Between the Sea and Sky (15 page)

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 write 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 drunk 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.”

“Well, you should have no trouble with that.”

“I suppose not. He never said a word about the writing, but he sent a letter giving Alan permission to marry.” Esmerine toyed nervously with the beads at her throat. “Still, I’m not sure I’m glad he decided to come.”

Dosia laughed. “I think it’s marvelous. You’ll have the most amazing stories to tell your children.”

When they went to show Esmerine’s dress to their mother, Octavia was talking with Esmerine’s parents, who were sitting on the rocks, sampling wine for the first time, while Swift tried unsuccessfully to engage Tormy in conversation, and Belawyn was telling a frowning Christina that being an old maid really wasn’t so bad. Alan’s eyes alighted on her, and Fiodor thumped his arm with a jaunty fist.

“Bad luck seeing the bride before the wedding, you know!” Fiodor said.

Alan frowned. “Well, that makes no sense.”

Esmerine felt very grown up with Alan beside her in his fine scarlet waistcoat and a hat with an owl feather, and all her family and friends admiring her wedding gown. Whenever her eyes swept over the water, dark heads ducked out of sight. Esmerine was sure she’d caught Lalia Tembel staring a few times.

Still, nothing made her feel less grown up than the arrival of Alan’s father.

“You are certainly fortunate the weather is good for such a rustic ceremony,” Alan’s father said, surveying the scene. A few bare-breasted mermaids were draped on the nearby rocks, and the hem of Dosia’s dress was wet from wading out to embrace them. The sky was blue, with only smudges of cloud, the water a darker reflection of the sky. She wondered if the beauty of the vast sea struck him somewhere deep inside, if he thought of Alan’s mother.

“It’s always good this time of year, Papa,” Karinda said. She winked at Esmerine, then peered around. She was wearing a little fur capelet that Esmerine could tell was new from the way Karinda kept preening and straightening her collar. Merry looked fascinated.

“Hmm,” Alan’s father grunted.

Esmerine hadn’t seen much of Alan’s father since the day nearly four months ago when Alan brought her back to the Floating City to explain the situation. “I am not at all surprised,” Alan’s father said, before embarking on a tedious explanation of how much trouble they were in for, how he expected Alan to know better than that, how he had doubts that Esmerine would be able to properly assimilate.

“Esmerine already assimilated just fine at the bookstore,” Alan had said. Esmerine moved into the apartment over the shop and Alan acquired a newfound appreciation for her “hoodwinking” until the debt to his father was paid off, while she learned the ins and outs of the shop and met a new nemesis in sums.

“You both look lovely,” Alan’s stepmother said, stepping forward to kiss their cheeks in turn. “And the setting may be rustic, but at least we’re all here. Should we take a stroll before the ceremony begins? Do we have time?”

“A little.” Alan’s father checked his pocket watch. “Three o’clock, you said?”

“Yes,” Alan said.

Alan’s father took a packet of folded papers from his vest and gave it to Esmerine. “There you are.”

As they walked off, Esmerine unfolded the paper. She couldn’t imagine what it could be, but the words she had slaved over, that Alan had helped her polish again and again, leaped out immediately—now covered with black notes in Alan’s father’s tidy, slanted hand. She flipped through them—every page nearly smothered with corrections, crossed-out words, and notes.

“I didn’t mean for him to critique it!” She was almost speechless, her throat tight with something between fury and embarrassment. Alan, however, made a funny laugh.

“Dear God,” he said. “He must have loved it!”

“Loved it? There isn’t a word in here he left alone!”

“To take the time to tear it to bits,” Alan said, “I can tell you he loved it.”

Merfolk were scattered across the rocks and the water. The sirens, whom Esmerine had worried wouldn’t understand her decision, had perhaps understood best of all, for they felt the draw to the surface world in their own hearts. Her family, despite tears—some unnecessarily dramatic tears, at times—had been dear to Alan, and Esmerine could rest easier knowing the family’s standing in the village would be forever improved by having two daughters become sirens, even lost ones.

She had never thought, in her wildest dreams, that everyone she loved could ever be in one place, even for this fleeting moment. The joy of it wrenched tears from her own eyes, even as she spoke a new oath, one she knew she would never break.

“Alan Dare. Esmerine Lorremen,” said Lady Minnaray, who had donned legs and a plain white dress to lead the ceremony. “In the eyes of the gods of the sea and sky, and all present here to witness it, you are now husband and wife.”

Alan bent to kiss her, and as she leaned close to him, she nudged off her shoes and let her bare toes tickle the moist sand.