Between the Sea and Sky Page 16

  Then it seemed the universe was willing to oblige her. A hard gust of wind blew, almost tugging Ambra’s bonnet off her head, disturbing hairstyles and lifting a corner of the blanket right into a bowl of berries. One of the servants rushed to correct it, but Fiodor said, “No, no, just hurry on into the shed.”

  The skies opened before any of the servants could make it, but they scattered off, clutching their hats. The rain was slanting in, and Octavia and Ambra shrieked and moved closer to the center, shuffling aside dishes of food. Falling water roared on the roof of the canopy and poured off the sides in sheets.

  “Maybe we should have gone inside,” Dosia said. “My goodness!”

  Fiodor seemed to enjoy it. “It will be over soon, and in the meantime, none of you are made of paper!”

  No, but Esmerine felt as if she were made of water, and her body wanted to join with the rain, even if it wasn’t the water of home. Tickles and shivers ran down her arms and legs, and her head was full of the moist smell of it. Her toes convulsed, crying to be released from stocking and slippers. There was no way she would transform here, but the desire was so unbearable that she clutched her stomach and hunched forward, concentrating on the feel of her separate legs.

  “Esmerine, are you all right?” Dosia asked quietly.

  “Stomachache,” Esmerine said.

  “Chocolate is good for that,” Octavia said, offering a tiny confection.

  “No … thank you.” Did Dosia not understand? Maybe because she had given up her belt right away she had never felt a burning need to transform.

  Alan, on the other hand, had seen her desperation to transform when they landed on the island beach. He edged closer, and his eyes questioned hers. She shook her head a little. She didn’t know what else to do but fight it off and wait for the rain to stop.

  Everyone else was talking about how the sky looked and would it really pass soon and wasn’t it all sort of exciting. Esmerine stayed hunched, battling with herself, panicked by how perilously close she was to losing control. She had worn legs almost continuously for two weeks, suppressing her true form, and now her nature was howling at her through the wind and rain to be set free.

  Suddenly, the wind caught the canopy so sharply that it snapped free from two of its posts and fell on its side. Rain lashed Esmerine’s face and arms. The pastries were instantly sodden. All the girls screamed and scrambled for their bonnets while trying to save the food. The men grabbed at the canopy, trying to sort it out. Alan stood and leaned down to help her up, but the wind caught his wings and knocked him a step backward.

  Despite the chill rain now pattering on her skin, plastering layers of clothes against her, Esmerine’s body was hot with the exertion of holding back. Panicked, she grabbed the edge of Alan’s wing, a silent plea for him to help her, but before he could react, something inside her broke. She was going to transform and she couldn’t stop herself. With one last great effort, she shoved back the impulse, scrambled to her feet, and tore off into the woods. Her knees quickly gave out. Her bones were already shifting. Transformation had never felt this intense—her legs were searing with so much pain that her lips trembled and a moan escaped her throat. She tore off her shoes, and before she had removed her stockings all the way, her legs melted together. The torn stockings dangled off the fins where once her feet had been. She yanked them free, tossed them aside, and collapsed.

  Rain poured over her, pulling strands of limp hair across her eyes, trickling into her open mouth as she breathed hard with relief. In another moment, she became conscious of things poking her in places, and she pulled a few twigs out from under her. She pushed back her hair with shaky hands and managed to sit up and look back.

  She was out of the way, but not entirely out of sight. Fiodor and one of the other men were looking at her, and Dosia was pointing and shouting something, but the rain obscured both voices and vision, and for a moment Esmerine felt she was in another world, looking out at them as if through a window or an enchanted looking glass.

  Alan broke the spell, stepping into her world.

  His wings were folded tightly around his body so the wind wouldn’t catch them, but he had his left fingers curled around his eyes to protect them from the water running off his flattened hair. Esmerine recalled how her family feared being loomed over by him. She felt that way now, as he looked down at the fins that looked absurd spreading far beyond the hem of her dress.

  He had seen her as a mermaid a thousand times as a child, and again when she visited her family, but in this human place, in these human clothes, she felt sudden shame. She tried to will her tail back into legs, but her body refused to obey so utterly that it was as if she’d forgotten how.

  “Don’t look at me!” she gasped. Then she twisted away, hands braced against the moist leaves carpeting the ground. Her arms, her dress, her hair, her tail—all were dirty now, covered with brown flecks of forest detritus and smudges.

  He knelt beside her, folding a wing over her. “Esmerine.”

  “I don’t know what happened … I—I just lost control. I had to transform. All the water—I’ve been a human too long. I couldn’t stand it. And they all saw me, didn’t they? I look so ridiculous—all wrong—I don’t belong here!” She tried to look past him. “Are they still there? Tell them they can go. Tell them to please go.”

  “I told them I’d take care of you. They went to get out of the rain.” He swallowed hard, looking her over, anguish in his eyes. When she had legs, they could both pretend, for a moment, that she might belong here. Not now. She had never been close to him like this, as her true self.

  Her heart was pounding, and the rain roared in her ears. “You should go too.”

  “Why would I leave you alone in the rain?”

  “I want to be alone,” she said, but as soon as she said it, she knew she wanted the opposite. She turned around within his embrace, and slid a hand up to his collar, hooking her fingers around the soaked wool.

  “I don’t think you’re being quite honest with me,” he said.

  Alan kissed her then, and she shut her eyes against the rain as he held her as a mermaid. In that moment, the hard decisions were gone. She felt that he saw her as a merman would—not disgusted or seduced—but as a real person. And he touched her as a merman would, letting her curl against him, lying in the grass, only with more wonder, and a hint of thrilling fear. They were both afraid of what this moment would mean; she could feel it in him.

  It was one thing to kiss in the vineyard, in the middle of the night—inevitable that they would kiss that once, give in to a fleeting moment. This, though, was conscious, as if a new world had broken open. One of shared breath, of his fingers grazing her jaw and her ears, of her hands on his chest, feeling the lines of his rib cage and collarbone beneath his clothes, the solid realness of him—skin and bone and muscle.

  “Esmerine—” he said, leaving it unfinished.

  But what could he say? He couldn’t follow her to the sea. She was the one who had to say something.

  The sunlight moved in gently, and a heartbeat later the rain slowed but didn’t stop. The light was a blinding white as the drops reflected the sun, and the rain warmed.

  And then it stopped altogether, as quickly as it had started. Fiodor was right, it had been just a summer shower. The sun was golden again, the forest lush, like everything had woken from a dream. She briefly shut her eyes, clinging to the end of that moment in her life.

  “Alan,” she said. “I want to see what happens if I give you my belt.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  “Esmerine … I can’t take it.”

  “I know you said you don’t want it, but … that’s why I trust you. I know you understand the weight of it.” She clenched her hands. “You’ll always know who I am, even if I give it up for the rest of this life. I mean, your mother was a mermaid, and you’ve never been able to go underwater, so I’ll just be like you … and maybe I can still visit my family at the islands, and I can still wr
ite my book. I’ll share everything I remember with you.”

  “I want you,” he said. “Not an enchantment.”

  “But if I’m going to choose this life, I want to be able to move and dance in it—like Dosia. I don’t want to be in pain. I don’t want to … to transform like this.”

  He nodded, his expression grave. “All right. I’ll accept it.”

  She lifted the hem of her skirt and gathered it upward, exposing the shining length of silvery scales, blushing as she did so. It was funny, she reflected, how she could spend a lifetime as a mermaid without clothes, but as soon as she put them on the mere act of removing them seemed indecent, even to reveal fins Alan had seen many times.

  “Oh—it’s trapped under these dratted stays.”

  He leaned forward to peer at her back. “I can see the links between the laces. Is anyone coming? Maybe I can free it.”

  “The servants are going to return from the shed at some point. Just hurry.” She wanted it to be done. Would he act differently when he took the belt? Would her tail wrench back into legs?

  Alan managed to hook the belt with a finger, draw the clasp around, and unlatch it. He tugged it, and it slithered from around her waist and fell away. She gasped, anticipating—something. She didn’t feel any different.

  Now they were both blushing quite thoroughly.

  “That could have been planned better,” he muttered.

  “Something’s wrong. I’m still a mermaid.” She hesitated. “Do you feel any enchantment, holding it?”

  His expression was serious. “It’s warm. But not warm from your skin. Magic warm.” He ran his fingers along the links. “And it sings.”

  “It sings?”

  “Not with sound … It’s like a vibration deep in my skull. It’s spellwork, I think. I just don’t think it’s working how it should. Tell me, if a siren gives a merman her belt, what happens?”

  “Nothing. Unless she dies. Then her family can keep the belt and use its power.”

  “But what if she hasn’t died?” Alan asked. “What if she just wanted to give it to him?”

  “A siren wouldn’t give her belt to a merman while she lives because she would need the power herself.”

  “But you’ve given me your belt. And I am the son of a mermaid. Even if I have the body of a Fandarsee, I must be a merman somewhere in my heart, because your belt doesn’t enchant me.”

  “So even though I gave you my belt … its power is still mine? And my feet will still hurt.” She wasn’t sure whether to feel relief or sorrow.

  “What if I give you something?” He put his fingers atop hers, guiding her hand to his collar.

  Her fingers met something familiar—something tucked beneath his clothes, warmed by his skin. No—it was magic warm. The fine links of a siren’s belt. She lifted the gold out into the light. As Esmerine rubbed the chain with her thumb, she heard a wisp of song, captured in the belt.

  “Your mother’s belt?” she breathed. She had never touched another siren’s belt before. The day a mermaid entered training as a siren, her belt only left her waist once—during the siren’s ceremony—until she died. And of course, Dosia and Esmerine were the first sirens in their family. Esmerine had never felt the magic of another mermaid, and she instantly knew what Alan meant, for she sensed it herself—a vibration deep within her, like the roar of the waves pounding within her heart.

  “I needed stronger magic to be able to fly this long distance with you, so my father gave me my mother’s belt,” Alan said. “Your belt enhances my strength … maybe my mother’s belt is the magic you need to become fully human on land and still be able to return to the sea.”

  “But we each started with a belt, and we’d each end with a belt. How is it different?” Esmerine hardly dared hope there really could be a way to be a part of the land and the sea …

  “Yes, but there is a power in each of us giving one another something so precious, as opposed to merely having the siren’s belts we each started with.”

  “You would really give me your mother’s belt?”

  “The greatest gift my mother could give me is the freedom for you to be a mermaid and a human.”

  Alan lifted the belt over his head, unfastened the clasp, and slipped it around her neck, looking straight at her with dear dark eyes. As the weight of the chain fell on her breastbone she felt a surge of power, the warm, bittersweet power of love that lasts through death and distance.

  She placed her belt around his neck, tucking it beneath his collar where his mother’s belt had been.

  Now when she pushed the change, her tail obediently split. She trembled in Alan’s grasp as her bones shifted, her scales melted away, and her fins curled into toes. She could tell right away that it was different this time. It didn’t ache the same way. She could hear the faint song of the ocean inside her.

  Her breath shuddered. She threw her arms around his neck. “Alan, I feel it. It’s working.”

  “You’re not even on your feet yet.”

  “But I know already.” She was starting to cry, and then shiver, and she clutched his damp hair. She was still crying when she started to laugh.

  “I want to see you walk!” he said, pulling her to her feet.

  She knew the pain would be gone, but it was still shocking to feel nothing but her feet on the soft forest floor, no searing or aching or tickling, besides that her skin was sensitive without shoes. Hand in hand, Alan and Esmerine ran across the clearing, and for the first time in her life, she could keep pace with her oldest friend.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  When they emerged from the woodland path, Dosia was framed by an open back door of the villa, her concern plain from her hesitant stance even before Esmerine could clearly see her face. Esmerine thought of limping forward and surprising her, but she was too excited to slow her steps or hide her smile. Dosia ran to meet her.

  “What happened? My goodness, but you’re both soaked!”

  Esmerine threw her arms around her sister, almost too giddy to speak, so Alan had to tell much of the story. His version was very dry, but that was all right. She’d give Dosia the details later.

  “I could teach you human dances!” Dosia said.

  “Well …” Esmerine glanced at Alan. They hadn’t talked over their future plans at all. “If I’m going to stay on the surface world, I should tell Mother and Father right away. I can visit you again soon, but they’ll be very worried.”

  “That’s true,” Dosia said. “I’m just not ready for you to leave yet. But promise to visit again. And let me give you some money to take to them … they can exchange it with the traders and get proper window nets.”

  Alan nodded. “It’s just three days from Sormesen to here. Maybe two, if flying together becomes easier. Of course, we should stay for dinner. No sense leaving until morning. So Esmerine can start her dancing lessons, if you like, just leave me out of it.”

  “Leave you out of it!” Esmerine protested.

  “I don’t care for dancing.”

  “Do you know how?”

  “Well … Fandarsee don’t dance.”

  “But mermaids do. Consider it research for our book.”

  Esmerine was by no means a natural at human dances, and yet it was so glorious to move freely, without any pain, that she felt almost as if she were flying. Human dances were understandably less fluid than mermaid dances, and seemed mostly a matter of memorization—keeping track of whose hand to take and which side to turn to and what foot to place where. Alan frowned his way through, possibly because they periodically had to link hands with other partners, and no girl seemed capable of touching his wing without giggling except Christina, who came with her own set of problems.

  “Christina grabs me like she’s about to arm wrestle,” Alan muttered during a break, sipping his wine while tucking his right fingers beneath the collar of his vest, as if they could hide out there until the dancing ended.

  Esmerine didn’t enjoy swapping partners either; the dr
unk man had a very sweaty hand, and Fiodor was always talking, but she couldn’t hear half of it over Octavia hammering the pianoforte.

  It was all great fun, and yet Esmerine was anxious for the day to end. Worries began to drift through her mind—what would Alan’s father say? Alan had sworn to return when their trip to the Diels ended. Could he forbid their relationship? And her family—her heart sank when she thought of explaining. How disappointed would the other sirens be?

  “I’ll be known for the rest of my life as that strange mermaid who ran off with a Fandarsee,” she wailed to Dosia in the middle of the night. They should have been sleeping hours ago, but there was too much to talk about.

  “Oh, darling, there are much, much worse things to be,” said Dosia.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Once upon a time Esmerine had come to the island to play and had seen a boy on her beach. A boy with wings and a book tucked in his vest. A magical boy who made her heart ache, who made her young self understand what yearning meant.

  Now her island was the place she would marry that boy.

  Dosia loaned her own wedding dress of white striped silk with a white petticoat underneath, and beaded slippers. Esmerine sat on a rock while Dosia pinned her hair in complicated coils and pinned flowers in strategic places. She fastened a delicate necklace of blue and silver beads around her neck. “Don’t look so worried,” Dosia said. “You look absolutely lovely. Like a girl in a painting or a sonnet. I wish we had a mirror.”

  Esmerine shivered with anxiety. “It’s not going to be a fine wedding by anyone’s standards. At first Alan’s father wasn’t even going to attend unless we had it in the Floating City.”

  “What changed his mind?”

  “Alan’s little sister! She has a great talent when it comes to handling him. Alan and I have been working on a little writing together …” She hadn’t intended to tell a soul about her book about mermaids until it was perfect. “And she told me to give him a copy of what I’ve written so far. Apparently he’s only impressed with mermaids if they’re sufficiently intellectual.”