The Secret of the Emerald Sea
Read The Secret of the Emerald Sea Online
Authors: Heather Matthews
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Literary, #Mythology & Folk Tales, #Literary Fiction, #Romance, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Fairy Tales, #Teen & Young Adult
The Secret of the Emerald Sea
Heather Matthews
Copyright © August 2010, Heather Matthews
Cover art by Anastasia Rabiyah © August 2010
ISBN 978-1-936110-87-2
This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this novel are fictitious or used fictitiously. All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.
Sugar and Spice Press North Carolina, USA
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For Jeremy
Table of Contents
Chapter One
It was late, but Jane could not sleep. She was weary, but she could not rest. In her upstairs bedroom, decorated in the peaceful, aquatic tones that she preferred, she stared out of her oval window into the darkness, watching the leaves of tall trees dance in the wind. Rain drummed its relentless tattoo upon the roof and rolled in rivulets down the small window, distorting the view.
At times such as these, when it was dark and lonely and raining, the young girl, who was just fourteen, missed her mother terribly. As well, she felt some hollowness inside because she had never known her own father. He had died before she was born, and soon—too soon!—her mother had passed away. Jane had been only seven years old when she’d died.
Now, she lived with her grandmother in Royalton, a village by the Emerald Sea, and she had so little of her mother to remember her by. There was only a tiny toy crown of hammered gold that had been given to her when she was three years old, and a book. Of her father, she had nothing at all.
When she turned ten, her grandmother took the crown away. Jane cried and cried, begging for the toy that meant so much to her, but her pleas were ignored. Usually, her grandmother was kind, but this one time, she had been quite cruel. Her grandmother did not take away her book, and so she treasured it even more, and read from it every day of her life. It was a slim volume of poetry, bound in crimson leather, and it was filled with all of the sonnets of Shakespeare.
The book was her solace on nights like this one, when she began to feel the curious feeling she experienced
whenever it rained
. Since she could remember, the rain had made her feel some strange longing—one that was acute and uncomfortable. She told no one about her feelings because they were so odd. Already, she felt somehow distanced from the people around her, although she loved her grandmother and had some friends at school. In her heart, she had
always
felt different, and she was sure this had something to do with the curious feeling she did not understand.
Jane held her book of sonnets in her hands, but she did not light a candle so she could read the verses. Instead, she clutched it for comfort alone, as another girl might hold a well-loved teddy bear. She knew that the strange feeling was stronger tonight, and she was not sure she could resist the desires it released. As the rain struck the roof, she felt compelled, as she always had, to go to the sea and to disappear below its still surface, but only in the dead of night, when everyone was asleep. Why she should need to do this was always a mystery to her, and it was dangerous, too.
Jane had never learned to swim. Her grandmother had refused to teach her how, and she was not allowed to go to the shore and learn with her friends. The Emerald Sea was forbidden, and it became all the more alluring because it was always just out of her reach.
On this night, when her sadness and restlessness were profound, and her urges so strong as to be overpowering, she was too weak to resist any longer. All she could hear was the gentle tap of rainfall as she got up out of her bed and put on her slippers. Tonight, she would give in, and she would do what she wanted to...at long last.
“I’m old enough now, aren’t I?” she asked herself doubtfully.
And so she crept out, clad only in a white nightgown, on this night when the moon was dark and the sky was midnight blue. She moved stealthily down the stairway, taking care to avoid the places where the wooden boards squeaked—these she knew from memory—and she quietly tiptoed past the room where her grandmother slept. Opening the front door as silently as she could, she slipped outside into the rain. She smiled as the cold droplets landed upon her ivory face, her long, flaxen hair, and her bare shoulders. The cold did not bother her.
The seaside village was deserted. It was almost three o’clock in the morning. She ran down a pathway that led to the rocky beach and began to trudge through the damp, uneven sands. The shore was always so close to her home, tempting her. Now she could smell the briny scent of the saltwater, and make out the dark, ruffled shapes of seaweed that had washed ashore. She kicked her slippers off, feeling the cold, gritty sand against her skin, and then she ran to the water.
At first, she merely dipped in the toes of one foot. Suddenly, the sea changed color, turning amethyst and pearl-white, and it became warmer against her skin. And so she went deeper, wading out until the water was chest high, and then she slid under the surface until her golden hair trailed below the water like floating reeds.
Jane closed her eyes and let her body sink down into the warmth. She could not swim, and yet she was not afraid. In fact, she felt a peculiar sense of peace. There was a glow behind her eyes, a light so pure and clear it seemed to illuminate her thoughts and emotions. It seemed at this moment that she had found the thing that was missing...it was here...under the dark sky and below the quiet sea.
As she luxuriated in this unfamiliar sense of serenity, she felt something ripple under her, some difference in her body...her legs were no longer legs! Opening her eyes, she was startled to find that she had a beautiful tail, a
mermaid’s tail
, and yet she was not really frightened. She wondered idly if she were dreaming—for it must be so!—and then she flicked her tail about and began to move through the water as naturally as a fish might. Her tail was beautiful, blue-green and glistening, with scales that shimmered jade and aquamarine against the tides.
The water changed again now, back to its own natural green shade, which matched her own eyes, and Jane shook her head slightly. Elation and wonder bubbled inside of her, and she began to move faster.
There was no fear now, for at long last, she was
who she really was
, and who she was
meant
to be...and so she swam further and further from shore, down toward the center of the sea. She could breathe under the water as easily as she had on the land. The sensation of speed was thrilling to her, and she seemed to know her destination, although she could not have named it.
After a long while, she went down deeper and deeper, and all of a sudden, the creatures of the sea were everywhere, murmuring to her as she passed, and speaking in the secret language of their own kind. She stared at them in wonder and returned their greetings. The words she uttered were in their own tongue, and they seemed to gaze in awe at her through glittering eyes as she moved through the sea.
In time, she swam to an old ship that was set into the bed of the ocean. It was gilded and shining with sails of purest white. On its prow was the figurehead of a young woman with Jane’s own golden hair and green eyes. The statue’s mermaid tail was also blue-green and encrusted with gemstones, and on its head was a tiny crown that seemed exactly the same as the one her grandmother had put up on a high shelf just out of Jane’s reach. As she stared at the figurehead, she felt a presence all around her, and she began to hear beautiful, choral music swell and build in her ears.
She turned from the figurehead to behold a dazzling sight. A circle of mermaids had appeared, seemingly out of nowhere, and they were singing to her, so softly and sweetly, in their own language. They sang a song of welcome and friendship.
Are they just like me
? Jane wondered, puzzled.
Mermaids in the sea, and girls upon the land
?
A large man descended from the water above in a robe of white that swirled endlessly around him. He was bearded and white-haired, a muscular, strong man with a fearsome expression on his face. She was frightened by the look in his eyes as she stared at his weathered face. Something about him seemed so unkind, and the gentle chanting song of the mermaids ceased as he made his way toward her.
“I am Neptune,” he announced haughtily. “I am King Neptune of the Emerald Sea!” He waited and stared, and she bobbed a curtsy—no easy feat with a tail so large. She shivered, for the water now seemed darker and colder.
“Tell me who you are!” he ordered in a booming voice.
“I am a girl from the village,” she answered in a small voice. “I came to the water and dipped in my toe, and then the water changed color and became so lovely and warm, and so I went under the water, and then I became a mermaid.”
“You were
always
a mermaid!” he told Jane angrily. “For I know now who you are and why you have come to us this night. And what have those fools on land named you, and what have they taught you of life?”
“I am called Jane,” she answered, “and I have been taught to be good, and to say my prayers, and to do my lessons and be obedient.”
“You are not of their kind!” he bellowed. Jane watched as the mermaids around him shook and hung their heads. “You are my own daughter, you are my princess, and I have waited for you for many years...”
“Your...daughter? I am a princess?” she sputtered, dazed and shocked by his words. But some truth dawned on her in this instant, and she suddenly knew it was so. This was why she had longed for the seawater against her skin for as long as she could remember. This was why the Emerald Sea had been forbidden.
“If you are my father, then who is my mother? Is she here? I thought my mother died in Royalton when I was but a young girl?” Jane asked. “She looked much as I do... She was my mother, wasn’t she? Please tell me she was.”
Neptune nodded at her, and he lost his fearsome look as he hung his head. “She was your mother, indeed!” he cried. “But she is gone now, passed away, and I loved her well. Look at the figurehead that I commissioned in her honor!” Silvery tears began to run down his face and float away in swirling little trails, into the deep-green waters of the Emerald Sea, and Jane was touched. She was no longer so fearful of Neptune.
“She was human,” he wept. “Human, but I loved her, and I tried to bring her here, to make her one of us, but she regretted her choice, and she tried to return to the land. When she got there, nothing was as she remembered and she could not become the woman she once was. But she stayed on the land nonetheless, a human with a god’s child growing in her belly.”
“Your mother died when you were so small,” he went on. “I visited her the night you were born. I wanted to bring you back here, where you belong, and to bring her back as well, as my own queen...but she would not go, and she swore you were human, and she would not relent or listen to reason. I left you both there, although I
knew
you could not be human only. Your mother did not want to live under the water, you see, and she was so angry with me for the changes I brought forth in her. She could not be simply human anymore, but was always part mermaid, and longing for the sea she also dreaded. She vowed to
never
be mermaid again, and she swore that you would not live as she did. She took you away, but you are my daughter, and you belong to me.”
Jane felt coldness creep into her aching heart.
If my mother hated being a mermaid, will I also hate it
? The thrill of swimming free and feeling at one with the creatures of the sea was suddenly eclipsed by memories of sweets baking in the oven, of ripe fields that smelled of sunshine, and big, scrubbed wooden tables where she sat and read her sonnets and drew pictures.
“I...don’t know what I am,” she responded meekly. “And I am afraid.” She looked at the worried circle of mermaids bobbing gently in the water. They seemed to stare at her with too much intensity. She glanced at the figurehead, and indeed, its features and its proportions could have been her late mother’s. She looked down at her tail, and then felt a crown on her own head that could not have been placed there without some frightening magic.
“I want to go home,” she cried. “Please let me go and be as I was before!” Then, Jane turned and began to swim away as fast as she could. Her heart was pounding like a frightened bird’s.
Jane heard a cry of rage that seemed to reverberate through the sea, echoing over and over again. She turned and looked back, just for a second, and she saw Neptune wring his trident staff through the water until the sea turned rough and choppy and tidal waves began to form. She could still hear him yelling in his strange language, and she saw all the creatures of the sea cower and begin to slither into secret hiding places.