by Cheri Lasota
Arethusa opened her mouth to scream, but nothing came out.
“Tristan!” Isabel and Padre Salvador shouted in unison.
“Steady,” Miguel yelled, and the movement halted.
“Lower the left side!” bellowed the first mate, and the men soberly attempted to correct the error. “Now, hoist away together.”
Arethusa wished she could do something. Tristan felt so far away, so helpless. But before she could even picture him falling, the sailors lifted Tristan up over the rail and set the board on the weather deck.
She glanced at everyone in the lighter, but all eyes were looking up. Her chance had come. She stood and the lighter shifted.
“Sit down before you tip the boat,” Isabel admonished.
The ladder was so close. She need only take a single step to catch the first rung. She’d done it a thousand times on the way back from the cave. But as she reached up, she felt again the stab of pain from the knife wound in her shoulder. Steeling herself against it, she resolved to keep going, even if she had to climb with one arm.
“Padre, she’s trying to climb aboard. Stop her!” Isabel yelled.
All three of them struggled to keep their balance as the lighter pitched.
“Arethusa,” Padre Salvador commanded, “the comissário de polícia has forbidden you to step foot on that ship.”
The sharp guilt of disobedience stung her, and she couldn’t bear to look at him. She slipped her boot onto the first rung of the ladder. The massive oak planks of the hull loomed above her and the slight breeze picked up. She climbed higher, ignoring the excruciating pain in her arm and the shouts of Isabel, her uncle, and the harbormaster. She focused on the next rung and then the next, and, at last, she neared the top. She glanced over the monkey rail and saw that most of the sailors had gone back to their various duties fore and aft. Some still bent over Tristan, and still others stood at the rail, waiting to help her aboard.
“Bom-dia, Senhorita,” a young sailor said, as he held out his hand for her, his dark brown eyes sparkling. “What a beauty we have here.”
In spite of herself, she felt a blush come to her cheeks as she reached up to take his hand. The man’s palm was rough and cold, and his touch made her want to feel Tristan’s hand in her own again.
When Arethusa took her first step onto the deck, a cloud of darkness filled her vision. She lost her balance, and her head swam with unearthly screams and flashing lights. A churning wind rushed through the air, dizzying in its velocity. When her eyes cleared, her jaw dropped at the vision her eyes beheld.
It was night and the Sea Nymph was reborn. In her hand, the sailor’s fingers cooled to ice. In his face, she saw nothing but hideous black cavities where his eyes should have been. With a deep shudder, she pushed him off, but he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, his mouth leering, his tongue licking blue lips.
She spun away, revolted, but a deafening weight filled the air. The sailors scattered. A dark man approached. He wore a heavy black cloak, its hood hiding his face. Arethusa knew him, despite every doubt that told her it could not be so.
A shooting pain struck her chest, and Arethusa cowered to her knees before him. She shuddered down to her core. Her sweat made her cold, and her clothes clung to her skin.
How can this be? She shook her head, unbelieving. Diogo is dead. Alpheus should have died with him.
“Yes,” he said, as if in reply to her thoughts, his mouth half-turned to a lascivious grin. “How could I survive without him? How can it be?”
Even at a distance, she glimpsed the scar that still crisscrossed his mouth, saw the familiar countenance of Diogo. Alpheus stalked closer, and she felt his shadow falling over her. It was tangible. When its darkness touched her arm, it felt as bitter as winter wind.
“Go away!” Arethusa screamed. She clutched at her throat, shocked at the strength of her voice after so many years. She said the words again, but they were only a whisper this time. “Go away.” She drew back toward the rail, her trembling limbs nearly frozen with the heavy weight of Alpheus’s power. If I jump, will the fall kill me?
“Did you think his death would destroy me?” His voice was a mocking rush of wind. “Fool!” Alpheus strode closer, his heavy boots thudding on the cracking planks.
The urgency to run vanquished every thought in her head. The rail was close now, and the sea but a step after that.
“Hell awaits you with open arms, Arethusa, and I will hasten you to your reward.”
“God help me!” Arethusa cried as Alpheus reached for her.
The heaviness in her feet and limbs loosened. The weight lifted. Fear gave her wings. She flung herself over the rail and felt her body dropping, spinning, weightless in the air. As if in a quiet dream, she watched the water rush up to her face, and then her body slammed into it. The hammer of cold pushed out the shadowy fog of the vision. Her eyes were still closed, but a deeper darkness passed away from her.
Kicking with all her strength, she struggled to the frigid surface against the heavy skirts and cloak that threatened to drag her down. Her heart hurt with the effort, her lungs burning from lack of oxygen. Surfacing, she heard Isabel’s hysterical screaming mingled with the shouts of Miguel and the sailors.
But Padre Salvador’s clear, deep voice rang out above the rest of the clamor. “Arethusa, swim!”
For a moment, she lost her strength, and her head dipped under the water again. Her heavy cloak dragged her down. She hadn’t even the ability to undo the clasp at her neck. But she kicked hard again, sucking in air as she broke the surface.
“Reach out and take my hand.” Padre Salvador leaned over the side of the lighter with his arm outstretched.
She kicked toward the lighter and took hold of her uncle’s hand with her good arm. She felt so cold that even the pain in her shoulder was numb.
Fatigue washed over her after he pulled her out of the freezing water with the help of Miguel, who ranted, “Fool girl! What’s got in your head?”
“Are you mad?” Isabel screamed, her lips rigid, her pretty face twisting into a scowl.
Arethusa crouched in the bottom of the lighter, her shivers intensifying the dull ache in her shoulder. She didn’t know what to make of any of it. She stared up at the ship, but the ghost of the Sea Nymph had vanished. The Grace of the Seas floated before her, its dark planking polished and gleaming, its anchor chain stretched taut into the bay waters.
The sailors stood at the monkey rail, staring down at her. She would have felt foolish if she wasn’t still shaking with fear. The vision had felt so real.
I was awake as I climbed the ladder—how could I have been dreaming?
“Is the girl all right?” the first mate called down.
“Are you?” Padre Salvador asked her.
Arethusa could not look at him. She felt weak and cold. The thought of curling up in her bed and falling asleep pulled at her eyelids.
Tristan! He lay up there all alone. But the shadow of Alpheus clung to her still.
“Arethusa?” Padre Salvador asked, watching her.
She covered her face with her hands, struggling to gather her wits. What could she say that he would believe?
“I think we should take her back to shore, Miguel,” Padre Salvador said. “She is terrified.”
“She’s lost her mind!” Isabel yelled.
“Remember, Senhorita Infante,” the padre said, his voice stern, “the last ship Arethusa boarded sunk outside this very bay. This may be too much for her. Have patience.”
Maybe if they could put Tristan on another ship, Alpheus wouldn’t be there. But she couldn’t ask them to move him again. His condition was too fragile. Desperation rose up inside her. Diogo may have died, but the spirit of Alpheus lived on. Would he try to harm Tristan on the sailing?
“Arethusa, let me take you back home,” Padre Salvador said. “I’ll stay with you there and you can rest. Senhorita Infante will watch over Tristan.”
No! Arethusa took up the notepad that
still hung around her neck, wishing she still had her voice from the vision. When she opened the leather case, water dripped out and the pages stuck together. Still, she did her best to write him a message.
Go, but do not trust Isabel with Tristan. She shoved the message into his hands, and a startled look flashed across his face as he read.
“Are you sure about this?”
Arethusa nodded, clutching his arm with straining fingers. She hoped with all her being that Tristan would be safe with her uncle. Perhaps Alpheus would not dare touch him with a priest by his side.
“I will go for your sake, but promise me you’ll return home and rest. You should not have come with us today.”
After she embraced her uncle and he ascended the ship’s ladder, Isabel touched her arm, her features unusually gentle. “I will look after him.”
Arethusa couldn’t hide her shock. She had never known Isabel to take pity on anyone, but the truth of it was in the girl’s eyes before she turned to climb the ladder.
“Push off, Miguel, we’ve caught our wind at last,” called the first mate, and, indeed, Arethusa felt a deep gust of wind scattering the mists of fog around them.
After Miguel rowed her to shore and João helped her into the carrinho, she begged him to wait until the ship had set sail. She sat in her dripping gown, the shivers making her back ache, but she could not tear her eyes away from the Grace of the Seas.
She had failed Tristan. At the first sign of Alpheus, she had fled. Even worse, she had left him at Alpheus’ mercy. Her tears flowed and she did not stop them, even as João handed her his kerchief.
The sailors swiftly hoisted the ship’s heavy anchor. The sails unfurled and billowed out strong in the breeze, catching the light of the new sun. She did not motion for João to drive on until the ship had slipped from her sight into the deep waters beyond Ilhéu das Cabras.
FOUR DAYS ARETHUSA SPENT LOCKED IN HER room. With each one, her fears grew more intense, her nightmares more vivid. Evanescent dreams they were, fleeting images of death and blood and the sea. In the light, she imagined the worst, and, in the night, the worst came. As the hours turned to days, she lost all sense of time. The image of Tristan drifted in and out as an apparition to her, but still he lived in her mind like a slow-running river, his waters moving ever away into the darkness. She had no way of knowing if Tristan lived or died, and she hated herself for the fear that had kept her from him.
On the evening of the fourth day, Padre Salvador came to her bedroom door.
“Arethusa?” he called, his voice weary and raw.
She threw open the door and pulled him inside. “Does he live?” she mouthed.
Her uncle understood but hesitated. “Tristan’s condition has worsened. He is delirious and fighting a high fever. We—the doctors—don’t know if they can save him.”
She had dreaded this, seen it in her dreams. She sat on her bed, trying to take it in. Yet he had more to say. The lines around his eyes sagged lower and his lips were a thin line.
“Tristan woke from his fever yesterday,” he said in a quiet monotone.
She stood, her hope rallying. But in her uncle’s eyes... regret?
“He was conscious for just a few minutes, but he asked me to take you to São Miguel. He said”—her uncle blew out a frustrated breath—“he said for you to remember the myth, to remember how Tristan and Isolde make their end. He said he waits for your white flag.”
Arethusa gripped Padre Salvador’s arms and bowed her head into the space between them. Tristan is telling me he’s dying. He’s asking me to save him. Goddess, Cristo, will you not have mercy on us now?
“I promised him I would tell you this, but I wish now I had not given him my word.” Padre Salvador shook his head, the worry etched into his eyes like a scrimshaw on a whale’s tooth. “Arethusa, I didn’t tell him about your experience aboard the Grace of the Seas. He does not know the impossible choice he asks you to make.”
He lifted her chin until her eyes met his. “But we don’t know the future. It could be that Tristan will survive this without your coming.”
Arethusa wished that was true, but she knew better. This was the final call of the myth, the last choice, her last chance. Unless she reached Tristan in time, he would give up his life. It was his destiny. How could she knowingly condemn him to death? She would sooner face her own death aboard Alpheus’s hell-ship.
“But if you decide to go,” her uncle continued, “I will be with you every moment of the way. I will pray for you and protect you as best I know how. And don’t worry about the comissário. I will speak to him on your behalf.”
I must, she thought, clamping her teeth together until they hurt. No matter what happens. If he needs me, I must go.
She signed her answer to him.
“You’ll return with me?” he asked, his eyebrows raised.
Arethusa’s stiff nod showed more resolve than she felt. She thought of Tristan dying of fever on a stark hospital bed with only Isabel, his betrayer, to look after him. Isabel.
Arethusa caught his gaze. “Isabel?” she mouthed.
“I left Senhorita Infante there to watch over Tristan.”
Arethusa shook her head in frustration. Why didn’t Padre Salvador listen to her? Isabel was no nursemaid!
Arethusa took up her pad and pencil, scribbling fast over the tiny page. Did Isabel overhear Tristan’s request for me to come?
Her uncle stared at her, his mouth ajar. “Yes, she was there, Arethusa,” he said, confusion in his voice. Then he held up his hand. “You think Isabel will betray him. You think her to be Isolde of the White Hands?”
Unable to answer, Arethusa clasped her hands together and paced toward her bedroom window. She fixed her eyes on the sea, wishing she were already there at Tristan’s bedside, washing his forehead and holding his hand in her own.
Even if she made it to São Miguel before Isabel betrayed them both, Arethusa had no guarantee that she would survive the voyage. Whether spirit or man, she knew Alpheus had the power to kill her. Would the prayers of Padre Salvador be enough to protect her? Could his supplications save Tristan’s life?
“Another boat sails to São Miguel two days from now. We will book passage tomorrow. You have my word.”
I cannot live without him, Padre, she wrote.
“I believe you. But you can still be together without the myths.”
She shook her head. Don’t you see? she wrote. If Pai had not believed, he might have adopted me but not Tristan.
“Arethusa, you must stop this. What of the story of Alpheus and Arethusa? How can you believe in two ancient myths separated by hundreds of years?”
I do not attempt to reconcile them. But I know they are true.
“Perhaps they are only true because you believe them to be so? Because you’ve allowed them to shape your future?”
This gave her pause.
“I am advising you to make your own choice, Arethusa. Don’t let the choices of Fernando and Maria take you down a path that was never your own.”
Arethusa rubbed her temples. Her head ached with worry and frustration. She didn’t know what to believe anymore.
Padre Salvador came to the window and placed his hand on her arm. “Think on it and get some rest,” he implored, “but most of all, pray.”
Her father would have said, “Have faith.” How many times had she heard Pai say those words? But which faith? she now longed to ask. The thought made her yearn for her father and for his guidance. Per ardua ad astra, he seemed to say to her. When she looked again at her uncle, his brown eyes were smooth as glass, and Arethusa felt a comfort she had not experienced in days.
“I will try,” she mouthed.
*
That night, Arethusa watched Tristan die. Alpheus strangled him to death as he lay moaning in his bed. She reached for him from across the hospital room, but she could not move, could not save him.
She woke with an insistent voice whispering in her head: Go, Arethusa. Go now!
Hardly knowing what she was doing, she rubbed her eyes awake and dressed through a fog of sleep. Thoughts of fear faded. She had a task before her, one that would take every ounce of her wit and courage to accomplish.
She scrawled a note for her uncle and then filled a travel bag with clothes. She made her way out into the pitch-black hallway, feeling along the wall until she touched the molding around Tristan’s door. Padre Salvador had always been like a father to her, as much as her own father had been, and Arethusa wished she could say goodbye. She knew he would try to make her wait for the ship to arrive, but by then she knew it would be too late. Her only hope was that she could pay for passage on a ship that was already standing by to set sail in the morning. So she slipped the note into Tristan’s room where her uncle lay sleeping, kissed her fingertips and touched the door, and made her way upstairs to the locked study.
Padre Salvador had given her Pai’s keys, and she slipped into the darkened study without so much as a breath of noise. Unlocking the traveling trunk, she recovered the documents to the secret trust and the travel money he had left them.
When she came again into the hall, Arethusa paused outside the condessa’s door. Despite all the lady’s cruelties toward her and Tristan, Arethusa felt a pang of regret that the condessa would wake in the morning to find her gone. She doubted the condessa would be displeased, but Arethusa felt guilty somehow, as if she were still trying to hide from the condessa’s anger.
She thought at last of Teresa and, before leaving, peeked into the sleeping maid’s room. She lay soundless in her sleeping cap, looking peaceful and content. Blowing Teresa a kiss and grabbing a few bits of food from the kitchen, Arethusa fled the house.
When she reached the stables, the crack of the hay under her feet woke the stable boy, João, who slept in a room beside the horse stalls. Startled, he cried out, but she covered his mouth with her hand, imploring him with her eyes to keep quiet. João could not read, so Arethusa motioned for him to saddle Tesouro for her.
He shook his head, panic slashing through his eyes. “The condessa would have my head, Senhorita!”