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 thealarm. 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 Iknowif 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 fingersflying 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 revenge. 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.”
