Trapped with a Way Out

by Jeffery Martinez

  She had never noticed it before, but it was not the most pleasant feeling. Why did she always have to guess how her master was feeling?

  They went to many social events and functions, where the Count's courtship of the cursed church girl flourished, but by then William hated them so much she stopped pretending to even care. At teas and parties she sat with her arms folded and her legs crossed, pouting and sulking. Dr. Abraham Van Helsing often came to talk to her though, and he seemed untroubled by her sour expressions. His good opinion seemed to save her the social consequences.

  During balls she hovered at the food table, and shoo'd away couples that tried to take the last of whatever food she liked. The lord of some party formally complained to the Count about William hitting a guest's hand with her fan when he tried to take one of ten of the last tarts. The Count himself laughed himself a fit to die, kept a straight face long enough to assure the lord that he would send a dozen such tarts to replace the ones she had eaten, and then walked away laughing.

  During concerts and operas she fell asleep outright, since there was nothing to do but sit in the dark watching people play musical instruments for hours. And these were the events humans seemed to like best. Countless people of consequence got dressed up in their best evening clothes and jewels and hair up-dos, and they often acted excited to see each other and the concerts, yet for how much effort they put into their looks they all just sat in the dark watching the people on the stage playing musical instruments for hours. What was the point?! Merfolk had concerts too, but they included shows and singing and elaborate stage decorations to accompany the musicians. Merpeople didn't come from all over the sea to just float there and watch Baron Harkonnen direct the musicians.

  She missed Harkonnen, thinking about it. She also missed the way people under the sea held shows over the way humans did, which was a first for her. William always used to think the way they did things on land was better than the way they did things under the sea, even though she did not understand them. Once, she would have happily worn heavy clothes or learned ridiculous table manners as long as it meant she got to be above the sea. Now she found herself missing the sea to avoid enduring how they did things on land.

  This alone made her sour, and William sulked through every concert and opera (which was the most odious way of singing she could imagine, and always in a language she could not understand) before she fell asleep out of sheer boredom. Since they had their own private boxes with curtains, she could get away with it.

  During plays she could sometimes stay awake. She didn't understand why humans liked plays so much though, since it seemed obvious the people on stage were reciting words written on some script in a very false fashion, and the room or field they were in was not a room but a stage with furniture on it... but audiences seemed to like it just the same. When she wasn't asleep she leaned back, bored out of her mind, amusing herself by looking at the audience's reactions to the actors rather than the actor's performance. At least their reactions were genuine.

  There was only one play she wished she could have slept through since it made her so angry.

  It was called "The Importance of Being Earnest," written by some Oscar Wilde or some such. The Count and she went to see it in their own private box with the church girl, her father and her grandfather, who were starting to accept her master being around their child, but only under strictly chaperoned visits where he had to endure the scorn of her family; perhaps to test his loyalty.

  Most of London's elite absolutely loved this play and prattled on and on about how funny it was, yet the whole thing made William angry from start to finish. She thought all the characters stuffy, uptight, self-important, stupid, and spouting "wisdom" that was both hypocritical and amoral.

  London's elite loved it because it gently ribbed them for their own silly values and hypocrisies, but William felt it was too spot-on, and depicted all of their worst values far too seriously*, and she couldn't stand any of them.

  She also couldn't stand the premise. Jack Worthing lived in the country and came to the city under a new name, and wished to win the heart of a lady. Only, she loved him for his new name instead of who he was, and her mother prevented him from being with him for daring not to have any parents; a misfortune William could personally relate to.

  "To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune. To lose both looks like carelessness."

  It made William sick. If anyone in that laughing audience lost parents as she had, they would not have laughed so hard! And she had tried to save them, thank you very much. She had the shark bites to prove it. She hadn't lost them out of carelessness!

  She also hated how Jack Worthing had a young ward of maritable age in the country but came to the city to produce another young woman. William would have sympathized with poor Cecile, as she thought the story was going to be about how she longed for her master who longed for another, but no—Cecile had no interest in Jack any more than Jack had interest in her, and William thought, "No! That's not how it works! Whoever wrote this obviously has not been a young ward to a lord such as my master, for they would not write this so glibly!"

  Most of all, she hated how these two men, Jack and Algernon, went to such lengths to win two girls, Gwendoline and Cecile, who did not care for them at all except their false names. What's more, the girls were not particularly smart, or nice, or devoted, or loving—in fact, Cecile was just crazy. Yet the men went to great lengths to prove their love and win their hearts, including changing their own names, and William thought about what lengths her master went for his church girl and she felt dejected, because no one ever went to such lengths for her, although she would have asked them to do it in the first place.

  Perhaps the knife that twisted the next time her master and the church girl saw each other at a party. He had come up behind her, and murmured in her ear, "You have no reason to be jealous of my ward, for she is my Cecile, and you are my Gwendoline."

  William actually vomited later that night, she was so nauseated and disgusted with all she had to endure.

  The one saving grace in all this was the ballets. William loved the ballet. She was enchanted by them. So many beautiful young women, no older than her, dancing so beautifully in romantic lighting. Young girls dressed in flowing silks and satins, with skirts of tulle and tarlan tutus, which flowed around their legs like ribbons as they danced. Soft pink and purple lamps lit the stage like fairy lanterns, and the girls seemed to float as they danced. They moved with an air of weightlessness as they moved daintily on the tips of their toes, and they spun and twirled and leapt with all the grace and weightlessness of mermaids, only here on land. They seemed to move like air spirits.

  Not since she lived under the sea had she seen such grace and elegance. Nowhere on land had she seen humans who moved with such poise.

  She was enchanted by every performance. While operas and orchestras seemed to last hours, ballets seemed to last only minutes until they were over. The girls made the dance look so easy, William often tried to imitate them after it was over. She was surprised and vexed to find that when she tried to stand on the tips of her toes, it hurt worse than any pain she'd felt since she broke her leg, and fell outright. How did they make it look so easy?!

  "William, you mustn't do that!" Walter exclaimed when he found her trying to dance like a ballerina. "It's dangerous to try to dance like a ballerina. You could seriously injure yourself. Worse, if done improperly you could cripple yourself for life."

  "But they never hurt themselves," William wrote in her journal.

  "William, you must understand that ballerinas train for an entire lifetime before their first performance. To dance as well as them, you would have had to begin training as a very young girl, perhaps just as you were learning to walk as an infant. You would have had to practice for hours each day, rigorously applying and repeating day after day for your entire childhood and adolescence to reach the level of mastery you see on stage. You cannot just pick it up one da
y as a grown-up girl and expect to get it right away."

  William sulked. Great, just another thing she loved about the human world that she could not do! Why was it that everything she seemed to love about the human world was always out of reach?

  By the time they attended some party in some three-story town house in an affluent part of London, William had had enough. Though she was dressed in a pretty light-blue satin dress with a flowing skirt, and a large ribbon tied to her back and another ribbon done in her hair, she was thoroughly dejected. What was the point of dressing prettily if there was nothing to do and no one to spend time with? While the house had dancing in the first floor, open doors and windows that led out into a garden, and a garden that led out into the view of clean, beautiful streets and shops, there was nowhere William wanted to be, and no one she wanted to spend time with. Even Dr. Abraham Van Helsing was odious to her. She was both thankful that he was too busy talking to someone else to notice her, and rather anxious lest he decide to come talk to her and ruin her peaceful solitude.

  The sun was near to setting over the garden hedges when she realized she could not stand this party or anyone in it. She looked wistfully out into the town and the shops. There, she could walk quietly by herself and not have anyone come talk to her or bore her with their odious chatter. William decided to leave—anywhere was better than here. Since there were so many people, and no one paid her any mind, and the garden opened to the street, she figured no one would notice if she slipped out, or care that she was missing.

  The street was as quiet and charmingly scenic as she hoped. This was the wealthy side of town, so there were not many people out and about. What few there were minded their own business and not William. She could enjoy the displays in the pretty little shops and the scenic view of the sun hovering over the cobblestone street without being bothered by anyone. She wandered the streets listlessly… until she came across a queer little shop. At first she could not tell what drew her to it. It was small and simple, with beautiful and elegant jewelry of pearls and elegantly polished sea shells. Then she realized that the song of the waves she thought she heard from the sea came from within the shop, which she recognized as a siren's song.

  She looked around. The two or three other humans wandering the street didn't seem to hear it.

  She looked back at the door, held her breath, and went in. It was small but beautiful inside. From one of those scratchy music devices, she could hear a woman's singing. To the untrained ear, it might sound like a woman singing opera, but William recognized it as a siren's song. When did a siren ever have time or opportunity to play music for humans?

  But then… William thought as she looked around the little shop, when did a mermaid ever have time or opportunity to walk among humans on land?

  The shop was beautiful, but antiquated. She noticed that the shop sold mostly books; old, thick, important-looking books in leather binding, on every shelf on every wall. There were so many they sat in huge piles, on stools and on the floor. The shop also little toy ships in bottles placed atop many piles, and even some jewelry at the front; seashells, pearls, mother-of-pearl, and other beauties and treasures of the deep on display. Rather than burning whale oil lamps, small wax candles filled the room. The lighting was soft and romantic; luxurious yet somehow melancholic.

  William had not felt this way since she had been in the sea, and there was something in here that invoked a feeling of the sea.

  She then noticed a young woman sitting in a large leather armchair behind a large wooden counter. The young woman was so small and slight that she almost looked like a little girl. She had the palest skin (almost fish-pale), silvery-blonde hair, and large eyes as blue as the sea. There was something soothing and ancient about her presence, although she looked very young on the surface. She sat as still as a rock on the shore, and her breathing was as slowly and rhythmic as the waves.

  'She's just like me,' William thought.

  The shopkeeper spoke, and her voice was ancient and lovely. "It has been a long time since another child of the sea graced my little shop," she murmured.

  William did not know what to say to that, even if she could speak.

  "But you have not been among the children of the land for a particularly long time, have you, my dear?"

  William did not think that nearly a year was a short amount of time, but then she was often told that she was very young. Mermaids lived a few centuries compared to humans, who barely lived to a century if they were lucky. William had only been 16 when she left the sea. Since there was something so ancient and ageless and timeless about this girl, perhaps she was older than she appeared…

  The faintest of smiles graced the shopkeeper's lips. "You are very observant, daughter of Triton."

  William was affronted. 'I'm no daughter of Triton!' she thought. He had been sure to grind her nose in that many a time!

  The shopkeeper smiled. "All children of the sea trace their lineage back to my father..." she leaned back in her large chair. "The neirids are born from the sea god's fidelity to his wife. The merfolk are all descended, one way or another, from his son who wields the trident, who calls himself the Sea King. Even this land's horses come from the sea god's many infidelities, born from the foam that crashes on the waves…"

  William was then struck as to why she loved horses so much. Of all creatures on land that she could have adored, she realized, it was those from the sea god…

  "However," the shopkeeper continued, "my father existed long before the master of the sea conquered his realm and reigned as a god… and I am one of his eldest, from long before men learned words to speak his name."

  William gasped. If her father was the ocean itself rather than merely the god who ruled it, and she was one of the first, from long before the sea god took his reign, then that meant… she was…!

  "Yes," the little sea goddess said. "I am almost as old as the sea; as old as the moon, although they are closely entwined. And I will continue to be for as long as my father lives; for forever and for forever."

  William felt overwhelmed. She could not even imagine… could not even comprehend something so… endless… fathomless…

  "The sea has not been particularly kind to you, though, has it, my dear?" the sea goddess murmured, not unsympathetically. "I cannot say that I fault you for wishing to seek brighter tides on land. There are things on land that even I seek as well. For instance…" she gestured to the books with her hand. "Such passages could never endure under my father's slippery touch; and I do enjoy the change of scenery required to read them, even for a short time.

  "However…" she turned her head and gazed out the window, where William could see the orange glow of the sun descending below the buildings. "I could never bear to part from my family for very long… This is as far away as I ever intend to live from my home, on this dark little island, and I will only be here for a short while. When I tire, I will return to my father who gave me life, and to my mother and sisters all... although I am one of the few of my sisters who remain…" She sighed. "Eternity is a very tiring existence, I must own. And a great many things can happen in that time, yes... a great many."

  She looked so profoundly sad and weary and lonely at that moment, William felt profound sympathy for her, since she was the last of her family as well.

  The sea goddess then rose. She did so slowly and carefully, although the little mermaid still flinched.

  "But you wished to part from the sea forever, and have chosen to cut yourself off from all that is familiar, and all that might aid you." She walked closer to the little mermaid, "You exchanged your world for a strange realm; your friends for strangers…" she stopped before William, "and your voice for legs."

  The sea goddess looked directly into her eyes; bottomless eyes as blue and deep and fathomless as the sea itself, and it seemed as though the whole sea were pouring from the sea goddess into William' eyes and right into her soul. She felt bare, naked, and vulnerable, and it made her frightened.

&
nbsp; However, the sea goddess slowly turned her head toward the door. "Ah, it seems we have a visitor."

  A few moments later, Captain Bernadotte opened the door, which chimed the little shop bell.

  "I thought I saw you walk in here," he said calmly.

  A small smile graced the sea goddess's lips. "It seems you do not go as unnoticed as you believe, William Hanna."

  Somehow, her words soothed a wound in William' heart like a balm.

  Captain Bernadotte didn't seem to hear though. A lit cigarette dangled loosely from his lips, and he jabbed his thumb behind him. "I don't think anyone at the party noticed you leaving, but I think we should head back soon, before the Count starts to worry."

  He won't notice I'm gone until it's time to leave well-past midnight, William thought bitterly, and she stomped toward the door.

  "When a well has dried, there is no shame in seeking water from a different source," the sea goddess said to the little mermaid, "Especially when it offers itself quite willingly."

  William stopped, and gaped at her.

  "Come on," Captain Bernadotte said, not unkindly, as she walked slowly toward the door, unable to take her eyes off the enigmatic sea goddess.

  He looked as though he wanted to place his hand on the small of her back to help her out, but he restrained himself, and when she walked through the door he went to join her, until...

  "You wish for the girl to look upon you with favor, don't you, good sailor?"

  Pip stopped abruptly, and turned to look at her. "What about it?" he said gruffly.

  The shopkeeper closed her eyes, and smiled. "Offering support in a time of great distress is effective, good sailor, but William does not wish to be teased." She opened her eyes, which poured into his own. "If you wish to seek her hand, you must do it soon, for she will not be free to accept it for very long."

  She then turned and strolled calmly back to her large wooden counter.

  Pip was affronted. "What... how do you know?"