The waves, heavy and exuberant, churned in the strong wind, tossing themselves at the girls’ ankles—bare without anyone there to correct them. The boy’s boots were on—his feet were gangly and hairy in a way they hadn’t been last summer, and he didn’t want the girls to see. He stayed on dry sand, just beyond the waves’ reach, coal-dark eyes pinned on the girls’ delicate toes, which also seemed to have changed in a year, but only maybe in the way he couldn’t look away from the flash of skin beneath their skirts.
They went on like that until the girls suddenly stopped—singing, prancing, everything—so suddenly that the boy bumped into the raven-curled girl’s back. She laughed it off, but both girls’ eyes were locked on the sea. Watching the whitecaps with wonder, adventure flashing in their eyes.
The one with the blond waves and ocean-blue eyes spoke first. “She’s angry—foaming at the mouth.”
“Are you calling the sea a rabid dog?” asked the raven-haired one. “She wouldn’t like that much.”
“I suppose not.”
A black brow pitched above eyes blue like midnight. “Touch the sandbar and return to shore?” She smiled, lips pinned in a slight twist. “Dare you.”
The blond girl considered it, chewing on her lip, reading the waves. Finally, in answer, she began unlacing her dress’s bodice.
The boy sat on the sand behind the girls, playing the piccolo so they’d think he was distracted, not paying an inch of attention to them as they stripped to their petticoats. Even in surreptitious glances, their shoulders and arms were things of beauty, smooth as the marble statues his mother had commissioned for the tulip garden. So beautiful they made his cheeks hot. He knew he should not look—it wasn’t right, not at the age they were getting to be—but still, he watched.
The blond girl watched back, her eyes finding him, cheeks pinking as her clothes fell to the sand. The raven-curled girl thwacked her on the shoulder, dark eyes big and knowing. No secrets between friends, except those in plain sight.
When the girls were ready, they stood, dresses neatly folded, and pointed slim fingers toward the sea.
On the count of three, they were gone.
5
I DON’T BELIEVE IN MERMAIDS. I DON’T. THEY ARE JUST an abomination ancients like Tante Hansa dream up to keep children from doing especially dim-witted things. If you touch that hot pot . . . if you eat that whole cake . . . if you take that candy . . . the mermaids will steal you away. We’re superstitious, children of the sea, but we’re not gullible.
Mermaids don’t exist.
But I know what I saw. I know who I saw.
Nik, for his part, doesn’t seem to remember much. He thinks I rescued him. He thinks I sang to him.
It’s been more than a day, and I still haven’t told him that he’s lost his mind if he thinks that’s what happened. Mostly because I don’t have an answer to what really did. None of it makes any sense.
No, I don’t believe in mermaids.
But I do have a strong belief in friendship—more than anything in this world.
I believed it with Anna.
And I believe it with Nik.
Iker—I don’t know what to think of Iker, though he’s standing right before me on the royal dock, borrowed crew packing a borrowed ship behind him.
“Come—the sea calls.” Iker brushes away a few of my curls and cups his hand about my ear as if to amplify the sea’s ancient voice. He leans down, his cheek brushing right against mine, his lips warm next to my skin as he whispers, “Evelynnnnn.”
His enthusiasm makes my heart skip, and I wish I could go, but Father is leaving this morning as well, and he hates the idea of me being aboard a different ship while he is at sea too. He’s superstitious to a fault, even if it’s just for a quick trip up the Jutland and back before Sankt Hans Aften and the opening of the Lithasblot festival. Iker is enchanted by sightings of a large whale—one that would feed Rigeby Bay for weeks in both meals and trade. I hate it, but I know Iker must go—the seafaring season waits for no one, not even a prince.
“I’m so very sorry to disappoint,” I say. And I am. This time with him has been strangely magical, even if all we’ve done is sit with Nik, telling stories to make him smile as he recovers.
“Too late, the sea is already disappointed—your skills during the storm were top-notch. You’re a sailor she needs upon her waves.” His eyes flash, the curve of his mouth serious. Vulnerable, even, as strange as that is. But I don’t—I can’t—let myself think that it’s he who needs me and not the sea. Reality doesn’t work that way.
“The sea will have to wait.”
“And so will I.” He bends down to kiss me then, and though it’s the second time, it’s still a shock—a deep dive into ice-capped waters.
“You don’t have to go,” I say when we part, my voice small and slurred.
“What’s that?” he says, pretending not to have heard. “You don’t have to stay?”
He grabs my hand in both of his and begins to tug me toward the ship, full of crew waiting for his instruction. “Splendid, let’s get going—you steer; I’ll sip portvin and keep an eye out for the whale.”
I laugh and let him tug me a little farther up the gangplank than I should. In my heart, I don’t believe in Father’s superstitions. And yet I have superstitions of my own. Nik is still recovering. I can’t leave. What if he took a turn for the worse while I was gone?
No, I must stay.
Iker will come back. He says he will.
I know he will.
Something changed that night on the steamer. More during the storm than in the huddled moments before—we’d seen each other in our element. The salt of the sea, the both of us. And despite choosing to stay, it is the very last thing I want Nik to know about. Most especially the kissing. But it shouldn’t be too hard to keep a secret from my best friend—after all, I’ve been keeping my magic from Nik his whole life.
I step down from the gangplank and onto the dock. With a wave and a shout to his crew, Iker is off, taking our secret leagues away as I tuck it deep within me. I watch as he leaves the harbor, standing there just long enough to glimpse him turning back, my hand ready to wave. And then I set out for one more good-bye and my daily duties, Tante Hansa’s amethyst heavy in my pocket.
No, I don’t believe in mermaids. But I am willing to believe in whatever it is that happens when I kiss the amethyst to the bow of my father’s ship before an expedition. What happens when I cast the spell I created using centuries-old magical wisdom.
It’s only been a few weeks, but already it has worked, bringing in far more catch than by this time last year. I smile when I see the fishermen celebrating on the docks now. After four years of suffering through the Tørhed, a barrenness so severe the town’s fishing fleet decreased by half, these hearty cheers are welcome sounds. I haven’t heard them since before Anna’s death; the grumbles from tired fishermen coming ashore to restock on salted meat and limes have filled our ears instead.
After three years of the Tørhed, King Asger knew that praying to the gods was no longer enough. Havnestad had to find a new way to stay afloat. The royal steamship was ordered, and any man not at sea was put to work building the boat from late summer to first frost, shaping wood, and fitting sheets of metal to the smokestack.