The Necklace
again, Moira looked around. Wana told her to stay by the ocean, away from the forest, but she felt exposed out here. At least I’d notice an attacker in the open space, she consoled herself.
Moira stared out across the sea, watching the waves crash against the shore, pouring into the sand bed and drawing back again, in an eternal give and take. Above in the distance, hanging over the sea, the floating cliffs of Aurora were vaguely visible. So close, yet so far away.
Should she look at her family through the mirror again? Everyone would be awake. But no. Pushing the knife further into her heart wouldn’t do any good.
Moira, the lost princess.
Lazily, she turned her head and jumped back, startled. The water woman was back at the edge of the ocean. So much for noticing attackers. How long had she been lying over there? The woman was staring at Moira with her pale gray-blue eyes, and Moira realized she’d been scrutinizing her for a while.
Moira stood on unsteady legs. They no longer hurt after Wana’s cream, but she was exhausted.
“Hello.” Moira decided to be nicer, pushing away her fear of the water folk, and to help her embarrassment, she pretended to forget she’d screamed at the woman a few hours ago. “What are you doing here?” she asked, struggling to bring a faint smile to her face.
“That’s none of your business,” the water woman replied coolly.
Instead of appreciating Moira’s more pleasant attitude, she was being cross. So much for being nice, Moira thought. “Nevermind, then.”
She turned to go, but the woman called after her. “What’s that?”
“What?”
“Around your neck.”
Moira looked down. She had forgotten the worn piece of jewelry she’d found in the sand. “A necklace.”
“Where did you get it?” The water woman pulled herself up on the beach. She was strange, a fish on dry land.
“That’s none of your business.” Moira imitated the woman’s response and crossed her arms over her chest.
“It’s mine. Give it to me.”
“No. I found it.”
“Just because you found it doesn’t mean it’s yours.”
Moira snorted. “Yes, it does.”
She wasn’t used to commoners refusing her or arguing with her. Although royals from other countries considered her an annoying kid, the ordinary people of Aurora always tried their best to please her. The water woman must be ordinary—everything about her screamed ordinary, from her lack of jewelry to her long, white button-down shirt—but she didn’t try to please Moira. Then again, Moira hadn’t told revealed her royal status.
“It’s my necklace. I lost it when I saved you. Now I want it back.”
She’d rescued Moira.
Somewhere in her messed up mind, Moira had already figured out as much, but the words still twisted her insides. The water folk weren’t supposed to save princesses of the air.
Moira shook her head. “Does it look like I’ve got riches lying around? I found this necklace, and I intend to keep it. Just because you say it’s yours—”
The water woman stared at her with fury in her eyes and slapped her fishtail in the water that splashed everywhere, sprinkling Moira with a shower of cool droplets. Moira wondered if the woman intended to be intimidating, with a wrinkle between her eyebrows and mocking anger in her pale eyes, or if she did it unconsciously. Not much for a half-fish to threaten with, especially on land.
“What do you want in exchange for it?” she asked, her jaw tight.
“Can you give me my wings back?” Moira’s question was part sarcastic, part honest. The water folk were rumored to use magic, and she remembered one book claiming they had the ability to conjure things out of thin air.
“How would I do that?”
“Magic?” She tried to make it as much a question as a statement.
“We have no magic.”
“If you don’t want to help me, you won’t get the necklace back.”
“I can’t give you your wings back. How would I do something like that?” The woman was trying hard to be nice, but her furrowed brow and the exasperated voice told Moira otherwise.
Moira sighed. “Do you have any idea how I can get my wings back? I was told there’s a woman called Ea.”
The woman raised an eyebrow. “I don’t run around on land often.”
Moira muttered before she could stop herself, “No, of course, you don’t. But you might’ve heard something.”
The woman took several long breaths and looked up at the sky as if cursing her fate for meeting Moira.
As a representative of her country, Moira tried to draw her feelings in and behave like a princess, and decided to control her anger. After all, it wasn’t the water woman’s fault that Moira got caught in a storm and lost her wings. In fact, she was responsible for her being alive. Moira owed her life to the woman.
“No. I know nothing of a magic woman.”
“All right.” Moira hesitated. “But if you help me find someone who can help me further, you get your necklace.”
The woman stared at her, gaze going straight through Moira, who forced herself to stand still, without fiddling with her hair, as she often did when she was uncomfortable.
“I can only help as long as we stay by the water.”
“Yes, of course.” Moira rolled her eyes. It was difficult to forget that the water woman could not go ashore, with the long fishtail glistening in the sunlight.
She looked at Moira’s feet. “You appear to have received help. Couldn’t they help you with your wings?”
Moira examined her feet. Wana’s cream had indeed worked like magic. Her feet, earlier sore and bleeding, were now merely a shade or two darker than the rest of her skin. It was unbelievable.
“I met someone in the woods. A troll who told me about a woman beyond the mountains who can help restore my wings.” Moira looked up at the water woman again, hesitating. “My name is Moira.”
The fish woman’s eyes were unfathomable. “I’m Nerida.”
Her grayish-blue fish scales sparkled in the water. She wore a long white shirt covering the part of the fishtail that would’ve been her thighs if she had legs, and her skin was nearly transparent. Her eyes were blue in daylight, pupils small and carbon black.
Could Moira trust her?
Nerida.
She recalled the name from certain dangerous stories she had been told in childhood about the water folk. The woman belonged to one of the few societies Aurora never traded with. They detested the air people and used their legs and wings for horrible rituals.
Or so claimed the tales she had heard.
Moira ran her fingers over the necklace. Nerida seemed desperate to have it, giving Moira an unexpected negotiating position.
“So, what do you want to do?” Nerida asked.
“Something to eat would be great.”
Hours must have passed since she’d finished Wana’s berries, and they hadn’t sated her hunger completely. Lack of food attracted dreams of the royal dining table, overflowing with delicacies; sweet strawberries, tangy fruit, soft bread with crispy edges, tender meat, and delicious chocolate melting on her tongue. She doubted the sea or the forest would offer her anything of the kind.
Nerida’s gaze stayed on her for several drawn-out moments before digging into a light green bag made of thick, interwoven leaves that Moira had failed to notice across her shoulder. Nerida plucked out a container, opened it, and held it out to Moira. It smelled disgusting—raw fish. Moira’s stomach turned.
“No, thank you.”
“It’s nutritious food,” said Nerida. “Not what you’re used to, I’m sure, but no need to wrinkle your nose at it. You must eat.”
“Not that.”
Nerida shrugged. “Stay hungry, then.”
Moira scowled, but Nerida ignored her, picking a piece for herself.
She ate, downing piece after piece of raw fish, as if it were natural—it must be for her. Moira looked away. But her stomach stung with hunger. How long had it been since she ate dinner in the castle? The raw fish smelled of salt, sea, and that nauseating fish-scent—but it was still better than starving. Probably.
“Okay, I’ll try it.”
Nerida’s face suggested she intended to say, “too late,” but her expression changed as though she’d thought better of it. She handed over a slice of fish without a word.
Moira considered the slice with a repulsed look. She wanted to throw the fish away, but her stomach growled in hunger. She resisted the temptation to pinch her nose—that would be rude, even to a water woman—and took a bite. It exceeded expectations, though that said little.
The fish was smooth and slimy on her tongue, the flavor salty. She tried to chew as little as possible before swallowing, and it slid down her food pipe in a gooey lump. She restrained her expression and stuffed her mouth with two more pieces to stave off her hunger. Oh, how she longed for a large glass of water to rinse her mouth—the taste would haunt her throughout the evening.
She tried to recall the taste of the apple pie and custard she’d eaten in Aurora, struggling to remember their sweetness.
The fish wasn’t very filling, but after three pieces, her stomach no longer protested as noisily.
Moira glanced at Nerida. “Thanks.”
Nerida gazed at her. Moira met her eye, waited for the water woman to say something, and looked away when her piercing gaze didn’t budge.
“So, you don’t know anyone who can help?” Moira dragged her feet through the warm sand, filtering it between her toes.
“We rarely spend time with anyone on land.”
Moira shook her head, annoyed. She wasn’t stupid enough to imagine half-fish people wandering up the mountains. “I get that. I just thought you might have fairy tales and stuff.”
Nerida’s gaze was evaluative, as if she pondered whether Moira’s question was genuine or if she was mocking her.
“I don’t know if a magical woman exists, and I obviously can’t help you on land. But there is a river that flows out into the sea nearby, and if the books are correct, that river flows down from the mountains. I can go with you as far as the river allows if that’s what you want in exchange for the necklace.”
Moira scrunched her eyes and considered the proposition. Nerida sounded tired and not at all like she planned to drag Moira out into the water and drown her for the necklace. Moira remembered nothing about how Nerida had saved her, though at the back of her mind, there was a memory, a vague echo of a calming voice. There was no way to find out if the voice belonged to Nerida, but who else could it be? More than one kind of water-creature could hardly exist.
But that was before she took Nerida’s necklace. Now she might have made Nerida angry. Could there have been a better way to get Nerida’s help? Well, too late for that, she’d chosen her path.
Moira nodded. She needed help from someone, and Nerida was the only available option. “That’ll be fine.”
Nerida’s eyes were glued at the necklace around Moira’s neck, and Moira hid it inside the rags that’d once been her evening gown.
Nerida turned away. “Just so you know, I’m aware of its existence, but I have never swum up the river. It might be dangerous.”
Moira shrugged. “So is staying here.”
She wished she’d spent more time studying the world during her years in Aurora—then she might have known the distance from the sea to the mountains and how far the river stretched. But Moira had had better things to do; lessons in history and language, music and politics, lessons teaching her how to behave and speak, big dinner parties, and hours upon hours of pasted smiles and fake friends. Watching the world below was never about remembering it, only to dream of another life filled with more meaning. She was unclear what ordinary people, who weren’t royals, did, but she knew there must be something else. Something more.
She noticed the irony in the situation. Now that she was stuck on the ground, her only goal was to return to home, the very place she’d wished to escape. Pushing away all the reasons for wanting to leave to begin with, she knew she had to return, and that she had to do it before her birthday. A wave of emotion made her eyes burn when she thought of what she’d lost and what she still stood to lose. The fear of the unknown stretching out before her made her heartbeat quicken.
Forcing the tears away, she tried to imagine her emotions as inanimate objects she could put into a small box with a tight lid so they didn’t wash over her like the waves of the sea around her feet.
She raised her head and looked at Nerida.
“Let’s go.”