by Ruhi Jain
*
Brell was just about to enter her room when she heard Erene whisper. “Don’t go in. Natalie is blaming Stiny for what happened at the Ball. It’s a really ugly fight.”
Brell pressed her ear against the keyhole of the door.
“… your fault that this all happened! You wretched —”
She yanked her ear away before she could hear Natalie’s curses.
“Well, I guess it’s the storage cupboard for me now.” she sighed.
“Can I keep you company?” Erene asked.
Brell pulled out a couple of the stored mattresses from the shelves and stretched them out on the storage cupboard floor.
Erene lay down on one. “My roommates will chatter all night long about the Ball, and I don’t want to be there for it.”
“Tell me something. I know there are seven seas in this ‘ocean’. What are their names?” It felt so good to talk to someone who knew her secret! No more hiding, at least.
“Umm… let’s see.” She ticked them off on her fingers as she named them. “Gelled, Wroc, Satis, Nowbi, Corfer, Techon and Detron.” Brell heard a faint sigh from the other mattress. “I wish we could have danced.” Erene said.
When the Ball had ended, all the servants had spread out to dance when Figgie burst in.
“There will be no dancing for you all!”
Everyone grumbled. Someone boldly asked. “Why?”
Figgie had dragged Natalie forward by her ear and yelled. “This girl has shamed me. She dropped her platter. So no dancing! Want someone to blame? Blame her.”
Natalie whimpered. “I— I’m sorry ma’am. I —”
“Enough! You, girl, will have all your chores for the whole month doubled. All of you, leave!”
And so they couldn’t dance.
“Natalie says Stiny was behind her and tripped her, but Stiny was at the other end of the room!” Erene pointed out from her corner of the storeroom. “The only reason Natalie hasn’t been punished is because she knows Sir Thomas Red.”
Brell decided to change the subject. “I saw Zeldae and —”
“Shhh!” Erene hushed her. “Don’t speak so openly about her! Anyone could be listening.”
“Okay, okay!” Brell reassured the girl.
“She was not what you were expecting?”
“Exactly!”
“It’s because of her magic. She’s actually a very gruesome sight; that’s what everyone says.”
“Why does she hate Prince Callum so much?”
“You noticed? Prince Callum is only eighteen, and he is rebellious. She wants him to fear her, so that he won’t do anything reckless.”
“There is also Princess Lenny …”
“She’s more… stable, so The Great Queen Zeldae doesn’t worry about her. She’s already engaged to Prince Rayon Zest of Corfer.”
“Doesn’t any royalty over here have a choice?”
“Actually,” Erene lowered her voice. “King Jade had a choice. He fell in love with Queen Sylvia and married her.”
“But Callum and Lenny’s mother is Queen Maude!”
“No, she isn’t.”
“What do you mean?”
Erene trailed her thin fingers along the tears on her mattress. “King Jade and Queen Sylvia met at one of the Balls held in this very castle. She was the princess of Detron. They fell in love and married in just three months of knowing each other. Queen Sylvia was Prince Callum and Princess Lenny’s mother. She died a couple of years ago. Only a month after her death, King Jade was forced to marry Queen Maude simply because Zeldae wanted him to do so …”
Brell gasped, appalled. Callum was sixteen when his mother died. To top that, he got a stepmother in a month! No wonder he was so angry at Zeldae.
There was silence for some time, and Brell thought desperately for another topic.
“Erene, can a merperson come on land?”
“We can, of course! The only way to be on land is to keep our hair wet. But it’s very dangerous! Because if our hair dries off , then …”
“Then what?”
“Then we will die.” she said solemnly. “Plus, humans will capture us and put us in things called aqualiuns or something like that.”
“Aquarium.” Brell corrected. So that’s why when she had first seen Callum, his hair was glistening. It must have been water.
“When you go on land, does your tail turn into legs?”
Erene signed, “I don’t know because I’ve never been on land. I guess that’s what happens.”
Brell wondered if she could go up on land now. She wasn’t a real mermaid, so would she get her legs again? And if her hair dried off, would she… die?
Brell was so excited to have someone actually answer her questions that they just started spilling out. “What are the clothes here made out of? And what is gregar?”
“Basically, we have these plants here in the sea which are very fibrous. Their fibres can be made into clothes. Gregar is this special plant with really soft but strong fibres. But because it’s so rare and requires intensive care, the clothes made with gregar fibres are worth a lot!”
“How is it that sharks and stingrays don’t come here?”
Erene giggled. “It’s so strange explaining this stuff to someone. No one has ever asked me so many questions before. Well, each of the Seven Seas has this protective barrier around them that has been there ever since… well, time immemorial. The original Ruling Family must have made it. It prevents all the bad creatures from coming in, but the harmless ones are allowed. Do you know what some merpeople say?” Erene leaned closer to her. “It is said that The Great Queen trains sharks! Like, for attacking things… or people.”
Brell shivered. “That sounds formidable.” She was going up against a woman like that! She tilted her head so that she could look at Erene from where she lay on the mattress. “Do you want to be free from this castle?”
“You can’t miss what you haven’t experienced Brell. Of course, I’m hopeful. There are times I ask myself, what if it’s worse out there than in here? But then I have to ask myself the more important question: what if it’s better?”
“I think you are the most positive person I have met in my life.” Brell smiled, rolling on her mattress. “Well, good night, Erene. I’m probably going to crash any time now. I’m more tired than usual for some reason.”
Erene mumbled something about Figgie, but Brell couldn’t catch the words as they both faded off to sleep.
*
She was stumbling through a graveyard, and her mother’s ghostly figure rose out of one of the graves. Her face was deathly pale and her sunken eyes were lifelessly dull.
“Brellitine!” her voice broke with pain. “Timmy will die!”
“No! Mom! I’m going to bring him back. I promise!” Seeing her mother like this made her feel like crying. She came closer to her and caught the reeking stench of the dead.
“You must save him!” Praline cried in obvious agony.
Then a shadow fell over Brell. She turned around and all the air whooshed out of her lungs. Zeldae, wearing the same black dress she had worn to the Ball except now it was torn in places, with her hair messed up, was standing right behind her.
Brell screamed and began to run, tripping on gravestones. Zeldae began to chase her, and tendrils of black smoke started to thicken the air.
“It’s all in vain, Brellitine Grever. Your brother will die just like all the other children who have been sacrificed for me: YOU. CAN’T. STOP. IT!” her voice was bitingly cold and cruel, and made Brell shiver. The smoke began to blur Brell’s vision and seep into her body. She choked, and must have stumbled and fallen down, for she felt pain slice through her leg. She turned around just to see a huge, black boulder right above her face.
Zeldae had trapped her in a grave.
Brell awoke screaming, her hands and legs failing. A hand clasped against her mouth, and she struggled, thinking it was Zeldae.
“You’ll wake up everybody!” E
rene hissed and then slowly moved her hand away.
Brell gasped, but stayed quiet, listening for some noise which may indicate that someone had heard her scream. No one came.
“What happened?” Erene looked scared.
“Nightmare. I don’t think I’ll get sleep again.” She tried to shake off the cold feeling of Zeldae’s presence.
“What was it about?”
Brell shifted to her side, not really sure what to say. “Zeldae.” She said finally. The grave reminded her of something. “I think I can talk to dead people.”
“What do you mean?”
Brell pushed herself up and tidied her hair. “On the way to Meethe I was staying at Bucklebow Inn and at late night I went for a swim. I know it sounds bizarre but I think I had a conversation with the dead people spirits.”
Erene looked at her for a minute and then began laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Brell.” She giggled. “Every merperson can talk to spirits. For five hours every Sunday night the spirits can talk from their shells.”
“The nautilus shells, right?”
“Yeah. Those ones. The spirit of the person is kept in the shell and the way the shell curves allows the spirit voices to be amplified so that they can be heard.”
“I thought I was going nuts the whole time! But,” she paused. “I’m human, not mermaid.”
Erene shrugged. “Maybe the stuff that gave you your tail gave you this characteristic too.” Brell pondered on this, troubled that she seemed to be more mermaid than human at this point. Erene interrupted her musings.
“Oh, and also, when you are in the sea, you can only dream about dead people.”
Brell stared at her. “But I dreamt about Zeldae.”
Erene twitched her lip up in disgust. “Her humanity is dead. That counts as her being dead”
Brell’s amusement at Erene’s reaction flew away as a thought occurred to her, and she froze, her hands stilled. She almost stopped breathing when realisation hit her.
Erene must have picked up on her distress. “What’s wrong?”
Brell buried her face in her hands, not willing to face reality. This couldn’t have happened. No…six years. Six years of her life she believed her mother was alive. Six years she conjured up plans to go find her. Six years she held onto hope. Not once did it even strike her that she was—
“Brellitine! What happened?”
She couldn’t form words. A chocked sob escaped her lips — the only sound she was capable of making. Tears slid silently from her eyes, running in a continuous stream down her cheeks. Erene hugged her, but she couldn’t get her own arms to move. They sat limply beside her.
“My mother —” she choked out. “I dreamt about m-my mother.”
Erene’s eyes widened. “Oh. Maybe… maybe the dead people in dreams doesn’t apply to you because you’re a human.”
It took a while for her words to sink in.
“I mean, it’s possible that the crystals gave you enough ‘mermaidiness’ to talk to spirits but maybe not enough for the dead people dreams part.”
Brell wiped away her tears. “I hope you are right,” she whispered after a while. She didn’t want to think about the other possibility.
After they had sat in silence together for a while, Erene gathered her blanket around them. “Well, it’s almost morning, so it won’t matter if you don’t sleep. I’m certainly not getting sleep anyway because tomorrow we’ll be getting our salary for the month!”
“Salary?” She had never thought of that. She hadn’t come here for the money, just to find Timmy. Salary sounded almost like a magic word. She had never had anything at the farm, no pocket money. Now she was actually earning money.
“Of course we’ll be getting our salary!” Erene said. “I’ll save two Dolts as usual for something I really want. And the remaining I’ll spend at Trinket Trolley or maybe —”
“English, please.”
“Oh, right! Dolts are money. We also have Verrs, Towrs, and Shiiks.” Erene explained how the currencies related to each other. “Shiiks are gold shells, Towrs are silver ones, Dolts are brown ones and Verrs are black. Fifteen Verrs equals to one Dolt, ten Dolts equals to one Towr, and seven Towrs equals to a Shiik! After we get paid, we also get half an hour in Haiken Lane to buy something for ourselves! There’s yummy food and— ooh! We’ll have to visit Trinket Trolley! It’s my favourite…” Erene’s chattering filled the silence while they packed away their mattresses and swam towards the hall for breakfast. Her bubbly enthusiasm was contagious and Brell felt her spirits lifting a bit. She was determined to hold out hope that her mother was alive and that she would rescue Timmy. There was no other option.
Chapter 20: Unexpected
Excitement saturated the water in the servant’s quarters. The mermaids standing in line murmured impatiently as Figgie jingled a blue velvet bag stuffed to the brim with brown shells.
“Katty Bone.” She called out. The girl who wore gregar in the Ball stepped forward and Figgie pressed five brown shells into her palm.
“Amanda Young.”
Amanda greedily thrust out her hand.
Brell watched as Figgie worked her way down the list and finally called, “Susan Morris.”
Stepping forward, she watched as five glistening brown shells tinkled into her scratched, rough palm. About as big as a ping pong ball, the shell had DOLT branded on the bottom along with three small dots.
“If you hold the shell against the sunlight, the dots will turn silver colour. In the dark, it turns black again. That is how you know if the shell is real or a fake.” Erene whispered, tucking her shells in a small red pouch. “Today evening, we’ll get time to go buy stuff!”
Figgie quieted all the blabbering girls. “Ladies! Before you leave, I have an announcement. One of you has earned a promotion to light green shirt.”
A ripple of murmuring passed around; it wasn’t everyday someone was promoted. “It’s obviously going to be me!” Natalie boasted, loud enough for Figgie to hear.
“In your dreams!” the curly haired girl named Hilda Bouman retorted. “It’s going to be me!”
Brell turned to Erene. “Why does everyone want the green shirt? Doesn’t that mean more work?”
Erene rolled her eyes. “It also means double the money. One silver shell a month!”
“Ladies!” Figgie roared, her manly voice echoing. “Quiet!” To Natalie and Hilda she said rather strictly, “Don’t count your eggs before they hatch.”
Everyone shut up.
“The mermaid who has earned it is… Susan Morris!”
Brell could feel the hundred eyes boring down into her face, but she barely glanced at them. Her posture was frozen, her mind in a daze.
Figgie held out a set of green t-shirts. For Brell, it looked like a torture device.
“Susan?”
Brell swam up to her, still shocked, and accepted the clothes. She was supposed to be as inconspicuous as possible!
“Now that you are a light green shirt, you can write up the dark green shirts if they fail in their duties. Light green shirts have different dormitories. Also, one of your duties will include serving the royals at meals. You will be going through two weeks of rigorous training. Report tomorrow at eight o’clock in my office.”
*
For two weeks Brell had no other duty than to appear in Figgie’s office at eight o’clock sharp each day. If she was even a second late, she was greeted with an angry snort and a disapproving look. She learnt how to serve food without the merperson feeling as if you were invading their personal space. She had to practice this on Figgie which was very hard to do considering the latter’s rather large bosom.
She also learnt the meaning behind different positions of silverware on the plate, indicating whether the person had finished their meal or not or if they wanted to be served again. It was very tiring to have Figgie’s hot breath down her neck every minute of the two weeks.
Having worked at
Aunt Lucy’s farm and the tea shop, Brell already knew how to balance more than five plates at a time, and that muscle memory helped her during the training.
But throughout the training, she couldn’t get her mind off Timmy. Her thoughts constantly went back to him and she yearned to hug him like she had done countless times before. The thought of finding more about him because of her position made her even more determined to do what she was doing. Her thoughts also often turned to her mother. Earlier, on land, she never even considered the fact that her mother might be dead. It was a lot easier to hope and believe she was alive and out there, somewhere. But now, in the sea, doubts about her being alive made it so much worse.
*
The number of duties hadn’t increased much in comparison to what she did when she was a dark green shirt. But she could see how they would be preferable to the chores she used to do. No more cleaning ramp ways and dirty tables… and no partner. She missed Erene’s chatter already. She scanned her new list:
• Clean Prince Callum’s room (8-9 am)
• Help with flower arrangement in the Dining Hall (9-10 am)
• Clean the doors of the salon (10-11 am )
• Clean Sir Salamandar’s office (11-noon)
• Carry the bow and arrows for training (12-2 pm)
• Dust Princess Valery’s room (3-4 pm)
• Serve the royals at dinner (8-10 pm)
What training? As she made her way to Callum’s room, she hoped she would get a chance later on to ask someone.
Callum’s room was half the size of the huge Ballroom. The staggeringly huge windows were covered with long drapes of rich burgundy velvet curtains. When she pulled them aside with the golden band attached to them, she saw a panoramic view of the tops of the castle, and the twinkling blue ocean beyond. She wondered what it would be like to live in such a castle. Not as a servant, but as a princess. The coarse hay she had growing up would be replaced by silky sheets, and she would get delicious food to feast on every single day.