by Diane Zahler
“I thought . . . no, never mind.” I didn’t want to scare the others. “It was just a trick of the light. But I am getting so tired—is there any way to make tea?”
Luna sprang into action, as much as she could spring in the confines of the little boat. She dug out a flask of fresh water from our bags, and I handed her the vial of devil’s shrub. “We can let the sun steep it,” she said, sprinkling some of the precious herb into the flask. “But there’s not much of the powder left. Drink as little as you dare, Sister!”
I waited for the tea to brew, resisting the temptation to look once more into the water to see if the lutin was still there. In the warm sunshine, our clothes soon dried, stiff with salt from our bath in the ocean. The scratchiness helped to keep me awake. At last Luna proclaimed the tea ready, and I took a gulp of the bitter elixir, grateful to feel a rush of wakefulness and energy.
“Luna!” Symon called from the stern. “Get out the map and compass and set us on our course. We’ll try for the next island.”
Luna pulled out the parchment map and looked down at it, a frown on her face. “That one looks dangerous,” she said. “See, the map shows that the coast is all rocky.”
“We’ll get close, and if it seems too risky, we’ll turn away,” Symon instructed. “But if your aunt doesn’t want to be found, it stands to reason that she would hide somewhere dangerous or difficult. If I had an enemy like Manon, I would hide in the most inaccessible place I could find.”
“You have an enemy like Manon—Manon herself,” I pointed out. “She’s no friend to you now that you’re helping us.”
“Aye, but she will never catch the Cateline!” Symon vowed, and I tugged the sail tight so it seized the wind and sent us speeding over the water.
We were becalmed for a time in the early afternoon, and it was terrible. The wind simply died, and we couldn’t move at all. The sun beat down, making us very hot and thirsty. I worried that I would become burned and pulled the hood of my servant’s cloak up for a time, trying to protect my face, but it was just too hot. Luna, of course, did not care; she even rolled up her sleeves, and her arms browned in the sun.
“Do you think this is Manon’s doing?” I asked Symon. He shook his head.
“It feels natural to me,” he said. “I know that she can raise a great wind, but I don’t think she can cause the wind to die. It’s a very different thing.”
“What do sailors do when they’re becalmed?” Luna asked, clearly bored.
“Oh, anything they can think of. Sing, drink, mend the sails and the nets . . . talk.”
“Well,” Luna said, coming back to sit next to me on my bench, “we’ve sung already, and we’re low on water for drinking. Nothing needs mending. I’m for talking.”
“When aren’t you?” I teased.
She made a face at me. “So, Symon, tell us: Isn’t it lonely living by yourself in your cottage? And in a cave on the shore?”
“Luna!” I was dismayed at her intrusive question.
But Symon didn’t mind. “I’m used to it now,” he replied. “At first, though, after my mother died, it was terrible. My friends were busy with their own lives. I’d no one to speak to at all. I talked to myself a lot. People thought I was a bit mad for a while. Then Madame Mathilde and Albert came to me and said I had to dine at their house of a Sunday, and that was enough to settle me. I just needed some people to be with.”
“Oh,” I said softly. I could hardly imagine such loneliness.
“How awful!” Luna said. “Sometimes I’ve wanted to be by myself, because we’re always watched, but that’s different. I don’t know what I’d do without Aurora to talk to.”
I was startled. Luna and I more often argued than talked. But when I thought about it, I knew what she meant. We shared our lives. We knew each other, even if we didn’t always get along.
“And you, Deckhand,” Symon said to me, “do you long for silence and solitude?”
“I love to be alone,” I admitted. “But it’s as Luna said—I think I only like it because I have others to be with if I choose. Sometimes, though . . .” I trailed off.
“What?” Symon prompted.
“Sometimes I think about when I’ll be queen. I won’t be alone ever then. I’ll be surrounded by courtiers, and I’ll always have people needing and wanting things from me. I fear it will be unbearable.” I didn’t mention the nightmares I’d had, where people I didn’t know followed me and grabbed at me, their faces desperate, pleading for help I couldn’t give them.
“I think you’ll be good at it,” Luna said, surprising me again. “You’re smart, and you’re kind. Papa is both those things, and he’s a good king, isn’t he?”
“When you’re queen, if you should need a respite, you can come out with me on my boat,” Symon said. “I’ll have a special cushioned, embroidered throne-bench installed just for you. We’ll sail away from your subjects for an hour or two.”
Luna hooted at this, but though I knew he was joking, I found the idea comforting. And then a small breeze fluttered into the sail and puffed it back into life. We cheered as once again we began to move. “West-northwest,” Luna proclaimed, back on her bench and working the compass with great concentration and self-importance.
As the sun sank lower in the sky, we sighted the second island. Its steep cliffs rose up from the sea, and there were enormous rocks jutting out of the water all around it. The island looked as barren and desolate as it had on the map, and I could see no way to get close to shore that would not be perilous.
“We’ll circle it,” Symon decided, “and see if there is a safer approach.”
From every angle, though, the island looked the same, ringed by a jumble of boulders that threatened certain disaster to the Cateline if we should draw near. Foamy breakers crashed against the tall cliffs.
“We’ll have to turn away,” Symon said regretfully. “There’s no strand, and no safe channel.”
“Wait,” said Luna. “What’s that?” She pointed at one of the tall gray rocks nearest the shore. Little waves lapped around it, and a figure perched on top. At first we thought it must be a bird; then, as we drew closer, we thought it a seal, but soon we could see that it was a woman, alone atop the stone, her long fair hair waving in the sea breeze.
“How on earth did she get up there? Oh, maybe she’s been shipwrecked!” Luna exclaimed. “We should rescue her!”
“Could it be Emmeline?” I grew excited. If this was her island, perhaps she waited there to welcome us!
“Listen,” Symon said, an urgency in his tone. The woman had begun to sing.
Though we were far away still, we could hear the singer as if she were right beside us. Her song was wordless, achingly beautiful. In tones as high and pure as the call of a lark or a celestial harp, she sang of desire and heartache, of love found and lost. I reached up and found my face wet with tears, though I did not know why I wept. We sailed closer to her as she sang, and now I could make out her willowy form, her full red lips. And I was shocked to see, curving around the column of rock, her long, silvery, scaled fish’s tail.
“Turn about!” Luna shouted suddenly. The Cateline had kept to its course, and I realized what Luna was warning against—we were fast approaching the boulders along the island’s coastline. The wind pushed us swiftly, and in a moment Symon was steering us among the enormous rocks. The boat twisted and turned, just missing one and then the next, and I flinched as we brushed by stone after giant stone.
“We must go back!” I begged Symon in distress. I saw that his eyes were glazed, his mouth slack. “Turn the boat!” I shouted. “We’ll hit the rocks and sink!” But Symon didn’t seem to hear me.
Luna spun in her seat. “It’s the song!” she said. “Somehow it’s enchanted him.” She shouted at him, “Idiot! Plug up your ears!” But Symon would not stop his ears. He was utterly mesmerized.
I tried to catch Symon’s eye, to bring him back to himself. His rapt attention to the mermaid disturbed me more than I would
have expected. “Rouse yourself!” I urged him, reaching back to pull on his sleeve, then slapping his hand. He didn’t respond at all.
We were heading straight for the jagged pillar where the mermaid perched. If we hit it, the Cateline would shatter into bits, and we all would be thrown into the water and drowned in the crashing waves.
And then I had a sudden thought. Over the relentless song, I called out to Luna, “Do you recall when we read the story of Odysseus?”
“No,” she replied, her eyes on the mermaid.
“Oh, you must!” I cried in frustration. “He was returning home from the battle of Troy with his men. Don’t you remember when Odysseus’s ship approached the Sirens—the mermaid women who sang men to their deaths?”
Luna turned. “Wait, I do remember!” she said, excited. “The men had to plug up their ears with wax so they couldn’t hear the song. We shall do the same! Do we have any wax?”
We hadn’t brought candles. I despaired.
Luna stood up, rocking the boat. “The new mast! If it’s a pine trunk, there may still be some pine pitch on it—sticky pine pitch. As good as wax!” I recalled the tutor who had mysteriously found pine pitch in his hair, and realized that Luna knew this from experience. Again her troublemaking served a useful end.
Luna scrambled over her seat to the mast, and I ran my hands down it. It was rough, and sticky as well, the pitch oozing from places where small branches had been hurriedly cut in the rush to repair the boat.
“Yes!” I crowed. “Here, you roll it into balls, and I’ll stop his ears.” Quickly Luna scraped the black, tarry stuff off the mast and rolled it into little spheres. She passed them to me, and I climbed to the stern, where Symon sat hypnotized. He batted me away halfheartedly as I tried to place the pitch in his ears, but his attention was fixed on the mermaid. At last I managed it, pushing the pitch in firmly.
As soon as he could no longer hear the Siren, Symon blinked in sudden awareness of the rocks that now threatened on all sides.
“Hold the tiller!” he shouted to me.
He leaped to grab the ropes and lower the sail before the wind drove us into the boulders. I grasped the tiller, straining to hold it straight. I hadn’t realized how much strength it took to keep us on course. When the sail fell, we slowed to a near stop.
We were very close to the mermaid now, seated high on her pillar. Her glorious golden hair made mine look like straw, and her green eyes were luminous. How beautiful she was! She flapped her scaly tail against the side of the rock and furrowed her perfect brow. She seemed vexed that we had stopped our approach, and her song grew louder and more intense.
Just beyond her rock, something stuck up from the water, and I gasped when I realized it was the top of a mast. Another boat had been drawn here by the mermaid’s song, and sunk. I turned away, shuddering to think of the sailors who had perished, lying in their watery graves beneath us.
“Are you all right now?” I asked Symon.
“What?” he shouted, deafened by the pitch.
“Are you all right?” I shouted.
“Are you talking to me?” Symon bellowed back.
“Stop yelling!” Luna roared, though she knew Symon would not be able to hear her. I felt the same hysterical laughter rising that had overcome us earlier, but the looming rocks and the mast from the wrecked ship quickly made me serious again. Symon held out oars, and Luna and I used ours to push away from the nearest boulders. Symon began to row as hard as he could to move us back out to sea. Behind us, the bewitching voice faded gradually, until I could no longer hear it at all.
When we were safely out of sight of the mermaid, we stopped so Symon could remove the pine pitch from his ears. It clung to his skin and hair and left black streaks on his cheeks. Luna and I had it on our hands as well.
Symon raised the sail again, and it caught the wind as I bent over the side to try to rinse my hands of the sticky stuff. The cold seawater only caused it to harden. “Oh, what a mess!” I fumed, giving up at last. I would just have to live with the dirt, as I did with the sand and salt that wouldn’t wash off.
When Symon came back to take the tiller, I climbed from the stern of the boat back to my place beside the mast. He looked rather shamefaced and was quiet as we sailed. I recalled the expression on his face as the mermaid sang, and despite the danger we had just escaped, I couldn’t help smiling. It was clear that Luna was amused as well.
“Well, Luna,” I said, “what should we name this island?”
She turned on her bench to face me. “Hmmm. Should it be Mermaid Island? Or perhaps Isle of the Easily Fooled?”
“That’s hardly fair!” Symon protested. “It wasn’t my fault—it was an enchantment of some sort.”
“An enchantment that works only on boys?” Luna scoffed. “Aurora and I weren’t bothered in the least.”
“I think that was the mermaid Melusine.” Symon’s voice was somber. “She’s said to sing sailors to their deaths. I didn’t know that she only enchanted men. There are rarely women on ships, so no one ever talks about what happens when women hear her. But it seems that her song didn’t affect you.”
Luna laughed. “Or we are simply stronger than you are!”
“Oh, Luna,” I chided, seeing how mortified Symon was, “we shouldn’t torment him anymore.”
“I suppose not,” she allowed. “But in future, Captain, when Melusine calls, don’t be so quickly charmed!”
I smiled at Symon, who flushed with embarrassment. “Yes, he was easily charmed,” I teased. “But I think he couldn’t help it. She was very beautiful.”
Symon reached over the side of the boat and tried to splash me in revenge, but only succeeded in wetting my skirt. I laughed and splashed him back. We had been so often wet in recent days that it made no difference anymore.
“We’ll call it Melusine’s Isle,” Luna decided. “I’ll mark it on the map, and sailors will know to steer clear if they value their lives.” She pulled out the map and noted the island’s name.
“Chart our course to the next island, Mate,” Symon instructed her. “That’s the last of them—let’s hope it’s your godmother Emmeline’s. The sun is getting low, and we should try to find a place to land while it’s still light.”
It would be dinnertime at Castle Armelle, but I knew that Mama would not be able to eat with us gone. I imagined Papa bringing a tray to her bedside, with tea and the rose-water pudding she loved. Perhaps she could manage a little pudding. Perhaps she would not grow weaker as we moved farther across the sea. Oh, if only we could find Emmeline!
Luna shook her head doubtfully, gazing down at the map. “It looks far,” she told Symon. “Farther than from Vittray to the Island of Beasts. And if we miss it—well, beyond that, there’s just ocean.”
“Then we must be sure not to miss it,” Symon said sensibly. “We’ll have to sail at night again and use the compass to keep us on course.”
I was still thrumming with nerves from our encounter with Melusine, but I felt the beginnings of the familiar pull of Sleep. Moving carefully—I was much better now at getting about without rocking the little craft—I rummaged through our stores and found the remainder of the tea that Luna had made earlier. Then I distributed more water, bread, cheese, and meat from our dwindling supplies.
We ate and sailed on for an hour or so, as the sunset streaked the sky with red and gold. I scanned the horizon for a sign of the next island, but all was just endless water and sky. Not even dolphins disturbed the glassy sea.
Then Symon said, in a rather strange voice, “What’s that?” He pointed west. At first I could see nothing. The setting sun nearly blinded me. When my eyes adjusted, I could make out a dark, batlike form far in the distance.
“Is it a bird?” I wondered aloud. “An enormous albatross, perhaps?”
“Albatrosses are mostly white,” Symon informed me. “I don’t think it’s a bird. I think it’s a sail.”
“A sail!” I exclaimed. “Have you a spyglass, Symon?”
“I don’t,” Symon replied regretfully. “And I can’t make out a flag or a design from this distance.”
“Luna will be able to see it,” I said.
“Can you tell if it’s marked in any way?” Symon asked her.
Luna squinted into the glare of the sun for a long moment, and then shook her head slowly.
“The sail is plain and black. There are no markings, nor any flag.”
Symon whistled. “Even pirates fly their flags to frighten their victims. I can think of no one who would sail an unmarked boat.”
“No one except—” I stopped, filled with dread.
Luna finished for me. “No one except Manon.”
“Quickly!” Symon ordered. “We must move fast enough to lose her!”
“To the north!” Luna called to Symon, holding up the compass to be sure of our bearings. “If we can get to the third island and sail around it quickly, we may be able to find a place to hide the boat and ourselves.”
Symon swung the tiller, and the Cateline jerked hard to the right. We wobbled on our benches, and I saw Luna lose her balance and reach out to steady herself. And a moment later, with no warning at all, she stood and, to my horror, leaped over the side of the boat into the water.
13
Of a Damsel’s Dire Deed
I couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t understand it. It looked as if she had jumped, but that made no sense. Had she fallen somehow? Had something dragged her into the water? My voice high with panic, I shouted, “Man overboard!”
Symon sprang up, rocking the boat, and scrambled up to Luna’s seat. He peered over the side. “I can’t see her!” he called. “I’m going after her! Aurora, hold the tiller.”
“She can’t swim!” I wailed.
“But she told me . . . ,” Symon said, and I shook my head.
“She can’t swim,” I repeated as I began to weep.
Symon pulled off his boots and plunged into the sea. It was clear that he could swim, and well. He dove downward and was out of sight in a minute. I wiped my eyes on my sleeve and loosened the ropes that held the sail so it lay slack. Then I climbed back to the stern and held the tiller tight. I could see Manon’s boat approaching quickly from the west, and I began to tremble.