“Get out of the water, Nepenthe,” Mother said again.
Giggling, Nepenthe swam away and stretched out one of her tentacles to splash her mother before swimming back. She stepped out on the hard, warm white rocks of the Grotto beneath their home and looked up at her. Their palace was the only one in all of Algid that had a grotto underneath it, which opened out into the North Sea.
Looking at her mother on the edge of the water, Nepenthe could hardly believe that this woman—whose hair was tied up in the severest of buns, her hands on her slight hips, every bit a princess—had once been the stuff of legend. She could hardly believe that her mother had ever spent any time in the water except in the claw-footed tub upstairs.
But before Prince Eric and happily ever after, her mother was known as Tallula, the Little Mermaid, who grew up into a powerful River Witch. Tallula had two sisters: the Witch of the Woods and the Fire Witch. Together, they had formed a Coven and all of Algid feared their powers. They could cast spells that could strengthen an army—and also ones that could destroy everything. They vowed to protect Algid and all its people, even if it meant sacrificing themselves. Or each other.
But then the River Witch fell in love with a human, Prince Eric. And everything changed. Nepenthe was born, and Tallula gave the water up to be with her prince. It was a trade she had made in order to live on land permanently. But she hadn’t let go completely. She had said goodbye to the River, but not to the witches—and not to magic. Most of her power had gone with her tentacles and gills, but she could still do small magic, like healing wounds and small tricks.
“Out,” Tallula repeated, gentler this time. Nepenthe knew that the words held more weight than an urgent need to have dinner. Her mother wanted Nepenthe to make a decision—just as she had before her.
“Whether we want to or not, the world wants us to choose. It is not content with someone who is both of the land and of the sea. You have to be one thing or the other. No one wants half a thing.”
But as she said it, her mother looked at the warm, blue water with a kind of longing that Nepenthe had seen on her face before.
Mother missed it.
Nepenthe didn’t want to miss anything.
“But I am half a thing, Mother,” she protested.
Nepenthe was half mermaid and half princess, a product of a fairy-tale union. She was what happily ever after looked like.
Tallula draped a soft cloth blanket over her daughter, and she began to dry herself off obediently. Nepenthe’s tentacles disappeared. Her arms returned. The gills on either side of her mouth melted back into her skin, like parentheses that had been erased.
She caught her reflection in the surface of the water. She knew she looked like a normal girl: long, flowing auburn hair, two violet eyes, two arms, and two legs. But as she took step after step away from the water, she missed her sea-creature parts the way an amputee still feels a phantom limb.
“Get dressed, little fish. Your father is waiting,” her mother said. She reached over and brushed her hand through her daughter’s wet hair.
Father was waiting for Nepenthe to decide what she would do with the rest of her life, too, just like everyone else. His opinion on who she should be and what she should choose was clear as day in every line of his very human, very handsome face. She knew she was more than Prince Eric’s child. She was his heir, and this palace was to be hers one day. And not just the land Prince Eric ruled, but also its people.
As strong as her desire to please her father was, she could also hear the call of the water. She could hear it from miles off the coast, even when Father was talking. Even when Mother was. And she wasn’t sure if a life on land—a life spent 365 days a year only on land—would ever really suit her.
Love was what anchored her mother to this house and to the land. But Nepenthe had never met a single person who made her want to stay out of the water. Not one.