Beautiful to Me

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  Across the enchanted underwater kingdom, the news was not taken well. Most of Merdom felt let down, disappointed, and deceived by the youngest princess, still others regarded her decision with pity and sadness. Pavo, for all his faults, had been right to question Sienna’s desire to chase after a life offering her little more than what she already had, but having failed as a mentor to her, he returned to his lake heartbroken and disillusioned.

  For our part, her sisters’ and perhaps even mine, we should have realized, especially considering how she was after her birthday, that something was bound to happen. But who could have conceived such a terrible thing?

  After the night of the storm, the night I’d rescued the prince while Sienna and her sisters sang to lure him to his death, something changed in Sienna. The dreaminess always marking her as different from other merfolk began to fade, only to be replaced with something more headstrong and determined. She’d finally been allowed to swim to shore and found there the embodiment of everything she ever dreamed of, a perfect specimen of the perfect human life she so wanted for herself. That the prince was also royalty only served to convince her further of their imagined shared destiny. Then, upset in her chance to have the prince join her forever in the sea, she became singularly fixated on finding another way to join their lives together. She found that way through Tatiana.

  Despite being a sea witch, Tatiana was not quite the villain the tales paint her to be. True, she kept to herself and her home was in a most inhospitable part of the sea. True, frothing whirlpools and long stretches of gray, dull sand were all that surrounded her domain. True, rumor had it that a visitor should never consume any refreshment she served. But none of that specifically made her evil.

  Tatiana served an important role in the enchanted kingdom, for King Trident was a very powerful man, the most magical merman of all, and she was the only one with magic enough to rival his. In effect, her presence, the knowledge of her existence, was enough to ensure that King Trident, and any ruler before or after, wouldn’t dare abuse or misuse his power or his title. Though apparently that didn’t extend to having six daughters in our densely populated capital.

  Tatiana visited the castle very rarely, stayed very little at the annual conclave of magicals, but all merfolk had seen her at one point or another, skimming the absolute bottom of the ocean floor so the darkness tinted her skin an ugly purplish gray color. Her ice-blue hair burst out of her scalp in a color so pure it had its own special kind of glow. She was very old, older than the three hundred years most merfolk live, because, according to legend, she would not die until her heir turned eighteen and took her place. Except she had no heir, because which merman could leave reason behind long enough to father a child with the sea witch?

  Knowing all this, Sienna had correctly assumed Tatiana was the only one with ample power willing to help her, and though I was not there to see what happened when she entered the witch’s lair, I gathered the facts to recreate the scene as well I could.

  As I imagine that long ago night, Sienna gathered her courage, and, fueled by her bullheaded determination, snuck from her father’s castle and swam straight for the sea witch’s home. Tatiana lived deep in the ocean, an area far darker and far different from the parts Sienna was used to, but her heart was set, her mind fixed, and she was finally doing something about it. I don’t know what went through Sienna’s head as she made her way through that gloomy place, but I can guess having taken that same path myself just a few short weeks later.

  It’s easy to envision what Sienna’s arrival must have been like, to think of how Tatiana delighted to have the youngest and most beautiful of King Trident’s children seeking her out in the dead of night. She certainly didn’t have to be a witch to enjoy the scent of scandal brewing at her door.

  “Princess!” she probably exclaimed. “To what do I owe this great honor?”

  Sienna surely raised her chin, as she usually did when being stubborn, and defiantly declared, “I want to make a deal.”

  “As do all merfolk who come to the sea witch’s home,” was undoubtedly the disinterested reply. “Something to drink?”

  “This isn’t a social visit, Sea Witch,” Sienna hissed. “I wish for you to make me human.”

  If she was awaiting a horrified reaction, she certainly didn’t get one, because although she asked for what no one in Merdom ever had or would again, Tatiana had lived a very long life. An impetuous request from a spoiled mermaid hardly ranked high on her unique life experience scale.

  “Do you?” Tatiana must have murmured in response. “Well, dear girl, doing so will require a lot of magic, and I can’t just give that away for free.”

  I imagine Sienna raised herself up even higher in response, proclaiming, “You know who I am, I can give you whatever you want.”

  “Tell me, Princess, why this fervent wish to be someone else? Aren’t you happy as a mermaid? Does the life of a favored royal not suit you?”

  Sienna shook her head, and perhaps that motion helped dispel some of the pride Bestaymor had spent so many years ingraining in her, perhaps it was enough to shoo away happy images of her sisters and life in the sea.

  “My life is good enough, but I want more than what it can give. Now, will you help me or not?”

  Tatiana shook her head. “There’s something else, something you aren’t telling me, Princess.”

  Sienna tried to deflect but one look from Tatiana, a first glance of the length of the power she would display that night, would have pulled the truth out rather quickly.

  “There’s a prince—” Sienna admitted.

  “A man!” Tatiana mockingly crowed. “Isn’t that something new?”

  “I love him and wish to be with him!” Sienna surely cried. “In his kingdom. On his land.”

  “Really, Princess, how can I in good conscience agree to make you less than you already are?” Tatiana questioned. “To dispel the magic in your blood for the mere fancy of your heart?”

  “Can you help me or not?” Sienna probably demanded, near begging and haughtily hiding the deep sting of the witch’s ridicule.

  “Poor soul,” Tatiana murmured to herself. She shook her head and tsked, then was quiet for what surely felt like too long before she finally spoke again. “I will help you,” she agreed, “but you must listen and understand what it is you are giving up.”

  “I’m listening,” Sienna, her pride well wounded, must have snapped.

  Tatiana would have silenced her with another look. “I will give you the legs you so foolishly desire, however,” she cautioned, “they will not be yours forever. You claim you are doing this for a man, so it is only a man who can help you keep them.”

  Eager that there was now a promise of help, Sienna immediately asked what she would be required to do.

  “You must make him love you,” Tatiana replied, “with a love so deep you are worth more to him than his father and mother. His thoughts must be fixed on you, his life must be promised to you, he must live to make you happy. On the day you are wed, the legs, and a human life, will be yours to keep.”

  And though Sienna was clever and charming and beautiful, and though she thought to never fail, she may have asked, “And if that day never comes? Or if it is delayed?”

  “You have one year, Sienna,” Tatiana said firmly, “and I’ll even throw in three months of grace in respect to your father to allow you to acclimate. If you do not succeed by then, your life is forfeit and your body will become part of the foam of the sea as all the merfolk before you.” Then, without missing a beat, “Are you absolutely certain this is what you want?”

  “Absolutely!”

  Sienna was so mightily sure of herself, especially considering she’d already sneaked out of her own home to bargain with a witch in the dead of night. She certainly didn’t expect to be sideswiped by someone forgettable as I.

  “Ah, but there is one more thing,” Tatiana cautioned.

  “What? What is it?”

  “Your tongue.”
>
  “My tongue?”

  “A small payment for all my troubles.”

  Then Sienna must have felt fear. Even just a little “But how will I speak? How will the prince love me if he doesn’t know how I feel about him?”

  Tatiana, however, was unconcerned with such details. She may have warned that she couldn’t risk merfolk magic interfering with their deal, may have convinced the princess that her luxurious hair, her undeniable charm, her beautiful eyes, her skills for dancing and art, would be enough to gain the prince’s attention.

  “Ensnare him with laughter and bewitching smiles,” she probably suggested. “I’ll gladly return your tongue if you can manage that, though you’ll have to figure out how to explain getting it back.”

  And Sienna, foolish, headstrong, and blind with desire, agreed to the fatal conditions without second thought.

  Tatiana must have measured her then in her wise old purple gaze before nodding in agreement. “I will mix a draught for you and, at sunrise of the morning of your choice, swim to shore, climb out of the water, and drink it. Your tail will disappear and in its stead will be an admirable pair of legs. Realize, however, that every step you take will be very painful, as if balancing your body on the tips of your fragile tail fins. Keep your grace and your tread will be dainty and light through the pain, no one will know of a human more beautiful than you.”

  Faced with such dire descriptions, even Sienna would have asked, “Will this pain stay with me forever?”

  “Only until the legs are yours to keep.”

  Even then, Sienna agreed to the deal with absolute conviction.

  It was a short hour later that Sienna happily swam away from the witch’s lair tightly clutching the precious draught that would turn her into a human, at least for a while. She didn’t return home; she had no tongue with which to explain away her sudden disappearance, or her terrible decision. Rather, she shot straight for the surface, intent on reaching it before sunrise.

  She made a beeline for the prince’s palace and went straight to the set of stairs winding down the side of a large terrace right into the water. As the sky began to lighten, she pulled herself onto the bottom step, and, hardly catching her breath, with tail still in the water, broke the seal and downed the draught in a single gulp. Within minutes her body began to convulse, then the most acute pain overtook her as her tail shrank away to reveal two very finely shaped legs. Her perfect form, her lovely face, were left alone as promised, and the pain she felt the second she stood up was also as promised. She opened her mouth to scream, but without a tongue to shape sound only an ugly scratching cry emerged. She appeared on those steps much like a shipwrecked wretch, washed ashore in nothing but tattered clothing gleaming like charred scales in the morning sun.

  Still, as Bestaymor would say, the princess was happy as a clam at high tide and considered herself the luckiest girl in the world. She threw back her head and opened her arms to the sky, overjoyed at finally being directly beneath it. Then, carefully, she climbed the stairs toward the prince’s palace, her heart singing, bursting with certainty that everything would work out just as perfectly as the rest of her life had until then. She hardly felt how much her feet burned as each step took her away from her old life.

  Deep in the sea, surrounded by graying, lifeless sand, the sea witch watched it all through a giant scrying pearl.

  “A most unfortunate soul indeed,” she muttered aloud, though not a soul was there to hear the sorrow in her voice.

  Outside of the overall affront Sienna’s actions were to all of Merdom, none of this, absolutely none of this, should have had anything to do with me or the mediocre course of my life. I should have been able to live out the rest of my few hundred years in peace, leading an ordinary life as an ordinary mermaid, marrying a merman of my parents’ choosing, and raising my apportioned children in their due times who would be lucky enough to receive only their father’s genes. My fifteenth birthday came and went not long after the bargain, and, if mermaids could have tears, my mother would have shed a few before proudly sending me off to the surface where I spent the day taking everything in without a raging storm and capsized prince to distract me.

  I spent most of my time above floating on my back, the winds playfully tumbling atop the waves cooling the air despite the burning sun overhead. I will admit to being awed by the birds flying in the deep blue sky that was merrily freckled with little puffs of clouds. For all the enchantments of the sea, the world above it was a rather lovely place to behold. Cigny and Callan joined me in the afternoon, and I was finally able to see all the tricks they could do jumping and diving in and out of the waves. It was a wonderful day, and when night fell I stayed long enough to see how the stars slowly appeared in the darkness, each one winking to announce its entry before settling down in the night sky.

  “They’re very beautiful,” I commented.

  “Sailors use them as guides to know where they are and how much closer they are to home,” Callan explained.

  “A rather enviable map to have.”

  “Anyone can have it,” Cigny piped in beside me. “For stars are in the sky and no creature can own them.”

  We stayed there a little more before I finally decided I’d seen enough and dove back down to my underwater home. The human world was a very nice place to visit, but I thought then that my home would forever be beneath the surface.

  So my life went on. Within the next ten years, my parents would have found some nice young merman to marry me. They surely would have found someone amenable if only because of their respected position in King Trident’s court. We would have married, had our little family, and never bothered with living a life that was anything more than expected. I thought then that would have been enough for me.

  With Sienna’s departure, I became a shadow without a body to follow, a notion less ridiculous as I’ve since heard of a boy who once lost his shadow though it was only a matter of time before he found it again. I didn’t know the story then, or I would have realized how intertwined my life really was with Sienna’s; how, as a shadow, I needed a body to cling to. For me, freedom from that kind of thinking would only come when I finally understood that I was my own body casting my own shadow. But I wasn’t ready for that then, hadn’t yet spent time with the one who would show me it was so.

  Two weeks or so after Sienna’s decision, the next unexpected thing happened. I was swimming with Cigny and Callan, playing some sort of hide-and-seek in the ruins of an old shipwreck. The game, I had since learned, could actually be fun. Cigny and I were hiding, Callan seeking, but each time he came close to finding us, we silently slipped to another spot. Sometimes it was a place he’d already checked, which increased his frustration at his fruitless search, though he could well enough make out our muffled giggles bubbling up at his expense.

  “If you insist on playing like this, then I will play no longer,” he finally declared.

  “Don’t get grumpy because you’re not winning,” Cigny admonished, swimming out from our hiding spot.

  “Found you!” Callan sang triumphantly.

  “Trickster!” Cigny dove after her brother.

  Callan twisted to evade her, and somehow ended up hiding behind me.

  “Come out, Coward!” Cigny called.

  “Cheater!” Callan accused back.

  “Actually, you’re both right on this one,” I said, playing my usual role of peacekeeper between them.

  “All right,” Cigny agreed, and Callan hesitantly swam out from behind me.

  Quick as lighting, Cigny nipped his tail.

  “Hey!” he protested, then abruptly fell silent.

  Alarmed by his sudden silence, Cigny and I looked for the cause then also froze. Despite all their levels of mischief, it was the first time I saw real fear etched on the sibling’s faces. Closing in on us were two of the brightest colored squids ever seen in the sea. Everyone knew that, unlike the other creatures in the underwater kingdom, squids answered to Tatiana first, so their p
resence was highly troubling. Somehow, I knew they weren’t just passing by but had come our way with purpose. Their bright coloring, I realized later, was ominously telling.

  I motioned to Cigny and Callan to get behind me. The squids may answer to Tatiana, but I was still a mermaid, and so had more power and authority over them than either of my dolphin friends. I gestured for them to inch very slowly into the shadows of the shipwreck. Maybe there was a chance we’d go unnoticed, maybe there was a chance they’d swim on by, but, really, what chance could we have when they were coming for me.

  The squids kept swimming toward us, leaving us terrified and with some very poor options.

  To start, we could try to outswim them, a highly unlikely feat if they were really here on orders from the sea witch. She could send a legion of squids after us within seconds and the outcome, even for a mermaid, wasn’t very promising.

  Next, we could keep trying to shrink further into the shadows, praying they had as little interest in us as we had in them.

  Plus, we could pretend we hadn’t seen them and carry on in our game in the hopes they would simply pass us foolish children by.

  In short, we could continue waiting there, frozen as we already were, and listen to what they had to say. Surely, it couldn’t be that bad.

  The decision was made for us as the first of the squids spoke when they were but double their own body lengths away from us.

  “Ariel?” it inquired in a voice far more pleasant than any I expected from a squid.

  “Y-Yes?”

  The squids shared a look, seeming almost relieved.

  “The sea witch has sent us to invite you to her home for a little chat,” the second one said, in voice and tone as genial as the first’s, if not more so.

  “Tatiana wants to speak with me?” I repeated dumbly.

  “Yes, of course,” the first confirmed. “On a matter of great urgency.”