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“You will have three days—no more, no less—to secure the heart of the one you seek. If you fail to do this by midnight on the third day, you will die.”
A gasp lodged in my throat.
She saw it and smiled. An evil, curved thing her mouth was. “You say there’s nothing left for you here, Princess. A good thing, to be sure, for you will never see your family again. If you succeed in this aim of yours, wild as it is, you will have a new family. And if you don’t—” She shrugged. “You will die.”
“Will it hurt?” The words came out in a childish whisper.
“How should I know?” she boomed, loud enough to make me jump. “Do I look dead to you?”
Her question—indeed, her very manner—shocked me. I was not used to being spoken to so by anyone, and her confidence unnerved me. Add all the rest and she was the thing of nightmares. “N-no, but?—”
“Now, we still have the matter of payment.”
My mouth dropped open in surprise. Somehow, it had not even occurred to me that she would expect to be paid for her services. But now as I looked about her tiny, dark cave, it occurred to me that this must be how she got food to eat.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t think to bring any money with me. I would go back to the palace, but…” My teeth sunk down into my bottom lip as I tried to figure out how to pay her.
She waved a hand airily. “Not to worry. What I want isn’t something you can get back at the palace. In fact, you carried it with you today.”
My brow furrowed. “What? I don’t have?—”
“Your voice, child. I will have it, or we have no deal.”
“But… I can’t… I don’t understand.” I was so confused, I shook my head to clear the thoughts. “Why?”
Her smile was humorless. “You think I am a fool? Everyone knows that mermaids can seduce a man with a single syllable of song, and I hear your voice is better than most.”
“Oh. But how—” A premonition came to me, and I shuddered, not even bothering to try and hide it this time. “You’re not going to cut out my tongue, are you?”
The Sea Witch scoffed. “Of course not. That’s barbaric.”
Relieved, I exhaled. “Then how?”
“I shall give you a potion, and it will seal your voice.” She turned and swam a bit away, rifling on a shelf of dirty, dusty objects that I hadn’t noticed before. When she returned, she held a shell out toward me. I was surprised to see it was glittering iridescently.
“You’ll… you’ll put my voice in that?”
She simply nodded.
Suddenly, my nurse’s long-ago words came back to me. “But… shells are fragile.”
“Shells are tough things indeed,” she countered. “But I will take the utmost care of it. I promise.”
My eyes snapped up to her face and for the first time since this had begun, I felt some sense of ease. I knew she would do as she said. “Okay.”
“If you gain the heart of the one you seek—which I have to tell you, is highly unlikely—then your voice will return after three days.” Suddenly, she hesitated. She pinned me with a shrewd, assessing look. “Are you absolutely certain this is what you want? Humans are not like us. They are… well, they have emotions that are stronger than ours, and if you become one of them, you will lose as much as you hope to gain, perhaps more.”
Surprised, I looked closer at her. She almost looked… sympathetic? No, that couldn’t be. Could it? I narrowed my eyes, trying to read her as she so easily read me. But as soon as the thought crossed my mind, whatever I’d seen on her face was gone.
“I can see there will be no changing your mind.” She smiled, but it looked more sad than scary this time.
Stop imagining things, Ari! I scolded myself, shaking my head.
“Yes. You are right about me. There is no turning back or changing my mind,” I said, determined to see this through and begin my life. The one I was truly meant to have.
Without another word between us, she began to work. I watched as she uncovered pots and tiny jars, throwing in this and that and muttering a strange, lulling song to herself.
In all the chaos, in the most unlikely of places, I felt my eyes growing heavy. I tried to force them back open, watching as she hummed and stirred. The harder I fought, the heavier my eyes got. The last thing I remembered was the smell of something rising from the cauldron. The scent wafted over to me, smelling of everything I’d ever experienced in my life: the scent of the ocean, flowers from my sister’s garden, the first time I’d broken through the surface and smelled fresh air.
