Beautiful to Me

by E. L. Tenenbaum

  Surely humming a song that only she could hear, she started to move.

  At first I winced along with each movement, not just in embarrassment for her, but also because I could only imagine how much pain she must be in when she danced.

  Yet Sienna kept at it, and soon I’d pushed aside all thoughts of the way the rest of the court saw her, their amusement, their bewilderment, and focused on her as I saw her, focused on her as the most beautiful daughter of my king. Her fairness was vastly different from that of the women who’d just performed, but there was just something about her that surpassed them. Sienna’s skin was much lighter, and her blazing red hair and animated blue eyes were nothing like the darker features of the beauties who’d danced for the court’s pleasure.

  Still, especially dancing as she was then, when the perfection of her form and gentleness of her grace could fully be appreciated, there was no denying her appeal. I didn’t know if anyone had yet seen her dance, though from the whispering and gesturing around me, I doubted it. Whether she didn’t hear or chose to ignore them, I’m still uncertain, for Sienna continued to move without pause, her complete joy an added jewel to the already overflowing treasure on display.

  Time passed excruciatingly slow, so a few seconds were enough for me to come to a decision.

  If Sienna wanted her prince so badly, then I would help her this one time to get him. I’d already pushed him to call her by name, maybe now was the time to get him to really notice some of the ways she so surpassed everyone else. I would give her this one chance, then I would refocus on succeeding at convincing her to come home.

  So, hidden in the shadows at the edge of the room, I began to sing.

  Lowly at first, because I didn’t yet have the confidence to sing louder. I’d always been told to be quieter for Sienna, I’d never been asked to step forward for a solo because she was always there. But that didn’t matter now. I would sing where I couldn’t be seen, and I would do so for her.

  I raised my voice a little more, sending with it the sound of the sea, the gentle lapping of quiet waves against golden shores, the strong undulations of glistening waters that genially carry ships at sea.

  Sienna heard me then, recognized the music I sang for her, because she allowed a quick glance to seek me out before closing her eyes and giving herself over to the rhythm of our real home. Around her, the court was stunned into silence. I knew it was because they had never seen anyone or anything more graceful.

  Gathering courage, I sang just loud enough for others to know Sienna was dancing to a melody, wrapping myself in images of an amber-windowed castle at the heart of an enchanted kingdom. My voice carried not just the wonder of our home, but the marvel of the world teeming around it. Wordlessly, I sang about the rainbow of fish that lived in brightly colored coral, the legs of a sea star that held tight to a princess’s hair, the sparkle of a pearl in the mouth of a yawning clam, a king with six beautiful daughters, a sea witch with a squid-decorated lair. But there are more than images that a song can conjure, so my voice carried more with it still.

  It sang of the discovery of ships buried at sea, of two best friends with perpetual grins on their faces. It sang of a proud grandmother and of parents whom I desperately wanted to make proud. I sang to remember the blue-tinged magical kingdom and I sang to remind Sienna of all she had left behind.

  All the while Sienna danced, her body responding to the music carried by an oft-ignored voice, her eyes seeing wonders only found in the sea, her feet reddening with unshed blood. She danced and danced, and I sang with my heart, until finally my voice faded away and her movements slowly came to an end.

  Sienna was hardly tired when she finally stopped and the court gasped for breath around her. No one was quite sure of what they’d just witnessed, though it was certainly quite unlike anything they’d ever seen before.

  Finally, someone, somewhere in the audience got his wits about him enough to begin clapping, and he was soon drowned out in the hearty applause that picked up his cue. Overcome, people stood, their vigorous ovation never ceasing, the looks on their faces saying what their hands could not.

  Sienna bowed her head modestly.

  From afar, I watched her, and for the first time since I’d walked on land, I didn’t begrudge her joy. Tonight, she deserved it. I willingly applauded her along with the others.

  Then, even from the shadows, I had an uneasy feeling that someone’s eyes were upon me. I tried to shake it off, telling myself it must be Tatiana, but soon gave in and searched the crowd. My immediate thought was that the princess was seeking me out, so I looked to her first. The princess, however, was entirely caught up with Sienna, as were her mother and father and…not her brother. No. His eyes were fixed on me, a curious expression on his face. I caught his eyes but a moment before I ducked my head and turned away. Still, I couldn’t shrug off the sense that all the while that the court applauded Sienna, he was watching me.

  The evening concluded after a few more acts, though I can’t be certain, no one was paying full attention as nothing could really follow Sienna’s marvelous performance. The rest of the players went through the motions because they were supposed to, but even they seemed hesitant to intrude upon the spell Sienna had cast with her gifted feet.

  I, however, was hardly paying attention for different reasons. Because, though the prince’s gaze did not linger on me much longer, I still couldn’t shake the uneasiness from when he’d studied me.

  Had he suspected it was my voice that had helped her enchant the audience? Did he realize I had blanketed the court with music that none of his musicians could ever hope to play, that no one would ever hear from anyone but me? Did it matter if he did?

  Maybe, I later decided.

  After all, I had come here with one goal in mind and had thought to remain undetected long enough to accomplish it.

  Yet it would seem that, unlike my experiences of anonymity under the sea, I had to specifically seek shadows if I wanted to evade notice here. I could not succeed if I didn’t.

  Lullabies

  I was foolish enough to think nothing would come of the prince’s unsettling gaze in my direction after three days had passed and nothing unusual happened. Then one afternoon, when scurrying down the hall to make the most of my short break indoors away from the heat of the sun, a familiar, lovable bundle of fur bounded at my feet just before a distinct voice called me.

  “Ah-rrree-ehl?”

  I stopped beyond the open door of the room I’d just passed on the other side of the hallway. I’ll admit to briefly considering walking on by as if I hadn’t heard. Instead, I paused long enough to take a deep breath, then spun slowly on my heels and cautiously stepped toward the room, holding back from the doorframe the prince was lounging against. Castellano eagerly tugged at my hand looking for food.

  “Here’s our little mermaid,” the prince grinned at me.

  I felt compelled to correct the prince before he took the joke too far. “Ariel, Your Highness,” I said as kindly as I could.

  “Ariel, of course,” he acceded.

  I nodded in thanks, though he didn’t try to mimic my pronunciation the way his sister had. Instead, the lilt of his accent turned my name into its own brief melody, and while I’d never admit to it before, I’ll confess now that even then I liked the way he made it sound.

  I still hadn’t designed his requested hedges and didn’t intend to either. Rather, I hoped to be long gone from here before I ran out of things to make and would be forced to anyway. Thank Heaven, there were more than enough options left to choose from, but even I knew mermaids ranked higher on the list of admirable sea creatures than bottom feeders and magical amphibians like Pavo.

  The prince gestured me forward. I hesitated, but he insisted.

  “Don’t be shy,” he encouraged, leading the way in.

  It wasn’t shyness that caused me to linger on the threshold, that held me back even when I’d finally stepped into the room. The real reason for my apprehension was
the very large, very finely crafted piano the prince seated himself behind. Very lightly, without taking his eyes from me, he started stroking the keys in a simple, gentle melody. He offered me a winning grin, but it did little to relax my tangling nerves.

  “I’ve been wondering,” the prince began without preamble, the piano effectively softening his query, “where did you learn to sing?”

  I opened my mouth to protest, and even forgive his mistake, but the prince cut me off with a firm shake of his head.

  “I know you were singing when Sienna danced,” he said. “You must credit me with some intelligence.”

  I clammed shut. He sounded pretty decided in what he knew to be true, in what really was true. If Princess Cordelia hadn’t exaggerated about the prince’s stubbornness in the library, I may have a tough time wrangling away from his certainty. I wasn’t entirely sure it was worth the effort anyway.

  “Everyone sings where I’m from, Your Highness,” I finally confessed, going with the safest, vaguest truth I could think of.

  The prince quirked an eyebrow at me, his accent thickening with his disbelief. “Everyone? Like that?”

  “Well,” I granted, “not exactly.”

  The prince nodded, accepting the answer lay someone between nature and nurture.

  He looked down for the first time, then back up at me, down again, slipped on a key, regained the tune and his composure. “Will you sing for me?” he asked softly.

  I suppose I should’ve been expecting such a question but was caught off guard anyway. Of course, he couldn’t see the irony, asking a mermaid for a song, the very mermaid who’d saved him from being drowned by a mermaid’s song. I scrambled for a way out. “My work—” I began lamely, then trailed off because even I couldn’t finish such a sorry excuse for refusing to oblige the prince.

  The prince, though, couldn’t have been more gracious. He nodded. “I understand,” he said, then played the melody’s end.

  Feeling sorry for the way I’d treated him, I fished for something nice to say. “I liked the book,” I offered.

  The prince’s face lit up as he smiled in the most endearing way. “Did you?” He paused a moment considering what I’d just said. “Did you only like it because I gave it to you,” he asked, “or did you truly enjoy it?”

  “I liked it,” I replied honestly, then seeing his reaction added, “but His Highness did lend me a book about something I’m fairly familiar with. And anything I’m not can be provided by Marel, who insists ‘books on horticulture are worth very little compared to live experimentation.’”

  The prince’s smile returned. “Very well, then,” he agreed amiably, “what kind of book would you very much enjoy to read?”

  My response burst forth without thought. “Anything about things I know nothing or little about!” I exclaimed.

  The prince let out a deep, appreciative laugh. “Quite a task,” he cautioned. “But I’m up to it if you are.”

  I nodded, not quite sure that I was properly understanding the prince. What had Princess Cordelia said about a beautifully spotted leopard arguing with a quick-witted fox? Being neither, I was definitely out of my depth.

  “Challenge accepted,” the prince concluded.

  That’s how it began.

  From then on, the prince would find me at odd times, often without warning, bearing with a book he insisted I simply must try. True to his word, the books he brought were about a little of everything, such as military strategies, shipbuilding, fashion, baking, the arrangement of stars in the sky, and musical instruments. He brought novels and poetry, books of maps and the history of the kingdoms. And I drank in every word.

  Each time, he came with the same uncertain expression. “Here’s one for you,” he would say, but he wouldn’t exchange one leather bound world for the other without first asking, “Did you enjoy it? Why?”

  I would reply as honestly as I could, which often led to discussions that lasted half an hour if not more, even if it was about a topic I already knew. Sometimes we argued, sometimes we couldn’t agree, sometimes the prince lost himself in thundering proofs and objections, but he never stopped bringing books.

  I see now that those simple exchanges were really the beginning of a friendship that would grow even deeper with time. I truly believe that at first neither of us intended for it to be anything more than an innocent meeting of thoughts and ideas.

  I like to think he’s as grateful as I that it didn’t stop there.

  It was one unusually hot day when the princess interrupted my work to ask if I’d like to accompany her for a swim. Such requests weren’t entirely uncommon from her, as in the three months or so since I’d been at the palace I’d taken on an odd sort of role: As a gardener, I was a servant of the royal family. As the princess’s foundling, I was a type of ward. As a young girl, I was sometimes a companion when the princess tired of her regular palace friends, even though she was a few years older than me. She claimed to value my honesty and said she found my differences refreshing. I never believed either of those excuses, but I couldn’t deny the princess when she came calling. She was my benefactor after all, even as she’d also become a type of friend. In that last regard, at least, I believe the feeling was mutual.

  “I’d ask my ladies but they are such children when it comes to getting wet,” the princess sniffed disapprovingly, “I’d rather not endure their griping about sand sticking to them.”

  I readily sheathed my shears and agreed to her offer. Despite my best efforts, my hedges weren’t looking as lively as they usually did anyway. Since I’d come, my tasks in the gardens had increased to include helping tend to the vegetable patch used by the kitchen, but that day even the tomato vines weren’t quite curling right and the squashes sagged sadly in the dry dirt. The heat had clearly affected me, even as I still struggled to get anything with color to bloom, and I was very glad for the excuse to rejuvenate in the ocean for an afternoon.

  We changed our clothes and hurried down to the seashore with some of her ladies in tow. As promised, most of them shrieked just getting their feet wet, squealing each time a strand of kelp arrived on a wave, but I didn’t hesitate to plunge straight into the water until it was up to my neck. All at once, the heat rushed out of me and a long-missed sense of calm returned. I had grown so used to the rhythm of my life on land that I had forgotten just how good it felt to be part of the sea.

  The princess waded out more deliberately, calling out notes of caution all the way. I dived back into the water and swam toward her, my legs a clumsy replacement for the tail that once allowed me to glide through the sea howsoever I pleased. Still, it didn’t take long to adjust to my new way of swimming, I was a mermaid after all, and though I was slower than I’d been, I was still much faster than the others. My underwater sight was as it had always been, but the clouds of sand stirred up so close to shore smudged my vision. I burst out of the water too close to the princess and quickly fell back when I realized how thoroughly I’d soaked her.

  “I apologize—” I immediately began, hand covering mouth, eyes wide.

  The princess didn’t seem to notice. “You swim like a fish, Ariel! I could hardly track you.”

  “I, uh, um, I’ve always loved to swim,” I offered lamely. “It’s a favorite pastime.”

  “Sailors raised on the water don’t swim as well as you,” Princess Cordelia gushed.

  “Thank you, Princess,” I answered, shifting my weight, uncomfortable under her effusive praise.

  It actually felt quite silly to be praised for something I was born doing. Complimenting me on being a good swimmer was like one friend praising another just for breathing. Although, the only human I’d even seen swimming up close was actually drowning, so I suppose my abilities were something of note for humans.

  Only then did the princess finally look down and notice just how much seawater I’d sprayed on her. “Ariel…” she began in slow warning.

  One look at her face and I turned tail and ran, still clumsy on my f
eet on the soft ocean floor. The princess gave chase, and it didn’t take long for her to catch up and push me forward into the water. I laughed even as I fell, relishing the chance to dive into the water again and again and again. We splashed and swam the afternoon away, and only when the sun began to lower in the sky did we finally make our way back to shore.

  I stopped where the water reached my knees, turning back to admire how the sun dipped low enough in the horizon to kiss the sea goodnight. I watched unhurried, enjoying the cool sand between my toes, the lapping of the waves against my human legs. It wasn’t until then that I finally found the one joy in having these foreign human appendages, and that feeling has not quickly faded.

  Relishing watching how the changing sky overhead darkened the sea beneath, I allowed my mind to wander. Until the moment I took my first toddling steps on shore, until I turned to see the glassy surface of the sea through human eyes, I never thought of the sea as something that could only be seen from above. For humans, it was a mirror for the sky coloring its surface, but for me it was a window into the thriving world below. And the sound. I never knew the waves had such a voice, so gentle, so soothing, so constant. A promise of the currents that would forever bear witness to the lives both above and below the surface.

  Thus lost in reverie, I didn’t immediately realize that the cry breaking it belonged to the princess. I only fully focused when I heard a heavy splash followed by the unhelpful, panicked shrieking of the princess’s ladies. Following the sounds, I caught sight of the princess flaying frantically in the shallow water and immediately dove back in toward her, knowing I could move faster under water than above it.

  Within seconds, I’d caught sight of the light blue box jellyfish still releasing its venomous tentacles from the princess’s leg.

  “Away! Away from her!” I yelled.

  The jellyfish turned to me, and I don’t know who was more surprised, me that I could still command a creature of the sea, or the sea creature because it found itself compelled to obey what looked like a human.