She was a mermaid, and he was a prince, and she had a kingdom underwater that was being torn apart by currents from the sea witch, and she came to land for help, became a human though every step on her pale feet felt like knives twisted through her soles and up into her calves and it was all she could do not to scream every standing moment.
He knew all this not from words, for she had no speech but every time he looked into her sea green eyes, he could see her world in bright coral and shimmering fishes and feel the snap of rip tides and the quivering beat of her heart, her fear, her courage.
"Show me what I can do for you," he said, for he had to help this beautiful creature from the sea, this girl with shining hair and translucent skin and an airy frame that looked as if she might blow away, and yet she stood tall on her own two feet even as she writhed within for the pain.
He saw the sea witch then: a gnarled, eel-like creature with a split tongue, and the darkness surrounding her was not entirely a lack of light but rather a feeling of pure unbridled hate.
The tears upon the mermaid's face that she wiped at with a surprised hand, wondering at the ocean leaking from the corners of her eyes were enough to tell him the sea witch must be stopped, one way or another. But the cracking ocean floor, the torn seaweed ripped up by their roots, the fish flung far and wide, the tumbling turrets of a sea shell castle were enough to shake his heart.
"I am only a man," he said, "What can I do?"
But a feeling filled his heart of quiet hope and unbroken trust, and if she could have spoken words, they would have been these: You are not only a man. You are a hero.
"All right," he said. "I will try all that I can."
He took her in a rowboat out into the bay under the melting sun and learned of her father's long silver beard and the gold triton in his right hand that still was not enough to fight the magic of the sea witch. He learned of a knife somewhere beneath the sea that contained the most powerful magic in the world but for a price. It was with this knife that the mermaid had sliced her own tail in two and to have that pain as a constant companion was the price she paid to become a human, to find him.
When he asked why she did not defeat the sea witch with the knife herself, he only had the feeling that she knew she was not the one to do it. Someone else was needed: a hero, a savior from the dry lands who was not touched by the sea witch's power.
They reached the place where the bay widened out into the open sea, and she touched his arm and pointed down into the water, and in her eyes, he could see the knife jabbed into a rock with only a pearl handle sticking out, immersed beneath leagues and leagues of sea green water.
"I can't dive that far," he said, "I'd run out of air," but her hand only moved to his collar, pulling him near to her, his face inches from her and then pressed her lips to his, and he felt a rush of cold air in his lungs, filling them up and staying there, air to last him to the bottom of the sea and back.
"I'll return as soon as I can," he said, the memory of her smooth, cold lips still resting on his. "I promise."
Her eyes watched him as he stood at the edge of the boat and then dove into the still water. He swam and swam away from the warmth of the sun as it dripped into the water, away from the surface and the land he knew, into a darkness and a coldness he had never felt before. He swam down as the water seemed to crush him, until his head felt fuzzy and his vision blurry. He had air enough but the weight of water still affected him, but he went further into the darkness until he could see nothing at all. Nothing.
And nothing.
And nothing.
Then brightness. It was a different brightness than that of the sun, but it was a brightness he recognized from the mermaid's eyes, the brightness of things that glow in the deep, and he could see clams opening and closing, oysters forming pearls within themselves, the faint flickering of orange and silver fish, pink coral and flowing orange anemones. And there in a rock: the knife with the pearl handle. On the blade were words inscribed: What do you wish?
He pursed his lips together, unsure how to answer, then decided it would have to be a thought, for he could not speak underwater: I wish to defeat the sea witch and make the sea kingdom right again.
The letters on the blade blurred, the lines twisting and swirling together until they read a new message: Are you prepared to pay the price for your wish?
He swallowed the fear gnawing at his throat and in his stomach. What is the price? he asked.
He watched the letters rearrange themselves once more: For you, the price is your heart. If it is too much, the task is not for you.
He couldn't help first thought: Do I have to cut it out myself? The knife seemed to take this as acceptance and came at his chest, and he felt the slashing and slashing and red warmth flowing about his chest, and then he felt nothing – or not so much nothing as a strange separation. He knew that he had to defeat the sea witch and restore the kingdom under the sea but he could not comprehend why, though another distant part of him felt – he felt – he felt that there was a mermaid waiting for him who knew his name though he never told her, who believed in him though he had done nothing for her, who sliced her fin in two just so she could meet him. That was something to fight for.
The blood had stopped, his wound healed together; he was without a heart in his chest but very much alive. The knife now told him to take it with him to achieve his wish, so he swam for the surface, coming up dripping on the side of the boat, gasping for breath.
When she saw the scars on his chest, she held her fingers to them, tracing the lines gently, and tears began to fall from her eyes again. In their green he could see her home again, torn apart, he could see her slicing her tail in two, he could see the moment she crawled onto shore and saw him there with the sun shining on his hair. Only it was harder to feel it now, harder to feel her pain and fear and hope and trust and… love. He could feel it only distantly, as if from long ago. Her tears merely multiplied as he watched her.
"I'll still defeat the sea witch. I'll restore your kingdom. Just lead me to her."
When they reached the spot in the ocean where the deed had to be done, she breathed her cool air into him again, but the cold of her lips on his did not have the same effect as before, and when he dove into the frigid depths, he thought only of the task at hand and not the reason he had for completing it.
The sea witch was waiting outside her lair with a crooked smile on her crooked lips, and she spoke words into his mind, I see you've come to kill me. But you're not the one for the job.
What do you mean? he asked, hesitating a moment with the knife in hand.
When the price to complete a task is too high and takes away from who you really are, you're not the one to do it. But it's too late now, hollow chested boy. Her laugh cackled and rolled inside his head.
The sound was too much for him. He dove toward her and thrust the blade of the knife into her chest. When her cackling only grew louder, he pulled it out and sliced through her torso, cutting her in half. Her laughter died as her body shriveled to the ocean floor.
And the kingdom? he asked of the knife. Will it go back to how it should be now?
What is done cannot be undone, said the knife. The witch's currents have ended, but the damages will stay as long they will stay.
He knew in his head he ought to be angry, but he could not find it within himself to be angry. He merely swam to the surface and climbed into his boat again and relayed the news to the mermaid who cried and grasped his hand in thanks for the part he had accomplished and cried again.
He offered her the knife in case she wished to become a mermaid once more, but she cast it into the sea. In her eyes, he could see the shorelines and in his own castle glittering in the sunlight. He rowed them both into that shore and told her she could stay with him as long as she liked.
She stayed one year.
It was on his wedding evening – an arranged marriage to a princess with sky blue eyes and golden hair – on the ship where the service was held under the crying gulls and then the party began, when his mermaid danced on feet like angel's, and he could not remember why he kept thinking she ought to sit down. It was after the sun had melted into the water and the stars had rose up from the deep and he had retired to bed with his wife, numbly carrying out the rituals of the marriage bed. Long into the night his door opened with a slight creak and he saw her standing there in the light of the moon, looking as if she glowed from within. In her hand she held a pearl handled knife. He sat up quietly, careful not to wake his wife.
He looked into her eyes and could read her story. Her sisters came with the knife, wishing to make her a mermaid again. They had paid with their hair, but she had to contribute her own price. To bind her legs together again, to swim freely with no fear of drowning, to gain back her three hundred years of life – for all these things there was a price that only she could pay in full. She had to kill him.
He looked at her in the moonlight, accepting his fate as calmly as he accepted everything since that day his heart was cut out in the water. He felt nothing.
And yet, there was more. She could not do it. She could not bring herself to kill the man who cut out his heart for her, to save her kingdom and her home.
She looked down at the knife in her hand and seemed to read some words written on the blade. She lifted it then to the palm of her hand and sliced through her skin, blood seeping around the blade and dripping on the floor in crimson petals.
And then she opened her mouth and spoke in a voice like silver. "My wish – my second to last wish for which the price was merely the blood of my right hand, was to speak to you. I know you cannot feel me now as you once could, so I have to try and explain in words what you cannot know in your heart.
"I love you. I love you with the light of a million suns and the weight of a thousand oceans and the hearts of every creature that has ever lived in this world and that is why I will not – cannot ever kill you. Instead I will stab this blade into myself and die here so that I can become a daughter of the air. Then I will be able go anywhere, drift on any wind, dance on any sunbeam, even in the foam of the sea, and I will find your heart. And I will bring it back to you so you can feel my love just once. This is my last wish."
With those words, she lifted the knife up high above her head and brought it crashing down into her chest with a single cry, blood flooding from her body, and then suddenly she was gone. Nothing remained but a bit of sparkle and the knife on the deck.
He stood up then, walked to the knife and picked it up, examining the pearl handle. He walked outside and to the rail where he threw it overboard, watching the splash as it cut through the surface. On a wave passing by he saw white foam, drifting away.
000
Gideon awoke breathing hard and clutching at his chest. It was with great relief that he felt his heart beating there – drumming really, and he let out his breath. "It was only a dream," he said to himself, as reinforcement. "Only a dream."
It wasn't even a particularly long dream – only a year, which was good, because he didn't know if he could have stood this particular dream any longer than a year, without a heart. Only he wasn't happy now either, because he was in love with a mermaid, but he couldn't save her kingdom, or even make her happy – maybe because he was trying too hard to save her kingdom, but that wasn't fair! That wasn't the way things were supposed to go!
He looked at the star on the table, floating inside the lantern. Its glow was beginning to fade in the morning light. He stood up and examined it more closely, swaying a little on his feet.
"What are you trying to tell me, star?" he asked the thing. "Are you trying to say that I should give up? That I'm not meant to save the kingdom? That I don't have a heart – or if I try to save the kingdom I'll lose my heart somehow in the process? I don't understand, and I'm bloody tired of these cryptic messages!"
No response, of course. He let his breath out in a particularly loud sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. The star bounced in its lantern, moving slightly away from him. He shook his head and walked around the table, looking out the window. It was rather dusty, but he could make out the field across the road, with all the long, green grass. There were two people standing in it. Girls, he thought. That was unusual. Usually he was the only one to ever go walking through it.
After a moment, he turned away, wondering when Thomas would show up. He needed to tell someone how much he hated everything.
When the sun rose, Charlotte's eyes opened and blinked a few times at the bright sun. The fairies were gone – no more dancing lights, no more flying. Lydia was there still, at her side, sleeping. They were in a field of tall grass.
She looked at the blue sky overhead and felt her eyes drooping shut again, nestling her head into the soft grass. She was woken again by a warmth in her hand, and she sat up, looking at the compass she still gripped. It warm – hot even, and the arrow fluttered about as if it couldn't contain itself in its frame, though it stayed pointing mainly in one direction.
She stood up and took a step the way it pointed, then looked down at Lydia. She had to keep walking. She had to find her star. But Lydia…
She pursed her lips together, then took a step backwards, leaning down to shake Lydia awake. The girl's eyes opened groggily, blinking at the harsh light. She murmured a wordless complaint and rolled over.
Charlotte shook her harder. "I have… to go," she said, still forming words with difficulty. It had been so long since she'd had to explain her actions to anyone, so long since she'd woken up with anyone who knew her name within a ten mile radius.
"Go where?" Lydia asked at last, rolling back over and squinting at her.
"My star," she said, pointing out of the field, into the city somewhere.
Lydia groaned a bit more and rubbed her eyes. "All right, I'm coming," she said, standing up and brushing off her dress. "But it's awfully early, isn't it?"
Charlotte did not answer but started walking. The grass was soft on her feet, and her star was close. She was certain of it.
They walked out of the field and across a road, then stopped in front of a small house – a shack, really, even smaller than her old house on the mountain. "It's pointing here," she said, glancing back at Lydia a moment before reaching for the doorknob.
"Charlotte! You have to knock!" Lydia said, grabbing her hand. She lifted her own hand and gave a persistent knock on the wooden door.
A long moment passed before it opened with a young, rather disheveled man on the other side. His eyes had dark circles beneath them, as if hadn't slept in months. "Yes, what do you want?" he asked, but Charlotte merely looked down at the compass now nearly burning the palm of her hand and walked past him, into the small room.
And there on the table it was, floating in a brass lantern, not glowing in the morning light so much as merely pulsing gently, and she set the compass down and took the lantern in her hands and opened the tiny door. The man was shouting at her, but she opened her hand and the star flew to her and landed there, burning, but that didn't matter. Her fingers closed around the glow and her whole hand turned a brilliant white with the light. "This is my star," she said triumphantly, smiling at Lydia and the man. "I found my star."
Thank you all for your patience! I hope you enjoyed this chapter. Let me know!
