Between the Sea and Stars Page 2

  Lena winced, for she knew what came next.

  “He pressed his mouth against the queen’s skin, whispering sweet words, distracting her. She was smiling as he sent a knife into her back. Smiling, even as her eyes went wide with shock.”

  Lena shuddered, picturing it. A joyful mouth, frozen in place. Bulging, horrified eyes going dim.

  “The queen’s lover twisted his blade, releasing her cold merrow blood to the sand. He reached for the shell, yanking on its golden chain. But in the last throes of breath, the queen resisted him and threw the shell into the crashing waves, bidding Poseidon to wash it away.

  “With a promised curse on his lips, her lover trailed back into the night, determined to one day possess the world between the sea and stars, and all who dwell beneath the earth, in the ocean’s depths. Our people.” He glanced sidelong at Lena, his meaning clear. “The merrows.”

  “And the queen. . .” Lena murmured, though she already knew how the tale would end.

  “He left her to dissolve into sea foam. She was washed away forever by the waves.”

  Lena released a long breath and gazed at her hands, trying to imagine what it would be like to watch herself slowly disappear; what heartache and betrayal the queen must have felt in her last moments. She knew this was a gruesome tale, but a part of her thought the better parts, the magic and romance, were worth the gruesome bits.

  “What do you think it would be like, to walk?” she wondered aloud. “Would it be like having two tails?”

  “I don’t know,” Javelin chuckled. “I suppose it might be.”

  “Where do you think the shell is now?”

  Javelin shrugged. From a stony shelf above his head, he retrieved a slim, wooden railing he’d found in a ship a few days before and carefully tied his sharpened clamshell to its jagged end.

  Lena smiled, realizing he’d made her a hunting spear.

  “Poseidon is said to have hidden the shell before the human lover, or any human, could steal it. It could be anywhere.”

  “If you could go to the surface, would you?”

  Javelin pinched his lips together and didn’t speak. It was a silent reprimand. He knew how Lena longed to break through the waves, to see the human world with her own eyes, to know the uses of all the odd objects they’d collected over the years. But the laws of the sea were strict, and the king’s leniency had all but vanished in recent years.

  Any merrow caught peeking at the shore was punished. Some were even struck down by Poseidon and reduced to sea foam, just like the queen.

  “This is where we belong, Lena,” Javelin said softly, firmly.

  “But how do you know?” She swirled upright and swam along the edge of the grotto, brushing her fingertips over cups and spoons and heaps of sodden fabric. Over small chests and tarnished, palm-sized figurines and other mysterious, unnamed things. “Haven’t you ever wondered what it would be like, to live on the land? To live among them? To be one of them?”

  “Not as much as you have, I can see.”

  She groaned, and sank to her brother’s side, resting her head on his shoulder. “It can’t be as bad as everyone believes. Humans can’t all be the same. We’re not all the same,” she reasoned quietly.

  She curled her fingers around the shell at her neck. For all his scolding, she knew why Javelin had gifted it to her—because he’d known it would remind her of her favorite story; of the queen. “Where did you find this?” she asked, breaking the silence that stretched uncomfortably between them.

  “I went toward shallower waters today,” Javelin answered, and she stared at him, shock and envy warring in her gaze. Since the queen’s death, few traveled out of the deep. Too many merrows were worried of being caught in a riptide, of unwittingly exiting the Skagerrak Sea.

  Javelin ignored her look. “There was an old chest mounted just on the edge of a deep canyon. I almost didn’t notice it. It was so overgrown by coral and seaweed. Inside, I found a few odds and ends that I ended up selling, and this.” He thumped the charm at her neck. “I’m sure I could have traded it for something small. Poseidon knows there’s always something we need. But I thought of you.”

  Guilt slipped into Lena’s heart. “Perhaps… perhaps we should sell it,” she forced herself to say. Javelin shook his head, and she couldn’t help but feel relieved.

  “You’re a young woman, Lena, and you’re of age. You should be covered from head to tail in pretty things.”

  “So I can entice a man and be married off?” she teased. “So you’ll no longer have to worry about feeding me?”

  “You’re the one who feeds us most days,” Javelin replied. He passed the spear into her hands. “Father and I would have gone hungry more than once if not for your hunting prowess. But you shouldn’t have to hunt, shouldn’t have to worry that we’ll starve. You deserve to feel safe, content, taken care of. You deserve to simply. . . be.”

  Lena wasn’t sure she wanted to be content. It sounded an awful lot like being bored to death, the way Javelin described it.

  She didn’t say so. Just curled her lips into a playful smile and bumped her shoulder against his. “Good luck to the man who tries to take a spear like this from me,” she winked.

  She swished the spear back and forth in front of her chest, testing its durability. Then she moved into a sitting position, hunched over as if she were about to stab an unaware crab. With a sure arm, she plunged the spear into the sand, then yanked back, pleased by how light and swift it was.

  “It’s perfect,” she affirmed, already thinking of the deep, narrow crevasses where the larger, meatier crabs were hard to reach.

  Javelin’s eyes glowed against the increasing darkness. In spite of his talk of Lena trading her hunting skills in for a husband, he was clearly pleased.

  “Let’s get some rest.” He straightened and glided toward the darkened passageway which led back into the cavern. “It’s been a long day for both of us.”

  He swam ahead of her, his broad body weaving through the water effortlessly, and paused beside the arched entrance to her room. “Rest well, sister.”

  Lena pressed a kiss to his cheek.

  Javelin disappeared into his wing of the cavern, and Lena dipped into the area she’d claimed for herself. It was spacious. Compared to the grotto, it was. . . empty. Gaps in the walls beckoned watery panels of moonlight to glisten upon the floor and welcomed the gentle music of the mostly sleeping sea.

  She swirled onto her back and hovered just above the jutting stone that served as her bed. She lifted the pink conch in front of her eyes, considering it carefully. What if it was more than just a pretty piece of jewelry? What if it contained Poseidon’s magic?

  A silly thought. She giggled. Still, somewhere in the ceaseless, ever-deepening sea, the queen’s lost shell was hidden. Why not in a camouflaged chest dangerously close to the shallows?

  She grinned to herself, and strapped her arms across her stomach, imagining that she was the queen. That a handsome lover had wrapped her tight in his embrace. A human lover, reckless and helplessly enamored; his body dyed by the sun and his heart free of deceit. She could almost hear him whispering into her ear, promising to take her further inland. Promising to show her the world above. Promising her a gloriously endless everything.

  That night, she dreamed of the shore.

  Of the moonlight glowing upon her face.

  Of warm fingers skimming her skin.

  Of peering down at herself and discovering feet where there should have been only fins.

  3

  Lena darted her newly crafted spear into the sandy ocean floor, startling a brightly colored crab, which scuttled from its hiding place beneath a layer of rock and sand.

  She chucked the spear again, sending the creature scampering into a stony crevasse as quickly as its claws could muster.

  She groaned. Her arm was sore and her pack was nearly empty. The morning was not turning out to be a plentiful one.

  Exasperated, she tugged her spear free
and settled upon the soft sea bed, tucking her aquamarine tail underneath her. She laid the spear at her side and lifted her fingertips to the conch hooked around her neck by a thin string of braided kelp. With curious violet eyes she examined the conch again, raising it from between her breasts and twirling it slowly between her forefinger and thumb. From end to end, it was perfectly intact, vibrantly pink, and glassy-smooth as the inner nest of an oyster.

  There was something extraordinary about the little shell, something Lena couldn’t quite put her finger on. She tilted it to her ear, marveling at how it hollowed the sounds of the sea—kelp rustling, fins slicing through the gentle current, a lone whale calf singing in the distance, searching for its pod.

  She smiled. Perhaps this was the queen’s shell. Was there really so much harm in pretending?

  On a sigh, she imagined what Javelin would say: Doubtful. It’s just a story, Lena.

  Lena rolled her eyes. For most, the whispered legend of the queen served as a warning against humans and their dry, waterless world. A story to smother the wonder and angst from a young merrow’s girlish imagination.

  Lena had never quite fit in with the other merrow women. Had never slipped starfish into her hair and batted her eyes at the handsome mermen in town, or dreamed of a tidy, cavern home to call her own. She’d always wanted something. . . more.

  Now, she tilted her gaze to the glittering surface. She clutched the shell in her palm as a painful yearning seized her heart. Had the queen felt this way, long ago? Was that why her eyes had wandered to the shore? Why her heart had been so easily romanced by a human lover?

  On an exhale, Lena unfurled her fingers, letting the conch collapse against her chest. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a crab crawl out from beneath a large clamshell, its speckled back still blanketed by sand.

  With her spear, she pierced its shell and skewered it. The crab’s blue legs writhed as she tore its largest claw from its body. This would serve as a meal, and the other crabs collected would be saved for her trip home.

  As she sucked the white meat from the crab’s hard shell, Lena caught sight of a hazy figure moving toward her. She lowered her spear to her scaly lap and strained to see who it might be. It certainly wasn’t Javelin, who’d gone to the far side of Sogen Hav to scavenge. This figure seemed to be frail, perhaps elderly, slow-moving and hunchbacked. Her tail was silvery white, a faded, ashen shade.

  “Don’t be alarmed!” the merrow woman called, her voice curdled by age. She raised a rigid arm in greeting and signaled for Lena to wait.

  Lena tugged the crab from the end of her spear. Perhaps this older merrow simply required food. Javelin might scold her for giving away her sparse catch, but she’d caught enough yesterday to tide them over till morning. She could always rise early and hunt for breakfast before the dawn.

  “May I come sit with you?” the merrow woman asked. Her sagging skin was adorned by worn and crumbling shells. Barnacles sprawled over her collarbone and clung to her breasts. Twisted strands of kelp were wrapped around each of her arms, from shoulder to wrist.

  Lena nodded, her curious gaze drifting over the sickly yellow tint of the stranger’s complexion. With a small tilt of her chin, she gestured the woman to a large boulder nearby.

  “A hunter, I see.” The merrow woman’s thin lips curled into a smirk. She brushed a wisp of dark gray hair from her face and raised a brow at Lena’s spear.

  “Are you hungry?” Lena asked, and extended the half-eaten crab to her.

  With fragile, bony fingers, the woman took the offered meat. She pressed the shell to her lips and began to suck on the textured meal, slipping it from its hard compartment.

  “Thank you,” she said between mouthfuls. She cracked the shell against the boulder and pushed the remnants in between her teeth. “You’re a fair one, kaereste.” Dearest. “Fairer than most of the maidens here in Sogen Hav.” She lifted a finger to Lena’s cheek.

  Instinctively, Lena jerked away. Other merrows might blush at the remark, but Lena had never spent much time in front of a mirror. Beauty had no bearing upon her ability to provide for her family. It didn’t matter if her skin was rich or fair, so long as she was swift with her spear, and strong.

  “You remind me of a woman I used to know,” the old merrow continued, lapping the inner shell with her tongue. “She was powerful and beautiful. Brave, too. . . so unlike the women who flit about in our seas.”

  “Who was she?” Lena slipped her fingers absently over her throat. She watched the woman with bridled caution, unable to resist a story.

  The woman gave the crab one last slurp, then discarded its empty shell on the sandy floor. She adjusted herself on the boulder, sliding her fingers over the muted, gray scales of her tail.

  “The former queen,” she said, her voice low. “Mette.”

  Lena’s eyes widened with surprise. “You knew the queen?” she gasped.

  The woman smirked. “So, you know the tale then, hmm? It’s beautifully sad, isn’t it? A queen betrayed by the land she loved so much, and banished from the sea.”

  “Banished?”

  The woman tilted her chin back with a hearty laugh. Her spindly fingers lifted again, dashing after Lena’s long brunette strands. She curled Lena’s hair around her forefinger and pulled, drawing her near.

  “The king knew his daughter’s heart lived not beneath the waves, but above, where the sun glistens high in the sky.”

  Lena watched the merrow’s hand drift up, gesturing toward the tumbling, foam-crested waters overhead.

  She swallowed. That same longing lurked in her own heart—a secret wish to swim ashore and see the world of sky and sun.

  “Mette never belonged here,” the woman sneered. “Poseidon’s magic allowed her to live on land and swim freely beneath the sea. The moon was her only keeper. The whole world was hers for the taking. But in the end, she wasted her gift.”

  “She fell in love,” Lena said quietly.

  “Love,” the woman scoffed, finally releasing Lena’s hair. “The sea knew Mette could no longer belong to its people. Her heart had betrayed the water, and the sea changed the heart of the man she loved, causing him to lust for more than the softness of her body. He wanted her strength. Her power. Love can never protect a merrow from a human’s greed.”

  “He tried to steal her shell,” Lena interjected.

  The old merrow’s smirk changed into a full smile. Her decaying teeth showed yellow between her shriveled lips. Her gaze shifted lower. Lena fluttered her fingertips nervously over the conch, tracing its shallow, spiraling grooves.

  “He tried,” the woman murmured. “He spilled her blood on the sand. The blood of a merrow is power, kaereste. Mette’s lover may not have possessed her shell, but he stole from her nonetheless. He stole her power, her life. Her years became his.”

  Lena furrowed her brow. She’d never heard this part of the story before. She stiffened as the woman’s fingers traveled to the conch and plucked it up for examination.

  “How? How could he do that? How…”

  “A taste of our blood, dearie,” the woman mocked. “There are rumors that, as the queen dissolved into the sea, her lover began to eat her alive.”

  Lena’s lips curled in disgust. Could it be true? Was this the real reason the king had barred the merrow people from ever interacting with humans?

  She shook her head. It couldn’t be. A man eating a merrow? The woman’s dark eyes burned bright with the thrill of her tale.

  She’s only trying to get a rise out of me, Lena decided. Perhaps she has nothing better to do.

  “I thank you for the meal, kaereste.” The merrow pushed herself up from the boulder. She opened her palm, displaying a glittering selection of long, obsidian shards.

  “For your kindness,” she explained, and pressed the shards into Lena’s hand. Her pruned fingers drifted over Lena’s hair, then withdrew with a start, as if she’d been stung by a jellyfish.

  “Be careful of your curiosity, kaereste
,” she said, dropping her husky voice to a whisper. “Danger lurks beyond the sandy crusts of the shore. All merrows know that. But danger lurks here too, in the deepest parts of Sogen Hav. And here,” she tapped Lena’s conch—a brusque, urgent gesture, “. . . right around your pretty neck.”

  Lena stared dumbly at the obsidian pieces glaring up from her flattened palms. It was a small fortune, surely more than anyone in Sogen Hav could afford to freely give.

  She parted her lips to refuse the gift, but when she peered up again, the woman was gone. In her place, a school of dark-teal fish hurried by, and three brightly colored crabs gathered in the sand.

  Lena whipped her gaze back and forth, confused, trying to determine where the woman had gone. But there was no trace of her. Not even the gouge of her tail against the soft, ocean floor.

  Baffled, she shook her head and pushed her spear into the outer shells of the three lingering crabs. She slipped them into her bag. A small catch, but it would certainly make up for the time she’d spent with the odd woman. The thick shards of obsidian would do well at the market when Javelin next returned.

  With a kick of her tail, she launched away from the boulder. The shards and crab shells rattled together in her pack as she began to swim home.

  How strange, for such a brittle old woman to carry such riches, or to depart so quickly. Lena knit her brow. Why had she never heard the old merrow’s version of the legend before? Had she made it up?

  Why would anyone fabricate such a gruesome end to the queen’s tragic tale?

  Uneasiness sloshed at the pit of Lena’s stomach as images circled through her mind: Mette’s lover, knee-deep on the wet, scarlet shore, slurping the queen’s blood from her veins. Scooping out her innards with his hands. Gnawing on her bones.

  Irritation prickled her skin. Her favorite story was ruined now, twisted into something unsavory, and for what? The sick amusement of an old woman? A few minutes of twisted glee?

  But what if it was true?