How Triton had treated Ariel would be enough for Circe. She had no regard for fathers who kept their daughters from their true loves and destroyed their most cherished possessions. If Circe were there, she probably would have granted Ariel’s wish to be human without payment, punishing Triton in the process. No, Circe wouldn’t mind their schemes with Ursula. In fact, she’d probably help them.
“I don’t think she would. She’s too good,” whispered Martha. “I don’t think she’d like it at all.”
Lucinda sighed. “We’re doing it for Circe!”
Martha and Ruby weren’t convinced. “But that is what we thought with the Beast prince!” “And now Circe is angry, refusing to see us!”
Lucinda was clenching her fists, willing herself not to unleash her fury on her sisters. “Ursula promises to help us find her! Once she has Triton’s power there isn’t much she won’t be able to manage. Now, please, let’s focus on helping Ursula.”
“But isn’t that what the Dark Fairy fears? Perhaps she is right? Should one witch have so much power?”
Lucinda grabbed a glass jar and threw it at the wall. It shattered, casting orange dust throughout the room with an explosion of fury.
“Do not speak of Maleficent again!”
Once over the shock, Ruby and Martha started screeching. “You’ve ruined the divination powder!” “Oh, Lucinda! You ruined everything!”
Lucinda rolled her large dark eyes at her sisters, wondering how she managed this long-suffering affair. “I’ve ruined nothing, you featherbrains. Martha has already conjured them in the mirror! We saw that as she entered the room.”
The sisters mumbled in embarrassment and nonchalantly turned toward the mirror.
Within the mirror the sisters spied Flotsam and Jetsam swimming near Ariel and Eric’s boat. “They’re about to kiss!” squealed Ruby. “How could we have let this happen? Ursula is going to be furious!”
But before the witches could start screeching incantations, Ursula’s devious slithering minions overturned Eric and Ariel’s boat. The odd sisters sighed with relief while Flotsam and Jetsam gave each other mischievous grins, congratulating themselves for ruining the romantic scene.
“See? There is nothing to fear! Our distractions haven’t led Ariel and Eric down the sickening path of love!”
“Not yet,” said Ruby, who was clearly still distracted by other matters.
“What? What is it?” Ruby said nothing.
“Tell me!” Lucinda demanded.
Ruby, careful not to mention Maleficent’s name, sputtered and twitched but managed to share her fears. “What if we can’t trust Ursula? What if her story is lies? How do we know her brother truly did the things she said? And where is Pflanze? She’s been missing since Ursula’s visit!”
Where is Pflanze?
Pflanze. She was the last thing Lucinda needed to worry about now, what with the cryptic message from the Dark Fairy, Circe gone beyond their magic, and now her fretting sisters. Lucinda was full of rage but she could not place where it should be directed. Should it be aimed at her sisters for questioning her authority? Or should it be at Maleficent for interfering in their plans to find their sister? Most troubling of all, she wondered if she was enraged at herself for blindly trusting Ursula.
Whatever the cause, it needed to stop. They couldn’t go into their scheme with doubt or fear. She walked to the wall on which she had thrown the powder and gathered some from the floor, forgetting to be mindful of the broken glass. Her blood mingled with the orange powder, turning her hands a deep crimson, making her recall the Dark Fairy’s warning: Ariel’s blood will be on your hands.
She threw the powder she had gathered into the fire.
“Let us see times gone past when Triton and Ursula spoke last.”
“That’s not the correct meter, Lucinda!” hissed Ruby, who was very grateful Lucinda did not have the power to kill with a single look, because if she had, Ruby would have been lying on the floor, choking on her own blood.
“Silence, Ruby! I won’t have you ruining this spell!” But she amended the lines just in case her sister was right.
“Let us see in times gone past when Triton and Ursula did speak last!”
She brushed the rest of the orange dust from her hands into the fire, conjuring Ursula in the flames. Ursula was on the shores of Morningstar Kingdom, saying her good-bye to Princess Tulip the day she had saved the poor girl from her sorrow and fear.
“Now, my little angel cake, I trust you won’t go flinging yourself off any more cliffs for the love of a man who doesn’t deserve you. And I daresay if another man does fall in love with you, you’ll know he loves you for yourself and not how your beauty reflects upon him, and, my sweet cheeks, if that day comes, I will return to you your voice.”
Tulip answered Ursula with a weak smile, and Ruby looked to her sisters, who were intently watching the scene. “This is the day Ursula saved Tulip from drowning after the Beast prince broke her heart. Where is Triton? We asked to see the last time brother and sister spoke, not this nonsense!”
Martha looked panicked. “I think you did the spell wrong, Lucinda. I told you the meter was off! This isn’t even the right time period!”
Lucinda looked as though she might strangle her sisters. She could see herself taking their skinny little necks in her bony hands and squeezing the life from them.
“Well, that’s a pretty scene you’ve conjured, Lucinda, I must say!”
Lucinda looked at Ruby as though she were a strange bug. “‘I must say’? Since when do you say things like ‘I must say’?” She scoffed and continued. “Sisters, please! I’m sure Triton will show eventually.”
In the flames Ursula sighed as she watched Tulip walk the path that led to her father’s castle; then the sea witch disappeared beneath the water. She actually felt bad for the poor little princess, not because she had lost her beauty, but because she had never truly appreciated it when she had it. Ursula was swimming home, feeling sullen, for her own losses as well as Tulip’s, when a tightening grip seized her stomach at the sight of Triton’s shell chariot outside her entrance. A deep anger swelled within her as she thought of him in her home. How dare he enter without my permission! He had often taken those liberties with her, not because they were kin, but because he saw it as his right. He had forsaken her long before, when he had banished her from his kingdom—not that he’d ever accepted her into his life during her time at the palace. He had never really tried to love her as a sister.
But that was a lifetime ago, she thought. Those days when she’d lived in his kingdom were like a faded nightmare now, hazy and out of reach. Now she lived in her own waters, the Unprotected Waters, far from Triton and his sycophantic subjects. Only the most desperate of those subjects came to Ursula’s realm, and she was more than happy to oblige them.
Triton had painted her as a creature capable of only evil and wrongdoing. He would never dare admit that she had something to offer his people, despite the fact that together they could have ruled far better than either of them could alone. Surely that was what their mother and father had planned when they were alive. That was why they split their power between them, putting his into his trident and hers in the golden shell necklace Triton had taken from her when she was sent from his kingdom. He couldn’t use her power even if he wanted to, not without her permission. Only she could wield her power, but he’d rather hoard it than let her have it, her rightful inheritance, and her rightful place at his side.
If she were able, she could reclaim that power, and with a little help from the sister witches, she might easily dethrone her brother. Lucinda, Ruby, and Martha listened intently to Ursula’s musings while watching her in the enchanted flames.
“Ah, there is the tyrant king,” said Lucinda as the sisters watched Ursula slither into the gaping-maw entryway of her home. They heard the little cries and pleas for help from the creatures in her garden of lost souls. Ursula smiled at Harold. He had been the first of her victims and ther
efore with her the longest; she had come to look at him as one of her favorites. There was something about his sorrowful gaze that made her smile.
“Hello, Harold, my pet.” She looked at all the souls she’d collected. “How are all my little darlings doing today?” She was trying to pretend she hadn’t noticed her brother standing just beyond the garden.
“I see you’ve been keeping yourself busy, Ursula.”
“I suppose you think you can enter any domain you choose, but I daresay you’ve overreached. You are, in fact, trespassing, sir!”
“I see the extent of your exile wasn’t sufficient, Ursula. Clearly you are weaving your dark arts with those brave enough to venture into the unprotected realms and look upon your revolting visage.”
Revolting visage.
Ursula choked back her pain, swallowed it, and turned it into malice.
“Your subjects wouldn’t come begging me for help if you didn’t oppress them with your lunatic standards of beauty! Dear, sweet, lovable, stupid Harold here is a prime example. All he wanted was to impress the ladies with the virtues you and your court hold in such high esteem rather than being his dear sweet self, and look where it got him.”
Triton tried to interrupt his sister. “Ursula…”
But Ursula kept talking.
“My contracts with your subjects are fair and binding. There is nothing your magic can do to help them, Brother.”
“Do not call me Brother. You foul, murdering, ugly monster!”
Foul.
Murdering.
Ugly.
Monster.
That was what her brother had thought of her since the day they met on the shores of Ipswich. She wished she had memories of her brother from before that day. To imagine them young together only made her feel the loss of him more profoundly. Perhaps it was better to think their origins lay on the shores of Ipswich. There was nothing she could say or do to make him soften to her. He would always see her as a monster. No amount of love or support of his kingdom changed his view of her. Even when she hid within that false aquatic form he demanded of her, in the guise of what he deemed beautiful, she could sense him looking straight into her heart, which he saw as cold and black.
The way Ursula saw the town of Ipswich.
Ursula laughed.
“There was a time when your words hurt me beyond measure. Now they only fuel my hatred for you.”
“You’ve violated the laws of the seas far too many times, Ursula. It’s time you return to the shores so you can dwell with those pathetic humans you love so well!”
“Is this about the princess Morningstar?”
“Yes. You know the law. Her father’s coffers have grown fat on fishing these waters! I won’t have you protecting his children while he puts mine in danger every time his men cast their nets into the sea!”
“I am not bound by your laws, Triton. I do not live in your waters. This realm is mine! I make the laws in the Unprotected Waters! Besides, you might be happy to know his coffers are now empty after some bad dealings with the Beast prince. Perhaps that is punishment enough? I don’t see why his daughter should suffer any further for her father’s choices.”
“Clearly you know well of daughters who’ve suffered for their fathers’ choices.”
“Don’t you dare speak of my father! Not ever! You don’t have the right!”
“That human wasn’t your true father, and he deserved his fate for surrounding himself with those repugnant murdering humans! You’ve become the thing you hated, Ursula, just like your victims in Ipswich.”
“Get out! And go back to your simpering, mealymouthed subjects! You have no power here, Triton! These are the Unprotected Waters. Your rule does not extend here or to me!”
“I have the means to take the last shreds of your power, and I shall do so at my pleasure if you extend your support to another human. This is your final warning, Ursula. Keep to the shadows, where foul ugly creatures belong, so no one may suffer the sight of you!”
“If I am this foul creature you describe, it’s by your design!”
“You’ve always been this way! You refused, even as a small child, to take the proper form.”
She was thunderstruck. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing. “What? What did you just say?”
“You heard me! You were a vile little thing. I left you adrift because I foresaw the monster you would become!”
“I wasn’t lost as you said? You left me?”
“Yes, and clearly it was the right choice. Look at you. You’re disgusting. Shameful.”
Ursula thought she had hardened her heart against her brother long before, when he banished her from his kingdom, but this betrayal was more than she could comprehend. Her mind whirled at the notion of a young Triton abandoning his little sister to the perilous waves, not knowing if she lived or died. Hoping she had met the latter fate.
No wonder he had never sought her out all those years.
She hadn’t the strength to ask what their parents had thought of her disappearance. She wouldn’t be able to bear it if they had been privy to her brother’s plan. Surely they hadn’t. They must have been told some lurid tale of mishap. She wondered if they had ever suspected their “perfect” son of such a terrible deed. Why else would the king dictate that Triton prove she was dead or unworthy before he could take the throne? It was all too awful. Too profane. How dare he cast judgment on her when he had left his little sister to die? And to think that her parents might have been privy to his acts, that they could have known the truth. That would be too heartbreaking, too terrible even to fathom. It couldn’t possibly be true.
She was done.
There was no love left for her brother. There was no doubt. And he had given her no choice. No choice at all. This foul, ugly, murdering creature was going to do what she did best. She was going to take her revenge.
Ursula didn’t dismiss the near miss between Ariel and Eric as casually as the sisters three had. If it hadn’t been for her poopsies’ tipping over the boat, the prince would have kissed that little brat and it would have ruined her plans!
“Nice work, boys!” she said to Flotsam and Jetsam, looking into the magic divining sphere the sisters had given her when they saw each other last.
“That was a close one. Too close!” She was furious with the odd sisters for letting Ariel get so close to the prince. “The little tramp! Gods, she’s better than I thought!” She was enraged.
“At this rate he’ll be kissing her by sunset for sure.” She swam to her pantry, where she kept all manner of components for spell craft.
What have those sisters been doing? I can’t believe they allowed this to happen!
“Well! It’s time Ursula took matters into her own tentacles!”
Smashing a glass ball containing a butterfly into her cauldron, she said, “Triton’s daughter will be mine! Then I will make him writhe, and I will see him wiggle like a worm on a hook!”
All at once, everything turned gold, encompassing her, transforming her into…something else. Something she hated. Vanessa, she thought. Revolting Vanessa, with its large violet eyes and long black hair. She felt sickened in that human flesh, forced once again to use another’s beauty to hide herself, but this would be the last time; of that she was sure.
As Ursula stood on the shores of Prince Eric’s estate, wearing someone else’s body, and carrying someone else’s voice, she mused.
Soon Triton would be dead, and she would take her rightful place on the throne. She would do so in her true design! How fortuitous that Triton’s youngest daughter should fall in love with a human! How poetic! If she hadn’t needed Ariel’s soul, she would have let her marry Mr. Fancy Prince! It would have broken her father’s heart seeing her become the thing he hated most. A human! It was divine intervention! But she had other plans for Ariel’s soul. She wouldn’t have bothered taking the little mermaid’s voice had she intended the mergirl and Eric to marry.
The gods of fortune had been working
in Ursula’s favor the day the waves ripped Prince Eric’s ship asunder, sending him deep within the ocean into Triton’s domain. Thank the sea gods Ariel fell in love with Eric in that moment. Ursula’s minions had told her when it happened. It was all too perfect: the gods granting the little mermaid the strength to save the prince and take him safely to shore! It was as if they were working toward Ursula’s aims.
And as far as Ursula could surmise, the prince had begun to fall in love with the gorgeous young redhead who had saved him, and he’d been pining for this dream girl ever since. Thank goodness she’d thought to take Ariel’s voice or they probably would have married the moment she opened her stupid little mouth. The poor prince thought he’d conjured that songstress in his drowning delirium, the girl with the beautiful voice.
Now Ursula was in possession of that voice and she intended to use it; she intended to snare herself the little mermaid’s prince and make him hers. Her musings were interrupted by the whistling sound of a human instrument—a flute—flying through the air and splashing into the waves.
He’s here, she thought. Perfect. With Ariel’s voice Vanessa sang the tune that had enchanted the prince on the day Ariel saved his life. She felt like one of her sirens: calling forth her prey, bewitching a human man with her song. Ariel’s song. Drawing him to the shore and to his utter destruction. Then a thought came to her.
If she were to possess Triton’s power and at the same time rule in Eric’s kingdom, she would dominate both land and sea!
It was too brilliant, too perfect, and utterly divine. She would just need to keep Prince Eric enchanted as long as it served her aims. Then she’d get rid of him once he was no longer of use.
Eric wandered to the shore, drawn by the sound of Ariel’s voice within Vanessa and bewitched by her magic. To say he had any thoughts or feelings of his own would be a great exaggeration. Or better, purely inaccurate.
Poor Unfortunate Soul Page 6