.
When she pulled away, she looked, well, if not happier, then at least resolved. “I suppose I’ll make do.”
“Of course you will, Ally.” It was a nickname I’d not used in years. “And just think how our kingdom, and the Merpeople, will rejoice to have a Sea Queen so kind and generous.”
She smiled at last. “I… I had not thought of that. Thank you, sister.”
I squeezed her hand one more time, happy to have cheered her a little. “Ally…”
“Yes?”
Not quite sure how to ask, I cleared my throat. Then, feeling her eyes on my face, I decided it would be best to just go for it. “I cannot find Nurse. I’ve looked everywhere I can think of. Do you…”
Her face, always porcelain, went pale.
Nothing else needed to be said. And yet, I felt a word wrench from my lips anyway. “No!”
“I am so sorry, Ari.”
I tried to pull away from her, but her grip tightened and she held me fast.
“I am so very sorry.”
“No! It… it can’t be… he wouldn’t…” My words tumbled over one another, and there were more, so many more, words of horror and denial. But I would not remember them. All I would remember—that I would never be free of, I feared—was a quaking that began in my core and spiraled throughout my body until the very sea seemed to shake with me.
The years passed in a haze. I became like the shells that littered the ocean floor—pretty on the outside, fragile and easily broken on the inside. Perhaps it was even worse than that, for I hardly spoke. Indeed, as the days passed and piled atop one another, it seemed to me that I ceased to feel.
I wouldn’t be able to remember how I got back to my room after that fateful conversation with my older sister. I never spoke of my nurse to another soul—not even whispers to the fish who could speak to no one. Yet, word got around. Sad, pitying expressions seemed to follow me everywhere I went, so I stopped leaving my quarters. There were days the only Merpeople I saw were the guards posted outside who checked on me every few hours.
My sisters tried to cheer me up. They brought me trinkets that they found from above the surface, or things Earth Dwellers had lost to the sea. In time, I had quite the collection but even these items, as strangely beautiful as they were, did not cheer me.
Even more time crept by and hardly anyone came to see me anymore. There was a strange flounder that seemed to keep getting lost and swimming by my quarters. In my desperately hollow state, I nearly imagined him a friend.
Then there came a day where I could bear it no longer. My birthday had passed weeks ago—my sisters had come in a parade bearing gifts and it was not until one of them remarked on the occasion that I even realized what day it was. I was now eighteen.
And whether it was because I was weak from my forced seclusion, lack of exercise, or only consuming enough nourishment to stay alive, I could swear I heard my mother’s voice. It rang out clear, seeming to fill my shrinking quarters: You are different. This can make life hard in some ways, Ari, or you can choose to let this difference be your strength.
Would my mother stay in her room day after day, sulking and dwindling to nothing, even if the Sea King had punished her?
No. The answer came to me, from somewhere deep inside, and I knew it for truth even without my mother here to ask.
Would my father follow unjust orders?
