The Magic Mirror of the Mermaid Queen

by Delia Sherman

  I couldn’t see her tattoos from this distance, but I didn’t have to: I remembered them just fine. She had fish on her cheeks, a trident on her forehead, anchors and ships on her arms, and a nuclear submarine down the whole right side of her tail. Her nose and fins and ears were pierced and her hair spiked out from her head like an orange anemone. Woolworth the punk pirate queen could only dream of being as tough as the Mermaid Queen of New York Harbor.

  Two torpedo-shaped shadows crossed behind the throne, turned, and crossed again. Sharks. My mouth went dry.

  Airboy tugged impatiently on my hand. It was time to go.

  We swam down the dim corridor, keeping close to the floor. We were six pillars from the front. Five. Four. When we reached the last pillar, we’d dart out and announce ourselves, take the Queen by surprise.

  At the second pillar, Airboy dropped my hand and whooshed out into the hall like he was jet-propelled.

  “Hail, great Queen!” he said. “I bring you good news!”

  I floundered out after him, blind with fury.

  “No he doesn’t!” I shouted. “I do! I’m the Voice of the Green Lady of Central Park, who—”

  “You!”The Mermaid Queen roared, rearing up on her tail like an angry sea lion. “Land girl! Mirror thief! Guards! Feed her to the sharks! Quick—before she makes up another riddle!”

  Two muscular merguards twisted my arms behind my back and tangled my legs in seaweed. I wiggled and jack-knifed and shouted that I was an Ambassador, that I had rights, that they better let me go, or there’d be trouble.

  “Trouble for you,” the merguards snickered. They towed me toward the shadows, where the Queen’s sharks circled lazily, grinning their U-shaped grins.

  Now, I thought, would be a good time for my brain to come up with a clever escape plan. Maybe if my ears stopped buzzing. Maybe if I could just take a breath that didn’t taste of fish.

  Airboy yelled, “You can’t do that!”

  The merguards wheeled, pulling me with them. I floated between them woozily and listened to Airboy scold the Mermaid Queen. He was right up in her face, hands and feet finning to keep him there, explaining things firmly and clearly. The Diplomat would have been proud of him.

  “Neef isn’t just some random landie you can drown now and apologize for later,” he said. “She’s the Voice of the Genius of Central Park. Okay, you’re mad because she tricked you, and you and the Green Lady hate each other because of something that happened before the Genius Wars. But the Green Lady still didn’t kill your Voice, and you can’t kill hers. You have to listen to her and then you have to let her go home. That’s the rule. ”

  The Mermaid Queen flipped her tail, sending Airboy tumbling in a cloud of little bubbles. “Nuts to that. The last time I listened to that kid, I lost my mirror.”

  Airboy recovered himself and swam back to the throne. “You don’t have to listen to her yourself. Your Voice can do it for you.”

  “Yeah? Oh, yeah! I knew there was something I was forgetting.” She raised her voice to a screech. “Ox-y-gen!”

  “Here, Majesty.” The Voice of the Mermaid Queen darted from behind a handy pillar and made a complicated floating gesture of respect.

  The Mermaid Queen waved a royal hand. “Find out what that pesky land girl over there wants and then get rid of her. She makes my scales itch. And if she says anything about riddles or cats, I don’t care who she is, I’m throwing her to the sharks.” She pulled a large metal rasp out of the depths of the Shelly Throne and began to sharpen her claws.

  Oxygen swam over to me. I could see that he was nervous and angry. Not a good combination.

  “Greetings, Voice of the Mermaid Queen,” I began. “The Green Lady—”

  Oxygen held up a silencing hand. “Shut up, kid. Boy, are you in over your head. Tell me, have you even gotten to Diplomacy yet, or are you still in Basic Manners?”

  He reminded me of Abercrombie. I glared at him. “Both, if it’s any of your business. What—”

  Airboy wiggled his fingers over Oxygen’s shoulder and folded them down one by one.

  “—I was going to tell you,” I went on slowly, “is that if those sharks eat me, your Genius will definitely never get her mirror back.”

  Oxygen thought this over. “All right,” he said. “Talk.”

  “Make them let me go first.”

  Oxygen glanced toward the Shelly Throne, where the Mermaid Queen was filing away, pretending she hadn’t heard every word. “No tricks,” he said threateningly.

  “No tricks.”

  “Release her,” he told the merguards. They looked at the Queen, who shrugged. Then they let go of my arms and drifted back just far enough so they could grab me if I showed any signs of asking a riddle.

  Basic Manners, huh? I’d show him Basic Manners. “The Green Lady of Central Park,” I said, “greets the Queen of New York Harbor and bids me say that she wishes to return the talisman known as the Magic Magnifying Mirror, which her champion won in fair challenge—”

  “Ha!” the Mermaid Queen burst out, filing viciously.

  “—fair challenge, last summer. Recognizing that the talisman is necessary to the smooth running of New York Harbor, the Green Lady has decided, of her own free will—”

  “Double ha!”

  “—to return the talisman to its traditional owner, so that the inhabitants of both Park and Harbor can continue to live in safety and comfort.”

  Oxygen opened his mouth to answer, but the Mermaid Queen was there before him. “Who ever heard of a champion returning a Talisman before the deadline? She’s doing that thing mortals do, isn’t she, Oxygen?”

  Oxygen studied my face. He wasn’t sneering anymore. “Maybe not. Neef of Central Park, do you have the Queen’s mirror? Tell me the truth.”

  “I do.” I touched Satchel. “It’s in here, safe and sound.”

  “Loonie’s honor?”

  I fought a giggle and won. “Loonie’s honor.”

  The Queen whooped happily and dropped the rasp. “Gimme,” she said.

  Airboy was drifting behind Oxygen, looking miserable. He’d tried to take the credit for finding the mirror himself, after we’d promised to be allies. But then he’d saved my life. And he had to earn his merrow cap. I took a fish-flavored breath. “I’ll give it to you, just as soon as you hear the proposition Airboy and I wish to put before you.”

  “Airboy?” said Oxygen.

  “Proposition?” said the Queen.

  “Yes.” I stared into Airboy’s eyes, willing him to read my mind. “Airboy and I are a team. Without his cooperation and natural diplomatic skills, I could never return your mirror, certainly not now, maybe not ever.”

  Airboy winked at me. “Great Queen,” he said, “our proposition is this: That you and the Green Lady make an alliance between the Park and the Harbor.”

  The Mermaid Queen’s mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like a fish out of water. And then she screamed. “Not in a million, trillion, gazillion years! What’s with you, Oxygen? Do your job! Threaten the land girl! Torture her! Search her bag! I want my mirror! Now!”

  Oxygen threw Airboy an unreadable look, then turned to the Queen. “With respect, Majesty, an alliance is not a bad idea.”

  I expected a quick trip to the sharks for all of us, or a fairy fit at the very least, but the Queen sank down in the throne. “I don’t make deals with Land Folk,” she said sullenly.

  This, somehow, was the last straw. “Well, that’s just peachy,” I snapped. “You don’t make deals; the Lady doesn’t make deals. All the other Geniuses make deals with each other all the time. That’s what we learn at Miss Van Loon’s, isn’t it, Oxygen?”

  Oxygen chewed his lip.

  “That’s what changelings are for,” I went on, “to make alliances. You know why the East Siders run practically the whole City? It’s because they make alliances. Yorktown, Fifth Avenue, Madison, Upper East Side, Midtown—they all have each other. Who does the Harbor have?”

  “Nobo
dy,” Airboy answered, just as if we’d practiced it. “The Harbor has nobody and nothing. They don’t even respect us, the East Siders, I mean. They think we’re stupid and violent and old-fashioned.”

  “Wild,” I added. “Like the Park. That’s an insult, by the way.”

  The Mermaid Queen flashed her pointed teeth. “Who cares what a bunch of dry-skins think? It’s not like they can hurt me.”

  “How much garbage have they dumped in the Harbor?” Airboy asked. “How much bigger did the Harbor used to be, before they tore down all the hills and made Manhattan bigger?”

  “You’re talking garbage,” the Queen snarled.

  Oxygen swallowed nervously. “It’s true, Majesty. Don’t you remember? Castle Clinton used to be an island. Now it’s part of Manhattan. The Dragon did that.”

  “Don’t believe us,” I said. “Ask the mirror. Which we solemnly vow and swear to give you the minute you agree to an alliance.”

  The Queen’s trident pleated in a furious scowl. “Okay, okay. I promise I won’t salt Old Lady Tree-Hugger’s precious water. Now can I have my mirror back?”

  Oxygen was silent. Airboy seemed to have used up all his words. I licked my lips. “The alliance,” I said. “Or no mirror.”

  “Fish poop,” the Queen said. “What does an alliance mean, anyway? That the Lady says ‘jump’ and I say ‘how high?’ I don’t jump for nobody.”

  Diplomacy is all about not letting Geniuses know how stupid you think they are. “It means,” I said, “that if the Harbor’s in trouble, she helps you out, and vice versa.”

  “And you promise Her Leafiness won’t wiggle out of it if I need her?”

  “Yes,” I said. “I promise.” Which was definitely a rash thing to do, given the Lady’s attitude toward the Mermaid Queen. But it was what I had to say, so I said it, and hoped I could make it stick.

  The Mermaid Queen waved her tail fin thoughtfully. I watched slow ripples travel up the nuclear submarine tattooed on her tail, and reached nervously for my hair. When my fingers hit my air bubble, I heard a soft snort. I was glad Airboy could laugh. I was about ready to scream.

  “I accept the alliance,” she said at last. “As long as Old Mud-Face watches my back, I’ll watch hers. But no funny stuff. And no riddles. Now, give me back my mirror.”

  My fingers were shaking so hard with relief, I’d never have found the mirror if Satchel hadn’t pushed it into my hand.

  As soon as I pulled it out, the Mermaid Queen grabbed it and began to examine it like a flower fairy searching a rosebud for signs of black spot. She grumbled over every ding and nearly pitched a fairy fit over the missing chain. But as soon as she turned it on, a smile rearranged the tattoos on her face.

  Everybody relaxed, even the merguards.

  Oxygen turned to us. “Not bad for a couple of youngsters,” he said. “We’ll work out the details later. Somewhere watery, I think. Bethesda Fountain?”

  I nodded.

  “Now I think you’d better get out of here. You, too, Airboy. I’ll talk to the Queen later about making you an official Junior Attaché to the Embassy. Let’s hope you get longer than I did to learn about being an official Voice.”

  We went. Somehow, the swim back to Battery Park seemed much easier than the swim out.

  Epilogue

  Three days after Hallowe’en, I was sitting in Advanced Diplomacy, listening to the Diplomat’s latest made-up problem.

  “A leprechaun has entered into a contract to provide two pairs of dancing slippers for each of the twelve daughters of a Chief Executive Officer. When he delivers the two dozen pairs of shoes, the CEO’s assistant informs him of two things: his contract obliges him to repair the shoes; the CEO’s daughters dance through the soles of their shoes every night.

  “To whom should the leprechaun complain?”

  In real life, I figured the leprechaun would probably keep his mouth shut and repair the slippers until there was no more upper to attach the soles to, while planning how to trick the CEO out of every gold piece in his coffers. But I was pretty sure that wasn’t the answer the Diplomat was looking for.

  I raised my hand. “He’s got a couple of choices. He could wait until a Full Moon Gathering and take his complaint to the Genius of whatever Neighborhood he lives in—although if it’s the Wholesaler of the Garment District, probably all he’ll get is a review of his shoe designs.”

  The corners of the Diplomat’s mouth twitched slightly. “And his second choice?”

  “He can track down the Voice of the Wholesaler and get him or her to work things out with the Voice of whatever neighborhood the CEO lives in.”

  The Diplomat nodded. “What do the rest of you think?”

  They thought a lot of things. I didn’t listen.

  It was weird being back in school, sitting in lessons and answering questions like everything was just as it had been. My quest for the Mermaid’s mirror felt like it had happened a hundred years ago, to somebody else. I had changed. Everything had changed.

  For instance, Airboy was sitting next to me.

  We’d been seeing a lot of each other over the past three days. Apparently, being Junior Attaché to the Embassy of the Mermaid Queen meant that Airboy was responsible for setting everything up for the alliance. I’d helped things along by talking Astris into inviting him to tea with the Pooka and Councilor Snuggles. It was a little awkward at first, but by the time the Autumn cookies were gone, Snuggles had promised to arrange an “accidental” encounter with the Lady by Bethesda Fountain.

  The meeting itself had been kind of fraught. There wasn’t going to be a moon, so it had to happen in the afternoon, when the Lady is never at her best. As soon as she saw Oxygen and Airboy, she totally snaked out, scales and twirling eyeballs and everything. Airboy told me later he thought it was pretty impressive, but not as bad as the Mermaid Queen’s rages. “She isn’t really going to bite anybody. She just wants you to think she might.”

  Which was pretty much what I thought, too.

  Once she’d recovered from her fairy fit, the Lady listened quietly to our proposal.

  “The Wild Places Alliance,” she said thoughtfully. “Okay, I’m in. As long as Old Fish-Face keeps her scales clean.”

  There was a ceremony, of course. Oxygen presented the Lady with a huge pearl that would turn red when the Harbor was threatened. After some thought, the Lady produced an acorn enclosed in a hollow stone that would split when the Park was in danger. Then she disappeared, and Councilor Snuggles went off to present Oxygen to the rest of the Lady’s council, leaving Airboy, the Pooka, and me alone by the fountain.

  “That’s that, then,” the Pooka said. “You look dead beat, the pair of you. Home to bed, my heart, and may a blessing of sleep be upon you for four-and-twenty hours. And where are you off to, boyo?”

  Airboy was climbing the steps that led to the street. “Home,” he threw over his shoulder. “Like you said.”

  “You’ll be long enough getting there by that road.” The Pooka shifted from man to pony, shaking back the inky forelock that fell over his eyes. “Hop up and I’ll carry you to the Hudson.”

  Airboy kept climbing. “That’s okay,” he said. “I can walk.”

  The Pooka arched his neck proudly. “It’s hurt to the soul I am, to think you’d not trust me to carry the Mermaid Queen’s Junior Attaché safely on his way.”

  Airboy stopped, but he didn’t turn around. There was a long pause. “No wild rides,” the Pooka said. “By the sacred peace between our Neighborhoods, I swear it.”

  Then Airboy came down the steps. “I accept,” he said. “Sorry.”

  The Pooka shook his mane. “Pish, boy. No need to apologize. It’s perfectly reasonable to doubt a trickster such as myself.”

  Back in Advanced Diplomacy, the discussion of the leprechaun and his shoe problem was going strong. Abercrombie was arguing that dancing slippers with no soles couldn’t really be repaired.

  With Tiffany out of the scene, Abercrombie had pretty muc
h taken over as the new leader of the East Siders. Bergdorf had been busted from debutante to personal-assistant-in-training. She blamed Mother Carey, Tiffany’s godmother. To get back at her, she told the East Siders just exactly what had happened to Tiffany and what we’d done about it. Now nobody would go near the third-floor bathroom, even though someone had hung a curtain over the mirror.

  I still had my quest pass. I was planning to return it to the Diplomat after lessons were over, along with the report—on parchment in my best handwriting—of what Neighborhoods I’d visited in the course of my quest, what magical objects I’d gained (if any) and what I’d accomplished (if anything). It was weird seeing it all written down, ending with “An Alliance formalized between the Mermaid Queen of New York Harbor and the Green Lady of Central Park.” It made me feel like a real diplomat.

  Airboy’s elbow in my ribs let me know my lack of attention was in danger of being noticed.

  The Diplomat was making an announcement. “. . . a new student to introduce to you. It is not usually school policy to admit new students between the Equinox and the Solstice, but the Bowery has not sponsored a changeling at Miss Van Loon’s in a very long time. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Woolworth of the Bowery.”

  I felt Airboy jerk upright beside me. Advanced Diplomacy students are far too self-possessed to react out loud, but for a second, it was like all the air had been sucked from the room.

  Woolworth marched forward and stood beside the Diplomat’s desk. Her Inside Sweater, empty of gold stars, was ripped at the shoulder and along one pocket, which was pinned on with safety pins. Under it, she wore a low-cut black top and baggy gray pants stuffed into heavy black lace-up boots. Her nails were painted black and her blonde hair was hacked short and pulled back from her forehead to display what Bloody Mary had done to her.

  Five long scars scored the left side of her face from hairline to chin, with one extending all the way down her neck and across her chest. I wondered whether she’d even used the Glamourist’s beauty cream. Then I realized it would look a lot worse if she hadn’t.