We leave my “lair” and make our way back through the rocks, Annemette still nervous as she heads out first. So strange and sad to see a mermaid afraid of the sea. As I go, I pause in the water for a moment—I want to take a last look at the cave to make sure all is hidden—and that’s when I feel them. At my feet, three dead minnows bounce between my ankle and the boulder—surely knocked out of the sea by a wild wave and smacked into the rocks. I shake my head, remembering the last time such fish floated at my feet, but I can’t think of that day. Not now.
On the shore, Annemette and I dry off and put on our shoes. Then we head back up the trail through the forest. Once the trees spread out enough and we have room to walk side by side, I feel as if I can finally ask her more. “So, have you always been a mermaid?”
Annemette gives me a look. “Have you always been a girl?”
“Yes,” I reply. “But you’re no longer a mermaid. At least, I don’t see a tail. Perhaps you weren’t one from the start.”
She laughs, and I almost draw back because she sounds just like Anna again. Our elbows bump as I check myself, wishing I’d just asked her directly what I wanted to know.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” she says. “Born a mermaid, hopefully not forever one.” She dances gracefully into an arabesque pose.
I stop walking. My brows pull together. My courage rises. “But is it possible, for a human to drown and become a merperson?”
She shakes her head and I reset.
“How long can you stay like that?”
Annemette glances down for a moment and then her eyes are up and locked with mine. “A few minutes,” she says, her back leg still high in the air.
“No, I mean, how long can you stay human?”
Her eyes shift at the word. She stands up straight and stretches. “Not long,” she says after a pause. “At least not as I am. But it depends.”
“Depends on what?” I push back.
“I promise to tell you,” she says, though I can see in her hesitation that she doesn’t quite trust me. Her face turns pale and she almost looks scared—lost, even. “It’s just that I have to see Nik first, or none of it will matter.”
The little pearl pulses against my neck—líf. Her magic is strong, but good. She saved his life. The least I can do is make an introduction. I glance quickly at the sun on its descent toward the mountains. “We should get going. The Lithasblot festivities will start soon,” I say. “It’s our harvest festival. People come from all over. They’ve even heard of us in Copenhagen, I swear.”
“Sounds fun,” Annemette says. “And Nik will be there?”
I nod yes. If she tries anything, I have Tante Hansa’s and my mother’s magic in my blood. She grasps my hand tight.
“Let’s go.”
When we come upon the beach where tonight’s festivities are, the palace staff and some local villagers are still setting up. We’re a little early. The livestock stage is being nailed together, and a hundred or so people are milling about fixing decorations, laying out food, and tending the bonfire, where soon a giant hog will be trussed up on a spit.
“It’s not Copenhagen, but it is a kingdom, I suppose. As the sun goes down, the beach will be so full you can barely see a grain of sand.”
“We have some pretty good parties on the sand where I come from too.”
I laugh. “I’m sure you do.”
Suddenly Annemette walks up to the fire and holds out her hands. I forget that she’s never seen fire like this before.
“Whoa there, young lady,” says Herre Olsen, the tailor, pushing Annemette back before I can get to her. “Any closer and you’ll soon be roasting with the hog.”
“Thank you,” Annemette says with a curtsy. “I’m sorry.”
“Who are you here with?” he asks.
“I’m visiting for the festival with—”
“Me,” I interject, steering her away from the scowl on the tailor’s face. “Thank you, Herre Olsen.
“We need to give you a better backstory,” I whisper, guiding her toward the castle grounds.
The townspeople like to talk, especially about me, but the king and queen will need something substantial if their son is going to be seen speaking to her. A lowly girl without a house name is not good enough; I would know.
We decide to give her the title of a baron’s daughter, the same title Anna had: friherrinde. A friherrinde from far away—Odense—come to see our unusual Lithasblot. Her chaperone has fallen ill, and Tante Hansa is tending to her. I’m filling in as her chaperone and guide. Yes. It’ll work. Another lie added to the list. I suppose there’s some truth behind the town gossips whispering that I spread falsehoods, saying the prince should not trust me. But telling the truth to gain their approval is not a risk I’m willing to take.
“When will we see Nik?” Annemette asks, tired of reciting her story to me.
“Don’t worry.” I point to the giant stone monstrosity on the hill. “He’s waiting for me up there.”
Annemette follows my finger.
“Øldenburg Castle,” I say. “Five hundred years old and as drafty as a sailboat.”
I guide her to the queen’s garden, which is rich with tulips of every color. Annemette proclaims each one the most beautiful thing she’s ever seen until she gets to the next one. And the next. “I love to garden,” she says.
Her mouth drops with a gasp when we get to the queen’s pride and joy—statutes of her family, each taller than a horse, circled up among the tulips. The king and queen are fashioned as they were on their wedding day, the marble smooth and glistening from the years. And there, next to them, is the latest version of Nik—eleven feet tall and chiseled as if lunging across the bow of a great sea vessel.
“Is that . . . him?”
She stands on her tippy toes, fingertips not even getting so far as his tastefully unbuttoned collar.
“Yes, yes, that’s him.”
“He looks different than I remember. Drier, I guess.” She laughs.
We crest the steps and there, already waiting and watching Havnestad Harbor, is Nik. He’s freshly washed after his trip to the farms, the light crown he’s forced to wear for festival days pressed down over his wet hair. I always think he looks ridiculous all fancy in Havnestad’s customary blue-and-gold suit, but Queen Charlotte is from the fjords up north and very traditional. She insists he emulate his official portrait for the high holidays of the Old Norse.
“Evie, there you are,” he says, catching me first in his line of sight as he turns from the view. When his eyes land on Annemette, his face freezes on her features. All except his lips, which are still moving ever so slightly. “And you’ve brought a friend . . .”
I smile and guide her toward him. “Your Royal Highness, this is Friherrinde Annemette. Annemette, this is Crown Prince Niklas.”
A light zips through Nik’s eyes as he meets Annemette’s gaze. At first I think that he recognizes her—that he instantly realizes she’s the one who saved him. Or that he sees the old friend we lost, the first half of this girl’s name ringing in his ears.
But almost immediately it’s clear that he’s thinking of neither, because he does something I’ve never seen before. He blushes hard. Honest-to-Urda heat is rising in his cheeks, and it’s so intense that he has to glance at me before looking down.
He thinks she’s beautiful.
And she is—she’s gorgeous—but this . . . this is unprecedented.
I’m ashamed to admit the pang of jealousy radiating in my chest. So often, I’m the only one who has Nik’s attention, and he’s never looked at me like that. But I suppose if he had, we wouldn’t be friends. Is this how he feels when I’m with Iker? Ugh, I do not want to think about Iker. I smile at them both, standing awkwardly between them, wanting to run away but afraid for what might happen if I did.
“Enchanted,” he says when the words finally kick in, the blush still hearty along his cheekbones. “How do you know Evie? I thought I knew all of her friends.”
She grins. “Yes, it most certainly is.”
Nik’s color begins to normalize, his training rushing in on a white horse to rescue him. His humor, too. “Well, I am quite the carnival show. Over six feet tall and solid muscle.” He raises a wiry arm and pats the bicep. “I have a gaggle of followers trailing after me like ducklings, just so I can open sticky canning jars.”
I wink at Annemette. “It’s true; I’ll have no one else open my troublesome jars.” There, I’m being a good friend. To them both. I’m okay with this. Really, I am.
Annemette continues to smile but looks a little confused. She knows a lot about this world, but not so much that she might know a canning jar from a regular one. I smile at Nik and do my best to save her. “So, are there jars on the agenda at the moment, Crown Prince Niklas, or shall we go gawk at some livestock?”
“You really don’t have to call me Crown Prince Niklas—just Nik,” he says, eyes on Annemette. “Evie’s just joking. I don’t care much for titles.” He touches his crown and then blushes again. “Crowns, either . . .”
Annemette nods. “What do you care for?”
“Music, mostly.”
“I love to sing.” I swallow as she says this, my eyes unable to see anything other than the friend she insists she’s not. The girl who had the voice of an angel—ask anyone in Havnestad.
But rather than looking heartsick, Nik begins to blush again. A sheepish smile spreads across his face. “Then I shall use my princely power to borrow an instrument later and accompany you.”
My stomach churns. This is perfect. Just perfect.
We stroll down the steps and into the garden. I see him duck away for a moment and pluck a pink tulip from the end of the row, where the queen won’t notice it. Annemette dips down to smell her favorites.
I step away and watch as he strides up to her lowered form, flower behind his back. When she stands and turns, he pulls the pink tulip from where it’s hidden and lowers into a slight, princely bow.
Annemette’s mouth drops open into a wide smile and her eyes snap to his.
“Really? I can have it?”
“What good is being a prince if I can’t pluck a tulip from my own garden?”
“Oh, thank you! This one is my favorite.”
“You are most welcome, Annemette.” Her fingers snatch it away, and she lifts it to her nose, inhaling deeply.
When her eyes open, I catch them and smile. “To the festival, shall we?”
11
NIK CHOKES DOWN WHAT MUST BE HIS TENTH spandauer, the flaky sweet pastry sticking to his lips. As we walk around the festival, Nik is stopped at practically every turn to taste each table’s offerings. Whether it’s cheeses both old and stinky, berries and stone fruit from the valley orchards, crusty breads of rye and barley, split-pea delicacies attempting to rival Hansa’s famous soup, or the tables and tables of desserts, Nik is required to try them all. He assures the vendors that whatever he’s just shoved down his gullet is the best in all of Havnestad, possibly in all of the Øresund Kingdoms.
“Save me, Evie,” he grumbles after his last bite.
Why don’t you ask her? I want to say as Annemette walks next to me, but instead I hand him my mother’s handkerchief. “Take small bites and then use this.”
My mood hasn’t much improved, though I’m trying. It helps that Annemette’s porcelain face has gone gray, the seafood our town is known for churning her stomach. We pass by tables selling pitch-black whale meat and pale-pink blubber, lobster bright red and still warm from boiling, soft-fleshed crab, salty salmon roe, even slices of slow-roasted eel.
At the next table, Annemette grabs my hand and leans into my ear. “Why do you kill all the sea life if the other options are so vast?”
I shrug. “It’s our way of life. Havnestad lives and dies by its nets and harpoons.” I suppose I should be sympathetic, but it’s hot, and all this stopping and going has made me even sourer.
Her brow furrows. “But there is so much else to eat.”
She leans in, her whisper growing softer as Nik tries to shake off yet another local culinary wizard. “My father always tells us to stay far from the surface, scares us with tales of our kind being split in two by harpoons, talks about humans as the scourge of the seas, always hunting and killing. But this . . .”
“It’s the way it is, Annemette,” I say as gently as I would to a child. In some ways that is what she is, even if she’s my age. The time she’s been in my world can easily be measured in hours. “We are all surviving as best we can. We don’t mean harm to the sea life, or the pig, or anything else.”
“I was unprepared.”
“I was unprepared to meet a mermaid today,” I whisper, my words just an inch from her ear. “But I did.”
She laughs into the falling night. Nik glances over at us, and I raise a brow at him and purse my lips. He grins at Annemette but then catches my eye again and I know he suspects I’m feeding her girl talk. And I’ll just let him go ahead and think that.
Nik tears himself away from the latest onslaught, a plate thrust into his hand, fried torsk dripping with fresh fat, heat rising from its body, head still on, beady little fish eyes staring vacantly into space.
“Fru Ulla insists this is the best torsk in all of Havnestad—possibly all of Denmark, to hear her tell it. If you seek a true Lithasblot experience, Annemette, this is where to start.”
I touch the plate and press it toward his chest, where it is safely out of the way. “She doesn’t eat fish.”
Nik laughs. “Who doesn’t eat fish? We’re Danes—”
“Allergy,” I say. “If she has fish, she’ll blow up like one of those French flying balloons.”
“It is terrible,” Annemette says, coming to life and puffing out her cheeks.
The questions die on Nik’s lips. Without hesitation, he drops the plate into the open hands of a chubby little boy, who grins wide-eyed and then hurries after his family. “Then it will be my sworn duty to protect you from Havnestad’s affinity for sea life.”
Annemette’s eyes skip to mine and then back to Nik’s in one swift motion. “The brave crown prince you are, indeed.”
Long after the fire has died down and the largest bull from Aleksander Jessen’s farm has been crowned this year’s winner, Nik, Annemette, and I sit on the end of the royal dock, eyes on the ocean and music in the air.
Nik plays a basic rhythm on the guitaren and Annemette chooses the words—picking old sailors’ songs that they apparently know under the sea as well as we do on land. This one is their play on “Come, All Ye Sailors Bold.”
“The king trusts to his sailors bold, and we shall find them as of old—for father, mother, sisters, wives, we’re ready now to risk our lives . . .”
I sit beside them with my eyes on the waves, surprisingly enjoying the clear quality of Annemette’s voice. It’s as beautiful as Anna’s ever was, rich and high, with a lovely air of innocence built into the base of each note.
“For Danish girls with eyes so blue, we’ll do all that sailors do. And Dannébrog upon our masts, shall float as long as this world lasts . . .”
They are sitting so close together that the fold of her skirt is touching his trousers. Neither seems to mind, and if anything, they drift closer as the minutes pass. I am on Nik’s other side, and with each song, laugh, and snippet of conversation, the gap of roughhewn dock grows between us.
While I’m glad that Nik is happy and that Annemette seems to have found what she was looking for, I can’t shake this gray cloud of self-pity, engulfing me like a fog descending on the harbor. It was so easy for Annemette to make that connection with Nik, and no one thought anything of it. There were smiles all around a
s they walked arm in arm, each townsperson remarking on her beauty, how nice they looked together. I stalked beside them. The chaperone.
I know in this moment that I will never find what they have if I stay in Havnestad. I merely speak to anyone outside my station and there are calls to lock me up in the brig. I wish Iker were here, but it’s clear that even if he is by my side, it’ll always just be a childhood fantasy. He may not care what the others think when he’s with me, but when it comes down to it, he’ll marry a highborn daughter, and that will be that. I will be alone again.
If only Anna were here. The true Anna. Maybe things would be different.
The tune comes to a natural end, Nik and Annemette falling into each other in a fit of laughter.
“You have the most lovely voice, Mette,” he says, using a shortened version of her name I didn’t know she preferred. I wonder when she told him to call her that. Or maybe he just did it, feeling an instant familiarity with her that I don’t have.
“Much obliged, Nik.” She bends at the waist. A sitting curtsy. That’s a new one.
“We must do this again tomorrow, Mette. Please tell me you will be here tomorrow.”
“Yes, yes, of course I will be.” Annemette’s face beams in the moonlight.
“Excellent. Shall I send a coach round to your room in the morning? Where are you staying?”
“With me,” I say, the lie we planned ready. “Her chaperone is quite ill.”
Nik’s brows furrow with concern, or maybe it’s doubt. He grows quiet for a moment, and I’d wish he’d speak.
“But then Mette might grow ill,” he says finally, and I release the breath I didn’t know I was holding. “And you too, Evie. You both can stay at the palace. I insist.” He turns to me, grin in place, though my face must reflect sheer shock. We’re best friends, but the line in the sand between us has always been the palace. I’ve never stayed there—Queen Charlotte even sent me home the night he nearly drowned. “I’ll message Hansa and have your trunks brought round.”
No. That won’t work. Because then he’ll know Annemette has no trunk—she has nothing but the clothes on her back. “No worries, I’ll get them!” I blurt. “Hansa is too busy to pack her things.”
Sea Witch Page 7