It was a moonless night, and soon the little mermaid became disoriented, and lost her bearings. The boat stopped in the cold, pre-dawn hours and the mermaid waited, shivering. An anchor dropped beside her, the rope unravelling until it could unravel no more - futile really, for the ocean was too deep. Still, she coiled her tail around it for support, for she was growing weary. Her eyes were fixed on the surface, and she waited.
Suddenly, something plunged into the ocean and began to sink. Frightened, the little mermaid froze, unwilling to move and alert a potential predator. But the dark mass did not acknowledge her, and continued its descent, occasionally struggling and writhing in the water. Gingerly, the little mermaid approached it. As she began to realise what it was, fascination overcame her, for surely it was her Prince! She was filled with joy, for she was undoubtedly the reason for all this! He had noticed her outside his window all along, and wooed her with his song, and upon discovery of what she was, had made arrangements to be with her! But her victorious elation soon gave way to a gnawing horror as she noticed that his hands and feet were clumsily bound together, as if self-done, and that he had attempted to wind and knot the cloak over himself, like gift-wrap. And the wise words of her nanny came back to her, “They drown because they cannot breathe the water.”
Hastily, she grabbed at the Prince and shook him. His eyes did not open, and his head fell so far back that she could see the beautiful gobbet of his throat. Struggling with all her might, she grasped at the cloak and began to drag him toward the surface. But all she succeeded in doing was unravelling it, and the Prince plummeted further into the depths. Panicked, she chased after him and finally managed to insert her head into the crook of his underarm. Pushing against his elbow and waist, she used every ounce of might to propel him upward, wondering in the back of her mind how long humans could survive without air.
Finally, she pushed him through the last barrier and positioned him on his back upon the water’s surface, holding his head in her hands and willing him to breathe. He did not. She shook him, bewildered, unwilling to let go. She craned her head to find the boat but the sea was covered with a thick fog. It was impossible. Eventually, her head bent close over his, she detected his shallow, minute breathing.
Slowly, she began to drag the Prince away, for she was aware he was freezing, his fingers were icy and still. She did not know where land was, and was unfamiliar with the path of the sun, so she lugged his body with her remaining energy to wherever she reckoned land may be. She tried to calm herself, to still the thumping creature inside her, and tried to ignore the questions – what was he trying to do? Was he trying to die? On and on she hauled the Prince, stopping every now and then to check his breathing, which was ragged and shallow. She heard the cries of the flying fish and was encouraged, and all around her the seas turned to a pale gold and she realised dawn was coming.
Through the mist, she saw a tower and inside that tower was a bell. With aching arms she heaved him onto the beach, and collapsed beside him.
The sound of chimes awoke her and hastily she hoisted herself upright, bending her head toward the Prince’s, satisfied to hear his strong, regular breathing. There was something else too, the sound of beating, a very dull and muffled sound that filled the space between them. Alert now, with the God climbing higher in the sky, she fumbled with the ropes tied crudely around the boy’s limbs, and after much ado completed freeing his wrists and ankles. Sighing with relief, she gazed down at him and was contented to see the glow had returned to his cheek and the warmth to his forehead. She reached out a hand, very tentatively, and ran it lightly over his face, so delicately it was certain he could not feel it. But he opened his eyes.
He was dazed and confused and his first thought was that she did not look at all how he had imagined the beings, and he opened his mouth to say so. But at that moment, the peal of bells overcame him, as did the sound of many footsteps, and there were cries overhead and a great deal of splashing. Slipping back into unconciousness, he did not see the stream of uniformed girls surround him, screaming and gaggling so furiously that two formidable nuns were required to subdue them. Some of the girls they managed to order back to their dormitories, and some slipped away out of a sense of duty to the morning mass, but one in particular stayed behind and watched solemnly as the Mother Superior herself pumped the boy’s chest and laid her head against it for a heart beat.
It was this girl, this very neat and tidy and ordinary girl, that the Prince remembered for years to come, when he was no longer prince but king of all the land, and one of the greatest kings that the realm would ever know. He would eventually lean against the armrest of his throne and recall the way she stood so still, her hands perfectly folded inside the other. The way her great eyes absorbed him without so much as blinking, and especially the way she seemed so small, so inconsequential, at the convent where the oranges grew.
Seven
What Lies in the Bloodstream
There was something dreadfully wrong. The little mermaid could feel it in her every blood cell, in every gulp of water inhaled and filtered by those infernal gills. Nothing tasted the same and the food certainly would not stay put in her stomach. All day long her innards churned, and her mind raced, and her soul longed. And the creature inside her chest, lodged between her ribcage, would beat so hard that she was sure her sisters would hear – and that would be a very bad thing, she decided. She had a creeping, guilty feeling it. She knew what had awakened it and that it was unnatural.
She had returned to the palace, night after night, and still there was no sign of the Prince. But the little mermaid was no fool, for she knew she had left him alive and eventually he would return. A liquid giddiness would fill her bloodstream when she thought his name and sometimes she whispered it in the dark. It was enough to chill her, and send her flying backwards through wild imaginings and scenes and daydreams, where she watched more than his Immortal Soul wind around her and breathe into her ear. She had memorised every contour of his face. Her fingers still tingled in memory of his skin. It was something dreadfully right.
She felt she would burst, and she had to tell someone. The little mermaid isolated the sixth princess one day and said, “Sister, what do you know of the sea-witch?”
The second youngest princess blinked her large, empty eyes and recited, “She is an evil woman who lives beyond the gorge. She is a collector of body parts and other horrible things. They say she drinks her own blood.”
“But she makes spells?”
“Yes, yes, but spells for the outcasts, potions for unnatural requests.”
The little mermaid was growing excited. “Unnatural? Like transformation? Or metamorphosis?”
“Yes, I suppose so. ”
“Or an Immortal Soul?”
“Perhaps, but nobody wants one of those.” Her sister was tiring of the conversation, as it did not revolve around food, beauty or herself.
“Sister,” said the little mermaid, lowering her voice, “do you know how to get there?”
“You will have to ask Father.”
“I want to keep it a secret. You understand, don’t you?”
The very old inbuilt alarm began to sound somewhere within her sister, the siren that was always intended for use but instead, lay deep inside each mer-person, covered in cobwebs. “Don’t go,” she said, her voice deepening, “Not even Father would go there. Don’t go.”