The Mermaid

by Christina Henry

  Amelia still did not understand all the streets and directions, but if she wandered long enough, she was sure to find the water. It was an island, after all.

  And once she found the water, she would leave this horrible place and never return. Why had she stayed? Once she saw the stuffed dead things in the museum she should have known. She’d wanted to leave then but convinced herself it would be all right, that she’d started on a certain course and must see it through.

  Now she knew better. Now she knew that death lay in wait everywhere, not just in the ocean that had stolen away her love.

  Amelia was thinking only of escaping Barnum, so it took some time before she was aware of the trail of murmurs she left behind her. She gradually became aware of people staring as she passed, many of them not bothering to disguise their interest.

  “That’s her, isn’t it?”

  “The mermaid.”

  “I’m sure it’s her.”

  “Where is she going?”

  “Where’s Dr. Griffin?”

  “That’s the mermaid.”

  “The mermaid.”

  “The mermaid.”

  Amelia trained her eyes forward, pretending she didn’t hear. She thought that if she didn’t acknowledge the words, then they wouldn’t be true and the people would leave her alone, let her pass.

  It was a foolish thought, one born of hope rather than reason. Only a few hours before, they had stormed the stage to get closer to her. Out here, in the street, she didn’t even have the protection of glass around her.

  A man suddenly yelled out, “Yes, that’s her! That’s the mermaid!” and then they surged toward her, pressing against her, stroking her hair, reaching for her arm, her hand, a bit of her skirt.

  All of them shouted—shouted questions, offered her money and jewels, tried to grab her and drag her to the nearest newspaper office to sell her story.

  She tried to speak, to push through, but they choked her with their questions and their breath and their insistence on knowing, knowing, knowing everything about her. She threw out her hands, wished for the claws of her water form. If she had them she would slash her way free, never mind the blood, why were they stopping her, why were they standing in her way?

  She had no strength as a human, at least none to compare to that which she had in the water. She could not move the demanding shouting faces, and the more she tried to turn away, the more they wanted.

  Even in the tank she was able to curl into her fin. If she tried to curl into herself here, she would be trampled. Trampled like that woman in the theater.

  But maybe that would be better. Maybe if she simply lay down in the street, they would batter her until she was dead and then she could stop pretending she’d cared about anything since Jack died.

  That thought made her stop struggling, though everyone around her continued to push, continued to scream, continued to touch and grasp and grab at her.

  Was it true? Did she want to die rather than go on without Jack? She took out this idea, turned it over, examined it.

  All those days and hours she stood on the cliff . . . was she waiting for a sign, something to tell her it was all right to let go? Perhaps she’d hoped for a bolt of lightning, or an arrow carelessly loosed to plunge into her heart.

  She didn’t know how such things might affect her, though—her body seemed immune to the diseases that killed humans, and old age might never take her. If she’d stayed with her people, perhaps it would have been different.

  Amelia recalled old ones among them, and of course there were folk who died. Was it the change that kept her young? If so, she might never die. There might be no power on the earth to end her life.

  All of the days and all the years stretched out before her, every one of them cursed without Jack.

  Then there was a different kind of shout, and she remembered where she was and the people all around her.

  Someone called her name. “Amelia! Amelia!”

  She spun on her heel, and behind her was Levi, shoving his way through the crowd.

  “Dr. Griffin!” several people shouted.

  Some of them moved toward Levi, loosening their grip on Amelia just enough that she was able to break through the crowd.

  A man, determined to have what he wanted from her, followed her out and clutched a fistful of her hair near the scalp. She supposed she should have screamed, but she was too astonished to do so.

  Amelia reached behind her and grabbed the man’s hand with both of hers, digging in with her too-short human fingernails. He yelped in pain and released her, but now the crowd, temporarily distracted by the appearance of “Dr. Griffin,” recalled that she was there and washed toward her again.

  She threw a glance at Levi, saw him struggling to reach her, but she couldn’t wait for him. They were coming for her again, those hordes, those hungry faces, and she had to escape.

  Amelia met Levi’s eyes, tried to tell him with just her gaze that she was sorry. Then she ran, and ran, and ran until the crowd lost the will to keep up with her (for many of them ran after her), but she kept running even after they fell away, because running felt like swimming, and the faster she ran, the freer she was, fast and free and far away from everything that hurt.

  * * *

  • • •

  Levi found her hours later, sitting on the edge of a tiny dock with a small dinghy tethered to it. She sat like a child, knees curled into her chest and arms wrapped around her knees, her hair pulled all around her shoulders like a blanket.

  He’d despaired of finding her at all, but he kept looking anyway, promising himself one more hour—just one more—and then he would give up and go home.

  When he did find her, it was like a repeated memory, the same sensation of illusion he’d had when he found her huddled in the museum. She looked up when she heard his footsteps on the dock. Her shoulders hunched, her body ready to spring away from any strange intruder. She didn’t speak when she saw him, but her shoulders relaxed. He had the sense, though, that she was still reserving the right to dart away if she chose.

  He lowered himself to the dock beside her (with a momentary pang for his suit trousers—Dr. Griffin dressed much more elegantly than Levi Lyman). He crossed his ankles and leaned back on his hands, affecting a casualness he did not feel. Then he waited. He had found her, and it was enough. Whatever happened after that was her choice.

  Below them the water lapped gently against the pilings, and in the distance was the occasional splash of a sea creature slapping against the surface. It should have smelled fresher here, away from the manure and sewage and pigs, but mostly it smelled of fish and the rotting vegetation that built up against the pilings.

  Amelia, it seemed, was content to sit there indefinitely. She might be mute until she finally shed her clothes and returned to the water or until Levi gave up waiting and returned to Barnum. Levi, who was not a particularly patient human, was not willing to wait that long.

  “Why didn’t you go?” he asked, when it seemed she might never speak.

  “I thought I wanted to die,” she said. “Out there, with all those people surrounding me.”

  “Because you felt overwhelmed?” he asked, trying to understand. He didn’t see what this had to do with her not leaving.

  “No, because I didn’t want to live without Jack. I never thought about it before—just how long my life might be.” She paused. “Then I thought I should just lie down in the street and let them trample me like they did that poor woman in the theater. That would be correct, wouldn’t it? That would be the right punishment for me.”

  “Punishment?” He’d never heard her speak this way before. “Why should you be punished?”

  “That’s what all you Christians say, isn’t it? That when you sin, you should be punished?”

  “But what have you done that’s a sin?” Levi asked. “I can’t
see how this is your fault.”

  “I was the cause of her death,” Amelia said, her voice breaking. “They were all running to see me and she got in the way.”

  Levi felt that anything he said would be inadequate. He didn’t know the words to make that expression on her face go away, that crumpled, bruised look. Amelia didn’t crumple, usually, and she never seemed to bruise. But this . . . she felt responsible. He didn’t know what to do to take that away.

  “You couldn’t know what would happen,” Levi said finally. He could taste the bland uselessness of these words.

  “You knew,” she said, suddenly fierce. “You tried to tell me.”

  “I didn’t know it would be like that,” he said. “I was . . .”

  He trailed off. Telling her he was worried about her seemed too close to a confession, too close to telling her how he felt. It wouldn’t help, that confession, and it might even make her flee. She seemed balanced on a knife-edge—the burden of his feelings might cause her to fall.

  “I thought it might be too much for you to be seen by so many. I knew that it couldn’t be undone,” he said.

  “And I told you that it was my choice,” Amelia said. “But I was too foolish to understand what I was choosing.”

  Levi felt helpless against her grief. He had no right to touch her, to comfort her. He could not find the words to console her. It was as if she were still under glass on the stage, separated from him and the rest of the world.

  He had no power to make her stay, and neither did Barnum—that was abundantly clear. Barnum’s powers of persuasion were useless in her case. She’d always viewed Barnum askance, recognizing the slick oil that was at least half of his personality.

  Amelia didn’t need Barnum in the same way he needed her. That gave her power over him. But Levi wanted her to stay. He didn’t have the ability to wipe clean her grieving heart, but he wanted her to stay.

  “Stay,” he said. The word emerged without his conscious thought, a thing he’d never meant to say out loud. And then again—“Stay.”

  She looked at him then, and she was Amelia, cool and direct and demanding. “Why?”

  So many reasons I cannot say. The words lodged inside his throat, and he fell back on platitudes.

  “Because we’ll make it safer. It will be better next time.”

  She looked doubtful. “How can you be assured of that? One thing I have learned in all my years among humans is that their behavior is not predictable.”

  “Yes, it is,” Levi said. “If it weren’t, we couldn’t build societies. We expect each other to behave a certain way, and so we do.”

  “Then how do mobs happen?” Amelia asked. “How do people suddenly decide to join together and rampage?”

  He recognized that this was a sincere question, not a rhetorical one. She didn’t understand people, even after so many years of living among them. Well, to be fair, there couldn’t have been many mob scenes in that isolated village of hers.

  “We expect certain behaviors of each other,” he said slowly, thinking about his answer as he spoke. “I think, when something happens like at the Concert Hall, one person behaves out of the normal fashion. Then another person thinks it must be acceptable, and so they copy that behavior. And so it goes on and on like a chain of fire until everyone’s caught it.”

  “And how do you think we can keep the fire from starting again?” Amelia said.

  “We take certain precautions, like Barnum said,” Levi said. He saw the angry flicker in her eyes when he mentioned Barnum. “We hire guards. We make it clear that there will be acceptable standards. I find that when the rules are clear, most people will follow them. They don’t want to be censured by their fellow man. And . . .”

  He hesitated, because he knew she wouldn’t like this, and it might be the wrong thing to say. It might be the thing that drove her away.

  “And?” she asked.

  “I’m sorry to say this, because I know you like your freedom, but I don’t think you should go about on your own anymore. If you’re alone, you might be mobbed again.”

  She gave a little shudder, and he knew she felt the crowd pressing all around her again.

  “No,” Amelia said. “I don’t like it. But I have to agree that it is not wise for me to walk without an escort. Charity prefers that I have one, in any case. She seems to think it’s improper otherwise.”

  “Does that mean you’ll stay?” Levi asked.

  It was pathetic, the way he couldn’t keep the hope out of his voice. It made him wince.

  She stood then, a smooth, fluid motion that left him feeling awkward as he scrambled up beside her.

  She stepped out of her shoes, pulled off her dress, and dove into the water.

  He watched for a sign of her, for her tail arcing into the air, but there was nothing.

  Still, he felt that she hadn’t left forever. He believed (perhaps foolishly) that she would have said good-bye. She wouldn’t have said it to Barnum, but she would have told him. He’d earned at least that courtesy.

  No, she was only pretending she was still free to act as she had done before—to swim without eyes on her, to be a mermaid in the sea instead of in a tank.

  He waited. He must have nodded off, for suddenly she was there again, pulling herself onto the dock and calmly dressing as if he weren’t there.

  Then she faced him, and he offered his arm. She linked her own with his, and he breathed in her saltwater perfume and believed that in that moment he was the most fortunate man in New York.

  CHAPTER 8

  Amelia thought to steal back into her guest room and present herself at breakfast as though nothing had happened. Whatever argument she might have with Barnum—and there was still an argument there, for he was certainly confused about who owned her other than herself—she was reluctant to involve Charity in it.

  Amelia found the door to the apartment unlocked (almost as if Barnum expected me to come back) and said good night to Levi there. She sensed a reluctance in him to leave, but Barnum had arranged for Dr. Griffin to stay at the Park Hotel. There were sure to be reporters there waiting despite the hour. Levi had told her on the walk home that the sensation of the mermaid would guarantee that.

  “You shouldn’t have to answer their questions if you don’t wish to,” Amelia said.

  “That is what Barnum pays me to do,” Levi said. “To talk to reporters, even if it is the middle of the night.”

  “How did you come to meet him?” she asked.

  “Oh, we are friends of old. I was working as a lawyer and Barnum hired me to help him with another exhibit. I could talk on most subjects, and that seemed handy to Barnum,” Levi said easily.

  There was a glibness to his response that told her it wasn’t the entire story, but Levi didn’t seem inclined to continue. He must be speaking of the Joice Heth exhibit, which he had told her of previously. This was a topic of the utmost sensitivity for both Barnum and Levi. It occurred to her then that Levi, too, was irritated with Barnum and his present behavior.

  Levi had confided in her that Barnum had promised him that Amelia would not be treated like Joice—that is, a possession to be used as Barnum saw fit. Amelia had no intention of allowing herself to be treated thus, but it was a comfort to know that Levi was on her side. She should tell him so, she thought. He should know that she appreciated what he did for her.

  Then she remembered the way he’d asked her to stay and thought better of it. If she wasn’t careful, if she didn’t maintain the proper distance, he might believe she would welcome his attentions.

  There was an empty room at the hotel for Amelia as well, but she wanted the comfort of the familiar this one last time. If it was not home, then she at least knew what was expected of her here.

  Amelia slipped inside the apartment. Inside all was dark. She knew that if Barnum was still awake, he would likely be i
nside the museum. She had often heard him returning in the wee hours of the morning when she was unable to sleep.

  She had nearly reached the door of her room when there was a footstep behind her and a tiny mewling noise. Charity stood there, in a white muslin nightgown and cap, with newborn Frances on her shoulder.

  When the child was born, Amelia had been nearly overwhelmed by longing. She was so tiny, so pink, so blind and helpless, and yet this small thing could scream the house down, send everyone running to do her bidding. The first time Charity allowed Amelia to hold Frances, the mermaid had been afraid she might break this fragile thing if she gripped too hard.

  But Charity had laughed and shown her how to be cautious of the baby’s head, and then smiled fondly on the two of them as Amelia had leaned in and breathed the delicate scent that came off the baby’s skin. Human babies actually smelled new, she discovered, new and sweet. Mermaid babies did not have this, or rather Amelia did not remember it being so. Then again, she could not recall ever holding a new mermaid.

  “Are you staying, then?” Charity asked.

  Amelia couldn’t tell from the tone of her voice whether Charity welcomed the idea. She’d been horrified by the news of the mob at the Concert Hall, but despite the fact that a good portion of people had seen Amelia change from a human to a creature of the sea, Charity still seemed to think it was a trick of some sort. She herself had not attended due to the need to stay with the baby.

  Barnum had refused to take Caroline if her mother was not present, and Caroline’s resulting tantrum had been in full flow when Amelia and Levi left for the Concert Hall.

  Amelia said, “I will stay, for now.”

  Charity approached her, so that they stood only a few feet away from each other in the dark. Amelia could not read the expression on Charity’s face. The shadows kept shifting, playing tricks.

  “Are you really a mermaid?” Charity asked.

  “I’ve told you I am,” Amelia said.

  She felt a little stab of impatience; would the woman believe nothing without the proof of her own eyes? Charity was a regular churchgoer, and Amelia felt there was nothing more absurd than believing in a God who never spoke or appeared to you but disbelieving a mermaid that sat in your parlor.