The Mermaid

by Christina Henry

  He knew she was there before he even stepped onto the dock. She was splashing about near the pilings, and when he reached the edge, she looked up at him.

  Her face was glittering silver and her teeth were sharp, but her eyes were still Amelia’s and they were shining, shining out of the darkness at him, and he felt punched by a lust so strong he could hardly stand.

  “Amelia,” he said.

  She climbed out of the water, her body changing from silver to pearl, and there was no sign that the bullet had ever touched her. Her skin was as smooth and perfect as it always was when she changed, like she’d been born anew.

  She kissed him, kissed him while she stood there naked and gleaming and his hands went everywhere they could reach, though he knew he shouldn’t, not there, not where someone might be watching.

  Amelia pulled her face away and smiled, a smile so full of mischief and temptation that he almost forgot himself again.

  He picked up the clothing he had dropped and handed it to her wordlessly. Her smile widened, and she kept her gaze on his as she slowly (so very slowly) put on all her layers, all the armor that women wore to keep their flesh safe from the eyes of men.

  Then she let him offer his arm, and she took it, and they walked home in the silent hour before dawn.

  CHAPTER 13

  I’ve been thinking on our problem, Miss Amelia,” Barnum said after dinner one evening a few days later.

  “And what problem is that, Mr. Barnum?” she asked.

  Barnum didn’t quail away from her gaze or the curious glances of Levi and Charity as he usually might. That meant he was determined to have something, and Amelia hoped that whatever he was determined to have did not mean more grief for her.

  “The problem of having a mermaid exhibit without a mermaid,” Barnum said. “Now we do have Moses’s mummy, and that’s at least enough to keep the public interested for now. But I can’t have you back in that tank with all those Bible-loving folks outside talking about Barnum’s American Museum like it’s some kind of whorehouse. Sorry, Charity.”

  Amelia noticed he didn’t bother to apologize to her.

  “But you did sign a contract, and I know you want to make a salary. And you can’t make a salary while you’re sitting in my parlor.”

  Unsaid but fervently implied was sitting in my parlor, eating my food and drinking my wine and taking up space instead of tripling the attendance numbers as you ought to be doing.

  “And what is your proposed solution to this dilemma, Mr. Barnum?” Amelia asked.

  “We’ll send you on a tour,” Barnum said triumphantly.

  “A tour?”

  A tour, Amelia thought. A chance to see more places, more things, more of the country. She would have a start, at least, on the old dream of seeing all the world and all its wonders—although she didn’t know anymore that it was a worthy dream. Still, she felt her life was on hold again, like it had been after Jack’s death, and leaving for a tour would be a chance to begin again.

  Charity looked startled. “But, Taylor, how can she go on a tour? You’ve complained all along about how difficult it was to build the tanks for her. How can you send a tank from town to town?”

  “Well, Charity, I’ve been thinking on that,” Barnum said.

  He looked so pleased with himself that Amelia nearly laughed out loud. He’d obviously spent a lot of time formulating his plan and was prepared for their questions and objections.

  “We can build a wagon, a regular sort of wagon with wood on three sides and make it watertight, like a whiskey barrel or a ship. And then on the fourth side we can have a piece of glass and folks can view Amelia through the window.”

  “That sounds like it would be very small, Barnum,” Levi said. “How can Amelia swim around in something like that?”

  “We won’t have her swimming all day like she does in the museum,” Barnum said. “We can go back to the old way—a performance before an audience. You can put a ladder up behind the wagon with a curtain around it. She can take off her clothes and jump in the water before anyone can properly see her, just like at the Concert Hall.”

  “I don’t know, Mr. Barnum,” Amelia said. “It won’t be easy for me to dive into something as small as a wagon. And where will we have these performances? Outside?”

  “We’ll have to have them outside if we want to use the wagon,” Barnum said. “But there will have to be a tent or some such thing to cover the wagon, because otherwise no one will pay.”

  “And what about the water?” Amelia asked. “How will we get the seawater to the tank every day?”

  “I’ve already thought of that,” Barnum said. “We’ll confine your tour to cities and towns along the coast. A second wagon will go with you filled with whiskey barrels. When you reach the next stop on the tour, the second wagon will be sent to the ocean to fill them up with water, and then they will be dumped into the viewing wagon. When you leave town, the wagon can be drained to make it easier to travel, and then it can be filled up again when you arrive in a new place.”

  “How many people will we need for such an enterprise?” Levi asked. “You’ll need men to set up the tent, to arrange for seats inside it, to fetch the water and prepare the tank every day. All that will cost money.”

  Amelia thought Levi was trying to dissuade Barnum with the thought of the cost.

  She could understand, though, that Barnum wanted to get the most use out of her. And she did sign a contract to perform.

  But she was no longer Jack’s wife, no longer the mermaid on the cliff by the sea. And if she wasn’t the Feejee Mermaid, then who was she? If she went on tour, perhaps she would find out.

  “If I leave and go on tour, you’ll be able to reopen the museum,” Amelia said. “And you’ll be able to make money from that as well as the tour.”

  “But your contract only states that you make a percentage of the tickets for your exhibit,” Barnum started, but Amelia held up a hand to stop him.

  “I’m not asking for more pay, Mr. Barnum. I am only thinking that it is a fairly elegant solution. The exhibition can continue, the museum can reopen, and without my presence here, the disruptive forces will lose interest.”

  Barnum appeared astounded to discover that she agreed with him. He was accustomed by now to Amelia contradicting him at every turn.

  “Is this really what you want, Amelia?” Charity asked. Her brow wrinkled in concern. “It’s not Taylor who will have to submit to the rigors of the tour, but you.”

  Amelia nodded. “It does seem like the best thing to do. Mr. Barnum is right. I can’t stay here in the parlor forever.”

  Charity reached out for Amelia’s hand. “But Caroline and I will miss you so.”

  “I will miss you, too, but I’m not leaving tomorrow.” Amelia laughed. “At least, I don’t believe I am.”

  Barnum smiled his showman’s smile. “You’re leaving as soon as I can make the arrangements. I’ve already contacted a shipwright to help build the watertight wagon.”

  “You seemed very certain of my cooperation, Mr. Barnum,” Amelia said, though this was no more than she’d expected. Barnum liked to feel he had something up his sleeve always.

  “You’re a smart girl. I knew, sooner or later, you’d see things my way.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Levi and Amelia stood just outside the apartment door, the only place where Charity would permit them to be alone for more than a few moments.

  Once she realized that Levi and Amelia were “courting,” as she put it, she seemed more determined than ever to chaperone every moment they were together.

  “But I’m a widow, Charity,” Amelia said. “And you know Levi’s a decent man.”

  “All the more reason for you not to lead him into temptation,” Charity said tartly, but she smiled when she said it. “And I keep explaining to you, Amelia�
��you just don’t look like a widow. You look like a young girl just out of the schoolroom.”

  Now Levi took Amelia’s hand. She leaned in to kiss him—it was her favorite part of the day, finding all the secrets he concealed on his tongue—but he pulled back. She looked at him in surprise.

  “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  His fingers were shaking a little. “Amelia, I know you can never love me as much as you loved Jack.”

  “I’ve never said—”

  “Wait,” he said. “Wait. I have to get it all out.”

  He inhaled deeply, coming to some internal decision.

  “I think you know that I love you, and that I have for some time,” he said. “I know nobody can replace your husband, and I don’t ever want to. But I hope that you would consider . . . that you would do me the honor of becoming my wife.”

  It was strange, Amelia thought, that his stumbling words moved her so much. It was strange that his trembling hand meant more than the fist he’d used in her defense.

  Jack had never asked her to marry him. It had just happened. She wanted to live with him, and in order to live with him they had to marry. There were no declarations of love like this. Jack had made his declaration the day he loosed her from the net and let her leave him.

  It was not better or worse, she reflected, only valuable in a different way. And it was unfair to this man who stood before her, every part of him straining in hope toward her, to think of Jack at a time like this.

  “Of course I will,” she said. “Of course I’ll be your wife.”

  He didn’t kiss her then, but he took her in his arms and buried his face in her hair and she thought a very odd thing then—that she ought to thank the burning man, for if he had not done what he did, then she might never have realized how much she still wanted to live and that she loved Levi Lyman.

  * * *

  • • •

  They were married as soon as the arrangements could be made. Levi told Barnum of their plans with some trepidation, but Barnum was thrilled.

  “It makes everything easier, you see?” Barnum said. “Now you can travel with her on the tour and share one room because she’s your wife, and we won’t have to worry about hotels that don’t allow unaccompanied women or men making advances on her because she’s unmarried.”

  Barnum paused, then added, “Congratulations.”

  The preacher came to Barnum and Charity’s apartment to say the necessary words over Levi and Amelia. Barnum had pushed for a public wedding, attended by reporters. He had an idea that a wedding would wash away any taint of sin from Amelia—she would be a married mermaid, and therefore the objections of the Elijah Hunt supporters would be invalid.

  Amelia had nipped that idea before it was able to fully flower. “I’m not marrying Levi in front of everyone in New York. That, Mr. Barnum, is not in my contract.”

  And when Charity chimed in that a wedding was between a man and a woman and if they didn’t want it witnessed by every newspaper in Christendom then it was their affair, and not Barnum’s, the showman had to subside.

  Levi brought Amelia home to his little apartment under the same cover of night that he’d used to sneak her out to the ocean to save her.

  He unbuttoned all her buttons and unlaced all her laces, and when he put his hands on her, he shuddered and so did she.

  “I’ve dreamed of you for so long,” he said.

  They stayed inside that little apartment for three days, and on the fourth day Barnum came to the door holding an advertising bill.

  “The tour is all arranged,” he said. “You leave tomorrow.”

  That night Amelia felt something different when Levi arched above her, something quicken in her belly.

  Later, when he was sleeping, she lay awake and put her hands over her stomach and whispered.

  “My daughter,” she said, and she wept. “I’ve waited for you for so long.”

  Part III

  THE TOUR

  CHAPTER 14

  When Barnum had proposed the tour to Amelia, she’d gained the impression that it would be an exhibition of the “Feejee Mermaid” alone. In her mind, she’d imagined a traveling coach for herself and Levi and the two other wagons that carried the tank and barrels and tent, as well as a few men to fetch the water and perform other labor.

  She soon discovered that she was wrong, and she realized she’d been a fool to even consider such a notion. Barnum didn’t know how to do a thing by halves, and of course in his eyes the more pomp and pageantry, the better.

  Thus she and Levi found themselves in a parade of vehicles that carried not only the necessary accessories for the mermaid but also an artist who blew beautiful glass ornaments; a magician who performed ventriloquism and other tricks; Signor Veronia’s mechanical figures, which were said to “represent human life”; and a wide variety of birds and beasts, including a duck-billed platypus from a place called Australia and an orange orangutan with such sad eyes that Amelia could hardly bear the sight of her in the cage.

  “She ought to be set free, Levi,” she told her husband after the evening of their first performance.

  Amelia was the final act of the show, and so she had gone out to watch Mr. Wyman perform his magic tricks until it was time for her to get ready. The orangutan had been made to dance by her handler, and though the audience laughed at the miserable-looking creature, Amelia had left the tent with tears in her eyes.

  “We can’t do that, Amelia,” Levi said. “She belongs to Barnum.”

  “She’s a wild thing, Levi,” Amelia said. “Wild things ought to be free. They can’t belong to anybody, not really.”

  It was hard not to think of Jack then, of how easily he’d loosed her once he looked into her eyes. The orangutan had eyes like a human’s, she thought. She might not speak their language, but she could see into the orangutan’s heart just as Jack had seen into hers.

  “I don’t disagree with you,” Levi said soothingly, rubbing her shoulders. “But Barnum thinks a little differently about such things. And besides, the poor creature isn’t from this country. She’s from someplace hot and far away, and if we let her go, then she’ll only die here, or be taken by someone else.”

  “Hot and far away,” Amelia said. “Like Fiji?”

  Levi frowned. “You don’t belong to Barnum. And you’re not a performing animal.”

  “Am I not?” she asked, and sat on the edge of the bed. She rubbed her forehead. “Sometimes I’m not so certain.”

  “You chose this,” Levi said, but in a way that told her he wasn’t accusing her, just stating the facts. “You told me that so many times, that it was your choice. And if it’s your choice to stay, then it’s your choice to leave. If you don’t want to do this anymore, then we’ll go to Barnum, you and I, and tell him the traveling mermaid show is over.”

  The only other occasion when she’d wanted so strongly to leave the show was the first night at the Concert Hall. Somehow seeing that ape turning in circles (just like you in the tank, swimming in circles for the waving crowd) had set off the urge to flee, to run until she found the ocean and disappeared into the sea.

  But she couldn’t do that to Levi. And she couldn’t leave him for her own sake.

  “No,” she said. “I made an agreement with Barnum, and I’ll keep it. But I wish we could help that orangutan. I wonder if we can find the place where she belongs—the place where she really comes from, I mean.”

  “And what will you do then?” Levi asked. “Travel across the ocean with her in a rowboat?”

  “Perhaps I shall,” Amelia said. “And make you do the rowing.”

  “I wonder if there’s a library or a bookshop where we could find out more about orangutans,” Levi said.

  Amelia frowned at him. “What good will that do?”

  Levi shrugged. “If we know about her home, or what she likes
to eat, or—I don’t know, Amelia, I thought we might be able to make her happier, even if she did have to dance in circles at the end of a rope.”

  “A bird in a cage still knows it’s in a cage, even if the bars are made of gold,” Amelia said softly.

  But it was a kind thought that he had. Levi was always kind. It was one of the reasons she loved him.

  He sat down beside her. “Is that how you felt today? Like you were in a cage?”

  “It’s not like the tank,” Amelia said. “In the tank there was glass on all sides. I could see everything around me and feel that I was a part of it. And there was room to move, much more room to move. In the wagon . . .”

  She trailed off. She didn’t want Levi to worry about her.

  “I’ll worry if you tell me or not,” he said.

  Amelia leaned close to him and peered into his eyes. His eyes were very dark brown, so dark that the color blended into the pupil.

  “What are you doing?” he said, laughing.

  “I am trying to see if you can read my mind like one of Barnum’s fortune-tellers,” Amelia said. “I think that you can.”

  “No, but I can read your face,” he said. “I’ve been studying it.”

  He ran his fingers around the bone that circled her eye, down her cheek, under her chin, back up the other side. “I used to think you unreadable. As mysterious as the sea.”

  “The sea is not as mysterious as you think,” Amelia said. “You only have to swim under the surface.”

  “Yes, I’ve learned that,” he said, and kissed her, but in a gentle way that didn’t ask for more. “Tell me about the wagon.”

  “It’s like being in a box,” she said, and sighed. “A very small and tight box. I am taller, longer, when I’m a mermaid, and my tail fin is very wide. I don’t think Barnum took that into account. I can’t swim, only float, and it’s nearly impossible to turn. So I’m stuck there, in whatever direction I’ve fallen in. And, Levi, the audience here is . . . different.”