Magic Three of Solatia (3 page)

On the way around the second time, Sianna discovered a large piece of driftwood she had not noticed before. It was heavy, but she was able to drag it slowly behind her all the way to the house. Above her head, the golden lark circled and scolded as if to show the way.

Sianna thought the wood might do as a table. Though it was low, it had three stubby legs, and if she sat in the sand, it was just the right height. She moved it next to the house and set the cup and plate upon it. Then she sat down and began to wait for her unknown friend.

“At least,” she thought, “I can thank whomever—or whatever—myself.”

But the sun moved slowly across the sky and no one came. Only a few fish leaped far out at sea. And once Sianna thought she saw the spouting of a whale.

She was beginning to get hungry again. But she was sleepier still. And so, head on hands, hands on the table, Sianna at last fell into a sleep. She dreamed she was home making silver buttons out of the bones of fish she had caught swimming about in her father’s shop.

W
HEN SIANNA WOKE UP
on her second day on Outermost Isle, she was warm. Then she realized that she was again in the little coral house.

“Most strange,” she thought, for she distinctly remembered falling asleep outside.

As she stretched herself more fully awake, her feet touched some stiff cloth. She sat up quickly and peered in the dimness. There, lying on the floor near her, were a long skirt woven from seaweed and rushes and her own little jacket.

She put them on. The skirt came down to her ankles and was surprisingly soft. But the jacket felt strange and stiff, for it had been too long under the sea. When she tried to button it, she discovered that the silver buttons had been replaced by shells.

Sianna gasped and put her hand to her mouth. There was no longer any question about it. She was being cared for by Dread Mary herself.

Somehow, knowing that made everything reasonable. And so Sianna determined to stay awake that night in order to meet the seawitch.

“First I shall thank her,” she decided, “and then I shall demand my mother’s buttons back. For surely, since she has so many, three less will not matter.”

Sianna spent the day tidying her home and collecting shells for decorations. She smoothed a path to the sea and lined it with hundreds of scallops, for they lay about the beach in profusion. She found half an old barrel washed up on the far side of the island, and thought she could use it for a chair, but it needed a cushion. So she puzzled out the weaving in her skirt and spent the rest of the daylight gathering sturdy seaweeds to use as threads. She stretched the weed threads between the legs of the table, knotted the threads to the legs, and thus laid out her warp. By then it was sundown and she could see no more to weave.

She stretched and made a great pretense at yawning, for she was certain Dread Mary watched from somewhere in the sea. In a loud voice she announced—rather louder than she had intended—“I think I shall go inside to sleep.”

Laying the remaining weaving threads beside the empty plate and cup, Sianna walked slowly into the house. But once inside, she stealthily parted the curtain at the window and peered out into the night.

A full moon was rising, and the strand sparkled with a thousand little lights. These were shells reflecting back the moon’s rays. And though it was night, the shingle was as bright as morn.

A strange hush settled over the isle. All at once even the constant drumming of the waves on the shore seemed stilled. Sianna felt sleepy. She reached into her jacket pocket and drew out two sharp shells she had hidden there. These she placed on the floor and then stood upon them with her bare feet. The shells pricked her soles, and the pain would keep her awake.

It was near midnight when a splash near the shore startled her. Something—someone—was approaching.

In the moonlight everything appeared larger than in the day. It seemed to Sianna that a great monstrous fish was rising up out of the water. Yet it was no fish, she saw at last, but a mer-creature, part woman and part fish. The creature heaved itself onto the shore with its hands and wriggled farther up the beach.

While Sianna watched from behind the seaweed curtains of the coral house, the mermaid’s tail sloughed off and two perfect legs appeared in its place. Then the seawitch, for it was indeed she, flexed and wriggled her feet slowly as if it hurt to move them. She bent her knees and moved cautiously at first. Then she came toward the hut.

In the moonlight she gleamed white as the belly of a fish. Her hair covered her back and breasts as she moved. And the only things she wore were strands of anemones she had braided through her long black hair.

D
READ MARY DID NOT
look so dreadful then, for her face was quite lovely and soft in the moonlight. She moved with the grace of a creature still in the sea, her motions slow and majestic. She seemed to float in the air as she would in a wave.

The moment she saw the seawitch, Sianna knew what she would have to do. All thoughts of thanking her fled. The girl crawled out the window, though the shells scraped her legs. She ran down to the sea where the mermaid had shed her tail.

Grabbing up the slippery, wet tail in her hands, Sianna called out to the startled witch in a voice that quivered with fear, “Dread Mary, I conjure you, take care. You shall not return to the sea till I have what is rightfully mine.”

At the sound of the girl’s voice, Dread Mary turned. She came slowly over to where Sianna stood and held out her hand to the girl. In the moon’s light Sianna could see the delicate pulsing membranes stretched taut between each finger and on the witch’s neck, close up under each ear, were faint red gill lines that beat in her heart’s rhythm.

“Give me my tail, child, and I will not harm you,” came Dread Mary’s voice. It was liquid and low and full of the sounds of the sea.

“You shall not harm me anyhow, mother from the sea.” Sianna’s words were braver than her voice. “I am not afraid.”

“Take care, child, for there is much to fear.”

“Give me my buttons and you shall have your tail.”

The seawitch kept her hand stretched toward the girl, but a smile formed on her face. It was perhaps the first time in almost three hundred years that she had smiled that kind of smile. It was a fond smile, a smile of liking, a smile of respect.

“I will make you such a trade,” said the witch. “Give me my tail.”

“First swear,” said Sianna, who could not read that smile in the moonlight and feared a trick. “Swear by all you hold sacred and true.”

“I swear by the constant sea,” said Dread Mary. “I swear by the tides that turn again each day. By the infinite grains of salt in the ocean and the multitude of grains of sand on the strand. I swear by the scales on each fish in the water and by the seaweed rosaries that sway in the sea. By all these I swear that I shall return to you what is yours if you but give me back my tail.”

Sianna smiled then. “It is yours. I cannot hold it.” And she gave the fishtail to the witch.

Dread Mary moved closer then and took the tail from Sianna. Their hands touched briefly, the girl’s warm and soft, the mermaid’s cold and rough. Sianna looked deeply into the mermaid’s black eyes. They were fathomless, they were ageless. The mermaid smiled again as she slipped into the tail. Then she dove back into the sea.

I
N THE MORNING WHEN
Sianna woke, though it was nearer noon according to the sun, she ate and drank what Mary had left. It was then she found the three small buttons at the bottom of her cup.

“Thank you,” she called out to the sea. “Thank you for everything.”

There was no sign that she had been heard, so Sianna rose and went down to the water’s edge. She slipped out of her skirt and jacket and left them lying neatly folded on the shore. Then she waded into the water and swam with strong strokes out to the middle of the cove. The
Gard-lann,
the golden king-lark, circled her head as she swam. Playfully she splashed water up at it, and it turned indignantly and flew back to shore.

Sianna took a deep breath and dived. As she went down, down, down to the bottom of the sea, she began to feel the wonder of it again. Little spotted fish and big bloated groupers swam by. A many-legged squid pulsed along near the bottom. And ahead Sianna saw the galleon which Dread Mary called home.

She circled around the galleon half looking for the bones of the fishermen and half fearful lest she find them. But bones and dead fishermen were as much part of the storyteller’s art as was Mary’s wickedness. At least that was how it seemed under the sea to Sianna. She rose for a quick breath, then dove again.

This time Sianna swam directly to the ship and, pulling herself along the rail, came to the forecastle. Hoping that at least that part of the legend was true, she knocked three times upon the wood. But there was no answering knock. The last bits of air in her chest were aching for release, and so Sianna swam quickly to the top. Gasping for breath, she was just deciding whether she was strong enough to go down again when there was a loud splash behind her. Sianna turned and there was the seawitch smiling at her and holding out her webbed hands.

Without a word, Sianna took the hands in hers. Then Dread Mary drew her down under the waves and together they searched out the hidden caves and grottos of the deep, played with schools of flying fish, rode on rays, and even straddled porpoises for a race across the cove. Whenever the girl tired, the mermaid would hold her up. Whenever the girl grew short of breath, the mermaid would bring her to the surface.

Later, when they were both exhausted from the swim, they came ashore. The mermaid doffed her tail, and the two played a game of tosses with an ivory shell.

While they were resting, Sianna made up a song for the seawitch that went like this:

My mother is the sea,

And from her I have come.

She feeds and comforts me.

Her water is my home.

She rocks me when I sleep,

She holds me when I ail.

She’s big and wide and deep

And never shall she fail

To comfort me, to come to me,

Drifting down, derry derry down.

My mother is the sea,

And to her I shall go

When aught shall trouble me,

Seamother she will know.

She holds me when I drift,

And cushions every fall.

For giving is her gift,

Forgiving is her all.

She comforts me, she comes to me,

Drifting down, derry derry down.

When Sianna had finished, the mermaid clapped her hands with delight. “Another trade, dear child.”

Sianna was silent for a moment. She feared the witch might want the buttons back.

But Mary, sensing her fear, said, “No, no. Here is my trade. You will teach me the songs of the shore, and I will teach you the spells of the sea. For ever, it seems to me, I have loved singing.”

Sianna said, “But how long shall such an exchange take? I fear that my father’s poor heart is breaking while he waits for me on the land.”

The seawitch looked away. “Let the man be unhappy then. For it is not only women who are born to weep.”

Sianna answered, “How can you say that? I do not want him to worry. Oh, sea mother, he is but a poor button maker. But if you take me home, he will make you buttons enough to fill the entire sea.”

Mary reached out for the girl’s hand and held it to her breast. “Little songbird,” she said, “do you know what it is like to be lonely? I do not think I knew until you came how empty my life has been. You are here and here you shall stay.”

Sianna began to weep. Till that very moment she had thought of Mary as her friend. She saw now that she was not the witch’s friend but her prisoner, for true friendship—like true love—does not seek to bind.

The mermaid was upset by the tears and wanted to stop them. She said slyly, “When you know as much about magic as I do, then perhaps you will be able to find your own way home.”

“Do you believe so?” asked the girl, hope in her heart again.

“Oh, yes,” replied Dread Mary, “though it may take a long long time.” And only she knew that she lied.

“Then it is a pact,” said Sianna. “And you will see, I will be a most apt pupil.”

“Here is your first lesson. And it is the most important lesson of all,” said the witch.
“Magic has consequences.”

“Consequences?” asked Sianna.

“Yes,” said the mermaid. “All of nature is in a delicate balance, the good with the evil, the soft with the hard, the weak with the strong. If through magic you create an imbalance, nature itself will right the scales. So whatever you do—for good or evil—it will be counterpoised. If you forget all else, forget not this.”

Sianna nodded.

The witch smiled. “Come then, little bird. Teach me that seamother song.”

T
HUS A YEAR MOVED
slowly for Sian, far away on the Solatian shore. Never a word passed his lips, for never did a sign from Sianna come from the sea. And his eyes were as salty with tears as an ocean wave.

On the Outermost Isle, the year moved swiftly for the girl and the witch. They traded song for spell and spell for song. And no one could say which had the best of the bargain. For each bit of magic that Sianna learned, she gave a song of love or sorrow in return.

Sianna learned the language of seals and which weeds of the sea took away pain. She was taught how to make a poultice of sea mustard and how to draw out poison with a fishbone lance. She discovered that every living thing has two names, one it is called by the people and one it is called in a spell, and that the spell name is so powerful it could command even the sharp-toothed shark. The only thing she could not learn was to breathe under the sea.

But mostly Sianna learned that magic has consequences. That every strong action leads to a strong reaction, that every up has its down, that there is no evil that does not have a balancing good, nor a good that does not sow some evil in its turn. And finally, what Sianna learned about magic was that it was best not to use it at all.