Mermaidia: A Limited Edition Anthology

by Pauline Creeden

  After a minute she entered the hut in his clean tunic and settled on his pallet, staring at him with anticipation from across the room.

  “So, I had a dream,” he said, poking at the fire, suddenly unsure how to explain it. It seemed a long time ago. And wholly unreal. “It may have been a message, I don’t know.”

  “What did you see?” she asked, prodding him.

  He cleared his throat. He just needed to say it. “There was a crone in the woods, ahead of me on the forest path, in a spot where I usually hunt.” Where I saw the strange husband prince that came for you, he almost added. He hadn’t even realized that was where the dream had taken place until now.

  “The crone,” she said, chewing on her lip for a moment. “It was the Morrígan. You seem to have quite the connection with her.” She didn’t sound at all pleased with the idea. But she was less venomous at him about it this time.

  “Yes, that’s what I assumed. The woman seemed to be from one of her three aspects.”

  “And she said something.”

  “Yes.” He cleared his throat again, trying to get the words straight in his head. Was he remembering them right? “She mentioned the stones cannot hide you—wait. No, she said the stones can’t hide the thing within you forever.”

  The girl went still.

  Sareck could have sworn a chill rolled through the room.

  “No,” she whispered. “I have to go.” She stood in a rush and lunged for the door.

  Muninn screeched loudly.

  Don’t let her go.

  “Wait!” Sareck scrambled up and went after her. She was already across the yard and heading for the cliffs. “Stop!” he called. “What does it mean?”

  She stumbled and fell to her hands and knees.

  He caught up to her. “What does it mean, Alya?”

  At the sound of her name she sucked in a breath and looked up at him. Tears filled her eyes. “How do you know my name?”

  “The prince, in the woods.”

  “He can’t find me. He can’t.”

  “Yes, I know,” Sareck said, trying to soothe her. She was shaking. He knelt beside her. “Let me help you.”

  She shook her head. “Not with this.” She breathed, hunched over for several long minutes. Sareck let her wrestle inside of herself. He was just glad she wasn’t running off a cliff.

  The words of the goddess had obviously done their work. They’d pierced her to her core.

  “I can protect you.” Why had he said that when he wanted her gone? Why was he trying to stop her from leaving? Her troubles would go with her.

  But he couldn’t bear the thought of that prince getting his hands on her. The idea of her being hurt. Whatever kind of bother she was to Sareck, she was an innocent. And she needed help—that was apparent.

  She shook her head. “No, nothing can protect me from him once he knows what I hide.”

  “What’re you saying? Tell me how you came to be here, Alya. I think I deserve to understand what has been brought into my home.”

  She covered her face with her hands and moaned. “But if I speak the words aloud . . .”

  “Only the sea and I who will hear,” he whispered.

  She lowered her hands and looked at him, her features so full of fear, it leaked into his own skin.

  She reached out and took his hand, then she stood and pulled him back to the yard. She grabbed one of the rain buckets, dumped it out and brought it with them into the hut. As soon as the door was shut she released his hand, set the bucket on the table, hunching over it.

  Then she did the oddest thing. She opened her mouth and stuck her finger down her throat, gagging. Until she threw up into the bucket.

  Three stones plunked into the bottom.

  A ruby, an emerald, and an onyx.

  She breathed in a shaky breath. Breathed out. Her hair was damp at her temples now. Her eyes glassy.

  She reached out and took Sareck’s hand once more and brought it to her belly.

  Her very swollen belly.

  “Danu save us,” he breathed.

  She was pregnant. Very, very pregnant. Somehow the stone had hidden her belly from sight.

  “He will kill it,” she said, her voice shaking. “As he would kill me. Slowly.”

  “His child?” Sareck couldn’t fathom her words.

  “He seeks only a son. A daughter would end up a slave . . .” her voice faltered. She finished quietly, “like me.”

  “But . . . you’re his wife.”

  “I’m his consort. I’m one of many women in his House. He only chases me down because he knows Lyr has blessed me, he knows I’m a favorite of the Father of the Sea. And Doran’s jealousy knowns no bounds. If he cannot tame a thing, then he must destroy the thing. But because of my blessing, I’m the only one in his House who can give him the sort of heir he seeks—or so he believes.” She placed her hand on her belly. “Even in his hatred for me he’s kept me tied to him. If he knew I carried his child—” She gripped the tunic over her growing belly. “I’ll slice him open before I allow him to hurt her.”

  What sort of a beast was this prince to harm his own daughter? “But how did you wind up dead on my shore, then? Who did that?” The warrior had made it sound like he wanted her killed, but also that he hadn’t been the one to deal the blow—still the warrior didn’t seem surprised she’d fallen by another’s hand.

  “It was a trick to help me escape—or it was meant to be. Everything went wrong.” She shook her head. “I truly have no idea how I ended up here.” She motioned to the bucket. “Those stones were meant to hide the babe, they’re a spell. But I don’t recall a thing after I swallowed them. And when you said I was dead . . . I wondered if I’d been tricked, if perhaps Doran had gotten to the druid first, found a way to kill me and I’d fallen right into his trap. So much time must’ve passed. I was barely aware of her the night I swallowed them, I simply wanted to hide her. But now . . .” She caressed her belly. “She’s so alive within me. I have no idea how much time I’ve been lost—or where I’ve been. When I woke in the dirt, I felt the babe so strong, so vibrant. I could hardly believe it. I must protect her, do you understand?”

  Did he understand? What a question . . . his heart could barely keep from breaking his ribs it was so thunderous inside of his chest.

  “My time is so short now, though,” she said. “She’s likely to be born any day now. And I don’t know how I’ll remain out of his grip for much longer.”

  Sareck’s mind spun with questions. There was such a tension in him, a strong desire to return to his old life, to avoid caring, to remain hidden, alone. It all warred against the burning urgency to shield this strange girl and do everything in his power to preserve that tiny surprise of a life inside of her.

  “We’ll find a way,” he heard himself saying.

  She blinked at him. “We?”

  The girl had been brought to his shore. He’d known that from the moment he’d spotted her alabaster body against the rocks. He’d thought the Mother of Death had sent her to torment him, but now he understood. She did send the girl, that was clear from the dream; Don’t let her go. There was a tie that now bound them.

  Strangers.

  The why didn’t matter.

  He’d do what his heart yearned to do.

  “Yes,” he said. “I will help you. It’s obvious your prince didn’t sense you in this hut—something about my hearth must be shielding you. They may eventually return here, not trusting me, but by then this babe will be born and you’ll have found an escape. The prince believes you’re dead, we have time.”

  A pained look filled her features. “But . . . why? Why would you do this?”

  He studied her face, his heart aching. He thought of Breanne, of the babe—his babe.

  “Many reasons,” he said. He was thankful when she didn’t prod him more.

  “Thank you . . .” she said, quietly.

  He nodded. “Sareck. The name is Sareck.”

  Innocence rarely h
ad a chance in this world. And since his love—the very last bit of his soul—was stolen from him, he’d been a dead man.

  But now . . . in this moment, he felt the iron rod of purpose. He felt anchored to the ground again. As if he’d suddenly awoken from a deep sleep.

  If he was to live as a dead man, he could give what was left of that life to ensure some small bit of innocence might grow and survive long after he was feeding the worms.

  Chapter 5

  The next few days began a new rhythm in Sareck’s dull life.

  He woke and set out on his hunt every day at first light, searching out a fresh brace of conies. And each day, he scanned the trees, praying he’d not see the sea eyes of the warriors or his companions in the shadows. He took to sliding an extra blade in his boot just in case.

  On his return, Alya would skin and gut the kill while he went out to the shore to wash. When he returned she had the bodies over the hearth, brazing, already eager to fill her insatiable gut.

  She would gobble two or three of the creatures down a day, her hunger endless. Many days she grumbled about how empty her stomach always felt. It certainly didn’t appear empty, as large as it was.

  One evening, after a sennight had passed, she was especially ravenous. When all the bones of her meal were licked clean, stacked on the hearth beside her foot, she turned and began watching him greedily as he ate.

  “You’ll gobble up every creature on the island at this rate,” he said giving her a sideways look.

  She rested a hand on her swollen belly and blew out a tired breath. “The babe’s very keen to grow. Nothing seems to satisfy her.”

  He tore a chunk from his meal and held it out to her.

  She looked at the offering, not taking it. “What will you eat then?”

  He shrugged and pinched his side. “I can live off the fat of the land a bit.”

  She smirked. “Don’t be foolish. You’re nearly skin and bones.”

  “I’ll catch more tomorrow, so as to feed the princess.” He winked and held the offering out again.

  She smiled and took it. “You are a rare thing, mud man.”

  He chuckled softly. “Yes, I suppose—what’s a mud man meant to be, anyway? Sounds awful.”

  “Oh, well.” She took a bite, saying, “It is fairly awful.”

  He grunted.

  She smiled, her ocean eyes catching the firelight. “I means human, is all. And you do smell of mud quite a bit.”

  “Do I?”

  “But also, salt,” she said, casually. “When you come from the sea at midday you smell of the sunlight and salt. It’s very nice.” She went back to nibbling on her meal.

  He stared at her, his gut turning uneasy. She liked how he smelled?

  Muninn tittered from his perch, sounding pleased.

  “And after you work to renew the woodpile, you smell a bit like pine—” She pauses as if thinking of something. And then she asks with genuine curiosity, “What do I smell like to you?”

  He blinked at her. “Well, I . . .” He didn’t want to think about how she smelled. He tried each day not to let himself think of her more than a small moment here or there.

  “Do I smell of salt?” she asked. “Or fish perhaps.” She wrinkled up her nose and a dimple appeared in her cheek.

  “Like salt, yes,” he said, as vaguely as he could.

  “And like fish,” she said, “You can simply say it.”

  “No,” he said, quickly.

  She laughed at his denial.

  Why was she insisting on speaking of this?

  “Oh, Sareck,” she said, sounding oddly amused. “Speaking to you . . . it’s like wrestling a clam sometimes.” She sighed. “Very well, let’s speak of something else. Will the weather do?”

  “I don’t go around smelling you, all right?” he said, defensively. He wasn’t sure why, but his voice rose.

  She released a surprised laugh. “Well, why not? Scent can tell you so much about a soul.”

  He sighed and took a frustrated bite of meat.

  “Here,” she said, holding up her arm to him. “I’ll make it easy for you.”

  He shifted in his seat. “I won’t smell you, woman. Put your limbs away.”

  She laughed again, as if she knew a secret.

  He took another bite of meat, but it tasted like dirt. His hunger had evaporated. “The fire needs fuel,” he grumbled, handing her what was left of his meal. And he stood, going out to fetch a few pieces of wood from outside.

  They spent the rest of the evening in silence, her working to sew the conie pelts together into a blanket with a bone needle, and Sareck puffing on his pipe and staring into the flames as if they held the mysteries of the soul within them.

  After a short while she set aside her task and moved to the pallet, laying down and curling on her side. Sareck felt her settle in, heard her breathing slow, and a strange guilt filled him as she drifted into sleep.

  Why had he been so stubborn with her? She pestered him like a child sometimes, prodding him to talk or teasing him about his frown. But it was foolish of him to grow so frustrated with her.

  She made him uncomfortable. She knocked him off his guard, unsettling him. He questioned himself when she did that. And his thoughts would meander down paths they shouldn’t go . . .

  But still. He shouldn’t be so impatient with her.

  Her breath took on the usual delicate rhythm and he knew she’d fallen into dream.

  He thought about her question, her scent, his chest tightening. How he sometimes found himself preferring her presence to the solitude of the hunt. And it baffled him.

  “Like rain,” he whispered to the embers. “You smell like the air just before the storm.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know how to fish?” she asked, a baffled look on her face.

  He shrugged, sliding his quiver over his shoulder.

  “I thought you simply hated the taste,” she said, as if she’d been wondering things about him. She looked disappointed. But then she seemed to realize something. “I could teach you!”

  “I don’t fish,” he said, shortly. He simply wanted to go about his day as always. How did she constantly find a way to turn his rhythm upside down?

  Instead of sleeping well past midmorning, she’d risen with him at sunrise, asking that he bring a few fish home in addition to the herds of beasts he returned with every day for her to consume. Over the last fortnight he’d gone back to using traps along with his bow, to ensure he managed to catch enough to satisfy her unending hunger.

  She’d eaten both their weight in conies and other rodents at this point, and birds as well—she’d even found a spot to harvest a few roots to nibble on. Now she wished to add fish to the growing daily feast? She’d have him gathering food for her into the night if this went any further.

  “But I crave fish,” she grumbled. “I prefer them over anything.”

  He motioned to the door. “There’s a sea out there full to the brim with the slimy things.”

  “I can’t chase after any creatures, I’m as big as a whale.”

  He smirked. “Then you’re eatin’ conies.”

  Her shoulders sank, and her lips twisted in a pout.

  Sareck’s nerves pricked. “Oh, for Danu’s sake.”

  Hope sparked in her strange-colored eyes seeing a crack in his stubbornness. “Please, Sareck. I can help.”

  He rolled his eyes. “Very well,” he said, relenting. “When I return from checking the traps. But this won’t be an everyday thing. This is a treat.”

  Her grin lit the room.

  He watched her balance precariously as she walked ahead of him along the rocks of the tide pools. Her belly was swollen well out in front of her, past her feet. It looked so cumbersome, as if she’d swallowed a bag of heavy stones.

  “Be careful,” he barked, trying to catch up to her. How did she move so fast?

  They were near the spot where he’d found her that first fateful morning. Remembering that moment,
what a state she was in, and seeing her hear again made him queasy. “You could slip and hit your head!”

  “Oh, settle yourself, old man,” she called over her shoulder with a laugh. She always seemed so alive when they came down to the shore. Today was no exception; her skin glowing, the mist clinging to her dark hair like little diamonds. It was as if the sea wanted her near.

  She paused at the edge of a larger pool, tipping her head back and taking in a lung-full of salty air.

  He stepped up beside her, muttering, “I’m not an old man.” He was barely thirty. Or thirty-five. In truth, he’d forgotten.

  She turned and smiled. Her eyes were the same color as the sea now, taking on a more silver glint. “Then stop acting like one.”

  He looked away, an odd quiver filling his stomach.

  “You can’t be grumpy when the view is so lovely.” She motioned to the misty grey expanse of the ocean.

  “I didn’t walk all this way for the view,” he said, searching the pool at their feet. A fish swam past, reflecting the sunlight. “Just teach me this trick of yours so we can return to dry land.” He had no notion of how she was going to catch a slippery bass or tope without any sort of trap or net. She’d tried explaining it to him as they walked to the shore, but he was half nerves thinking she was about to topple off one of the rocks as they’d made their way down the ledge on the most western point of the island.

  He had wanted to take her hand, to steady her. But he couldn’t bring himself to touch her.

  “Be patient,” she scolded. “We have to listen first.”

  He frowned at her.

  “Close your eyes,” she said.

  He sighed.

  “We’ll stand out here until you do.”

  He closed his eyes.

  “All right, now,” she said. “Listen to the water.”

  He felt foolish, but he pretended to listen. The waves crashed in the distance, water sliding through the tide pools.

  “Now feel the sound,” she said. “Let it rise through your feet, up your legs, into your bones.”