Perchance To Dream (5 page)

She let go, and he felt himself shoot upward, but it was too late. He was going to drown before he reached the surface he could see twenty feet about him. With frustration, fear, and a sense of fatalism he felt his lungs fail and his mouth opened to inhale water.

And inhaled cool moist air!

Stunned, he slowed his ascent. He closed his mouth and inhaled thought his nose. Again he was aware of only air. He turned to look back at Loreanne. She hovered deep in the water, her hair swirling about her, a reproachful expression in her silver eyes. He swam toward her, searching her face.

"Did I hurt you?" he asked, surprised to hear his voice sounded almost natural in his own ears.

She turned her head away.

He cupped her chin in his hand and turned her around to face him. "I'm sorry. I did not understand. I did not trust enough. I. . ." he swallowed, then let the truth come. "I was afraid." He stroked a floating tendril away from her face. "Can you forgive me?"

"Margareen," she said, and turned to swim deeper.

Andrew followed.

They swam deeper still, then under a rock formation that formed one of the walls of the cavern. Wryly Andrew realized how formidable a prison the cavern was to a human. Without the magical red cap, no human had the breath to escape.

Loreanne led him past the coral reef gateway where dolphins harried sharks who would swim into the cove, and on to a sheltered underwater grotto guarded by more dolphins. They reminded Andrew of royal palace guards. In the grotto he knew the likeness was not casual, for the grotto was a palace to rival any. It was not encrusted with gold, jewels, costly fabrics, or wood. Its architecture was of limestone and coral, planted with sea flowers and stars.

On a dais of giant shells and living sponge lay an obese mermaid. Barnacles clung to her dull green tail, and dark seaweed tangled with silver-gray hair twice as long as her body. Her skin looked gray, her face etched with time, her pendant breasts sagging to her waist. She was old, as Loreanne said. Old as time, save for eyes burning with life of self righteous hate.

"You!" she bellowed, sending small fish tumbling backwards. She half rose, then winced and clutched her seaweed bandaged shoulder. She sagged back against the sponge, pain furrowing her eyebrow.

"Margareen! He has come to help!" Loreanne swam swiftly to the old mermaid's side, her hands fluttering over Margareen as she sought something to do to relieve the suffering.

"Come to finish my death, more likely. Humans are not to be trusted!"

"I would not have shot at you if you hadn't rammed my boat."

"Nor I rammed your boat if you hadn't threatened my ordered kingdom with your fascination for Loreanne."

He considered her words a moment. "Then we were both acting fairly based on facts as we knew them."

Her eyes narrowed. "Explain."

He smirked. "Later. You're going to die of blood loss if you remain here."

She cackled like an old witch. "That is a plain speech, for a lying human. But you are right. And if I die, so do you!"

"That seems a bit extreme for revenge," Andrew said with wry cynicism.

"Revenge?"

"If you want to heal the wound rather than die of it, you need to keep it dry. The water prevents the wound from dying and closing properly. I presume the ball has been removed?"

Loreanne nodded. "The crabs removed it."

Andrew raised an eyebrow but did not comment, for he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the explanation, or wanted to know what an explanation would do to his ordered mind. "Loreanne says you need water to survive as a mermaid, and it looks to me as if your shoulder requires air. A contradiction?"

"Not for a mermaid!"

He reluctantly smiled, and inclined his head. "What we need is a method to keep you comfortably half in the water and half out."

"Impossible human," snarled the mermaid. She reminded Andrew of an injured wild dog, all teeth and no noise, no intelligence.

"We'll see." Next to him, Loreanne floated, wringing her hands. Andrew smiled when he noticed what she was doing. Some female traits are universal. "I suggest we construct a form of a hammock throne for her," he told Loreanne. "When she sits in it her lower body will be in the water, the upper out."

"But her skin will get too dry!"

"Not if one of those barrels in the caverns contain whale oil."

"Whale oil!" Her face turned sallow.

"Insensitive human beast! I should turn you over to the barracudas!" Margareen hissed.

Andrew frowned, then realized the mermaids would think of whales as of their realm and would not hunt whales as man does. "The kegs are here, and I'd wager in White's book that the unfortunate creature would like you to use it if it might save your life. Would probably offer it if they were alive, too."

Margareen preened. "What you say is true. Our whale friends are noble creatures and would do anything for us."

"Then it is settled." He turned to swim out of the grotto.

"Settled? No wait!"

"Come, Loreanne. I could use your help." He swam swiftly away, ignoring Margareen's protests.

"You were very good with her," Loreanne said with surprise.

Andrew's mouth twitched. "She's no worse than my father. Easier. I'd almost forgotten how it had been."

As they swam Andrew took note of landmarks they passed. He wondered if Loreanne would be quick to take the cap from him to prevent his escape. Then seeing the restless sharks again he decided she had no need, for those creatures were now so frenzied they would rip him to shreds should he attempt to swim out of the cove, and the dolphins would no doubt keep him from reaching the shore.

When they reached the cavern landing, he watched, fascinated, as Loreanne rolled herself out of the water and onto the rock. Once in the air, her sparkling scales shimmered in the air like heat waves rising from land. As he watched, the scales partially dissolved and fell to the rock floor as thin nearly translucent pieces of mother-of-pearl. They made the sound of bells in the wind.

When the transformation completed she lay on the floor nude.

"Do you do that each time you get out of the water?" He held out his hand to help her stand.

"If necessary." She rose stiffly, hanging on to Andrew a moment for balance.

"You mean you can control it?"

She laughed. "Yes. But I do not do it too much. It's too hard, and sometimes it may only be one or the other and the choice is worse." She walked stiffly over to the chest next to the wall that Andrew had not noticed before. She flipped it open and pulled out a monk's robe. She slipped it over her head and tied the rope belt loosely.

Andrew laughed to himself. What would the abbey do if they knew a pagan fantasy creature had commandeered one of their robes?

"What do we do now?" she asked.

"We search the ship salvage in the cavern's for ideas."

"Ideas? You mean you don't know what we are going to do?"

He grinned. "Only generally. It depends on what we have to work with."

They started up the walkway.

"How did all this ship salvage get in the caverns?" he asked.

"The others, they did it."

"Others?" He looked around. "I thought you and Margareen were alone here."

"We are. Now. The others, they left before you came to the islands."

"Why? Where are they?"

She tilted her head dreamily. "In the far, far ocean where the whales play and the humans revere the sea."

Her voice held echoes of longing. Andrew looked at her closely. "Why didn't you go with them?"

"Because of Margareen."

"But she's not your mother."

She smiled softly. "No," she said, drawing the word out as she folded her arms together. "She is not my mother. She is Margareen, and I must stay with her."

"Why? If no other Merfolk felt they must stay, why must you? And why doesn't she go?"

She looked at him with wide-eyes. "But this is Margareen's place, and I stay because it is expected."

"By whom? The other Merfolk?"

She canted her head, considering the question. "I do not know. I never wondered," she shrugged in human fashion. "It merely was."

Andrew thought it likely that Margareen made it seem proper, the thing to do like his own father was wont to do with his edicts. Andrew left, like, he suspected, did the other Merfolk. That did not help those who could not fight, who were caught in the situation, as Loreanne or others of his family in England who didn't know how to resist the tyrannical selfish old man.

When he'd come to the islands he'd been a parasite, an existence in contrast to his father's control. With time boredom turned to curiosity, and curiosity turned his attention to the estate, its people and their problems. He improved their housing, their food, and their water supply. Then he improved their working methods. Tauton, the estate agent bemoaned the certainty of the earl's displeasure at Andrew's expenses, but when the estate revenues improved, his countenance became wreathed in smiles and he'd declared he'd always been certain Andrew had the right ideas. Andrew let him pander, for his attention had turned away from the estate. He'd become restless. Was that the reason Loreanne could invade his dreams?

He pushed his wondering out of his mind as they came to the caverns full of the human world.

They gathered canvas and rope, wood, and a mallet. They opened barrels to discover salt, sugar loaves, indigo, and centuries old rum. Andrew wiped out a dented tankard and sampled the liquor, pronouncing it drinkable as he wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. He passed the tankard to Loreanne and laughed when she sputtered and gasped on the fiery alcohol. In an ornately carved casket he found gold chains and strands of pearls that he draped over Loreanne. They gleamed against the dark, rough brown monk robes. With a shy blush on her cheeks, Loreanne gave him a small jeweled Spanish dagger. It was a costly frivolous item, but he belted it at his waist.

Loreanne picked up item after item, asking Andrew their purpose. Her child-like curiosity delighted him, as did her frowns at the bullet mold, her laughter at the pointed shoes, her delight at the chicken skin fan. She shook her head over the horse shoe, and the razor. The items in the various caverns must have represented two hundred years of man's presence in the islands.

When he found the canvas awl and the rough nails he began to formulate an idea for a floating throne, a U shaped raft with a canvas sling in the center of the "U".

They carried their finds down to the rocky ledge at the cavern entrance. At first Loreanne was silent, doing as Andrew told her without comment, then as the raft began to take shape, she began to ask questions.

"May I try?" she finally asked, after she watched another nail join two boards together.

Andrew grinned with anticipated amusement as he passed the mallet and nails to her then sat back on his heels. The little mermaid's brow furrowed and she caught her tongue sideways between her teeth as she steadied the nail with one hand and held the mallet with the other.

Her expression caught at his heart. "Be careful you don't hit your hand," he cautioned, his voice unnaturally raspy. He cleared his throat and effected a nonchalance he was strangely far from feeling. He looked down at the nail she held, willing his concentration to turn from her to the nail.

She brought the mallet down on the nail with a light tap. The wood barely dented. She hit harder. A small hole appeared in the wood. She licked her lips and bit her tongue again. Andrew felt his heart lurch again. She hit the nail a third time. This time it stuck in the wood, but not far. She moved her hand out of the way and hit the nail as hard as she could. The nail fell over sideways.

A tiny mew of despair came from Loreanne. She sat back on the floor, her chin in her hand.

Her reaction released the coiling tensions he'd felt. Andrew laughed, and pulled her back up beside him, giving her a reassuring hug.

"No," she said, trying to pull away. "It is a human thing and I am only a mermaid."

He shook his head. "That makes no difference. It takes practice, that's all. And hammering a nail is not considered an occupation for a lady," he said dryly. "But if you really want to do it—"

She eagerly nodded, and her faith, her trust, and her expression captured him.

Overwhelming emotion nearly wracked his body. His hands shook slightly as he took the hammer and nail and hit the nail securely into the wood. He handed the mallet back to her. "Now try," he said.

This time when she hit the nail it went further into the wood. She looked up at him and smiled, delighted by her success. She looked back at her nail and hit it again. It sank deeper. She kept hammering. When it was all the way in, she jumped up, laughing, and hugged Andrew.

He swung her around, laughing with her, heady with her excitement, delight, and something else that he wasn't certain he wanted to name. Slowly, he set her on her feet.

"I did it! I did a human thing!"

He grinned. "Yes. And why not? Out of water you have a definitely human body."

"That's why I watch human kind. So many things they do. And wear!"