Between the Sea and Sky (3 page)

Chapter Four

Esmerine slunk from her room to find her mother clutching Tormy’s hand. Merry was likely still asleep, and her father must be out searching.

“They said they had no idea what we were talking about,” the trader was saying. “But it might not be the truth. It was just a lad I spoke to first—must’ve been sixteen, seventeen. He seemed a little dumbstruck. But it doesn’t mean he wasn’t lying. You know what a prize mermaids are to humans.”

“Did you
look
for her?” her mother said. “Of course you can’t simply take his word for it!”

“I can’t storm into a human gentleman’s house and search it up and down, madam,” said the trader, a strapping man with a long bluish tail and a calm demeanor.

“But how am I ever going to know if they have my daughter?” Her mother was shaking Tormy’s arm, apparently unaware she was even holding it.

“Sometimes … we lose sirens,” he said carefully.

“Dosia wouldn’t be that stupid!” Esmerine’s mother snapped. “She’s had it drummed into her head all her life to stay away from humans.” Tormy managed to wrest her arm back from their mother’s grasp as she started crying.

“I can send Lady Minnaray to speak with you, ma’am,” the trader said. He lowered his head and touched his tail to the floor in a gesture of respect, then departed.

Yesterday, Esmerine had been frightened for Dosia, but today felt more like a dream. Dosia had always been fascinated by humans. Everyone expected her to be named a siren from a young age. And everyone knew sirens might follow their fascination with humans too far. When Esmerine was eight, they had lost a siren—an unmarried woman from a wealthy family. She had been out alone, taunted a fisherman, and he managed to grab her. At least, that was the story they were told.

Had Dosia been unhappy? Or was it something they had done? But Dosia had always seemed cheerful. Her only complaint was a yearning to see the surface world. Was that really enough to provoke her into such a dire act? No, surely she would have told Esmerine …

Esmerine recalled the trapped feeling that had closed around her when she made her siren’s vow.

“If I’d known she was speaking with humans …!” Esmerine’s mother sobbed.

“It’s not your fault, Mother,” Esmerine said. “You know how they say sirens become enchanted with humans. It’s just an enchantment. It’s no one’s fault.”

“Dosia and Esmerine always wanted to go be humans,” Tormy said, her eyes flashing at Esmerine. “They were always putting on legs and showing off around the islands.”

“You think this is my fault?” Esmerine cried. “Dosia didn’t even tell me she was talking to humans!”

“Be silent, Tormaline!” Esmerine’s mother shouted. “You could display at least one iota of pity for poor Dosia. It’s one thing to walk about on an island as a child, and another to be kidnapped by a human man.”

Tormy slashed the water with her tail. “Pity her? She should have known better! I miss her, but she’s gone because she always liked humans better than anything else!” She fled the room.

Esmerine, too, returned to her sleep room and curled against the floor, clutching the winged statue to her chest. Her despair felt bottomless. There was no balm for Dosia’s disappearance. She didn’t even want to talk to her parents. She did feel guilty in some way—should she have tried harder to stop Dosia? If only Dosia hadn’t gone to the human house without Esmerine in the first place, this wouldn’t have happened. She still couldn’t believe Dosia had done all this without her.

Esmerine kept replaying again and again the vision of Dosia being taken by human men, the gruff hand tearing Dosia’s belt from her waist, the terror Dosia must have felt, knowing she’d been wrong about the humans and no one from home could help her.

Of course, everyone in the village knew Dosia was gone by day’s end. Friends called, bearing gifts of sympathy. When Lalia Tembel and her mother came by, Esmerine said she was sick and hid in her room. Every time Esmerine passed one of Dosia’s friends they would embrace her, and the tears would begin again. For a week, they had no theatricals, only songs of blessing for Dosia and mourning for themselves.

Esmerine continued her work as a siren, but Dosia’s departure had drained the joy she should have felt. Fear for her sister twisted to anger and back again as she sat on the rocks with the other sirens.

Sometimes Esmerine found a solitary rock and watched birds fly overhead. She glimpsed winged people gliding on the western sky, near the mountainous cliffs they called the Floating City. She remembered how Dosia used to yell at Lalia Tembel for her, defending Esmerine’s friendship with Alander. Now Dosia was experiencing things Esmerine couldn’t even fathom, and worse, she didn’t know if Dosia was all right.

For all that Esmerine and Dosia had dreamed of changing their legs to tails and exploring the human world, Esmerine was sickened at the thought of her sister living the rest of her life with legs, sleeping close to a human man, talking only to humans and never again to her own people.

They would never be traders. They would never go looking for Alander together. They would never even be sirens together.

The world couldn’t stop just because Dosia was gone. The other sirens urged Esmerine to go to a dance with them. Esmerine had always loved to sing and dance, and she had just begun to miss it, but it still felt wrong to enjoy herself. She lingered by the walls.

She noticed Jarra looking at her. He had always been nice to her, and he had bright black eyes and a quick smile. She lifted her face as he swam nearer.

“I was wondering … er … did Dosia say anything about me before she left?” he asked.

“Well … I know she liked your company.”

“I really thought we might have a future together.” He curled one hand into a loose fist. “I can’t believe everyone’s just sitting around when she’s been kidnapped. Someone should go after her.”

Esmerine agreed, but few merfolk could stand the pain in their transformed feet for long, and it was even more unlikely they would confront the humans, who would surely have hidden her belt well. Her sister was as good as a slave. Esmerine couldn’t think about it. She wished Jarra would just leave her alone if he only wanted to talk about Dosia.

He noticed her crestfallen expression. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s all right …”

“I know how close you two were.”

“Yes … we were.” Esmerine ran her fingers through the braids she had so carefully woven that morning. Dosia used to have a sure and willing hand with braids, but now Esmerine managed alone. Her mother and Tormy both yanked too hard.

Jarra bowed and turned to go, but she caught his arm. “You—you don’t want to dance?” she asked, sounding more desperate than she intended.

“Oh. I didn’t know you wanted to.” He shrugged and pulled her into an awkward hold, but she imagined he was thinking of Dosia. Well, so was she, for that matter.

It was no better to be home. Her mother fretted all the time, wondering aloud how Dosia was doing. Tormy and Merry sang songs of how they might save her. The two younger girls even went to Olmera, the village witch, to ask if they might do something, and came back sulking and silent.

If Esmerine still knew Alander, he could have brought paper and helped her write Dosia a letter. Maybe he would have even flown around and looked for her. She asked the traders to look for him in the city.

“That winged boy? But I haven’t seen him around in years,” her father’s friend told her. “He’ll be all grown up.”

“But he’s—well—just see. He was tall for his age, and he always had a book. Brown hair a little lighter than mine, brown eyes too.”

“All right. I’ll ask. But those winged people all look the same.”

Esmerine was now the oldest sister left, and more invisible than ever.

As weeks passed, life began to tingle back, and she wondered what would happen if she were to look for Dosia. Most merchildren tried walking once or twice, giving up after the first few twinges, but Esmerine and Dosia had persisted, bounding weightless on the ocean floor, standing on the shore of the tiny islands that dotted the bay, clutching rocks and trees for balance. Esmerine didn’t think that the pain of walking could be worse than the pain of wondering where Dosia was.

Chapter Five

It was a daunting prospect, to imagine going after Dosia. Not only would her feet ache, not only would she be in an unfamiliar place, but even if she found her sister, the humans who had taken her belt surely wouldn’t make it easy to get back. As much as her mother fumed at the traders, Esmerine understood they really couldn’t help.

They needed someone who could move easily around the human world, someone clever who understood how things worked on the surface.

Someone like Alander.

She hadn’t seen him in four years, but she knew he would remember her well. Their friendship had lasted for almost that long, and they had been the most memorable years of her life. Alander had driven her crazy half the time, bringing her chemises to wear while they played so she would be properly clothed, and preceding far too many statements with “Of course,” making her feel stupid for asking questions. But he never failed to bring her a book, a different book every time unless she asked for an old favorite. He had taught her to read and write, scratching letters in the sand. She figured she knew as much about the human world as any trader, thanks to Alander’s books and the things he told her.

His visits hadn’t ended by choice. “I can’t come anymore,” he had said. “I have to go to the Academy.”

“I thought you already went to school.”

“That was just juvenile school. Father says I won’t have free time anymore. I don’t know what I can say. He still doesn’t know I come to see you, and he’d be mad if he found out. But after I complete my studies at the Academy, Father says I’ll work as a messenger for a year or two. I’ll travel all over the country, so maybe I can visit you then.”

Not long after that, he said a final good-bye and had never come again, although Esmerine kept waiting for his time as a messenger to begin. Esmerine knew from talking to the traders that many winged people worked as messengers, because they could travel faster than a horse or a ship. Esmerine supposed the work could have taken him to some far-flung direction. But it couldn’t do much harm to look for him, at least.

She didn’t know how to go about leaving, that was the trouble. Besides the fact that her parents would never give their approval, she had promised Merry she’d help her practice for her school theatricals that week. She was the eldest sister now, and it seemed there was always so much to be done. Her family needed her.

One day, she was at the market with her mother and sisters when one of the traders came back with a rumor about a mermaid wife in Sormesen.

“I don’t know if it’s your girl,” the man said. “But I don’t know of any other merwives in Sormesen. They said the girl was beautiful but looked unwell, and that her husband was taking her to live in mountain country.” He gave her mother a meaningful look. “They don’t like the mermaids they steal to be too close to the sea. They think it makes ’em homesick.”

Esmerine’s mother stopped moving. She seemed afflicted by a sort of paralysis whenever anyone talked of how miserable Dosia might be. Esmerine and Tormy each took her by a hand and led her away.

“Oh, gods, gods, gods. It’s Dosia, I just know it,” she was muttering, and her hands started to play with her shell necklace.

“Mother,” Esmerine said. “It’s all right.”

“If she had only resisted her impulses!” Mother cried. “She never would have been taken! And now she’s moving farther and farther away. I can’t bear having my girl so far away, and not even
knowing
—it’s the not knowing that’s going to send me to an early grave, I tell you!”

Merry’s eyes were huge and alarmed, as if their mother might really perish from her grief. Esmerine didn’t think she would, but something had to be done.

“We have to bring her back,” Esmerine said decisively. “Mother, please! Listen to me. I could go on land and find her. We know she was in Sormesen, and that she went to the mountains. If I could just get some information—”

“Esmerine, that is ridiculous. What if—what if it isn’t even her? It could be a siren from another village.”

“You know it’s her.”

“And you can’t walk. I know you and poor Dosia used to play at it, but real walking—it’s too much.”

“I know I could. I used to play with Alander for hours. The pain isn’t so bad, and I’m good at it. I can even climb trees. I could go to Sormesen and—at least I could bring word.”

“We haven’t the money for clothes and carriages and—”

“I’ll sell all my bangles and hair beads and shells and I’ll sell that statue Dosia gave me for my debut. I don’t care about any of it. I just want to see her again.”

Esmerine stayed calm. Her mother always responded to calm people, likely because she had such trouble keeping calm herself.

Her mother took Esmerine’s hands and squeezed her fingers. “You really love your sister.”

“Don’t we all?”

“But … we can’t just—go after her.”

“We can too. There is no reason why I can’t at least try. We’ll regret it the rest of our lives if we don’t
try
.”

“Yes, we will. You are right about that …” Mother looked over her shoulder, as if searching for something. She sighed again. “I don’t know what to do. I can’t lose you both … but if Dosia needs us … Your father is hopeless on legs. The traders are absolutely useless.”

“I know,” Esmerine said, trying not to sound impatient. “That’s why I have to go. I’ll be careful. My siren magic will keep me safe, should anyone try to hurt me. I’ll find Dosia.”

Chapter Six

Esmerine thought her father would never let her leave, but even he admitted it would be reasonably safe for her to go to Sormesen and ask after Dosia. Besides, none of them would have any peace unless an attempt was made.

“Esmerine, you are a sensible girl,” he said. “If anyone can find a way to bring Dosia home, I believe you would. Just be very careful and come back as quick as you can.”

Esmerine draped all her beads on her neck and loaded her arms with bangles, trying not to think how she would soon give them all away. Clutching the winged statue close, she set off for the House of Decency.

Because merfolk didn’t wear clothes, the humans required them to stop at a certain point on the outskirts of the city where they could rent the proper attire for venturing on land. Like every young mer, Esmerine had swum close enough to the House of Decency to gaze at it from afar, and also like every young mer, she was disappointed the place didn’t look more exciting. Beyond the sandy beach, a small wooden house with arched windows sat between two tall wooden walls. A weathered sign with a painted picture of a shirt and breeches hung from the left wall.

Esmerine pumped her tail forward until the water was no deeper than the length of her body, and then she forced the change. She had gotten much better at it over the years, but it was never pleasant. She doubled over as her very bones shifted. Her long fins drew themselves up into tight, dense little feet, then spread into toes that barely glanced the sandy ocean floor, sending a faint, almost ticklish pain across her newborn soles.

Even though the shore was lonely, Esmerine made a point not to show even a hint of pain as she placed one foot in front of the other and her head emerged from the water, her hair clinging to her back and breasts in tendrils. Dull pain shot from her feet to her knees with every step. She’d heard traders compare it to knives, but it never felt like that to her. The ache was familiar, almost welcome, for she associated it with better days, before Alander and Dosia had disappeared.

It felt, she thought, like heartbreak, only physical. Like she was tearing apart from the sea with each step. She almost expected it would vanish if she could only put enough distance between her body and the rush of waves.

Her body felt heavy in the air. Every bangle and bauble suddenly weighed on her neck and her arms. Only her golden siren’s belt still seemed to rest gently against her skin. She trudged across the shore, adjusting her balance as the sand shifted under her feet. By the time she reached the blue door of the House of Decency, she had to force herself not to grit her teeth.

“Hello!” she called. The snarling face of some unknown beast stared out at her from the center of the door, a large brass ring clutched in its mouth. Esmerine was wondering if she was supposed to pound on it when the door swung open and a young man did a double take at her before shouting behind him, “Madam!”

He turned back to her, cheeks red. His eyes dropped to her breasts and quickly up to her face again. Esmerine flushed in return. Humans seemed to treat bodies like nasty secrets, and she felt that way when she formed legs.

“She’ll be along shortly, if you’ll wait there,” he mumbled. Esmerine hardly understood his accent. “We don’t get many lady mermen. I mean, mer ladies.”

“That’s all right,” Esmerine said, but he was already rushing off. A woman almost immediately came striding along. Her long face reminded Esmerine of a porpoise, only not so friendly. Her clothes were stiff and ruffly, and she moved accordingly.

“A mer girl,” she said, with a note of surprise that did not extend to her stern expression. “A siren, at that. How odd. Well, you can’t stand there like that. Come along. Did you bring those bracelets to trade?”

“Yes.”

“Very well.” She shot a look at the servant boy, who was standing in the hall. “Tell my husband I’m dealing with the girl and he is not to get involved.”

“Yes, madam.” He scurried off.

Esmerine followed the woman into a narrow hall that reeked of human—a thick, ripe odor of smoke and sweat and roasted meat. Her bare feet picked up a film of invisible grime from the cool tile floors. She winced at the woman’s pace but didn’t dare to slow down. Clothes and fabrics filled the small room where they stopped, some in folded piles and some hanging on hooks. There were stubby top hats, and little funny shoes with buckles, and dark coats with tails, and white linen shirts, and breeches. Men’s clothes. The woman knelt on the floor, opening a trunk full of colors pale and bright and girlish, and she rummaged through them.

“What brings you here, then?” she asked. “Not content singing on rocks, are you? You’re coming on land to steal the men now?”

“I’m looking for my sister.”

The woman held up a thin linen shift, like the one Alander used to make her wear. “Hold up your arms. Your sister? Is she a merwife? You won’t get her back.”

“I just want to see what’s become of her.”

“You want a human husband,” the woman said, tugging the shift over Esmerine’s body. “Otherwise you wouldn’t be a siren.”

“How do
you
know?” Esmerine couldn’t hold back her irritation.

The woman brought a stiff bodice out from the trunk. “We know all about your kind here. A few men in Sormesen have married mermaids. They come to us thinking we know what to do because we talk to the merfolk. The men are too blinded by enchantments to see they’ve married fools who hide from the fire, can’t handle the servants, and complain about every little thing.” She drew the bodice over Esmerine’s shoulders and stood behind her, tugging the laces tight.

Esmerine gasped. “I can’t breathe.” The bodice seemed to be made of slender rods sewn into the fabric that pushed her breasts up and drew her waist into an unnatural tapered shape. She’d been fascinated by Alander’s books, with their pictures of human ladies with tiny cone-shaped torsos and frilly gowns, but she had never believed real human women could resemble the drawings.

“If you truly couldn’t breathe, you wouldn’t be talking either,” the woman said. “This is what I mean. I don’t know why a mermaid would want to come here, when you complain merely at wearing stays.”

“You don’t seem to like mermaids very much.” Esmerine wondered why the woman sounded so hostile. She only wanted to rent a dress and then she would be gone.

“Why would any sensible woman like mermaids?” the woman said, incredulous. “You wreck our ships to frighten us. You run about naked with your horrid fish tails and sing all day to seduce our men.”

“We only wreck ships that don’t pay tribute, and it’s only fair when they’re taking fish from our ocean, and I certainly don’t care to seduce your men!”

The woman shot her a look of poison, giving the laces of the stays a hard tug. “Nor do you know when to hold your tongues.”

Esmerine did hold her tongue as the woman trussed her from head to toe—a padded roll around her hips, a striped cloth overbodice that fitted against the stays, a pale green underskirt and carefully draped overskirt of darker green, stockings, shoes with heels that made Esmerine’s pained feet wobble, and a bonnet trimmed with black ribbon and still more lace that tied under Esmerine’s neck with a choking knot. Esmerine still felt her siren’s belt beneath her clothes, reminding her she was still a free mermaid at heart. It was hard to think that Dosia might wear these clothes forever.

“For payment, your bracelets will do,” the woman said.

“All of them?” Esmerine had a strong sense she was being cheated.

“Yes, they’re nothing too fine. What is that you have there?”

Esmerine had put down the statue of the winged figure, but now she snatched it up again. She didn’t want to sell it to this woman who hated mermaids. “Nothing.”

The woman peered closer at it. “Ugh. One of those winged folk. One of them snatched my aunt’s hat right off her head with his horrible long toes. I never thought much of them since. Well, let me see your beads. I imagine you’ll want to trade something for a ride into town.”

The servant boy took Esmerine into town. Esmerine sat next to him on the wooden seat, but the sides of her bonnet concealed him from her view unless she made a point to turn her head toward him. She could see his hands holding the reins. Large, tanned hands with a cut along the back of the left. She’d never been so close to a human man, and she could feel him looking at her and could smell his sweat. The sun beat on her arms and the back of her neck, exposed between bonnet and collar, and she felt her own sweat trickling between her breasts.

The cart bumped along, rattling and jarring over the road and in Esmerine’s ears. Except for the lovely sharp sounds of porpoises and the bark of seals, sounds underwater were softer and fluid. Everything here seemed loud and sped up. Esmerine gripped the side of the cart, but pulled back at the way it vibrated under her hand. She reminded herself not to be afraid. This was the human world she’d always longed to see. These were the horses—certainly larger than she envisioned—that she swore she wouldn’t be frightened of.

The cart jolted suddenly, and the boy grabbed her shoulder. She looked at him, and he took his hand back. “All right, miss?” His dark brows furrowed with concern.

“Of—of course.”

He kept looking at her, and he grinned just a little, and then he seemed shy again. “Tell me if you need anything.”

“All right.” She turned her head away again. The clothes made her feel very fragile, like some human-made thing that would break apart and dissolve underwater, and now this human boy was looking at her like mermen never did. It was like a curious kind of game.

Along the path to Sormesen, the sea glittered between buildings of two and three stories that were topped with red tile roofs. The breezes blew a fresh scent across the city, but even so, the aromas of dung and urine crept into Esmerine’s nose. They had to stop as a leathery old woman herded sheep across the road. Men, women, children, dogs, horses, and chickens all contributed to the traffic that grew thicker in the city. She heard someone shout over the din, “Spare a coin! Spare a coin!” She turned to see a man, so grimy that she couldn’t guess at his age, waving stumps of arms in the air. “Spare a coin!”

She gasped and looked away, meeting the eyes of the boy driving the carriage again. He patted her arm. “Beggars, miss. You don’t have beggars below seas?”

“Not in my village. The elders take care of people who are sick or maimed if their families can’t, but I’ve—I’ve never seen anyone so … hurt.”

“Poor thing,” he said. Esmerine thought he meant the beggar until he said, “Your world must be wonderful to produce such a kind and beautiful creature.”

She didn’t know what to say to that. What would Dosia have said? Would she flirt, or scold him for such a comment? Or would even Dosia be tongue-tied here?

The moment to respond came and went, but he didn’t seem to mind. He began to whistle over the clamor of people shouting the merits of their hot rolls or dried fish or pamphlets, the woman standing in her doorway pounding the dust from a rug, the grunts and whines of animals. Esmerine had never realized just how many humans lived in Sormesen. There seemed as many people in view as lived in her entire village, and the spires and towers she had seen distantly from the water loomed impossibly high in person. Her mind scrambled through her memories, trying to connect the things before her eyes with the pictures and stories in Alander’s books. Could she ever find Alander or Dosia among so many people?

“Um … excuse me.”

She had thought the boy wasn’t paying attention to her anymore, but the moment she spoke, he turned alert eyes her way. “Yes?”

“Do you know where the winged folk gather around here?”

The boy glanced at the statue on her lap. “Winged folk?” He squinted doubtfully.

“Yes.”

“The messenger station, I guess.”

“Could you take me there?”

He frowned slightly but squinted ahead like he was thinking of how to change his route to get her there. The cart continued forging through the crowds and turned down a street hemmed by walls of tan stone with climbing vines that seemed to give up halfway. Esmerine thought it couldn’t possibly get any more crowded but it did. People didn’t even try to get out of the way of the horses; there was nowhere else to go.

“Is it always like this?” she asked.

“We’re nearing the market,” he said. “It’s that time of day when everyone’s rushing about.”

They finally made it into a rectangular clearing paved with flat stones, surrounded by buildings of four and five stories, even one with a bell tower. A colossal pillar rose from the center of the square. Following the line of the pillar, a winged figure suddenly shot into the air with papers gripped in his toes, one of which slipped free and fluttered into the crowd below. He hovered in the air a moment before dropping back to the ground again, like a gull swooping upon its prey.

Esmerine clutched her heart through the rigid stays. For a moment, she thought it was Alander, and resisted an urge to leap from the carriage. But no, Alander had been taller even when she last saw him.

“Can we stop here? I want to speak to him, just for a moment,” Esmerine said, putting down the winged statue and turning toward the side of the cart.

“Of course,” the boy said. “I’ll help you down.”

He hopped from the cart and ran around to her side, where he placed his strong hands around her waist and whisked her down like she was still near-weightless underwater. She braced herself for the pain of her feet hitting the ground and managed not to wince, but she limped as she approached the winged boy.

The boy looked around Tormy’s age—twelve or thirteen—with hair to his chin and scruffier clothes than she recalled Alander wearing. He shouted to the passing crowd, “The newest pamphlet from Hauzdeen! Hauzdeen’s views on royalty! Sir? Madam?” He waved a wing at a passing couple who were overdressed for the heat. They shook their heads.

Alander had always depised nicknames like “bird-boy,” for the winged folk looked nothing like birds. The boy’s wings resembled a leather cape draped over slender arms, but he had no hands, only a thumb and finger. What might have been his other three fingers stretched to form the framework of his wings. The thin skin of his wings attached at his sides, down to his knees, and his blue vest and brown knickers seemed to fit around him like magic, but she knew from Alander that the winged folk customarily pierced their skin in three places where their wings met their torsos, eventually forming holes just large enough for a fastener to slip through and hold the fronts and backs of clothing together. She had always found the idea clever yet disgusting.