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"Do you think any prince will suffer a madman showing up on his doorstep, calling himself his father-in-law, and demanding to be taken care of in a style he doesn't deserve?" Merrigan said. "If he stays in the house and dies of his own laziness or goes looking for Drusilla and the prince, either way, you're free of him. All that matters is getting away. Remember the stories Bib told you, so you avoid more traps. Be kind to Drusilla, keep her out of trouble, and make her keep her mouth shut when strangers are around. You don't want anyone knowing the source of your income, do you?"
"No." The girl wiped her face on her apron, sniffed a few more times, then startled Merrigan by flinging her arms around her for a short, hard hug. "Oh, you are better than a faerie godmother! How can I ever thank you?"
"Just be happy—and move quickly." Merrigan tried not to shudder as she carefully freed herself from the girl's hug. Part of her liked it, and part of her was repulsed, and another part of her was trying to whisper that she was a fraud. Merrigan couldn't understand why she should think such a thing. Maybe the strain of the day was crumbling the edges of her mind?
Pearl thanked them again, bowing several times, and almost forgot to snatch up her silver pitcher as she hurried to leave. Merrigan stayed where the girl left her, watching and waving, urging her to move faster, until Pearl vanished into the shadows of the forest.
"Do you think she'll be all right?" She gathered up Bib and slid him back into his bag. "It's so unfair, how the clever girls, especially the daughters of stepmothers, are always accused of being nasty. Why are stepmothers always evil? Why don't we hear any stories about evil stepfathers? Doesn't anyone realize the good-hearted dunderheads who get all the magical help are also stepsisters?"
Merrigan slid the strap of Bib's bag over her head and settled it against her hip. Then she turned to walk away from the well.
And ran right into a Fae.
A woman, with jewel-toned, sculptured beauty. She was all in blues and greens, including her skin and hair, and stood at least fifteen feet tall. Her arms were crossed over her chest and she scowled down at Merrigan. One foot tapped against the pebbles of the path the same way busybody old harridans in her father's court used to when they thought they could stand in judgment on her.
"Just what did you think you were doing? Who gave you the right to interfere with Fae justice?" the woman said. Her voice rang like wind chimes made of jewels.
"Justice?" Merrigan squeaked, wobbling between infuriated and terrified.
"That young snot needed to learn a good lesson. Along with her mother."
"What lesson?" Bib called, so loud the book vibrated against Merrigan's hip.
The Fae woman scowled deeper, then snapped her fingers. Merrigan let out a shriek as the strap lifted off her shoulder and the bag flew up in the air. Bib bounced out of it and opened, landing in the woman's outstretched hand.
"If you would so kindly oblige, Lady," Bib said. "See what I learned from the girl."
His pages turned as if blown by a high wind. Whatever he showed the Fae woman, her scowl faded, then her lips pursed and she slowly shook her head.
"I thought something was off. The girl looked well-fed and her clothes were clean and decent and she didn't look at all afraid. She did say she was sent to the well as a punishment, though."
"It seems the people hereabouts think there's something odd about the well," Merrigan offered. The Fae woman seemed more approachable. As her scowl faded, she shrank, so now she only stood ten feet tall.
"It's been nearly thirty years since anyone has come to it. There's no chance to catch up on gossip and really know what's going on ..." She sighed and tossed Bib up in the air. He slid back into his bag, which settled gently around Merrigan's shoulders. "Still, it isn't your place to interfere. There's a balance to things. When you place a blessing, someone else gets a curse."
"So it doesn't matter that someone who doesn't deserve a curse gets one anyway? What happens to the girls who get pushed into a place where a curse lands on them, and they didn't do anything wrong? Her mother is more at fault, for marrying a worthless man with a dunderhead for a daughter. Is that fair to Pearl? Is it fair that the children of people who get cursed end up inheriting that curse? Is it fair when a king makes idiotic choices and gets himself killed and his queen can't hold onto the kingdom? Is that fair?"
"I know who you are, Princess Merrigan. Your story is written in the magic tangling you."
"Tangled is a very good word! And I'm Queen Merrigan."
"Another holds the throne, and you never produced the heir to the throne, so you are not queen mother. You are once again Princess Merrigan of Avylyn."
"That's not quite fair."
"Fair?" The Fae woman shook her head, and for a moment it looked like she might laugh. "You need to grow more before anyone can have a discussion about what 'fair' means. That's not why I'm here. The debt you need to pay is a large one. If you keep interfering in the spells and reformation of others—"
"Interfering for the sake of justice! Would it have hurt you to go look at the girls' family before you started flinging blessings and curses around? Did you hear what she said, about her stepsister and her mother? She actually likes the little idiot. Since when does that happen?"
Merrigan shrank back as the Fae woman grew taller again, doubling her original size before suddenly turning transparent and fading into the breeze. She waited a minute or two, then cautiously reached out and snatched up her cloak, to wrap it around herself.
"Bib, do you think it's safe—"
"To flee? I think it might be wise to try. Whether you'll be allowed to ... who knows?"
Merrigan deliberately retraced her steps, hoping the spell against returning would activate and yank her somewhere far away, out of the reaches of the Fae woman.
She walked down to the main road, turned right, and set her feet toward the town farthest away, according to the mile marker. If someone were fleeing from her and needed a place to hide, she would expect them to go to the nearest town.
The magic codicil against returning never took effect.
When the Fae woman appeared in the road ten steps in front of her, Merrigan suspected she was the reason why the spell didn't yank her away.
"Just because you were right this time—this time—doesn't give you the right to interfere in a process established by tradition," the Fae woman began.
"Wouldn't it use up less magic if you straightened people out while they're still children?" Bib offered. "Convince them it's better to be friends with their stepbrothers and stepsisters, that there's more profit in working with the good boys and girls."
"Hmm, that ... does sound sensible." A weary smile softened the Fae woman's face. "You're right, book. Intervening sooner in the process would certainly use less magic."
"How many downtrodden girls and boys cheated of their inheritance can you marry off to kings and princesses? There's a limit. Eventually, you'll have to kill off someone's husband or wife, or convince the royalty to have dozens of sons and daughters to marry all the good boys and girls you help, and even then there's a limit to the number of kingdoms you can parcel out."
The Fae smiled, and that smile sent shivers through Merrigan deep enough to freeze her marrow. She nodded and grew taller, until her head stretched above the treetops.
"You are a very wise book. Whatever you do, Princess Merrigan, I would advise you to hold onto that book, no matter what it costs you. Listen to him and learn from his wisdom, and ... well, there's a very slim chance, a complicated chance, that you can break free of the spell before your required hundred years end."
"A hundred years?" Merrigan yelped. "Why a hundred years?"
"It's written into the spell. As I said, there's a chance. A very slim, complicated chance. You'll have to work very hard. Hold onto the book and learn wisdom." Then the Fae woman faded into the green shadows and silence of the road.
"A hundred years?" She wobbled and thought for a moment her knees would fold and deposit her right there in the middle of the road. "Bib, why a hundred years?"
"Unfortunately ... well, it seems to be a traditional number."
"We'll see about that." Merrigan took a couple deep breaths, straightened her shoulders, stiffened her knees, and took another step down the road. "If there's a chance, no matter how slim, then I'll find it. I will not—I cannot—" Her voice cracked. "I will not spend the next hundred years looking like this!"
~~~~~
BIB ADVISED HER TO travel in her black widow's weeds and to save her nicer clothes for when she reached a decent-sized town. If she wanted to be taken seriously and have people treat her as more than a beggar, then she needed to present herself as a seamstress looking for employment. The best advertisement was to look not only neat and respectable, but to have a sense of fashion despite her circumstances. When Merrigan stopped to rest on the unpleasantly long walk to the town of Wylder-by-the-Sea, she used the sewing supplies she had made sure to take with her, to adjust her secondhand clothes to advertise her sewing skills.
That gurgling little croon of happiness came back into her throat as she sat in the sunshine and snipped and stitched and used trimmings she had bought for Judge Brimble's clothes but never used. She was quite pleased with her new look, especially when Bib helped with his limited magic, making the adjustments go so much faster. Anything related to his physical state, he could manipulate. Since she had used glue and thread and needles and cloth and pins to fix him, he could "adjust" other such materials, just like he adjusted paper and ink. The closer they got to Wylder-by-the-Sea, a decent-sized port, the more newspapers and other printed materials he could view, long-distance. That included colored prints of the latest fashions from other kingdoms, which the local tailors and seamstresses posted in the windows of their shops to lure in customers. Merrigan adopted what appealed to her from those images Bib displayed in his open pages.
"You, Mi'Lady, look like a respectable, clever woman who is still able to hold her head up high, despite how badly life and luck have treated you," Bib assured her, as they reached the outskirts of Wylder-by-the-Sea.
The five-day journey by foot had taken only a day-and-a-half because several farmers and merchants had stopped to offer her a ride until the next crossroads. There was something to be said for looking like a respectable person down on her luck, rather than a beggar, Merrigan realized. People were more willing to help those who hadn't been down very long. She didn't think that was quite fair. Didn't the people who were worse off need the help more?
"I hope you're right. No more sleeping under the stars for me, thank you very much," she said, lowering her tone as a coach with its windows open passed her. The young lady who leaned out the window of the coach got a scolding from an older-sounding woman, and withdrew into the shadows, but not before smiling and waving at Merrigan. Such a nice, polite girl.
"You are fashionable and well-dressed, and anyone who refuses to hire you as a seamstress is a fool," Bib responded, once they were semi-alone again.
They weren't alone enough for extended conversations for quite some time after that. There were always people around them. Bib resorted to talking into her thoughts. Merrigan could respond in her thoughts, but the effort gave her a headache, which made her cranky, which didn't bode well for convincing someone to give her a job and a place to sleep.
Once they entered Wylder-by-the-Sea, she had far more success finding a room in a boarding house—run by a cheerful, painfully neat old woman and her hulking, mentally weak son—than she did finding employment. Merrigan knew better than to admit she had enough coins to support herself in decent but frugal comfort for several moons. She paid by the week, and begged her kindly landlady for advice on finding a shop that would hire her and be patient when the rain made her fingers ache.
That's laying it on a little too thick, Bib had scolded her, laughing softly, as Merrigan set off to visit the first of six tailor shops Mistress Coppersmythe recommended.
Not thick enough, Merrigan retorted four hours later, when she had visited each shop and couldn't get anyone to hire her. From some of the glances the tailors or seamstresses gave her clothes, she suspected they were jealous. She was visibly more fashionable, even in her sedate colors and secondhand clothes.
Too thick, Bib insisted. We're heading into cold weather, and winter is always worse on the coast, with all the damp in the air. They don't want to take you on and then have to coddle you when your fingers stiffen up, and pay you a day's wages for half a day's work.
"What am I to do?" she said aloud. "Someone in this town has to hire me. I refuse to be a beggar," she added, stamping her foot.
"Good for you, Granny." A massive, black-bearded man hobbled up to her. An elaborately carved peg replaced one leg from the knee down. "What sort of work do you want?"
"I'm a seamstress."
"Don't suppose you know the proper seams for fixing sails or how to reweave nets, do you?" He grinned wide enough for her to see three gold teeth among the black forest of his beard. "Now, no need to look so stunned. I was just joking with you. Might be able to find you some honest work at that, if you don't mind sailors."
"I don't know. I've never really met any."
To her astonishment, he bowed—a little jerky and rough, but it was an actual bow—and then offered his bent elbow like any courtier. Granted, most courtiers she knew were only half this man's girth and only two-thirds his height, and only one-tenth as hairy. Bemused, Merrigan tucked her hand into his elbow and then they were off. For a man with a peg leg, he trotted along through the crowded streets of Wylder-by-the-Sea at a decent pace. She was somewhat breathless when they rounded a corner and came within sight of the sea, far at the end of a long row of docks bracketed by ships at anchor. To her right was a sprawling inn that looked like it had been added onto at least four different times through the decades, judging by the visibly different styles of construction and colors of paint. It sported a wide sign that arched over the double doors, proclaiming it the Bookish Mermaid.
Those who couldn't read could still identify the inn by the enormous carving of a mermaid on the roof of the entryway, surrounded by stacks of books, spectacles on the end of her nose, and holding an equally enormous book, open, strategically placed across her bosom.
"Gorgeous sight, ain't she?" the man said, as he guided Merrigan to the tall steps leading up to the door.
She had noticed that as they got closer to the water's edge, the buildings stood higher above the street and the stairs grew taller. Merrigan wondered if, at the water's edge, the stairs would rival the grand staircase in her father's palace.
"Astonishing," she said, tipping her head back to study the mermaid before they passed under the roof line.
"My great-granny posed as the model. My great-great-granddaddy made my great-granddaddy marry her about three days into the carving," he added with a wink. His chuckle shook Merrigan just enough she clutched at his arm to keep from falling off her feet. "People still talk about the ruckus that followed, when he found out it was a trick so he would force them to get married. My great-great-granddaddy had a good sense of humor, though. People say he was still laughing about the trick on his deathbed."
"Everyone loves a happy ending." Merrigan was somewhat relieved when they stepped through the double doors of the Bookish Mermaid and the man released her. Was everything about this place going to be massive?
"Tiny! Just what do you think you're doing?" a black-haired woman shouted from the far end of the long room.
Yes, Merrigan decided. Everything about the Bookish Mermaid was massive. Long tables set with heavy crockery. Four fireplaces big enough to roast an ox, down the two long sides of the room. Wide bookshelves jammed with books and scrolls and piles of newspapers everywhere. The woman standing in the doorway with an equally massive, blazing white apron covering her clothes, could only be called small when compared to the man. Everywhere else, she would be called statuesque.
"I found you a lady to help with the sewing, Ma." The man snatched his sailor's stocking cap off his head, jammed it into his coat pocket, and wrapped an arm around Merrigan's back to hurry her down the aisle between the long rows of tables.
"Goodness, you didn't kidnap her, did you?" The woman gestured for them to come through the door into the room beyond. Later, she told Merrigan everyone called her Ma, so she might as well also.
The dining room was only about half-full, and most of the people ignored them, either concentrating on their meals, which smelled incredibly delicious, or reading. Merrigan had never been in such a quiet dining room. She remembered too many tantrums when she had brought a new book to a meal, and her father or some high-ranking servant had insisted she engage in conversation with her brothers and sisters. Here, reading while eating was not only permitted, but appeared to be encouraged.
We have to stay here, she thought to Bib. No matter what it takes.
Oh, definitely, Mi'Lady. He sounded somewhat distracted. She wondered if he was already harvesting information from all the books and newspapers surrounding them.
Once in the other room with Ma and Tiny, Merrigan entered the heart of the Bookish Mermaid. One side of the room was a living area, with more bookshelves and long couches full of pillows and quilts for cozy reading, while the other side, taking up three-quarters of the room, was the kitchen. Four stoves, two roasting fireplaces, and two baking ovens. Eight people of varying ages hurried about among long worktables, working on various pots and bowls and platters. Two boys stood on stools in front of a massive sink long enough to bathe a horse, washing a pile of dishes taller than them.
"Are you sure you're all right?" Ma asked, as she guided Merrigan to sit in one of the thickly cushioned reading chairs. "My boy has a good heart, but he doesn't always think, or explain. I can see from your clothes, you're a lady, and you're used to fine sewing. We do need a seamstress, but most of your work would be mending. We don't have much call for new clothes or even for making over old into new and stylish."
"You and your son and your kitchen crew?" Merrigan asked.
"And the girls and boys who clean the rooms and do the laundry. And my man and older boys and girls, when they're in port. We'd keep you busy, but we'd pay you well. Room and board included."
"It sounds like you're offering me the position without knowing anything about me."
"My Tiny may be the runt of the litter," Ma said, reaching up to pat her son on his massive arm, "but the faeries kissed him in his cradle. He's a good judge of character."
"Runt?" Merrigan fought not to choke.
"Just a joke with my Ma," Tiny said, his face going red. "Beauregard is the runt. That's why he gets to be the cook on Pa's main ship—'cause he fits through the doorway of the galley when nobody else does."
"Now, now, lad, enough about us. The lady here is right, we know nothing about her and we're overwhelming her talking about us." Ma sat back more comfortably in the chair facing Merrigan's. "Where be you from? What sort of sewing have you done?"
"I sewed for Princess Merrigan of Avylyn, and then I sewed in the court of Carlion, when she married King Leffisand." Merrigan shivered when Ma just frowned at her words.
Just her bad luck—she had come into one of the countries that considered Avylyn an enemy nation. Come to think of it, she still hadn't found out the name of this country where she had landed.
Bib? Where are we?
I'm sorry, Mi'Lady, I was having so much fun talking with the other books—the country is called Swyfflbyrne and so far it looks like no one here—at least, none of the books I've looked into—knows anything about Avylyn or Carlion. You're very far from home.
Indeed. Merrigan took a deep breath and clasped her hands tight enough to threaten the seams of her black lace fingerless gloves. "I realize those names mean nothing to you. Perhaps someone from one of those ships out in the harbor, coming from over the sea, can verify that Avylyn and Carlion do exist. The truth of the matter is, when the king died and the queen ... well, the queen fell into a great deal of trouble. It seems some inimical magic caught me up and threw me around, and ... I'm really not sure how I ended up in Swyfflbyrne. You probably think I'm a madwoman, but I have no idea how to prove to you I'm not lying."
"You could show me to them, Mi'Lady," Bib said aloud.
"Who's that?" Tiny said, turning around so fast he wobbled on his peg leg.
"My ... my only real friend in the entire world." Merrigan tugged the bag up onto her lap and pulled Bib out, to sit on top of the bag. "He's a magic book."
"Ah, now we love books here." Ma chuckled. "As if you hadn't noticed already."
"Yes, I did, and that's why I would dearly love to be able to stay here." Merrigan didn't mind that for some odd reason, her eyes felt very wet. If tears convinced these people to give her a job and a place to stay, she didn't mind displaying such weakness.
"I assure you, Mi'Lady is a good seamstress, and she has indeed been in the royal palaces of Carlion and Avylyn," Bib said. For emphasis, he flipped open to blank pages and wrote the same words he spoke. "Since you love books so much, may I assume this is a reputable, well-mannered establishment, where Mi'Lady will be safe?"
"Just see what happens when people don't behave themselves," Ma said with a chuckle. "We're an oddity, since we don't allow heavy drinking or cussing or spitting or wenching. You'd be surprised how many folks appreciate having a quiet, clean place waiting for them when they step onto dry land. Well, I may be considered a fool for taking the word of a book, but only a fool ignores magic when it sits in front of him. Have you had your nooning yet, Mistress—" She frowned, but it was a bemused frown. "Now don't that beat all? I never did get your name."
"Mara," Merrigan said. Since she was likely very far away from Smilpotz and Carnpotz and Judge Brimble, she doubted tales of what she had done to contribute to his downfall would ever reach this place. It would be wise to stick with a name she was used to using already.
"Welcome to the Bookish Mermaid, Mistress Mara. Have you had your nooning yet?"
"No. I've been rather busy looking for employment."
"Well, no one goes hungry if they work for the Mermaid. You stay right here and we'll share our first meal together, and then we'll get you settled. Have you anything to your name besides the book—and does he have a name?"
"Bib," he responded.
"Biblio," Tiny said with a chuckle. "It means book!"
An hour later, Merrigan had eaten the first bowl of fish stew that she actually enjoyed, and moved into a comfortable, clean room on the fourth floor of the Bookish Mermaid. Ma explained that while it was a chore to climb all those stairs, she put the staff on the fourth floor so they could be as far from the noise of guests as possible. The heat from the stoves and fireplaces in the winter made the rooms cozy, and they were high enough to catch all the good, cooling winds off the sea in the summer. Tiny ran to Mistress Coppersmythe's boarding house while Merrigan and Ma ate and discussed her duties and pay, and came back with Merrigan's bag of clothes and sewing supplies, as well as Mistress Coppersmythe's feebleminded son, who worked evenings in the Mermaid's stables.
That odd, warm, full and yet feathery light feeling settled into Merrigan's chest as she unpacked her few possessions in her tiny, cozy room. She would spend her days in the main room off the kitchen, mending clothes of guests and workers and family, and if she cared to take on any sewing of new clothes for guests, she was free to do so and make her own arrangements for payments. Ma insisted that everyone who worked for her learned to read, so there was always someone practicing their lessons in between chores, reading aloud in the main room. Sometimes newspapers, sometimes history books, and sometimes books of fables and adventures. Ma admitted with a blush and a twinkle in her eyes that her entire family preferred the fables and adventures.
Yes, Merrigan thought, she would be not just comfortable here, but she could be happy. At least, as happy as a queen who had lost her throne and her husband and her beauty could possibly be.
~~~~~
THE WINTER PASSED IN warmth and comfort, and though Merrigan preferred to stay on the sidelines, Ma's loud, happy, busy household and enormous family wouldn't allow it. They drew her in and made her one of them, and didn't push when she declined to talk about herself. She loved to read, so that made her one of them. She was happy, except for the times that she remembered who she used to be and what awaited her. While she enjoyed life at the Bookish Mermaid, the thought of still being here after one hundred years was enough to make her take to her bed and snarl at people. Only once did her foul spirits get bad enough that Bib had to scold her. The shock of it seemed to snap something back into place inside her head and heart. The odd thing was that apologizing to everyone for her bad mood and sharp tongue seemed to do her even more good.
Tiny and Ma and the rest of their vast family laughed it off and blamed the winter weather and being housebound with the stormy sea crashing within earshot of the inn. Their understanding and easy forgiveness brought her close to tears as well. Merrigan hoped they were right, and it was only the weather.
They were proved right when the days lengthened and warmed and her temper stayed even. Dreams of the past didn't plague her and she could hold off the memories during the daylight. Spring in a seaport was a busy, invigorating time of the year. Merrigan thought about spending the next ten, twenty years here. Maybe it wouldn't be so bad.
"If you can arrange to sleep through the winter," Bib teased her, when she finally mentioned the idea to him.
Merrigan managed to laugh, despite a twisting in her belly. He was right, of course. Bib was always right. Would she have to leave this comfortable place that valued her, just to stay sane?
Before she could work herself up to seriously contemplate booking passage on a ship to Armorica, Merrigan ran into a real mermaid on the steps of the Bookish Mermaid.
Elli, as Ma's family came to call her, simply because they couldn't pronounce her real name, didn't have a tail and she wasn't wet. However, the signs were unmistakable. Her silver-and-gold hair, cropped short in frizzy curls, had a greenish tint, her eyes were enormous, and anyone who watched her blink saw she had two sets of eyelids. Most telling, she had several long, thin gill lines down both sides of her neck. She stood in the street in front of the steps of the Bookish Mermaid, in clothes two sizes too large. She swayed in time with the lapping of the waves against the pier, staring at the wooden mermaid, and weeping green-tinted tears.
Besides, if she hadn't been able to guess from all those clues, Bib told Merrigan the odd-looking girl was a mermaid.
"How did she get up there?" the girl asked, when Merrigan stopped to get a closer look, since she had always wanted to see a real mermaid. Her voice had a creaky-squeaky quality to it, but made bearable because she spoke in near-whispers.
"Well, when Great-granddaddy Pug finished sculpting her, I imagine it took a team of men with pulleys."
"Sculpting?" She blinked several times, looking between Merrigan and the wooden mermaid. "What kind of magic is that?"
"She thinks the emblem of the inn is a real mermaid, enchanted and imprisoned," Bib explained.
"Oh, hello, book," the girl said, addressing the bag that always hung at Merrigan's hip.
While she trusted everyone who worked at the Bookish Mermaid, Merrigan had an innate distrust for anyone who loved books as much as she did—because if she would steal a magical book, wouldn't everyone else? She trusted Ma and Tiny to know that Bib was a magic book, but they agreed with her that no one else should know. This mermaid-on-dry-land had some magic of her own if she knew the voice that came from inside the leather bag was a magical book. Then again, how smart could this girl be, if she couldn't tell the difference between a relatively decent wooden sculpture and an enchanted maiden?
"I'm sorry I didn't sense you there," she continued. "I'm afraid my magic is very slow in regenerating. Just about as slow as the growth of my hair." She sighed, and several more green-tinted tears trickled down her cheek.
Merrigan glanced around, wondering why no one noticed. Several regular customers of the Mermaid strode past her, heading up the stairs for an early lunch. They tipped their hats to her or greeted her by name, and barely gave the mermaid a second glance. Or maybe, she should wonder why she did notice.
"It's because you're in close contact with me, and a little of my magic is rubbing off on you," Bib explained, as soon as the thought solidified in her head. "And no, it would take more than your dreaded hundred years before enough magic rubbed off to break the curse—err—spell."
Merrigan could almost have laughed at how Bib slipped up. He insisted they call Clara's curse a spell or enchantment.
"The you-don't-really-see-me spell is the first thing that grew back. Why did you cut your hair?" he added. "I'm sorry, we haven't been properly introduced. The enchanted lady who has agreed to take me as her traveling companion is Princess Merrigan of Avylyn, and I am Bib. What is your name and why are you on dry land with short hair?"
Later, Merrigan decided the most unsettling part of the entire encounter was that she didn't have a screaming fit when Bib called her a princess rather than a queen. Maybe she had finally grown used to the ugly truth.
"I am—" The girl let out a series of squeaks and clicks, with a few Human vowels and consonants thrown in, which was where Ma grabbed onto the name "Elli," a short time later. "I am from the Great Ocean, so far removed from this port that I can barely smell the water of my home." She gestured out at the high tide water, the stone breakwalls that protected the harbor, and the ocean beyond.
"Mi'Lady," Bib said. "Perhaps we should take this conversation indoors? Eventually, people will wonder why you are standing here, since they know you. Once they concentrate hard enough, ask enough questions, eventually the spell protecting our new friend will wear thin. We don't want to have a crowd of sailors overwhelming us. They go slightly crazy when there's a chance of a real mermaid within their grasp."
"Why?"
"Even poor relations such as I am can dive deep enough to retrieve sunken treasure," the girl said, a short time later, as they settled into the living area. The clatter from lunch reaching full speed was enough to make their conversation relatively private. "All they have to do is cut off a strand of my hair as long as their arm and hold onto it to make me obey their will."
"That's horrendous!" Merrigan cried. She clapped her hand over her mouth and glanced over her shoulder. None of the many workers on the kitchen side of the room even glanced up. "Is there no way to set you free? Is that how you lost all your hair? How quickly does your hair grow back?"
To be perfectly honest, right after the revulsion that shot through her at the thought of filthy, salty, tar-smeared sailors cutting off a woman's hair to control her, a flash of excitement pushed it away. All those riches lying on the bottom of the ocean, just waiting to be brought up to the surface—why couldn't or shouldn't she have some of that? She imagined gathering enough gold to travel the world and pay the strongest enchanter she could find to break Clara's curse. The problem was that the mermaid sitting in front of her didn't have hair as long as Merrigan's fingers, let alone her arm.
Then another thought struck her.
"Poor relation? You aren't a princess? I thought all mermaids who came up to the surface were daughters of the Sea King."
"Ah, so that's what you are," Ma said, gliding in to join them. "I suspected, but my eyes aren't as good as they used to be, and this old charm has had a lot of use over the years." She rubbed the necklace of sea glass that circled her ample neck three times. "Here you go, dearie. This might help," she added, as she handed the girl a steaming cup that smelled like salt and seaweed and a very old crab.
She settled down with them. Merrigan paused to fight down the flash of irritation, because wasn't this her mermaid, her discovery? What right did Ma have, sticking her nose into what was turning out to be an interesting story? Then as Merrigan listened to Bib filling Ma in on what they had seen and learned so far, and the struggle to figure out how to pronounce the girl's name, she reasoned that of course, Ma had every right. She was the queen of the Bookish Mermaid, just as much as Merrigan had been queen of Carlion. How would Merrigan feel if someone brought a stranger into her palace and tried to keep information from her? After that, she could smile with the others as they decided that Elli was the easiest name to use for the girl. By this time, Elli had drunk half of the brew Ma had thrown together for her, and Merrigan could have sworn that most of the dry, frizzy look to her hair had smoothed out. Unfortunately, no instant hair growth. Her skin took on a faintly silvery cast, almost a glow, and she looked ... well, "damper" would be the best word Merrigan could come up with.
"Every Sea King has a dozen daughters, at least, for every son they produce," Elli said, when they returned to the explanation of how she had come to be so far from her home territory under the waves. "Despite the losses we incur every generation, from foolish maidens who go up to the surface and fall in love with some handsome land-walker who pretends to be a prince, there are at least nine or ten daughters who take a mate and produce another daughter or two or three. My great-great-great-great-grandmother was a daughter of the Sea King." She sighed and her tears had an even stronger green tint as they plopped down into the last mouthful of the brew in her cup. "You'd think with all the land-walker blood in me, between her and my mother, I would have had the sense to stay away from the surface."
"Excuse me—land-walker?" Merrigan interrupted.
"With all those women in the water, it's not that easy finding a merman willing to settle down and take responsibility for his mate's mother and sisters and nieces, besides all the daughters they're likely to produce," Bib said. "The usual tactic is for a mermaid to come up on dry land for fifteen, twenty years, pretend to be a Human woman, take a husband—generally an old, retired sailor—and have several children. When he dies of happy old age, she takes her children and returns to the sea. The really lucky ones have a son or two with their Human husbands, which gains them quite a lot of prestige under the waves."