PRINCESS BEAST

by Ditchoff, Pamela

  * * *

  Chapter Ten

  The Little Mermaid

  Rune awakens to the sound of girlish laughter. Slowly she stands and carefully climbs to the crumbling old wall until she can peer over the top. A battered old house stands before her and a valley dips away from the house. In the valley, three little girls play, and in the house, an old, old woman is watching the girls play. Rune is about to climb back down the wall when she hears the old woman speak.

  “Play little girls, play, the years will pass. Soon you will be fourteen and confirmed; your white dress and gold cross will have cost your mother more than she can spare. You will be thinking about your pretty dress and about God, and what happened in church. It is lovely to walk here in the valley. The years will pass with many unhappy days to darken even a youthful heart. At last you will meet a young man and you’ll walk this valley together. Every year the trees have fresh new leaves but that is not true of the human heart. Through the heart of men, more dark clouds drift than the sky of the north will ever know.”

  Rune has heard enough; she must be on her way to her confirmation and her young man, her destiny! She moves one foot down to a jutting stone and the old woman speaks again.

  “Poor girl! Your bridegroom’s bridal chamber was a coffin and you became an old maid. From you room you look out at girls playing and see your own story repeated over and over . . .”

  Rune leaps to the ground, her heart pounding in her throat. She has not considered that death could take Hans before she returned to Grimm Land. A cold sensation crawls from her heart to her belly and feet. She imagines herself, an old, grey, hairy beast in Vagary Vale, placing violets on Hans’ grave. Rune throws back her chin and howls, a mournful, soulful howl that scatters the girls like doves and topples the old woman from her window. Heat now surges through her limbs and Rune runs like the devil along the road leading out of Odense, heads southeast, her destination Nyborg, the Great Belt, then on to Copenhagen, city of transformation.

  Dusk has fallen on the harbor of Nyborg and a north wind brings airy flakes of snow to swirl about fishermen’s beards, lanterns hung on a host of herring boats, looking to Rune like a sparkling necklace floating upon the waters of the Great Belt. She does not swim well; a beast body with short muscular limbs, huge head and chest, is not suited for gliding through water.

  Rune calculates how easy it would be to swim in the dark, on the edge of the necklace, with light to guide her and nets below her should she need to rest and catch her breath. She is dog-tired after the day’s mad dash, images of Hans pale with sickness burning her stores of adrenaline, images of her coming to his rescue, saving him from death, a beauty, a fairy tale princess dressed in the finest gossamer violet gown . . .

  Rune plops down hard on the wooden planks of the wharf with the realization that swimming will absolutely ruin her gown. Her gaze falls to her feet, stuck like two buoys out of water at the end of her legs, and she sees that not only have her short talons ripped through the delicate fabric, but that the fabric is blood soaked from the day-long run. Without thinking she begins to sing, for a decision on what to do next is beyond her grasp, and perhaps in song, an answer will come. She scoots to the wharf edge and dangles her throbbing feet into the cold briny water.

  "My love set me upon this quest

  And til I’m his bride, I will have no rest

  My time is short for on Christmas Eve

  He’ll wed another whom he believes

  Broke his spell and won his hand

  But when I return to my homeland

  Transformed to my princess form and face

  My prince will love me and I’ll be dressed in lace

  What to do, what to do?

  I am feeling bluer than blue

  To win my love this water I must cross

  And if I swim my gown will be lost . . ."

  The Andersen Land Philosopher lands on a wharf post, cocks his head and squawks, “Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom.” He opens his beak to continue when the water beneath Rune begins to roil and foam. The parrot flies away in fright, but Rune, being a fairy tale beauty at heart, is pathologically curious and she leans her face toward the water.

  In unison, five heads rise from the water, each as lovely as the next with turquoise blue eyes and masses of golden hair. In unison, the five heads shriek in terror and dive beneath the water, flashing five, jade green, fishtails.

  Mermaids! Rune is temporarily overjoyed; never in her forest existence did she expect one day to see a mermaid, let alone five. However, the fact that they fled due to her ugliness makes her weep, and she weeps as only beast can weep. One brave mermaid swims to the surface; only her brilliant blue eyes above the water, and watches Rune sob. She swims closer, brings her chin above the water, hands placed firmly over her clamshell ears.

  “Stop, you’ll make our ears bleed,” the mermaid pleads in the siren voice that lures sailors to their deaths. “How in Neptune’s sake can a voice be so beautiful one moment and so horrific the next?”

  Rune lifts her tear-wet face and swipes her purple cauliflower nose. “Everybody likes my singing, but only my mother likes me.

  * * *

  “Your mother loves you, Rune,” Beauty whispers into the mirror, running a talon over Rune’s tearful face within the glass. She feels Holger’s hand rest upon her shoulder.

  “Tonight and to dusk tomorrow,” he says as if reading her mind. “If we don’t stop to sleep.”

  * * *

  “What manner of creature are you?” the mermaid asks, cocking her head like a curious puppy. One by one, the four other mermaids surface at the Nyborg wharf to stare at Rune. They are so wondrous, so lovely, fat tears fall from Rune’s bulging eyes; the mermaids begin to sink in unison.

  “Please, don’t go,” Rune cries. “I’m so lonely since I left home.”

  “You should not have left home,” one mermaid says.

  “Especially for love of a human prince,” another says.

  “Our youngest sister did the same,” says a third.

  “We thought you were she when we heard your song,” says the first mermaid.

  “Did she marry her prince? Please tell me that she was not turned into a ray of light, or taken away by an angel, or that he died before they could marry! Spit flies from Rune’s thin lips in her desperation for a happy ending.

  Silence descends, as does the last ray of sunlight. Still, Rune can see the mermaid’s eyes, luminescent as jewels in the darkness. They are waiting to hear her story, good and true. Rune knows this; she sighs and shrugs. The mermaids swish their tails with impatience, and then a bight idea occurs to Rune. “Will you carry me across the water so my gown will not be ruined? I will tell you my story on the way, if you promise to tell me about your youngest sister.”

  The mermaids’ long graceful arms reach out like tentacles and in a moment, Rune is gliding through the cold night air, riding atop the mermaids’ hands as they swim on their backs. However, unbeknownst to mermaids and to Rune, they had disturbed an enclave of Cancer Pagurus buried in the substrate. These are the reddish brown crabs of the North Sea with piecrust shells and black tipped claws powerful enough to crush the shells of family members, which they do without regret. Two crabs leap onto each mermaid, clamping claws onto golden tresses and delicate tail fins. The mermaids scream and flee like a school of guppies. Crabs dangle from hair and fin, and Rune is left bobbing like a cork in the Great Belt. She dog paddles back toward the wharf where she spies an empty dory tied and floating. She flings herself into the boat, gasping like a gaffed grouper; the dress falls apart at each and every seam.

  Rune stands, her mouth hangs open for a moment while she stares at the sodden, violet mess on boat’s bottom. Hackles rise from ankle to head, fangs grind, and her eyes pop much farther than normal. “Bear poopin’ prat! Rack fracken grelp! Stinking rotten fish guts . . .” The stream of inventive invectives continues for five full minutes because there is nothing for Rune to throw or strike
.

  Almost imperceptibly the boat begins to move, and as it picks up speed, Rune grabs the sides. “Who untied the rope—who is moving this boat?” she demands of the air. She looks over the edge and sees nothing but water.

  * * *

  Elora the Enchantress raps her lacquered nails over her crystal ball and sneers, “Bricklebrit.” Croesus the hound spits three gold coins to the floor then rests his paw on Elora’s knee.

  “Not enough in Andersen Land to kill them before they can be deflowered, but maim them and silence them to boot. Otherwise,” Elora arches an ebony eyebrow, “they could speak the truth.”

  Croesus peers into the ball and woofs. “I know, I know, I can see her too, but Rune can’t. In Andersen Land, human eyes cannot see Daughters of the Air. Top that off with this daughter striving to obtain a human soul, which she can get after 300 years of good deeds, and how the hell is she supposed to do good deeds when she’s friggin’ reduced to nothing but friggin air! No voice, no body, no will . . .”

  Elora walks to the great room balcony, throws open the French doors and points a finger to the night sky. “I will fix that and perhaps give Beauty a chance to catch up with her wayward daughter.”

  A spiral of deep green sparkles form, twist and twirl through the night and descend on the invisible body moving Rune’s dory through the Great Belt’s waters.

  * * *

  Rune drops to the dory seat as a spiral of deep green sparkles descends at the boats’ aft, and watches the sparkles form of a body—a mermaid’s body. The sparkles now pulse and glow, and in a burst of light, the youngest mermaid sister appears. She is lovelier than her five sisters; her skin is like rose petals, her teeth like pearls, her lips pink as the lips of conch shell, and her eyes intense turquoise, wide with surprise. She opens her mouth and sticks out her tongue, waggles it, then shoots into the air, emitting cries of joy. As she dives under the water, Rune is thinking that her tail is magnificent.

  The mermaid surfaces right up to Rune’s face, and she kisses Rune full on her thin black lips. “Thank you! You wonderful, marvelous creature, thank you three hundred times over,” the mermaid gushes. She swims rapid circles around the boat, twisting and turning and flashing her scales.

  “Are you the youngest sister?” Rune shouts. “Were you confirmed? Did you marry your prince? My name is Rune.”

  Rune’s dory spins like a toy top as the five other sisters return and join in the reverie. They arise in unison, held aloft by tail fins, holding hands, water falling in shining sheets like Esther Williams in Million Dollar Mermaid, choreography by Busby Berkeley. They are all speaking at once, a rapid dolphin chatter Rune cannot understand.

  “Please,” Rune bellows. “Take me to the opposite shore, and tell me of your prince. If you don’t . . . I’ll just die!”

  A dramatic, often used phrase of fourteen-year-old girls, but said with sufficient conviction to draw the little mermaid close. “I will, I promise,” she says, eyes darting back to her sisters, “but I need to go see my father, the Mer King, and dear grandmother who is 299 years old. She could turn to foam any day now! I’ll be back in the morning.” And the mermaids were gone in a flash splash.

  “Well, obviously their mother taught them no manners,” Rune mutters, paddling the dory back to the wharf. “If I left anyone, friend or stranger alone and helpless in Grimm Forest at night, Mom would be so ashamed of me and punish me too.” She ties the boat to the wharf and tries not to think of how sad and frantic her mother must be. She bunches what is left of the gown into a ball for a pillow then lies on the dory bottom, the waves lulling her swiftly to sleep.

  When Rune opens her eyes, she realizes with a start that the sun is directly overhead. She has not slept this many hours since she was an infant, however, she had never been so exhausted. Her startle turns to shock as she sits and looks about her. Wide-open ocean in every direction. This is incomprehensible; things are not unfolding as they should, as she had imagined when she hopped on the swan’s back and rode to Andersen Land. Just as it had never occurred to her that Hans would die, her own mortality wasn’t even a possibility. She props her elbows on her knees, rests her chin in her hands and whispers, “I could die here. I could die of starvation, a storm could sink the boat, a whale could eat me . . .” her chin trembles and she clicks rapidly before wailing, “I want my Mom.”

  At the sound of a conch shell trumpet, Rune raises her head to see a gigantic sea turtle swimming toward her. It wears a halter with reigns of braided sea grass, which are held by the Mer King’s mother, the dowager Queen. She rides atop the turtle, her long elegant tail curled about the giant turtle’s domed shell. Her face is as lined and puckered as an apple doll’s face. Her hair, longer by far than her tail, encircles her like a shroud and is whiter, Rune thinks, than Edelweiss in the Grimm forest. A crown of seashells encrusted with pearls tops her glorious hair. Her eyes are as blue as her grand daughter’s eyes and they sparkle in deep-set sockets.

  Rune leaps to her feet, grinning a blue gummy grin, waving like mad. “Good day, oh, thank you for coming . . . I thought I was going to . . .” Rune breaks into uncontrollable glottal clicking.

  “And you would have too Rune if I’d not come along” the mermaid queen says as she reigns the turtle to a stop. “I’ve brought you sustenance, oysters and seal milk.” She hands Rune an abalone shell heaped with oysters and a bucket brimming with milk. Greedily Rune gulps down the milk, wipes her lips and thanks the queen. She pops a whole oyster into her mouth and encounters a sneer of distaste spread the queens’ upper lip. “Are you thick? Pry them open and slide them down your gullet.”

  Rune is thinking that throat would be more dignified than gullet, but she does not speak, rather she eats with gusto. Halfway through, she pauses to ask the queen, “How do you know my name?”

  “How could I forget your name!” she snaps. “This morning a huge red octopus appeared in my chamber. A small brown octopus accompanied her on a leash. She told me that I needed to rescue Rune and take her to Copenhagen. Then she slid eight tentacles around me and squeezed, not too gently either. She claimed my grand daughters had untied your boat and brought you here in the dead of night.”

  “Why did they do that? How did the octopus know me?” Rune gapes, half an oyster dribbling down her chin. The queen quickly moves her finger to her own mouth and dabs at the corner. Rune slurps up the oyster with her long thick tongue.

  The old queen squints at Rune. “You must be important and powerful. You transformed my grand daughter back to her true mermaid form. In answer to your first question, my grand daughters brought you here because my youngest grand daughter wishes to remain among her people. As for the octopus, I have no idea; I had never seen her in the whole wide seas. When my guardian stingray stung her, she said Bricklebrit, and the small octopus spat three gold coins onto my bed. She emitted an inky cloud and the next thing I knew, I was riding this turtle to your boat. Climb up and sit behind me.”

  “What is your name, your grand daughter’s name?” Rune asks as she pulls herself up onto the turtle’s back.

  “We have none; we were not given names nor souls.”

  “No names, no souls?” Rune scratches her head. “Everything has a soul, an essence uniquely their own. But tell me please, did she marry her prince?”

  The queen waves her bony hand and snorts. “I am two hundred and ninety nine years old, names and souls are of no consequence or interest to me. We merpeople live three hundred years of joy and sorrow, love and loss, and at death we turn into foam. I know my life has been a grand adventure; I have never sat in a chair by a window reliving memories of my youth, my one love gone years ago. I have swam the seven seas and seen wonders you cannot imagine. I have had hundreds of lovers and dozens of children. When I die, I won’t be put in a black box, then buried in the ground, dirt surrounding me for eternity. I will turn to foam and become one with the Mother Sea.”

  “When I die, “Rune murmurs, “I will be buried in the ground and
become one with Mother Earth.”

  The queen shudders and twitches her nose. “Pah, I hope you don’t think yourself smarter than me—humans—you stink of human.”

  Rune smacks her forehead. “That’s what I have been telling everyone. I am really a princess and I’ve come here to transform so I can marry my true love, I did not transform your grand daughter, I . . .”

  “Be quiet!” The queen shouts. “This turtle and I are old and move slowly. I will tell you my grand daughter’s tale as we make our way to the coast at Helsingor. Perhaps you will learn something. I won’t go into the Sound,” she frowns and thrust her chin upward. “You can walk to Copenhagen from there in a day. I don’t care if that Octopus shows up and squeezes out what is left of my life. Queens do not enter the Sound.”

  * * *