by Jane Yolen
She followed him, knife upon knife, smiling.
The prince took her to his room by a hidden route, the steps up to it smoothed by the passage of many dainty feet. Each step up was another gash in her side. She gasped and he asked her why.
“It is nothing,” she signed, holding her waist. Her mouth was open, gasping in the air, and she was momentarily as ugly as any fish. But the moment passed.
He did not ask again. Some men believe lies—especially if it is to their convenience.
His room was like a ship’s cabin, the waves always knocking at the walls. He locked the door behind them and turned towards her. She did not ask for ceremony. His touch was enough, rougher on her skin than the ocean. She enjoyed the novelty of it. She enjoyed his bed, heavy with humanity. Lying on it, her knife legs no longer ached.
Her touch on him was water-smooth and soothing. He forgot his marriage. He was always able to forget the demands of royalty in this manner. It was why he forgot so often—and so well.
But those demands are as constant as clockwork. The week ticked away as inexorably as a gold watch and the monstrous bride was shipped across the waves.
She resembled an armada, rough-hewn and wooden, with a mighty prow and guardsmen in her wake. Noisy as seagulls, her attendants knocked on his door. He was forced by tradition to attend her. The undine he left behind.
“I love you. My love is an ocean,” he whispered into her seashell ears before he left.
But she knew that such water was changeable. It was subject to tides. Hers was at an ebb. She no longer trusted his sighs. As soon as the door shut, she left the bed. The knifepoints were as sharp as if newly honed. The mirror on the wall did not reflect her beauty. It showed only a watery shadow, changing and shifting, as she passed.
The salt smell of the ocean, sharp and steady, called to her from the window. Looking out, she saw her sisters, the waves, beckoning her with their white arms. She could even hear the rough neighing of the horses of the sea. She left two mermaid tears, crystals with a bit of salt embedded in them, on his pillow. Then painfully she climbed up onto the corbeled windowsill and flung herself back at the sea.
It opened to her, gathered her in, washed her clean.
The prince found the crystals and made them into ear-bobs for his ugly wife. They did not improve her looks. But she proved a strong, stable queen for him, and ruled the kingdom on her own. She gave him much line, she played him like a fish. She swore to him that she did not mind his many affairs or that he spoke in his sleep of undines.
She swore, and he believed her. But the lies of kings are not always lightly told.
Undine
It is a sad tale,
the one they tell,
of Undine
the changeling,
Undine
who took on legs
to walk the land
and dance
on those ungainly stalks
before a prince
of the earthfolk.
He betrayed her;
they always do,
the landsmen.
Her arms around him
meant little more
than a finger of foam
curled round his ankle.
Her lips on his
he thought cold,
brief and cold
as the touch of a wave.
He betrayed her,
they always do,
left her to find
her way back home
over thousands of land miles,
the only salt her tears,
and she as helpless as a piece of featherweed
tossed broken onto the shore.
The White Seal Maid
ON THE NORTH SEA shore there was a fisherman named Merdock who lived all alone. He had neither wife nor child, nor wanted one. At least that was what he told the other men with whom he fished the haaf banks.
But truth was, Merdock was a lonely man, at ease only with the wind and waves. And each evening, when he left his companions, calling out “Fair wind!”—the sailor’s leave—he knew they were going back to a warm hearth and a full bed while he went home to none. Secretly he longed for the same comfort.
One day it came to Merdock as if in a dream that he should leave off fishing that day and go down to the sea-ledge and hunt the seal. He had never done such a thing before, thinking it close to murder, for the seal had human eyes and cried with a baby’s voice.
Yet though he had never done such a thing, there was such a longing within him that Merdock could not say no to it. And that longing was like a high, sweet singing, a calling. He could not rid his mind of it. So he went.
Down by a gray rock he sat, a long sharpened stick by his side. He kept his eyes fixed out on the sea, where the white birds sat on the waves like foam.
He waited through sunrise and sunset and through the long, cold night, the singing in his head. Then, when the wind went down a bit, he saw a white seal far out in the sea, coming toward him, the moon riding on its shoulder.
Merdock could scarcely breathe as he watched the seal, so shining and white was its head. It swam swiftly to the sealedge, and then with one quick push it was on land.
Merdock rose then in silence, the stick in his hand. He would have thrown it, too. But the white seal gave a sudden shudder and its skin sloughed off. It was a maiden cast in moonlight, with the tide about her feet.
She stepped high out of her skin, and her hair fell sleek and white about her shoulders and hid her breasts.
Merdock fell to his knees behind the rock and would have hidden his eyes, but her cold white beauty was too much for him. He could only stare. And if he made a noise then, she took no notice but turned her face to the sea and opened her arms up to the moon. Then she began to sway and call.
At first Merdock could not hear the words. Then he realized it was the very song he had heard in his head all that day:
Come to the edge,
Come down to the ledge
Where the water laps the shore.
Come to the strand,
Seals to the sand,
The watery time is o’er.
When the song was done, she began it again. It was as if the whole beach, the whole cove, the whole world were nothing but that one song.
And as she sang, the water began to fill up with seals. Black seals and gray seals and seals of every kind. They swam to the shore at her call and sloughed off their skins. They were as young as the white seal maid, but none so beautiful in Merdock’s eyes. They swayed and turned at her singing, and joined their voices to hers. Faster and faster the seal maidens danced, in circles of twos and threes and fours. Only the white seal maid danced alone, in the center, surrounded by the castoff skins of her twirling sisters.
The moon remained high almost all the night, but at last it went down. At its setting, the seal maids stopped their singing, put on their skins again, one by one, went back into the sea again, one by one, and swam away. But the white seal maid did not go. She waited on the shore until the last of them was out of sight.
Then she turned to the watching man, as if she had always known he was there, hidden behind the gray rock. There was something strange, a kind of pleading, in her eyes.
Merdock read that pleading and thought he understood it. He ran over to where she stood, grabbed up her sealskin, and held it high overhead.
“Now you be mine,” he said.
And she had to go with him, that was the way of it. For she was a selchie, one of the seal folk. And the old tales said it: The selchie maid without her skin was no more than a lass.
They were wed within the week, Merdock and the white seal maid, because he wanted it. So she nodded her head at the priest’s bidding, though she said not a word.
And Merdock had no complaint of her, his “Sel” as he called her. No complaint except this: she would not go down to the sea. She would not go down by the shore where he had found her or down to the sand to see him in his boat, though often
enough she would stare from the cottage door out past the cove’s end where the inlet poured out into the great wide sea.
“Will you not walk down by the water’s edge with me, Sel?” Merdock would ask each morning. “Or will you not come down to greet me when I return?”
She had never answered him, neither “Yea” nor “Nay.” Indeed, if he had not heard her singing that night on the ledge, he would have thought her mute. But she was a good wife, for all that, and did what he required. If she did not smile, she did not weep. She seemed, to Merdock, strangely content.
So Merdock hung the white sealskin up over the door where Sel could see it. He kept it there in case she should want to leave him; to don the skin and go. He could have hidden it or burned it, but he did not. He hoped the sight of it, so near and easy, would keep her with him; would tell her, as he could not, how much he loved her. For her found he did love her, his seal wife. It was that simple. He loved her and did not want her to go, but he would not keep her past her willing it, so he hung the skin up over the door.
And then their sons were born. One a year, born at the ebbing of the tide. And Sel sang to them, one by one, long, longing wordless songs that carried the sound of the sea. But to Merdock she said nothing.
Seven sons they were, strong and silent, one born each year. They were born to the sea, born to swim, born to let the tide lap them head and shoulder. And though they had the dark eyes of the seal, and though they had the seal’s longing for the sea, they were men and had men’s names: James, John, Michael, George, William, Rob, and Tom. They helped their father fish the cove and bring home his catch from the sea.
It was seven years and seven years and seven years again that the seal wife lived with him. The oldest of their sons was just coming to his twenty-first birthday, the youngest barely a man. It was on a gray day, the wind scarcely rising, that the boys all refused to go with Merdock when he called. They gave no reason but “Nay.”
“Wife,” Merdock called, his voice heavy and gray as the sky. “Wife, whose sons are these? How have you raised them that they say ‘Nay’ to their father when he calls?” It was ever his custom to talk to Sel as if she returned him words.
To his surprise, Sel turned to him and said. “Go. My sons be staying with me this day.” It was the voice of the singer on the beach, musical and low. And the shock was so great that he went at once and did not look back.
He set his boat on the sea, the great boat that usually took several men to row it. He set it out himself and got it out into the cove, put the nets over, and never once heard when his sons called out to him as he went, “Father, fair wind!”
But after a bit the shock wore thin and he began to think about it. He became angry then, at his sons and at his wife, who had long plagued him with her silence. He pulled in the nets and pulled on the oars and started toward home. “I, too, can say ‘Nay to this sea,” he said out loud as he rode the swells in.
The beach was cold and empty. Even the gulls were mute.
“I do not like this,” Merdock said. “It smells of a storm.”
He beached the boat and walked home. The sky gathered in around him. At the cottage he hesitated but a moment, then pulled savagely on the door. He waited for the warmth to greet him. But the house was as empty and cold as the beach.
Merdock went into the house and stared at the hearth, black and silent. Then, fear riding in his heart, he turned slowly and looked over the door.
The sealskin was gone.
“Sel!” he cried then as he ran from the house, and he named his sons in a great anguished cry as he ran. Down to the sea-ledge he went, calling their names like a prayer: “James, John, Michael, George, William, Rob, Tom!”
But they were gone.
The rocks were gray, as gray as the sky. At the water’s edge was a pile of clothes that lay like discarded skins. Merdock stared out far across the cove and saw a seal herd swimming. Yet not a herd. A white seal and seven strong pups.
“Sel!” he cried again. “James, John, Michael, George, William, Rob, Tom!”
For a moment, the white seal turned her head, then she looked again to the open sea and barked out seven times. The wind carried the faint sounds back to the shore. Merdock heard, as if in a dream, the seven seal names she called. They seemed harsh and jangling to his ear.
Then the whole herd dove. When they came up again they were but eight dots strung along the horizon, lingering for a moment, then disappearing into the blue edge of sea.
Merdock recited the seven seal names to himself. And in that recitation was a song, a litany to the god of the seals. The names were no longer harsh, but right. And he remembered clearly again the moonlit night when the seals had danced upon the sand. Maidens all. Not a man or boy with them. And the white seal turning and choosing him, giving herself to him that he might give the seal people life.
His anger and sadness left him then. He turned once more to look at the sea and pictured his seven strong sons on their way.
He shouted their seal names to the wind. Then he added, under his breath, as if trying out a new tongue, “Fair wind, my sons. Fair wind.”
Once a Good Man
ONCE A GOOD MAN lived at the foot of a mountain. He helped those who needed it and those who did not.
And he never asked for a thing in return.
Now it happened that one day the Lord was looking over his records with his Chief Angel and came upon the good man’s name.
“That is a good man,” said the Lord. “What can we do to reward him? Go down and find out.”
The Chief Angel, who was nibbling on a thin cracker, swallowed hastily and wiped her mouth with the edge of her robe.
“Done,” she said.
So the Chief Angel flew down, the wind feathering her wings, and landed at the foot of the mountain.
“Come in,” said the man, who was not surprised to see her. For in those days angels often walked on Earth. “Come in and drink some tea. You must be aweary of flying.”
And indeed the angel was. So she went into the Good Man’s house, folded her wings carefully so as not to knock the furniture about, and sat down for a cup of tea.
While they were drinking their tea, the angel said, “You have led such an exemplary life, the Lord of Hosts has decided to reward you. Is there anything in the world that you wish?”
The Good Man thought a bit. “Now that you mention it,” he said, “there is one thing.”
“Name it,” said the angel. “To name it is to make it yours.”
The Good Man looked slightly embarrassed. He leaned over the table and said quietly to the angel, “If only I could see both Heaven and Hell I would be completely happy.”
The Chief Angel choked a bit, but she managed to smile nonetheless. “Done,” she said, and finished her tea. Then she stood up, and held out her hand.
“Hold fast,” she said. “And never lack courage.”
So the Good man held fast. But he kept his eyes closed all the way. And before he could open them again, the man and the angel had flown down, down, down past moles and molehills, past buried treasure, past coal in seams, past layer upon layer of the world, till they came at last to the entrance to Hell.
The Good Man felt a cool breeze upon his lids and opened his eyes.
“Welcome to Hell,” said the Chief Angel.
The Good Man stood amazed. Instead of flames and fire, instead of mud and mire, he saw long sweeping green meadows edged around with trees. He saw long wooden tables piled high with food. He saw chickens and roasts, fruits and salads, sweetmeats and sweet breads, and goblets of wine.
Yet the people who sat at the table were thin and pale. They devoured the food only with their eyes.
“Angel, oh Angel,” cried the Good Man, “why are they hungry? Why do they not eat?”
And at his voice, the people all set up a loud wail.
The Chief Angel signaled him closer.
And this is what he saw. The people of Hell were bound fast to their c
hairs with bands of steel. There were sleeves of steel from their wrists to their shoulders. And though the tables were piled high with food, the people were starving. There was no way they could bend their arms to lift the food to their mouths.
The Good Man wept and hid his face. “Enough!” he cried.
So the Chief Angel held out her hand. “Hold fast,” she said. “And never lack courage.”
So the Good Man held fast. But he kept his eyes closed all the way. And before he could open them again, the man and the angel had flown up, up, up past eagles in their eyries, past the plump clouds, past the streams of the sun, past layer upon layer of sky till they came at last to the entrance to Heaven.
The Good Man felt a warm breeze upon his lids and opened his eyes.
“Welcome to Heaven,” said the Chief Angel.
The Good Man stood amazed. Instead of clouds and choirs, instead of robes and rainbows, he saw long sweeping green meadows edged around with trees. He saw long wooden tables piled high with food. He saw chickens and roasts, fruits and salads, sweetmeats and sweet breads, and goblets of wine.
But the people of Heaven were bound fast to their chairs with bands of steel. There were sleeves of steel from their wrists to their shoulders. There seemed no way they could bend their arms to lift the food to their mouths.
Yet these people were well fed. They laughed and talked and sang praises to their host, the Lord of Hosts.
“I do not understand,” said the Good Man. “It is the same as Hell, yet it is not the same. What is the difference?”
The Chief Angel signaled him closer.
And this is what he saw: each person reached out with his steel-banded arm to take a piece of food from the plate. Then he reached over—and fed his neighbor.
When he saw this, the Good Man was completely happy.
The Malaysian Mer
THE SHOPS WERE NOT noticeable from the main street and were almost lost in the back-alley maze as well. But Mrs. Stambley was an expert at antiquing. A new city and a new back alley got up her fighting spirit, as she liked to tell her group at home. That this city was half a world away from her comfortable Salem, Massachusetts home did not faze her. In England or America she guessed she knew how to look. She had dozed in the sun as the boat made its way along the Thames. At her age naps had become important. Her head nodded peacefully under its covering of flowers draped on a wine-colored crown. She never even registered the tour guide’s spiel. At Greenwich she had debarked meekly with the rest of the tourists, but she had easily slipped the leash of the guide who took the rest of the pack up to check out Greenwich Mean Time. Instead, Mrs. Stambley, her large black leather pocket-book clutched in a sturdy gloved grip, had gone hunting on her own.